Homily & Photos: Epiphany Sunday, 2025
Delivered Sunday, January 5th, 2025 on the occasion of the installation of Fr. Lendehl Sallidao as Rector.
In addition to the small gallery at the bottom of the page, all photos from the service and celebration are available in our archive.
"For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising." Amen.
"Get up," an angel of the Lord said to Joseph, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him."
There is a New Testament legend connected to this flight into Egypt, as narrated by Biblical scholar William Barclay. On their way to Egypt, the family had to pass through long stretches of wilderness and in the midst of these, they met a band of robbers who wanted to steal their bag that contained the magi's gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. The robbers also wanted to kill them so that no one would ever identify them as the culprits. However, one of these robbers named Dismas as the legend goes, saw something in the little baby that made him plead to his companions to just leave the family alone. Maybe it was loss of nerves or a fit of compassion but again as the legend goes, Dismas begged his companions and because of this, they spared the family of their lives and possessions. More than 30 years later when Jesus was nailed on the cross at calvary, he recognized Dismas as one of the two thief who were also crucified that day. It was Dismas to whom Jesus said, "today, you will be with me in paradise."
There is also another legend, a child's story and is a beautiful one. The shortest distance from Bethlehem to Egypt was accordingly 75 kilometers and it took from 2 to 3 days to travel in those times. At nighttime, Joseph and Mary and Jesus would be weary and would secure a resting place preferably in a cave as it was very cold outside. One night, a little spider in a cave saw the baby Jesus and wanted to give him a gift and the only thing he could do was to spin a web across the entrance of the cave to serve as some kind of curtain and keep the family warm.
In the middle of the night, Herod's soldiers, looking for children to kill as ordered by the king, passed by the cave where Joseph, Mary and Jesus were sleeping. The soldiers saw this as a perfect hiding place and were sure it was where the family hid themselves. They rushed forth to enter but then saw a spider's web in the entrance and their leader said, "look, this spider's web is unbroken and therefore nobody could have entered this cave for certainly they would have torn the web. They are not here." And so, they went on their way and left the holy family in peace.
Barclay says that Egypt had always been a place of refuge for Jews escaping some peril, tyranny or persecution. So, it was natural that the angel would direct Joseph to take his family there. Over the past troubled centuries that Jews had been fleeing to Egypt, they have established colonies of Jews in various parts and so Joseph and his family were not altogether amidst strangers when they arrived and lived there. Stories of terror and peril would have been shared in these Jewish expatriate communities and these stories may not have escaped Jesus' ears even as a very young boy. It may have been part of his education and understanding of the world that some members of humanity would oppress others and force them to take refuge in other places. After Herod passed away, the angel of the Lord again appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him to take his family to the land of Israel where they eventually settled in their hometown of Nazareth in the district of Galilee. Nathaniel's comment in John 1:46, "can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" may have given the impression that Nazareth was some backwater village, a not so pleasant place. But some Biblical authors dispute this and say that its geographical location and position alone afforded it a broad exposure to the outside world.
On top of the Nazarethan hill, one could look west at the blue waters of the Mediterranean where ships sailed from and to the ends of the earth. In another view, one would look at the plain and see the famous road from Damascus to Egypt. From his early youth therefore, Jesus saw and appreciated the limitless expanse of God's creation. One author says he must have been exposed to various cultures shared by those passing through his hometown.
Of course, in Nazareth, Jesus grew up, imbibed and practiced mainly the Jewish culture and his cultural upbringing later informed how he performed his public ministry. It was in the Jewish culture of washing feet that Jesus later demonstrated the kind of power that God desired and that he modeled that of servant-hood which is power from below, the kind of power that lifts everyone up, completely opposite the earthly understanding of power as dominating and conquering the world. It was in the Jewish culture of having wine in a wedding feast that Jesus performed his first miracle. Coupled with his secular job relative to carpentry, his father's trade that must have been passed on to him, Jesus' life in Nazareth can therefore be said to be the beginnings of his earthly mission. In those years, he had helped and later when his father passed away, he was primarily responsible for his family's support. He had encounters with many people, including rubbing elbows with Gentiles who passed through his crossroad town. Being fully human, he must have experienced joys and sorrows, drudgery and excitement as everyone did.
Our service today is also about new beginnings. We are going to install as rector for this parish a Filipino Episcopal priest who will be regularly taking this post for the first time. Congratulations and take good courage in your new ministry Fr. Lendehl. It will be a new beginning for the rector, for this parish and for this community. Holy Trinity Church is not the usual Filipino Episcopal church that one can find all over this country. It is in fact a community that most Filipino Episcopalians may not identify with, both in a good and in a not so pleasant way. I must confess that even I have often considered this church as some kind of an outlier, detached from the day-to-day life and work of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines. Of course, these are mere impressions because the character of any church is defined both by its members and the wider community to which they belong.
Having a Filipino Episcopal priest as a regular rector of this parish can bridge the divide and promote a healthier impression and relationship, both on the part of the parish and our wider community.
More importantly, we see the potentials of an encounter which can propel the ministry of this parish into new levels of dynamism and vibrancy. This is what new beginnings can be. May the Holy Trinity Church Prosper to be a premier congregation of the Episcopal Church in terms of its Witness, Stewardship, Spirituality and Harmony of its members and the pursuit of mission We live in a world where it is becoming more and more of a challenge to express our faith in everyday realities. More and more, Jesus' teachings are becoming ideals that do not have any bearing in real life. The difficulty is so great that there is a huge temptation to confine our Christianity within the four walls of our churches and to maintain a supposedly spiritual narrative where our relations with God exist only in the innermost recesses of our minds. In fact, there is a tendency for us to justify our inaction or are all in a spiritual sense. When Jesus says we must love the poor, we say that he was only referring to the supposedly poor in spirit. When Jesus says we must love our neighbors, we say that the neighbors are those we meet in our church, in our families and in our circles. More and more we are creating spiritual ghettos.
One way of navigating this difficult situation is to look into our respective cultures and identify those practices that are life-affirming for these could have only been ordained by God. Our cultures are ways of life that we do not just read in some books or watch in some movies. Rather, these are lived realities and our life-affirming cultural expressions are real life experiences from which we can draw models for living the Christian faith. Unfortunately, much of these positive cultural values are also on the verge of extinction but certain features remain and it is our responsibility to bring them around and adapt them to our current world.
To reiterate, Jesus pursued his public ministry within the cultural environment in which he lived. He respected the cultural expressions and encouraged his followers to affirm and practice them. Remember when he healed the 10 lepers and directed them to see a priest in Luke 17:11-19. He said this because in the Jewish culture, it was the priest who pronounced when a leper was cleansed. But the priest did not just look at a person and prayed for him. He performed a cultural ritual of cleansing detailed in Leviticus 14:1-9.
Just like Jesus who was brought up in the Jewish culture and has imbibed the unique features of such culture, starting with his circumcision, your new rector is an Igorot, raised up in the unique cultural life of indigenous communities in the Cordillera mountains in northern Philippines. Correspondingly, members of this parish come from various cultural backgrounds and it would really be exciting, productive and meaningful if all of you are able to share your experiences and from these you can then re-define you particularly unique gift and role in the ministry of our Church. There is a lot of potential to draw from such an encounter.
Reiteratively, Jesus had a first and close encounter with tyranny, persecution and suffering during his early boyhood in Egypt when they were fugitives running away from the murderous intent of a civil authority. The new beginning that we are celebrating today should also re-boot your collective commitment to look beyond your parish and into the community, the nation and the world around you were so much suffering remains. The Episcopal Church in the Philippines has various programs on how to address these and we encourage this parish to be become more involved. Certainly, you also have gifts and insights that can enrich our work together.
Yesterday, I travelled from my home in Tocucan, Bontoc, Mountain Province and on the way to Manila, we passed by a lot of situations that were very concerning; it was wet with rains all the way and we passed by roads that had some risks of erosion; farmers along the Halsema Road were wary of a sudden drop in prices as had happened last year; traffic remained heavy in the cities and town centers as everyone were going back to their places of work or residences; faces of politicians posted everywhere. But we also saw signs of hope and excitement in the smiles and works of our people. In them we see are reminded that despite the hardships of the times, we can look forward to a new year of God's love and peace. This is the message of Epiphany, the gift of God's Son coming, living, struggling and celebrating with us. Today is the fifth day of the year 2025. We have 360 days of joyously holding on to this message.
Happy Epiphany to everyone!
The Most Rev. Brent Harry W. Alawas
Prime Bishop
Episcopal Church in the Philippines
