It’s Epiphany and here’s the passages.
The Isaiah 60 reading is a prophecy that many naturally connect to the wise people who visited Jesus. It speaks of “the wealth of the nations” coming to the subject. This is the tangent… Something very similar to this phrase was used by Adam Smith to title his foundational book on economics, which like many foundational books has since been much misused. A quick look in Wikipedia suggests that the famous “Invisible Hand” only appears once in the book, and in a very specific context – it does not say that all markets everywhere operate beneficially on the basis of self-interest. That’s obviously untrue – self-interest has no time for later generations, or for the environment, or for those too poor to vote with their money, or for people who put their feet in your dog-mess, or any other externalities.
Anyway, according to Matthew, people did visit Jesus with gifts, although I’m not sure the picture I have in my head is necessarily accurate. Songs like “We three kings of orient are”, and Christmas cards with the silhouettes of three kings on camels on the horizon have conditioned us to think a certain way. Were there three of them? There were three gifts, so we jump to conclusions. Besides which, would three kings, dressed like kings and carrying gold really have traipsed across the Middle East without a few bodyguards?
As I write, the fairy lights are still flashing. We’re not sure whether to take them down or leave them up as a small particle of COVID cheer.