Let me begin by defining what the Epiphany is. It is the Solemnity of the
manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles or put it in another way, it is the
unveiling of the Christ to a world longing for its Saviour. Thus, the readings
speak of God’s revelation to the Jews through Sacred Scriptures whereas the
Gentiles will discover God through nature. The Jews in exile are encouraged by
the Prophet Isaiah with a vision of a Jerusalem restored; a prophecy which is
fulfilled by Christ and in the New Israel, the Church. The Three Wise Men were
Gentiles and Matthew showed them as receiving God’s revelation through
astrology. In revealing to both Jews and Gentiles, Epiphany is also an
invitation to communion with Him and one another. In a nutshell, apart from
salvation and worship, the Epiphany is a call to communion.
Epiphany, in fostering communion, shares its intent with a phenomenon we
all know as social-networking. Today, I would like to speak of what
implications social-networking may have on Epiphany’s invitation to communion.
The ontological reason for the Epiphany is because the human person is
made in the image and likeness of a Trinitarian God. What does that mean? Since
we are made in His image and likeness, it means that we must be “worth God’s
while” to manifest Himself to us. The corollary would mean that the
organisation of our lives must reflect this God whose image we are moulded in. Otherwise
why would God reveal Himself to us?
One of God’s attribute is holiness which again means that we are supposed
to reflect holiness for without it, we are no better than an intelligent primate.
Our quest to be is a quest for holiness for without it, we would become either
individualists without a sense of “direction” or we are reduced to collective
whole without a personal centre. Individualists of a senseless kind are those
who live lonely self-destructive lives or a collective of an impersonal kind
are those who live without any self-reflexion. We call this herd-mentality.
What has Face-book, a form of social networking to do with this? Firstly,
let me make it clear that Face-book is amoral in the sense that in itself, it
is a neutral[1].
Its morality is derived through our use of it. In itself, it is an excellent
communication platform. But hidden within its use is a dark shadow because we
are innocently drawn into hyper-sharing because we assume that we belong in
communion. Well, that may be the case that we are already in communion but, the
need for everyone to know what we do, where we are or where we go, could mask
an invitation to the new temple of the Narcissist. It is a kind of individualism
in full bloom.
The temptation to individualism grows stronger the more we experience
fragmentation in our lives. In a fragmented world, the youths have only a vague
sense of the whole without a sense that the whole is interconnected or to put
in a familiar term, the whole is in communion.[2]
For example, the drinking of water from bottles. We are not unaware of how much
water is wasted when half-drunk bottles are discarded. It is ironical that the
present generation is trying to save the sharks for a generation which does not
appreciate how much plastic flows into the ocean. This is what I mean by living
fragmented lives.[3]
Whilst the world outside continues to deteriorate, that is, gets more
fragmented, fear drives us to seek refuge behind our gated communities or into the
safe cocoon of what we can control. From the loneliness of our bubble, we try
to reach the world through social-networking but instead of reaching the world,
the world comes to watch us star in our movies.
Let me reiterate that face-booking is not bad in itself but social-networking
even though it contains the word “social” is often narcissistic because it makes us forget who we are. We are made in
the image and likeness of a God who is social in the truest sense of the word. Why?
Because God is Trinity and therefore, God’s holiness is a holiness of communion.
In the Epiphany, we are introduced to the fullness of the individuality and
collectivity we yearn for because the true individual is always in communion—a
communion which prevents us from selfish individualism; a communion which
Sacred Scripture would describe as a cloud of witnesses or communion of saints
or holiness.
Finally, we are challenged to ask if the Epiphany is really God’s
universal revelation of Himself through Jesus His Son or have we succumbed to a
narcissistic world where the phenomenon of social-networking makes Epiphany a
manifestation of ourselves to God? In this narcissistic world, God comes to
worship us. Thus, the relevance of the Epiphany may be lost to us especially when
social-networking is really an avenue to an enclosed world where we have become
the centre of attention. The revelation of God to the Gentile world reminds us
otherwise. The world comes to worship the God who saves.
