Epiphany C: Sirach 24:1-12, Matthew 2:1-12
I have always found January to be a good month for thorough housecleaning. Somehow, through the rush of Christmas, the baking and cooking of special treats, the kitchen becomes the first room in the house to call out to me: “Clean me up! This disarray is bad for everyone! Reorganize the pantry! Get the detritus out of the refrigerator!” The act of cleaning sets the stage for something new to be born. When the old becomes no longer functional, it is a good thing to welcome the new rather than to stay with an old, unproductive way of doing things.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes, in her book Women Who Run With the Wolves, tells the story of Vasalisa, a doll who symbolizes the intuitive. The girl who carries this doll is given a series of life tasks that will lead her to the maturing of her psyche. Returning to my January cleaning rituals, I quote Estes, who tells us, “To wash something is a timeless purification ritual. It not only means to purify, it also means—like baptism from the Latin baptiza—to drench, to permeate with a spiritual numen and mystery… It means to make taut again that which has become slacked from the wearing. Our clothes are like us, worn and worn until our ideas and values are slackened by the passing of time. The renewal, the revivifying, takes place in the water, in the rediscovering of what we really hold to be true, what we really hold sacred.”
Matthew’s gospel does this for us. Written at a time when people still questioned whether Jesus was the King of the Jews for Jews only, or if he carried a message of unity for all people, Matthew invites us into our own Epiphany, the term given to the arrival of the Magi at the birth site of Jesus. The word epiphany means an appearance or manifestation, particularly of a divine being—or an illuminating discovery, especially one that comes unexpectedly (Donovan). Epiphany marks the first manifestation of Jesus to the Gentiles. It signals that God loves Gentiles as well as Jews—that God’s plan of salvation includes Gentiles too. Epiphany is also much more than this—it is a celebration of the breaking down of dividing walls—the end of hostilities between groups of people. Epiphany challenges us to reconsider all the people whom we see as outside the pale--outside the boundaries of God’s love. It challenges us to abandon our tribalism and to expand our tents to welcome even those whom we would prefer not to love. It is a burning issue, because loving those outside our tribe is difficult—but Jesus makes it possible—that is the Epiphany message.
Let’s remember that the Magi were considered pagans by the Jews. These fellows were probably members of a priestly caste in ancient Persia, possibly followers of Zoroaster. They were astronomers, astrologers—they looked to the stars for answers and directions. The irony of the Epiphany event is not lost on sermon writer Dick Donovan, who states succinctly, “God’s people ignore the Messiah, while pagans eagerly seek him out.” He goes on to say that “Epiphany challenges us to (look at) who we might consider to be unworthy (welfare mothers, kids with baggy pants, smokers, Muslims, etc.) and how we, the church, might reach out to them in Christian love.”
What has really changed since the time of Jesus? There are still power-hungry and paranoid leaders like Herod in the world. There are still many people who believe that their religion is the only true way. There remain many who see the accumulation of goods as the road to salvation. All of this existed then and exists now. Perhaps nothing has changed, but an eternal invitation is still extended every year as we ponder the Epiphany. It is made manifest in a group of three men whose curiosity and hunger for wisdom allowed them to step outside the bounds of their own religious thought system and set out on a journey that would lead them to where-they-did-not-know. It allowed them to wash those baggy pants that represented old ideas and values slackened by the passage of time. The invitation is offered to us now. Who is “us”? Who is “them?”
Dick Donovan tells us an important story from the modern era to illustrate the importance of moving beyond tribalism. He tells us that some years ago, a man named Wayne Robinson visited Israel in the company of the evangelist Oral Roberts. They were granted an audience with David Ben-Gurion, who was then the Prime Minister of Israel. As they gathered, Oral Roberts (who died very recently) handed his Bible to Ben-Gurion and invited him to read his favorite scripture passage. Ben-Gurion smiled and read these words: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
Robinson, just an observer, was disappointed, especially when he noted that this event had been captured on film. He wished that something more earth-shaking might have been memorialized. But then Ben-Gurion explained by saying, “Before we were Americans or Russians, Israelis or Egyptians, before we were Christians or Muslims, Hindus or Jews, before we were any of the things that divide us today, we were men and women created by God. And that is the message of the great religions.” To which Oral Roberts replied, “Amen!”
I can recall several epiphanies of which I’ve preached in the past month. One was experienced by astronaut Edgar Mitchell when, from the moon, he looked back and saw the planet we call Earth, and he fell in love with it. It would change everything for him, for he had a new perspective on who we are and what constitutes wisdom. I told another story about a singer named Johnny Cash who was so depressed by his apparent inability to step away from drugs and alcohol that he set out to end his own life. He walked and walked in an underground cave until his flashlight burned out. His plan was to sit down and die, but something greater than himself breathed the desire to live back into him and led him from his chosen grave and back to life.
I had a bit of an epiphany myself since we last met on Christmas Eve. Epiphany is the appearance or manifestation, particularly of a divine being—or an illuminating discovery, especially one that comes unexpectedly. To set the stage for this brief story, I’ll review for you a conversation I had with our moderator, Jackie Delafose, as she drove me to an Eco-Justice brunch last Spring. She was asking me questions about what it was I hoped to accomplish on my sabbatical. I told her that one of things I knew I needed to do was to gain some insight into my aversion toward my Aunt Helen, who appears to be aging in a most unseemly way. I told Jackie that in Jungian psychology terms, I needed to “embrace the hag.” St. Francis had a particular aversion to lepers. He overcame that by kissing one on the lips. It’s something like kissing a frog in the fairy tales, I guess. To be able to embrace that which repulses you.
Mr. Bolson actually held the key to my epiphany. I discovered this after reporting to him that one of my brothers sounded very crestfallen and disappointed that our aunt had outlived her financial resources and would need to receive public assistance to live out her days. Steve said to me, “He may be thinking, ‘No one in my family should end up destitute.’” Yes, it was true. It was a tribal injunction in my family of origin that people should be financially independent.
Later, after visiting my aunt, we processed our feelings once again. Steve admitted that it was hard to look at my aunt, who has shriveled up a great deal and refuses to wear her dentures. I shared that it was hard to be around her when she issued hateful messages about her room mate in such a way that the woman would hear them. We seemed to be saying “people in our tribe do not age this poorly, nor become hateful and difficult.” Yet we knew it was not true, for Steve’s father had traversed this path as well. And so a cherished dream that we would certainly be able to “end well” was demonstrated to be an illusion. That is what Epiphany is about: the shedding of illusions and the return of unity with the God of all.
Amen
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