If an epiphany falls in the forest...

January 4, 2015

Epiphany

Matthew 2:1-12

While the Feast of Epiphany doesn’t officially fall until Tuesday, we get a taste of it in our Gospel today, the last Sunday of Christmas.  Dante referred to God as “the love that moves … the stars” and that’s where we begin in our story this morning of the wise magi who followed a star from a far-away country all the way to Bethlehem. The light in the sky was for the magi an epiphany - a manifestation of God.  

The inclusion of the magi in the story magnifies what was already a shocking story of God’s incarnation.  Early on, we watched as Mary, a humble, young, unmarried woman said yes to the invitation to be the mother of God.  Next we breathed a sigh of relief as her betrothed, Joseph the carpenter, agreed to stick with her and save her from social exile.  And then we held our noses as the lowbrow, dirty shepherds were picked to hear the tidings of good news and become Jesus’ first visitors.  But these late-arriving magi defied all expectations.  These foreigners from faraway lands were not the anticipated recipients of God’s grace.  They were not among the Israelites, the Chosen People of God.  What’s more, faithful Jews (and the early Church, and maybe many of us today) would have regarded their star-gazing and fate-predicting arts as deceptive hooey.  And yet God reached out to them in an unprecedented (and un-religiously acceptable) way and they faithfully responded by traveling many hundreds of miles to find and worship Jesus. In the magi, God made clear that outsiders were welcomed into the fold.

The inclusion of the magi is a promise that epiphanies — manifestations of God — are not only for the people you might expect (the super-holy, the official Church people, the sinless, the clean, the insiders) but for all of us.  The story of the incarnation is one that gets bigger, more welcoming, more inclusive with every unfolding layer.  Jesus comes to us as Emmanuel, God-with-us, God-with-every-single-one-of-us.

And that is good news indeed.  

But despite the good news, this is also a story that leaves me feeling uneasy.

One of my favorite ways of reading scripture is to try to imagine myself in the midst of it.  And so almost immediately with this story I begin to wonder what I would have done if I’d been with the magi.

We hear that the magi observed this star at its rising.  There they were, these early astronomer/astrologists, watching the sky for information that could help them figure out the tides or the weather.  There were zillions of tiny pinpricks of light out there in the dark night of their world.  How did this one stand out?  If I were with them, would I have been too busy predicting the next rain fall, or checking out the latest oasis, or brushing my camel to see that one star was in some way unusual?  Would I have noticed God reaching out?  Maybe the magi can teach us how to gaze at creation, how to notice something new in our familiar surroundings, how to look for those thin places where we can see God at work in the world. 

The next question I’m left with is, even if I’d seen the star, would I have responded?  Would I somehow have intuited that this star had anything to do with me?  Or would I have just noted the information on my papyrus and moved on to my next task, never imagining this star was inviting me to do something?  And if I had the presence of mind to perceive some calling in the star, would I have had the courage and curiosity to follow it?  Or would I have been so ensconced in my comfortable life of privilege, so self-important knowing that my counsel was highly sought after, or so worried about what other people might think about me that I explained the star away and stayed rooted right where I was?

(If an epiphany falls in the forest and no one hears it or responds to it, is it still an epiphany?)

How can the magi inspire us to open ourselves to God’s calling, and to find courage to take the risk of responding to it, wherever it might lead?

The part of this story I have the easiest part relating to is when the magi end up at the wrong place.  They stopped at Herod’s royal palace in Jerusalem, assuming that any star sent to herald some new and God-given thing would lead them to an expected place - in their case, a place of power and prestige.  But they were nine miles off course.  I can relate to this, as I am very often off course in my journey with God.  

Over New Year’s I read Anne Lamott's Help Thanks Wow: The three essential prayers.  She talks about the moments when we find ourselves off course.  Times when we are overcome by hurt or confusion or the things we cannot change.  Times when we feel nothing but distance from God.  For Lamott these moments are opportunities to cry out for help.  When we cry out “Help!” we “acknowledge that [we are] clueless; but something else isn’t,” and in that moment there is a chance for light to seep in through the crack.  She promises that some kind of response will come to our plea for help, though “the response probably won’t be from God, in the sense of hearing a deep grandfatherly voice, or via skywriting, or in the form of an LED-lit airplane aisle at your feet.  But the mail will come, or an e-mail, or the phone will ring; unfortunately, it might not be later today, ideally right after lunch, but you will hear back.  You will come to know.”

Soon enough the magi got back on track, thanks to the help of some flawed religious types - the chief priests and scribes of the people.  I think there the magi have a lot to teach the institutional church about both the value of our tradition and the importance of remaining open to seeing the living God at work in new ways. 

The magi finally reach the house where Jesus is with Mary and Joseph and somehow they recognize the magnitude of what they’ve found in this unlikely place with these unlikely people.  They are overwhelmed with joy.  That sounds a lot like one of the “Wow” prayers that Anne Lamott writes about: “When we are stunned to the place beyond words, when an aspect of life takes us away from being able to chip away at something until it’s down to a manageable size and then to file it nicely away.  When all we can say in response is ‘wow,’ that’s a prayer.”  And in that moment, “[w]onder takes our breath away and makes room for new breath.”  And while “new is scary, and new can be disappointing, and confusing — we had this all figured out, and now we don’t,” new is also life.  Awe and wonder are places where light can enter in.

In their joy, the magi knelt down and paid Jesus homage and offered him their gifts.  There is Anne Lamott’s other essential prayer in action: “Thanks.”  “Thanks” can arise from from invisible shifts when we’ve been stuck, or moments of almost imperceptible grace in our broken places, or spots of joy or relief almost too wonderful to name.  These are moments when “a ribbon of light might get in, might sneak past all the roadblocks and piles of stones, mental and emotional and cultural.”  And as the magi illustrate, those prayers of “Thanks” so often end up in our being inspired and strengthened to give of ourselves to others. 

And finally, having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, the magi left for their own country by another road.  After their epiphany, and their long journey, and their meeting Jesus, they are no longer the same.  They might end up in the same place, but they will have gotten there from a new direction and they will return different people somehow.  The magi have a lot to teach us there too about the changes meeting Jesus will bring to our lives.

But I was left with another question from this story that is less one of worry than of longing.  Where is my epiphany?  Where is my wild and crazy star?

And then yesterday I opened the daily email from the community of the Society of St. John the Evangelist: “If this Christmastide you are asking the question, maybe desperately, whether God is with you, I suggest you rephrase the question.  The question is not whether God is with you, but how is God with you?”

So I’ll rephrase my Epiphany question.  What if the question isn’t why isn’t God giving me a wild and crazy star to follow, but how is God manifesting God’s self in my life?  How is that light showing up in other ways?

Maybe the true gift of the magi has less to do with the gold, frankincense, and myrrh they brought to Jesus and more to do with what they have to teach us about paying attention, following, asking for help, being wowed, giving thanks, and becoming new people.

God’s manifestations are there for us too.  The light is pulsing around us, seeking cracks in our consciousness to settle into.  We too are travelers, though the stars that appear when we look for them might take on completely different forms for each one of us.  And since we have no idea most of the time what we are looking for or where it will lead us, I’ll end with the famous prayer of Thomas Merton that the little band of star-gazers that meets in St. Aidan’s Church to pray on Tuesday nights sometimes uses:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself,

and the fact that I think that I am following your will 

does not mean that I am actually doing so. 

But I believe that the desire to please you 

does in fact please you. 

And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. 

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. 

And I know that if I do this 

you will lead me by the right road 

though I may know nothing about it. 

Therefore will I trust you always 

though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. 

I will not fear, for you are ever with me, 

and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.  Amen.