Happy Epiphany, and happy 2014.
The liturgical season of Epiphany starts with the feast celebrating the Magi from the East bringing their gifts to Jesus (they’re in the Gospel of Matthew; the Gospel of Luke gives us the shepherds and the manger). An epiphany is a revelation; something that hadn’t been visible suddenly is. We often talk about epiphany as sudden realization; you go through life day in and day out doing the same things, and BANG, suddenly you see things differently. It’s a good holiday for the new year; we often make resolutions, planning somehow to improve ourselves or do things differently.
I recently had the somewhat sobering experience of running into an old journal of mine from years ago. My life circumstances 15 years ago were 100% different from now-I wasn’t a priest, a mother, or a spouse, which 99% of my tasks now relate to. And what did I want to “fix” about myself? I wanted to try to be more present to where I was in the moment (check). I wanted to feel less stressed, by planning my time better (check). I wanted to meditate more (check. But now I’d add prayer to that). Get more exercise (check). So much for making any progress!
The Epiphany in this, though, isn’t that I’ve always been bad at these things and always will be. The Epiphany for me in this is that, even though I my think that I “should” do more beneficial stuff of all kinds, even with my perceived failure, God has steadfastly been with me throughout all of this. Jesus has shown up day after day with me in new challenges and new days and all manner of newness that has come in 9 years of priesting and almost 7 years of parenting. Maybe the Epiphany can be to trust God and trust myself, and put a little less energy into self-criticism, which doesn’t exactly inspire transformation.
The First Sunday after Epiphany always gives us the baptism of Jesus-he emerges out of the water and hears a voice that he is God’s beloved, God’s chosen. When we baptize, we go right there with God. We’re beloved, we’re chosen. It can just take a while to realize just how much it applies to us. Transformation comes from love, not guilt. The heavens didn’t open with God saying “This is my son, Jesus. He has great potential if only he’d try a little harder.”
Through the season of Epiphany, we load up on all of the assurances of God’s work in the world, all of those stories of revelation through Jesus’ ministry of healing, reconciling, and leading people into God’s ways of peace and justice.
UCC pastor (and spouse of our occasional sub priest, Anne Minton) Mary Luti puts it this way:
Starfire, dream-clouds, baby’s flesh, garments of light, kings on their knees and disciples on their faces-in Epiphany we learn, again, to see, to listen, to worship, and to be called; for discipleship (we know, but too soon forget in our drive to be useful and productive) is as much about being spoken to as it is about speaking, as much about adoring as serving, as much about perceiving as doing, as much about being found as searching. Discipleship is born in awe, it arises from encounter, it is a consequence of worship.