Today, in the Christian calendar, is the holiday of Epiphany.
The 12 Days of Christmas ended just yesterday, if you were keeping track. I hope you enjoyed the “Twelve drummers, drumming” your true love gave to you. My true love canceled the drummers and let me sleep in, which I appreciated.
From the “season” of Christmas, we turn now to the “season” of Epiphany.
Christmas is both December 25, and a 12-day season that ended yesterday with “12th Night”. Shakespeare’s play “Twelfth Night” was written as an entertainment to end the Christmas season, although his play has nothing to do with Christmas.
Epiphany is both today, January 6, and a season that extends from today until February 2, which is Candlemas in the Christian calendar, Imbolc, in the pagan calendar, and Groundhog Day, in the cute animals sleeping calendar.
An “Epiphany” is a sudden insight, quickly gained knowledge, or a surprising revelation. Epiphanies come unexpectedly, usually in the shower, or while driving, or in a dream. A long-standing confusion suddenly becomes clear. A light-bulb appears over your head. Eureka! You rush to tell your wife. “I had an epiphany!”
In that an epiphany often prompts a new start and a sudden change of plans, Epiphany is a good holiday for the beginning of a new year.
The Christian meaning of Epiphany is related to the secular meaning. It’s also about a sudden realization, a new understanding. Christian Epiphany marks the occasion when humanity suddenly recognizes Jesus as the Messiah. Jesus’ true nature is revealed.
This recognition of Jesus’ true nature actually happens several times in Jesus’ life. But, depending on which Christian tradition you’re following, Epiphany usual refers to two early instances in Jesus’ life.
One, is the day, shortly after Jesus’ birth, when the three kings appeared at the stable. Epiphany is celebrated as “Three Kings Day” in many cultures. Bakeries make a special “Three Kings” cake to eat at parties today. Each cake has a little plastic baby doll baked into it and whichever person gets the slice of cake with the baby doll has to host the party next year.
On Epiphany, the three kings arrive at the stable and they recognize that Jesus is a kind of royalty, equal, or even superior to them. They give Jesus three gifts: gold and frankincense and myrrh to recognize and honor the three kinds of powers Jesus manifests:
Gold, for material power, like a wealthy person
Frankincense, for spiritual power, because priests burn incense on the altar.
Myrrh, for political power, because myrrh is the scented oil used to anoint a king.
In the Bible text, in Matthew, the three kings are called three magi or “wise men”. The word “Magi” is the same root as our word for Magician. In Jesus’ time a Magi would have been a person like an astrologer, able to gain secret knowledge by reading the signs and symbols in the world (like a bright star suddenly appearing in the sky).
The other occasion in Jesus’ life sometimes marked on the Epiphany holiday is the baptism of Jesus. If you were born to a Christian family you might have been baptized as an infant. Jesus was baptized as an adult, by John the Baptist. The story is another instance of Jesus’ true nature being suddenly revealed to those around him.
Here is how Jesus’ baptism scene is narrated in the gospel of Matthew:
“As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’”
Here is the same scene in the gospel of Luke. See if you can notice a subtle difference.
“When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
Did you catch that?
In Matthew the voice speaks to the gathered people and says, “This is my Son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased.”
In Luke the voice speaks to Jesus and says, “You are my Son, whom I love, with you I am well pleased.”
In Matthew the voice reveals something about Jesus to everybody standing around him. In Luke, the voice of God reveals something about Jesus to Jesus himself.
At some point in our lives, perhaps as children, certainly as adolescents, and then, often, again and again as adults, we start to think about who we are. Who are we really? What is our true nature?
And then there is a two-step process. First understanding our true nature for ourselves. And then getting other people to recognize and support what we claim for ourselves.
Sometimes those two steps come in the opposite order. Other people see clearly something in us that we haven’t figured out for ourselves yet.
Epiphany is both the voice that says to us internally: “You are this.” And the voice that says to others: “He is that.”
Who are you? Maybe the person you were meant to be was hidden all of these years because you had been forced into a certain way of living by your family, or not having enough time or money. Maybe you had been filled with unhealthy messages since childhood, that you’re not smart enough, you’re not talented enough, or you’re not pretty enough, and so you denied the internal truth about your true identity.
Maybe there were so many things you thought you could do that you had trouble choosing just one and you’ve always fretted that you would make the wrong choice. “Who am I really?”
Or maybe you doubted that you could really be successful at anything so you avoided choosing a path out of fear of failure. “Who am I?”
Or, maybe, for awhile you followed a path you were pretty sure was the right path, and then, well, maybe it didn’t work out, or times changed, or you changed, and you had to start again with those, “Epiphany” questions: Who am I? Who am I really? What is the life that I was born to live? What is the life that would express the person I was born to be?
Wouldn’t it have been nice to have three wise persons show up at our birth and say, “We see you.” “We know you.” Do this. Be that. And then give us gifts that equip us to manifest that inner nature, and to do it publicly so everyone around us was already on board with our dreams and goals?
Wouldn’t it have been nice, at 17 or 33, to have a magic dove come down from heaven and land on your shoulder and a voice cry out, maybe from deep inside your own consciousness, “This is who I am. And this magic dove is a sign that everything’s going to be fine. I’m ready. Let’s go do it.
In Luke, we have a story of that first Epiphany moment when we become aware for ourselves of our self-identity.The epiphany news might come to us as a shock. A welcome surprise, or a terror. A truth we accept or resist. News we take action on immediately, or maybe news we push away for days, or weeks or years, and then come back to only later, when we’re finally ready.
In Matthew we have the second kind of Epiphany, the Epiphany story where other people recognize our truth. Perhaps you’ve been writing short stories for years and only finally does a magazine agree to publish one.
I can imagine in Luke, when the voice tells Jesus, “You are my son.” Jesus’ response might be, “What? You’re crazy!” We don’t know that Jesus knew that about himself. It might be news that frightens him. News that he resists. An Epiphany that he holds in secret until he’s ready to accept it and share it with the world.
In Matthew, when the voice tells the people, “This is my son.” Jesus’ response might be, “Finally, now they will see the truth and recognize the real me.” But the response of the people might be, “What? You’re crazy and where is that voice coming from?” And some might believe the voice but others might continue to resist.
Unlike the “eureka” moments of secular epiphanies, the epiphanies of understanding our true natures and getting others to recognize and honor our true natures doesn’t usually happen in an instant. That’s why Epiphany is a season, not just a day.
This year, at church, we are working in our worship time, through the UUA’s “Five Developmental Tasks”. Five areas of work that the UUA sees as important work for a congregation during an interim period between one settled minister and the next.
The first task is History. So back in September and October we looked at the history of Unitarian Universalism and then the history of this particular congregation. The goal for that History work is to uncover patterns and habits in our story so far that we either want to carry into our future, or interrupt before they repeat and negatively affect our future.
The second task is Leadership. So in November and December we looked at some of the issues around leadership: the qualities required for healthy leaders, the challenges that leaders face. People shifting in and out of leadership roles is a prominent feature of an interim time.
The third developmental task is Identity, which we start on today and will work on through the end of February. Then comes “Mission” in March. And finally, “Connections” in April and May.
The Developmental Task of Identity has to do with a congregation being clear about who you are. It’s the Epiphany question. Who are you really? Who are you formed to be? How are you the same or different from other Unitarian Universalist congregations? What are your talents, skills, interests, passions, abilities, challenges? A thoughtful answer to those questions will help you call a minister who recognizes and honors your true nature.
Identity, whether personal identity or congregational identity, arises from two places.
One part of who we are is given to us from circumstances outside our control. The place we are born. The parents we are born to. Economic circumstances. Genetic inheritance. And the intersection of physical realities about ourselves and the way those identifiers are received and valued by the culture we are born into: our sex and gender, our skin-color, our physical and mental abilities.
That I was raised in Santa Monica, to middle class parents, matters to who I am. That I’m white in America, and gay in the 21st century rather than the 19th century matters to who I am.
That this church is in Long Beach, California, not Long Island, New York, matters. That this church has consistently had around 300 members rather than 100 members matters to your identity.
A second part of who we are comes from opportunities that open and close throughout our lives and the choices we make. We are formed in many significant ways prior to our births, and outside factors always influence our identity expression. But we also, to varying but generally increasing degrees as we move from childhood to adulthood, form ourselves through our own decisions, our courage, our strength, our creativity.
In the Responsive Reading we used for our Opening Words, Kathleen McTigue, noticed that dual-nature of identity formation and how it informs our plans for a new year. On one hand, she says, today, “everything is the same, bound into its history as we ourselves are bound.” That’s the givenness of our nature. But then she says, “Yet also we stand at a threshold, the new year something truly new, still unformed, leaving a stunning power in our hands.” That’s the choice-making part of our nature. That’s the power that proves that history need not be destiny. That’s the truth that “who we really are” is not only who we are now, but who we might create ourselves to be.
In our centering hymn, we are reminded of the givenness of our identity. “We are not our own. Earth forms us, human leaves on nature’s growing vine, fruit of many generations.” There is a comfort in that embrace of the past, the way we are held and cherished by all the world’s previous hopes and dreams. But there is a trap there, too, which our individual natures rebel against. “Who am I not for my parents, or the culture, but for myself?”
In the responsive reading we used to introduce our silent meditation this morning, Phillip Hewett advises us to honor the past, but not to let the past hold us back. He says, “We cherish our oneness with those around us and the countless generations that have gone before us.” But, he says, “We would hold fast to all of good we inherit even as we would leave behind us the outworn and the false.” Discerning what is the good, in all we inherit, is the task of maturing from dependent child to liberated adult.
The good we inherit. And then the choices we make to create the rest.
A friend of mine shared on their facebook page a quote for the new year from Dolly Parton. She said, “Find out who you are, then do it on purpose.”
It’s a very Dolly Parton thing to say, but also a little odd coming from a woman who has made no secret about how self-created she actually is.
But Dolly Parton also illustrates very well this truth that all of us are a mix of the good we inherit, the outworn and the false we left behind, and the choices we made to create ourselves.
“Find out who you are” means uncovering the “givenness” part of your identity. The part that comes to you from beyond yourself. The voice that calls out to you telling you, “You are my son.” Or, “You are a care-giver.” Or, “You are an athlete. Or, “You are a scientist.”
Then, “Do it on purpose” means inventing yourself further in that direction. Going to school. Spending the required hours practicing. Putting yourself in the right situations. Meeting the right people. So that eventually, the you you are is displayed proudly, a gift, recognized and honored by kings, wisemen, magicians, Baptist hippies on the shore of the river, random voices calling from the air, and magic doves that choose to rest on your shoulder naming and blessing the true you.
May it be so.