Look

Look
Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
The Feast of the Epiphany
January 5, 2020
The Rev. John Taliaferro Thomas
 
My daughter called a few days ago and asked what my word is.  She has this thing about New Year’s and the incipient tradition of making resolutions.  She has a better way to look forward, which is nice because the whole resolution thing is based on a reasonable urge to be more: healthier, kinder, structured, organized, or disciplined.  If we watch whatever is being advertised, we can use that as a bellwether for what the vast swath of humanity seeks.  This time of year, it is diet and exercise.  Somebody somewhere told me that 98 percent of all resolutions relate to that.  That sounds about right when I see Weight Watchers, Whole 30, Keto, Noom, Peleton, and gym membership promotion dominate the mass of marketing.  Does anyone else find that exercise mirror that sees into your home workout to be a little creepy?  The irony, of course, is that to be less, we are supposed to get and do more to be more.
 
Rather than all of that, my daughter asks me what my word is.  Just come up with one word, she urges, that encapsulates a need, a quest, and longing as reminder.  Write it down.  Post it at home to see daily.  Use it to frame prayers, thoughts, actions, and intentions.  Brilliant.  Simple.  Free. And freeing.
 
We begin the season of Epiphany today.  There’s a word.  It is a word of new light and new revelation.  An epiphany is an “aha” moment.  It is a sudden understanding brought on through an everyday observation, that somehow made makes deep truth clearer and more poignant.  This is completely apt and appropriate for a new year and all that is to come.  The Church’s observation of the season begins with the old story of the wise men, the magi, strangers from the far east, arriving at the court of King Herod.  They have seen a star rising and interpreted it as a sign for them to seek the child king who is to save the world. 
 
So, there they are, in front of the literal King of the Jews, Herod, interpreting his own tradition for him, and telling him that there is one greater than he now born into the world.  This does not go well for the political King’s ego and aspirations.  Herod sends for the traveling party and asks them when exactly this sign appeared and tells them to go on a mission for him and send word when they find this child, so he may also go and pay him homage.  Of course, he does not want to do that.  He wants to root out any threat to his power and authority.  He tries to co-opt the wise men as stooges for his scheme.  Such is the way in the nefarious world of pretense and posturing.
 
Nevertheless, off they go, and when they find the child, they worship, celebrate, and give symbolic gifts:  Gold for kingship, frankincense for prayer and worship to God, and myrrh as an embalming spice to cover the stench of the death he will die.  That is a lot for a little kid, and hardly practical, but these guys are in the foreshadowing business as seers and seekers.
 
All of this is part the holy “aha” of Jesus’ birth.  Mary found out when Gabriel told her about her expectant condition.  Joseph found out in a dream.  The shepherds found out when the angels came to them in the fields.  And now, those who were nowhere near the same zip code at the time of the birth, those who are not of the Hebrew faith or tradition, those who do not have a stake in the politics of Herodian succession arrive and see for themselves.  And their delight and amazement come through this new look at power and authority.  Love in person is made personal.  This Jesus is not a local phenom, particular to one religious tradition.  He is the cosmic force of God.
 
Their story is a powerful nudge for us to look at our story.  We come to Church for all kinds of reasons.  We come here to anchor our lives in prayer and praise.  We come here to be together and life one another up to light and life.  We come to eat breakfast and/or nosh at coffee hour.  In all of this we touch something far greater and far more crucial.  We come to accept the power of a living Christ in our lives.  And as we do so, there are epiphanies aplenty to be found in living our lives differently. 
 
About now, we have looked back over a year of many challenges and changes.  We have contemplated the transition from one decade to the next, or for some, argued about whether the decade really changes this year or next.  No matter, the world has changed, is changing, and will continue to spin on its uneven axis of malformed priorities, outsized expectations, and false fronts of power and success.  And at this moment, this Epiphany, we have the opportunity to throw all of the useless calls for more on the trash heap of idolatry, and claim the One, the Source, the Christ as the center and ground of all our being and becoming.  God does not love if because we of what we do.  God loves us because that is what God does.
 
To get hung up on the world and its weary ways is to join in old Herod’s mania of scarcity, threats, and self-serving manipulation.  But in the words of a great James Taylor song:
 
Those magic men the Magi, some people call them wise or Oriental, even kings.
Well anyway, those guys, they visited with Jesus, they sure enjoyed their stay.
Then warned in a dream of King Herod's scheme, they went home by another way…
Maybe me and you can be wise guys too and go home by another way.
We can make it another way, safe home as they used to say.
Keep a weather eye to the chart on high and go home another way.
 
A word of encouragement I received this season really stuck with me through much of other noise of retrospectives and resolutions.  It is this: “Remember that you once dreamed of being where you are now.”  Certainly, my life and none of our lives are not perfect, but the life we have is what we have been given as gift, sign, and opportunity.  To be here among you is a gift.  Look at this place and at you all.  The sign of hope is our common and growing life as Jesus people.  Look at our mission and ministry, growing in joy.  The opportunity is to live that out with fierce love, dogged acceptance, and deep peace.  Look how different we can be without acquiring or doing more.

I have really thought about my word.  My word is look.  I have written it down.  It is on the bulletin board with the pictures of family and friends, the calendar, and the save the date cards for family weddings.  It is a good word that I need to see every day for faith, wellbeing, and wonder. There is much to see, and I will to look up, look out, and look alive in Christ.  My word is look.  What is yours?