Epiphany Art Projects

Yesterday was a great creativity day:  I wrote 2 blog posts and baked some gluten free communion bread.  While it cooled, I made some new elements for my windowsill altar.  Here's how it looks this morning:

Then we headed off to church.  I wasn't planning to write a poem, but one came--and then this morning, I shaped that poem beginning into something more finished.

Then yesterday, I made a sketch, inspired by the poem;  I was especially taken by these lines:  "Avoid the houses made of gingerbread / and all the traps the world will set."

I also liked this Epiphany sketch, which helped inspire the poem I wrote:

When I got home, my star word was waiting from a member of a Facebook group.  I decided to make it into a card, so that I'd remember as the year went on.

My star word is journey--it's one that was chosen blindly for me.  It's been interesting to see the words that others have gotten and to compare them to mine:  care, anoint, steadfast, care, future, prepare, spirit, inheritance.

The rest of the day was not as creative, as I had lots of work to do to get my online classes ready.  But that's O.K.  With a creative morning to undergird the day, I'm happier regardless.

Epiphany in Pictures

It is the feast of the Epiphany, the day that celebrates wise men and the stars that they follow.

One group's journey towards wisdom can be the event that plunges others into refugee status.

We will only see the new star if we've spent time studying the sky.

Some people get Divine messages in the form of angel choirs. 

Others get a more distant message.

Some of us will never hear the message.  We are too distracted.

Let us remember the Advent teachings; let us remain alert.

Let us have the courage to follow Divine messengers to new wisdom.

Epiphany Poem, Prayers, and a Recipe

Here we are, at the day before the feast day of Epiphany.  How shall we prepare?

Many cultures celebrate Three Kings Day with a special bread. Many families have charms that are baked into the bread that signify what will come in the new year. Even if you don't have special charms, you could use things you do have: a nut, a foil wrapped coin, a dried cranberry, a piece of frozen fruit.

This blog post gives you a recipe, with photos, for a simple, no-knead 3 Kings Bread. Why not bake it for tomorrow?

As you bake the bread, you might ponder the word "epiphany" and all its variants. What epiphanies do you need/knead for the coming year?

May this be the week-end that we see the visions that we seek, even if they twinkle at us from a distance so very far away. May we have the courage to move towards that vision, even if it requires a great journey or a different kind of leap of faith.

And here's a poem that has a similar wish, albeit expressed in a different way:

Celestial Visions and Insect Songs


When someone curses
you and your stars, switch
to the tarot deck. Cast
your runes to approach
the future in a different way.

The stars reveal The Future
only to a select few,
which is why we had to invent
these other ways to divine
our ever present ancestor,
The Future. We squint
to see what it holds
in its wrinkled hands.

The Future, mysterious and hooded,
prefers the shadows, the galaxies
hidden to our casual eyes.
Very few of us want to know.
We prefer the icy sparkle, the knowledge
in our stars kept light years away.

But if you listen, you can hear
our destinies in every insect song.
Every butterfly sighting reveals
our future: the crawling
creature cocooned
until a moment of brief
beauty, the rush skyward,
the descent into the dust
that will reclaim us all.


Inspired by Laura M. Kaminski’s Ghazal with lines from The Book of Flight and Luisa A. Igloria’s Trusting the process.

Wandering Wise Men and the Stars They Follow

I have been greatly intrigued, and at times highly amused, by the Internet meme of the 3 plastic wise men and a camel who make their way across modern landscapes.  The wise men look like children's toys, and upon doing some "research," I've found that they're made by Playmobil or Fisher Price.  I have no idea how many people are doing this.  I haven't participated this year, but perhaps in later years.

Until this morning, I didn't realize how many people were doing this project as a reaction to the Elf on a Shelf--a way to have a daily practice that's whimsical but doesn't involve Santa.

I wonder how many wandering wise men practitioners think about the problematic aspects of the 3 kings.  With Epiphany falling on a Sunday this year, I wonder if churches will talk about the troubling parts of the story.

If we take the Bible literally, it's hard to make this part of the story fit with later parts of the savior story.  How far ahead of the birth did the star in the east start shining?  How long does it take to walk that distance?  Did the magi arrive at the manger too?  If Herod slaughtered all the children under the age of 2, why do we have no historical record of that slaughter?  What happened to the valuable presents in the later years?

Even if we don't take the Bible literally, the story presents difficulties for modern sensibilities.  What do we do with the fact that these wise men are an ancient version of astrologers?  What type of ethnic minority are they?  Do they come from Persia or from Africa?  Why does that old hymn say that they're from the Orient?  Do we all remember that Orient and Oriental are no longer the preferred terms as they imply something a bit ugly?

If I was preaching this Sunday, I'd take one of several approaches.  The classic, non-political approach would be to remind us all of the importance of regular practice.  The wise men notice a new star because they are studying the skies week after week.  Or I might talk about how sometimes the Good News comes via angel choirs in the sky, but for some of us, the message is more subtle.  I use the story as a reminder to look up more often, to take in the larger vistas.

We could talk about how Divine messages can often send us on unexpected journeys.  Or maybe we want to talk about gifts; we could talk about the symbolic meanings of the gifts that we traditionally associate with the magi:  frankincense, gold, and myrrh. 

If I was in a daring mood and preaching epiphany, I might remind people of the civil disobedience aspects of the story:  the ruler of the land sends the magi on a spying mission and commands them to return to report to him.  They disobey.  Their disobedience, alas, does not overcome evil; Herod continues to sow chaos and bloodshed.

Or perhaps I'd talk about the refugee aspects of the story.  The magi come, and the Holy Family must flee Herod's murderous jealousy.  Herod is not the first despot to create a refugee crisis, and we can be sure that the many refugee crises that we see in our modern age will not be the last.  What does it mean that our savior was a refugee?

I have preached the Epiphany message before, and I went with the idea of Epiphany stars (more in this post and this one).  Later in the year, I had one church member tell me that she found it meaningful for more than just one Sunday. 

But my brain keeps coming back to those wandering wisemen.  I like the dailiness of arranging the toys.  I wonder if we could do something similar with other seasons--a Holy Spirit nudge!

Exiting the Holiday Season

Some of us returned to regular life yesterday.  Some of us have yet to have a holiday at all--as a child of a church organist and the granddaughter of a Lutheran minister, I'm aware that the month of December is not a restful one for many workers.  Those of you with people in the medical industry and the police/EMS/fire industries can relate.

Some of us return to regular life today.  Let us now offer up a quick prayer for all the governments that re-open today--and the federal agencies that remain closed because of the shutdown.  I cannot imagine being a brand new U.S. senator or representative arriving to Congress today--so much that needs to be done and so little will to do it.  I want to believe that people run for office because they have a vision of improving the world, not because they want to stonewall any movement at all.

Some of us are still on vacation until Monday.  I'm thinking of all the teachers that I know who don't report to work until Monday.  I'm also thinking of all the parents I know who have been juggling more responsibilities with the school system closed for several weeks.

I had several days off throughout the holiday season, and yesterday was our first day back at full capacity.  I found it somewhat exhausting to go from slow to supercharged in one day. 

Overlaying all of this is my trying to hold onto the liturgical season.  We're still in the season of Christmas, after all.  The wise men are on their way.  Epiphanies will come--will we be alert to them?

Creator God, be with us on this day when so many of us leave our holidays behind and return to our regular lives. Give us extra measures of patience. Give us creative solutions that we might never have seen without our time away. Be with those looking for work. Be with those who are frustrated with the work we have. Be with those who have a few more days of holidays.  And help us all to realize that the important work may not be in our workplaces at all.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, January 6, 2018:


Isaiah 60:1-6

Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14 (11)

Ephesians 3:1-12

Matthew 2:1-12

Some of us have always celebrated the 12 days of Christmas, which begin on Christmas Day and end on January 6, the feast of the Epiphany. But it’s rare in the lectionary that we celebrate Epiphany at all, much less on an actual Sunday. The 3 wise men have such a place in our collective imagination that it’s interesting to return to the actual story that only appears in Matthew. What a strange tale!

Notice that it’s not 3 wise men, but a group of wise men from the East. Some have speculated that they were scholars of some sort or astrologers or maybe kings from a distant land. Clearly they are men of power and wealth. They can afford to travel, and they can afford to bring lavish gifts.

It’s no wonder that the wise men from the east would come to one of the population centers of the Roman empire looking for the King of the Jews. It’s an interesting statement that they assume that they’re looking for someone who has political power. Those of us who know the rest of the story already know that they couldn’t be more mistaken.

Herod is also a man of power and wealth, but he reacts very differently from the wise men of the east. The wise men come a great distance to be part of the story. Herod, too, could have participated in the Good News and the work of Kingdom building. God wouldn't boycott him, just because he was a tool of the Roman empire. God can use any of us, no matter who we've been or where we are.

But Herod has no interest in hearing God’s invitation. Notice that not only is Herod troubled, but all of Jerusalem. Herod consults not only his own staff, but also the chief priests and scribes of Jerusalem.

Herod’s reaction shouldn’t surprise us. He’s not a Roman emperor, after all. He rules only as long as his Roman overlords say that he can. He’s already feeling threatened, and then wise men from the East appear, searching for a ruler who isn’t Herod. We may say that we’d have reacted differently, that we’d have joined the quest and rejoiced when we found Jesus, but we’re likely kidding ourselves.

What does it mean that the good news of the birth of Jesus comes not only to shepherds (in Luke’s Gospel, not Matthew’s), but also to strangers from a distant, non-Jewish country? From the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel, we see the inclusivity of the incarnation of God. And from the beginning, we see the rejection of God’s invitation, from Herod onward through all of Jerusalem.

Jesus escapes death by government hands in this story, but again, those of us who know the whole story know that Jesus can only dodge the authorities for so long. Before Jesus opens his mouth, his trajectory places him in direct conflict with the ruling government. His very birth threatens the establishment, as will the rest of his life.

I think of that simplistic bumpersticker: “Wise men still seek him.” But we shouldn’t forget that the quest of the wise men also puts them at severe risk as they meet with Herod, who might have easily had them killed for their impudence of searching for a King of the Jews that wasn’t sanctioned by the state. Indeed, he likely would have killed them, had he not needed them for intelligence gathering.

Wise men and women do indeed still seek Jesus, but we often underestimate the risk. Jesus doesn’t come to occupy a tidy corner of our lives. Jesus doesn’t come to invite us to lunch once or twice a month.

No, God comes to live with us, in all of our brokenness and messiness. God comes to turn our lives upside down—and to turn us around. God has a very grand plan for creation, and for all of the individuals inside of that creation. A life spent searching for Jesus may well set us on a collision course with everything that our culture tells us we should be searching for.

The world tells us to seek wealth; God tells us that we have more than we need and that we should give it all away. The world tells us to seek education; Jesus comes to give us a very different education, one based on compassion and sharing. The world tells us to seek power that only empires can maintain; Jesus shows us the brutality of that kind of power.

But Jesus also tells us that another, deeper power is ours for the taking. Jesus shows us the power of community and love. Jesus comes to show us a different kind of sojourn.

We like to think we’d have reacted differently to Jesus, had we been alive back in the time of Herod. We like to think that we would understand the Epiphany in the ways that Herod and the inhabitants of Jerusalem did not. Would we?

Yes, wise men and women still seek him, but daily life often grinds our capacity for wonder out of us. We miss the miraculous as it twinkles at us, daring us to see, inviting us on a marvelous journey. Let this be the year that we see the portents and the signs, the year that we say yes to God.

Be the Wax Splash to the World

Some of us will be celebrating the feast day of the Holy Name of Jesus.  Some of us may think about Jesus being circumcised 8 days after birth.  Most of us will simply go on our way celebrating the new year.

This morning, I want to write about my sermon on Sunday.  We were off lectionary, so we read about the presentation of Jesus at the temple--I'd prefer to celebrate that festival 40 days after Christmas, but that's not the church I attend.  I took a variety of approaches to the text.
 
I began by talking about how hard it is to know what's true anymore, which is strange considering how much access we have to so much information--but therein lies part of the problem, the overwhelming availability of information.  I also talked about how easy it is to create fake knowledge.

I talked about Simeon and Anna, who kept their faith in what had been revealed to them much longer than most of us would--they knew what was true.

I talked about Simeon holding the light of the world in his hands.  I talked about my time at Mepkin Abbey and the sermon that discussed Simeon holding Jesus.  I talked about this scene as one of many in the Bible where God appears among the folks who are low in the scale of social status.  One couldn't get much lower than Anna--a widow, an old woman, a Jew in first century Palestine far away from the power center of Rome. 

I talked about the time of transition to the new year as one when many of us do self assessing and come up lacking.  But God doesn't see us as lacking.  God has invitations for us--and even if we've rejected God's invitations before, God keeps coming back to invite us again.

I then talked about what our pastor had preached in a Christmas Eve sermon years ago, that if we leave Jesus as this cute baby, we're missing the message.  Jesus comes to go out into the world, not to be contained by us.

I said, "If we were a smaller congregation, I'd invite you up to the altar, to see what you can't see."  I described my spouse on Christmas Eve, blowing out the candles which had been lit for hours, when one of them tipped over and spilled wax over the white marble altar.  I held up a sheet of paper and said, "Here's my low tech representation of what you would see if we gathered at the altar":

I had sketched it in the hour before the service, when I got ready for the service, and I thought about a different direction for the sermon.

I talked about the wax splash as a metaphor for what happens with the message of Jesus.  It stays concentrated at first, but it can't be contained. 

I looked at the congregation and said, "You are part of this wax splash.  You have so much to offer.  You, too, hold the light of the world in your hands and in your heart.  This world needs that light, now more than ever before.  Go forth and shine."

Several people came up to tell me that this sermon was the best I had ever preached.  It was different than the one I planned to preach--I had planned to preach about Anna and her age and how we may think it's too late for us, but it's not.  I included part of that message, but I didn't know I was going to talk about the wax splash until I saw it and thought about it at 9:30, just half an hour before the service started.

I rarely preach from a scripted sermon, and I often don't use notes.  I rehearse in my head a lot, but I leave room for the Holy Spirit to intervene.  One woman told me after the service that she really needed to hear what I had just preached.

It's a good message for the new year:  be the wax splash.  The world needs this good news, and if not us, then who will deliver it?