Deep and Frightened Love / Epiphany

Yesterday was Epiphany, a Christian commemoration which means “revealing” or “manifestation.” It’s based on the story of the Three Kings following a star or comet, arriving at Jesus’ house in Bethlehem sometime within two years of his birth

In that story, I’m more interested in the astronomy than the theology, because there are so few references to nature’s startling grandeur in Christian scripture. It used to make me feel so happy to have something in a given Sunday morning’s preaching text which I could imagine being beautiful, memorable and accessible to all of us. Under any clear evening sky.

Many people are seduced into trying to combine the two, the theology and the natural, tracking an earlier appearing of Halley’s comet as the heavenly sign which Matthew is referencing in his creative story about the Magi. For example, I found the following in a pseudo-historical web page on Jesus birth:

“In 12-11 B.C., Halley's comet was visible during the winter. In 8 B.C., there was a rare juxtaposition of three planets--Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars, which together created bright glow. In a world as superstitious as that of the Roman empire did these signs went unnoticed? Not likely.”

Sadly for the writer of this piece, it’s not likely that the Matthew story of Jesus “epiphany” is anything more than a midrash, a way of writing scripture among Jews which creates a story out of details or prophecies from earlier writings and then references the earlier references as proof of the latter’s veracity. Stories woven out of stories woven out of stories. Airy, insubstantial. Bishop John Spong writes about this a lot. His book on Jesus birth, “Born of a Woman,” goes through this material. Even the more conservative Roman Catholic Raymond Brown in his brilliant “Birth of the Messiah” says essentially the same.

So I was preaching on Epiphany Day at the Unitarians, and originally had suggested we sing “Rise Up Shepherds and Follow,” a spiritual about the star in the east. We cut it, since it would be a little bit of a stretch to tie it in to my talk.

But I found myself making the point that Unitarians have to work harder at getting “deepest-things”-worship because we lack the sprawling 2000 year traditions many religions have to pick and choose from. My next-to-last draft had an excursus on what’s cool about the Christian tradition, the psalms where people fight with God and tell him their love, the saints like Francis who preaches his best sermons to the wolves and the chickadees, the texts like the Beatitudes which argue that the poor are blessed because their grasp on what’s ultimately important is more sure than that of the distracted, anxious, prideful rich.

I wrote on and on about the advantages of the Christian tradition for people seeking depth. I realized that my writing was taking me to the Unitarian “dark side,” that place of ancient traditions where there’s mystical, aesthetic, and spiritual intrigue everywhere at hand, like low-hanging fruit, but also where authority, control, and conflict have crushed many. On one hand, I wanted to go on about resonances in the Christian texts of Epiphany because it is fun to turn a story around and around, shining light on different images, words, connections, weaving strands toward a grand conclusion. On the other hand, this was a talk about the blessed freedom of Unitarianism, of choosing your own texts, and loving everyone at the table precisely for their considered, disparate beliefs, Buddhists, transgendered, kids, and Republicans all.

After my talk yesterday, Abel Bult-Ito, a professor in Neuroscience at UAF, was talking to Rich Seifert, the UAF Cooperative Extension Energy and Housing Specialist, and I joined them. We talked about this and that. One of the things Abel said was that he wasn’t coming to UUFF so much anymore, partly because the Sunday services were too “worshippy,” not audacious or hard hitting.

I was trying to address precisely that issue, pushing for a simple but constant liturgical “structure” within which very dynamic and groundbreaking stuff could be presented. The structure would allow for more demanding content.

I told the two of them that it was important for people like them, who have been working on difficult social and political issues, to help the rest of us to see how they live and work within the demand and fear and loneliness and passion of caring deeply about a given recalcitrant issue. It’s pretty common for activists to tell what they have learned, expecting people to care as much as they do, but what helps people get engaged is a different thing, I think.

Tell folks how hard it is, how exciting it is. Help people who don’t know how to live out an engaged life take the first steps. Try to remember what it was like before you got good at “doing” the issues you’re connected with. Otherwise, people new to an issue may end up feeling guilty or alienated or helpless or worse, annoyed at your certitude.

I think activists need to mentor people more, to help people admire them and shadow their engagement around a little, see how engagement is never pure certitude, and always more like longing, like a deep and frightened love.

(Blah, blah, the poet is taking over.)

Anyway, I was deeply struck by Abel saying how he sees things falling apart: the peak oil deadline is upon us, the stock market is melting down, the dollar is worthless, China owns us, global climate change is the real crisis we’re denying, following directly upon the false crisis for which we’ve bankrupted ourselves, losing an absurd, unjust and unnecessary war in Iraq, another in Afghanistan, and possibly a third in 7 years if Cheney gets his wish, in Iran.

All of which reminded me to thank God for not leaving me to my own devices in a Lutheran Church for the remainder of my life, weaving together poetic insights on the Christian tradition’s high holy day of Epiphany. Finally, I’m in a place to see what is being “revealed,” surround by people who see the epiphany that is actually happening.

I hope we have enough love, deep and frightened, to make headway together.