Epiphany Sunday - January 9, 2005
Isaiah 60:1-6
Matthew 2:1-12
The Second Day of Christmas, December 26th, was a pleasant one for us. We gathered here in this worship space to sing Christmas carols and wish one another a Merry Christmas. We wished visiting relatives a good by and welcomed surprise visitors.
But in Iraq a young man from Loyal guiding his unit on patrol was killed by an explosion. On the shores of India, Thailand, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka thousands upon thousands of innocent people were being pounded to death by the violent waves of a Tsunami. And, yes, even here at home some of our friends and relatives were in sick beds, or even death beds.
What are we to make of this? Where is God in all of this? What can our faith say to this?
Various people have asked these kinds of questions, especially in wake of the massive Tsunami. Eric Zorn, columnist for the Chicago Tribune offered his opinions and then collected a massive number of comments from all sorts of places. Kenneth Woodward, religion editor of Newsweektried to give a one-page summary of how major world religions approach the disaster. For a Buddhist in Sri Lanka the Tsunami is an impetus to build up "good karma" for the deceased. For the Muslim in Indonesia it is a test from God and requires patience.,
What about the Christians who were worshipping and had their church swept away? What shall we say on this Epiphany Sunday? What epiphanies, what revelations, what enlightenments might we find in the wake of these deaths?
I have done some searching and reading and praying, but I warn you I have no complete answer to these difficult questions. Nothing easy or simple. Sometimes when we look out on the beautiful countryside around us we like to explain God by repeating the words of Robert Browning
The year’s at the spring
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hillside’s dew-pearled;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn:
God’s in his heaven -
All’s right with the world!
--- Robert Browning, 1812-1889
Those words seem rather empty today. We are not in the glory of springtime. We are in the darkness of winter. Today we could indeed sing the hymn "In the Bleak Mid Winter." In such a time what might we recognize?
1. First we acknowledge the strange, dark presence of God. Not the smiley face God. But the God who formed this world out of chaos. The God who was born in a time of turmoil. The God who was crucified on a cross. Today is Epiphany Sunday, but even on this day we recognize the cross. T.S. Eliot wrote his epiphany poem at the time he turned from agnosticism to faith and was baptized into the Anglican Church. It was entitled "Journey of the Magi."
'A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year For the journey, and such a long journey: The ways deep and the weather sharp, The very dead of winter.' And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory, Lying down in the melting snow. There were times we regretted The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces, And the silken girls bringing sherbet. Then the camel men cursing and grumbling And running away, and wanting their liquor and women, And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters, And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly And the villages dirty and charging high prices: A hard time we had of it. At the end we preferred to travel all night, Sleeping in snatches, With the voices singing in our ears, saying That this was all folly. Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley, Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation; With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness, And three trees on the low sky, And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow. Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel, Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver, And feet kicking the empty wine-skins, But there was no information, and so we continued And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory All this was a long time ago, I remember, And I would do it again, but set down This set down This: were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly, We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death, We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death.
"Three trees on the low sky." This is what the magi saw as they approached the Christ child. We might take those three trees to mean the three crosses on Golgotha and Eliot’s poem a tale about the death each of us faces when we are forced to deal with hard realities like a Tsunami.
2. With such an "epiphany" we Christians struggle with the "God of the Cross" and "God the Omnipotent." How can we worship a God who is both vulnerable and powerful? Critics would tell us that if God is so vulnerable God is no God. They would also tell us that if God is so powerful, then a God who allows Tsunamis is not a good God.
In the face of these contradictions what can people of faith do? We might look back to people of faith who lived many years ago. We might remember Noah, who also experienced a Tsunami of sorts. He, of course, was saved. In the end God made a promise of solidarity with him and set the Rainbow as a symbol of that promise. Job and the Psalmist experienced both tragedy and sorrow. If you read Job or the Psalms you will find open and honest complaining --- and even anger---- against God. Somehow God could take both the complaining and the anger and still be God.
3. Through all of this we also recognize that God calls us to grow in our faith and become more mature in our life. Back in 1755 on All Saints Day a horrible earthquake hit Lisbon, Portugal. 70,000 people died, many of them in church. Before this time people had easily assumed that when bad things happened people deserved it. Why, they asked, did devout Christians in worship die?
No more could people make easy assumptions. Neither can we. We can certainly not ask the same question asked of Jesus about an ill person: "Who sinned?" Rather we must join our Jewish friends who now ask: "How can I help?"
4. This indeed is the question we ask. How can we help the family of Todd Olson? How can we help the newly orphaned children of Asia? On this Epiphany Sunday when we remember the foreigners who came to Jesus, we now think of how we can reach out to foreigners today. We in the United Church of Christ who broadcast "Welcome Commercials" during December are now challenged to reach out in welcome to neighbors just a bit to the north and neighbors across the Indian Ocean.
The challenge to reach across boundaries. This is the challenge of Epiphany and the challenge of Tsunami. There is some good news. We read about how all sorts of nations and organizations are now working together to help. There is even the hope that governments in Indonesia and Sri Lanka will be able to work with rebel groups in those countries to simply help their people. We pray that out of this horrible situation may come some good. Even when we confess that we do not really understand the ways of God in this world.
5. In the midst of these thoughts and actions, we recognize an Epiphany Truth. God upends our expectations and disrupts our lives. Some searchers for Truth (known as magi to some and wise men to others) had their lives disrupted by a journey following a star. People both close to us and far away from us have had their lives disrupted by violent Death. Now the survivors must rebuild and live again.
It is not easy. Just yesterday I was reading an article about Rwanda and the horrible massacre which took place there ten years ago. Today churches and civic organizations are reestablishing themselves. But they also cannot erase the terrible memories of neighbor killing neighbor, church member killing church member, in-law killing in-law. Yet they rebuild and they try to forgive.
Today on this Epiphany Sunday we recognize the devastation that human beings can visit upon one another, but we are even more disturbed by the horror that a beautiful seaside can experience at the hands of a mighty wave created from the bowels of what we call "God’s Good Earth."
With the wise ones of old we are stretched in our understanding and acceptance of this world and this God. Powerful creator of this earth. Vulnerable savior of this earth. Come to us in a helpless infant. Crucified on a cross and yet risen to glory. On this Epiphany Sunday this is how we worship.
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But our hearts cry out to God! Not with the arithmetic of blame. Not to sustain the precious structures of our theoretical constructions of divinity. Not because we think God sends tsunamis. We don't. But because God is our way of speaking of the very depth of being and God is compassionately engaged and knows us. Of course, this is like poetry and far from adequate or accurate. But we want to cry out to God and cry out with God. We want to believe that God is not disinterested. It is a conversation of the soul, our deep inner being. O God, hear our grief! O God, help these people! (William Loader)
