“The heart is tired at Bethlehem, no human dream unbroken stands, yet here God comes to mortal hands, and hope renewed cries out “Amen!” The words of Royce Scherf. “Here God comes to mortal hands.” I’ve been thinking about Epiphany and epiphanies. The Christian Feast of Epiphany takes place this coming Tuesday. A quick review: In Christian tradition this feast celebrates the "shining forth" of God in human form, in this case in Jesus Christ. Western Christians use the Feast of Epiphany to commemorate the visit of the three wise men to Bethlehem bearing gifts to the baby Jesus on the twelfth day of Christmas. Eastern Christians use it to commemorate the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River. In either version of the tradition, the Christian Feast of Epiphany celebrates the manifestation or revelation of God in human form to the world. “Here God comes to mortal hands.”
When I say I’m thinking about Epiphany, I’m really not thinking about the Christian feast per se. I’m thinking more broadly about the phenomenon of human encounter with the sacred. “Here God comes to mortal hands.” One of the central features of any religion is the way it names, describes, mediates, negotiates, facilitates or dictates an individual’s or a community’s encounter with the sacred. The stories Christians recall during the Feast of Epiphany name and describe a human encounter with the sacred. I want to use the Feast of Epiphany in the Christian calendar as a springboard for us to contemplate for ourselves and for Unitarian Universalism, what is our encounter with the sacred? Or what are the conditions that make possible our encounter with the sacred? I don’t expect to answer these questions in the next fifteen minutes. I expect us to seek answers to them through the course of our ministry together.
Let’s not take these questions lightly. I think there are many reasons why people join religious organizations and why people come specifically to Unitarian Universalist congregations. We come for community. We come for religious education for ourselves and our children. We come for opportunities to engage in social justice work, environmental activism and service to those in need in the larger community. We come for the freedom of belief and the interplay of ideas. We come for the music. We come to know and be known. All of this is important. But none of it, in my view, is as important as identifying—as individuals and as a collective—what is sacred to us; and not simply naming and describing what is sacred, but encountering it; experiencing it; praising it; orienting our lives towards it; coming into it and having it come into us. One might say that an actively religious person is one who willingly puts themselves into settings and situations—like church or temple or mosque or mountain-top or beach—that open them up to epiphanies—the shining forth of the sacred—that enable them to ask constantly their own version of the questions, how does God come to mortal hands, how do mortal hands come to God?
It may be that we Unitarian Universalists have difficulty wrapping our hearts and minds around any story of epiphany from any of the world’s religions—divine children, avatars, burning bushes, bodhisattvas, Elijahs; it may be that we can’t or won’t accept stories of ancient, miraculous happenings; it may be that we can’t or won’t accept fantastic, otherworldly theologies; it may be that we can’t or won’t accept the so-called moral values that attach themselves to those theologies; it may be that we don’t believe in God or in the notion of divinity separate and distinct from the physical world—it may be, it may be, it may be—none of these may bes absolve us from the work of asking what is sacred to us and seeking encounters with it.
In fact, it seems to me that our search for answers to questions about what is sacred is what gives life to all the other reasons we have for being part of a religious community. Or, we may discover that all the other reasons we have for being part of a religious community are avenues to answering these questions. Beneath our participation in community is a search for sacredness. Beneath our pursuit of religious education is a search for sacredness. Beneath our desire to serve and to work for justice is a search for sacredness. Beneath our appreciation of a religious institution that values freedom of belief and conscience and the quest for truth is a search for sacredness. Beneath our love of music in worship is a search for sacredness. Beneath our desire and our longing to know and to be known is a search for sacredness. The search can difficult, painful, joyous, challenging, blissful, strenuous, probing, uncomfortable, comforting, soul-searching work—indeed it is all these things and more. For me it continues to be the most essential reason human beings gather together in religious communities, and the most essential reason we gather together as Unitarian Universalists. How does God come to mortal hands? How do mortal hands come to God?
I recently completed the first sabbatical of my career. In fact this morning is the moment at which I can no longer say “I am on sabbatical.” I don’t know that I have adequate words to express my deep and heart-felt gratitude to you and to all the members and friends of UUS:E for the blessing of this sabbatical. Certainly Stephany, Mason and Max thank you as well, because having me around on a far more regular basis—and, for me, being around them on a far more regular basis—was unspeakably wonderful. Though “thank you” doesn’t seem to say it, “thank you, thank you, thank you!” I think there are many reasons why ministers and congregations grow to love one another. I did not anticipate this four months ago, and no colleague told me it would happen, but for me, receiving the gift of a sabbatical has deepened my love for UUS:E and for all of you.
As many of you know I used my sabbatical time to begin writing a novel. I’m not going to talk about what I wrote now. I’m in the midst of editing some sample pages I will share in the near future with anyone who is interested. For now, what feels important to share is that there were some moments during the sabbatical when I really missed being here. Do you remember the first Friday in October, when the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that barring same gender loving people from the right to marry is unconstitutional?
Do you remember the second Tuesday in November? I’m going to speak more about the election of Barak Obama to the presidency in two weeks, but I really missed being here. You Betcha!
There was a moment in late September, maybe early October when the stock market began nose-diving. Fanny Mae, Freddy Mac, AIG and Washington Mutual; huge problems at The Hartford closer to home; bailouts; the $750 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program; home foreclosures; and rising unemployment across the nation. There’s a role for the minister to play in times like this. People may be seeing their incomes decline or losing their jobs, watching retirement money disappear, losing their homes. If it’s not happening to us directly, it’s happening to people we know. There’s a lot of pain, anxiety and fear in the larger culture and we are not immune to it. I missed being here. It still may get worse before it gets better, and I’d rather be here than not.
Through the entire fall you contemplated together moving forward with our building expansion. In early November you voted overwhelmingly in favor of doing so. I know the vote wasn’t unanimous. I know there are some concerns over whether we can really generate the money we need in our budget to be successful. But I understand members are looking at the project with a very positive, hopeful attitude. I love that spirit at UUS:E.
But in the end, what I missed most about ministry at UUS:E comes back to that definition of religious community I suggested earlier. One of the central features of any religion is the way it names, describes, mediates, negotiates, facilitates or dictates an individual’s or a community’s encounter with the sacred. An actively religious person is one who willingly puts themselves into settings and situations—like church or temple or mosque or mountain-top or beach—that open them up to epiphanies—settings and situations in which the sacred shines forth—settings and situations that enable them to ask constantly their own version of the questions, how does God come to mortal hands, how do mortal hands come to God? What is sacred in my life and how do I make it central in my life no matter what challenges I face? This is what I missed most during my sabbatical, and this is what I look forward to most as I return to ministry at UUS:E.
I want to be—and I want us as a religious community to be—on that edge Howard Thurman calls the “Growing Edge” in the meditation we heard earlier. “Look well to the growing edge,” he says. “All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born; all around us life is dying and life is being born. The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth against the time when there shall be new leaves, fresh blossoms, green fruit. Such is the growing edge…! This is the basis of hope in moments of despair, the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint and men have lost their reason, the source of confidence when worlds crash and dreams whiten into ash.”1 To be on the growing edge: for me it’s another way of saying “Make yourself ready for epiphany! Be willing to put yourself into settings and situations where the sacred may shine forth! For this is where we find solace, inspiration and hope in a troubled world!
I read Barbara Schmitz’s poem, “September 17, 2001,” in a similar way. She begins with fear—understanding fear—and the deep instinct toward for self-preservation. “What have I learned? When someone announces there’s been a disaster, and you can leave or stay, “Run, run, run for your life.”2
We often shy away from our spiritual and theological truths, in part because we don’t want to repeat the atrocities that have been committed in the name of religious truth over the centuries. But let me, and let us, move beyond this fear so that our spiritual lives may flourish. I said earlier that an actively religious person is one who willingly puts themselves into settings and situations—like church or temple or mosque or mountain-top or beach—or perhaps writing, dancing, stretching, singing, drumming, praying, chanting, meditating—anything that opens them up to epiphanies—the shining forth of the sacred—anything that enables them to ask constantly their own version of the questions, how does God come to mortal hands, how do mortal hands come to God.
9/11- a struggle between two opposing epiphanies
But she doesn’t stay in that place of fear. She watches. She bears witness. She arrives at a way of living which I believe opens her up to epiphany: “What have I learned? To live well. To live deep. Drink beauty, eat life. Look, look, look, and see. What have I learned? To do what I do . . . With perfection. With joy. Be kind.”3
I entered into this project with the assumption that writing a novel would give me a new, differently creative way of expressing myself spiritually and theologically—a method radically distinct from the sermon and the monthly newsletter column. I suppose that assumption is still valid, but I didn’t really get there. I haven’t yet developed a character to the point where he or she expresses the spiritual and theological message I assumed this novel would express. I think it will happen if I keep working at it, but as of yet there has been no shining forth, no manifestation, no revelation, no God coming to mortal hands, no mortal hands coming to god, no epiphany. And I meditate on this and wonder, “Why is that?” “Why can I not get God to come to these fictional mortal hands? The world—their fictional world—but our real world too—is full of the Sacred, so why can’t they see it, touch it, hear it, smell it, taste it, feel it? And the answer that comes screaming back from my meditation is that I haven’t yet written an epiphany, I haven’t yet written a “shining forth,” because I haven’t yet found the words to express it in such a way that it seems real, plausible, credible to me. I haven’t yet found the words to say it in such a way that I believe it. So my characters stand at the edge of a dark and ominous-looking forest that borders the lands they farm and which they are prohibited from entering; they peer into it sensing there is some truth to be discovered, but it eludes them.
I have to laugh because there’s a piece of this problem, this dilemma, which seems so classically and typically Unitarian Universalist. We are so often wary of pronouncing anything to be true in spiritual and theological terms because we observe that truth, once pronounced in a religious setting, so easily and so often becomes a way to divide people, to say who is in and who is out, who is saved and who is damned. Truth, once pronounced in a religious setting, so easily and so often guides human beings in discerning whom to love and whom to hate, whom to welcome and whom to persecute, whom to protect and whom to kill. With this in mind, epiphany—the theological and spiritual sort—the “divine child” sort—the sort that justifies a religious world-view—can be very dangerous. So no wonder I wasn’t able to have one in a fictional world after writing for four months!
I think this trap I ran into in writing is the same trap we run into in our spiritual lives.
Encouraged by Growing Number of Religious Leaders Speaking in Support of LGBT Rights
12/12/2008
WASHINGTON - After three decades of work on behalf of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), Rev. Richard Cizik was forced to resign Thursday after a radio interview on NPR’s “Fresh Air” in which he asserted his support for civil unions for gay and lesbian couples. In response to his forced resignation, the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization issued a statement from Harry Knox, the director of the organization’s Religion and Faith Program.
"This week the National Association of Evangelicals lost a good man but even worse it lost credibility as a religious organization that professes to teach the Gospel. Our faith traditions call on us to celebrate, not denounce, our most sacred loving relationships," stated Harry Knox, director of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Religion and Faith Program. “Jesus calls on us first and foremost to love God and love our neighbor. We are encouraged by the growing number of religious leaders such as Rev. Richard Cizik who are looking with fresh eyes at Scripture’s requirement and wrestling with what justice for their lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender neighbors means.”
Knox states further, “Perhaps most disturbing about the NAE’s decision is that it makes no room for its leaders to grow in their belief. If the NAE won’t allow one of its most renowned and celebrated members to wrestle with Scripture and grow in relationship to God then it is doing nothing more than making an idol of tradition and sacrificing their lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender neighbors before it. When Rev. Cizik spoke publically about his shifting position on lesbian and gay relationships he was speaking as a man of God. He let other Evangelical Christians know that the word of God is larger than our preconceptions and prejudices.”
Younger Evangelicals are overwhelmingly standing in support of equality and fairness. An October 2008 poll taken by the Faith and American Politics Survey, conducted by Public Religion Research, shows that among young evangelicals, 52% either support marriage equality or civil unions.
1 Thurman, Howard in Fluker & Tumber, eds., “The Growing Edge,” in A Strange Freedom: The Best of Howard Thurman on religious Experience and Public Life (Boston: Beacon Press, 1998) p. 305.
2 Schmitz, Barbara, “September 17, 2001,” in Piper, Mary, Writing to Change the World (New York: Riverhead Books, 2006) pp. 230-231.
3 Ibid., p. 231.
