epiphany and the Grateful Dead

 Chris Jewell's sermon from 1/6/13

“And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road”

“Sometimes the lights all shinin’ on me, sometimes I can barely see, lately it occurs to me what a long strange trip it’s been”

That line from the Grateful Dead describes the human spiritual journey pretty well—all the elements are there, light, blindness, mystery. I like to imagine the Magi singing this as they ride through the desert in the middle of the night.

These days it can often seem as if we are out in the middle of a spiritual desert. Where is the depth?—everywhere we turn we encounter the crisis of meaning. Why? Why is there so much of this? Why all the bad news…mass shootings…children hooked on prescription drugs…Washington gangsters…Wall St. gangsters…the blind leading the blind…all this scheming and resisting…we have placed a crown on that part of ourselves that craves power and position. We bow down before our king. In King Herod we can recognize that part of the human psyche which resists love in the name of power and control; that which fears going beyond the known, which is our own self-centered pattern. Herod is the human being fearful of losing what he or she has, Herod is the past, Herod is self-indulgence, and he is that which wants material security and power. Herod is the ego that just won’t let go of what it possesses…

The Magi come from far and wide; they are those that will seriously look toward and into truth, those that will follow a star, they are paying attention, they are answering the call—they are journeying toward an encounter with the divine. In them we can recognize the distant call of every human being to an encounter with the divine.  I am reminded of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s thoughts on costly grace. He writes, “Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a person must knock”. This call to follow is costly because it costs someone their life, their current way of life—like all calls from the divine it asks us to let go. And it is grace because it asks us to follow the Christ.  It is costly grace that we find in the story of the Magi—the old way is closed off for them—they are warned in a dream not to return to Herod—so they have to go down a different road—they are forever changed.

A few days ago I had a conversation with a friend of mine who went through major changes last year—he went on a real journey—he now says he realizes that it all began when he started really paying attention to his life—and it cost him dearly.  I recalled that at the time you could see he was off balance, that the ground of his personality seemed to be shifting—and just like in an earthquake, there was a building coming down. He was in an unhealthy marriage, and he drank too much. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he had obviously lost weight.  He said he had, at one time, given all, or at least most of him-self to the marriage and there was a side of himself that wanted to hold on to it. And it wasn’t just his marriage-- he would sit at his desk at work and realize he was going to die having spent too much of his life in a job that he hated all so he could have—have--have—possess—possess—possess—but he didn’t know if he had the guts to quit. He was conflicted, and he was scared. Not long before this He had thought his career and marriage were fine—all he wanted so to speak. But he was realizing that there was something else stirring deep down, calling on him to look, to pay attention— he didn’t know who he was anymore---he just felt anxious, angry, and depressed all the time. If he didn’t let go—he would never answer the call—he would never follow the star. He found himself reading books on religion--Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity. He even signed up for a meditation workshop at the Zen Center.  He quit smoking and drinking, and started working out. He began having experiences—seeing more clearly--what he described as light bursting through the blinds—and he slowly began surrendering, releasing--letting go. He and his wife separated, and he quit his job for a much lower paying one—so he could have time to go back to school. When I saw him a few days ago he seemed different—happy, more at peace than I had ever seen him. God’s grace comes in the midst of our lives—often in the middle of the darkest hour—the wholeness discovered under the break-up, the birth in the death, the treasure hidden in the field, the divine child born at midnight, the light bursting through the blinds.

 In our epistle lesson this morning, we hear of an epiphany, of a grace that is costly and that demands surrender. The author reminds us of the dramatic change Paul went through due to his experience of Christ. And the non-Jewish audience that the letter is addressed to is undergoing a radical transformation of their social and personal identities. The theme of letting go is all over the letter—Paul surrendering his old self, and the community letting go of their former ways. Most significantly, through the grace of God and all of this letting go the human community is reunited with the divine in the love of Christ.

When we look at just about any of the great stories in the bible we see they are about the development, the growth, of love—the divine’s love for us—“for God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son”—in these lines we find a great truth—that love is the drive that overcomes estrangement

In Matthew the Magi represent all of us—all of humanity having an encounter with the Incarnated God—this is a love story—because it is a reunion of the previously separated. And just like in all the best love stories, that which seeks to divide lover from beloved, must be overcome, transcended, transformed. When I was 30 my sister had her first child—and my first niece. At the time I was going through a lot of changes—I knew I had been living a very self-centered life---I was looking to change but I was still fearfully, tightly, holding on to old ways. I found myself sitting in libraries reading books on theology, mysticism, Shakespeare, in short I was searching for something, what that was I didn’t know. In late November 1999 and I drove through a snowstorm into Rochester to see my sister and my niece. I walked up to a glass case and stared down at this tiny, mysteriously beautiful face that I somehow felt I had seen before—and something changed—the world became bigger—more alive—because I was a part of it in a way I hadn’t been before. There was a mysterious dimension of experience shining through her. Epiphanies are like that, they catch you off guard, throw you off balance. You can’t plan for them—but you have to be open to them, you have to be able to receive them. And I have come to realize, they always call on you to change. I’m not sure I was aware of it at the time, but I went home a different person—I went home a different way—the old way having been closed off to me, the guy that I had been was gone—lost—transformed. Something changed that day, and it cost me something—my old life and it’s easy answers. Shining through her face was Grace—an infusion of love, a shot of love poured into the world… if we follow the star, if we pay attention, if we let go, this long strange trip of ours will have those moments when we realize it’s the face of the Christ child we’ve been staring into all along. Are you willing to go down a different road? Let It Be So.