Look at that Star!

A sermon delivered at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation (Blacksburg, VA), January 6, 2008, by the Reverend Christine Brownlie.

When I was in my mid-twenties, I worked for Visiting Nurse Service of New York as a social worker. I served the communities on the Upper East Side of Manhattan that included an area we called “Spanish Harlem.” At that time, most of the people who lived in this neighborhood were Puerto Rican, and they brought their special customs and holidays with them to this country. I had come to know some of the staff of the neighborhood house in this community and this was how I came to be invited to my first Three Kings Day program. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this feast day, it marks the arrival of the Three Kings (or Magi or Wise Men) at the birth site of Jesus.

I will never forget the moment when I opened the door to the party room. A fast moving stream of kids circled the room while trying to dodge the clusters of adults and strollers. A red yellow and while star piñata hung from the ceiling and a few boys stood underneath jumping up and down, trying to swat it with their up-stretched hand, each one announcing that he would be the one to break the toy and release the goodies inside.

One of the staff came over to welcome me, and soon I was sitting with a group of women who chattered back and forth in Spanish and English. We enjoyed the excitement and joy of the children who were waiting for the three kings to arrive and hand out their small gifts. Then the piñata would be demolished, and the children would dive for the candy and other surprises. I thought, “What a wonderful way to end the holiday season!”

In my own family, Epiphany was the day to put away the last of holiday decorations and dispose of the now slightly stale holiday cookies by eating as many as we could. My mother’s parents were Russian Orthodox, and as we packed away the nativities and angels and snowmen, she might share some of the holiday customs of her childhood. Her accounts told of going to long church services and the priest coming to bless the home by tossing grain and some hay into the corners of the house. In the Orthodox tradition, Epiphany celebrated Jesus’ baptism and the revelation of his divinity by the appearance of a dove and the voice from “heaven” that said, “This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased.” In my family, there were no special foods or gifts on this day. Instead there was a sense that the fun was all over and we were now returning to “real life.” If there was a prayer for this day, it was, “Thank God that’s over!”

Even though my family didn’t make much of Epiphany, the figures of the Three Kings have been intriguing to me since early childhood. I was drawn to this mysterious trio of men who came a long way following a star, to find a new king. As I was reading about the various traditions regarding the Kings, I was surprised to learn that at one time the story had 12 kings, possibly to represent the 12 tribes of Israel. The author of the gospel of Matthew, the only one of the four gospels that includes these royal visitors, has three kings and three exotic gifts. Some scholars say that the kings represent the non-Jewish or gentile world and the diversity of that world. Their gifts were symbolic too: gold to represent Christ’s Kingship, incense his divinity, and myrrh his suffering and death. Eventually the kings were given names, Melchior, Balthazar, and Gaspar (who was thought to be a dark-skinned African).

The star that led the three to the site of Jesus’ birth was just as fascinating. I wondered how anyone could follow a star, and how a star might come to rest above something as small as a stable without incinerating it and the surrounding neighborhood. I became aware of a more complex problem when I attended a Christmas planetarium show with my middle school youth group. The show was called something like “The Christmas Sky.” The narrator of the show explained the concept of light years and the implications that this had for the biblical star, which made this celestial sign even less believable. Oh dear, I thought first Santa Claus, then the Easter Bunny, and now the Wise Men’s Star. What’s next: God??

Even if we don’t believe in the star as an actual celestial herald of Jesus’ birth or the actual journey of the kings to present their gifts to the newborn king of the Jews, the word “epiphany” has meaning for us in everyday speech: If we say we’ve had an epiphany, we are describing a revelation, a surprise, or an illuminating discovery that reveals the true nature of something. In Matthew’s account the Kings find a newborn king in the lowliest place imaginable — a feeding trough, yet they recognize his divine nature and give him gifts of great worth and meaning.

I suspect that we’ve all experienced moments of epiphany from the momentous (That’s the person I’m going to marry or I hate my job and I’m going to quit) to the challenging (I have got to stop eating, drinking, spending, so much), to the inevitable (Oh no ! I look like my grandmother!!) These moments of revelation that awaken us to the true nature of our lives and who we are, can bring us life-changing decisions. And as it was for the Three Kings, we begin a journey that will take to an unknown destination.

I suspect that many of us who were raised with the story of the Christian scriptures have experienced epiphanies that led us away from the traditional teachings about Jesus and who or what he was. At some point we realized that we no longer believed that Jesus was divine. He may have been a great prophet or teacher, but he wasn’t what the Nicene Creed said he was:

“. . .the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.”

Maybe all our ideas about God changed too. We no longer believed in the traditional theological statements that described God as an Omniscient, Omni-present, All Powerful and Good divinity who could and would make things happen in our lives if we but asked. With this loss of our traditional faith, the foundation of our personal theological house was weakened. Eventually the whole house came down with a crash. We lost our confidence in the teachings of our childhood faith and began to question our beliefs and the practices that we’d been taught and which reinforced those beliefs. Rituals like communion, prayers uttered in Jesus name, and even our favorite hymns became difficult if not meaningless. We found that we could no longer participate in the services with a sense of integrity and so we left the synagogue, mosque, or church. There were no longer any mysterious stars in the sky for us to follow through this desert. This may have been a moment of great liberation, leading us to a period of exploration that helped us find a home for our restless spirit and mind. Or it may have been a time of feeling bereft and alienated from a community that once was very important to us.

For some, of us this epiphany brought about a strange combination of emotions. We were relieved to be free from the requirement that we believe the ideas and theological claims of our childhood faith. We were glad not to participate in rituals that felt empty or to sing hymns that include words that now seemed foolish. But even as were happy to have left the old ways behind us, we became aware of feelings and ideas, intuitions and longings that we could not express. Even as adults, some of us long for something that we can’t quite name because the words that come to us are the old religious words that we’d rejected. And we are done, done, done with those!

This predicament can be frustrating, painful, and very difficult to solve. Every now and then someone who has attended our services for a while will tell me that they wish we were “more spiritual.” It is obvious that this desire is sincere and deeply felt, but when I ask for suggestions, the answer is often “I don’t know, but something is missing for me.”

When I reflect on this troubling problem, I wonder if one reason for our inability to find the words we need is that some of us are still tightly locked into old definitions and ideas that are too small and too rigid. Prayer can only mean asking the big guy in the sky to do something for us. God can only mean what I was taught when I was seven years old. Jesus can only be the savior my friends tormented me with when I was in middle school. And real Unitarian Universalist church services speak only to our intellects, not our emotions, or to our “spiritual side.” It seems to me that when it comes to theological language, we’ve built ourselves a pretty small box and nailed the lid down tight. But we can’t seem to find good substitutes that help us address our very real and very human needs for expression of what we might call “the sacred” or “the holy” in life.

I have a hope that this is changing for us, and this hope is leading me to real excitement over the potential for growth in our shared life as a congregation. Over the past few weeks it seems to me that some of us are beginning to loosen up and expand our comfort level with some new ideas and ways of sharing experiences in our Sunday Services.

An example that comes to my mind is the strong participation in the lovely solstice service that our WomenSpirit group offered a couple of weeks ago. Many of you attended even if you weren’t sure about what the service would ask of you. This service included ritual, invocations, and movement; elements that we don’t use very often. Despite the newness and even the feeling of strangeness that some of us experienced, I felt that there was also a willingness to participate in good faith. This service led some of us to an epiphany. We liked this way of worship. It was a refreshing change and it brought us together in a new way.

This response was a source of an epiphany for me as well. It showed me that we can be more adventurous in our Sunday Services, and I’m already dreaming of the possibilities that our new space will allow.

I want to share a personal experience with you as another example of how something that was once rejected became meaningful again. Over the past few months, I’ve had an epiphany about the practice of prayer. I realize that for some of us, that very word sends our blood pressure soaring. So let me tell you how I’ve come to see this practice.

Many years ago, I set aside the notion that I could use prayer to persuade God to do something I wanted done. I no longer pray for nice weather for a picnic, or that my son’s band will have a safe journey when they’re on tour. But this doesn’t mean that I no longer pray.

I’ve come to a very different understanding of prayer, and that is as a way to awaken the positive elements that are hidden within me. Carl Jung taught that the unconscious mind holds potentials (both positive and negative) and abilities that we either are not aware of or that we block because of emotionally painful experiences we have repressed. Jung claimed that the practice of prayer could help us awaken these blocked potentials and bring them into conscious expression. To put this in a traditional Unitarian theological framework, prayer can awaken the divine seed within us, leading us to awareness and personal change.

Let me offer you an example.

After the tragic violence in our community last April, I found that I was consumed by a deep longing to find ways to bring healing and peace to our community and to the world at large, but I couldn’t find any outlet for this desire.

After weeks of contemplation, I decided to make prayer flags based on the ancient prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi. After spending time with this prayer I made some changes in the wording so that it was a better reflection of my beliefs and values:

O Love, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;

Spirit of Life, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled
as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in serving others that we are born to eternal life.

With the help of Bonnie Moreno, I made my flags. For several months these flags hung over my deck, and I could see them from the window in my study. Every time I saw the flags, I was reminded of my desire to find a way to be an instrument of peace. I often used the words of the prayer as a part of my meditation practice.

Over time, I noticed that I was becoming a more peaceful person. I was less eager to force my opinions on others. I was less frustrated when something didn’t turn out as I wanted. I was more able to listen to others if they were unhappy about something that I had done. Not that I never felt anger or frustration or resentment, but these feelings were becoming softer, quieter.

I believe that my prayer is being realized, not by a divine being that is forcing something upon me, but by an awakening of something within me that is being called out by this prayer. I feel that I am gradually becoming an instrument of the transcendent and self-giving spirit of love that all religions revere.

I would encourage you to enter into this New Year with a willingness to be open to those unexpected moments of revelation that will allow you to recognize the truths about your life and the potentials and longings that are buried within you. If you are longing for a renewed and richer spiritual life, then perhaps you can reconsider some of the old practices that awakened your sense of connection to what you now call “the spiritual” or “the sacred” in life. Perhaps with some thought and some experiments, you can find ways to utilize those practices again in a way that is authentic to you. My hope on this first Sunday of the year is that the epiphanies that will come will bring us to new truths that will help us live more fully and more joyfully.

May it be so.