The purpose of this brief essay is to help me clarify my thinking on Epiphany. This coming week-end we will celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, so to that end I must write a meditative note for the bulletin on Epiphany, and prepare to preach four homilies in four faith communities on the same feast. I write now to clarify my thinking before writing and preaching, and, if possible, to offer something to parishioners who want to understand what Epiphany is about.
As often, I feel a need to begin by removing a misunderstanding, or negating a common approach to a matter of faith. It seems that the usual approach to the Feast of the Epiphany is to think of it as a kind of remembering of an historical event: calling to mind that “the wise men” visited the infant Jesus (or the two-year old child, as in Matthew’s Gospel), and offered him “gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.” Not only do I see this approach to Epiphany to be fundamentally mistaken, but it exemplifies a common and long-standing problem throughout Christian churches: to treat symbols of faith as historical events or as “facts.” One could call this approach historical-literal, as long as one understands that “historical” here does not mean what in reality occurred at a time in the past, but what is believed to have happened, a sort of mythical “history” which has formed peoples’ consciousness over the centuries.
Let us make the preceding points more explicit, for in doing so we are making a first approach to Epiphany.
What everyday Christians ten or five centuries ago would have believed was the meaning of the Feast of Epiphany, I do not know. Perhaps for centuries many Christians have taken the narrative in Matthew’s Gospel literally, and focused on “the coming of the Magi,” of the “fact” that “three kings” or three astrologers or three men who observed the stars as the “event” being celebrated on this feast day. In truth, I do not know what Christians centuries ago made of this feast. But in popular Christianity in which most of us were raised, the “three Magi” have been treated as “kings” or as “astrologers,” and their gifts were understood either literally, or perhaps as pointing to three truths about Jesus Christ of Nazareth: that he was “the new-born King of the Jews,” that he is “Son of God,” and that he was born to die for us.” The well-known hymn, “We three Kings,” brings out these meanings of the gifts. Underneath such an approach is the fact that the traditional Gospel reading for the Feast of the Epiphany is the story of the “three Magi” who “follow a star,” an account found only in Matthew’s Gospel. What occurs without thinking through what one believes and why is the experience one encounters repeatedly in the churches: stories intended to communicate a living faith become “factualized,” taken as real events in actual history, and then just “believed” as “real.” And that is that. In other words, inner or spiritual meaning yields to the much less demanding action of taking a story literally as “historical,” and then more or less not thinking about what the story actually was intended to mean or to effect in the hearer. It is ever easier and “more comforting” simply and passively to “believe” something as true than to ask questions, and to think about what is tempted simply “to believe.”
What questions? What questions ought one ask in approaching the Feast of the Epiphany? Because Matthew’s brief story of the Magi is read, one needs to wonder: What is the Gospel writing saying? Does he intend his narrative to be factual or actual, or is he presenting spiritual meanings under the form of a story? And whether or not Matthew expects the reader of the Gospel to believe that the events “actually happened,” so what? What is the meaning of the narration? What is this evangelist really trying to communicate in writing this story? That is one set of questions. But another set is more fundamental: What is the Epiphany all about? As “Epiphany” means “Manifestation,” what is being manifested, and to whom? If “the Epiphany” was to “the wise men” (Magi) of old, what does that mean here and now for us? Or again, what is the nature of the light to which the Magi are drawn? Who manifests what to these three journeying men? What is shown, what do they see, how do they respond? And what if any “epiphanies” happen in our lives? Is there a process in the soul of every man that is being symbolically presented in the story of the Magi? Do these travelers who come to Christ symbolize all Christians, or all human beings, or perhaps all who come to the light of God-with-us, Emmanuel? Here and now, what is being manifested, by God, to every human being? What is the light shining into the darkness of human hearts that causes rejoicing, that leads one to worship “the true and living God?” What has been manifested, what is being manifested? Do we see, or turn away, or ignore what is manifested?
***
The question or concern that rattles around in my mind now is this: How does one say anything on the Feast of the Epiphany without provoking the anger of historical-literal believers, who want to just believe a story as “true” without thinking about it? Explicitly, if I were to mention that the narrated events were intended to be symbolic, and not taken as (and dismissed as) “really happening,” how would people react? Why is it that at least some people in the pews--of any church, of any denomination--want to take symbols of faith literally? Is it simply routine, and what one is accustomed to doing? Or is it perhaps grounded in a kind of spiritual lethargy and passivity that is one of the hallmarks of our time? Is it not easier just to hear a story, and nod, and even nod off to sleep, rather than to think, “What does this mean? Have I come into the light, or am I wandering in darkness?” The very question would be the beginning of a real epiphany, I would think: the realization that one does not know what one ought to know, and that one has falsely assumed that he or she already “believed” and understood what they were believing. It is always dangerous to awaken a sleeping tiger, or even to light a match when folks want to remain in the sleep of mere belief.
Perhaps celebrating the Feast of Epiphany ought to lead one to an epiphany or to a number of epiphanies: “I thought I knew Christ, but I have buried him in the tomb of mere belief, of literalistic “faith,” of a mind that presumes it has found rather than one on a journey.” Or more simply, “I do not know what I thought I knew well.” And again, “Perhaps I have not had a living faith as much as a stale, stagnant, unquestioning `Christian belief.’”
The Magi in the story are searchers who “come to the light,” who come to Christ: they do not remain in their former state of religious belief and familiarity and warm, cozy comfort. As characters in the story, they journeyed into darkness, led only by a weak and distant light, over which they had no control. In this sense, they were like St. John of the Cross, perhaps: “Without other light or guide, than that which in the heart was burning.”
The light of faith always requires a leaving, and hence a dying. By faith one journeys from the familiar lights of oneself and one’s experience and past into what at first appears to be the darkness of unknowing. In the story, the Magi had to fare forward, had to leave home and family, religious practices and beliefs. They were beckoned and led on by a light they did not know, towards the source of light they could not see. It was a real journey, “costing nothing less than everything.”
Epiphany is a feast of faith as coming into light. We are not given stars to follow, or stories to believe and not to live, but symbols to provoke wonder, awe, questions. The Magi are symbols of Everyman on a journey into God. That they know that it is nothing less than the Divine whom they seek is manifested by the gifts they bear. They carry with them gifts as befits God-with-us-in-Christ. And they know that their own death is the cost,that the myrrh they carry is not only prefiguring the death of Christ, but their own death if they choose to live in Christ. To the extent that one comes into the light of the Divine Mind, how does one return to the comforting beliefs of one’s past? T. S. Eliot was surely correct when he had the Magi realize that “our death” was the cost of the Epiphany, and that once the light is seen for what it is, one cannot return to one’s former land or life, clutching alien gods.
***
It remains to apply something of these thoughts to myself, and through me, to the reader. The thought occurs, “What about you, little man?” What am I doing to come to the light, to live in the light?
The light of faith is lived in two ways, I believe: by the “acts of will” that constitute love or charity; and by acts of understanding that constitute the life of the mind. We must love what we seek and seek what we love. So easily said, so difficult to do.
There is something about Christian faith, or any religious belief,that it wants to remain asleep, to be mere belief without the ongoing scrutiny of self-examination, of repentance and return to the light, of seeking the truth of reality regardless of the cost to one personally. There is something about the human mind that it wants to grab what it glimpses, and abide in possession, rather than constantly move out of itself into the Other that we call God. There is something about the human heart that induces it to love the familiar and comfortable rather than to undergo the long, painful journey towards the real light.
Epiphany in the churches is a chance to celebrate the gift of faith. But the danger here is that the gift is seen as something given and received and then possessed, and not as something that one must ever receive afresh. More to the point, faith is seen as a kind of knowing, when in reality it is an awareness that one does not know as one ought to know, especially regarding the truth of God. Faith that is real must ever be awake, alive, searching, journeying, letting go, faring forward. With hope and love, faith seeks God for God, for oneself, and for something worthy to give to others.
Faith that is not seeking is not faith. Love that is not desiring to give is not love.
As often, I feel a need to begin by removing a misunderstanding, or negating a common approach to a matter of faith. It seems that the usual approach to the Feast of the Epiphany is to think of it as a kind of remembering of an historical event: calling to mind that “the wise men” visited the infant Jesus (or the two-year old child, as in Matthew’s Gospel), and offered him “gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.” Not only do I see this approach to Epiphany to be fundamentally mistaken, but it exemplifies a common and long-standing problem throughout Christian churches: to treat symbols of faith as historical events or as “facts.” One could call this approach historical-literal, as long as one understands that “historical” here does not mean what in reality occurred at a time in the past, but what is believed to have happened, a sort of mythical “history” which has formed peoples’ consciousness over the centuries.
Let us make the preceding points more explicit, for in doing so we are making a first approach to Epiphany.
What everyday Christians ten or five centuries ago would have believed was the meaning of the Feast of Epiphany, I do not know. Perhaps for centuries many Christians have taken the narrative in Matthew’s Gospel literally, and focused on “the coming of the Magi,” of the “fact” that “three kings” or three astrologers or three men who observed the stars as the “event” being celebrated on this feast day. In truth, I do not know what Christians centuries ago made of this feast. But in popular Christianity in which most of us were raised, the “three Magi” have been treated as “kings” or as “astrologers,” and their gifts were understood either literally, or perhaps as pointing to three truths about Jesus Christ of Nazareth: that he was “the new-born King of the Jews,” that he is “Son of God,” and that he was born to die for us.” The well-known hymn, “We three Kings,” brings out these meanings of the gifts. Underneath such an approach is the fact that the traditional Gospel reading for the Feast of the Epiphany is the story of the “three Magi” who “follow a star,” an account found only in Matthew’s Gospel. What occurs without thinking through what one believes and why is the experience one encounters repeatedly in the churches: stories intended to communicate a living faith become “factualized,” taken as real events in actual history, and then just “believed” as “real.” And that is that. In other words, inner or spiritual meaning yields to the much less demanding action of taking a story literally as “historical,” and then more or less not thinking about what the story actually was intended to mean or to effect in the hearer. It is ever easier and “more comforting” simply and passively to “believe” something as true than to ask questions, and to think about what is tempted simply “to believe.”
What questions? What questions ought one ask in approaching the Feast of the Epiphany? Because Matthew’s brief story of the Magi is read, one needs to wonder: What is the Gospel writing saying? Does he intend his narrative to be factual or actual, or is he presenting spiritual meanings under the form of a story? And whether or not Matthew expects the reader of the Gospel to believe that the events “actually happened,” so what? What is the meaning of the narration? What is this evangelist really trying to communicate in writing this story? That is one set of questions. But another set is more fundamental: What is the Epiphany all about? As “Epiphany” means “Manifestation,” what is being manifested, and to whom? If “the Epiphany” was to “the wise men” (Magi) of old, what does that mean here and now for us? Or again, what is the nature of the light to which the Magi are drawn? Who manifests what to these three journeying men? What is shown, what do they see, how do they respond? And what if any “epiphanies” happen in our lives? Is there a process in the soul of every man that is being symbolically presented in the story of the Magi? Do these travelers who come to Christ symbolize all Christians, or all human beings, or perhaps all who come to the light of God-with-us, Emmanuel? Here and now, what is being manifested, by God, to every human being? What is the light shining into the darkness of human hearts that causes rejoicing, that leads one to worship “the true and living God?” What has been manifested, what is being manifested? Do we see, or turn away, or ignore what is manifested?
***
The question or concern that rattles around in my mind now is this: How does one say anything on the Feast of the Epiphany without provoking the anger of historical-literal believers, who want to just believe a story as “true” without thinking about it? Explicitly, if I were to mention that the narrated events were intended to be symbolic, and not taken as (and dismissed as) “really happening,” how would people react? Why is it that at least some people in the pews--of any church, of any denomination--want to take symbols of faith literally? Is it simply routine, and what one is accustomed to doing? Or is it perhaps grounded in a kind of spiritual lethargy and passivity that is one of the hallmarks of our time? Is it not easier just to hear a story, and nod, and even nod off to sleep, rather than to think, “What does this mean? Have I come into the light, or am I wandering in darkness?” The very question would be the beginning of a real epiphany, I would think: the realization that one does not know what one ought to know, and that one has falsely assumed that he or she already “believed” and understood what they were believing. It is always dangerous to awaken a sleeping tiger, or even to light a match when folks want to remain in the sleep of mere belief.
Perhaps celebrating the Feast of Epiphany ought to lead one to an epiphany or to a number of epiphanies: “I thought I knew Christ, but I have buried him in the tomb of mere belief, of literalistic “faith,” of a mind that presumes it has found rather than one on a journey.” Or more simply, “I do not know what I thought I knew well.” And again, “Perhaps I have not had a living faith as much as a stale, stagnant, unquestioning `Christian belief.’”
The Magi in the story are searchers who “come to the light,” who come to Christ: they do not remain in their former state of religious belief and familiarity and warm, cozy comfort. As characters in the story, they journeyed into darkness, led only by a weak and distant light, over which they had no control. In this sense, they were like St. John of the Cross, perhaps: “Without other light or guide, than that which in the heart was burning.”
The light of faith always requires a leaving, and hence a dying. By faith one journeys from the familiar lights of oneself and one’s experience and past into what at first appears to be the darkness of unknowing. In the story, the Magi had to fare forward, had to leave home and family, religious practices and beliefs. They were beckoned and led on by a light they did not know, towards the source of light they could not see. It was a real journey, “costing nothing less than everything.”
Epiphany is a feast of faith as coming into light. We are not given stars to follow, or stories to believe and not to live, but symbols to provoke wonder, awe, questions. The Magi are symbols of Everyman on a journey into God. That they know that it is nothing less than the Divine whom they seek is manifested by the gifts they bear. They carry with them gifts as befits God-with-us-in-Christ. And they know that their own death is the cost,that the myrrh they carry is not only prefiguring the death of Christ, but their own death if they choose to live in Christ. To the extent that one comes into the light of the Divine Mind, how does one return to the comforting beliefs of one’s past? T. S. Eliot was surely correct when he had the Magi realize that “our death” was the cost of the Epiphany, and that once the light is seen for what it is, one cannot return to one’s former land or life, clutching alien gods.
***
It remains to apply something of these thoughts to myself, and through me, to the reader. The thought occurs, “What about you, little man?” What am I doing to come to the light, to live in the light?
The light of faith is lived in two ways, I believe: by the “acts of will” that constitute love or charity; and by acts of understanding that constitute the life of the mind. We must love what we seek and seek what we love. So easily said, so difficult to do.
There is something about Christian faith, or any religious belief,that it wants to remain asleep, to be mere belief without the ongoing scrutiny of self-examination, of repentance and return to the light, of seeking the truth of reality regardless of the cost to one personally. There is something about the human mind that it wants to grab what it glimpses, and abide in possession, rather than constantly move out of itself into the Other that we call God. There is something about the human heart that induces it to love the familiar and comfortable rather than to undergo the long, painful journey towards the real light.
Epiphany in the churches is a chance to celebrate the gift of faith. But the danger here is that the gift is seen as something given and received and then possessed, and not as something that one must ever receive afresh. More to the point, faith is seen as a kind of knowing, when in reality it is an awareness that one does not know as one ought to know, especially regarding the truth of God. Faith that is real must ever be awake, alive, searching, journeying, letting go, faring forward. With hope and love, faith seeks God for God, for oneself, and for something worthy to give to others.
Faith that is not seeking is not faith. Love that is not desiring to give is not love.
