Sermon: Epiphany, 2005

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Follow the Light

By Charles Rush

January 2, 2005

en I was doing my Clinical Pastoral Education at the University Hospital in Louisville many years ago, I got a strange request one day from the Nursing staff. There was a woman on one of their wards that was dying. She had no family or friends that they could contact. Apparently she was all alone. They asked if I would come and sit with her while she died. I just happened to be the Chaplain on call at the time.

It was a Saturday afternoon, if I recall, and it was very slow at the hospital. I walked into her room, probably only 23 years old at the time and there was a frail, little woman not conscious, breathing in labored fashion. [God probably had a hand in this episode because] it was not easy for me at that time, as I remember.

I've had a couple of occasions in my life where I was asked to say a funeral for someone and there was no one present except me and the funeral director, once they stayed, once they left me to myself. Both times, for reasons that are hard to articulate, I said the entire liturgy, I suppose because each life is important and valuable. But it is very disconcerting to witness because death itself is very lonely and that loneliness has deafening proportions without the comfort and support of friends and family.

I sat there is in this hospital that was a throwback to the Civil War in it's layout and age, in the weltering afternoon of a humid July, just watching and waiting, sometimes pacing, sometimes making excuses so I could leave for a short walk. Her breathing became more labored, practically stopping, and then it would start again, until finally she just stopped. That moment, as many of you have experienced, is intrinsically filled with fear, awe, human compassion, sadness, and an abiding spirituality. I said the prayers for her and for all of us, walked out and told the nurses that she had died. They all took a respectful moment before moving efficiently into action, fulfilling their duties.

I walked outside the hospital onto the busy boulevard and just watched as the traffic was driving to and from downtown, beeping their horns to get onto the freeway and cross the bridges. All this bustling about. I was thinking how odd the world is. This woman just died. Somehow it seemed like the whole world should just take a momentary break in honor of her living and passing but it didn't, it just keeps right on going on around us. Every death is like that isn't it? You just find yourself suddenly in such a different space and it seems like everyone should just notice and make a place for you but most of them just go about their routines like normal and you just want to somehow interrupt them for a moment and say 'Whoa, whoa'.

Spiritually speaking, I presume that it was that rude break in the life cycle that motivated our ancestors to periodically take a moment and reflect, so that we can stop and remember, stop and reflect on what we are doing, stop and reconsider where we are heading.

The New Year is actually a good time for that and I say that despite the banality of most of our New Year's resolutions to "lose weight and get in shape," to "get in shape and lose weight", to "stop smoking and get in shape"…

Our ancestors and here I mean several thousand years ago, used the Winter solstice as their marker. The Winter solstice marks the shortest day of the year and from every day going forward, dawn is a few seconds earlier and sunset is a few seconds later.

T. S. Eliot, reflecting on the ever changing nature of our world remarked

 "What we call the beginning is often the end

 And to make and end is to make a beginning.

The end is where we start from.

There is an important sense in which marking the changing seasons can be an exploration into the more profound spiritual beginnings and endings, from death and new birth, from ending and beginning in a new way, from letting go and embracing.

Our Celtic ancestors used a labyrinth as a spiritual guide for this, a labyrinth has a beginning that becomes and end and in the end a new beginning. At the church, we actually marked the winter solstice with a candle light vigil that walked the labyrinth in the darkness. There is a sense, of course, in which we can embrace the darkness in the intimacy that it beckons but for the most part our ancestors understood it as a metaphor for the death of the world, the hibernation of production, and the very beginning of renewal that was part of the life-cycle. It is only bearable when you have plenty of food in the storage bin because the harsh reality is that it will be many months of tiling, planting, pruning and weeding before Mother Nature yields any productive nourishment again.

So, we began out of the darkness, symbolically we traveled in the dark to the center of the labyrinth, but in the middle someone gave us a candle of light to journey outward towards the world again, to bring the light and the hope of the gospel, remembering that the season of light and fruitfulness is ultimately coming around again.

The Christians probably picked the solstice to celebrate the birth of Christ to symbolize the promise of hope that the birth of the child meant for all of us. It is the hope that begins, humbly and simply, with new birth, the fullness of which we will not experience for quite some time to come. But that hope is enough light to guide us. And the wise will align their lives, not only according to the dark omens that blind us regularly but also by the solitary light of hope that beckons our dreams.

That is such an appropriate symbol for us pagan Europeans and Africans and Asians, represented as we are in our story by the Wise Men that come from a far, following the star to find the birth of the Messiah. The good news that came to the house of David and the tribe of Israel was never meant solely for the Israelites but ultimately for all of us as well. Over time, the Wise men came to depict each three directions that Christianity took: The first was one black African face, for the very earliest Christians from St. James went Westward to Cairo and on to Ethiopia forming the Coptic Church and even today Addis Ababa on Christmas day rings forth with strains of music and prayer that can be traced back to the 1st century church in Jerusalem from the brother of Jesus. The second is an Asiatic face, remembering the very earliest churches in Damascus, Baghdad- both Christian cities for 6 centuries before the birth of Mohammed- and the earliest witness that went to India. This second face later was often Russian because once the Russians became Christian their influence and scope was so vast. And the third face was European, remembering St. Paul, taking Christianity to Greece, and St. Peter taking Christianity to Rome, and we now believe that it may well have been St. Timothy or one of St. Paul's immediate disciples that took Christianity to Ireland because Christianity came there well before it migrated through Roman expansion.

Each of our cultures bearing a different kind of wisdom, some philosophy, some science, some meditation and prayer, some music- all of them help us reach toward the holy and the spiritual- but each of them is in need of the orientation that is provided by the light that rests over the Christ child.

Lawrence Kushner got a hand-held navigational computer for his birthday that utilizes Global satellite positioning. As you know these are pretty nifty devices. Once they lock to the satellites orbiting above the earth, they can give you your longitudinal and latitudinal orientation within 100 yards. Very nifty. I think much of our erudition and wisdom is like that. It is quite effective in telling us where we are, who we are, and where we've been.

But this is only half of what you need when traveling. Kushner is a sailor and especially on the sea, knowing where you are is only helpful in relation to some other fixed point. Anyone who has ever sailed at night knows how dramatic and important this is. He was out one night and lost sight of shore, with just his GSP navigational device. He says, "At such a time there are only you, the other members of your crew and the boat, patiently working her way through the waves and the night. Deprived of light, the effects of wind and waves can only be felt. The sea seems bigger than in the daylight. After a while you get confused about where you end and the boat begins and where the boat ends and the water begins."[i] That is the helplessness of the utter dark.

What you are looking for at that moment is the 10 second flash of light from over the horizon from one of the Lighthouses on the shore. Each light house has its own distinct pattern of flashes which you can look up the Coast Pilot List. It allows mariners to identify them and then they know that they are somewhere on a line between their GSP and the established point of the lighthouse.

I think the Christ is like that for all our wisdom from each of our cultures. We get some idea of where we are from our inherited science and religion. The Christ helps orient us with again with a beam from afar. The Christ keeps our wisdom humane: forgiving, understanding, tolerant of others different from us, loving, compassionate towards the marginalized, peace abiding in the midst of strife, gentle in the midst of harshness.

And the Christ also takes our dreams and shapes them with a new frame of reference to give us better, more substantial dreams as well.

Symbolically, we come to the Christ in search of what we want and the light of the Christ orients us towards what we need.
We come from afar with the Wise men seeking magic. We want to be able to heal that which is sick when we need it. We want a kind of divine protection that will exempt us from natural catastrophe, unjust tragedy and random accidents.
The light of the Christ reorients us towards hope and love that will see us through all manner of success and deprivation. It points us in the direction of St. Paul who learned to say at the end of his life, “I can be content in all circumstances of life wherever I find myself” because he learned of a “peace that passes all understanding”.
We come from afar with the Wise men seeking power. Secretly we would all like a supernatural boost that would separate us from the ordinary. We would like an occasional miracle.
The light of the Christ reorients us towards compassion for others. The light of the Christ encourages us to help everyone find their place at the table.
We come from afar with the Wise men seeking authority and recognition. We would like others to look up to us. We would like to be set apart. We would like to know how to become distinguished.
The light of the Christ reorients us towards service for other and finding our own fulfillment as a by-product of fulfilling others.
We come from afar with the Wise men seeking knowledge. We would like to understand the mysteries of the universe. We want to know about the nature and destiny of man.
The light of the Christ reorients us towards discernment. Jesus would teach us to focus on the character of others and to learn to read for the signs of the times of the world around us.
In this changing season that marks the shortest day of the year and looks forward to the rebirth in the spring, I hope that you too will be able to dream, to see where you are headed and what you need to be about. As you dream, know that God's star is orienting you as well, pulling your dreams in a direction that keeps us humane, forgiving, understanding, tolerant, loving, compassionate, and peaceful. Amen.

[i] Kushner, Lawrence, Eyes Remade for Wonder (Woodstock: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1998)