Matthew 2:1-12; Combined Epiphany Service; Rev. Liz Garrigan-Byerly
Grace and peace to you, Framingham neighbors and siblings in Christ. It is an honor to bring you greetings from the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ, from our new Executive Conference Minister, Rev. Darrell Goodwin and from the Board of Directors of the Central, MA Association.
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“What a long, strange trip it’s been.” Granted, the Magi were used to long trips. It was the only way to travel. And travelers expected to find the unexpected as they journeyed.
But this trip, more than just long, was strange indeed. The promised king was a vulnerable baby, of poor and unimportant peoples. Stranger still, was the way King Herod shook with jealousy and rage. And finally, a strange dream, telling them to go home another way. It would not have been convenient to do so; another way would cost them time and money. But it was worth it, to go home another way, transformed by what they had found.
“What a long, strange trip it’s been.” There are all sorts of ways to describe 2020. The most vivid are the images: a dumpster fire; a series of photos, the person or scene deteriorating more and more as each month goes by; a beautiful star shaped Christmas ornament when seen up close, spells a four letter word not safe for worship. 2020 has been long, and very strange.
It has been surreal and shocking, disturbing and devastating, unprecedented and exhausting. It has also been beautiful and tender, peaceful and playful, reorienting and meaningful.
Unlike the Magi, we did not choose this journey. But we do have a choice, now, of how we go on. Will we accept God’s invitation to go home by another way?
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“We can’t go back to normal because the normal we had was precisely the problem in the first place.” Maybe you’ve seen this quote too, or some version of it. Ibram X. Kendi’s rift was: “a return to normal is a return to racism.” It’s become quite popular to describe the pandemic, but it actually emerged last December before the world knew of the novel coronavirus. It was spray painted on a Hong Kong subway wall as protests flared over political oppression and autonomy. This last year has forcefully pulled back the curtain on our “normal.” It has exposed the deeply inequitable systems that have such power in our lives. It has laid bare our distorted understanding of freedom and truth. It has spotlighted our penchant to cling to our comforts and familiar patterns against all reason and wisdom.
And it has proven that we do know another way. It has exposed just how resilient we are and how much capacity we have to adapt. It has laid bare just how much we need—and cherish—one another. It has spotlighted who is essential—those who serve and feed and care for us, those who teach and heal us, those who seek solutions to problems for the good of all.
We have knelt in Bethlehem and heard the angels singing; we have witnessed the miracle of God’s love and proclaimed that Emmanuel is indeed here! And now our journey resumes. Will we choose to go home by another way or will we revert, as is our tendency, to what is familiar and habitual? Because that baby in Bethlehem is the man who will not only defy death but transform life, and his deepest desire for us is that we will live lives of transformation too.
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About a decade ago, I was part of a team that helped a church restructure its boards into ministry teams. It was a thoughtful, intentional and hopeful change that engaged the entire church and filled them with great potential. 3 years after the change was implemented, I realized that very little had changed, beyond the names of groups and the reporting structure. See,
- We, the church, hadn’t taught people how to think about or do church work in a new way, so we reverted to old patterns;
- We hadn’t practiced collaboration and so retreated to our silo-ed functions;
- We hadn’t emphasized spiritual shifts as much as structural shifts and so we thought the structural was enough;
- We hadn’t built in the expectation of failure and the need to continually adapt and so we became disillusioned.
Structural change is important, essential. We can’t undo systemic racism or economic inequities without it. But transformation requires changes in our hearts and souls and in how we relate to one another too. It will not be enough to rearrange the pieces of our lives, or communities, or church committees; we must collaboratively and collectively seek the new thing that God is doing in our midst and follow it with abandon.
The pandemic has forced us to change our habits and expectations, our priorities and our needs. What will we do when we return, to worship in our sanctuaries, to full family schedules, to our planning and executing of the future? How can we return by another way? Some of those ways have already begun to reveal themselves in this last year.
Caring for community over self-determination: We’ve donned masks, stood in lines at grocery stores, worked and learned from home and given up travel and social plans for the good of the whole.
Mutual aid: We’ve made masks and joined in birthday parades, for friends and complete strangers; we’ve passed along stimulus checks to struggling non-profits. We’ve accepted a neighbor’s offer to pick up something for us from the store.
Listening: We’re learning to listen—truly listen to the pain and passion of those who have been and are oppressed and mistreated by our society, without defensiveness or rebuttal. We’ve stood on the Commons holding Black Lives Matter signs while the black youth of our city speak to us; we’ve followed their lead in demanding change. We practice daily how to be anti-racists.
Intentional Connection: Robbed of most of the ways we used to connect with those outside our households, we’ve had to become intentional about connecting with others. Zoom parties and classes, well planned outdoor church events, letters and phone calls! Looking strangers in the eye—the only part of their faces exposed.
There is much for us to think about and do as 2021 unfolds, as the vaccine is administered and new police reform bills go into effect, as a new administration takes office in Washington and as we prepare to phase forward in our building reopenings. But before we get caught up in what it will look like and how we will execute it, let us pause, let us take heed of the dreams God has sent us, and commit to another way.
That is the invitation, and challenge of this moment, of this Epiphany (and perhaps every Epiphany). I, our new executive conference minister, the conference itself, have no 3 step plan for that. The way of Jesus is not a neat set of instructions; we might find that frustrating at times—just as his disciples did. Instead, it is something more encouraging, more satisfying, more abiding, and more transformative. It is a promise of holy relationship that will journey with us into new life, again and again and again.
What a long, strange trip it’s been. And will continue to be. But another way is before us, and we go together and by God’s grace and love.
Thanks be to God for that. Amen.