A Heretic Mulls Over Epiphany
Today is The Epiphany, when Christians celebrate as the day when Jesus was revealed to the Gentiles as the Son of God. But what of us who don’t hold this belief–who believe instead that Jesus was a teacher, a prophet, a healer, but not uniquely marked as the Son of God? What does Epiphany mean for us?
Are we still waiting for revelation? Some would say yes; that we don’t have eyes to see. Until we see that Jesus is the one and only Son of God, we are still unfinished. These are the folks who often try to ‘save’ us.
Many Christians, thankfully, are more generous of spirit than that. They embrace a God of love who is not all about damning people who don’t agree on specific creeds or beliefs.
I think of the United Church of Christ’s slogan, “God is still speaking,” with the big comma next to it. This contrasts with that bumper sticker theology: “God wrote it. I read it. That settles it.” Epiphanies are still happening, says that comma. Revelation is not sealed.
Popularly, the word epiphany, with a small ‘e’, means “a sudden manifestation of the essence or meaning of something. a comprehension or perception of reality by means of a sudden intuitive realization.” This morning, I’m wondering if letting go of the one Big Capital E Epiphany as the one and only Truth might help to allow more of these small ‘e’, daily epiphanies, truths. It seems to me that a belief that you already have The Truth kind of stops you from looking for it any more! Others will disagree with me, I’m sure.
I believe that Jesus was an exceptional, exemplary role model for the rest of us. A great teacher, healer, minister, human being. But he was a human. (I count myself lucky to be born in a century where I won’t be burned at the stake for saying that!)
In Unitarian Universalist congregations, we frequently read these words from Sophia Lyon Fahs on Christmas Eve: “No angels herald their beginnings/ No prophets predict their future courses/ No wisemen see a star to show where to find the babe that will save humankind/ Yet each night a child is born is a holy night.”
The Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh has written, “It is probable that the next Buddha will not take the form of an individual. The next Buddha may take the form of a community, a community practicing understanding and loving kindness, a community practicing mindful living. This may be the most important thing we can do for the survival of the earth.”
Each night a child is born is a holy night; one more person who may be part of the community which helps the earth to survive has just joined us! These, to me, are the most hope-filled saving words I know. They are also a sharp jab, when I think of the way that many of these holy people are being treated.
My child—my beloved, brilliant, beautiful, wise, child—was adopted from a remote village in China. Had she not come to the United States by way of adoption, it is highly likely that the only way I would know of her very existence, even theoretically, would be through handling something that she, and millions like her, manufactured ‘for me’ in some windowless factory. Her back sore and her eyes blurry, she might be making my iPhone, or iPad, or a piece of clothing or some weird plastic item. This is, after all, how I know, the only way I am related to, thousands and thousands of children and adults in poor parts of the world. Through the goods which they make for people like me.
Yet, because I know my child personally, I know that she is brilliant, and beautiful, and funny, and opinionated, and has dreams of how her own life and the world should be. Just as I would know each of those children in the windowless room to be, given the chance to know them. If I don’t have eyes to see those other kids, does it mean that they cease to be any less holy? Or is it my own holiness that is diminished, by benefiting from their mistreatment?
So happy Epiphany, or Happy epiphanies, or may your life bring you ever more comprehension and sharpening of focus. Wherever we are, whatever we believe, may we all become part of a community committed to the survival of the earth. Whether we agree or disagree about theology, we are all in this together!
Dragged Kicking and Screaming into Heaven
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Have you ever heard a Unitarian Universalist speak of having had a conversion experience? Have you had such an experience? A moment which divides your life into before and after; a moment in which there is a spiritual transformation; a shift in your inner reality that changes the way you view the world? Such a moment once seized me, and I was transformed from a Unitarian into a Universalist.
Salvation: Saved from What?
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Before the City Hall of New York City turned 42nd Street and Broadway into the glitzy, blinding neon showplace it is today, it used to be a totally different place. I had seen both the movie and the musical called “42nd Street,” and read books about its heyday. So, on a trip to New York, I decided to check out the venerable site myself. I wanted to see the glitter, glamour and glitz with my own eyes.
An African American Perspective on Salvation
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It is of enormous significance that for centuries, countless African American Christians have affirmed ‘Salvation’ as vitally connected with spaciousness, deliverance, rescue, liberation or freedom…. [I]n the African American experience, the nature of salvation is to provide space— psychic, physical and spiritual—in which to function as a free being… Read more →
Saved by Love (Excerpt)
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The first time I attended a Unitarian Universalist church for worship, I was greeted by an incredible sight: 75 percent of the people in the congregation were wearing pink triangles on their name tags. I didn’t know what to make of it. I thought I’d died and gone to some sort of queer heaven. Read more →
From Your Minister
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When we were kids, we were all supposed to have favorites of everything. Remember that? People would say, for instance, “What is your favorite color?” And I would always feel completely stumped. To avoid the discomfort of that bewildered feeling I always said, as if it were a no-brainer, “Blue.”
Salvation
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By what are you saved? And how?
Saved like a bit of string,
tucked away in a drawer?
Saved like a child rushed from
a burning building, already
singed and coughing smoke?
Or are you salvaged
like a car part—the one good door
when the rest is wrecked?
Do you believe me when I say
you are neither salvaged nor saved,
but salved, anointed by gentle hands
where you are most tender?
Haven’t you seen
the way snow curls down
like a fresh sheet, how it
covers everything, makes everything
beautiful, without exception?
This poem appears Lynn Ungar’s new book of poetry Bread and Other Miracles, which is available at www.lynnungar.com.
REsources for Living
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Are you saved? It’s a question most of us have heard, whether the person asking has appeared at our door carrying pamphlets or is a friend who wants to talk about religion on the playground. Read more →
Salvation
January 2013
“Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
Articles
Dragged Kicking and Screaming into Heaven
Have you ever heard a Unitarian Universalist speak of having had a conversion experience? Have you had such an experience? Read more »
Salvation: Saved from What?
But my life has not convinced me that Hell consists of simply bad intentions in the mind, selfishness and a hard heart. I am sure that some of these problems contribute to the building up of Hells on this earth, but in my experience people don’t just need to be saved from their minds, but ...Read more »
An African American Perspective on Salvation
It is of enormous significance that for centuries, countless African American Christians have affirmed ‘Salvation’ as vitally connected with spaciousness, deliverance, rescue, liberation or freedom…. n the African American experience, the nature of salvation is to provide space— psychic, physical and spiritual—in which to function as a free being… Read more »
Saved by Love (Excerpt)
The first time I attended a Unitarian Universalist church for worship, I was greeted by an incredible sight: 75 percent of the people in the congregation were wearing pink triangles on their name tags. I didn’t know what to make of it. I thought I’d died and gone to some sort of queer heaven. Read more »
From Your Minister
When we were kids, we were all supposed to have favorites of everything. Remember that? People would say, for instance, What is your favorite color? And I would always feel completely stumped. Read more »
Salvation
By what are you saved? And how?Saved like a bit of string,tucked away in a drawer? Read more »
REsources for Living
Are you saved? It’s a question most of us have heard, whether the person asking has appeared at our door carrying pamphlets or is a friend who wants to talk about religion on the playground. Read more »
Salvation
“Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson Read more »
Salvation
I am a Unitarian Universalist who believes deeply that salvation is an inherent aspect of my 
faith. Not just my own personal salvation, though through this faith that has happened, but the salvation of the world.
My faith is not about the salvation of individual souls for a perceived afterlife. I believe that whatever happens to one of us when this physical human life ends, happens to us all. I do not believe in the “Divine Sifting” of souls. That afterlife might be a heaven, or it might be a continuation of being, or it might be reincarnation. But whatever it is, it will happen to us all equally. We are all saved.
No, the salvation that I speak of is salvation in this world, of this world, and for this world. To use Christian language, the salvation that I believe in is the creation of the Realm of God here, and now. It is the reconciling of humanity with each other, and with the world in which we live.
This, I believe, is the vision of salvation that rests at the heart of Unitarian Universalism, a faith which calls us to work with our time, our talent, our treasure, and our dreams to heal this world, to make this world whole.
It means to work for the salvation of this world from the evils of racism and human slavery.
It means to work for the salvation of this world from the evils of war and genocide.
It means to work for the salvation of this world from the evils of poverty and inequality.
It means to work for the salvation of this world from the evils of greed and political apathy.
It means to work for the salvation of this world from the evils of torture and injustice.
It means to work for the salvation of this world from the evils of the closed mind and the closed heart.
It means to work for the salvation of this world from many more evils than this, but it also means to work for the salvation of this world by promoting the good…
It means to work for the salvation of this world by promoting the good that is found in loving your neighbor as yourself.
It means to work for the salvation of this world by promoting the good that is found in learning to love, and forgive, yourself.
It means to work for the salvation of this world by promoting the good that is found in protecting the environment, without dividing ourselves from others.
It means to work for the salvation of this world by promoting the good that is found in joining with others in communities of right relationship, be they found in the family, in the church, in the workplace, in the nation, or (could it be possible) in the world.
It means to work for the salvation of this world by promoting the good that is found in finding where your values call you to bring people together, instead of tear them apart.
It means to work for the salvation of this world by promoting the good that is found in working with others to find their own call to work for this salvation.
This is, for me, a mission of salvation… truly a mission to save the world. It is a mission that I believe must be inspired by a religious vision of what our world would be, could be, will be like when we, the human race, finally grow up. It is a vision of creating the Realm of God here and now… not of depending on God to do it for us.
This is my vision of salvation, and the power behind my Unitarian Universalist faith.
Yours in Faith,
Rev. David