Sermon for The Day of Epiphany
Epiphany Reflections
By José's Zambrana, Jr. -
Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditation all of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight O Lord our strength and Our Redeemer. Amen.
Greetings. my name is José Zambrana., Jr. and I am the Music Director here at Mt. Olive Lutheran Church in Santa Monica. I am truly honored to be able to share some thoughts with you today as we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany and am grateful to Pastor Eric Shafer for allowing me this opportunity. For the story of the Three Kings, or the Magi, has perplexed and inspired me for years, and my purpose today is to invite you on a journey with me to both imagine, wonder, and be inspired by this story of “Traveling Nerds” as I will call them: about who they were, and what they were about.
But a good place to start might be a little about this nerd here - me - and my faith journey. My ancestors hail from the island of Puerto Rico all of my grandparents were born and lived there until they emigrated to New York City in the 1940s. My parents José and Evie were born and grew up in NYC and I too was born there and lived in Queens with them and my younger sister. My faith journey began in the Roman Catholic Church with my family, but after we moved to upstate New York when I was five years old for life in a small town we soon joined the local Baptist church after family friends had invited us and we felt welcomed. This move to the Baptist Church put us on a path towards a very active Christian life. In that church I played piano and sang in the choir from a young age. I went to a religious high school and then on to a Wesleyan college, namely Houghton College where I studied chemistry and music focusing on the organ. In that phase of my life I searched through many denominations in Christianity for authentic spiritual connection - including Pentecostalism on the one hand and European monastic and contemplative communities on the other. My first major faith crisis - the details of which are for another story - came when I needed to reconcile my identity as a Christian and as a gay man. The Episocopal church in its beautiful liturgy and music, safe space, and welcome was a place of solace for me during that crisis and I was confirmed in the Episcopal church in 1997 in New York City where I had returned to. I pursued a doctorate in inorganic chemistry at the City University of New York and during that time played in various churches and church schools, and was organist and music director at Trinity Lutheran Church in Long Island City, NY where I learned so much about the even more musical Lutheran liturgy and its strong theological foundation.
My journey took me to Washington DC to pursue a career in the US Environmental Protection Agency with which I still work, and was interim music director at Luther Place Memorial Church. My now husband Ed sought to move West to LA to pursue writing for TV and so my journey took me to this magical place called the West Coast, which btw, despite the New Yorker in me, I love. Most of you may not know but the first time I step foot in Mt. Olive - having come to hear its organ - I had this distinct feeling I would be sticking around, and here we are today.
So that’s a good deal of info about me. I wanted to share that because when it comes to the Magi, there’s so little info we know about them. Many Christians worldwide - particularly Eastern Orthodox - celebrate Christmas on January 6 and my being perplexed and intrigued in this day may stem from my family’s cultural celebration of El Dia de Los Tres Reyes (“Three Kings Day”) or the Epiphany, where like extra icing on the cake that my non-Latino friends didn’t get to have, I got an extra present on “little Christmas” as we called it. And so I have always wondered about these “Three Kings.” Our reading from Isaiah today which in Christendom is traditionally interpreted as speaking of the coming Messiah, talks about “Kings coming the brightness of your dawn”, “young camels of Midian and Ephah and Sheba shall come, and they shall bring gold and frankincense.” But who really were these “Magi” - as they are called in other translations? Were they Kings? Magicians? Zoroastrian priests?
As a kid, for the church Christmas pageant, because I sang I was usually assigned the role of an angel or a singing animal; but I really wanted to be one of the Kings. Well come on - they had big hats, fabulous fashion, rode in style and carried expensive items. Many scholars have tried to fill in the blanks left by the few details in the gospel story, but we can surmise a few things or at least make some assumptions, albeit precariously. There were three gifts but we don’t know if there were three Magi. Whether they were “kings” or not we don't know, but we can fairly guess that they were people with resources or access to them as to travel any distance at that time was no small feat, especially if you wanted to stay safe and alive, and especially if you were transporting items of value, like spices and precious metal. And so we can presume they had entourages. We do know this: they were foreigners - not of Palestine. Tradition has it that they came from different regions generally east of Palestine like Persia (now Iran), India, and Arabia or Ethiopia. And now I really wanted to be a king in the pageant because now Christmas has diversity! Roles for the black and brown kids. We also don’t know if they were “men” despite the translation. We may assume that Magi were men, but . . we actually don’t know. The story suggests they were studiers of texts and manuscripts and of the heavens - learned folks. Ok now we’re really getting somewhere because the Christmas story has nerds! Now I really wanted to be one of the Magi in the Christmas pageant. My heart always soars to the nerds of any story - Sam Tarly in the Game of Thrones, my favorite character seeking to be a grand Maester. Or in Harry Potter - house Ravenclaw - how I exclaimed with glee when the Harry Potter sorting hat quiz placed me in house Ravenclaw - known for their wit, learning and wisdom; and how I crooned with satisfaction when as I predicted, my spouse was sorted into house HufflePuff - known for being welcoming, hardworking, loyal and fair.
Now admittedly, of all the Christmas story miracles, I was skeptical of the whole star thing. A star appeared and then moved and then stopped? Well I had paid attention in physics class! Some astronomers have tried to figure this one out - was it a comet, a supernova? The supernova idea fascinated me as it takes thousands of years for the light from supernovas to travel to earth so the actual supernova event would have taken thousands of years before Jesus’ birth, and the light arriving just in time. (God clearly had excellent timing.) The most popular theory is a conjunction of planets. Sound familiar? It’s funny how with all our science, the mysteries of space, the heavens, still tantalize today. When my friends say, “Oh Josė you’re such a Libra” I kinda believe it, and how many of us ventured out, masked donned, struggling for a parking place in Venice or Santa Monica to walk on the beach and see the Saturn and Jupiter conjunction this past December 21 solstice before it disappeared from the horizon, not to be seen as such for another about 400 years?
The story in Matthew’s gospel also gives us small insights into what these Traveling Nerds were about. They clearly believed passionately enough in what they read and saw in the language of the stars and heavenly bodies to take up . . and . . . go. Perhaps many thought their sojourn silly but they went for it. I’ve always imagined them unexpectedly meeting up in a city along the way; excited to find others on the same journey with the same passions - comparing notes and debating into the wee hours of the night, but working for the same goal. Upon arriving in Palestine they were wise to visit King Herod when called upon by him. They were foreigners in this land and when the powers that be call, you show up and you show respect. I suspect the Magi were also wise enough to quietly doubt Herod’s sincerity when it came to his interest in the new king-child, but they were “Voluntold” to report back and I suspect they had every intention of doing so - so as not to defy the authority.
But something happened when they got there. Something remarkable. I suspect when they finally arrived at the house where Mary and Joseph were it was far less than impressive. They might have been tempted to think, “We’ve come all this way over field and forest, moor and mountain, for this?” But no. When the star stopped they rejoiced! They were welcomed in, and in that moment when they saw the Christ child, with hearts open, they kneeled and paid him homage. No hesitation.
It’s sometimes said or joked about or made movies about or even experienced that the ‘smarty pants’ of the world are filled with hubris. I remember when I got to provide the graduate address at my doctoral commencement. I was honored but I struggled with what I was going to say to all these really smart newly minted PhDs. And I remembered this story - this story of humility. And so I reminded my fellow graduates, myself, that being expert in one small thing is only just that, being expert in one small thing; and if anything, if you’re open to it, makes you realize how big the world is, the universe- and how much you just don’t know.
These wise folks, these Traveling Nerds were humble and they were open to being transformed. And when a dream confirms their worst suspicions about Herod, they defy power by simply going home by a different route. I think it took courage to quietly defy authority - we find out in the verses that follow that Herod orders the slaughter of male babies less than 2 years of age in a bid to kill the newborn King. But the Gospel of Matthew tells us of these Traveling Nerds, “they departed into their own country another way.” A new way home for safety, but a new way home to me also means they left having been changed. And for me, taking a different route home has become a small tradition. My dear husband gently rolls his eyes lovingly at me when we go out to do an errand or go to an event (before all of this), and as we embark to return home I exclaim, “Let’s pull a three Kings!” He knows it means let’s take a different way home, if we can. Let’s see what else is out there - a different street, a different neighborhood. What is out there to see, learn, maybe even make us realize something we didn’t know before. You know: the light bulb. An Epiphany.
As we begin this New Year perhaps we reflect on how this harrowing experience of the SARS CO-V-2 pandemic has transformed us. How it has revealed cracks in our society yes, and maybe even cracks in ourselves; in you and me. But maybe also it has reminded us that we are not alone on the journey. That maybe we have found kindred spirits along the way, that if we open ourselves to God, to this incarnate God in Jesus, to what we can learn from each other, that we can’t help but be transformed, to have our own series of Epiphanies: to see the need for justice and the work we can do together towards it and realize we can be the help along the journey of our fellow human.
How blessed they must have been and how blessed are we, when we find people of common passions in which we can work together. In our own community I think of people with common passions for addressing challenges of homelessness - pushing day after day for policies and actions to provide not just shelter but places of security for those who need it. I think of those working together on food insecurity, helping ensure families can have food and nutrition. I think of people studying theology together in seminary, musicians making music, writers in a writing room. How have we realized in this pandemic those with whom we have common passions and goals? I think of the 2-5 people on the NE corner of Ventura and Sepulveda Blvd’s with their Black Live Matter posters every single day; and I think of the LA hospital nurses featured in recent LA Times articles who in the face of mounting death, and disaster, just won’t give up. Common passions; common goals; fighting for life.
You see we celebrate Epiphany not just one “light bulb” that goes off - an aha moment, but a series of them as the purpose of Christ’s incarnation becomes revealed and evident. We celebrate not just one Epiphany but a series of them in the Baptism of our Lord, the first miracle of water into wine, and the Transfiguration. Liturgists often see two primary arcs in the season of the Church year. The first - of the Incarnation - starts in Advent and goes through Christmas and Epiphany to the Transfiguration. The second of Christ’s death and resurrection, begins with Ash Wednesday and takes us through Lent, Holy Week, Easter, and Pentecost to Christ the King Sunday. And then we start again. In all of this we seek to proclaim Christ’s message of wide embrace, a work in loving God and our neighbor as ourselves. Because Incarnation is not about a God far out there, millions of light years away, but here, with us.
Perhaps it is best said in the words of St. Patrick,
Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
Amen.
José's Zambrana., Jr.
Director of Music and Worship
Mt. Olive Lutheran Church
Santa Monica, California
Sermon for:
January 10, 2021
