Dear Church,
Tomorrow is Epiphany in our walk of faith. It brings to close the Christmas season and provides a bridge into what the church calendar calls “ordinary time” that leads to Lent in mid-February.
For such a big idea – that of “epiphany” as an awakening, a realization that the Divine is breaking through – I feel sorry for the Day of Epiphany. It almost always lands on something other than a Sunday. It sits there by itself, dictated by some calendar from centuries ago, with the church maybe looking ahead or back to it on the closest Sunday, maybe not.
Some churches observed Epiphany last Sunday – and maybe you visited to see how it’s done elsewhere. As you may recall, we invited you to visit one of Caldwell’s “cousin” churches that share our intersectional diversity and emphasis on social justice. Did you? Did you see something you liked, a new expression of worship that is worth sharing and learning from?
If you did, I’d love to hear about it tonight as we gather on the Preachers’ Porch at 7 p.m. Come, tell us “where” you worshipped (other than your kitchen table or living room) and share what you liked (or maybe didn’t). What can we learn? What might we try in our community of faith at Caldwell? Did you gain a new perspective on worship, God or Christ as Emanuel?
Epiphany is linked with the visit of the Magi, who gained their own new perspective on the Lord at the manger and famously “went home by another way” to avoid tipping off the baby Jesus’ whereabouts to King Herod, who wanted to do away with God in the flesh. We will continue with the idea of Epiphany this Sunday, as we gather for the first time in 2021. What new things await us in this new year? What “ah-has” are we to receive to revive and direct our ministry together.
A word on congregational care: Please pray for the family of Elora Hefner, Caldwell’s oldest member at 92, who died Monday. She has been in a memory care unit for several years, but many at Caldwell may recall her as one of the “senior saints” who refused to let Caldwell close in 2006/2007. She was a feisty and colorful character who loved her church fiercely and worshipped with us every Sunday. A graveside service will be held Thursday at 11 a.m.
As you watch out for your epiphany, here are a few lines written on the subject by the poet minstrel James Taylor, whose full song you can listen to here. As we suffer through another unimaginable chapter in our democracy this week, Taylor reminds us that paranoid tyrants don’t always get what the want if we are smart enough to go another way.
Well it pleasures me to be here And to sing this song tonight They tell me that life is a miracle And I figured that they're right But Herod's always out there He's got our cards on file It's a lead pipe cinch, if we give an inch Old Herod likes to take a mile It's best to go home by another way Home by another way We got this far to a lucky star But tomorrow is another day We can make it another way Safe home as they used to say Keep a weather eye to the chart on high And go home another way
See you tonight I hope.
In Christ,
John