One Year Later - Epiphany & Insurrection

Today is Epiphany, following the 12 days of Christmas, when we traditionally celebrate the magi reaching the Christ child, offering their gifts, falling down in worship, and heading home by a different road. 

Epiphany – the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi (Matthew 2:1-12) ALSO a moment of sudden revelation or insight. From the Greek epiphainein, which means “to reveal”

A lot has been revealed recently. COVID-19 has stripped some things away and accelerated other things. But today, I’m thinking of something in particular that was revealed on January 6, 2021.

It was revealed to me that many of my fellow American citizens are deeply angry and distrustful of the foundation of our country to the point that they broke into the Capitol building in a wave of human bodies, causing death and destruction as they called into question the peaceful transfer of power that is a cornerstone of our democracy.

I am a Christian and ordained clergy. I’ve spent a lot of time preaching and teaching that our first allegiance is to God, above and beyond any citizenship we hold earthside. I truly believe that when I live by the law of love I see in the life of Christ, all other things fall into place.

And also, I am an American. That was my birthright and privilege even before I was a Christian. I was raised singing Yankee Doodle and Proud to be an American and the Star-Spangled Banner. I memorized the pledge of allegiance before I knew the Lord’s prayer. When I’ve traveled abroad, other folks have recognized by citizenship without my passport as soon as I open my mouth.

And I love our country. I love it the same way I love myself most days – for all that it is and all that it might yet be. I’ve never felt myself to be perfect, but I’m earnestly struggling to be better than I was yesterday. I understand the United States of America to be a most exquisite, daring experiment – can the values of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness be enough to hold us all together? Can the founding document of our Constitution provide enough of a foundation that we citizens who come from every corner of the globe, who carry different languages and religions and traditions and traumas can build a society that not only survives, but thrives?

I heard God’s call on my life as my heart broke for our brave military members who were deployed into desperate situations after 9/11 because I knew some of them as high school and college classmates. I signed up with the Air Force recruiter and eventually swore that I would “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the office upon which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

I don’t know that any thing is perfect in this life except for God. So I hold the Constitution like I hold the Bible. It’s good, really good, but it’s also has human fingerprints all over it. Humans that were inevitably influenced by their context. In the same way that I wear mixed fiber clothing, eat shrimp and strawberries, and am ordained as a woman, I’m glad that Constitutional rights and liberties have been extended over time to include women and people of color. Like Dr. Maya Angelou said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” 

In the same way, I hold our national Capitol like I hold my church building. It may not have power, in and of itself, but its structure and its symbolism, the history and legacy that infuses every space points to something bigger, grander, and more meaningful than itself. The Capitol is the temple of our American democracy and last year’s acts felt like desecration.

Insurrection – a violent uprising against an authority or government. From late Middle English: via Old French from late Latin insurrectio(n- ), from insurgere ‘rise up.’

My fellow Americans rose up against our democratically elected government. And I understand up to a point – I don’t feel particularly seen, heard, or respected by my elected officials on a national level most of the time. There have been seasons when I’ve called and written my congressional representatives regularly, but Ted and John have never responded.

I’ve learned that the most effective arena where I can see change is my local government because the issues as well as the decision makers are closer. We are neighbors. We might know each other beyond the politics of the moment and want to do what might be a compromise so that we can all move forward in some way together. At the national level, the electorate becomes so much bigger, more diverse, and for most elected folks, this is their career. They become more interested in the optics and the spin than in policy and honesty, because those things could end their career and then what? But our government at every level is just us, citizens who offer themselves in service to our country.

So, on one level, I absolutely understand the frustration when those folks who are supposed to represent me, don’t see me, hear me, or respect me. I also know that as much as they are there on my behalf, they are serving on our behalf and there are lots of nearby neighbors, not to mention national ones, who fervently disagree with me on the values and strategies that should define America.

That’s the challenge and the opportunity of how we are built. And for 245 years it has worked. I am grateful to live in a nation that is founded on this premise, that “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Union - the action or fact of joining or being joined, especially in a political context; a state of harmony or agreement. From late Middle English: from Old French, or from ecclesiastical Latin unio(n- ) ‘unity’, from Latin unus ‘one’. 

I believe in free, open, and fair elections and I believe in perfecting the processes so that every citizen gets to exercise their right to vote. I believe in the processes that examine elections after the fact to look for errors, tampering, or undue influence. I believe the same election procedures that gave us Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton gave us Donald Trump and Joe Biden. 

We often say we will never forget, whether it’s the Alamo or D-Day or 9/11. There is something powerful in what we remember, and what we forget. It speaks to our values and priorities. So I will never forget January 6, 2021. 

I pray for my fellow Americans. We have been and are being manipulated to distrust one another when one another is really all we have. We are our essential services. We are our supply chain. We are our government. We are in this together - this life, this nation, this opportunity to love and serve one another. Let us have a new epiphany - recognizing our common humanity, offering our gifts, and recreating home in a new way.