I Had an Epiphany! No Wait, a Theophany!

I want to begin this week's post by wishing everyone a holy Epiphany-tide. Epiphany is a church word that gets tossed around outside of the church. Often my first response when I hear someone say, “I had an epiphany,” is: “no you didn't!” I know I am reacting to how the word gets used, but something about the word Epiphany has to do with our ability to see the “striking appearance.” The onus is on the individual and not the Divine.

In the Eastern Church they use the word, “Theophany,” meaning a vision of God. It is tough to corroborate, but theophany feels more about God's revelation of God's self, not our personal self's ability to see that revelation.

This flies in the face of the more-than-opportunistic advertise-at-every-opportunity of consumerist culture. God isn't just going to use the super-bowl commercial to get our attention. God can use the ordinary too, like eyelashes or splinters. God has used salt, light, water, mud, bread, and wine to get our attention. Occasionally God shows up in something miraculous like a burning bush, but for a mystic like Julian of Norwich, it was due to a hazelnut that she knew the whole world exists because God loves it. God is always there: revealing and revealing despite our – at times – poor perception.

At times aspects of the Episcopal Church can get me down. As a denomination, we often find ourselves glamorized with the glamorous. At this point in my journey following Jesus, I am less and less concerned with where (or if) someone went to seminary, what books he or she has written (or read), if he or she works in the Episcopal Mecca or Medina (New York City or Los Angeles). This Theophany Season, I am intentionally taking the Eastern road – looking for how God is revealing God's self all around me. I am walking the mystic's path – looking for how God is revealing God's self through what is already happening – what the Holy Spirit is doing – all around me.

One whole day into this intentional journey, here is the truth that has been revealed to me...

In my music career, people would talk about the “best drummer ever” or something like that. The superlative musician in question was invariably the herald's favorite. (Not that I am against favorites – Southside Abbey's warden prayerfully reminds herself daily: “I am God's very favorite, and so are you.”) But favorite does not equal best. I'm going to go on record and state that the best drummer is not Neil Peart, John Fishman, Steve Gadd (although I might entertain this argument), or Mike Clark. The best drummer in the world is a field worker in Cuba cutting sugar in a cane field or a stamp-canceller in a Ghanaian post office – using rhythm in their vocation everyday until it doesn't seem like work anymore. It is someone that – odds are – we will never hear about, because they don't put cane field workers or postal employees on the cover of magazines.

This makes me think about our beloved church. There are lots of people doing lots of really effective ministry that we may never hear about, because they are not marketing themselves, they are marketing Jesus. They are speaking the language of our sacred story through their vocation. As Paul put it: “We do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor. 4:5).

For those of you toiling for Jesus in relative obscurity, let me use this platform to offer heart-felt thanks and blessings. If you are talking to college students about Jesus in Michigan, if you are starting a street ministry in North Carolina, if you are celebrating Holy Communion daily with a handful of the faithful in New Jersey, if you are hosting a medical mission at your rural Oregon parish, if you are practicing counter-cultural radically inclusive welcome in suburban Texas, if you are expanding the affordable housing options in Minnesota, if you are trying to engage in justice ministries with secular Vermonters, if you are in ecumenical conversations about greening food deserts in Ohio, if you wait in contemplation in New Mexico’s high desert, or if you are quietly, faithfully doing the work of Jesus that will probably never land you on the cover of a magazine...

Thanks be to God for your ministry and for your willingness to serve. May God bless you and the fruits of these ministries. 

This post was originally published on the Episcopal Church Foundation's Vital Practices Vital Posts blog on January 8, 2015. It has been reprinted here with permission.