Epiphany 1999

Last summer, as many of you know, I was fortunate to graduate from the California Institute of Integral Studies with a doctorate in Philosophy and Religion. After seven long years of study, and hundreds of pages of papers, I was finally at the end of my academic road. My family, who views higher education with some suspicion since they fear it might lead to the losing of one's faith, were nonetheless outwardly jubilant, and congratulatory. So much so that my parents paid me my first visit in nearly ten years, flying down from Alaska and renting a hotel that was still a safe twenty mile-distance from my home. My grandparents, too, drove up with my aunt, and together with Kate and a few close friends, we attended my graduation ceremony at the first Congregationalist Church in San Francisco.

I probably don't need to remind you that my family is Southern Baptist back to the flood, and fundamentalists, all. So I was prepared when the ceremony got underway for there to be some rough spots. After all, the California Institute of Integral Studies was originally a Hindu institution, and although they teach religions from all around the world nowadays, much of that Indian flavor remains at the school. So I wasn't surprised when the ceremony began with traditional Hindu chanting. I knew that my mother would be rolling her eyes, and that the rest of my family would be a little uncomfortable with this, but they would live.

The discomfort level, however, soared into the stratosphere not long after when our featured speaker was introduced: Ram Dass, a.k.a. Dr. Richard Alpert, one of Timothy Leary's right-hand men during the great age of hallucinogenics at Harvard University in the Sixties. The Devil himself would have had a more positive reception from my family than this guy! But what made it worse was that Ram Dass had recently been the victim of a stroke, which left him terribly impaired. Thus, it took him most of 45 minutes to say "hello." After this, when he actually did start speaking, it was "mushrooms" this and "acid" that, with a lot of silence and waving of his arms in between as he grasped at his next words. It was enough to try the patience of a Ram Dass devoté, let alone people openly hostile to the guy like my family.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, I was seated at a far enough distance from my folks that I couldn't see their reactions, but I'll tell you I was crawling in my seat the entire time, thinking, "Oh my gosh, I've done it this time. They'll disown me for sure"

But I was not prepared for the last nail in the coffin, and it caught me completely off-guard. After Ram Dass had finally finished his address (to a thunderous roar of applause and a standing ovation, which must have puzzled my folks to no end), the world-famous scholar Ralph Metzner took the podium and proceeded to give Ram Dass' horoscope!!

Now, you have to understand that the way I was raised, astrology was synonymous with Satanism. You read your horoscope in the TV Guide at the risk of eternal hellfire! Heck, you could suffer demonic possession for such an act! This might seem silly to you, but that's the way fundamentalist Christians believe! So when Dr. Metzner started in on Ram Dass' planetary conjuctions, I heard a loud thump that I was certain was my grandmother falling over in a dead faint.

Now, we actually made it out of that ceremony alive, although I was such a bundle of nerves by the end that I truly should have been sedated. It is one of those events of which my family "does not speak." But whether we speak of it or not, it is an event that I have thought a lot about since, as it is an event which illustrates the tension, at least in my own life, between fundamentalist religion and a whole host of boogey-men, including Eastern religions, the occult sciences, and science in general.

Oddly, this very kaliedescope of tensions occurs in our story of the Epiphany, which is not a holiday celebrated by fundamentalists, which is perhaps not surprising when you get into it. For here in this story you have Sages from other religions who by the administration of the occult science of Astrology travel to do homage to the baby Jesus. A shocking and scandalous story to any Christian worth his salt, don't you think?

Let's look at it closely. St. Matthew's Gospel tells us that there were wise men who came from the East following a star. Now, assuming for the moment that this is even an historical event, it is likely these were men from a learned class in Persia. The idea that they were Kings, or that they were three in number is popular tradition, and is not found in scripture. What is found in scripture is that they were astrologers, and that they had seen Christ's coming foretold in the signs and portents of the movements of the heavenly bodies.

Now, let me be clear: these people were not Satanists. These people were not occultists as we perjoritively use the term today. They were wise men, learned men. Today, we might call them scientists, for truly, that was what they were. It is tempting for us to view history through the lens of our own time, which leads to a lot of what C.S. Lewis called "chronological snobbery." This approach is not only unhelpful, it is misleading. For these wise men were not your National Enquirer brand psychics or astrologers. They were on the cutting edge of their scientific field. At that time, there was not a distinction between astronomy and astrology. Their study was devoted to humankind's BEST GUESS about how the universe operated, how the planets functioned, and how humanity fit in to the Creator's plan.

And although I am sure that they may have made more than their share of false predictions, when it came to leading them to the Christ-child, their sciences did not fail them. With the best of their knowledge and to the best of their ability, they studied the universe about them, and that study led them to God, however we may disparage their study today.

And we do disparage it, not only the astrologers, but our contemporary scientists as well. Most of you know my wife Kate, but few of you know of her claim-to-fame. She is the great-niece of Gordon Lindsey, the founder of Christ for the Nations Institute, and the grandaddy of Creation Science. Not Christian Science, mind you, that's another ball of wax, but Creation Science.

Creation Science, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, is the curious branch of the evangelical world which bends over backwards trying to reconcile scientific evidence with biblical inerrancy. Thus, Creation "Scientists" put out books and tracts and travel around to various evangelical churches teaching that the earth is only six thousand years old, dinosaurs never existed, and that God just made everything "look" old to test our faith.

Needless to say, I keep my mouth shut at Kate's family gatherings as much as I do at my own. But it makes me a bit sad, I don't mind telling you, since in my opinion they seem to have missed the entire point.

For my religion is not threatened by the discovery of scientific truths, but increased. Sure, God might have created the world in six days, but how much more awesome is a God who has toiled over this Creation for 15 billion years? Sure, God may have created animals as they are, but how much more inspiring is a God who has pointed and prodded and guided the slow process of evolution? Sure, God may have set every star in its place the firmament, but how much more mystical is a God whose word begat a cosmic fireball that sent a billion galaxies spinning through infinite space? Sure, the God who made us out of nothing is great, but how much greater is the God revealed to us by quantuum mechanics, who holds us together and nurtures the universe in spite of the fact that we are STILL made of nothing?

About ten years ago I decided I was tired of living in fear of God. I decided I didn't need a God who would punish me for thinking about the workings of the universe, or send me to hell for reading my horoscope. I fired that God, and got another one. One that is revealed to me in leaps and bounds as the mysteries of the universe are unfolded by scientists, one that grows and changes as humanity grows and changes. One that does is not threatened by my thirst for knowledge.

Meister Eckhardt, one of the great mystics of the medieval church once said, "I pray that God would rid me of God." Now this might seem to you a very strange prayer, but I submit that it is very wise indeed, for in this prayer Eckhardt is asking God to remove all of his preconceived notions about God, so that he might behold God as God truly is. Meister Eckhardt had to fire the God that he knew, so that he could discover the true God, which was largely unknown to him.

This morning I invite you to do the same. The God we worship is so much bigger than the boxes we like to keep God in. The true God who formed this planet out of stardust is far beyond the tribal diety depicted in our scriptures. The true God who calls us to life and wholeness is a very different creature from the despotic overlord of our tradition who would cast us into hell for thinking errant thoughts.

Our sciences are God's gift to us, because as we learn about the universe, we learn about God. As we learn about the peculiarities of quasars and relativity, we are granted new glimpses into the soul of the Creator. As we pursue our most daring learning, we are led not away from divinity, but towards it. As we map the stars, so do we map the mind of the one who made them. And in this, we are not much different from those wise men two thousand years ago, who followed the stars, and found the Christ. Let us pray.

Grand and infinite God,
you who fashioned the heavens and earth
in mystery and majesty,
you who instilled in us curiosity and intellect
and continually lead us into all truth and wisdom,
help us, when we feel small and overwhelmed by the world around us
to trust that we are a treasured part of your creation
and should not fear to explore it.
As the wise men from afar employed their arts to find the Christ,
Help us to use our knowledge and sciences to discover your mysteries,
And so also to find you in the most unlikely of places.
For we ask this in the name of the One who is the object of our search,
and ever our sure reward, even Jesus Christ. Amen.