Today is Epiphany.
It marks Christ revealed to the Gentiles for the first time. The story is about the three wisemen. Often depicted at the nativity crèche, if the story of magi visitation is true, they met toddler Jesus just before the family escaped as refugees to Egypt….Traditions are built over time using story. The three wise men is one example. We don’t actually know if there were three. We just know there were three gifts. We also don’t know much about who they were. We do know from the story that they had special knowledge as astrologers/astronomers.I’ve often wondered what compeled them to embark on their trip. Who were they? And how did they connect the dots between a significant cosmological event and Jesus?
Christians typically refrain from digging too deep with the magi (at least over here in North America). If we did we’d wind up looking at the wise men with deep suspicion. Why? Many Christians don’t look kindly on practitioners of astrology. Heck, some fundamentalists don’t even believe in astronomy, opting to sink wholeheartedly into the fables of literal six-day creation. The magi one the other hand looked to the stars to make sense of the world. They their wisdom and knowledge to discover a profound revelatory moment in the history of humanity. It’s neat. It also reveals something about Christian formation.Christians, as in any religion or belief system, will often build a ‘in’ group and ‘out’ group. Right-wing media pundits are masters at this, building pariah after pariah to ensure a continuous fuel of rage to keep (mostly) white voters hot. Many churches suffer from the same reliance on fear. A significant problem when beliefs/policies are dependent on vilifying marginalized bodies and fracturing society across various intersections. It’s obviously contra-Jesus.I believe we are in a time of growing religious disaffiliation and partisan led polarization where knowing what you believe–your values–is going to be critical
and where our values are tethered will be the difference maker.
Of course, values can be rooted in anything. Some ‘Christian’ values welcome violence, seek to imprison the foreigner, oppose feeding the poor, are anti-queer, against trans lives, for all lives matter, etc. Indeed, many go to great lengths to shift God or Christ into their own image to accommodate. We’ve now reached a point where the Jesus described in the gospels has been lost…distorted by the obtrusive reach for malformed power. Some genuinely believe God is FOR the mighty FIRST, and those who are LAST ought to pull themselves up from their bootstraps! That’s how we get white Republican Jesus who does, ironically, the opposite of the Jesus described in the gospel stories.
It’s true, Christianity is a religion that can be deftly adjusted to dupe the masses for the sake of building social power. And those within the church, who are easily lured by the prospect of power, will cozy up to the values of the empire beacuse it is ‘good’.
How to Prep for 2025
Since America’s election in November, where white evangelicals overwhelmingly supported the convicted felon and rapist, the cultural climate has changed. Canada will soon head to the polls and will most likely welcome a wave of conservative blue that mimics the values down south (heck, some even want to fold Canada into the US! Not on my watch, satan!) These shifts can be felt in the body, especially by those perceptive folks on the margins of society. The question to ponder is how will we proceed? Where do we go from here? I know in my bones I feel the need to respond well. We need to respond well. We need to do something. Not for the sake of doing as a New Year’s resolution demands. Rather,
…we need to take our limited resource and energy, and place them into strategic spaces that are decolonial in nature, shrewd in application, and suitable for resistance, all in prep to counter what is to come.
NAME Your Values
The story of the magi is an example of sanitizing a story to fit modern readers. We deflect and diminish their astrological roots. We do the same thing with Jesus all. the. time. In 2025, I seek to be crystal clear what I stand for. I want to re-emphasize my core values. For me, I source them in different places. I seek out the Jesus we read about in Matthew 5 or Matthew 20. I believe in the deep posture of radical and embodied love. I seek out the ethic of ‘last shall be first’. I don’t want the watered down version, I want the real, deep, embodied values that build up rather than tear down. As you enter 2025, I invite you to convene within yourself and contemplate the question: what are my values? Consider values that need to change, ones you already have and canaffirm, and even ones you might encounter anew. Take your time to find or affirm what you stand for because as 2025 rolls in, we’re going to face opposition, and we need to tether ourselves to our values to survive, and maybe even thrive.
I leave you with an image from a book I’m reading penned by Richard Wagamese.
