Epiphany, a word that seems to have emerged, in liturgical use anyway, in the early fourteenth century, and which has its roots in the Greek epi = 'upon' and phanenein = 'to show'. For most of us in the west, it is associated with the arrival of the Magi, traditionally portrayed as three kings, often, though not always, white European, and sometimes as one white, one black and one oriental in appearance. Courtesy of Sunday's worship leader, and the Methodist website, we were reminded that the festival was originally concerned not with the magi, but with Jesus' Baptism (think of the descent of the spirit as a dove) and of the miracle of water in to wine (the first 'sign' in the Johannine account). This does help explain why, to this day, the Lectionary has a decidedly muddled chronology at this time of year, with Holy Innocents before the arrival of the magi, and the Baptism of Christ before the presentation of the infant in the Temple... two (or more) different things are being explored and expressed. I have, in years past, noted that the word 'phantom' shares the same etymology as 'epiphany' and the descent of the 'Holy Ghost' as a dove sits well with that.
This year, though, what struck me most was a conversation with a child aged about seven that took place on Sunday... Since we closed our Sunday School, we have had an influx of African-heritage and African-American heritage children who are an absolute delight. On Sunday they were colouring in pictures of the magi (mainly portrayed as kings on camels) and what struck me was how, without pausing, each child coloured their magi with white skin. 'Do you think they might have looked like you?' I asked the child... they shook their head. 'Do you think they looked like me?' I asked... they nodded vigorously. That saddened me. 'I am sure at least one looked like you,' I commented, 'with lovely brown eyes and beautiful brown skin.' The child looked doubtful, but a younger sibling smiled brightly.
The point, so we often claim, of Epiphany, is the revelation of Christ to the gentiles - to the foreigners, the people who weren't Jewish, the people who didn't look like 'us', believe like 'us', think like 'us'. The very word 'magi' linked to the more familiar 'magic' or 'magician' may infer an eastern mystical, or so-called pagan, worldview... coming from the east they may well have been Persian, might have practiced what we know as Zoroastrianism, and certainly weren't 'Christian' (had the term existed back then, which it didn't). In this story the unexpected truth is that people who are 'not remotely like us' are included in the story. Which leaves me pondering how our portrayals of the magi - as kings, as male, as white - exclude, and who might discover themselves included if our images were more diverse? Our worship leader had worked hard to select images that weren't all white and western; this is in no way a criticism of that, rather a reminder to self to be alert to unintentional/unconscious biases that perpetuate white privilege/superiority.
(Image copied from here)
