A Beaker Epiphany Sermon

And so, in those liturgically-minded communities that have Wednesdays off, the Christian calendar will mark Epiphany tomorrow.

And the Beaker People can learn a lot from Epiphany - not so much from the story, as from what goes with Epiphanytide.

I often see Husborne Crawley as a little like the Bethlehem of the Gospels.  Like Bethlehem, it is within easy walking distance of a place of great national significance, where kings and queens and nobility act out their mighty roles.  In Bethlehem this was - and is, of course, Jerusalem.  In Husborne Crawley's case - Woburn.  In Woburn, Queen Eleanor's body laid in rest for a night on its sad journey to London for burial.  In Woburn the Dukes ruled supreme, spinning off the Russell clan of fame - Betrand Russell, Edward Russell 1st Earl of Orford, and of course Russell T Davies.   But the centuries ticked by in Husborne Crawley.  A few miles off on the King's Highway, or A5 Watling Street, the world passed by.  And with the new A421 improvements from Milton Keynes to Bedford, once again we are ignored.  And we like it that way.

Into that tiny backwater of Bethlehem come the Wise People, each carrying an appropriate gift - gold, frankincense, myrrh, a nice pair of bootees and a tiny "Hapoel Tel Aviv" replica shirt (the last two ignored by Matthew, and all of them by Luke, for theological reasons).  But the story changes as Herod gets angry - the little household in Bethlehem is broken up, the Wise Men go back east.  The Nativity set is put back away, as Mary scrabbles behind the couch wondering what happened to the other shepherd.  And life changes.  The Old King is still in charge and the new King is a refugee on the road to Egypt and exile.

So too in Anglican parishes throughout the land, the day of Epiphany is a kind of reversed Magnificat.  The Reader is cast down from his throne, where he ruled supreme since Boxing Day.  His Christmas 1 sermon is returned to its folder with its two companions, ready to be re-used in 3 years' time.  All over the country retired priests are put back in their boxes, their pensions topped up for another year - or at least till the next funeral.  The Girl Bishop goes back to school.  All the Glory of Lebanon is dumped in the skip and the hierarchy is restored once more as the Vicar comes back from a week when she's been hiding in the vicarage and pretending to be on holiday, while secretly writing January's Church Magazine.

And outside the confines of the holy few, those who have lived on liqueur chocolates for breakfast and turkey risotto for lunch go back to the preparation of the lunchtime cheese sandwich.  The first drink of the morning is once again the coffee of awakening, and no longer the sweet Carlsberg Export of forgetfulness.  The Lords of Misrule are once again the Clerks of Invoice Passing.  Order is restored.

But have we gained nothing else from this time of rejoicing, than an unsettled stomach, a kidney stone, a tendency to wince at the sight of Chartreuse or an extra 9lb on the waistline?  Did we not hear an echo of angels?  Catch a whiff of the smell of shepherds?  A glimpse of a world that was, in a horizontal sense, is, in a mythical sense, and will be, in a temporal sense?  Was our world enlarged to another dimension?  Our vision made X-ray, just for a moment, as we saw things as they really are - upside down?

Afar off I see Hnaef and his Incense-burning team drilling for tomorrow.  Those 360 degree loops are concerning me.  That's surely no way to swing a thurifer?  I'd better have another word.