“Light” is the topic of the season following Epiphany, a season which is extremely short this year. So let us pay special attention to these images of light and darkness, a couple of weeks after the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere.

The prophet announcing the arrival of light in Isaiah 60:1-3 speaks to an audience in the ancient city, Yehud, following the exile of God’s people, Judah. The people speak about their time in captivity in Babylon as a time absent of light. In this passage, the light points to a new day. It shines on people gathering from all corners of the earth and coming together as a community, a family. Such a vision is particularly good news today for many LGBT people who experience exile and estrangement from families, church or society.

Rather than remaining far from the home they love, they have chosen to return home to their mother Jerusalem. Sons return from far away and daughters are carried by nursing women. Yes, they return to be nurtured and nursed at Jerusalem’s consoling breast (Isaiah. 66:11). Here is tenderness with sensual connotations.

	Where in the world is light and hope growing dim during this Epiphany season?  Where do you pray for God to shine?

Today, the pairing of light and dark imagery must be critically examined.  Light and dark has often been linked with the dualism of good and evil.  In addition, darkness has been equated with dark-skinned people and used,  in our racialized society, to reinforce racism in many forms.   The linkage of darkness, with its connotation of evil, and dark-skinned people must be exposed and condemned.

LGBT people of all colors know what it feels like to be on the underside of socially-accepted dualisms and to be labeled as “other” or “evil.”  We wonder: What difference would it make if we heard God’s call to “arise” as a call to move beyond such damaging dualisms and to become a beacon of light for the entire community?  Indeed, this would be a wonderful and different kind epiphany!

	When have you heard or seen the image of darkness used to convey evil?  What do you see as potential problems with such imagery today?

The 60th chapter of Isaiah is included among the lectionary readings because verse 6 mentions frankincense – supporting the assigned gospel reading, Matthew 2:11, about the Magi.   Yet, the Isaiah passage was directed largely to the upper classes, since it was mostly their relatives who were taken off to Babylon.  Isaiah’s reference to frankincense aligns more with wealth than with Mary, Joseph, and the child Jesus – those of marginal economic means.

Psalm 72 invokes images of the royal court with its ruler and empire. Depending on how one dates the psalm, whether in 8th century Israel or Judah, or during Second Temple times, the specifics of imperial power and oppression shift.  Regardless of the dating, the historic exploitation of the majority of the people stays the same. In this psalm the particular ruler is praised for acting justly and defending the poor and outcast. This brings to mind that institutions and states that deserve praise as well for protecting LGBT people from oppression and violence through their laws.

	Where outside the church or other faith communities do you see God’s liberating work?  What might these efforts teach the church?

Ephesians 3:1-12 speaks of the mystery of Christ and offers both liberating images and potentially oppressing ones. Invitations to become members of a body (Ephesians 3:6) can be liberating, as long as all the members have equal standing.  LGBT and other marginalized people know the injustice all to well, however, when one is assigned second-class status within a body – whether that body is the church of society.  Rather than this second-class status, the promise here is of boundless riches that affirm diversity and celebrates difference.  This passage also makes use of a language of slavery, people are asked to make themselves slaves of Christ (Ephesians 3:7). Today we are wise to use such language cautiously or not at all – for the legacy of slavery still rears its ugly head.

All these passages about rulers – those both exploitative and justice making – and  poor people – caught in a world that slavery built – frame the gospel story of the coming of the Wise Ones.

The Epiphany gospel, Matthew 2:1-12, is a story of choices. It is the story of the choice of privileged people (represented in Herod) deciding between responding to God or attempting to contain, kill or prevent God from acting.  Further, even before the Magi find Jesus, Herod is frightened that they might like the child – typical of those partaking in power who try to make sure other privileged people do not take an oppressed person seriously.  Magi, on the other hand, represent those outside the covenant community (church) who are more attuned with what God is doing than those within the faith community.