(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on January 7, 2017, Epiphany Sunday)
Hidden Figures
Just a little over a year ago, on
Christmas Day, the movie Hidden Figures
hit theaters and revealed for many of us a neglected piece of history.
Hidden Figures tells the story of America’s first orbital
spaceflight, when astronaut John Glenn piloted the Mercury-Atlas 6 around the
earth three times. But Hidden Figures isn’t about John
Glenn. It’s about three black
women who were “human computers” for NASA: they were mathematical experts who
crunched the numbers necessary for space travel. And they are “hidden” in more ways than one. Perhaps most obviously, they are hidden
from history. We all know who John
Glenn was, but we know nothing about Katherine Johnson and her friends, whose
work made his achievements possible.
But these three women are also hidden away from most of their own
colleagues, as NASA followed the order of the day and enforced a policy of
segregation. Part of the movie’s
drama, of course, is that Katherine Johnson makes herself such an indispensable
part of the project that NASA must break its own policy and invite her to work
in the main—which is to say, white—workroom.
But even here, Katherine remains
hidden. In one of the most moving
scenes of the film, her supervisor Al Harrison complains that she daily
disappears from the workroom for a considerable amount of time. Standing before him in clothes soaked
by the rain, she explains that she’s been at the bathroom.
“At the bathroom?” he asks. “For forty minutes?”
“There’s no bathroom for me
here,” she responds. “There are no
colored bathrooms in this building or any building outside the West Campus,
which is half a mile away. Did you know that? … And I can’t use one of the handy bikes [because of m]y
uniform, [which is required to be a] skirt below the knees and…heels.”
For Al Harrison, this
conversation is a light-bulb moment.
He and Katherine worked in the same place, but he didn’t know the first
thing about her troubles as a black woman in a white man’s world. Her plight had been hidden from him by
his own lack of attention and care.
As much of a revelation as this
moment is—as sorry as Al feels for Katherine and as repentant as he is for what
she’s gone through—his world has not turned upside down yet. That happens later when the team is
preparing for the launch of the Mercury-Atlas 6. The state-of-the-art IBM has printed out the landing
coordinates for the mission, but John Glenn doesn’t trust them. He suggests to Al Harrison, “Let’s get
the girl to check the numbers.”
When Al raises his eyebrows and asks if he means Katherine, he says,
“Yes, sir, the smart one. And if
she says they’re good, I’m ready to go.”
What a mystery for Al
Harrison! The mystery had been
there all along, of course, but he had avoided it, not paid attention to it,
not stopped to wonder at it or be changed by it. But with these words from John Glenn, the world of Al
Harrison is finally overturned. No
longer can he escape the mystery that has been living in front of him: a black
woman truly is his equal, his
colleague.
Epiphany: The Mystery of Christ
Today is Epiphany Sunday. In everyday language, an epiphany is an
“aha!” moment. It’s when the
light-bulb turns on.
This common meaning of epiphany
draws from a more ancient, sacred truth.
In the Greek, epiphany means “appearance.” So in the church, Epiphany refers to the moment when God
appears. Every year after
Christmas the church celebrates Epiphany.
The message is simple. In
the birth of Christ on Christmas, God appears
to us in the flesh.
But the truth is, Epiphany for us
looks a lot different than that first Epiphany when God appeared in a little
baby. In fact, Epiphany looked a
lot different even for Paul, who lived a generation or so after Jesus. Do you remember the story of Paul? At first he persecuted the followers of
Christ. But then one day he had a
blinding vision of Jesus. Three
days later, scales fell from his eyes (Acts 9:18) and he saw a whole new world. He had what our world might call a
light-bulb moment, an “aha!” realization.
In today’s scripture, he describes his epiphany—his “aha!”
moment—in a bit more detail. He
says that when the light-bulb turned on and he saw Christ, he saw a
mystery. In Christ was a “mystery”
that the whole world had missed, a mystery that had lain “hidden for ages” (Eph
3:3-5, 9). The mystery contained
in Christ was that Gentiles—the Greeks and other foreigners, anyone who was not
Jewish—had been welcomed into the family of God (cf. Eph 3:6).
The God of What We Didn’t Know
The story of Paul unsettles my
faith. Typically I think about God
in terms of what I know. But the
story of Paul suggests that God appears not in what I know but in what I didn’t
know: in puzzles and perplexity, in mysteries that have lain “hidden for ages.” The story of Paul suggests that God
appears in “aha!” moments when everything changes, when the scales fall from
our eyes and we see a whole new world.
I think the character of Al
Harrison had an epiphany. And by
that I don’t just mean a casual realization. I mean a living and breathing encounter with Christ. Christ, by the way, means much more
than simply the thirty-something years that Jesus lived on earth. According to biblical writers like John
and Paul, Christ is cosmic: Christ is with God at the very beginning (John
1:1), and Christ spans all of the universe, and Christ will eventually
reconcile all things to God (Col 1:15-20). So Christ could appear in the person
of Katherine Johnson just as he lived and breathed in the person of Jesus. Which is why I think that Al Harrison’s
epiphany was indeed an encounter with Christ. Like Paul, he stood face-to-face with a mystery. For Paul, the mystery was that Gentiles
were brothers and sisters in the family of God. For Al Harrison, the mystery was that Katherine Johnson was
indeed his colleague. The black
women whose numbers had been putting his machines in space were more than human
computers. They were his equals in
the NASA family—his sisters, so to speak.
The Mystery of Christ in Carl
The suspicion of this special
Sunday of Epiphany is that God is appearing our world—not necessarily in what
we know, but rather in what confounds us: in secrets and mysteries that have
lain hidden for ages. Perhaps we
have not thought of God like this.
But what if we did? Can you
look back upon your life and remember a time when you encountered a mystery
that changed you, an “aha!” moment that opened your eyes to a whole new world?
I remember Carl from
college. Carl and I both attended
the Baptist Student Union, and it was there that we became friends. Carl was gay. I had grown up in a church culture that was publically
ambivalent toward and privately critical of homosexuality. Carl confused me. I remember how one time when I was
consumed with bitterness, Carl counseled me toward forgiveness and love. I remember on many other occasions how
Carl exhibited the spirit of Christ and the cross in his selfless hospitality
and generosity. His dorm room was
always open, and he was always sacrificing his own time for the sake of others.
As I read Paul today, I realize
that in Carl I encountered the mystery of Christ. In Carl, my eyes were opened to a mystery that for many has
lain hidden for ages: namely, that persons of the LGBTQ community are “fellow
heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus
through the gospel” (Eph 3:6).
Becoming the Mystery
When Paul encountered the mystery
of Christ, he responded in a bold way.
He proclaimed what he saw.
He shared the news of his light-bulb moment with all the world.[1] He shared his story because he thought
that the church must not only see the mystery, but that it must also become the mystery. He thought that the church must become the mysterious body of Christ,
composed of Jews and Greeks, so that it would reflect what he calls “the rich
variety” of God’s wisdom, and even the highest rulers and authorities would see
and know (Eph 3:8-10).
In the story of Hidden Figures and in my own story, I
have shared just a fraction of where our world has been encountering the
mystery of Christ. I suspect the
mystery is much greater than anything I have touched today. I suspect that you have stumbled upon
the mystery of Christ in your own lives and in ways different from anything I
have said. I wonder if you’d be
willing to share your story sometime.
Perhaps in a small group, like choir or Sunday School. Perhaps in a short account, written for
our “From Where I Sit” feature, which is shared by email. Or perhaps you’ll simply share your
experience with a friend over a cup of coffee, so that the two of you wonder
about the mystery that is saving our souls.
However we share the mystery, may our lives and our church
also become the mystery, so that all
the world would know the “rich variety” of God’s family and God’s saving love.
Prayer
God of what we do not know,
Christ who is a mystery—
Open our eyes
To where we have missed you,
To the hidden figures in our lives;
Grant us the grace
Of holy “aha!” moments;
So that we might see, celebrate, and share
With all the world
The rich variety
Of the family of God.
Amen.
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