Two Epiphanies, Rev. Josh Pawelek, January 4, 2026

Our ministry theme for January is practicing resistance. I’m not surprised our friends at Soul Matters (the independent UU resource hub that provides materials for our monthly themes) landed on this theme at this time. As we have named many times over the past year, the administration in Washington, DC has engaged in many authoritarian actions, e.g., abducting and deporting people without due process, deploying federal troops to US cities, cutting the social safety net to pay for tax cuts for the nation’s wealthiest residents, freezing funds Congress has already appropriated, defunding universities, criticizing judges, firing federal employees without cause, using the Department of Justice to harass and attack political opponents, etc. (I can't say I fully understand what happened in Venezuela this weekend, but I can say it is not consistent with the actions of a decent, ethical and democratic nation.) People of liberal faith abhor such actions. We recognize a profound threat to our time-honored democratic institutions, practices and assumptions (as flawed as they are). We feel called to resist. My original sermon title was “Resistance!”

However, every time I started working on this sermon, the fact that the Christian celebration of Epiphany happens this week kept intruding on my thoughts. I finally changed my title to “Two Epiphanies.” I want to let two epiphany stories bump up against each other, and then name what, if anything, they say about practicing resistance.

            In the western Christian liturgical calendar the celebration of Epiphany, also known as Three Kings Day, Theophany, Little Christmas and a variety of other names, takes place, mostly, on January 6^th, a date established by the early Christian church. Epiphany comes from the Greek word “epiphaneia,” meaning “manifestation.” If I understand correctly, in its early years during the third and fourth centuries, Epiphany was a catchall celebration, commemorating a number of events that, for church leaders, manifested Jesus’ divinity. These events included the virgin birth, the visitation of the three Magi (sometimes wise men or kings), Jesus’ baptism, and his supposed first miracle: turning water into wine at the Wedding at Cana as described in the New Testament book of John. Because it included the celebration of Jesus’ birth, Epiphany was the original Christmas; and in fact, the Eastern Orthodox churches still celebrate Christmas on January 6, rather than on December 25^th.[1] 

As an aside, I started researching why the early church chose January 6^th for the celebration of Epiphany. There doesn’t seem to be a definitive answer to that question, but apparently January 5^th and 6^th were auspicious days in ancient world, associated with the births of various deities. In a 2011 book entitled The Origin of Feasts, Fasts and Seasons in Early Christianity, two Notre Dame religion professors, Paul Bradshaw and Maxwell Johnson, write that “Epiphany, like Christmas, was but a Christian replacement feast for, or Christianization of, various pagan festivals celebrated on or near 6 January, especially in ancient Egypt. The pagan festivals in question are the Egyptian celebration in honor of the birth of the god Aion, born of the virgin Kore [on] 6 January, and another, called Pater Liber, in honor of Dionysius on 5 January.”[2] 

For me, the central Epiphany story is the visit of the three Magi to the home of Jospeh, Mary and Jesus. The Magi travel from the east, following a star, searching for the child who was born “king of the Jews.” They ask around Jerusalem. “Where is the child who was born king of the Jews? We saw his star rising in the East.” King Herod learns about their inquiries and is frightened. He’s king of the Jews and he intends to remain so. He secretly calls for the Magi to come to his palace. He pumps them for information about the star, then sends them on their way, asking them to let him know once they find the child. He’d like to visit as well.

As we heard earlier, “When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.”[3] 

            That’s one epiphany story. Over the last year, Emmy[4] and I have been talking about La Befana, and wondering: if it’s possible to get Santa Claus to visit on Christmas Eve, couldn’t we also get La Befana to visit on or near Epiphany?

La Befana is a figure in Italian folklore similar to Santa Claus in that she visits children and leaves goodies and presents for them. My late father-in-law, Valentino Pascetta, who grew up in Italy, told stories of La Befana visiting on the eve of Epiphany and leaving oranges in his shoes. Unlike Santa, she isn’t typically jolly. She appears as a crone, a witch. She doesn’t fly in a sleigh, but she does fly on a broom. As the story goes, the Magi stopped by her home when they were on their way to visit Jesus and invited her to join them. She showed them hospitality, but declined their invitation saying she had too much housework to do. As the Rev. Mary Wellemeyer says in a meditation entitled “La Befana,” “she was too busy sweeping.”[5] Later, as the story often goes, she regretted her decision and tried to catch up to the Magi, but she couldn’t find them. She wasn’t sure who the messiah was, so now, on the eve of Epiphany, she visits every child, leaving treats and presents in their shoes.

I like Rev. Wellemeyer’s Universalist take on La Befana. She writes:

“I’m not so sure this spirit woman wanders / or tries to make up / for something she missed. / No Magi for her, / no one special star, / no one certain special holy baby / far away. / She knows the other truth, / that every child is holy, / and worthy of gifts, / perfect and blessed; / the gift of life to life / from the mystery beyond / birth and death.”[6]

That’s our second epiphany story this morning. There’s a cool linguistic connection between the two. An entry in the New World Encyclopedia on Epiphany mentions that “in Rome, ‘Epiphania’ was transformed through mispronunciation into Befana, the great fair held at that season, when sigillaria of terracotta or baked pastry were sold.[7] From what I can tell, La Befana gets her name from this early winter festival or fair which was associated with Epiphany. I found a few other articles confirming this.[8] And just for fun I learned from Chat GTP that ‘in spoken medieval Italian, especially among people who did not know Greek or formal church Latin, the word was gradually altered through folk pronunciation and sound shifts: Epiphania → Epifania → Pifania → Befania → Befana.’[9] La Befana may, and likely did have earlier iterations in ancient Italian culture as an agricultural/fertility goddess, but I think it’s so cool that her current name is a mispronunciation of the Greek word for epiphany.

In reflecting on what these epiphany stories might tell us about resistance, I draw three lessons or insights, which I name as noncompliance, generosity, and hopefulness.

Noncompliance. Herod says to the Magi: “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.”[10] They do not comply. “And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.”[11] There is enormous pressure to comply right now. Pressure on colleges and universities, on public health and health care institutions, on judges and courts, on corporations, on the media. Many ignore the warnings and return to Herod. I’m mindful of words from the historian Timothy Snyder in his 2017 book, On Tyranny: “Don’t obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.”[12] I think it’s worth finding ways for all of us, individually and together, to take an inventory, to become clear about all the ways we are being asked to comply with authoritarianism, and then choose noncompliance.

            Generosity. Here I turn to La Befana. Unlike the Magi, she is not of royal lineage, not a queen or a noblewoman. She is old. She is poor. She lives alone in a modest home. She is a domestic laborer. I read somewhere—and now can’t find the quote—that her tools (a broom, stockings, simple gifts) are objects of everyday life, not wealth and power. No frankincense and myrrh. No Nintendo switches or I-phones. My father-in-law got oranges. She operates in a world of scarcity, but still finds a way to give. A spirit of generosity runs through the stories of La Befana. And I want to channel that spirit into this new year.

            The bottom line is that I am getting more and more requests from our immigrants rights partners for basic financial support for the families of ICE detainees: food, toiletries, diapers, rental assistance, legal fees. And I see no reason why those requests will not increase in the coming year.[13] Similarly, I am increasingly aware of transgender people or families with transgender members who are leaving states with strong anti-trans law and resettling in friendlier states. They often need a variety of supports as they rebuild their lives. Beyond these two groups, we know middle income people and families who are losing access to affordable health insurance. We know lower income people and families who are finding it increasingly difficult to make financial ends meet due to chaos in the economy. And all this is before massive cuts to Medicaid and Snap go into effect next year. I don’t know exactly what our congregational role is in responding to these kinds of needs as they grow, but I am increasingly led to the conclusion that our generosity is required, that our generosity is itself a form of resistance. I want to discuss ways we can organize this kind of generosity at the next meeting of our Social Justice / Anti-Oppression Committee. If you’d like to be part of that conversation, please feel free to join us—Tuesday evening at 7:00.

            Finally, hopefulness as resistance. On Christmas Eve I said that whoever wrote the stories about Jesus’ birth knew that all was not right with the world. They lived under imperial Roman rule, and by all accounts that rule was punishing and impoverishing. As an alternative to that imperial power the writers offered the image of a child, born outside of the trappings of wealth and imperial power, a child who symbolized a different kind of power—the power of humility, meekness, kindness, compassion, peace-making and love. It’s a hopeful story. At its heart it reminds us a different world is possible.[14] It reminds us we are justified in being hopeful.

            I suppose that is the central epiphany for me as I encounter these two stories: A different world is possible. The pathways to that world include our noncompliance with authoritarianism, our generosity towards those most severely impacted by authoritarian policies, and our enduring hopefulness.

            Amen and blessed be.

[1] For a more detailed discussion of the history of Epiphany, see “Epiphany (Christian)” in the online New World Encyclopedia at https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Epiphany_(Christian).

[2] Bradshaw, Paul and Johnson, Maxwell, The Origin of Feasts, Fasts and Seasons in Early Christianity (Collegeville, MN, Liturgical Press, 2011) p. 132.

[3] Matthew 2: 10-12. As an aside, church tradition has it that the Magi visited Jesus twelve days after Jesus’ birth, hence the ‘twelve days of Christmas,’ ending with Epiphany.  There’s nothing in the text that actually indicates twelve days. Herod called for the death of all children two years and younger “according to the time that he had learned from the Magi” (v. 16), which leads some scholars to argue that the Magi’s visit could have been as much as two years after Jesus’ birth.

[4] Emmy Galbraith is UUSE’s Director of Children and Youth Ministry.

[5] Wellemeyer, Mary, “La Befana” in Admire the Moon: Meditations (Boston: Skinner House Books, 2005) p. 12.

[6] Ibid., pp. 12-13.

[7] See the section on local customs under “Epiphany (Christian)” in the online New World Encyclopedia at https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Epiphany_(Christian).

[8] De Marchi-Fusaroli, Paolo, “Understanding the Meaning of Epiphany” (Repubblica e Cantone Ticino, Internet Topics), see:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160304194044/http://www3.ti.ch/argomenti/index.php?fuseaction=2.leggi&artId=219.

[9] Chat GTP response to inquiry regarding the origin of the title La Befana in Italian culture. 

[10] Matthew 2:8b.

[11] Matthew 2:12.

[12] Snyder, Timothy, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (New York: Crown, 2017) P. 17.

[13] Otte, Emilia and Eichorst, Angela (for the CT Mirror), ICE arrests, deportations in CT up sharply in Trump’s second term,” Hartford Business Journal, August 29^th, 2025. See: https://hartfordbusiness.com/article/ice-arrests-deportations-in-ct-up-sharply-in-trumps-second-term/. Tillman, Laura “CT residents detained by ICE remembered at Hartford vigil,” CT Mirror, December 23, 2025. See: https://ctmirror.org/2025/12/23/ct-ice-hartford-vigil/.

[14] Or, in the words of the Indian writer and activist, Suzanna Arundhati Roy, “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”