John Ortberg  asked a wise friend, What do I need to do to be spiritually healthy? Long pause. “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life,” he said at last. Another long pause. “Okay, I’ve written that one down,” I told him, a little impatiently. “That’s a good one. Now what else is there?” Another long pause. “There is nothing else,” he said. “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”

Faber wrote about unhurriedness in God’s presence.

Only to sit and think of God, Oh what a joy it is!

To think the thought, to breathe the Name; Earth has no higher bliss.

Father of Jesus, love’s reward! What rapture will it be,

Prostrate before Thy throne to lie, and gaze and gaze on Thee.

I love Thee so, I know not how my transports to control;

Thy love is like a burning fire within my very soul.

O Spirit, beautiful and dread, my heart is fit to break,

With love of all Thy tenderness for us poor sinners’ sake.

Tozer comments on Faber’s lyrics. “Men of the breaking hearts had a quality about them not known to or understood by common men. They habitually spoke with spiritual authority. They had been in the Presence of God and they reported what they saw there. They were prophets, not scribes, for the scribe tells us what he has read, and the prophet tells what he has seen.

The distinction is not an imaginary one. Between the scribe who has read and the prophet who has seen there is a difference as wide as the sea. We are today overrun with orthodox scribes, but the prophets, where are they? The hard voice of the scribe sounds over evangelicalism, but the Church waits for the tender voice of the saint who has penetrated the veil and has gazed with inward eye upon the Wonder that is God. And yet, thus to penetrate, to push in sensitive living experience into the holy Presence, is a privilege open to every child of God.”

The message to me? Oh to seek and find God, to see so that I might share what I’ve seen and not just what I’ve read.

The real reason I saw Spike Lee’s new film at the Sundance Film Festival is because it is set in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, where my oldest daughter started her career in an elementary school with Teach for America.

Even though I think and write about religion for a living, my primary reason for attending “Red Hook Summer” was not because the program guide describes it as the story of a “firebrand preacher bent on getting (his grandson) to accept Jesus Christ as his personal savior.”

After all, why would anyone expect a nuanced, respectful exploration of the black church in America from Spike Lee? Let’s face it, the words “Spike Lee” and “theologian” don’t roll off the tongue very easily, if at all.

So imagine my surprise when “Red Hook Summer” delivered a humorous, honest look at the vibrancy, complexity, sincerity and messiness of African-American Christianity.

The story begins with Flik, a teenager who attends a private school in Atlanta and enjoys the finer things of life. His life is turned upside down when his mother sends him off to Brooklyn for the summer to stay with his preacher grandfather, Enoch.

Flik is certainly unprepared for life in the projects, but is even less prepared for working every day at his grandfather’s Little Piece of Heaven church. The only upside is meeting Chazz, a sassy teen who has learned to negotiate life on the streets of Red Hook with her life in the church.

She’s a believer but not stuffy about it, and helps Flik get through the Sunday worship service, which is punctuated by Enoch’s theatrical rants, the spirited “Amens!” of the congregation and the melodramatic sounds of the Hammond organ.

The heart of this film is grandpa Enoch. As the story begins we get hints that Enoch is a man with a past, and it reaches its dramatic climax when we realize that though Enoch is done with his past, his past is not done with him.

Clarke Peters (Det. Lester Freamon from “The Wire”) in the role of Enoch delivers a textured, multi-layered performance that does for the role of a black pastor what Robert Duvall did for revivalists in “The Apostle.” These characters are believable, complicated and likable.

At the Q&A following the film, it was obvious that I wasn’t the only one surprised that Lee delivered a thoughtful, respectful and savvy film about religion. The first audience question was about Lee’s personal religious background. He never attended church as a boy in Brooklyn, he explained, although some summers he was sent to stay with relatives in Atlanta who made sure he did.

Suffice it to say that church and religion have not played a central role in Lee’s life.

So what is the source of the film’s religious content? To answer that question, Lee introduced his co-author on the script, James McBride, and the richness of the film immediately made complete sense.

I interviewed McBride in Chicago in the 1990′s about his best-selling book “The Color of Water.” It was an autobiographical account of his Jewish mother who converted to Christianity and, with her husband, founded the church where “Red Hook Summer” was filmed.

McBride talked about his belief in God and Jesus, and said his faith was renewed and strengthened during the writing and making of the film. He also talked about spirited debates with Lee about certain scenes where McBride’s desire to respect religion collided with Lee’s determination to keep it gritty and real. It was a productive tension, and it worked.

I still find it fascinating that Lee would make a film about religion, and that he teamed up with McBride to do it. Sundance is all about telling stories, and “Red Hook Summer” tells a center-stage story about the importance of religion.

Western Christians commemorate principally (but not solely) the visitation of the Biblical Magi to the Baby Jesus, and thus Jesus’ physical manifestation to the Gentiles. Eastern Christians commemorate the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River, seen as his manifestation to the world as the Son of God.

Epiphany means to “be brought to light” or “to cause to appear.”

This is the day we celebrate the revelation that the word became flesh in Jesus Christ. This is the best of all news because as early church father St. Athanasius said, “He was made man that we might become god.”

The poet Mary Oliver said, Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.

 I’ve been thinking lately about how we “tell about it.”

My friend Susan Osborn has been helping me see the inadequacy of words and the importance of silence. Here is a powerful poem she wrote:

Kindling By Susan Osborn

If I am deaf and cannot hear

And if I am blind and cannot see

If I am mute and cannot speak

If all of my senses are numb and dull

Will I be saved?

Is the soul impoverished in any way?

Or does the utter silence ring

with the Truth?

Does Love  care

what the words are

that lead us home?

The One I love

speaks

of showing not telling.

Every breath

fanning the fire

until it completely

consumes the house.

 I’ve been thinking about how “wordy” protestant Christians often are.

Don’t get me wrong, words are important, but do not the heavens declare the glory of God without uttering a single word? Words matter. Ideas matter. But the incarnation is the reminder that even God, the Word, became most articulate by the act of enfleshing the word.

 I wonder if there is an important lesson in the magi who came from the east? They were called by a star and responded obediently to it, not to a spoken word. The message of the star was augmented by the written word when the magi asked the teachers of the law, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”

Isn’t it ironic that the written word was searched out by King Herod, who wanted to use the written word to find and kill the newborn King, not to worship?” How many legalists, fundamentalists and religionists of all traditions have mastered the written word, but never really encountered the living word?

Called by a star, further enlightened by the written word, the Magi’s epiphany was revealed not in words, but in a baby.

So if I truly want to heed poet Mary Oliver’s advice, “pay attention, be astonished, tell about it,” should not my telling be through the light of Christ within me shining like a star? Should it not be in the living Christ within me revealed in my acts? Should not verbal telling be used sparingly? Did not St. Francis say, “preach the gospel and if necessary, use words?”

A thought by Thomas Merton. “We who have seen the light of Christ are obliged, by the greatness of the grace that has been given us, to make known the presence of the Savior to the ends of the earth…not only by preaching the glad tidings of His coming; but above all by revealing Him in our lives…Every day of our mortal lives must be His manifestation, His divine Epiphany, in the world which He has created & redeemed.”

Before we tell, we must see and be astonished. Is it possible those who resort to words are often those who have not actually seen?

This is what A.W. Tozer concluded.  “Every age has its own characteristics. Right now we are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities, which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart. The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship, and that servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all.

If we would find God amid all the religious externals we must first determine to find Him, and then proceed in the way of simplicity. Now as always God discovers Himself to “babes” and hides Himself in thick darkness from the wise and the prudent. We must simplify our approach to Him. We must strip down to essentials (and they will be found to be blessedly few). We must put away all effort to impress, and come with the guileless candor of childhood. If we do this, without doubt God will quickly respond.”

AMEN.

ART: Epiphany by Jan L. Richardson

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