Epiphany and the Season After - Year C -- 2013
Indexed by Date. Sermons for Epiphany Year C
Isaiah 43: 1-7
Psalm 27
Acts 8: 14-17
Luke 3: 15-17, 21-22
On Christmas Eve we heard the words the angel addressed to those shepherds, minding their own business, periodically counting their sheep, tending their campfire, and trying to stay warm and awake, at least in shifts. The words as reported in the biblical text were: ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: .” Eary in Advent, part of the message we heard the angel deliver to Mary was this: “‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God”.
I did a quick computer search and found that the phrase, do not be afraid” appears 67 times in the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible and the words “fear not”, 74 times in the King James Version. It would seem to me that the normal human reaction to an encounter with the divine or with an angel would be fear. It also seems that the normal human reaction to war, starvation, exile and uncertainty is fear. In many of these types of situations I would worry about you, if you weren’t afraid. “Fear not” is not a command similar to “keep quiet so I can talk to you”, but rather, it is an assurance that someone else has a handle on the big picture and most importantly that someone else is with us. “Fear not” does not mean that nothing bad will happen but it means that no matter what it is that happens, we will not be alone.
The people to whom these verses were first addressed had every reason to fear. Except for a short time under Kings David and Solomon, Israel was never really able to play with the big nations. Israel was almost always at the mercy of competing empires - in reality they were of no account to most nations. From what I have read they occupied a strategic location, in-between other larger nations and when the conquering armies swept from point A to point B, Israel lay directly in the path. Israel often became what some might call, “collateral damage” in larger conflicts.
This passage is written as if it is God speaking to the people. In Genesis the creation story laid out how the world as people knew it had begun, and here it is as if that story is re-told, not for all of humanity, but for Israel alone.
It was as if God had formed them, as in one of the stories of creation in Genesis God was said to have formed the man, Adam, from the dust of the ground. Using this image, the story of Abraham and Sarah is told. God took Abraham and Sarah and from them formed a nation - their nation. In this passage God is saying that he was with them, forming them, from wilderness to Egypt to desert wandering to glory and now to exile - and will soon lead them to a new place in their journey. This same God will call all of Israel from the ends of the earth, all of Israel’s sons and daughters and bring them together once again.
This passage speaks of a strong and powerful God, but this God is not far away and indifferent to them; this God is near and their relationship is very up-close and personal; this is a God who is like an artisan in that there is a relationship between the maker and that which is made - God cares and indeed loves the people called and named Israel.
This passage is the text upon which one of my favourite hymns, “Be Not Afraid” is based. Written by Bob Dufford a Jesuit priest, it is one of the hymns I came to love from my time at AST, an ecumenical theological school where we worked and worshipped together daily, and many times it has spoken to me in times of crisis and loneliness.
Fear is a good word to describe a lot of people’s outlook these days. On Thursday I saw one of our local MLAs Member of the Provincial Legislature in Montague and we got talking about the economy and politics and I told him that I hear a great deal of fear spoken about these days; of course it was not news to him.
Recent changes in EI Employment Insturance are causing anxiety around here and people are imagining worst case scenarios that all result in no work, no money and working people having to move away.
As more and more primary producers find themselves squeezed out of business, people whose livelihood has depended upon a supply managed commodity are wondering how long milk, poultry and eggs will be protected and what will happen if they are sacrificed for other benefits. Conservative economists are all for deregulation while the farmers themselves are much less certain. We wonder what will happen to our country if more and more of our farmers cannot compete in a global economy. We wonder if we can be sure producers in other countries are following similar safety standards to ours.
Churches all over the Maritimes are facing similar decisions to ours as congregations are having to decide what it is they need for ministry in their context and congregation after congregation are selling buildings and consolidating resources while mourning what used to be. Local schools are closing and local hospitals are offering fewer and fewe services.
Everywhere there are worries about the environment as we look for ways to feed everyone, get everyone from point A to point B and employ everyone at a living wage. No wonder we all want to bury our heads in the sand at times and hope it will all go away.
Of course there are also the normal and usual worries about health or the health of a relative or the worries about children and their education and jobs.
It’s not what I would cal a time of great optimism or hope.
In addition to all the things I have just said about the message of this Isaiah, an portrayal of God as affectionate and very personal, this passage tells us one other important thing: God’s people have been this way before. Even if it is new to us, in the grand scheme of things, having a really good reason to worry about the future is not new.
In preparation for a special birthday party in the near future, I went on the internet and looked for “significant events in the last 100 years” - and I know it will be a very long list. It seems that most of the events listed fit into three basic categories: scientific advances, war and the results of war, and politics. While there are many good news events most are almost always overshadowed by the bad.
I wonder why as a human race we have figured out how to sustain life in space and take stunning pictures of our spinning blue planet but not how to sustain peace on the earth? I wonder how it is that we can pack millions of bits of data on a gizmo the size of a small postage stamp but we can’t figure out how to feed hungry people in a world when there is more than enough to go around. I wonder why it is that the gap between the rich and poor is steadily widening.
It seems that nuclear peril of the 1960's has been replaced by the fear of global warming and ecological catastrophe.
In this kind of situation the collected wisdom of our elders has a great deal to tell us. Story telling is one of the ways families pass on the what is important but knowing how to tell a story is vital to it meeting its objective. Stories of how you walked six miles to school and seven miles home and uphill both ways ARE NOT heard by the younger generation. Sometimes the younger generation has to come to the point where it asks for the story before they are ready to listen to it.
When we come to church and participate in a faith community we are in essence agreeing to listen to the story and agreeing to BE and BECOME the story for our own generation.
Part of what Isaiah is doing in this passage is assuring his listeners: “God has been with you in the past, so why would we expect it to be different now.” This is also Isaiah’s message to us, more than two and a half thousand years later. Isaiah’s message does not mean that difficulties will not happen, but rather it assures the hearer that God will be with them, with us, as we go through the difficult times.
Part of what Isaiah’s message is that better times are on the way. When we hear this kind of assurance we assume it means that things will be “restored”, in other words that they will look the same as they were in the “glory days”. Often, the new and better times will not be like anything like what has been seen before but they will be times when the will of God will be fulfilled.
This passage is one of hope and assurance. Do not be afraid because no matter what happens, God is with us. Even though we pass through great difficulties, you need not be overwhelmed. Our God will bring us to a new place just as God has done for our ancestors in the past. Just as Moses led the people of Israel through the waters into the land of promise, just as Jesus passed through the waters of baptism into his ministry, so too we can count on God to guide us through the changes and difficulties that we are currently experiencing so that we will know that we are never alone.
For this we can say, “thanks be to God”
Amen!
Isaiah 62: 1-5
Psalm 36
1 Corinthians 12: 1-11
John 2: 1-11
It seems that our culture is addicted to the kinds of reality tv that put people’s private lives on public display. Are you a single mom having trouble with your teenage son? Go on Dr Phil. Don’t know who the father of your child is? Get Maury to find out and tell the lucky guy, and the unlucky one on national television. On one of the “judge shows” a few years ago a young couple were suing a bakery because their wedding cake did not meet the bride’s very specific expectations and she testified that this great disappointment ruined both the wedding and the honeymoon!
Now you can watch a show called, “Rich Bride - Poor Bride”. In this show a professional wedding planner sits down with a couple and with their budget and helps them plan their wedding. At the end of the show you get the find out if they were within their budget. Sometimes they aren’t all that successful, going over budget by thousands of dollars. It seems that for most couples who agree to be on this show the bride wants the moon and the groom has expectations more down to earth - but she usually gets her way because she has a hissy-fit in front of the cameras and insists that it is her decision. I don’t know about anyone else but many of these women more than meet my definition of “bridezilla”. Perhaps all brides to be need to be reminded that spending a lot of money on the wedding can hurt their prospects for staying married
In most weddings there needs to be someone taking care of the smaller details that come up during the day so the bride and groom don’t have to worry about anything other than remembering their vows and the names of each other’s closest relatives.
In today’s Gospel reading Jesus is attending a wedding in Cana. For some reason his mother has taken on the role of making sure there is enough wine.
Now here in PEI for most every wedding, there are various events, mostly for the family and bridal party but the wedding and reception itself is about half a day. The preparation, of course, takes much longer!
In Jesus’ day the wedding was a week-long event. Running out of wine at the wedding festivities was seen as a major disgrace. For whatever reason this couple underestimated their guests thirst and Mary goes to her son with a statement of this awful fact: they have run out of wine! His initial reply would indicate to me at least that he was not prepared to do anything, but Mary tells the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them.
Jesus tells them to fill the jars - the ones used for the rites of purification. These jars were made of stone and held twenty or thirty gallons each so I suppose they were filled by many trips to the well with smaller containers. Then Jesus tells one of them to take some of it and give it to the steward. The steward’s reaction is one of incredulity - in his amazement he asks the groom why he has saved the best wine for later on in the celebration when the guests would be less able to tell the difference.
As a conclusion, the writer of John’s Gospel indicates that this was the first of his signs, the first public enactment of his power and his identity as the Messiah, the son of God.
Now comes a disclaimer: If you are inclined to think that the church should have nothing good to say about alcohol, for whatever reason, I would ask you to suspend that view for the rest of this sermon. There are very good reasons not to promote the over consumption of alcohol, but that is a topic for another day.
Apart from revealing Jesus’ true identity, what else does this miracle story show us? While wine was virtually the only adult beverage for the people in Jesus day it was ALSO a symbol of joy. The text tells us that he made an enormous quantity, somewhere between 120 and 180 gallons, of excellent quality wine which seems to me to be a story of abundance; an abundance of joy. Where Jesus is there is an abundance of joy and celebration! Jesus is referred to as the true vine and from this vine comes an abundance of God’s joy. The Judeo-Christian tradition has always had an ambivalent attitude toward wine and strong drink but as there is always the potential for abuse. We must remember that this wine was not just for one family or one meal; they were in the midst of a wedding celebration. Wedding celebrations were essentially a time apart from regular life during which people celebrated life in all of its fullness.
Traditionally, weddings were, and are, about transition. Two young people become a couple and their wedding is the first step in forming a new family. This transition is so significant that everything stops in the lives of the two families and their friends so that this joy can be properly celebrated. Two families are brought together by the marriage of their children. Every couple has hopes and dreams for their future, and in that time and place the dreams probably involved having and raising children and growing old together enjoying their children’s children. Weddings were celebrations of love, joy and hope for a bright future. Without weddings there would be no children and no future.
We know very little of Jesus life before he began his public ministry but we do know that he had close friends and even after his ministry began he sought to spend time with them. We know of his humanity when we are told that he wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus. I think that this event, on its simplest level shows us just how much the normal celebrations of human life meant to him.
It seems to me that part of what this passage says to us is that the Christian faith is meant to bring us joy and celebration and that we are meant to share these joys and celebrations in the midst of our journey of faith. Some people seem to think that the life of faith is about sacrifice and seriousness and they go around as if smiling would literally crack their face.
One of my favourite drawings, lived on my office wall in Rexton - (I seem to have lost that copy) it depicts Jesus in a full belly laugh, head back, mouth open - perhaps enjoying a good joke or a good time with his friends. Apparently some people were offended when it was published but it seems to me that this is the kind of Jesus who went to weddings and who ensured that the wine could not possibly run out.
The Christian faith is not about the following of rules as if it was a prescription for a drug that has very specific guidelines or it wont be effective. The Christian faith is about joy and abundance and sharing in that with all of our being. Like a copious amount of wine the Christian faith invades all of our being and changes us completely.
The Common Cup Company’s song “Cana Wine” seeks to plumb the deeper meaning of this passage. The singer is a wedding guest transformed by this event. After the choir has had time to learn it you will hear it sung; until then here are the words:
Some friends of mine got married about three days ago . I could take you to the place down in the valley just below; but I think I’ll stay up here awhile and enjoy the sweet warm glow that has come from the taste of Cana wine. It was just a simple wedding feast you know the kind I mean: holding hands, holding hearts, and holding fast to all their dreams, but somehow I got a feeling it was more than first it seemed Must have been from the taste of Cana wine That marriage down in Cana brought new life to my friends. I bless them and I wish them all the fullness life can bring, but a new life’s rising in me too like an overflowing stream and it comes from the taste of Cana wine Cana wine, Cana wine working on my heart and mind flowing free, filling me, till I lose all sense of time! Cana wine, pure and fine, from the fairest of all vines! Come, sit down and we’ll share some Cana wine.
Common Cup Company, Rev Gordon Light.
Being a Christian is about joy and celebrating God’s abundance and generosity. Like those 180 gallons of wine that is not about to run out anytime soon!
Amen.
Nehemiah 8: 1-3, 5-6, 8-10
Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 12: 12-31a
Luke 4: 14-21
The other day I popped in a DVD and watched an old episode of Grey’s Anatomy which is a hospital based drama. At the beginning o this episode there was a train derailment and many seriously injured people were flooding into the emergency room. One man brought to the er was missing his right leg and several of the interns were tasked with going to the first responders and finding not only a right leg, but the “right” right leg, for the man by then on the operating room table. After a few unsuitable matches the correct leg was found and reattached.
About 15 years ago I helped catalogue a set of letters that were part of the estate of the man whose property had become a community museum. The writer of the letters was living somewhere in Ontario and his wife, to whom the letters were addressed, was living in the house that eventually became our museum. There were no letters from her to him so you had to use your best guess and “read between the lines” in order to find out what the other set of letters contained. The issues covered could have been simple advice on whom to hire for whatever maintenance needed to be done or the content gave the reader the feeling that one had walked in on a marital disagreement and was missing something important. For various reasons these letters are not open to the public.
When we read passages such as the one I read a few minutes ago from 1 Corinthians we need to remember that they are letters written by the apostle Paul to communities. Either they are responses to letters he has received asking for his advice or they are his response to reports he has received. Either way they are, more or less, only half of the story. We have to read between the lines and fill in the blanks based on what we know from other sources and our best guesses.
When Paul was preaching and teaching about Jesus there were no gospels to guide the communities; there were stories about Jesus and personal testimonies and there were letters from Paul guiding them in their lives together.
These ‘churches’ to whom Paul wrote were small groups of people who were “followers” of the way of Jesus. The church in Corinth was, at first, really, really small. This congregation meeting here today would be A REALLY, REALLY BIG CONGREGATION in comparison to the size of the church in Corinth.
In his letters Paul tries to teach them about faith and behaviour that is consistent with being Christ centred communities. He also did not write these letters with the intention of their becoming “scripture”; it was later generations of Christ followers who discerned that they were inspired or Spirit filled.
So what conclusions can we draw about the Corinthian community that would necessitate guidance on being the body of Christ? To use some more modern language, it is like we have an email reply without the “copy original” setting checked.
In the first half of this chapter Paul is talking about the importance of all spiritual gifts and in this half of the chapter he is drawing a comparison between the human body and the community of faith.
It would seem to me that Paul is addressing division in the community; the kind of division where one person or one group of persons were seen as superior to other people and a hierarchy was developing.
We know that some communities had divisions between people that mirrored the divisions in the rest of society. In the ancient Roman world there were classes of people and it was obvious that some people were much more important than others. The citizens were wealthy free men who were the most important. There were artisans who made nice stuff. There were the slaves who did the bulk of the work and certainly all of the dirty and distasteful work.
Paul was both a Pharisaic Jew and a Roman citizen; he had every reason to see himself as more important than the poor and ordinary people in the Corinthian church but in the light of his call to follow Jesus he saw things in terms of a radical equality. This did not mean that people were all called to be the same; certainly not, but all people were valued, no one was expendable.
The trouble in the Corinthian community seemed to be that some were being overvalued and others undervalued based on the old ways of looking at life and human community. Social differences were not put aside but continued to be part of the church community. Those who were important in society were seen as more important and those who were less so were seen as less important. Some devalued othrs or themselves and Paul in this passage, and others, is seeking to tell them that all people are important and indeed necessary.
The best comparison that Paul could think of was that of the human body. We could ask the question, “What is the most important organ in the body?” I started off the children’s story that way. Mr Potato Head is a really easy way to make that illustration very easy for children to see; they can easily understand how silly it would look and how impractical, for the whole body to be an ear, or an arm!
As adults we can look a little deeper, we can go under the skin and see the body in terms of systems. Is the heart which beats and thus circulates the blood in our body more important than the circulatory system which carries that blood which has been filled with oxygen by our lungs and cleansed by our kidneys to every part of our body. What about our digestive system which turns our food into fuel our body can recognize? What about our eyes and ears which tell us about the world around us and our arms and hands which move our food from plate to mouth and our legs which take us from one place to another and so on and so on.
Through millions of years of evolution the human body has become an almost perfect organic machine whose functions and interrelationships are still being discovered. While any doctor trained in the days of Paul would probably be lost in the modern practise of medicine and while Paul was not a doctor, his comparison of the human body to the Christian community is still as true today as it was then.
At this point I must say that this passage does not address issues of disability - where some people must find ways to function without the “standard or full” set of abilities and body components. We take this analogy as it was intended to function, without pushing it beyond its limits.
Paul is speaking of Christian unity to a very divided society and trying to get them to look at life in a completely new and almost counter intuitive way. What he is saying to them is that they have to ignore almost every assumption they have about the ordering of society so that the community of faith will reflect the will of God as revealed by Christ Jesus.
We have lived with this passage for so long that we may just assume that we are living it and it does not have anything more to say to us. Our church offers equal opportunities to everyone to take whatever role they feel called to pursue doesn’t it? We value all members of our community don’t we? We have youth elders don’t we? Children can take communion can’t they?
This passage calls us to make our own searching inventory of our own attitudes and assumptions. Are we addicted to the past, or to a vision of the body that is no longer life giving?
One of the things that this passage speaks against is one member or group of members excluding another from the body because this member is different or does not have the same function but this passage also speaks against self exclusion - it speaks against those who would say, “I am unimportant, I have nothing to offer”.
Churches that have been around for a long time are often guilty of both of these mistaken views of “non-belonging”. Long-timers intentionally or unintentionally exclude those who have been around only a short time. Long time members exclude new ideas by saying, “We don’t do it that way here”, or “We have never done it that way before”. We want to involve “new people” to give those who are the longtime folks a break or some help but only if the new people will do it the right way, in other words, the way things have always been done. People are unwilling to volunteer for something they have never done or to accept a committee position because they are afraid of being told that what they are doing is wrong in some way.
Just as a human body changes throughout the aging process so too does the community of faith as it grows and changes. Just as the human body sometimes needs to focus on new ways of doing things in order for its overall health so too the ccommunity of faith needs to change its priorities from time to time to meet new circumstances or outside influences.
As we focus on the new year let us be open to the leading of the Spirit as we assess what gifts are needed for the journey ahead of us. Of one thing we can be assured; of one thing we can be certain - the Spirit of God goes with us each and every day, challenging us to give opur best and to encourage others to do the same.
Amen.
Jeremiah 1: 4-10
Psalm 71
1 Corinthians 13: 1-13
Luke 4: 14-30
There was once a man who believed that the Bible held personal guidance for his life. But his belief was not grounded in study or theological reflection but in what one might call magic. You see he believed that all he had to do was let the Bible fall open and he would close his eyes and place his finger on the page and that verse would be his verse for the day. This practice worked well most of the time but one day the Bible fell open at the Gospel of Luke and his finger landed on Luke 19: 22 which reads “When Jesus heard this, he said to him, ‘There is still one thing lacking. Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” The man was disturbed and perplexed by this verse as he like the man in the story was very attached to his many possessions and he decided that once, just this once, he could let God choose a second verse for him. So he closed the Bible and let it fall open again, and this time his Bible fell open at the Gospel of Luke and his finger went to ’Luke 10: 37 which reads “Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’.” Obviously there are a great many verses which, when taken out of context, do not present a course of action that would appeal to many, even the most dedicated.
One of the most stressful things I did when I was a young and newly minted minister was to preach in the church I had attended all of my life prior to leaving for university. The people in front of me were family, family friends and neighbours. They were former Sunday school teachers and fellow Sunday school classmates and former Sunday school students. I wondered to myself, are they going to think that I have no business standing in front of them trying to make the biblical story relevant for their lives. Are they going to discount what I say because “little Beth” could not possibly have anything to say to them.
In today’s gospel reading we have Jesus going to his hometown synagogue and being given the honour and privilege of a visiting Rabbi. Typically, such a person would be asked to read the scripture appointed for the day - and then sit down and teach the congregation.
Let’s look at the text in the context of Luke’s story so far. The previous chapter tells us of that Jesus was baptized by his cousin John and that immediately afterward Jesus spent some time in the wilderness where he was tempted. We will read that passage as we begin the season of Lent. After returning from the wilderness he began to travel from place to place to teach in the synagogues, so when he came to Nazareth, his hometown, it was not his first sermon ever! I have that sermon on tape and on paper and I have never listened to it nor read it again!
He read the passage from Isaiah that Luke quotes in his story and he begins to preach. This passage from Isaiah is supposed to be “good news”, it is news of restoration and renewal.
All farmers know about crop rotation. By law, in PEI, you cannot plant potatoes in the same field year after year. In Israel there was a seven year cycle to their agriculture - with every seventh year a field was left “fallow”, with no crop. After 7 such cycles was a year of Jubilee. In this year all slaves were freed, all land returned to their original owners, and all debts were forgiven. It was a way of ensuring that the rich could not amass great wealth because of the misfortune of others and that each family had what was needed to earn a living. Every 50 years the nation pressed the “reset button” and everyone could start over.
A few years ago many churches and aid organizations were trying to get the IMF and the World Bank to forgive the debts of the most impoverished countries of the world in order to enable them to get their heads above water.
By the time of Jesus, in a land under Roman occupation this practise was nothing but a dream or a distant memory but they knew that this passage from Isaiah was written as another time of great difficulty was coming to an end. It was a passage of hope; a passage assuring them that God’s favour would once again shine on them. Jesus told them that this was going to be fulfilled in their hearing.
The locals praised him. They marvelled at how much he knew. After all he was a carpenter’s son. He was the kid from next door. We are told that they looked for him to do for them what they had heard he had done in other places, such as Capernaum.
If Jesus had stopped there, he would have been home free. They would have had an after worship lunch and praised him and everyone would have been happy and his mom would have cried, remembering her little boy and how sweet he looked lying in that manger longer ago than she wanted to admit.
But Jesus took it one step further. He recalled two stories that they would have known and he placed them front and centre in his sermon. During the time of Elijah the prophet did not go to someone who was one of them, a fellow Israelite, but a foreigner and she and her son received the grace and abundance of God. During the time of Elisha, the healing of God was not given to someone from Israel but someone from Syria - a pagan, a foreigner.
“Them is fighting words” - and with them Jesus stepped over the line. There is always this tension in the scripture between Israel and the “other nations”. Periodically, the people of Israel would get lazy and see their call to be a “light to the nations” as a call to status and privilege and not a call to responsibility. Caught “asleep at the switch”, this attitude would inevitably result in their defeat. Over and over they had to realize that they had a part in proclaiming God’s care and love for all nations.
It seems that Jesus neighbours did not want to be reminded of any of those many stories which told them that this blessing had been poured on others before.
We aren’t all that different from those folks from Nazareth all of those years ago. To make my point we only need to consider three issues - native land claims, immigration and foreign aid.
Then there are those who say that we cannot give our native people any land over which they have exclusive rights because we (the majority) need free reign to make use of the natural and mineral resources of that land. “They” cite “treaty rights” and “we” cite “the economy”.
There are those who argue that we have no obligation to help poor people in other countries. Without taking into account our abundance we store up more and more.
In many parts of Canada immigration is a big issue, especially when the majority of our new immigrants are not from Western Europe as “our” ancestors were. People worry about the kinds of changes that are inevitable with the changing face of a community. We forget that the vast majority of our ancestors were immigrants a couple of hundred years ago.
There is nothing quite like an economic recession to make people mean and inward looking and stingy. There is nothing quite like a military conflict to make people afraid. Look at our forced internment of people of Japanese descent during the second world war. Look at our policy of not admitting Jewish people to Canada when we knew that the Nazis wanted them all dead! Look at how people who look “middle eastern” are regarded since 9/11.
Then comes Jesus proclaiming something different; here comes Jesus proclaiming two things - a radical trust in the ways of God and - a willingness to share the grace which surrounds our lives.
These last few years have been times of apologies. We have apologized to the Japanese who were interned, to the former residents of the notorious schools.
I wonder what we will have to apologize for in the future, the things we are doing now because we feel that we have no other choice - the environmental damage because big business has to be supported - the lack of willingness to tackle the problems in our First Nations communities, the problems of poverty and homelessness - how we favour certain countries and ignore their human rights abuses because of political pressure.
A number of years ago Robert Fulgum wrote a book called “All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” - some of them are: Share everything, Don't hit people, Don't take things that aren't yours and Say you’re SORRY when you HURT somebody. Those lessons aren’t just for childhood.
We can’t just open the Bible and find a story that applies to us “like magic”. We can’t just pay attention to the stories that affirm our attitudes and our way of life and our prejudices. We need to be open to the stories that hit us like a ton of bricks with the message, “Surely we do know better”. The biblical story calls us all to account for our actions and asks us to envision a world where everyone enjoys God’s favour - EVERYONE .
For the love of God. Listen to the Good News. Hear the Good News. Live the Good News!
Amen.
February 10, 2013 - Transfiguration Sunday
Exodus 34: 29-35
Psalm 99
2 Corinthians 3:12 - 4:2
Luke 9: 28-43
About 30 years ago, when I was a student at Mount A, a friend of mine had what one could term a “mountaintop experience”; I believe it happened in a dream. When he awoke he was filled with love and light and certainty and joy and he wanted that feeling to last forever. He just had to share this experience with just about everyone he knew. He quickly discovered, much to his dismay though, that he could not sustain the strong emotions he felt in the immediate aftermath of this experience and he had a hard time adjusting to normal campus life.
That’s the nature of mountaintop experiences; they don’t last forever. They are vivid and intense and they take over your soul and then they fade and go out.
Have you ever seen a new mom, or a sibling who is a toddler sitting and gazing at a newborn baby? That is the not unlike what is going on in today’s passage.
Next week we begin the season of Lent but before we begin that sometimes difficult season we need to be sure we have enough to sustain us on that journey. The revelation of who Jesus is that happened in this passage is that food. Like Communion it is bread and drink for the journey of discipleship.
So here we are - the Sunday before Lent seeing and hearing who this Jesus is. This passage says a great deal about Jesus and while this passage allows us to bask in the glory it does not allow us to bask in that glory for long, for the people of God in Christ have a mission and a ministry.
In some accounts of Jesus’ baptism the heavenly voice affirming his identity as God’s own child is not addressed to anyone else, it is a personal revelation. On this Sunday, the heavenly voice is addressed to everyone with the ears to hear. Now the truth is proclaimed for all to hear.
So now, lets look at this passage that says so much to us about who Jesus is and challenges us with the question, “What are you going to do about it”.
Why Moses? Why Elijah? Why not some other famous figure from the past. Moses symbolized the law; it was to Moses that God gave the ten commandments; Elijah symbolized all of the prophets who spoke truth to power and who called the people back to faithfulness to their true ruler, God. Both of them suffered for their loyalty but both were sustained on their journey as leaders of the people of Israel.
The dazzling light and the white robes are symbolic of divine glory. The disciples (when they manage to stay awake) want to preserve this moment; hence the offer to build dwellings - they want to capture, preserve and keep this moment. They want to stay and bask in the glory.
Jesus often took some of his dicsipkes with him to pray in a solitary place away from the hubbub of daily life - on more than one occasion he prayed and they fell asleep; this day was no exception.
Then the vision disappeared and they went down the mountain and back to their regular lives of being Jesus’ disciples.
They go down the mountain and encounter a man with a sick child and they react with powerlessness. They could not do anything for this poor child and Jesus is dumbfounded.
I think this story has a great deal to say to us about our lives here in PEI in 2013. I wonder what is our reaction after our years of encountering the holy on this mountain of worship? What is our reaction when the hurting and lonely come to us and ask for grace and love? What is our reaction?
Do we say, “What do you expect me to do about it?” Or do we say, “May God’s grace be with you”. Do we carry God’s love with us or do we block it off because we have not understood it fully, and not comprehended what was in front of us?
Jesus asks us to be agents of grace while we are still searching and confused and feeling like we are at sea.
If I can’t feed all of the hungry people, I can feed one, or contribute part of the meal. If I cant stop everyone from hurting, I can help one person, at one time on one day.
I don’t have the power but by some miracle of God’s grace I can be a means of that grace.
We can’t stay here but we should not leave our faith in our pew like some folks leave their favourite Bible in their pew at church we should be taking it with us and allowing it to transform our lives into agents of God’s love in Christ.
The journey of Lent is a time to remember how much faithfulness cost Jesus and the transfiguration is our food for that journey. We are reminded what is at stake and for whom we are doing this. We are reminded who is calling us; Jesus who is not just a great guy but the word made flesh, the one who embodies all of the law and all of the prophets together in one person.
We cant do it on our own. With the nourishment of the bread of life we can embark on the journey of faith.
Amen.