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SERMON FOR SUNDAY,

Feast of the Transfiguration,

FEBUARY 14 2010

ST. PAUL’S CHURCH, BROOKLINE

 

If you have been to the movies or even sat through endless previews recently, you know that special effects and over-the-top scenes of challenging unreality are very much the way of contemporary story-telling.  So it is that I wonder how James Cameron, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, or even good old Cecil B. Demille, might deal with today’s gospel, the story of the Transfiguration.  Let’s face it; the whole thing is bizarre, on the edge, easily demythologized.  Familiar as the plot and characters are, we remain puzzled.  What happened on that mountaintop?

 

Well, let’s have a look at the Transfiguration and discover what we can learn from it.  I warn you that I am not a literalist with Bible stories, but I do believe they MEAN something vitally accessible for us to make our own and to use on our spiritual journeys.  Jesus changes right there before the eyes of the three disciples, and then along come Moses and Elijah, of Old Testament fame, just to add to the drama.  What we have here is a glimpse of the glory of God.  As seekers and believers we look for all the glimpses we can find.   Necessary milestones to our faith, no matter how shrouded in mystery, these moments spur us on to follow Jesus Christ as we understand Jesus.  Our glimpse goes like this: Jesus at once is dazzling, supernatural, and radiant.  Peter, James and John witness his glory.  Now, please note this radical change in appearance happens only a few days after Jesus posed the question to his friends “Who do the crowd say that I am?”  Typical of Peter, always ready to step in and answer, he replies “the Messiah of God.”  Jesus then tells his intimates not to tell this news or to share his prediction that he is soon heading for his death.

 

So off they go to a mountain, they pray, they snooze, and suddenly everything changes.  It’s like a dream, a sort of time-out for a message that they don’t want.  The three friends have experienced revelation, a new call to follow their rabbi, changed but the same. Next, predictably Peter is keen to build some handy booths for Moses and Elijah who manage to vanish just in time.  Then, just as in the baptism of Jesus by his cousin John, the voice of God declares, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him.”  This call to listen means to emulate, to imitate, to be as like Jesus as possible.  And it is Jesus who now manifests his glory, the very glory we are to live out in OUR discipleship.  We are called to the mountaintop to learn the power and love of God, and that is of course mysterious.  Sometimes confusing.  Often challenging.  But there it is, dazzling, supernatural, radiant, and radical.

 

On April 3, 1968 in Memphis, the day before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke these words, “I’ve been to the mountaintop.  I just want to do God’s will.  And He’s allowed me to go to the mountain.  And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land . . . Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord . . . I may not get there with you.  But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.  And I’m happy tonight . . . .”

 

Last Sunday in the comfort zone of Palm Springs I heard one of the best sermons I can remember.  Bishop Shannon Mallory, retired bishop of Botswana as well as El Camino Real in California, took as his text Paul’s words, “By the grace of God I am what I am.”  Given the recent celebration in South Africa of the heroic and miraculous work of Nelson Mandela there, Bishop Mallory quoted from the great Black leader: “You are a child of God and if you act small it doesn’t serve you or the world in any way.  All of us were born to make manifest the glory of God within us, and that glory is not just in a select few but in everyone.”  We often restrict our use of the word “glory” to the celestial song of angels at Christmas, but the powerful image and message of that exalted term is for all seasons and all people.  Thanks, Bishop Mallory, for reminding me to broaden my horizons.

 

You and I are the 2010 models of discipleship.  Jesus has called us out of ourselves, into community with one another, and we have work to do.  We will face change and pain and joy in the weeks to come.  Lent begins on Wednesday this week and lasts for forty days until Easter bursts in upon us.  It is no accident that we end Epiphany and approach Lent with today’s readings.  Because Lent is a time set aside for us to work on ourselves spiritually and intentionally, it serves us well to reflect on what God asks us to do as modern disciples of Jesus.  That will involve our individual encounter with GLORY.

 

Like those bewildered friends on the mountaintop who fear the cost of their apostolic ministry, we too need some help along the way.  How do we get it?   Probably not on the Internet searching for “help with Lent”.   Look over the recent parish notices and take on something worthy of our growing into what I like to call “a conscious contact with God.”  It’s easy to separate from God in our busy, pressured lives. O, but I would offer this: God wants us to her him, to know him to pray, to attend the Friday evening groups here at church to be patient with ourselves, to red, to serve Him through others, to be quiet, and to feel his glorious love all around us.  Easier said than done, I am well aware but it is worth the effort, the time, and the lure of holiness for each of us in this place.  God’s world has not reached perfection, you may have observed, but we can catch and carry those wonderful glimpses of glory.  I hope to do that this Lent, and I pray that you will make a plan and try to do the same.  “All of us”, Mandela declared, “were born to make manifest the glory of God within us, and that glory is not just in a select few but in everyone.”

 

Enjoy the drama and the glory of the Transfiguration on your road to transfiguring your own life and the life we share in this holy community.  AMEN.

 

 

The Rev. Richard H. Downes