Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Luke 4:1-13
JASPER THOMAS RYAN! How is it that parents choose a name for a child? Ancestors? Close friends and loved ones? Great Leaders of the common era? How many children were named Jack in memory of Kennedy, how many named Martin in honor and love of Martin Luther King, who himself was named after his father, who was named for the great Reformer. My Great Grandfather was named Ovid Ware, WARE, who often went by the Nickname Warrie. His son, had the same name, but the middle initial A. so he claimed the identity A.WARE. His son was Bert Ware, who of course went by BEWARE! In gifting to a child: a name, we give identity.
In their own selection of friends, and of a career, even breed of dog, we choose for ourselves: Identity. I have been intrigued and amazed watching the Olympics, not only for the prowess and athleticism of these individuals, but for the number who have been born in one place and have chosen to immigrate, to abdicate that identity to become citizens, to have identity as Being of another Nation. Our passages this day, at the beginning of Lent, at the beginning of Karen's second year with us, are passages of claiming an Identity. IDENTITY is involved in a Name and Title, but more than just a NAME.
Immediately upon being Baptized, Jesus is filled with the Holy Spirit and goes into the wilderness, to fast and to pray, and to seek God's guidance for the living of life. Here, he was tested, tempted by the Devil, with all he could do, how he could be known, tempted by POWER.
One of the earliest controversies within Christianity was over “Docetism”. The Docetists believed Jesus was not actually human, because humans are sinners. They believed Jesus was God masquerading as a human being, was only a spirit, that was not actually human, did not actually live and therefore did not actually die. One interpretation of The Temptations is that these are proof of Jesus being human, proof because Jesus was Tempted. Human life would be so much simpler, would be perfection without sin, if only we did not have a FREE WILL, Temptation to choose something other than God. The Docetists believed that as God, Christ could choose no other... but that would have been a denial of freedom and temptation, both as God and as a Man. NO, the point of Luke affirming that the Temptations did take place, are that Jesus was tempted, these are very real opportunities.
Both humanity and God could choose, would want to choose to eradicate hunger and poverty, to have all power and riches and access to do whatever you chose, to be able to perform miracles that would cause people to believe in Him. But Jesus, as God and as Human, though tempted, chose instead to trust and to live life. This is what has consistently been described as the identity of a person of faith. The SHEMA, the Affirmation as basic to the Hebrew faith as the Lord's Prayer is to Christianity, declares: “The Lord our God is ONE, and God only shall we serve, with all our heart, mind, soul and strength.” IDENTITY is CHOSEN by FREE WILL in the midst of real Temptations.
A thousands years before Jesus, before the Roman Empire, before Alexander the Great and Greek Empire, before the Deportation to Babylon, before King Solomon, before King David, before the Judges, before they had entered in with Joshua and taken possession of the Land, while still in the Wilderness, Moses gave to the people a command. When you come into the land, and have taken possession of it, and live in it, you shall stop from all you do, stop in Sabbath, and take of the first-fruits, a tythe, as an offering of thanksgiving. You shall place that offering into a basket; Remembering the basket that carries the Tablets of the Covenant; Remembering the basket of reeds lined with pitch and bitumen that Moses' parents had placed him in to keep him safe in the River of Life, when Pharaoh had commanded all parents to put their children into the River Nile; Remembering the Ark of Gopherwood, bitumen and pitch, that Noah built for God to begin anew after the flood. IDENTITY is REMEMBERING all that has gone before us.
You are commanded by Moses to bring that basket of first fruits to the Temple of the Lord, and to make an Offering. From earliest memory, we have been a people who WORSHIP, it may be every day, it may be each week, or each year, or every three years, but routinely we will stop from our labor to give thanks to God. There is in Worship a Liturgy, an ORDER that allows us to make sense of life. A piece of our IDENITY is in Worshipping God.
As we do, we are to claim the vulnerability of our ancestors. The ones we are descended from, who have entrusted our identities to us, these were not Kings and Queens and Presidents. These were not great heroes, though they may have been our Patriarchs, they are remembered in our IDENTITY as having been homeless nomads, wandering Arameans.
What is amazing about this passage from Deuteronomy, the Book where Moses, gives the people the 10 Commandments, there is NO mention here of that identity. Instead of being THE PEOPLE OF THE LAW or the PEOPLE OF THE LAND OF ISRAEL, our identity as a Nation began when we were wandering nomads, individuals without a home, whom God made Numerous and God made Strong. A people whom God listened to and cared about. Our Identity is not only in Circumstances that have happened along the way, but in our basic DNA from our earliest beginnings.
There is a remarkable difference here, in claiming an Identity as our Nation has won 23 medals in this year's Olympics, and an identity of vulnerability for having been nomads and slaves. By claiming vulnerability we are called upon to be empathetic and compassionate to those in need. I remember my mother regularly describing to us what it was to grow up in the Great Depression, they had no food left, nothing, when a cousin stopped by with grocery bag of potatoes. They had never been to see a doctor or dentist, and a neighbor was in Dental school, who came home and went through all the neighbor kids examining their teeth and pulling the rotten ones on their kitchen table.
This week, I spent some time on the Holiday and evenings creating a partnership agreement for the Clinic in Sudan, so as to be able to test and treat for AIDs. At this point, we will be the only place in S.Sudan able to test and treat for AIDs. When someone commented about my working on this, I remembered working with Haitian refugees who were Migrant Farm Workers, and in 1980 they had these spots, these lesions that no one could explain and no doctor wanted to touch.
Three years later, I was a chaplain at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in Harlem, where there were patients who had what at that time was described as GRID, a disease without a name, identified because it fit a number of different symptoms on a grid. As a Chaplain, we were ordered to have no physical contact, to wear gloves and masks and gowns and booties, so as to be able to enter their room and sit, unable to hold their hand.
And several years later, my wife led a conference for the Junior League, of Community Awareness on AIDs for Women and Children. We had Elisabeth Kubler-Ross speak about her work with children with AIDs. And she asked every person to imagine adopting a child who has AIDs, having to be careful about soiled diapers, having to go to the doctor weekly for tests, having to give this child so many medications every day. Then she asked the question, NOW, having chosen to adopt a child who is ill, whom you know you may have to bury, how will you feel when they create tests and drugs to control and cure this disease?
In this Sacrament, we claim and affirm a sacred IDENTITY, of being vulnerable, of having done harm to ourselves, to one another, to God. We are the Body of Christ, and we are a BROKEN PEOPLE. We claim the cup, as an IDENTITY of HOPE, of FORGIVENESS, an identity of GRACE fro God.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Avoiding Mystery, Ash Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Isaiah 58
Matthew 6
The Bulletin's description of this passage from Matthew, was limited by how many letters you can fit across a page, so instead of saying “Beware of Practicing Your Piety Before Others SO as To be Noticed” it read “Beware of Practicing Piety”, which actually is more like what we do. We are so afraid of being perceived to be different, of being thought to be overly zealous, that we AVOID MYSTERY, we refrain from practicing faith at all. We equate faith in God with Worship Sunday morning, ignoring that the Early Christian Church and the time of the Reformation also practiced Prayer and Bible Study, and Fasting and doing Mission, and Pilgrimages or the Walking of the Labyrinth, as equal to Worship.
Within our lifetimes, churches around the world have lost membership and decreased in worship attendance. Actually, our church, this church has increased in membership each year for the last 15, in spite of periodically cleaning roles; though our definitions of membership and our attendance patterns have decreased dramatically from the 1950s. In the 1950s Maime and Dwight Eisenhower were Presbyterians, who made a point every week of being seen going to worship at a Presbyterian Church, and wanting be like Ike, everyone went to Worship on Sunday morning. We as human beings tend to follow a herd mentality, that wherever is popular must be the best, rather than questioning and thinking for ourselves: What brings us joy? What fills us? Where are we needed?
Speaking with retired colleagues, they describe Sunday mornings when there was nothing else to do, and everyone went to church. In truth, I would rather be in this time, when people are in worship because they are concerned about their children, and their parents, and their spouse, and their marriage and their cancer, in short because our faith questions and fears are real, not because church is popular.
I would also confess to a certain joy and challenge of serving this congregation, for we do have members who were the inventors of CocoaPuffs, and Underoo Training Pants with Superheroes, who were responsible for making the ethical decision to pull Tylenol from the shelves when it was discovered there had been tampering (that for thirty years became the standard for businesses making moral and ethical decisions), we do have the grandchildren of the Neibuhrs, and of Karl Barth. Barth in the 1920s wrote the dogmatics of what we as Christians believe. Among these was a phrase he enjoyed using that our Theology (our faith in What we believe) is our Prayers, and our Prayers are our Theology.
We live in a world of soundbytes, as if it is assumed we cannot remember ideas, we cannot follow an argument, we only recall phrases taken out of context, which is why commercials bombard us with the same words over and over. “It's HUGE!”, “Mmm Good”, “Just Do It”, “The Real Thing”, “This is Jeopardy”.
We recall each separate phrase of the Lord's Prayer individually, rather than hearing the whole, within the context of the Gospel. Luke's Gospel and Matthew's report the setting of the Lord's Prayer differently. Not the distinction between Debts and Trespasses, not whether to end Forever or Forever and ever, but the setting.
Luke was preaching to first generation non-believer Gentiles who had become Christian converts, and the Lord's Prayer comes in response to the disciples asking Jesus How to Pray? We know how to fish, we know how to cook, in order to believe in God teach us to pray.
Matthew's Gospel is different. Matthew was preaching to those who like the first Disciples had been Jewish, those like ourselves who were trying to figure out what it meant not simply to be born in a culture that claims to believe, but personally, sincerely to believe.
LENT is an experiment for us. For less than two months to try something different. Not to go through the motions of each day, following routine of what is expected, but intentionally choosing each day to do something because of your faith.
Last evening for many of us, gave us a challenge: What would it be to live a day without electricity? What would it be for a day, to fast, that is avoiding all food, so that when we eat we do so because we want and desire, rather than out of the routine of the clock.
What would it be for a day to stop and pray seven times throughout the day, not to be distracted, not to be listening to music, but to pray naming to ourselves and God what is important, what we need, what we fear, what are our temptations, what are we thankful for having in our lives.
Rather than seeing how long you can go without food, or without chocolate, or creating a resolution for the new year, each and every day resolve to live faithfully, resolve to live differently.
Go for a walk in the woods in the snow.
Walk out on the Lake, realizing you are able to walk on water.
Instead of avoiding the Mystery, instead of Being wary of Practicing Piety, intentionally acting in Faith, but not so others will see, do it because it matters to you.
While we each do, consider these three questions:
What is there in what I do that brings Joy, to myself or to others?
Does it Fill us and Feed our soul, or does it simply satisfy for the moment, occupy time, or even suck the joy from others?
Where Are we Needed? Years ago, I remember listening to Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Catholic Bishop Rembert Weakland, as they described where we are needed. They described, trying to help others to fulfill their calling, trying to work in partnership to include others, but when no one else is willing, when there is a Calling that must be done, realize you are needed and do it.
Matthew 6
The Bulletin's description of this passage from Matthew, was limited by how many letters you can fit across a page, so instead of saying “Beware of Practicing Your Piety Before Others SO as To be Noticed” it read “Beware of Practicing Piety”, which actually is more like what we do. We are so afraid of being perceived to be different, of being thought to be overly zealous, that we AVOID MYSTERY, we refrain from practicing faith at all. We equate faith in God with Worship Sunday morning, ignoring that the Early Christian Church and the time of the Reformation also practiced Prayer and Bible Study, and Fasting and doing Mission, and Pilgrimages or the Walking of the Labyrinth, as equal to Worship.
Within our lifetimes, churches around the world have lost membership and decreased in worship attendance. Actually, our church, this church has increased in membership each year for the last 15, in spite of periodically cleaning roles; though our definitions of membership and our attendance patterns have decreased dramatically from the 1950s. In the 1950s Maime and Dwight Eisenhower were Presbyterians, who made a point every week of being seen going to worship at a Presbyterian Church, and wanting be like Ike, everyone went to Worship on Sunday morning. We as human beings tend to follow a herd mentality, that wherever is popular must be the best, rather than questioning and thinking for ourselves: What brings us joy? What fills us? Where are we needed?
Speaking with retired colleagues, they describe Sunday mornings when there was nothing else to do, and everyone went to church. In truth, I would rather be in this time, when people are in worship because they are concerned about their children, and their parents, and their spouse, and their marriage and their cancer, in short because our faith questions and fears are real, not because church is popular.
I would also confess to a certain joy and challenge of serving this congregation, for we do have members who were the inventors of CocoaPuffs, and Underoo Training Pants with Superheroes, who were responsible for making the ethical decision to pull Tylenol from the shelves when it was discovered there had been tampering (that for thirty years became the standard for businesses making moral and ethical decisions), we do have the grandchildren of the Neibuhrs, and of Karl Barth. Barth in the 1920s wrote the dogmatics of what we as Christians believe. Among these was a phrase he enjoyed using that our Theology (our faith in What we believe) is our Prayers, and our Prayers are our Theology.
We live in a world of soundbytes, as if it is assumed we cannot remember ideas, we cannot follow an argument, we only recall phrases taken out of context, which is why commercials bombard us with the same words over and over. “It's HUGE!”, “Mmm Good”, “Just Do It”, “The Real Thing”, “This is Jeopardy”.
We recall each separate phrase of the Lord's Prayer individually, rather than hearing the whole, within the context of the Gospel. Luke's Gospel and Matthew's report the setting of the Lord's Prayer differently. Not the distinction between Debts and Trespasses, not whether to end Forever or Forever and ever, but the setting.
Luke was preaching to first generation non-believer Gentiles who had become Christian converts, and the Lord's Prayer comes in response to the disciples asking Jesus How to Pray? We know how to fish, we know how to cook, in order to believe in God teach us to pray.
Matthew's Gospel is different. Matthew was preaching to those who like the first Disciples had been Jewish, those like ourselves who were trying to figure out what it meant not simply to be born in a culture that claims to believe, but personally, sincerely to believe.
LENT is an experiment for us. For less than two months to try something different. Not to go through the motions of each day, following routine of what is expected, but intentionally choosing each day to do something because of your faith.
Last evening for many of us, gave us a challenge: What would it be to live a day without electricity? What would it be for a day, to fast, that is avoiding all food, so that when we eat we do so because we want and desire, rather than out of the routine of the clock.
What would it be for a day to stop and pray seven times throughout the day, not to be distracted, not to be listening to music, but to pray naming to ourselves and God what is important, what we need, what we fear, what are our temptations, what are we thankful for having in our lives.
Rather than seeing how long you can go without food, or without chocolate, or creating a resolution for the new year, each and every day resolve to live faithfully, resolve to live differently.
Go for a walk in the woods in the snow.
Walk out on the Lake, realizing you are able to walk on water.
Instead of avoiding the Mystery, instead of Being wary of Practicing Piety, intentionally acting in Faith, but not so others will see, do it because it matters to you.
While we each do, consider these three questions:
What is there in what I do that brings Joy, to myself or to others?
Does it Fill us and Feed our soul, or does it simply satisfy for the moment, occupy time, or even suck the joy from others?
Where Are we Needed? Years ago, I remember listening to Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Catholic Bishop Rembert Weakland, as they described where we are needed. They described, trying to help others to fulfill their calling, trying to work in partnership to include others, but when no one else is willing, when there is a Calling that must be done, realize you are needed and do it.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Cash for Anxieties, February 14, 2010
Exodus 34
Luke 9
Following the Exodus from Slavery, from Egypt, from Pharaoh, across the Red Sea, God spoke to the people from Mount Sinai with Lightning and Thunder, Clouds and Smoke, and they were filled with fear. Moses went up the mountain and was gone for too long a time, the people became anxious, filled with anxiety and fears. So Aaron directed the people to take off all their gold and jewels and he would melt it down, making for them a calf of gold, and they could put all their fears and doubts and worries on this thing as an offering. For a very short time, it appeared to work, as they had bound their anxiety to the price of this thing, giving their gold of great value and their worries to someone else. For all of us, when we are anxious, when we are lonely or afraid, we have a tendency to buy stuff, in hopes of being full, in expectation that this jewelry, this painting, this car, this house will quench and satisfy our emptiness. But only for a very short time. Our anxiety and fears and doubts and life are still with us.
Due to the economy, the recession, the wars, due to cancers and earthquakes that strike without warning and hundreds of thousands are killed, we are a people filled with fears, with anxieties. We worry about our success and doubt our future, we worry about our survival, the future of our children and grandchildren and what life will be like for them. So it is that companies have again been created, that guarantee if you take all your anxieties and old, worn out, useless gold and jewelry and place it in this bag, placing the bag in this envelope and the envelope in the US Mail, sending it away to this address, you will in return receive a check of MONEY, money for your worthless gold and anxieties, money that you can use for whatever you desire.
But recently, people have questioned, that when melted down the ring loses the artist's craftsmanship. If a painting were valued at the cost of materials: paint and canvas, a wooden frame, it would have far less value than a Cessane, or Rembrandt or Picasso. If a valentine is only pieces of paper glued together, we lose the value of the five year old's affection. If a ring is only a ring, the engagement and marriage are just stuff. The atrocities of Auschwitz and Hiroshimo and the Soviet gulag's were possible because humanity lost our humanity, as a people of God we lost faith in the divine. Human life became cheap, human subjects to be experimented upon and used, rather than seeing in one another a glimpse of the glory of God. Medical Ethics was fostered out of the Neuremberg trials, that there are limits to what can and should be done in the name of Science and research. Among these limits are that the persons involved be fully informed and consent to what is going to take place, but even more that we preserve the God given humanity of all persons. Regardless of race, or poverty, or sex, or intellectual capacity, whether orphan or lame, all people, all life is sacred.
After the people had sent their gold and fears to Aaron to make the Golden Calf, Moses came down the mountain with the Tablets of the 10 Commandments, witnessing that the people had already worshipped other gods, had made idols to worship, had profaned the name of God, and profaned the Sabbath, Moses broke the tablets of stone as well as the Calf of gold calling the people to repent. Moses spent time with the people holding them accountable for what they had done. Then Moses went back up the mountain to be one with God, Moses witnessed where God had been and what God had done. GOD FORGAVE THE PEOPLE AS AN ACT OF GRACE. God made for Moses new tablets of the commandments to take to the people, and Moses came down the mountain. Having witnessed the glory of God, having been present with God, receiving God's grace for the people, Moses' face glowed with the glory of God, glowed so much that people were distracted by the glow rather than the power of their relationship with God.
The Reformation was an essential corrective event. The Church had become identified with numerous practices that denied people faith in God. The Reformation was a pivotal event in affirming that all people, royal and common, rich and poor need access to education, to be able to read the Bible for themselves. But in the Reformation a great divide was formed, between the Protestant Churches which placed greater emphasis on the Sermon, on understanding and applying the Word of God; versus the Orthodox Churches that placed greater emphasis on the Mystery of experiencing Life as a gift of God. There are often times, when as a preacher, I am afraid people hear and better remember what I said in the Sermon, than what the Scriptures themselves revealed. There are times in which we recall the pairing of lessons, like Moses' face shone coming down the mountain and on top of the mountain with Peter, James and John, Jesus was transfigured his raiment glowing whiter than any fuller's soap, and we recall the pairing of shiny faces better than the individual stories or their meaning.
The context of this mountaintop experience of Jesus' Transfiguration, is that Jesus had called his disciples, they had fed 5000, he had healed people who were blind and deaf and lame. They had been walking together, when Jesus asked who the disciples thought he was. Some said Moses, some Elijah, some John the Baptist raised from the dead, and Simon Peter named for the first time: “You are the Christ, the Messiah, God with us”. And Jesus had responded, “And being God with us means, I must be sacrificed by God, and suffer and die, for the redemption of the world.” And according to the text, Eight Days later they went up the mountain.
The Baptism of Jesus we remember, in part because we are all baptized. In his being Washed clean of Sin, we are; in his receiving of the Holy Spirit as a Dove, we do.
The Last Supper of Jesus with the Disciples we remember, because we gather at the Table and claim our brokenness as well as our hope of forgiveness.
The TRANSFIGURATION is hard for us, because it requires that we identify with the Glory of God. Jesus went up the Mountain, and was seen to be talking with Moses and Elijah about that which is holy his being used by God as a sacrifice for us, his suffering and dying, at which point he is God among us.
How odd, that in recent decades, there has been great effort at trying to identify the Historical Jesus, whether as a common man, the son of a Jewish Carpenter of Galilee who was one among the hundreds of thousands executed by crucifixion by the Empire of Rome, he could have actually been. Research as to which among all that is written in the Gospels and Church records are the historic words of Jesus. Rather than trying to experience that glory, the holiness of knowing you have come for a purpose, and that Divine purpose is to redeem and forgive.
The point of TRANSFIGURATION is not the afterglow, that Moses' Face shone, or Jesus was Transfigured, but that on the Mountaintop Moses became so close with God as to have that glory, that Jesus identifying with having come to give his life for all the world would embody that glory. Surely, there would have been temptation for Moses NEVER to come down, to remain on that Mountain with God, but doing so, the people of God would never have known we are forgiven, would never have received the 10 Commandments. Simon Peter immediately in the stupor of sleep suggests, we should build three resting places here, to stay up on top of the mountain. But if they had, no one would have ever known the glory of God in Christ who did come to forgive us.
The way we cope with our anxiety and fears, is NOT to put them in a bag, inside and envelope and sell them for money... because rightly, everything in life would lose value and be reduced to stuff. But the Valentine from a five year old does have meaning, because of the child's affection. The painting is far more valuable than the paint and canvas. The ring is priceless, not because it is made with precious metals, but because it is encrusted with all our hopes and dreams, the love and commitment of one for another.
Luke 9
Following the Exodus from Slavery, from Egypt, from Pharaoh, across the Red Sea, God spoke to the people from Mount Sinai with Lightning and Thunder, Clouds and Smoke, and they were filled with fear. Moses went up the mountain and was gone for too long a time, the people became anxious, filled with anxiety and fears. So Aaron directed the people to take off all their gold and jewels and he would melt it down, making for them a calf of gold, and they could put all their fears and doubts and worries on this thing as an offering. For a very short time, it appeared to work, as they had bound their anxiety to the price of this thing, giving their gold of great value and their worries to someone else. For all of us, when we are anxious, when we are lonely or afraid, we have a tendency to buy stuff, in hopes of being full, in expectation that this jewelry, this painting, this car, this house will quench and satisfy our emptiness. But only for a very short time. Our anxiety and fears and doubts and life are still with us.
Due to the economy, the recession, the wars, due to cancers and earthquakes that strike without warning and hundreds of thousands are killed, we are a people filled with fears, with anxieties. We worry about our success and doubt our future, we worry about our survival, the future of our children and grandchildren and what life will be like for them. So it is that companies have again been created, that guarantee if you take all your anxieties and old, worn out, useless gold and jewelry and place it in this bag, placing the bag in this envelope and the envelope in the US Mail, sending it away to this address, you will in return receive a check of MONEY, money for your worthless gold and anxieties, money that you can use for whatever you desire.
But recently, people have questioned, that when melted down the ring loses the artist's craftsmanship. If a painting were valued at the cost of materials: paint and canvas, a wooden frame, it would have far less value than a Cessane, or Rembrandt or Picasso. If a valentine is only pieces of paper glued together, we lose the value of the five year old's affection. If a ring is only a ring, the engagement and marriage are just stuff. The atrocities of Auschwitz and Hiroshimo and the Soviet gulag's were possible because humanity lost our humanity, as a people of God we lost faith in the divine. Human life became cheap, human subjects to be experimented upon and used, rather than seeing in one another a glimpse of the glory of God. Medical Ethics was fostered out of the Neuremberg trials, that there are limits to what can and should be done in the name of Science and research. Among these limits are that the persons involved be fully informed and consent to what is going to take place, but even more that we preserve the God given humanity of all persons. Regardless of race, or poverty, or sex, or intellectual capacity, whether orphan or lame, all people, all life is sacred.
After the people had sent their gold and fears to Aaron to make the Golden Calf, Moses came down the mountain with the Tablets of the 10 Commandments, witnessing that the people had already worshipped other gods, had made idols to worship, had profaned the name of God, and profaned the Sabbath, Moses broke the tablets of stone as well as the Calf of gold calling the people to repent. Moses spent time with the people holding them accountable for what they had done. Then Moses went back up the mountain to be one with God, Moses witnessed where God had been and what God had done. GOD FORGAVE THE PEOPLE AS AN ACT OF GRACE. God made for Moses new tablets of the commandments to take to the people, and Moses came down the mountain. Having witnessed the glory of God, having been present with God, receiving God's grace for the people, Moses' face glowed with the glory of God, glowed so much that people were distracted by the glow rather than the power of their relationship with God.
The Reformation was an essential corrective event. The Church had become identified with numerous practices that denied people faith in God. The Reformation was a pivotal event in affirming that all people, royal and common, rich and poor need access to education, to be able to read the Bible for themselves. But in the Reformation a great divide was formed, between the Protestant Churches which placed greater emphasis on the Sermon, on understanding and applying the Word of God; versus the Orthodox Churches that placed greater emphasis on the Mystery of experiencing Life as a gift of God. There are often times, when as a preacher, I am afraid people hear and better remember what I said in the Sermon, than what the Scriptures themselves revealed. There are times in which we recall the pairing of lessons, like Moses' face shone coming down the mountain and on top of the mountain with Peter, James and John, Jesus was transfigured his raiment glowing whiter than any fuller's soap, and we recall the pairing of shiny faces better than the individual stories or their meaning.
The context of this mountaintop experience of Jesus' Transfiguration, is that Jesus had called his disciples, they had fed 5000, he had healed people who were blind and deaf and lame. They had been walking together, when Jesus asked who the disciples thought he was. Some said Moses, some Elijah, some John the Baptist raised from the dead, and Simon Peter named for the first time: “You are the Christ, the Messiah, God with us”. And Jesus had responded, “And being God with us means, I must be sacrificed by God, and suffer and die, for the redemption of the world.” And according to the text, Eight Days later they went up the mountain.
The Baptism of Jesus we remember, in part because we are all baptized. In his being Washed clean of Sin, we are; in his receiving of the Holy Spirit as a Dove, we do.
The Last Supper of Jesus with the Disciples we remember, because we gather at the Table and claim our brokenness as well as our hope of forgiveness.
The TRANSFIGURATION is hard for us, because it requires that we identify with the Glory of God. Jesus went up the Mountain, and was seen to be talking with Moses and Elijah about that which is holy his being used by God as a sacrifice for us, his suffering and dying, at which point he is God among us.
How odd, that in recent decades, there has been great effort at trying to identify the Historical Jesus, whether as a common man, the son of a Jewish Carpenter of Galilee who was one among the hundreds of thousands executed by crucifixion by the Empire of Rome, he could have actually been. Research as to which among all that is written in the Gospels and Church records are the historic words of Jesus. Rather than trying to experience that glory, the holiness of knowing you have come for a purpose, and that Divine purpose is to redeem and forgive.
The point of TRANSFIGURATION is not the afterglow, that Moses' Face shone, or Jesus was Transfigured, but that on the Mountaintop Moses became so close with God as to have that glory, that Jesus identifying with having come to give his life for all the world would embody that glory. Surely, there would have been temptation for Moses NEVER to come down, to remain on that Mountain with God, but doing so, the people of God would never have known we are forgiven, would never have received the 10 Commandments. Simon Peter immediately in the stupor of sleep suggests, we should build three resting places here, to stay up on top of the mountain. But if they had, no one would have ever known the glory of God in Christ who did come to forgive us.
The way we cope with our anxiety and fears, is NOT to put them in a bag, inside and envelope and sell them for money... because rightly, everything in life would lose value and be reduced to stuff. But the Valentine from a five year old does have meaning, because of the child's affection. The painting is far more valuable than the paint and canvas. The ring is priceless, not because it is made with precious metals, but because it is encrusted with all our hopes and dreams, the love and commitment of one for another.
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