The Second Sunday of Lent (Transfiguration)

Transforming Moments

Readings: Exodus 34:29-35; Psalm 99; 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2; Luke 9:28-36, 37-43

The Scripture readings today focus on transfiguration experiences. The first is the account of Moses returning from the mountain. He is changed as he returns from his encounter with God. His face shines from the experience. Of course his face shone. He had seen God. In fact it shines so much that it causes fear in Aaron and the Israelites. In further encounters with God he finds it necessary to mask himself when he returns. The story reinforces the importance of Moses as the one called by God to act as mediator and convey to the Hebrew people the ongoing messages from God. The message coming from Moses is alive. It brings life and light to the people if they are willing to hear it.

Paul too finds that his encounter with the risen Christ transforms all who experience it. He finds himself unmasked when he turns to Jesus. There is a new relationship. There is a new freedom. He sees Christ in all of his risen glory. Paul knows that the more you look at the divine glow in Jesus the more your life carries that same glow. He sees it not in terms of ecstatic experiences but in terms of love and compassion.

And on the mountain of transfiguration, not only is our Lord changed, but also the disciples who share the experience. It radically changes their relationship with him. In that mountaintop experience they catch a glimpse of the glory to come. They experience a moment of rapture. They hear the voice of God calling Jesus “my chosen Son”. Reflected in that same glory they begin to know themselves. They see all that they are meant to be. They are transformed into God’s own likeness. It is for them a call to action, a call to change, a call to be.

There are times in our Christian journey when we ascend the mountain with Jesus. There on the mountaintop we come to know him in his glory. Reflected in that glory we begin to know ourselves, to know all that we are meant to be. We too are called to the heights, to greatness. We are called to be transformed into God's own likeness. We are called to know the glory of God and to see it in our lives. Jesus Christ lived human life in such a way as to show that it was capable of transformation. In the same way God will bring about such a transformation in the whole of creation. The guarantee of our faith is that it will be worth it despite all of the difficult and painful things that happen in our life journey.

The problem is we often fail to see the glory that surrounds us. And if we do, we don’t allow it to transform the dreariness of our lives, because to allow that transformation to take place would mean to change our perspective. All too easily we allow the problems in our lives, the fears, to take hold.

We live in troubling times. Our world is crying out for transformation. That is obvious when we consider how many of the world’s leaders can simply ignore climate change. It is even more obvious when we consider the terrible event that took place in Christchurch two days ago. What a tragedy it is when people of faith cannot worship God without facing hatred from those who do not agree with them!

It is in these troubling times that we most need to step aside for a while, to find a quiet space in which we can pour out our hearts to God, in which we can climb the mountain of transfiguration and know God's presence as we pray and listen.

It is at such times that we need to allow the ordinary bread and wine of our existence to be held up before God to be transformed by his love into the body and blood of Christ. It is the time to allow word and table to transform our hearts. It is the time to experience the glory of God that Jesus and the disciples experienced on the Mountain of Transfiguration. For we too are invited to climb the mountain, to experience the light of God shining in our lives and then to carry it out into the world where others may see it as well. We all have those experiences in our lives, times when we are transformed by the greatness of God.

There are such times scattered throughout my life. I was transformed by the greatness of God when I saw a double rainbow stretching across the sky. I was transformed by the greatness of God when I watched the northern lights dance, when I saw the world transformed by a fresh snowfall, when I viewed the glitter of the stars piercing through a dark wintry night. I was transformed by the greatness of God when I stood on a lookout in the Rockies surveying God's wonderful creation from the top of the world. I was transformed by the greatness of God when I sat in the sunshine at the lighthouse in Finisterre looking out over the Atlantic Ocean after completing the first part of my Camino.

I was transformed by the greatness of God at a moment of conversion when I realized the utter reality of God, through answered prayer, on the wonderful day when I was ordained.

I was transformed by the greatness of God when Alice shared her last moments of life with me, giving me a glimpse of the kingdom; when an elderly woman said, “Get out my brown shoes; I'm going dancing tonight”; when a child who was not expected to live past her first birthday came running up to the altar for a blessing; when an elderly man told me his childhood memories of his mother's words to him many years before as she lay dying, words that comforted him in his last moments of life.

I am transformed by the greatness of God when I listen to great music, when I hear the sweet voices of a children's choir, when I hear a great organ being played.

I am transformed by the greatness of God each time I offer bread and wine, inviting people to the table. I am transformed by the greatness of God when we all join together to pray, “Glory to God...” I am amazed because they are transformative moments in my life. They are glimpses of the glory of God, moments in my day in which the world is transfigured. They are moments when I know that God is reaching out to me.
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Grace comes into our lives in so many unexpected ways. Our relationships with other people can be transformative experiences that break down the barriers between God and humankind. There are times of disclosure and vulnerability when we allow others to really see who we are. Those are the moments that most clearly shape our lives. Without such moments others would never really come to know who we are. We would never really come to know them. And we would miss out on great insights into the nature and essence of the God we worship.

There is a purpose to the Transfiguration event. It gives a glimpse of the glory of God, something that we humans find impossible to fully comprehend. It was a great and grand event, the mountaintop experience. In sharing in it, although we find ourselves back in the valley again, we do so holding on to the memory of the transfigured and resurrected Christ. That is a memory that transforms our lives and allows us to share the light of Christ with others on the journey.

The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost Proper 21, Year B

Transformed by the Gospel

Readings: 1 Kings 8:1, 6, 10-11, 22-30, 41-43; Psalm 84; Ephesians 6:10-20; John 6:56-69

The Gospel today begins as last Sunday’s ended. “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” Taken literally, that statement is truly gross. In fact, taking it literally gave rise in the early church to allegations that Christians were cannibals. What is more, it follows other statements that were equally offensive to the people to whom Jesus was speaking. For one, he claimed to have descended from Heaven. But people took Jesus literally and failed to get his message. They failed to understand that he was not speaking literally. He was speaking deep spiritual truths about himself. He was speaking about spiritual hunger. He was speaking about the yearning in their souls. He was telling them about how God reaches out to humanity, breaking down all of the barriers.

It was not just the crowds who followed Jesus who misunderstood. The disciples, his close followers, also heard in a literal sense. “This teaching is difficult,” they said. And so Jesus reassured them. “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”

That need to step back and assess what is being offered is something that we in this computer age should easily comprehend. Computers are wonderful things. I don’t know what I would do without my computer. It handles all kinds of problems. It works things out so quickly for me. It gives me access to information. It does so in a totally rational way. That is its strength. It is also its weakness. It isn’t human. I still have to assess the information that it gives me. I have to filter it, judge it by what I know. Check it out for its truth. A certain U.S. president aside, there is a lot of fake news out there, and I do not want to be the one to spread it any further.

As rational beings we speak in terms of logic. We say, “Let’s be rational about this!” Even as we say it, we know that the real meaning is that something is going to happen that shouldn’t. Perhaps we are letting someone down easily about a relationship. A marriage is about to break down. A business is going to close, putting many people out of work. There is going to be heartbreak. But there is something behind the statement.

What Jesus is explaining to the disciples is that the spirit is different from the flesh. The spirit is different because it is life giving. It is directed by rationality, but it is accompanied by love. “My words,” he is saying to them, “can speak to your spirit. My words are life giving. Being in relationship with me means being in relationship with God. And here I am, standing in front of you, speaking these words of life.”

Even with his explanation, some of the disciples still do not understand. They turn back and no longer go about with him. They are offended by the message of the Gospel.

The gospel of Christ offers comfort, but it also offends. Many are ill at ease with its paradoxes and demands. They try to reduce the Christian faith to simplistic categories. They want a more palatable faith. They don’t want to grapple with shades of grey. They want everything to be black and white, right and wrong, clear-cut. They want to look it up in Scripture and know exactly what God is saying. What they fail to understand is that the Bible is not a book of answers to all of life’s dilemmas. It is not a proof text. It is not a recipe. It is not a history book. Reading Scripture is about listening to what the Spirit is saying to the Church.

As Christians we need to know that the Gospel makes demands. It is costly to be a disciple of Christ. It requires commitment to God’s purposes. That can strike at the very core of our self-centred lives. We are pretty good at recognizing sin and evil, but not necessarily in ourselves. Until we understand like the disciples that Jesus has the words of eternal life, the Christian faith can indeed be offensive.

Within the Church, it seems, it is very easy to offend. Often the reasons are beyond comprehension, or even more often we never hear how we have offended. People simply leave, and we don’t hear from them again. When I was a student I had a conversation with someone who had left the church because in the new service in the BAS the priest turned the page in the Prayer of Consecration before the people. She said that she no longer knew when to turn the page.

Let’s face it! People are offended by all sorts of things, but primarily by change. They want the church to remain static and unchanging. They want it to be available to them for rites of passage. But they don’t want it to change their lives. That is why they are offended. They are offended when we ask them to contribute to the ongoing operating expenses of the community. “All you ever do is ask for money,” we hear at our once yearly commitment campaign. And actually I stopped hearing that when my congregation undertook a massive stewardship campaign that required me to preach about it once a month. There are some who become offended over issues, without even understanding what the church is saying about such things, or without understanding the way in which, at least in our denomination, we go about making decisions.

For example, many people left the Anglican Church over the ordination of women. They were offended that the Church would allow women the right to answer God’s call. They had all the Scriptural references, but there was little reason or scholarship behind it. And now most people would acknowledge that the decision to ordain women was indeed the Spirit speaking to the church.

If the Gospel message is offensive to Christians, it is even more offensive to society. A teenager in my last parish was sent home from school to change one day because a teacher found her t-shirt offensive. You might think that she was sporting foul language. I want you to know that the offensive language on that t-shirt was “What would Jesus do?”

To our detriment, we have learned as Christians to be careful of how we speak about our faith so that we will not be offensive. It was pointed out to me one day in a mall that I should not say “bless you” when someone sneezes. We no longer celebrate our holy days like Christmas in schools because it might offend someone of another faith. We don’t share our faith with others.

A priest was standing outside his church when a stranger approached him. What kind of people live in this town?”

“What kind of people lived in the town you just left,” the priest asked him.

“They were horrible,” the stranger said waving his had in emphasis. “They were dishonest, selfish and inconsiderate.”

The priest shook his head, “I’m sorry to say that’s probably what you’ll find in this town too.”

The stranger moaned and walked away.

Later that day another person happened past the church and stopped to talk to the priest. He too asked, What kind of people live in this town?”

“What kind of people lived in the town you just left,” the priest asked him.

“They were thoughtful, friendly, and kind,” was the reply. “I hated to leave them.”
The priest put out his hand and smiled. “I’m pleased to say that is about how you’ll find people here.

Not that we can simply sit back and think that the way we act is fine because we are Christians. Sometimes the things that good, church going people do to others in their midst, is truly offensive. It causes rifts in a congregation. If you find people leaving in droves then it is time to look at the way you behave and make some positive changes. The Gospel is about transformation. How do you as a congregation change the perception, rightly or wrongly that this is an unfriendly place? Because, face it, that is the perception! How do you draw people in instead of chasing them away? How do you transform this place into a place of light and joy?

I have to say, I was so pleased to hear the letter that Walter read two weeks ago saying that there is a will in this congregation to bring about change, to be known as a welcoming and faithful place. It begins by welcoming a new priest and his family into your midst. The backbiting and anger and blaming about the past need to be gone. It begins with offering and accepting forgiveness for wrongs and perceived wrongs. It means letting the light of Christ shine through you into the community.

In the letter to the Ephesians, Paul says that we should walk carefully and live gratefully. We cannot ignore what is going on in our lives while we stand firm against the world. It is not about being right, but about discerning the truth. Our minds must remain open to knowing the truth, even the truth about ourselves. So be aware of God’s presence in all aspects of your lives. Be committed to the faith. Open yourselves up to the Spirit. Above all, know Jesus in whose presence we break bread. Amen