Jesus, Shine in Us

Sermon Matthew 17:1-9 February 26, 2017 Transfiguration

Jesus, Shine in Us

Some of you may have heard me say this week say that I really don’t like preaching about Jesus’ transfiguration. And you may have wondered, “What’s got in to her?”

It’s not that I don’t appreciate the story of Jesus on the mountain with Moses and Elijah. Nor do I refute the story of Peter’s desire to build tents for the three and stay awhile. I do not have a problem with shimmering glory or dazzling whites either. But, I want to think and preach differently today. Listen to this sentence-I’ll read it twice.

The power of the divine mystery in which our faith seems to totter with the practical and pragmatic action of faith keeps us at odds with what we can let go and to what we can hold on.

You see this is a Sunday that we sing the contemporary song (if we think songs from the 80’s is contemporary) Shine Jesus Shine.

We get all caught up in the mountain top experience.

We learn about how we cannot stay on the mountain.

We hear that life is lived in the valley and on the plains.

It’s almost as if we hear this incredible powerful story of God’s ability to transform and we miss the whole point.

We take a story of mystery and power and reduce into a moral lesson.

We chastise Peter once again for ‘not getting it’.

We pride ourselves in being able to understand the story.

We praise God for all our own moments of being on that mountain where we had our all time ‘mountain top’ experience and we ‘got it’.

We preachers preach about how those moments nourish us to get us down the mountain to be able to do the work of God in the world.

It all sounds so wonderful and uplifting.

But, I struggle with all those ways in which we tell this story

because there’s a part of me that doesn’t believe that.

I don’t think we can reduce God to a moral lesson.

I think as preachers we do that because We DON’T understand the mystery.

I’d rather discover the power of God to transform.

God was there on the mountain with six figures-Peter, James, John, Jesus, Elijah and Moses. We discover the miracle of the story is that: God spoke. Jesus reached out and touched. The disciples changed.

We are moving into the season of Lent.

It makes sense that we have this story of Jesus the Sunday before we open our hearts to God for examination.

We move into Lent every year with a bit of trepidation.

We wonder how much navel gazing God will demand of us as we learn about ourselves. We are a bit afraid of what we might discover.

We don’t necessarily like this season.

We’d prefer to be in Advent in that hopeful waiting for the baby to appear.

Yet, in Lent we are in a hopeful waiting to witness God’s power at work to bring life to death and death to life.

In this season, God is at work within us.

God is in the transformation business.

God is in the change business.

God will not let us stay the way we are.

God is forever at work drawing us near and shining within us.

Karoline Lewis says, “The transfiguration is the threshold moment between what was and what is to come. You get a glimpse of what could be, when actually it was there all along.” This transfiguration story is an ongoing story of God’s power to change us and move us.

It is not a morality story but a miracle story.

One way God’s power changes us is into salvation. God speaks. Our salvation story is the mystery of God incarnate present with us to engage us into a life lived through mercy, justice and humbly walking with God.

Salvation is God’s grabbing us and not letting go. It’s the part of our life where we turn in every which way to wonder who God is and why God is. And then in a moment in which we cannot explain God becomes fully present shining in us.

Like Peter, we are full of questions and full of a need for explanation and reason.

Like Peter, we need to hold on to what we know and we are afraid to let go of what we do not know.

We need God to show us and have it make sense. Part of confirmation that matters to me most is the freedom to ask questions. For we find our faith is not about answers but is all in our questions. In the truth of seeking God, we God is revealed in us.

The glory of God’s incarnation, God’s transformation of our relationship with God is one we cannot fully explain. We are continuously drawn to God in our desire for God.

We are on a path of being awakened to the joy of salvation as we enter and engage in those moments where we catch a glimpse of the Divine.

The mountain figuratively is where we catch that glimpse and it changes us forever.

Another way God changes us is through God’s presence. Christmas is the celebration of our faith that God came to live among us in Jesus the Christ. Jesus reaches out and touches. Lent is the time we move to allow the work of Christ to be fully present in us.

It is a time of transformation.

It is a time of change of who we are. And that friends can be exciting.

Yet, change can also bring grief.

Because as we look to life in the possibility of becoming new, we must let go of some of the ways which have become familiar to us.

Sometimes we need to be in a place we do not wish to be. In this place God is mightily at work. God’s presence in us stirs us, comforts us, and provides for us. We look to one another and realize we are the body of Christ transformed as a community built up together with the foundation of God’s love for us.

This power of the presence of Jesus begins to shine even brighter within us.

And then the thought of change is an anticipation of joy rather than sorrow.

Imagine what God can do over the next several weeks as we open our hearts in new ways!

Finally, God’s transformation moves us into action. We, the disciples are changed.

This year on Ash Wednesday when we recognize our messy lives and messy world and our mortality we will say to God we are ready.

We are ready to know we are finite. We are ready to know this life is but a moment.

We are ready to know that in God’s hands dust lives.

And in the power of God all things are possible.

We will embrace the mystery of our salvation.

We sense the presence of Jesus with us always.

We will be changed.

We can and will become the change agents God wants for this world.

We will receive courage where we were once afraid.

We will receive joy where we once had sorrow.

We will show mercy where we once had anger.

We will work for justice where we once had apathy.

Because we have seen his glory. We can say, ‘Jesus, shine us’; even sing it in that 80’s version.

In dazzling glory Jesus resides in us.

And we can and will be transformed. Always transforming and drawing nearer and nearer to God. Amen.

Resources:  Feasting on the Word; Working Preacher Karoline Lewis

Five Seconds of Fame

Sermon Luke 9:28-36 February 7, 2016 Transfiguration

Five Seconds of Fame

Today the church calendar indicates that this is Transfiguration Sunday. Next Sunday is the first Sunday in Lent where we begin our journey with Jesus to the cross and the empty tomb.

Every year before we begin the journey with Jesus through the stories about his life, death, and resurrection, we return to this story of Jesus going to the mountain to pray.

This story about Jesus, James, John and Peter appears in three gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. Jesus is on the mountain and the three disciples with him are tired and they doze off. We learn that Jesus is praying and during his prayer the appearance of his face changes and his clothes become dazzling white. Moses and Elijah show up and are talking to Jesus. Then the two men begin to disappear. Peter calls out to Jesus and recommends they build some tents so everyone can hang out together. As Peter is saying this, a cloud comes over them and the voice from the cloud says, “This is my son, my chosen, listen to him.”

Then poof, Jesus is by himself with the disciples. The cloud, the wonder, and all the glory is gone.

Jesus is back to being the Jesus the disciples have known from the beginning. But, something in the disciples has changed.

They have been transformed.

They have been changed forever.

They have experienced the unexplainable.

They have seen the glimpse, the vision of God.

This is the experience that everyone refers to when they talk about having a mountaintop experience of their own.

People are seeking experiences that change their lives;

opportunities to be transformed into new ways of being.

Some seek to find meaning to life by traveling the world

and then writing books about it.

Others are out there seeking fame

or glory

or a million likes

or a chance to appear on pop culture news,

or have a video or selfie go viral.

All are seeking & searching.

Perhaps it’s for that one moment of ‘five seconds of fame’.

Or perhaps it’s for thrill, or for need of purpose.

Back in the 60’s Andy Warhol said that all people would end up being famous for 15 minutes.

No one knew he would be a prophet; because with today’s social media there is constant hype about the tiniest and silliest of things.

-You could be on national news tomorrow based on one selfie or one twitter quote.

Imagine if Peter had had an Instagram account while he was on the mountain?

In today’s world it is no longer fifteen minutes of fame people get,

it is much shorter,

that’s why I say five seconds.

The glimpses of stardom or attention are just that.

Short lived and quickly forgotten.

Peter’s desire to make tents to hang out for a while was just a natural response to wanting the wonder and the glory of the moment to last.

It was an appropriate reaction to being in the presence of a holy moment.

It makes sense to want to honor and preserve our glimpses into the sacred.

But,

even the sacred

and the holy moments

can’t be held on to in ways of statues, or houses, or tents.

It’s as though those moments slip through our fingers

and we wonder why.

We want to relive and recapture the time when we saw the glow and the dazzle of God before us.

We seek to have this all the time and wonder what’s wrong with us when we don’t.

Those times in our lives when we enter into an experience of the sacred and glory of God, they change us.

There seems to be an awakening within,

a clarity of vision,

a sense of direction.

At these times our very being has the courage and the power to change the course of our lives.

These times we note as transformation.

We, like Moses, have stepped on holy ground.

We, like Peter, have seen the glory of God surround us.

We, like Jesus, have heard God call us chosen and child of God.

We have been dazzled by the presence of grace.

These moments are important to our story of our journey with God. That is why we come to the mountain again this year.

We have the opportunity together to remember our glimpse into the holiness of God. We have the moment in which we can remember that we have been transformed as Jesus was transfigured before our eyes.

We are witnesses to the mystery of God before us and God within us.

And so, with this dazzle still in our memory we have what it takes to go down the mountain and deal with the needs of daily life.

We will not be overcome or over whelmed by the pressures of the world.

We will be able to reach out and touch and do

because the One who can shine from glory to glory

is the same one who will shine through us

as we respond to voice that calls out our name.

We can and we will receive and be blessed. Jan Richardson is an amazing woman, artist author, and poet. She shares this Dazzled poem for us this year. Hear this blessing from Jan Richardson.

DAZZLING

A Blessing for Transfiguration Sunday

Believe me, I know
how tempting it is
to remain inside this blessing,
to linger where everything
is dazzling
and clear.

We could build walls
around this blessing,
put a roof over it.
We could bring in
a table, chairs,
have the most amazing meals.
We could make a home.
We could stay.

But this blessing
is built for leaving.
This blessing
is made for coming down
the mountain.
This blessing
wants to be in motion,
to travel with you
as you return
to level ground.

It will seem strange
how quiet this blessing becomes
when it returns to earth.
It is not shy.
It is not afraid.

It simply knows
how to bide its time,
to watch and wait,
to discern and pray

until the moment comes
when it will reveal
everything it knows,
when it will shine forth
with all that it has seen,
when it will dazzle

with the unforgettable light
you have carried
all this way.

- See more at: http://paintedprayerbook.com/#sthash.KCsKoSYI.dpuf

AMEN.

Resources: Feasting on the Word, Painted Prayer book.