The Mountain Before Us: A Sermon for Transfiguration Sunday

Photo by Kyle Johnson on unsplash.com

May my words be gentle but your message strong. Amen.

 

What an emotional week this has been. It’s not often that we have school shootings in Canada. Only 9 since 2000 compared to the US’s 642. And yet here we are, mourning alongside our neighbours of Tumbler Ridge for the lives lost in and affected by a horrific event. While this is not something that happened in the Cowichan Valley, it feels like it happened in our backyard. When a tragic event like this happens, no matter where in the country it happens, feelings like grief, numbness, anger, and fear rise up inside of us. It’s hard to know what to do with these feelings we’re having. We want to hug our families close, especially our children, and maybe even hide away from the world. Maybe we want to yell at God, and that’s ok. There’s no one else to yell at, and I promise you, God can handle it. To have all this tumbling around in our hearts while hearing passages about the dazzling sights and sounds of Jesus’ glorious divinity being revealed to his friends, and to us, is confounding, to say the least. But perhaps there is something in today’s scripture that can give us some comfort, maybe even some hope.

 

The Last Sunday of Epiphany, also known as Transfiguration Sunday, serves as the climax of the Epiphany season. It marks the transition from the season of revelation – celebrating Jesus as the light of the world – to the reflective, penitential season of Lent. What we will see and hear takes us from one season to the next: from Epiphany, God made manifest in Jesus to Lent, Jesus’ journey to the cross. Clouds, and fire, and glory! God is making a bright and bold statement, clarifying what Jesus means to us and who he is to us, but first there is this mountain before us, especially today. A mountain of emotions that is perhaps dimming the light, making it so that we can’t see clearly what God is trying to show us.

 

In both the Exodus story and the Gospel story, the mountain is a place our main characters go off to pray and to meet God. In Exodus, Moses and his friend Joshua climb up Mount Sinai where they sit for 6 days. I am making the assumption they sat in prayer, not idly hanging about. On the 7^th day, they meet the devouring fire of glory that is God. The dazzling sight before them began the steps of receiving the new covenant between God and the Israelites. Matthew also tells a dazzling story where Jesus and his friends Peter, James, and John, after 6 days of prayer (ok I’m making another assumption here), go off on their own up a mountain. It is here that Peter, James, and John see and hear more in this moment than they’ve seen and heard in the previous three years they’ve been with Jesus. This is a light and sound show like no other. Suddenly, the earthy Jesus with his dusty feet and tired eyes becomes the ethereal Jesus – robe glowing and face shining – a shimmering window into pure divinity. It is in this moment, on this mountaintop, that these men meet God in Jesus – and they fall to the ground in fear.

 

What would you do with a mountaintop experience? Resist? Fall down in fear? Would you even climb the mountain in the first place?

 

There are many points in our lives where we come across mountains that cast a shadow over us, building up our fears and uncertainties. This past week has certainly been one of those mountains. The world feels like a terrible pace right now. The world is a challenging place right now, for many reasons, and we often don’t know how God’s people are called to live within it or how we are called to lead people in these fearful and changing times. It’s in these times where we can easily lose sight of God.

 

And yet, through it all sometimes in profoundly unexpected times, we are pulled up out of the difficulty and find ourselves right back up on the mountaintop where again we are privileged to see Jesus transfigured before us, “shining like the sun itself.” We remember why we are here and why we do what we do. And somehow with that to carry us, we are able to join Jesus in going back down the mountain and joining God’s beloved people in times and places where they also find themselves yearning for the kind of understanding and hope which too often we only receive when we have been on the mountaintop. And though the way of our journey ahead is not entirely clear; what is sure is that we will encounter God and that we do not travel alone. God invites us into ministry where we might be delving into the hard parts of life, and not necessarily through dazzling moments of transfiguration, but more likely in the daily trenches of faithfulness.

 

We need to take our transfiguration moments, our mountaintop moments, our God moments, with us, to remind us why we are on this journey, especially when things are difficult. Like Moses and Joshua…like Peter, James, and John, we may not always understand what we have witnessed or what we have experienced, but we know that we are loved and called by the God who shares these moments, these experiences with us. We may not always understand the mountain of emotions before us, but we can take to heart the knowledge that God feels every emotion with us – grief, anger, fear – all of it.

 

As we prepare to enter the spiritual wilderness of Lent and explore our brokenness, we already know how this story ends. The story of Jesus requires us to take the brilliance of the Transfiguration into our own journeys, so that God can give the ending meaning. The story of Jesus tells us that God was willing to suffer agony on the cross so that we would know we are not alone in our despair. The story of Jesus tells us that death is not the end and gives us comfort and hope that God is always with us, and we will always be with God.

 

Let us pray the prayer provided to us by the Provincial House of Bishops,

 

We stand together in hope. We stand together in faith. We stand together in love. We stand individually as ambassadors of hope, vessels of faith, and sentinels of love. We stand as a community committed to making no peace with gun violence. We pray for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to inflame and enkindle our lives, our churches, our communities, our cities, and our nation with a passion for lasting peace; through Jesus Christ the Author of Peace.

 

Amen.

Resources

luthersem.edu

episcopalchurch.org

A Review of the Book "polysecure" by Jessica Fern

Title: polysecure

Author: Jessica Fern

Publisher: Thornapple Press

Year: 2020

240 pages

From the Back; Attachment theory has entered the mainstream, but most discussions focus on how we can cultivate secure monogamous relationships. What if, like many people, you're striving for secure, happy attachments with more than one partner?

    Polyamorous psychotherapist Jessica Fern breaks new ground by extending attachment theory into the realm of consensual nonmonogamy. Using her nested model of attachment and trauma, she expands our understanding of how these emotional experiences influence our relationships. Then, she sets out six specific strategies to help you more toward secure attachments in your multiple relationships.

Personal Thoughts: Whether or not you're exploring polyamorous relationships, human beings are social people and tend to have some sort of relationship with more than one person. It's likely you have more than one friend, more than one relation, and more than one co-worker. Understanding what it means to be in a healthy relationship with another human being is important for the progress of society. polysecure was a fairly easy read and gave some very good insight as to how to exist in harmony with yourself and with others.

A Review of the Book "Indigenous Theology and the Western Worldview" by Randy S Woodley

Title: Indigenous Theology and the Western Worldview

Author: Randy S Woodley

Publisher: Baker Academic

Year: 2022

134 pages

From the Back: Cherokee teacher, missiologist, and historian Randy Woodley encourages us to reject the many problematic aspects of the Western worldview and the convert to a worldview that is closer to that of both Indigenous traditions and Jesus.

Personal Thoughts: This book was assigned reading for a class that I am taking. I was really quite good. Woodley is a process theologian. Process Theology is a concept of God that is rooted in the nature around us. It also states that God is both eternal and temporal, immutable and mutable, and impassible and passible.

    Using a storytelling method of discussing God, Woodley explains how Indigenous people view God and God's relationship to the world. Unlike most theology books, this one was quite easy to read and understand, and you can definitely feel his passion about the connection between God and nature.

    As we work towards learning more about Indigenous people and reconciliation, reading about their worldview is an excellent first step. Woodley's book is an easy entrance into that work.

A Review of the Book "In the Courts of the Lord" by James Ferry

Title: In the Courts of the Lord

Author: James Ferry

Publisher: Key Porter Books Limited

Year: 1993

231 pages

From the Back: In February 1992, the New York Times reported: "Before an ecclesiastical tribunal knows as Bishop's Court, an archaic forum used by Anglicans to hunt down heretics and other miscreants since the time of King Henry VIII, lawyers for the Bishop of Toronto began the trial of the Rev. Jim Ferry."

    This extraordinary court, the first of its kind in over forty years, found James Ferry guilty of willful disobedience and disrespectful conduct toward his bishop. But the real issue the Court faced was that James Ferry was in a loving homosexual relationship while ministering to the spiritual needs of his Unionville, ON parishioners. James Ferry lost his parish, his livelihood, his privacy, and the man he loved, but he remains a priest, and an articulate advocate for gays and lesbians who yearn for full inclusion in the Anglican Church.

    In the Courts of the Lord chronicles the anguished process by which, after the failure of his marriage to an evangelical Christian woman and several loving but fragile relationships with men, Ferry came to terms with his sexual orientation. Ferry describes the history of his devotion to the Anglican Church, his successful work in one of the more difficult parishes in Toronto, and his election to the Unionville parish where his clerical career was abruptly halted. His account of how a homophobic member of his congregation encountered his partner while snooping around the rectory, and then agitated for James Ferry's removal, is both vivid and shocking.

    With pain, compassion, and deep insight, Ferry explains the moral dilemma in which the Church now finds itself, on the one hand committed to accepting gay people within the Church and society, on the other hand requiring that they refrain from entering into loving relationships.

Personal Thoughts: This book was very powerful and a reminder that the past is not really that long ago. As a transman going through the ordination process, I had to tread carefully and fully expected to be booted from the process by my bishop. Luckily I wasn't and I continue to be lucky with finding supportive people around me. However, I can probably guess why I didn't get certain positions within the church, especially considering how public I am on social media and in the news.

    In the Courts of the Lord is a perfect book for anyone who questions why we still need to talk about the 2SLGBTQIA+ community and their place in the church as well as the pain the church has caused.

A Review of the Book "Animal Farm" by George Orwell

Title: Animal Farm

Author: George Orwell

Publisher: Secker & Warburg

Year: 1945

96 pages

From the Back: Revolution is in the air at Manor Farm after old Major, a prize boar, tells the other animals about his dream of freedom and teaches them to sing "Beasts of England". Mr Jones, the drunken farmer, is deposed and a committee of pigs takes over the running of the farm. The animals are taught to read and write, but the dream turns sour, the purges begin, and those in charge come more and more to resemble their oppressors.

    Orwell's allegory of the Soviet revolution remains as lucid and compelling as ever. In beautifully clear prose, he gives us a vivid gallery of characters and a fable that conveys the truth about how we are manipulated through language and the impossibility of finding heaven on earth.

Personal Thoughts: Animal Farm is one of those books that I probably should have read in high school but never did. It was recommended to me by my partner as a "must read". She said that the story relates perfectly to what's going on in the world today. And boy they weren't kidding! Absolute power corrupts absolutely. That is the crux of this story. The animals wish for a better life, one where everyone is equal. On the surface, it seems like the perfect plan. But it doesn't take long for one group of animals to get the taste of being in control and taking power from the others. Keeping those below them uneducated, not keeping government transparent, using threat of danger as a motivation tactic...sound familiar?

    Animal Farm is a good read but beware, the subject matter hits home. I highly recommend it, as well as Orwell's 1984.

Finding Hope in Suffering: A Sermon for the Presentation of the Lord

Photo Credit: Mart Production

O God, take our minds and think through them. Take our lips and speak through them. Take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen.

 

February 2^nd is a holy day called the Presentation of the Lord, or in Catholic circles, the Purification of our Lady. Bringing your attention to Leviticus chapter 12, it says,

“The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the Israelites, saying: ‘If a woman conceives and bears a male child, she shall be unclean seven days; as at the time of her menstruation, she shall be unclean. On the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. Her time of blood purification shall be thirty-three days; she shall not touch any holy thing or come into the sanctuary until the days of her purification are completed… When the days of her purification are completed, whether for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring to the priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting a lamb in its first year for a burnt offering and a pigeon or a turtledove for a purification offering. He shall offer it before the Lord and make atonement on her behalf; then she shall be clean from her flow of blood. This is the law for her who bears a child, male or female.’”

 

Under the Mosaic Law, a woman was ritually “unclean” for 40 days after childbirth, when she was to present herself to the priests and offer sacrifice for her “purification.” Contact with anyone who had brushed against mystery, whether that be birth or death, excluded a person from Jewish worship.

 

In today’s gospel reading, we find Mary and Joseph respecting the Mosaic Law by offering the sacrifice prescribed for the poor: a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. We also discover a number of people who have been waiting for a very long time for their great hope to arrive. First of all, Simeon, who’s described as waiting for the consolation of Israel. Secondly there’s Anna and the people that she speaks to who are looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. All these people are looking for the same thing. They’re looking forward to the fulfilment of prophecies such as Isaiah’s that told of the restoration of Jerusalem, of the coming of the Messiah to restore the fortunes of Israel, and to establish God’s Kingdom here on earth, bringing salvation to all peoples.

 

All these people were waiting for God to act. Most of them had been waiting for many years. We’re not told how old Simeon was, but the implication is that he’d lived beyond the normal span of years as he waited to greet the coming Messiah. He’s certainly ready to go once he’s seen Jesus. Anna we’re told, is 84, which was a great age for the time. But notice that their time hasn’t been wasted. Rather they’ve spent their time in worship of God. Simeon is described as righteous and devout. That is, his life was exemplary. He was a regular worshipper of God. He was open to God speaking to him and responded when he heard God’s voice. We’re told the Holy Spirit rested on him. Presumably that means that he’s a prophet, like the prophets of old. God, it seemed, had been silent for 400 years. There had been no prophets since Malachi. But now here is Simeon, waiting for the Messiah to be revealed. In fact, Luke tells us that it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he wouldn’t see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah.

 

Similarly, there was Anna. She too was a prophet. She never left the temple but worshipped there with prayer and fasting night and day. What a great example of a godly woman. And what a great example of a woman who acts as a mouthpiece for God. Anna is a great example of a woman whom God uses to teach his people about who Jesus is.

 

Simeon and Anna had each spent long years at prayer in the temple. In that time, they must have seen countless babies. But, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, some special quality in Jesus aroused in them the conviction that this child was the Messiah. Their long years of faith-filled yearning were over. They recognized him. The Anointed of the Lord had come.

 

This Feast of the Presentation of the Lord is a celebration of that extraordinary moment of recognition. It is a moment worth thinking about, because we are all invited to experience it. Each one of us is called upon to recognize Jesus. We won’t have that forty-day old baby to gaze at, but the same Holy Spirit who inspired Simeon and Anna is with us, enabling us to recognize Jesus in the Scriptures, in the hungry, in the stranger, in the prisoner, and in the Eucharist we share.

 

In Luke’s account, Jesus was welcomed in the temple by two elderly people, Simeon and the widow Anna. They embody Israel in their patient expectation, both living in a world of patient hope where suffering has become a way of life. They acknowledge the infant Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah, God’s appointed redeemer who will deal with the suffering by sharing it himself. Luke also tells us that to love Jesus is to suffer with him when Simeon tells Mary, “A sword will pierce your own soul, too.”

 

When we look at the world around us, we can see the suffering. People are hurting, hungry, sick, and dying. Violence is rising. Politics are becoming destructive. God’s people are suffering. How do we recognize Jesus in this suffering? Where is God in this suffering? From theologian and author NT Wright,

“Everybody has their own role in God’s plan. For some, it will be active, obvious, working in the public eye, perhaps preaching the gospel or taking the love of God to meet the practical needs of the world. For others, it will be quiet, away from public view, praying faithfully for God to act in fulfilment of [God’s] promises. For many, it will be a mixture of the two, sometimes one, sometimes the other.”

 

Keeping Wright’s words in mind, what is our role in this suffering?

 

In Simeon’s and Anna’s world, suffering was an everyday thing, with no end in sight. But they were able to hold out hope that God’s promises would come true one day. They found that hope in Jesus. When we look around, it feels as if this suffering will go on forever. There doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. In fact, it just seems to get worse on the daily. But we can have hope, too. Our hope lies in the knowledge that God is sitting with us through it all, shedding the same tears and feeling the same grief, while also presenting to us, in Jesus, the knowledge that the Kingdom of God is confronting the Kingdom of the World.

 

I will end this time of teaching with a prayer for grieving by Cole Arthur Riley,

                        “God who is moved to tears,

Lead us into a kind of solidarity that reminds us that in pausing to bear witness to suffering, we do not center ourselves as the rescuer. We do not become the voice. Free us from the responsibility to understand every tragedy at once. Help us to discern our capacity for solidarity, lament. Help us to learn when to stand and when to rest and allow others to do so, remembering that our activism is shared among a collective. We don’t have to hold it alone.”

 

Amen.

Resources

sermoncentral.com

franciscanmedia.org

"Luke for Everyone" by NT Wright

"New Collegeville Bible Commentary: New Testament" edited by Danial Durken

Has Christ Been Divided?: A Sermon for the 3rd Sunday After Epiphany

O God, take our minds and think through them. Take our lips and speak through them. Take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen.

 

Things were not going well in the fledgling Corinthian Christian congregation and matters seemed serious enough to occasion a letter from the Apostle Paul. In-fighting and clique-forming were the norm. Factions were splintering the congregation as people claimed allegiance to one leader over another instead of following God’s way in the central message of the gospel of Christ. Paul is urging the people to cease their divisions and quarrels and to remember that they were all united by their baptism in the name of Christ. Paul argues that the central message of the gospel is the cross of Christ, and it is through the lens of the cross that Christians are called to regard one another and to treat them accordingly.

 

We are called to do the same. We are all one in Christ being connected to each other through our baptism in Christ’s name. Like the religious people so fiercely denounced by the biblical prophets, some Christian believers have been or continue to be complicit in supporting or perpetuating prejudice and oppression and fostering division. History shows that, rather than recognising the dignity of every human being made in the image and likeness of God, Christians have too often involved themselves in structures of sin such as slavery, colonisation, segregation, and discrimination which have stripped others of their dignity on the spurious grounds of race, gender, sexuality, and so forth. So too within the churches.

 

Churches must acknowledge how they have been silent or actively complicit regarding social injustice. Racial prejudice has been one of the many causes of Christian division that has torn the Body of Christ. Toxic ideologies, such as White Supremacy and the doctrine of discovery, have caused much harm, particularly in North America and in lands throughout the world colonized by White European powers over the centuries.

 

Christians throughout history have excluded, persecuted, and killed those they deemed to be different – Jews, Muslims, gays, witches, heretics, and so on. Today, separation and oppression continue to manifest when any single group or class is given privileges above others. The sins of racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia is evident in any beliefs or practices that distinguish or elevate one type of person over another. As Christians we must be willing to disrupt systems of oppression and to advocate for justice. Christians have failed to recognise the dignity of all the baptised and have belittled the dignity of their siblings in Christ on the grounds of “difference”.

 

Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr memorably said, “It is one of the tragedies of our nation, one of the shameful tragedies, that 11 o’clock on Sunday morning is one of the most segregated hours, if not the most segregated hour in Christian America”. This statement demonstrates the disunity of Christians. This division runs counter to the unity that God desires for the whole of creation. Tragically this failure to recognise the dignity of all people is part of what has divided Christians from one another, has caused Christians to worship at separate times, and in separate buildings, and in certain cases has led Christian communities to divide.

 

Now, not all Christians distrust, demonize, fear, caricature, and separate themselves from each other. We can also find voices of inclusion, embrace, toleration, and even celebration. How can we live our unity as Christians so as to confront the evils and injustices of our time? How can we engage in dialogue, increase awareness, understanding and insight about one another’s lived experiences?

 

Let us be open to God’s presence in all our encounters with each other as we seek to be transformed, to dismantle the systems of oppression, and to heal the sins of racism. Together, let us engage in the struggle for justice in our society. Oppression is harmful to the entire human race. There can be no unity without justice.

 

We need to confront all instances of oppression and bring forth justice for all. We are all human and we all deserve the dignity of living the truth of our lives, to live as we are, to embrace our differences in the knowledge that we are all children of God deserving of love, peace, and salvation. And, in this unity, we all belong to Christ. It is the gifts and the life experience of the people of the church that gives the most complete picture and witness of the body of Christ and where the gifts of the Holy Spirit are experienced and exercised.

 

It is not an act of charity to reach out to those different from us or our way of being Christ’s person in the world, or who have been taught the faith differently. It is an act of faithfulness, an extension of the faith of Jesus, to seek communion with all those who call upon the name of Jesus. If we belong together to Christ, we must belong to one another.

 

Our church is divided. But it doesn’t have to be. It is up to us to bridge the divides and bring unity as baptized people of Christ. We must find ways to work together as the undivided Body of Christ, not with the goal of all being the same, but to embrace all humanity as they are, in all their differences, and as loved Children of God.

 

Amen.