Sermon: It is good for us to be here. (Feb 27, 2022)

Full service can be viewed HERE. Gospel reading begins at 32:00.

Transfiguration (year C)
February 27, 2022
Luke 9:28-43a

INTRODUCTION

We have reached the end of the season of Epiphany, the season of light, and we’re literally going out in a burst of light! Always this last Sunday of Epiphany, and the last Sunday before we begin the descent down the mountain and into Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent, we hear the story of the Transfiguration, when Jesus invites three disciples up to the top of a mountain, and before their eyes his clothes become dazzling white and his face shines like the sun. It is a moment of pure glory and splendor! It is also a hinge point between Jesus’ ministry, and when he turns his face toward Jerusalem and the cross. Glorious as it is, we mustn’t forget what comes next! Jesus and his disciples will walk down the mountain, and back into the messiness of the world.

Of course, the other readings will support this featured story of the day. We’ll hear about how Moses, too, had some mountaintop moments with God that left him shining so brightly that the people couldn’t look at him when he came down unless he wore a veil. And in Corinthians, Paul will use this story about Moses to help us see how things have changed for us because of Christ.

It is a bright Son-shiney day! As you listen, bask in the glory of it all, and also think about the moments in your life when you have truly experienced God’s glory, keeping in mind that such moments might not always be so obviously bright as the stories we hear today – but they are no less glorious! Let’s listen. 

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

On Thursday, the day Russia invaded Ukraine, my family went out to Mexican food. With the rest of the world, our hearts were heavy, but we were embracing the things we love and giving thanks. There were some TVs on in the bar, near where we were sitting, and a couple of them were showing scenes of Ukraine. Six-year-old Grace noticed them and asked us about them. She had overheard us talking that week about impending war, and asked if that was it. We were honest with her about what was happening, and she was very concerned. She worried we weren’t safe, and that she might have nightmares that night about this. Michael and I did our best to comfort her, showing her on a map how far away Ukraine is. We assured her we are safe, that daddy, as a member of the State Guard, won’t have to go and fight, and that she is loved. These are conversations no one wants to have with a 6-year-old.

And yet, it was good for us to be there. It was good for us to be together, eating too much queso and too many chips, with one another, sharing our griefs and our fears and our love. And that night at bedtime, also sharing our prayers – as Grace led a prayer for peace and safety for the people of Ukraine. It was good for us to be there.

I always want to linger on this line of Peter’s in the story of the Transfiguration. Peter often gets a bad rap for his quickness to speak and act before he has really thought things through. But this, this was the perfect thing to say. “It is good for us to be here.” It is good to see God’s brightness shine, to witness God’s glory from the front row, to gain a sense of Jesus’ place in a long history of God’s salvific action. It is good for us to be here!

There is always the decision to make on this Sunday: whether to read only the Transfiguration story and stay in that place, maybe even to build some dwellings like Peter goes on to suggest so that we can live forever in God’s glorious light…. Or, to include also the next story, about Jesus heading back down the mountain, looking perfectly un-shiny, where he is immediately met with a desperate father and his very sick son. I admit, it is tempting to stay on the mountain, basking in God’s glory, rather than head back down, into the valley with all its pain and fear and sadness. 

And yet at this moment in history, it feels all the more important to hear about Jesus heading back down the mountain. Back to be with the Ukrainian people taking shelter in subway stations, and those fleeing into Hungary on foot. Back down, to empower the Russian citizens who are standing up to an oppressive regime and saying, “This is not what we want!” putting themselves at great risk to do so. Back down the mountain to be with families with trans kids in Texas, and LGBTQ+ kids in Florida. Back to be with the family who lost someone to Covid, and the man estranged from his son, and the woman who just received the dreaded diagnosis. Jesus heads back down the mountain to be with and serve you. And me.

And you know what? When Jesus does this, he does not leave his glory on top of the mountain. He brings all that glory and power right down with him. Only the shine has left Jesus, but the Jesus who remains, who walks back down the mountain with the stunned disciples – that Jesus is still very much God with them. The man who meets this desperate father where he’s at, and hears his cries, and sees the brokenness he lives with – that man, Jesus – is still very much God with them, and with all of us in our pain, and he’s no less glorious. And it is good for us to be here!

You see – we might think that Jesus and the disciples left God’s glory on the mountain to re-enter a world that is largely without such glory. But God’s glory is never apart from the broken world. It just looks different. While God’s glory was certainly more apparent on that mountaintop, and is also in a stunning sunset and a magnificent anthem, we also know that God’s glory is most profoundly expressed through a man hanging broken and bloody on a cross. Yes, that is our glorious God, who shows up in the brokenness of this world – in the cries of a desperate father and his ailing son, in the sound of bombs falling, in our fear and uncertainty, in our shattered hopes and dreams. 

It is important that these two stories appear side by side: shiny Jesus on a mountaintop, and desperate father in a valley. Yes, a part of me wants to read only the Transfiguration story by itself, and bask in that dazzling brightness, and build a house to stay there forever – aaaand maybe ignore, at least for a while, that there is brokenness and pain and the possibility of World War III just down the mountain. 

But it can’t be ignored. So this week, I’m thinking about holding these two pictures of glory – the bright one and the broken one – one in each hand. Holding them together. And using the one to help us understand the other. Having seen that brightness on the mountaintop – this mountain, or any number of similar experiences we have had in our own lives – we are better equipped to seek out that light elsewhere, to find it in the cracks we will encounter day to day. Thanks to the mountain, we know what to look for. We can trust that God’s glory is everywhere – after all, if it can show up on a cross, why not in the pains of our own lives? Why not in Ukraine? And so, if we can carry the memory of that glory down the mountain with us, maybe we will know better how to find it.

To bring it close to home, last week, our new Mom Group met for the second time. It has so far been a wonderfully life-giving time of genuine connection, authenticity, and love. One thing we talked about, inspired by the book we’re reading, was seeing ourselves as broken vessels, flawed women trying dearly to raise kids who are loving, healthy, and faithful. We took turns thinking of moments where we were all too aware of our cracks and flaws, and then noticed how God was able to shine through them. That’s God’s glory, friends. And as we shared, I felt the air around us get less heavy. I felt God’s love infuse the conversation. That’s God’s glory! And it is good for us to be there.

As Jesus walks down that mountain today and heads toward Jerusalem, so do we, as we gather this week on Ash Wednesday to face our mortality, and continue to walk alongside Jesus toward another mountain where he will be crucified… and glorified. Our Lenten theme this year is called, “You are here.” It is an exploration of place, and finding God in whatever place we find ourselves. Sometimes that place is obviously glorious, shining, stunning, impressive, like the mountaintop. Sometimes, that place is broken and crying out, like a desperate father in the valley. Sometimes God’s glory is found hanging on a cross. My prayer is that whatever place or places we find ourselves in during Lent, we will profoundly know God’s glorious presence there with us, shining through in the cracks of our humanity, and alighting our hearts. 

Let us pray… Glorious God, your brightness fills the sky, and it also fills the cracks and brokenness in our lives. Now that we have seen your glory and splendor, open our eyes to seeing it all around us, in the magnificent and the mundane, in the wonderful and in the wounded. For you are God-with-us everywhere, holy and glorious. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Image attribution: JESUS MAFA. Transfiguration, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48307 [retrieved February 27, 2022]. Original source: http://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr (contact page: https://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr/contact).