2 Corinthians 4:3-6; Mark 9:2-9
“A Dazzling, Bright Light”
A woman and little boy were battling the Christmas shopping crowds. They were on one of the escalators of a large store filled with zillions of other shoppers. As they step off, the little boy looked up at his mother and said, “Are we in line?” His mother said, “No, there is no line. This isn’t school, this is life.”
The boy’s mother makes a distinction between the reality of life and school. In Mark’s transfiguration story, the distinction between spiritual and physical reality is somewhat blurred. Spirituality is becoming aware of a relationship with God we are already in. Bishop William H. Willimon says, “We all need a touch of wonder… some transfiguring experience when we see what we never saw before. And “time away” helps do that!
This past September, about the time the leaves were beginning to turn colors, Althea and I went on a day trip to McGregor and then up the river on the Illinois side. For me it was a little time away from a busy week. Along the way we stopped at a lock to watch a river barge go through as it made its way down the Mississippi. We are so much like that barge going through a lock. It doesn’t realize anything is different. Its surroundings are the same but all of a sudden everything is seen from a new perspective.
The transfiguration experience in today’s scripture comes as Jesus takes three of his disciples on a "retreat" – some time away, by themselves." And on that mountain they are changed, so much so that they don’t want to leave. Bishop Willimon says, “Imagine people in our churches saying, “Let’s stay here forever! Can’t we go past noon, just this one Sunday?”
Peter, John and James went up the mountain with Jesus that day – for a little time away from it all where they could be apart from it all. No doubt while they were there they thought about their relationship with the Lord. And later, it will be these three who go with him deeper into the Garden of Gesthemane on the night of his arrest.
They look up and Moses and Elijah are with Jesus on the mountaintop - but why these three? A reluctant Moses led the Israelites in the exodus to the promised land, receiving for them the law from God. But Israel’s heart turned away from the Lord and God's purposes for their lives were delayed by the darkness. A hesitant Elijah was sent to bring God’s word to Israel during a low point in its history. God did some miraculous things, and yet Israel continued to reject God and live in darkness. In Jesus, everything is coming to a conclusion and the purposes of God will be fulfilled.
Jesus is the dazzling, bright light that will finally overcome the darkness. Paul says in 2 Corinthians today that just as light came to the physical creation when God said, "Let there be light," so spiritual light shines in our inner darkness when we believe the good news and receive Christ as Lord.
As a response to what they have seen, the three want to build three dwelling places, one each for Moses, Elijah, and Jesus. They want to hold on to their experience. Seeing Jesus, Moses and Elijah on that mountaintop with their very own eyes was a powerful event for the three men. For one brief moment they get a glimpse of spiritual reality and are able to see Jesus’ true identity. Jesus’ transfiguration changed their lives and they were transformed. In the transfiguration of Jesus, in a dazzling bright light, the disciples get a glimpse of God's plan and purpose to restore the spiritual center of humanity.
Then a voice thunders through the cloud that has moved over them, saying, "This is my son, and I love him; listen to what he says." Maybe this cloud was like the one that covered the ancient Israelites in the desert on their way to the promised land, we don’t know. It is the same voice heard at Jesus' baptism, providing a clue to Jesus’ identity – and our need to listen!
"Getting it...." in spiritual terms has to do with our relationship with God. Without being able to see in a spiritual way, we loose our bearings in terms of the purpose and meaning of our lives. It’s important that we pay attention to what Jesus says. It’s important to really listen.
Once again, the spiritual meaning of the physical event is contained in these words from the epistle reading: "For it is the God who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." [2 Cor. 4:6] God’s light is a dazzling, bright light.
Then, for the three disciples, the vision ends. "Suddenly, when they looked around, they saw no one with them anymore, but only Jesus." Their spectacular spiritual moment was over.
Coming down the mountain, Jesus tells the three not to say anything about what they had seen until after the resurrection. So they go down together. They cannot stay on the mountaintop forever. The transfiguration of Jesus and their transformation on the mountaintop must now turn into the transformation of others who have yet to gain the same spiritual insight provided them. Their personal experience will soon become public – but just not yet.
Sr. Joan Chittister, a well-known speaker and author, in an article "The Role of Religion in Today's Society" raises this question, “Should religion be a private refuge or a public presence.” She writes, “The purpose of holiness is not to protect us from our world. The role of religion is to bring us to an awareness of life. The role of religion is to transform the world, to come to see the world as God sees the world and to bring it as close to the vision of God as we possibly can. She says this is often misunderstood because we don’t understand Sabbath, a day apart given us by God to evaluate our work in light of God’s will, to reflect on the meaning of life, and as thinking time designed to change us.
Perhaps this is our day apart - today; a day of transfiguration, a day for transformation, a day of Sabbath. It is a day for all of us to allow God to change us so we can change the world. Through prayer we have climbed the mountain. In prayer we listen to God and hear God’s purpose for our lives more clearly. We can never stay on the mountaintop, but in order to remain close to Jesus, like the three disciples, we must now go “down into the world” with him so others might also experience this dazzling, bright light.
Resources: Sermonhelp.com – Lectionary Help Online - http://www.lectionarysermons.com/mar05_00.html
"The Role of Religion in Today's Society," Sr. Joan Chittister, http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/chittister_3508.html
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
February 15, 2009 Message
1 Corinthians 9:24-27; Mark 1:40-45
“If You…”
A man goes into a drugstore and asks the pharmacist if he can give him something for the hiccups.
The pharmacist promptly reaches out and slaps the man’s face.
“What did you do that for?!” the man exclaims.
“Well, you don’t have the hiccups anymore, do you?” answers the pharmacist.
“No,” the man says, “but my wife out in the car still does!”
Often there can be more to a question than what we might hear, as the pharmacist in this story discovered.
Today’s lesson centers on a question and its implication for all of us. Jesus understood fully what the leper was asking when he said, “If you choose, make me clean.” Questions require our making choices and sometimes those choices can be limited.
The flight attendant of an airline that once served meals, asked a passenger if he would like a small snack.
"What are my choices?" he asked.
"Yes or No," she replied.
With some questions there is simply a choice - either yes or no, with no in-betweens. Questions starting with “If you…” are those kinds of questions. The options are limited. It’s either one, or the other.
In the gospel lesson today, Jesus gets that kind of question and has to make a choice. When the leper comes to him, interrupting what he is doing, and says, “If you…” Jesus, who had come to preach to the people rather than heal, has only two options. He can ignore the leper, and concentrate on preaching his message of God's love in the towns and cities – or he can touch the leper, make himself unclean by the law, and because of his compassion, isolate himself from everyone who might hear his message. Jesus had a yes or no choice to make.
I have heard "parenting" defined as "a parable of interruption." Those who are parents would no doubt agree. That is the kind of interruption Jesus experienced - right in the middle of doing something important - but, as parents know, it could not be ignored.
Jesus chooses to touches the leper, and in doing so joins him in his place of exclusion and uncleanness. He heals the leper...and then, sending him to have his healing confirmed by the priest, gives him back his community.
Jesus responds to this “If you…,” question by saying, “I do choose. Be made clean!” His act reveals the true nature of God. When we look at scripture, we see Jesus always chooses to help people and is always working for good in their lives — he never chooses the opposite.
Jesus IS willing to heal the least wanted. And in doing so, Jesus 1) makes himself accessible to even the most excluded of society, 2) crosses a ritual barrier, 3) rises over the law to offer compassion and over judgment to offer love, and 4) cleanses the man.
Not only does he cleanse the leper, he is delighted to cleanse him [NT2309 thelo] It is God's pleasure to look for us when we are lost and to cleanse us. “God’s will” and “God is willing” are interchangeable terms. It is God's joy to show us his will.
In turn, if we want to be in God's will then we will seek to make God happy. If we want to delight God we must be willing to cleanse others. However, we are not as dependable as Jesus, are we? Ours is not always the right choice, is it?
Robert Frost begins his poem The Road Not Taken with these words: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.” He cautions the choices made in the dense woods of life do matter, with one path leading to another. Frost then concludes his poem by writing:
I shall be telling this with a sigh,
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I...
I took the one less traveled by,
And that made all the difference.
This poem makes me think about the choices I’ve made and the paths to which they’ve led. Full of metaphor and simile, Frost’s words create rich images in the mind. That’s what poetry does. It tells us about life and death and who we are as people.
The apostle Paul knew all about metaphor. He wrote: Love is a rose. Man is a snake. God is a rock. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. You are the body of Christ, children of the light. And in today’s scripture, he refers to faithful Christians as athletes.
Robert Frost has his road; Paul has his race. Our lives are shaped each day by the choices we make. What is the choice we are being asked to make today, as a church, or as an individual? Down which road should we go? Is our eye upon the goal, as Paul has encouraged, or have we lost our focus by the distractions of the world?
When faced with the question, “If you choose… to love the Lord our God, and our neighbors as ourselves” (Matthew 22:34-40), then what? Will we instead turn our backs on God and look down on our neighbors; will we be unfaithful or unloving?
Or, “If you choose… follow the heavenly call of God in Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:14) to live a moral life at home, in school, on the job and in business dealings, or in our communities, then what? Will we instead do what we please?
Or, “If you choose… to live in the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16), as God wills, then what? Do we instead indulge ourselves in all the things our society says will make us feel good?
And, “If you choose… to live out the great Commission to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19-20), then what? Do we keep what we have learned about Jesus to ourselves? Or do we share by witnessing to others.
Sarayu (the Holy Spirit), in the book The Shack by Wm. Paul Young, talking to Mackenzie about mankind in general, says: "When you chose independence over relationship, you became a danger to each other. Others became objects to be manipulated or managed for your own happiness. Authority, as you usually think of it, is merely an excuse the strong use to make others conform to what they want."
When asked, “If you choose…” Jesus didn’t do what the standards of “organized religion” of his day would dictate or what the Scribes and Pharasees would approve of, but instead what is God’s very nature to do – which raises some interesting questions. Which of our church "rules" might Jesus break if he were walking around today? And what "rules" might we need to break to get closer to Jesus? Who are like lepers in our community – the people we wouldn’t want to touch? And what is our church's relationship to them? Would Jesus touch them? Why haven’t we?
Today, the question is directed to us. “If you…?” What will we choose?
Let us be in prayer…
“If You…”
A man goes into a drugstore and asks the pharmacist if he can give him something for the hiccups.
The pharmacist promptly reaches out and slaps the man’s face.
“What did you do that for?!” the man exclaims.
“Well, you don’t have the hiccups anymore, do you?” answers the pharmacist.
“No,” the man says, “but my wife out in the car still does!”
Often there can be more to a question than what we might hear, as the pharmacist in this story discovered.
Today’s lesson centers on a question and its implication for all of us. Jesus understood fully what the leper was asking when he said, “If you choose, make me clean.” Questions require our making choices and sometimes those choices can be limited.
The flight attendant of an airline that once served meals, asked a passenger if he would like a small snack.
"What are my choices?" he asked.
"Yes or No," she replied.
With some questions there is simply a choice - either yes or no, with no in-betweens. Questions starting with “If you…” are those kinds of questions. The options are limited. It’s either one, or the other.
In the gospel lesson today, Jesus gets that kind of question and has to make a choice. When the leper comes to him, interrupting what he is doing, and says, “If you…” Jesus, who had come to preach to the people rather than heal, has only two options. He can ignore the leper, and concentrate on preaching his message of God's love in the towns and cities – or he can touch the leper, make himself unclean by the law, and because of his compassion, isolate himself from everyone who might hear his message. Jesus had a yes or no choice to make.
I have heard "parenting" defined as "a parable of interruption." Those who are parents would no doubt agree. That is the kind of interruption Jesus experienced - right in the middle of doing something important - but, as parents know, it could not be ignored.
Jesus chooses to touches the leper, and in doing so joins him in his place of exclusion and uncleanness. He heals the leper...and then, sending him to have his healing confirmed by the priest, gives him back his community.
Jesus responds to this “If you…,” question by saying, “I do choose. Be made clean!” His act reveals the true nature of God. When we look at scripture, we see Jesus always chooses to help people and is always working for good in their lives — he never chooses the opposite.
Jesus IS willing to heal the least wanted. And in doing so, Jesus 1) makes himself accessible to even the most excluded of society, 2) crosses a ritual barrier, 3) rises over the law to offer compassion and over judgment to offer love, and 4) cleanses the man.
Not only does he cleanse the leper, he is delighted to cleanse him [NT2309 thelo] It is God's pleasure to look for us when we are lost and to cleanse us. “God’s will” and “God is willing” are interchangeable terms. It is God's joy to show us his will.
In turn, if we want to be in God's will then we will seek to make God happy. If we want to delight God we must be willing to cleanse others. However, we are not as dependable as Jesus, are we? Ours is not always the right choice, is it?
Robert Frost begins his poem The Road Not Taken with these words: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.” He cautions the choices made in the dense woods of life do matter, with one path leading to another. Frost then concludes his poem by writing:
I shall be telling this with a sigh,
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I...
I took the one less traveled by,
And that made all the difference.
This poem makes me think about the choices I’ve made and the paths to which they’ve led. Full of metaphor and simile, Frost’s words create rich images in the mind. That’s what poetry does. It tells us about life and death and who we are as people.
The apostle Paul knew all about metaphor. He wrote: Love is a rose. Man is a snake. God is a rock. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. You are the body of Christ, children of the light. And in today’s scripture, he refers to faithful Christians as athletes.
Robert Frost has his road; Paul has his race. Our lives are shaped each day by the choices we make. What is the choice we are being asked to make today, as a church, or as an individual? Down which road should we go? Is our eye upon the goal, as Paul has encouraged, or have we lost our focus by the distractions of the world?
When faced with the question, “If you choose… to love the Lord our God, and our neighbors as ourselves” (Matthew 22:34-40), then what? Will we instead turn our backs on God and look down on our neighbors; will we be unfaithful or unloving?
Or, “If you choose… follow the heavenly call of God in Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:14) to live a moral life at home, in school, on the job and in business dealings, or in our communities, then what? Will we instead do what we please?
Or, “If you choose… to live in the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16), as God wills, then what? Do we instead indulge ourselves in all the things our society says will make us feel good?
And, “If you choose… to live out the great Commission to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19-20), then what? Do we keep what we have learned about Jesus to ourselves? Or do we share by witnessing to others.
Sarayu (the Holy Spirit), in the book The Shack by Wm. Paul Young, talking to Mackenzie about mankind in general, says: "When you chose independence over relationship, you became a danger to each other. Others became objects to be manipulated or managed for your own happiness. Authority, as you usually think of it, is merely an excuse the strong use to make others conform to what they want."
When asked, “If you choose…” Jesus didn’t do what the standards of “organized religion” of his day would dictate or what the Scribes and Pharasees would approve of, but instead what is God’s very nature to do – which raises some interesting questions. Which of our church "rules" might Jesus break if he were walking around today? And what "rules" might we need to break to get closer to Jesus? Who are like lepers in our community – the people we wouldn’t want to touch? And what is our church's relationship to them? Would Jesus touch them? Why haven’t we?
Today, the question is directed to us. “If you…?” What will we choose?
Let us be in prayer…
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)