Thomas E. Myers

February 3, 2008

2 Peter 1: 16 – 21

¹⁶ For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty. ¹⁷ For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” ¹⁸ We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain.

¹⁹  So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed.  You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.  ²⁰First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, ²¹ because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

Matthew 17: 1 – 9

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves.  ² And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.  ³ Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.  ⁴ Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”  ⁵ While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”  ⁶ When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear.  ⁷ But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.”  ⁸ And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.

⁹ As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

“When the Morning Star Rises”

Jesus is transfigured before his disciples upon a mountaintop.  There on the mountain the disciples recognized that Jesus was more than just a great teacher.  They caught a vision, a glimpse, of what God was doing.  They heard a voice.  For one moment their ordinary reality was peeled back and they saw Jesus as the long-promised Christ, the one sent from God to save them.  Peter wanted to hold on to the extraordinary experience.  He wanted to build an altar, a lasting Ebenezer, a pile of rocks or a similar marker that would remind them of this transforming experience.  Peter wanted to make a big deal about it.  That is often our temptation too.

Time and again Jesus is transfigured, revealed before us.  And we too want to make more out of it than we should.  In our encounters with the Christ, or more accurately the Christ’s encounters with us, new insights are revealed to us about who Jesus is and what God wants for our lives.  That’s the point.  Our experience with the Christ is meant to guide us into a ministry that is integrated and glorified by God.  Religious experiences are not to be worshiped, or made too much of.  They are only as good as our ability to integrate them into loving service.  These are events meant to transfigure our world, uplifting our sense of what can be.

What on earth are we to make of this story?  What happened at the Transfiguration?  Because of our modern, 21^st-century worldview, we have a problem with this story.  How can we believe it?  What is the point of this story?

I wonder, in our infatuation with facts, data, and empirical proof, if our vision and capabilities have become smaller rather than larger?  The story of the Transfiguration addresses this point.  The best that any of the gospel writers could do with this story was to describe the change in Jesus’ appearance, the vision of Moses and Elijah, and that a voice from heaven was heard.  This mystery, the ability of God to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary, has been a challenge to the sensibilities of people through many generations.  As we ponder the theological significance of this event, we recall John’s words, in John 1:14, saying that the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory...

Transfiguration is about having a changed perception, a perception from an everyday, rational epistemology (a theory of knowledge), into an epistemology that recognizes God’s glory, God’s revelation as a part of the ordinary.

Let us begin with a dose of intellectual humility.  We believe that we have the capacity to understand, to grasp anything to which we put our minds.  One of the promises of modernity (a modern epistemology) is that we can come up with solutions to any problem through an application of reason.  However, Christianity teaches us something more.  Christianity is partially a revealed religion.  John Wesley understood this when he helped us to see that there is a balance between Reason, Experience, Tradition, and Scripture.  Christianity is not entirely a revealed Religion.  Christianity is a balanced religion.  It helps to have the sensitivity of a poet, an artist, and a scientist.  When we claim to be a Christian, especially a United Methodist, we embrace reason as well as revelation.  It is our claim that it is possible to do our best thinking, not just on our own, or just through a skilled application of reason, but enhanced through the gift of God’s revelation.  God transforms the ordinary into glory.

God’s Realm has the ability to transform the ordinary gifts that we have to offer into an extraordinary gift of mission.  Our building project is an example of it.  We are participants in a ministry that will extend well beyond a pile of rocks.  This building is part of a greater ministry that God is doing through us.  Our gifts are being transformed, our monetary gifts and our service of love equally transformed from the ordinary to the extraordinary.  When we walk down the mountain, we will be walking into a very different ministry, a ministry expanded, glorified, and blessed by the Spirit of God.  We will be walking into a thriving, living ministry, not into a static temple.

We celebrate that God loves the “real self” within each of you.  God does not much care how you dress or how good you are.  God calls us to be what we really are, persons who are loved and who love in return.  The things that we own, what honors we receive, how filled with pride we are, can get in the way.  What is most important is how the light of Christ shines through you, in what you give, through what you do, that your labor of love might be transfigured, exalted, and glorified, for God’s Realm.

If we learn to live from the home within us, we will discover God’s love present, the morning star that rises within your heart, the light that guides your discipleship.  You are the lamps ready to shine in the darkness.  Thanks be to God. 

Ash Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17

Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming, it is near-- ² a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness!  Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come.

 ¹² Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; ¹³ rend your hearts and not your clothing.  Return to the LORD, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.  ¹⁴ Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the LORD, your God?  ¹⁵ Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly; ¹⁶ gather the people.  Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast.  Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her canopy.

¹⁷ Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep.  Let them say, “Spare your people, O LORD, and do not make your heritage a mockery, a byword among the nations.  Why should it be said among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’ ”

2 Corinthians 5:20–6:10

²⁰ So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. ²¹ For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

¹ As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. ² For he says, “At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.” 

See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! ³ We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, ⁴ but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, ⁵ beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; ⁶ by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, ⁷ truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; ⁸ in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; ⁹ as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see--we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; ¹⁰ as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

Matthew 6:1–6; 16–21

⁶ “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

²“So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

⁵“And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. ⁶ But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

¹⁶“And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. ¹⁷ But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, ¹⁸ so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

¹⁹ “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; ²⁰ but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

“Good News and Bad News”

Joel’s vision of the day of the Lord prompted images of darkness and light and, conveyed promise and threat – good news and bad news.

The “Day of the Lord” – literally, the “Day of Yahweh” – reminds us that God intrudes into history, where God’s righteousness and justice prevail – demonstrating compassion to the poor, treating everybody justly, and living out a commitment to making peace.  The Day of the Lord is the day when the vale is dropped, it is the day when we see clearly our darkness and light.

If you are living faithfully, the Day of the Lord is the anticipation of the dawning of light.  That’s the good news.

The bad news is…

We all have our shadow…  We have events in our lives, some in the distant past, some in the not so distant past, that need to be reconciled, healed, and acknowledged; so that we might live life more fully and with joy. 

The bad news is…

We deny or refuse to recognize that there is anything deep or dark in our lives.  I’m fine… my family is fine… my job is fine… everything is fine, damn it!   It consumes us.

The good news is…

Lent is the season for soul searching.  It’s O.K. for us to look at our deep dark – forgotten.  It’s O.K.  God already knows about it and it’s not getting in God’s way.  This evening is the beginning for us, Lent is a season where we can be set free, that’s what Ash Wednesday is all about.

The good news, we’re in this together…

Everybody, in our own unique way is a basket case.  We confuse our priorities.  We let the past dictate the present.  We limit the Spirit and diminish life by our fear of the future.  We react before reflecting. 

Yes, the good news is that we are in this together, and God is in this with us.  We are not in this alone.

Now, here is the question for today.  What does Joel’s vision offer us so that our life might become more whole?

 What is here to help us?  For much of the Christian world the gospel offers a rather narrow focus on the judgment day, the second coming of Christ, the parousia, or the end time.  Joel helps us to see that we should not be preoccupied with what will happen at the end of time.  With eyes fixed on judgment day, some people define the importance of becoming a Christian not so much in terms of the joy and fulfillment, but rather in terms of escaping  judgment.  I guess their goal is to deny their shadow.  So when you stand in the presence of God’s light, and you turn around and look at the ground…  The only way to not cast a shadow is not to have a life at all.

The good new…  We have a shadow.

The good news from Joel… the LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.  The Lord relents from punishing. 

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