February 18,2007 Transfiguration Sunday

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February 18, 2007

Transfiguration, Last Sunday after the Epiphany, Year C

Scripture Reading:

Old Testament Lesson Exodus 34:29-35 (Pp. 142-43).

Epistle Lesson 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2 (Pp.1797-98).

Gospel Lesson Luke 6:27-38 (P. 1601).

      Summary:

            Do we really want to live in God’s presence? Do we really want to see God’s presence in the lives of people around us? If our answer is “yes,” what are the things that are keeping us from doing so? These questions from the challenge presented in this sermon.

“Bright, Shiny Faces”

      “Most people really don’t want to get that close to God,” said the older woman to her new neighbors. Ruby, the woman who had lived in this neighborhood for almost 40 years, had been delighted to see a young couple, Alice and Greg, buy the house next door and move in. And immediately, out her sense of Christian neighborliness (not to mention her loneliness), she had baked a peach cobbler and taken it over to them on their first evening in the new house. Eager to make friends in their new home, Alice and Greg had invited her in and together they ate the cobbler and chatted about where they were each from, what they did for a living, what they planned to do to and for their houses. When the conversation somehow shifted to church and faith, all three hung in there, determined to be open to one another and to share what God was doing with them.

            Greg and Alice were attending a growing congregation where talk about God’s activity was as plentiful s the peaches in Ruby’s cobbler. At their church, they sang of knowing intimately God and God’s Son, they spoke frequently and assuredly of God’s plans and God’s will, and they prayed fervently for healing and blessing.

      Ruby’s church, on the other hand, had been in the neighborhood for a long time. And while they sang about what a friend they had in Jesus, they were much more reticent to speak about God’s exact plans for their lives --- because they weren’t quite so sure about how God was working. When Alice confidently asserted that she knew exactly what God expected of her today and every day, when she joyfully proclaimed that she knew exactly who God was and what  God wanted, when she began to detail her intimacy, Ruby could no longer listen politely. “Most people,” she exclaimed, “really don’t want to get that close to God!”

NOT SO CLOSE, PLEASE

      Ruby has a point, judging by the biblical story we heard this morning. For the author of Exodus quite clearly tells us that no one wants to see Moses’ face after he has spent so much time in the presence of God. No one wants to see all that glory shining out of Moses’ face like the rays children draw around pictures of the sun. Sharp. Stabbing. Intense. Dazzling. Moses is a man who knows God so well, who is so intimate with God that God, is written all over his face. And the people don’t want to see all that holiness, all that glory, all that presence. So Moses has to put on a veil every time he comes out among the people. He can only take it off when he is with God.

      The Israelites, the people Moses was trying to lead, had learned something we modern folk too often forget: Getting too close to God can be dangerous. The closer we get to the Holy One, the more we learn about God’s work, the more we pursue knowledge of God, the more hazardous everything becomes. Remember, just a few days after these people had joyfully and thankfully crossed the Red Sea, they looked around and noticed that they were nowhere near the comforts of home. Now they knew that pursuing God could lead to the wilderness.

      And remember, when Moses was up on Mount Sinai, receiving the specifics of their covenant with God, the people had made themselves a god they could know intimately and control completely, a golden calf. Moses’ return to camp brought the wrath of God upon them. They had learned that day that the Holy one was not to be trifled with, not to be manipulated, not to be so fully understood as a statue made of their cast-off jewelry.

      And remember, when the dust cleared from that episode, Moses offered to them a covenant of responsibilities that would mark every aspect of their lives. No longer were they free to kill, steal, lust, dishonor their parents and make idols they could worship. No longer were they free to pursue their own agendas for their lives. Now they were bound to worship only the one God of Israel; now they were bound to love one another.

      So on those days when Moses walked among them with the glory of God plastered all over his face, no wonder they begged him to cover it. They knew what it meant – it meant the insecurity of life on the road, facing the consequences for bad choices, responsibility for curbing one’s own desires and placing the needs of others as first priority.

      Maybe, to return to the neighbors’ conversation, that is what Ruby was thinking when she claimed that most of us don’t really want to get so close to God. Getting close to God requires an openness of mind, a willingness of body, and a discipline of soul that can be frightening to most of us. Above all, getting close to God means getting further and further away from control over our own lives and destinies. And that is a scary thing—letting go. More than most of us think we want to do.

      But there are exceptions to this “most of us” dictum. Moses hasn’t been the only person in human history to have a bright, shiny face after encountering God. A number of centuries later, on another mountain, not only the face of Jesus but his whole body would glow with the presence of God so powerfully that his disciples would tremble with fear at the sight and fall down in worship. They knew, along with their ancient ancestors, that now things would be so beyond their management, so different, that there was nothing they could do to stop it. God had one again made his very self known.

      And others since have brushed up against the holiness of God and come away transfigured and transformed. We ourselves have known people who have glowed with the warm fire of God.

*The well-educated professor who spends his Saturdays fixing the toilet and doing other odd jobs around the church. *The college student who brings together her enjoyment of