Transfiguration

Mighty God, lover of justice, speak to us today through Scripture and singing and sacraments, as you spoke through the clouds to your people in the wilderness and on mountaintops. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Those of you who were in worship last Sunday heard a brief history of the black church in America from Pastor Stephen, and an invitation into Black History month, which we celebrate every February.

Inspired by Pastor Stephen’s sermon, in between services last week, I spent a few minutes with the Sunday School kids and asked them to name some important black people they knew about. They listed off Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr, and our current president.

And then someone said, Jesus!

Now, maybe they were doing the Sunday School thing where the answer is always Jesus. Maybe this kid didn’t hear or understand the question.

Or maybe this student’s answer points to a deeper truth about who Jesus is.

Some of you are familiar with the theologian James Cone. A group of us read his book The Cross and the Lynching Tree last spring for a Bible study.

Just over 45 years ago, James Cone published his first books addressing Christian theology from an African American point of view. He attracted a lot of attention for his claim that God is black.

It’s a pretty simple claim, actually.

If James Cone is black – which he is – and if he has been created in the image of God, which we believe to be true based on the creation story in Genesis 1, the one that says all humanity was created in God’s image – then God must be black.

Moreover, if God is on the side of the oppressed – and the ministry of Jesus tells us nothing if not that God cares for people who are oppressed, marginalized, and outcast from society – and if in American society, many of the oppressed people happen to be black, which any demographic study will tell you that they undoubtedly are – then again, God must be black.

You can see how James Cone became a controversial religious voice.

For the first time, many white Christians in America were challenged to consider that they might not be God’s chosen people. They weren’t a new Israel, they weren’t the heirs of Abraham – they were an afterthought, the ones who had been added to the promise after it had already been shared with the people God came to help in the first place – people with dark skin.

So we’ve got a Sunday School student suggesting that Jesus was black, and a prominent American theologian claiming that God is black.

        

And in today’s Gospel story, we have Jesus on a mountaintop, dazzling white.

Today is the last Sunday in the season of Epiphany. Throughout this whole season, we’ve been emphasizing light as a symbol of God’s presence.

Historically, there have been some misinterpretations of the symbol of light for the presence of God. Some people want to claim that, since people of European descent have lighter skin than people of African descent, they must be closer to God – more divine – because they are more white.

James Cone and our Sunday School class tell us that this isn’t right.

         God isn’t white.

White things aren’t better than dark ones.

The difference between light and dark in the season of Epiphany is the difference between being in the presence of God, and turning our backs to God.

Humans are all in the same boat when it comes to being in the light of God’s glory or not. Left to our own devices, humans are all in darkness, regardless of the color of our skin.

God’s divine presence breaks in to our human darkness and allows us to see and understand what surrounds us.

One of our favorite songs speaks to this reality…

I once was lost, but now am found; was blind but now I see.

The magi, the wise ones who brought gifts to Jesus, were able to find the infant Messiah by following the sign of God’s light as it shone through the star that they discovered.

We remember God’s light coming to earth, to the magi, through the star directing them to Jesus, on the day of Epiphany.

And in the season following the day of Epiphany, over the past few weeks, we have seen God’s light breaking into human lives at the baptism of Jesus, at a wedding in Cana, and while Jesus was teaching in the synagogue in Nazareth.

As a congregation, we celebrated God’s presence in our lives at a cross-generational education event last Saturday.

As a congregation we also honored God’s light that shone into our lives through the witness of other people – through Marie, one of our charter members, and through Mary and Rudie and Bob, and other loved ones who have completed their journey in this life, and entered God’s eternal light.

This Epiphany season gives us ample opportunity to reflect on the glory of God – the love and power and light that comes when God is active in our lives.

In today’s Gospel story, Jesus takes a select few followers to the mountain with him. Peter and James and John are following Jesus, they are actively seeking to be in the presence of the divine.

Once on the mountaintop, Moses and Elijah join them there. I’m not really sure how the disciples know that it’s Moses and Elijah, but there seems to be no question about it. These heroes of their faith have shown up on the mountain with Jesus.

And Jesus is transfigured – transformed – radically changed – into a dazzling display of the light of God.  

The critical piece to remember here is that Jesus’ transfigured presence is full of God’s glory – God’s power and love – Jesus himself isn’t all sparkly and white.

The presence of God transforms something ordinary – a hike up a mountain – into something extraordinary – a personal encounter with the divine.

At a surface level, we have Jesus transfigured into a dazzling white being.

But Jesus isn’t white.

Jesus is filled with the presence of God.

Based on the archaeological evidence, people have created a portrait of what Jesus might actually have looked like, historically. He would have had black hair and dark skin – somewhere in between the color of mine and Pastor Stephen’s.

If you own the Lutheran Study Bible, you can find the picture in there. We’ve got a copy in the library too, if you want to take a look after worship.

But ultimately, it doesn’t matter what the historical Jesus looked like.

What matters is that Jesus was a vehicle for God’s presence in the world.

God’s glory is the light that surrounds Jesus in today’s Bible story,

And that glory shone through Jesus when he came down the mountain also.

It appears that, even though Peter wasn’t supposed to build houses for Jesus and Moses and Elijah on the mountaintop, they did at least stay up there for the night.

When they came down the next day, there were no divine visions or voices from the clouds – there was just the everyday grit of daily life.

A boy was suffering, a father lamenting, and the disciples had failed to resolve the situation. Jesus healed the boy, and all were astounded at the greatness of God.

Even when he wasn’t shining with the light of God, Jesus was able to bring God’s presence to the people and places where it was needed.

Jesus was transfigured on the mountain with Moses and Elijah, but Jesus still reflected God’s glory when he came down the mountain.

God’s glory – God’s presence – God’s light – can come into our human darkness at any time, even when we least expect it.

But we know this already. Haven’t you ever seen God’s love reflected in the face of a friend, or the strains of some music, or the colors of the sky at sunset? Haven’t you ever looked at the face of someone familiar to you and seen it as if for the first time?

The theologian Frederick Buechner described this phenomenon as “something so touching, so incandescent, so alive [that] transfigures the human face [so] that it's almost beyond bearing.”

(originally published in Whistling in the Dark and later in Beyond Words , shared on his Facebook wall, https://www.facebook.com/Frederick.Buechner.Center/posts/1080372078679993)

Desmond Tutu calls us God’s “agents of transfiguration. We work with God so that injustice is transfigured into justice, so that there will be more compassion and caring, that there will be more laughter and joy, that there will be more togetherness in God’s world.”

(available various places online, including http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-god-places-us-in-the-world-as-his-fellow-workers-agents-of-transfiguration-we-work-with-desmond-tutu-84-77-39.jpg)

Transfiguration can happen to any one of us, at any point in time.

We don’t have to go to a mountaintop, and we don’t have to become dazzling white. The only prerequisite is to be open to the movement of God in our lives – and sometimes, miraculously, God will break through in such a brilliant way that the whole world appears differently to those around us.

The glory of God can shine through any one of us as we’re doing God’s work down the mountain, in the everyday ups and downs of life.

Climbing the mountain, as Peter and James and John got to do with Jesus, can be a good thing. It can provide inspiration.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King proclaims “I’ve been to the mountaintop! … And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. … Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27ve_Been_to_the_Mountaintop)

Going up the mountain with Jesus can give us inspiration and motivation and a vision of the glory of God.

But we can’t stay on the mountaintop. The vision that we get there only comes to fruition once we descend back into the real world.

That is why Jesus chastised Peter for wanting to build homes for them all on the mountain. God’s glory was dazzlingly apparent at the top of the mountain.

But God’s glory is just as present in the demon-possessed boy and his father, in the lepers and paralytics, in the people living with tainted water and the aid workers who are trying to assist them.

God’s light can shine just as brightly through the dark skin of humanity as through the light of the Transfiguration.

So as we wrap up this season of Epiphany, we are left with an image of God’s power and love reflected through the person of Jesus at the top of a mountain.

And we are also left with an image of an earthy Jesus with dirty feet, surrounded by his tired and frustrated disciples, approached by countless people requesting healing for themselves or their loves ones.

And God’s power and love shine through just as brightly in those places down the mountain as they do on the summit.

This is why James Cone, Frederick Buechner, Desmond Tutu, and our Sunday School students can all teach us something about God, and how God bursts into our lives. Jesus may be beautifully black or dazzlingly white, but God’s power and love is present in either case.

Whether we are looking for it or not, the light and glory of God can show up in our interactions with other people – and most importantly, we ourselves can be vessels of that glory and love for other people.

Let us strive to make it so.

Amen.

Transfiguration C 2/7/16

Luke 9:28-43

Body

Gracious God, Lord of joy, our strength, open our ears and hearts to hear your word with understanding and follow through with actions, in the name of Jesus the anointed one. Amen.

One year and one month ago today, I missed Christmas Eve worship for the first time in my life.

I was in so much pain that I couldn’t even get out of bed.

The music director at the church I was serving then was very helpful and sympathetic. All I needed to do was give her a call, and she made sure everything was covered.

This was my last Christmas at that congregation – I had already sent out my resignation letter, telling folks that I had accepted a new call to a different congregation on the east side of Madison.

I was looking forward to this Christmas Eve worship as a time of closure, to say goodbye to many of the folks I had come to love over the previous few years, who I might not be able to see again.

But I missed worship that day.

My body wouldn’t let me go.

As an active young-ish adult, I didn’t think much about what my body was and was not able to do. With the exception of the splits, my body had been able to do just about anything I ever tried.

To be fair, I never tried running a marathon or climbing Mount Everest…

But in general, I was strong and flexible and had a lot of endurance. I figured I could do just about anything if I worked at it.

But then, one day, I couldn’t stand, or even sit, without help.

My body failed me.  

I had a slipped disc in my lower back.

I didn’t really even know that that was a thing.

But all of a sudden I learned – not only is it a thing, but it can become something so severe, it can put your entire life as you knew it out of commission for over a year.  

My slipped disc had shown up for the first time the previous spring. That time, I ended up in the hospital for a week before the doctors were able to manage my pain enough to be able to send me home.

Six months later, just when we thought that my back injury was a thing of the past, it reared it’s ugly head again, and I ended up in the ER the day before Christmas Eve. Due to the holiday, and some serious incompetence on the part of the ER doctor, I was sent home untreated, and couldn’t actually get any help until December 26^th.  

My brain wanted to be in worship for Christmas Eve.

But the slipped disc in my back wouldn’t let me.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”

The brain cannot say to the vertebrae, “I have no need of you,” nor again the feet to the legs, “I have no need of you.”

On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.

My weak back was the most important part of my body when it stopped working – because nothing else in my body could function without it. 

In his letter to the church in Corinth, Paul describes how each part of a body is essential to its overall function.

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts – because if you were to remove even one part, the whole would cease to function.

A body needs every organ, muscle, nerve, bone, and vertebrae to be healthy in order for the body to work the way it’s supposed to.

This Bible passage isn’t really describing the importance of having a healthy physical body, though.

Paul is describing God’s body, the body of Christ.

We are the body of Christ, and individually members of it – us and our neighbors and our enemies.

Since Jesus ascended into heaven, the only body of his that remains on this earth is your body, and the collective body of the Church, made up of the hands and feet and ears and eyes of Christians all over the world.

Together, we make up the body of Christ. Unless we all work together and respect each other, God’s work won’t be able to get done in the world.

We need one another.

Those of us who were at the leadership retreat yesterday heard something about this when we talked about the model of team ministry that we follow in this congregation.

Each member and visitor here is encouraged to use their God-given gifts and abilities to contribute as much as they are able to the life of this community.

In fact, our mission statement printed on the front of the bulletin says it clearly – we embody the Gospel – and so together we are able to do the work of Christ.

Those who like to sing can join the choir. Those who love children can teach Sunday School. Those who have good administrative skills can serve as an office volunteer or on church council.

Those who are overcommitted and burned out in their everyday lives can just come here to relax and renew.

The staff can’t say to the volunteers, I don’t need you!

The choir can’t say to the Sunday School students, I have no need of you!

The charter members can’t say to the first-time visitors, I don’t need you!

Well, they could, but they’d be lying.

We all really, genuinely, do need one another.

By living in community as the body of Christ, we are able to grow together in faith. We can better live out the calling of Jesus – to bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

But we need one another in order to do those things well.

The same is true even in the mundane things of everyday life. You know this already. It’s how our society is structured.

The nurse can’t say to the doctor, I have no need of you!

The chef can’t say to the waitress, I don’t need you!

The pastor can’t say to the mechanic, I have no need of you!

Quite frankly, I’m glad that each person brings a different set of gifts to our community.

I’m glad that there are people out there who fix cars, so that when mine stops working, all I have to do is find a mechanic, take my car in, and wait until it’s in good working order again.

I prefer that the mechanic do his job, and then I can do mine.  

He wouldn’t want to preach here on Sunday mornings… and I wouldn’t want to be responsible for repairing heavy machinery. We’ve got a good, mutually beneficial relationship. 

Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles?

Do all work in food service? Do all write computer code? Do all repair cars?

Of course not.

No single one of us can do every activity under the sun.

Society would cease to function if everybody had the same gifts.

The things that make us unique are the things that are most valuable to the world. Our differences are necessary parts of who we are, individually and communally.

First Corinthians 12 gives us a vision for how to live well as a church and how to live well as a community. And this passage has even deeper ramifications for our society as a whole.

Paul teaches us that everyone is necessary and interconnected, even those people we would normally count as less important than ourselves – people who we might normally choose not to have in our circle of family and colleagues and friends.

The women can’t say to the men, I don’t need you.

The whites can’t say to the Latinos, I have no need of you.

The Democrats can’t say to the Republicans, I don’t need you.

This is harder for us. It is difficult to admit that we need those people with whom we sometimes find ourselves at odds.

Have you ever thought that the world would be a better place if everyone just got along?

Realistically, though, when we say that everyone should just get along, we often mean, the world would be a better place if everyone just agreed with me.

That’s an easy trap for us to fall in to.

We want to say that we need other people. We need a fresh perspective or new ideas or creative thinking.

But when we’re face-to-face with those other people, do we still remember that we need them?

If their new perspective goes against everything we’ve ever experienced, if their ideas make us uncomfortable – we can’t say that we don’t need them.

We do still need to hear another point of view. We do still need to value the contributions of other people.

The Americans can’t say to the Syrians, I have no need of you.

The police officers can’t say to the ex-cons, I don’t need you.

We all need each other.

         We might make each other uncomfortable sometimes.

But we still need each other.

         We all make up the body of Christ.

So here’s a suggestion on how we can live as a whole, united body.

Don’t just refrain from saying “I don’t need you” – but make the statement positively – “I need you!”

Women, tell the men – whites, say to the Latinos – Democrats, tell the Republicans – I need you!

You are important to me.

My life is more complete with you in it.

Then, take it to the next level, and push for social change.

Find ways to help our American leaders say to the Syrian refugees – we need you! Work to reconcile those who have been imprisoned and those who have wrongfully accused people of crimes.

Thankfully, my lower back is doing better now than it has since last April.

But it only got that way because I had to take time out to work on restoring it to wholeness.

My legs and arms, and especially my abs, had to work hard to support my back when it was in pain. But by working intentionally on strengthening my muscles, and by being gentle with myself, all the parts of my body are once again able to work well together.

        

God’s body works the same way.

Together, we make up the body of Christ, and together we can work as a single body to do the work of God in this world.

Just as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. Now we are the body of Christ.

Let us work together, daring to embody the Gospel.

Amen.

Epiphany 3C, 1/24/16

1 Corinthians 12:12-31a; Luke 4:14-21 

You Are Mine

Lord God, give strength to your people. Help us to honor you with our thoughts, words and our actions, as you honor the whole creation with your voice. Amen.

How many of you ever had a shirt or jacket with your name on the inside of it? Embroidered, an iron-on patch, written in permanent marker…

I’m guessing that those of you who are parents have, at some point or another, labeled your child’s possessions so that you would know, when they came home from school, whether they had grabbed the right coat or backpack or gym shirt.

Sound familiar?

There are many ways that we mark things as our own.

A number of years ago I was on a scenic drive through the countryside in England and Wales, and there were sheep all over the place. Each sheep had been spray painted a different color on his or her backside.

When I asked the native Brits I was with why the sheep had such colorful rumps, they told me, it’s how the shepherds or farmers tell their sheep apart from everyone else’s.

Painting an animal’s rear end seems a lot more humane than branding, that other practice most of us have heard of for marking ownership over livestock. When branding an animal, the owner heats up a metal shape and then burns that shape into the animal’s flesh.

Today’s reading from Isaiah tells us that God marks us as God’s own.

I’d like to think that God’s mark is as fun and colorful as the painted sheep bottoms, but as permanent as the branding iron.

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you, God says.

  I have called you by name; you are mine.

Because you are precious in my sight,

  and honored, and I love you,

 I give people in return for you,

  nations in exchange for your life. (Isaiah 43:1b; 4 NRSV)

Isaiah tells us today that we are God’s children, created for God’s glory, and each one of us is as valuable as an entire nation.

As we hear in the service of baptism: you have been sealed with the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever. You belong to God!

God calls each one of us by name and claims us as God’s own.

This is an incredibly comforting thought.

It can also be incredibly disturbing. Would God really destroy an entire nation of people – their culture, language, art and architecture – just to save the life of a single individual?

The reading tells us that God will give other nations as ransom, in exchange for God’s people. While that might make us feel pretty special, how is it good news for the other nations?

What about all the individuals in Egypt, Ethiopia, and Seba? Were they not also created for God’s glory?

The first time I read through the Bible readings for worship today, I was struck by how comforting and personal the first reading was. We are blessed to have a God who loves us, protects us, and calls us by name!

On the second read-through, I started having second thoughts. The blessings in Isaiah seem to come at the expense of other people. How can something be good news for me if it is bad news for someone else?

Let me do a little interpretation here.

If you haven’t come to Bible study in a while, this is the sort of thing we do there. Feel free to join us, it’s fun!  

It sounds at first like God is saying that the people of Israel are worth more than the people from Egypt or Ethiopia or Seba, wherever that is.

I know from Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia that there is no difference that matters to God according to nationality, social status, or gender.

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)

No person is worth more than another.

Since the passage from Isaiah seems to contradict the one from Galatians, then we need to dig a little deeper.

The people Isaiah was writing to were in exile.

This is after the time of the famous kings – Saul, David and Solomon.

There had been civil war, and the kings of Israel and Judah were mostly unfaithful to God and not the greatest rulers. 

Israel was a small and rather unimportant country on the borders of much larger empires, like Babylon and Assyria.

So, as often happens to small countries on the borders of large empires, Israel was invaded.

Even though the people of Israel believed that God would protect them, and that God had given them the land of Israel to be theirs forever, this invasion changed their expectations.

The people of Israel were taken captive and forced to live in exile in Babylon. For a people whose whole identity had been focused around God’s promise to give them this land in which to live, being torn away from the land was heartbreaking, to say the least.

And this is where the people are – physically in exile, emotionally despairing – when God speaks to them through the prophet Isaiah:

Do not be afraid!

Don’t despair.

You’ve lost your land, and part of your identity along with it.

But don’t worry.

I still know who you are.

I have called you by name – you are mine, whether you live in that promised land or not.

Isaiah is speaking to people who have been kidnapped, exiled, and had that which was most important to them taken away.

Contrast their lives with the prosperity of the people living in nations like Egypt, Ethiopia, and Seba, and well, somehow God’s words here do start to sound like good news.

I give Egypt as your ransom,

  Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you.

Even when you are worthless by every measure the world has to offer – even when you think that you no longer matter to anyone, even to God, these words can break through the despair.

God will bring you back!

That is what it means when Isaiah says that God will ransom other nations in exchange for the Hebrew people.

God promises to restore the people and help them regain their identity.

God will bring you back!

This is good news for all people in exile – for all refugees! It is good news for anyone who has lost their identity – for those who are depressed, widowed, impoverished, unemployed, or otherwise despairing the loss of something they thought they could not live without.

Today God says, “I love you. You matter to me. And even though the thing you grieve was important, you are important too, and I won’t lose track of you.”

God isn’t really going to destroy an entire nation of people – people who have been created in the image of God, for God’s glory – to rescue the people in exile.

God doesn’t need to.

Each one of us is as valuable to God as the entire history, culture, art, language, and all the people of Egypt.

It’s true. You are worth that much to God.

But God doesn’t have to destroy Egypt to prove it to you.

The reason Isaiah uses this imagery is because it’s the only way God can describe our worth to us in terms that we can understand.

God can save the refugees and depressed people and poor people without destroying the rest of the world.

It’s our imaginations that are limited – we are the ones who have a hard time putting a value on ourselves. Who are we that God should spend any time or effort on us? Well, we – you, as an individual – you are as valuable to God as all the inhabitants, all the wealth, all the history, all the art and beauty that has ever been produced by Egypt, or Ethiopia, or Seba - which is another country in Africa, by the way.

And to prove it, God isn’t going to destroy another nation.

Instead, God will restore you to where you want to be.

God will sew God’s name into our sweatshirts and paint it on our backsides. God will make sure the whole world knows who we belong to.

Eventually, the people of Israel were allowed to return from exile in Babylon. They went back to the land God had promised to them, and rebuilt their cities and temples and lives.

God proved that these people were loved and precious and valuable – that God was with them – when they were restored to wholeness.

If you find yourself in a place of despair, like the Hebrew people were in today’s reading from Isaiah, God wants you to hear that you still matter.

“You are mine,” God says.

“With you I am well pleased.”

You don’t have to earn it.

Here’s an interesting thing to notice about today’s Gospel reading, from Luke. Jesus got baptized today, and God said, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

But Jesus hasn’t done anything yet.

So far in the Gospel of Luke, Elizabeth and Mary got pregnant and talked to angels, John and Jesus were born, and Jesus ran away from his parents to go hang out with the elders in the temple.

That’s it. No healings, no teachings that are recorded, nothing that Jesus has done except be born and run away from home.

And God says, “You belong to me. I love you. With you I am well pleased.”

This is what God says to each one of us.

It’s the same promise that is made in baptism.

God’s name is written inside our collars and painted on our skin.

We don’t have to earn it. We don’t have to do anything. We can simply hear the promises of baptism, hear the good news from Isaiah, and believe.

God made you. God wouldn’t hurt you. In fact, God will go to great ends to keep you safe. And even when bad stuff happens, God will work to make sure that everything is made right in the end.

When you are forced out of your home or widowed or depressed or feel useless – God doesn’t change those circumstances, necessarily. But God does save us from the feelings of hopelessness, and brings us back to the promised land, to the place where we are loved, to our special honored place as children of God.

I love you, God says. You are precious to me.

I have called you by name and you are mine.

Amen.

Baptism of Our Lord 1/10/16
Isaiah 43:1-7; Luke 3:1-17, 21-22