The Last Sunday after the Epiphany

February 3, 2008

Matthew 17: 1-9

The Rev. Thomas William Blake

The date chosen for the Annual Meeting had more to do with temporal calendars than our liturgical one. I had originally suggested January 20, but then, as someone recalled, that was the Martin Luther King holiday weekend, and we figured the turnout would be low. For whatever reason, we settled on this day, but it didn’t occur to me at the time that this was Transfiguration Sunday.

When I made that connection a few weeks ago, that the Annual Meeting would be on Transfiguration Sunday, it seemed at first something of a mismatch. I mean, I have experienced Annual Meetings to be very worldly events, with talk about budgets and finances and elections: hardly distinguishable in many respects from business meetings in any organization.

But then today, there is this very otherworldly story, the Transfiguration of our Lord, that is wholly mythical and mysterious, defying—I suspect—most of our attempts to tame it into something rational or explainable like budget spreadsheets with columns lining up neatly and numbers balancing one with another. I struggled with how I might make sense of an Annual meeting through the lens of the Transfiguration or vice versa.

I couldn’t conceive of future generations of Grace Church parishioners reading from a set of Annual Meeting minutes: “the Rector along with the wardens left the people behind and ascended to the top of a mountain where they must have had some kind of conversion experience, and when they came back everyone went home and pressed on with their lives.” That simply wouldn’t mesh with the canons of the Diocese of Indianapolis.

Or I thought, maybe some kind of connection could be drawn between Peter’s desire to neatly categorize and preserve his experience on the mountain by building booths for Moses, Elijah and the transfigured Christ, and our desire to categorize and preserve figures of our income, expenditures and projections for the coming year. Peter ended up leaving the mountaintop experience behind, but it’s unlikely the IRS would say, “Just come down from the mountain; move on; and don’t worry about all those numbers.”

So I was back to square one. But then it occurred to me, maybe there’s a reason why it’s not so easy to reconcile worldly, temporal concerns with divine and spiritual ones. Maybe they aren’t meant to be reconciled. Of course, Jesus never denied the need to live in this world; “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,” he said for example, and the church doesn’t exist in a vacuum. We have to transact business on some level according to the standards and practices of the world.

But Jesus also knew the temptation to get stuck in that framework. “My kingdom is not of this world,” he reminded the authorities after his arrest. I can only imagine the blank looks on the faces of those who heard this. What he was saying was indeed radical, though: it was God’s vision not just to tweak worldly models, but to change our perspective altogether. “My kingdom is not of this world.” It’s hard even for Jesus’ followers, people like you and me, to grasp this.

“Six days after Peter said that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white… 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.”

We’ve heard those very same words before: “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased.” We heard them immediately after Jesus’ baptism on the first Sunday after the Epiphany and now we hear them on the last Sunday after the Epiphany. Not coincidentally, they frame this season of Epiphany. The good news we proclaim to the world comes not from us but from God. We can’t contort it to fit our worldly models, however much we may try.

This is especially important as we begin our Lenten journey. The Transfiguration occurs at a pivotal moment. Picking up and following Jesus around Galilee is one thing, but following Jesus toward Calvary is something different altogether. The journey to Calvary needs to be prefaced by a dramatic, visible, transfiguring encounter with God; otherwise it would simply be foolish. It is the unveiling of something larger, a kingdom from God transcending all else.

I want to share with you an experience with one of our own—I don’t think she would mind my doing so. Marilyn Lagrange is nearing the end of her battle with cancer, and she lies near death. I keep coming back to a memory from a few weeks ago. I walked into Marilyn’s hospital room and the first thing I noticed was how her face was aglow in a transfiguring sort of way. I wasn’t the only one who noticed this, I later learned. And there was a profound sense of peace there.

None of us, including Marilyn, realized at the time how quickly her condition would decline, but there was also a sense that day that no matter what happened, Marilyn was confident in her faith. She was focused on a holier and larger end that no amount of suffering or even death could strip away. With her face radiating the profundity of her faith, she was prepared to descend the mountain and walk the path below, wherever it led. She was a witness to God’s kingdom.

And you and I and the whole church are called to be witnesses of that kingdom, too. And that’s why I give thanks for moments of transfiguration: God’s gift to us reminding us of our purpose, even amid worldly distractions. God’s kingdom is breaking in right here and now; and not even suffering and death can stand in its way. Trials and tribulations are giving way to hope. “My kingdom is not of this world.”

But sometimes it seems so easy to become distracted from that focus. Like Peter I want to cling to those familiar places, those mountaintops, even as Jesus nudges me to follow him down to walk the path ahead. Things seem so much clearer up on the mountain—all it needs is a little rearranging—build a place for Moses, Elijah, and the Christ—and we’ll have it made.

The paths below by contrast seem a little bit out of focus: “God wants me to go there?” I understand Peter’s apprehension, especially given that Jesus has already forecasted his fate. Yet only when I follow God’s path, even the path to Calvary, do I really find peace; and the transfiguration empowers me to follow God’s path. When I stubbornly insist on following my own path, by contrast, I feel conflicted and unsettled, and the transfiguration is wasted on me.

All of which leads me back to that initial dilemma: does the Annual Meeting really fit on Transfiguration Sunday? And actually, come to think of it, maybe on Annual Meeting Sunday more than any other we need to be reminded: Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world. We need to be reminded we aren’t just any business. We aren’t just any organization.

On the mountaintop in the presence of the transfigured Christ we gaze at the ground below and it looks unfamiliar and it makes us anxious just thinking about it. We can think of a thousand reasons to cling to where we are. We worry about money or numbers, or what if this happens or that doesn’t happen, or what are we doing right or wrong, or what might we be doing differently?

And in the process, in the midst of our anxieties, somehow God gets written out of the equation. What are we going to do? How are we going to make ourselves proud? How are we going to be more successful than the church down the street or the one across town? We don’t mean to do it, of course, but we stop noticing the glimpses of God’s kingdom already visible to us: the ways God is already working through us to accomplish his purposes.

I don’t just mean the ministries reported in the Annual Report booklet, although that is filled with wonderful examples of God’s presence and power. I also mean the ways that go unreported and yet are every bit as significant. An impoverished family receives money to buy Christmas presents. A grieving family is supported with hot meals, someone to watch the children, and lots of kind notes. Someone is touched by a piece of music, or a sermon, or just a warm embrace.

“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!’ When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, ‘Get up and do not be afraid.’” And they proceeded down the mountain.

You and I are proceeding down the mountain. Moved by a dazzling bright light, you and I are answering a call, embarking on the path set before us, moving in fresh directions and unknown places, striving to be good servants. But we wander not aimlessly; we walk not alone; God is with us: guiding us, empowering us, assuring us: “This is my Son, the Beloved….Listen to him.”

Amen.