Thursday, March 3, 2022

Let's get Pivotal*

Feast of the Transfiguration

Last Sunday of Epiphany

February 27, 2022

Luke 9: 28b - 36




It is the Feast of the Transfiguration

And isn’t this just a weird episode?

Weird…Unexplainable…Mysterious…Evocative!

 

As it stands alone

It’s difficult to know what to do with it

Except maybe

Just let it be

 

But if we look at where it sits in the liturgical year

and where it sits in the masterful storytelling of Luke’s Gospel 

 

The Transfiguration is 

PIVOTAL

 


Today’s Feast always ends the Season of Epiphany

[Epiphany…meaning the manifestation of the Messiah to the whole world]

The End of Epiphany and 

Leaning into Lent

 

Up to this point in the Gospel 

We have the incarnation and Jesus’ public ministry

We have had signs and wonders and healings

Its at this point that the pivot says:

“Yes! But there is more to it than that.”

 

Leaning into Lent

Which begins Wednesday

We pivot and look ahead for a fuller picture of glory

The fullness of glory 

Which will be revealed by the cross and resurrection.


There are a couple of pivot-hints in the story 

1) There is that line (that one line) in the strange conversation between Moses, Elijah and Jesus:

“They appeared in Glory and were speaking of his departure”

…his departure

The word translated ‘departure’ is EXODUS

Luke is pointing the hearers…us…to the cross and resurrection

He is foreshadowing.

 

And we can dig a bit deeper and notice the urgency of this pivot


Moses: the law giver

Yes…But there is more to it

 

Elijah:

The most famous story about Elijah

From 1 Kings

Is about the time he showed up the priests of Baal 

at the Mt Carmel God competition

Both sides set up altars

And the one spontaneously consumed by fire

Well that would be a clear indication that the true God 

Is on their side

Elijah even throws a bucket of water on his altar

That is how confident he was in Yahweh

And Yahweh came out on top…no surprise there

We usually stop right there when we recall this story

But Peter surely remembered 

the climax of the story in the next line

Elijah commanded

“Seize the prophets of Baal; do not let one of them escape.”

Then they seized them; and Elijah brought them down to the River,

And killed them there… (all 450 of them).

 

I know…gruesome

 

A quick ASIDE: 

No doubt Elijah THOUGHT that he was pleasing God

And this is so honest of the biblical authors

These ancient stories are the honest working out 

of just who God is 

and who we are as a people of God. 

 

2) Besides the foreshadowing In the today’s storytelling

There are echoes back

Back to the only other time God speaks from the heavens

At the Baptism God says

“You are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased”

And today God says

“This is my Son, my chosen, Listen to him”

 

I can see it

God…a sort Michelangelo God 

With that long arm and finger stretched out

He says LISTEN

And he slowly moves that finger

Finds Moses

“Not him”

Finds Elijah

“not him”

Then his finger rests on Jesus…

HIM…listen to HIM

And the others disappear

 

Jesus is calling Peter, James and John to sttend to their deep-seeded notions of God

SO THAT

They might make a 90 degree pivot.

 

Jesus, Peter, James and John come down from the mountain

They don’t pitch tents and bask in the glory-dazzle

Jesus leads them as he turns his face resolutely to Jerusalem

Where in 10 chapters

There will be another mountain

Golgotha

And Jesus will face crowds of people

Just like Elijah did

 

But instead of Evil for Evil

Jesus lets them kill him

As he pronounces mercy from the Cross

“Father forgive them…

 

SO WHAT does this strange story have to say to us?

 

Its still a tough pivot to make

Its hard to keep God grounded in love and forgiveness

 

I know that I lapse

I presume we are all lapsers from time to time

 

The clue…the nudge for me

Comes when I realize that 

God has become a very easy and convenient conversation partner

 

He…helps me justify my decisions

He…agrees that I ought to hold on to that grudge a bit longer

            Which will certainly benefit the other;)

He…understands that I NEED a tight hold on my security

 

And when I worry about war, violence, and global upheaval

He allows me to focus on my own pocketbook and potential inconveniences

 

And then

On Friday afternoon

While I fell into a little catnap on the sofa

“weighed down with sleep” like Peter

I was able to be aware of my sleepy but vivid daydream

 

I was dreaming that I was me

With everything the same about my life and my family

Only…I lived in Kiev

 

I think this dream was a kind of glimpse of glory

One that asks me to pivot

…to examine my convenient notion of God that I’ve let creep in

 

Glimpses of glory

Can be both dazzling and challenging

I imagine we need both

 

Where DO we… glimpse God’s glory?

 

In mountains, rivers, forests, skies?

In the Love of God that shines when we care for neighbor, friend, earth and all       her creatures?

Are we glimpsing God’s glory right now…here in each other’s company?

Whenever we offer or receive loving forgiveness?

Are we glimpsing God’s glory in his relentless invitation to be transfigured?

 

I’d like to...Id like us to...enter Lent 

with this heightened sense of pivoting toward the fullness of God’s Glory

Which always includes the cross

But never lets go of the hope of the resurrection

 

Happy Ash Wednesday

Happy Lent

 

 

 

 

No comments:

Post a Comment