"He was transfigured"-Sermon for Last Sunday of Epiphany, Matt 17:1-9
So, a couple of weeks ago during the announcements at the 9 AM service, I mentioned that Lent is coming, and I sort of said it in a dramatic “coming attractions” movie trailer kinda way…“Coming soon to a church near you…the Season of Lent!” I don’t know why I said it that way…you never quite know what you’re going to get when speaking off the cuff. And in response…as some of you may recall…I got from someone in the audience…or I should say congregation…an enthusiastic, “woo who!” And I quickly recognized the person…for it came from the most familiar voice in my life…Ashley, my wife…“woo who!”…Lent is coming….yes! And, though perhaps counter intuitive, I think Lent is, indeed, something to get excited about…to look forward to…to embrace and prepare for with enthusiasm and excitement…not fear and trembling…but, again, great enthusiasm and great excitement. And, to this end, I want to share with you a poem I wrote a week or so out from going on an adventure with my family…a road trip to the mountains. And as I wrote it…I was indeed full of enthusiasm and excitement for the adventure that awaited us…ready to break out of the ordinary…ready to see some new people, places and things…ready to do some of the things I love to do…but don’t really do that often…like fly-fishing and hiking and camp cooking and sleeping in the great outdoors. I was ready for a new experience and to be shaped, grown, and challenged by it. The poem is called, perhaps straightforwardly, “Road Trip (a week out)” and it reads:
An adventure awaits
Blessed freedom found in an open road
Getting lost in the land’s own loveliness
And in that which we still hold together
Democracy incarnate
Wetting a fly on public water
Trout rising to the occasion
Mountains, streams, and glaciers
Whose epochal age nears their end
Sun rises and sets
Whose vermillion glow gives color
To ancient morning and evening prayer
Joined in their hymns of praise
By all of God’s own creation
Those both great a small
From sparrow to moose
Chipmunk to bear
Wind winding its way through flowers
And a brook babbling by
All together shouting glory
Announced to our heart’s ears tuned in
While good folk hold down the fort
Home fires still burning
Their friendship a grace
That the four of us might embark
On the adventure that awaits
So, Lent is indeed coming…really less than a week out now with Ash Wednesday arriving in just 3-days’ time. And, I don’t just think we should greet the quickly approaching season with enthusiasm and excitement…but I hope we actually do so. That we might begin even now considering how we might use this time set aside to, as I like to say, take our spiritual lives seriously…and do so in such a way that is new…and unexpected…even adventurous…that we might do some things that we love to do…but don’t really do that often…such that the experience might shape, grow and challenge us to be and become more and more the fully alive sort of people that the God of love has created us to be…that we might see our lives and the people we share them with as even more wondrous than we do now…that we might appreciate the natural world in such a way that its rainbow like colors might come alive and fill us with overflowing joy…that we might see and feel God’s glory in little and large experiences…both in mountain top moments and as we faithfully fight to survive in the valleys far below…till God’s glory and the hope it engenders is the first thing we see…as the sun rises and as the sun sets.
And, I think this is, in part, why the Gospel reading that sits before us this morning is the same story that we hear in church on the last Sunday before Lent begins every year. Though there are three telling’s of it in the gospels, one each in Matthew, Mark and Luke, the story of Jesus’ glorious Transfiguration is always the last word before Lent arrives. And, again, I think, this is, at least in part, because the goal of the Season of Lent that follows is to lead us all to transfiguration. Lead us both through and to the very end of the greatest story ever told…Jesus’ own transfiguration from death to life…from cross to empty tomb…from a body broken and bloodied by the powers of darkness that hold sway in the world we inhabit to a resurrected body…scared but entirely healed and whole and eternal and everlasting. Sin and death utterly defeated for all time…and for all of us. Thus, Jesus’ transfiguration is not for him alone, but for each of us…even you, even me. Jesus dies that we all may live. His transfiguration into his intended divine glory both on the mountain top in today’s story and outside the empty tomb in Easter Sunday’s story both foreshadow and promise our own transfiguration into our own intended divine glory.
And Lent, if we allow it to be, is our very personal story, our own adventure, of how we just begin to get from here to there…from the person and place where we find ourselves today…to the person and place God is calling us to inhabit in our undiscovered future…one degree of glory closer to Jesus’ own glory. And just beginning to move in that direction…the chance to use Lent as a moment for personal transfiguration…well that’s exciting to me. That revs me up…that gets my blood pumping…worthy of a woo who’s in abundance! For a transfigured life is not one without pain or travail or loss or even sadness…but it is a life lived like Jesus…bringing salt and light to others…that is helping others find life interesting and flavorful and seeing a way forward when seemingly lost in the darkness…and a life that is personally rewarding…full of joy and purpose…feeling good in the morning, physically healthy and mentally alert, and then, at the end of the day, going to bed with a clear conscience…unafraid of the dreams that might follow.
So how then do we make Lent this sort of adventure…a miracle of transfiguration even…an intentional and exciting act of being and becoming. Well I encourage us to think outside the box. Rather than giving up something for Lent that we indeed love and will miss…but still might qualify as reasonably inconsequential…like sodas or sweets…perhaps we entirely change up the ways we eat…to something that benefits the earth as well as our waist line…or perhaps we spend Lent sober. Or rather than giving up social media (though I do think that is a good idea)…perhaps we commit to writing a good old fashion letter each week to someone we love to express how much they matter to us…and then mail it to them…6 people for the 5 weeks of Lent and Holy Week. Or rather then giving up curse words…perhaps we commit to telling our friends and family members “I love you” at least twice a day…or set a reminder on our phone that cues us to send those three most important words to someone via text randomly in the middle of the day. Or perhaps, rather than giving anything up at all, we take something on like committing to eat around a table, with the whole family present just 3 times a week…or no work on Saturdays and Sundays from the first weekend of Lent through Easter Sunday…or commit time on the calendar for that hobby or creative activity you love to do…that brings you life and joy…but has fallen away due to the busyness of life. Or read that novel that is gathering dust on your bedside table before going to sleep each night…rather than surfing the web, online shopping, or catching up on social media…as Richard Power’s writes in his latest novel “Overstory”, “The best arguments in the world won't change a person's mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.” Or perhaps you commit to the outdoors in some intentional way…walking, running, gardening, fishing, a weekend camping, a paddle on Lady Bird Lake, the Men’ Retreat to Wessendorf Ranch…choose your own adventure…and then schedule it. I know of nothing more healing in this world than these two things…laughter and the great outdoors. And, in regard to the former, scheduling time with friends, dinner parties, a night out, or intimate conversations over coffee, might be the perfect Lenten discipline…for nothing creates more good cheer and laughter than keeping good company. And though I consider all of these things spiritual, while I am at it, I might also suggest coming to 7 weeks of church in a row…the first Sunday of Lent through Easter Sunday and/or praying each day from Ash Wednesday to Easter, that’s 47 days…and I am not suggesting anything dramatic here…just a few intentional and consistent daily moments of prayer…I promise it will change you.
Now, of course, none of us could possibly do all the above…nor have I remotely suggested all the good ideas that could be encompassed in one’s own Lenten journey. These are merely suggestions to get your own wheels turning. But, I am asking you to really do something…even if that requires a real and not easy change to one’s patterns and habits. And back to the poem with which I began, here’s my one piece of advice…choose something that excites you…that you are enthusiastic about…something you can look forward to…here just 3-days out from Lent. For an adventure awaits…God’s glory is calling out to you…and a transfigured life will be the result…mountain top moments full of joy…strength for our time wandering in the valley…good companions to share the journey…with the promise of a resurrected, Easter-like life beckoning us on…our adventure, indeed, awaits. Altogether new experiences that shape, grow and challenge us…entered into excitedly and with great enthusiasm…that make us miracles of transfiguration. Amen.