Gospel Luke
9:28-43
When you walk out
of church on this morning will anyone be able to tell you worshiped today just
by looking at you? Will the waitress at
the restaurant see your face all aglow with the light of Christ and know you spent
time in worship and praise to God? Will
the person next to you in line at the store grab their sunglasses so as not to
be blinded by the light coming off your face because you were in the presence
of God this morning? Yeah, probably not.
Maybe a
transfiguration of that nature is just too much to ask.
Still, I wonder,
when you aren’t here in church but out in the world, can people tell that you
have come to a place of community to hear the Word of God and join in prayer,
song, and being fed by the body and blood of Christ?
Does it show?
Do you shine?
Moses spoke with
God and his face shone so much that he had to wear a veil before his
people. The power and presence of God
left a distinct mark on him. The people
knew he had been with God. In 2
Corinthians Paul suggest we no longer need a veil because we are now shining
with the light of Christ. Some have
interpreted this passage in anti-Jewish ways and indicated that the Jews are too
focused on law and their lack of belief in Jesus leaves them unable to look
upon the faces of those aglow with God’s presence. I do not agree with this view, the Jews have
always been, and will always be, children of God.
In his commentary,
David E. Frederickson instead suggests we look at this passage as informed by
Gregory of Nyssa. Gregory believed in the
infinite, immeasurable God. We also say
we believe in the God who cannot be measured and yet we continually try to
construct boundaries and constrict the infinite nature of God. A God without limits is a God that can never
be fully known. That can be scary. It can also be a burden to our faith because
if God is without ending, so must our faith be.
Frederick says, “Gregory wrote about an unceasing, insatiable desire for
God without rest and without end.” That
means, beloved, we don’t get to stop looking for God because God resists the
notion of boundaries and limits.
Frederickson then
gives an amazing and profound example of this search in the form of sitting
across from a friend and gazing into her eyes, studying her face. We imagine that if we look long enough at
someone we love, we can know all there is to know of them. Yet, as we look at them, they are looking
back at us. We change them and we are
changed by them. We come to know only
that we can never fully know this person at whom we are looking. Frederickson concludes that this is the
essence of Christ’s new covenant. We are
always being made new.
Like the home we
can never go home to, because it and we have changed, so is God. That can seem frightening and unstable. Perhaps like an earth quake, a spirit
quake. Should not God inspire fear and
trembling? Isn’t that what the psalms
tell us? When we experience God
shouldn’t we be moved?
Even Jesus, in the
presence of God and the Holy Spirit upon the mountain underwent change. Luke tells us, “the appearance of his face
changed.” Jesus is being transformed,
transfigured. And then the voice speaks
and says familiar yet new words, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”
There is something
more to that than listen to him. It is
not just listen to him. It is, hear
him. And it isn’t just hear him, it is
do as he says. Do as he does.
Much like studying
the face of a friend who in turn is studying your face, there is something in
this lighting of the face that speaks not just to seeing but to being
seen. And of course, this mutually
recognition and mirroring of the light and life of another, well, that can only
happen when we are in community.
Peter wants to
keep the mountain top moment a little longer, of course. I can’t blame him. From the mountain top you can look out over
people. Or, maybe you might look down on
them. Jesus knows that isn’t what he has
been illuminated and transformed for, you have to go back down the mountain,
into the valleys and the places of shadow and darkness. That’s where the light is needed the most.
The man in the
crowd shouts out to Jesus and asks for healing for his haunted son. Jesus asked to see the son. Bring him here. And the demons leave. I wonder if maybe the very act of Jesus
looking on the boy, seeing the boy, was the miracle. Giving light to the boy made the demons go
because it hurt them to see the light, maybe.
Or maybe it hurt them to be seen be the light. Or maybe the light changed them too.
I don’t know.
I know that we are
meant to be reflections of the light of Christ in the world. We are called to go out into the places where
shadow and darkness consume our neighbors.
We are meant to make others shine.
And we are changed, again and again and again, by each moment of
connection and contact. If believing in
Jesus isn’t changing us, we are doing it wrong.
When you leave
church, can people tell you have been here?
This Wednesday you
are invited to come and receive the ashes that remind you that you are dust and
to dust you shall return. You are marked
by the certainty of death in a very real way.
The ashes on your forehead can be washed away with soap and water. But the truth of your mortality and your
immortality that cannot be washed away.
You are a
mirror. In you Jesus shines.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment