February 22, 2009 - Epiphany Last (RCL)
Do you ever wonder
how our bible readings are chosen each week?
They come magically printed for us in the bulletin inserts,
but behind those
are decisions by the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music of the General Convention.
They determine the lectionary, the list of readings for each Sunday and holy day.
One of the changes
that has happened recently in the church
is the introduction of the Revised Common Lectionary, which we share, with some minor changes, with a bunch of other denominations, so that Christians across this country and the world
hear the same readings in church on any given Sunday.
One of the changes in the Revised Common Lectionary
is the way readings relate to each other.
It used to be that the Old Testament reading and psalm were chosen so that they would connect with the gospel reading. So from week to week you would jump all over the Old Testament. Now, most of the time, we read them in order, so that for example, last summer we read our way through a significant part of Genesis, and Exodus.
But this time of the year, the season of Epiphany, we have readings that are linked by theme again. And this week the links
are particularly clear.
It’s the last week in Epiphany,
the time when our minds and hearts turn to Lent, and we begin that fateful journey to the cross.
And our gospel today
marks that turn as it happened for Jesus,
the time when he kind of shifted gear,
from traveling all over the countryside and healing and teaching
to heading towards Jerusalem
and certain death.
He went up a mountain, taking with him
only his three closest friends,
and there,
for a brief moment
his clothes took on an unearthly glow,
and he was seen accompanied by two of the greatest prophets,
Moses and Elijah.
And then a cloud hid everything, and a voice sounded, as it had at his baptism,
"This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!"
And looking normal again,
he went back down the mountain,
and began
his journey toward Jerusalem
toward death.
It’s another death that is the story
of our Old Testament reading, the death of the great prophet Elijah, one of the two who appeared with Jesus at the transfiguration.
But it’s not so much death, or even the appearance of Elijah in both stories,
that links them.
What links them, and the psalm and the New Testament as well,
is that all four focus our attention
on the glory of God.
It all begins normally enough. Elijah senses
as some people do,
that his time is coming near. He’s done the work God has given him to do;
he is ready for the next step
from life in this world
to life with God.
And he so he begins a journey
to the Jordan River,
and Elisha, his protege, insists
on traveling with him.
But then, at the final moment,
just as we imagine
that Elisha
wants to be with his mentor Elijah,
to say his final goodbye,
suddenly a chariot and horses appear, blazing as if on fire,
and they block Elijah from Elisha’s view,
and beyond them,
a tornado touches down,
and Elijah is caught up in it,
and disappears from sight.
And when Elisha,
finally,
full of fear and grief
turns away
to return home
he finds that he can do the same miracles
that Elijah did,
that God has indeed come upon him with power.
It was the glory of God
in fire and tornado and miracle.
And then we come to our psalm,
and again we are reminded
of the glory of God,
the God who has spoken the earth into being,
“Let there be earth and sea and sky,”
a God who can best be described
as consuming fire
and raging storm.
But when we turn to our new Testament reading, the glory of God
is different.
Here the glory of God
can be seen
not in a fire or a tornado
but in the face of Jesus Christ himself,
Jesus Christ
who is the image, the reflection
of God.
And that glory shines from him towards us,
so strong
that it shine into
and in
our very hearts
And finally back to the gospel
where we find Peter and James and John
staring at the transfigured Jesus
and his companions Elijah and Moses,
and absolutely terrified.
I’m reminded of the writer Annie Dillard’s reflection in her book, Teaching a Stone to Talk. She writes:
Why do we people in churches seem like cheerful brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Almighty?
The tourists are having coffee and doughnuts on Deck C. Presumably someone is minding the ship, correcting the course, avoiding icebergs and shoals, fueling the engines, watching the radar screen, noting weather reports radioed in from shore. No one would dream of asking the tourists to do these things. Alas, among the tourists on Deck C, drinking coffee and eating doughnuts, we find the captain, and all the ship’s officers, and all the ship’s crew. the officers chat; they swear; the wink a bit at slightly raw jokes, just like regular people. The crew members have funny accents. The wind seems to be picking up.
“On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, making up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies hats and straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.”
Teaching a Stone to Talk, Harper Collins, 1982, pp. 52-53.
We are so used to God,
we who come to church week by week.
We take our seats,
say a prayer,
sing a song, pray some more,
listen to scripture, and sing,
hear a sermon, pray again,
greet our friends, and sing,
pray again,
receive the bread and wine,
sing again, pray again,
and then perhaps stay and chat a while
over a cup of coffee.
Then we head home, refreshed,
content,
that we have done what God requires for another week.
Sometimes, I suspect,
we forget
that the God we worship
is a God of great glory,
a God whose power
is so immense
that it can create worlds
and turn mountains to dust,
and even raise the dead!
What if, what if
we actually came to church
expecting God
to show up?
And to show up
not like a gently summer breeze, but that consuming fire or raging tornado?
A God of glory and power?
I suspect that if we were sure that that’s how God would appear,
some of us wouldn’t come.
We’d at least be wary
of bringing our children.
And yet,
the experience of the people in the bible when they met this glorious powerful god,
yes, they were fearful,
but they didn’t run away.
Because it might have been scary, but it was also wonderful,
so wonderful
that Peter and James and John wanted to build little shacks for Jesus and the prophets
to prolong the experience.
And so incredible
that the people themselves are transformed,
Elisha, from the prophets follower
to a miracle working prophet himself,
And Paul, from a hater of Christians to the great apostle,
and Peter and James and John
from fishermen
into the founders of the church.
They are called
through fear
into faith.
This God
is a God who brings people
to a point of awe and wonder, and yes, even fear,
not because he is going to do anything bad to them, but simply because
he is so powerful
and we
are unable to control him,
and yet who is also so gloriously good
that we want to stay close and do
whatever he calls us to.
We worship a God
who is powerful and glorious,
a God who calls us
and transform us.
Come
let us adore him.
© Raewynne J. Whiteley 2009