The Last Sunday After the Epiphany/Year A
Feb 23, 2020
Today’s Gospel reading, in the words of a timeless beloved hymn, is an old, old story of unseen things above, of Jesus and his glory, of Jesus and his love…
It’s a story that invites us to just sit in silence and in wonder, as we listen to the details unfolding, in all its’ glory, upon the high mountain….
No need just yet to make sense of it…no need to fast forward and wrestle with the text and what it means…no need to act on it just yet…
This is one of those beloved scriptures…that allows us to simply be witness to the old, old story of God’s love…being revealed to Peter, James and John…in the transfiguration of Jesus upon that mountain, and from the bright cloud, in the hearing of a voice which says, This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him!
This is one of those beloved stories, that invites us to look up, to look all around us, pay attention to what God is doing right before our eyes…
It’s often difficult for us to do that. To just sit and wonder and marvel at what God is doing right before our eyes.
We are part of an information age. Everything we need, we think we need…can be found by looking something up on our Iphone or the computer. We spend our lives looking for answers, hoping to find absolute truths for the big questions and mysteries of life, and we search diligently and often prayerfully, for justification of what we believe or do not believe.
All the while, when we are off busying ourselves with the things that distract us from the glory of God’s love, unfolding right in front of us…we come up feeling empty…we exhaust ourselves…we become discouraged…we become fearful…we fail to remember…that we are all beloved children of God…
God is trying to remind us of that in today’s gospel reading…that we are all beloved children of God….
God wants to share the old, old story of his love for us…in a new way…in a way that would fill our hearts, satisfy our longings, and transform our lives….if only we would sit for a moment and pay attention to the details unfolding, in all its’ glory, upon the high mountain… to pay attention to Jesus, to listen to him…to allow His transfiguration, his shining light…his glory…his love…to change us…and transform us…to remind us of our beloved-ness…in the eyes and in the heart of God…
Our beloved-ness is also revealed to us, when we pay attention to the ways God’s love is illumined in the lives of others, who have shared their love with us at different times throughout our lives…a love that has supported us, encouraged us, shaped us, and given us the courage to keep on “keeping on”…to keep climbing those mountains…to keep navigating those hills and valleys that stretch on for miles, at times…to keep hope alive, in our hearts…especially in those times we find ourselves wandering in the wilderness…
Just the other night, I watched one of the latest movies that came out about Fred Rogers…most well-known because of his long-running pre-school television show, called Mister Roger’s Neighborhood…He truly had a gift of helping others, young and old, to see their beloved-ness in the eyes and in the heart of God, and in their relationships with others.
In the movie, Mr Rogers was meeting over a meal with a cynical reporter, named Lloyd, who had been interviewing him for several weeks for a magazine article. Lloyd had been struggling for many years with being unable to forgive father…and he was holding on to a lot of anger and grief that was keeping him from believing he was a beloved child of God and this was affecting his relationships, his work and his life… Mr Rogers had counseled him by telling him, that even the painful times in his life, had a way of shaping him into the loving father he was to his own infant son. Then, Mr Rogers…who is well known for taking long pauses between words and next steps… paused for a moment and looked at Lloyd…and said to him… “Let’s take a minute to think about all the people in our lives who have loved us into being.”
During the time of silence, for one full-minute, and with others in the restaurant joining in…the camera scanned the other faces in the restaurant and we observed the face of Lloyd, change as remembrances of the people who had shown him love, came back to him…his face relaxed, there was a bit of smile, the tears welled up in his eyes, and trickled down his face…he remembered he was a beloved child of God…
It’s our turn now…to sit quietly for one full minute… “Let’s take a minute to think about all the people in our lives who have loved us into being.” … the people whose love has shaped and transformed us along the way…and to this present moment…reminding us that we are a beloved child of God…
“Let’s take a minute to think about all the people in our lives who have loved us into being.”
OBSERVE ONE MINUTE OF SILENCE
One full minute…Did it feel like eternity? Eternity, in a good sense…a feeling of something you wish would never end? An experience you wish would not be cut off or interrupted and overshadowed with the blurting out of words and explanations that in no way could capture that sacred moment of just being mindful of one thing: LOVE….God’s love… ever-so present in our lives…and all around us…in the relationships we have with one another, and with all of creation…
That’s what happened upon the high mountain that day when Peter, James and John were witness to Jesus’ transfiguration…It was an encounter with God’s love….a dazzling light shining and being glorified through Jesus…a moment of wonder and awe…being displayed right before their eyes…a moment to behold and to believe…
Imagine… if we regularly took moments like this… to just sit and listen to the old, yet new story of God’s love for us…the story of Jesus’ love and glory….
Imagine if we paid attention to Jesus, listened to him…and allowed His transfiguration, his shining light…his glory…his love…to change us…and transform us…to remind us of our beloved-ness…in the eyes and in the heart of God…
Imagine… just sitting in silence and being filled with awesome wonder at what God is doing right before our eyes….
After sermon: Played instrumental: How great thou art
Rev Julie Platson, Rector
St Peter’s by the Sea Episcopal Church
Sitka, Alaska