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Sense of the Sacred
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Epiphany 7B2009 Those who have not worshiped in an Orthodox church often have trouble appreciating the overwhelming richness of the experience. Worshipers feast on ornate icons adorning walls and pillars and the iconostasis–that huge screen that separates the priests in the front from the congregation in the sanctuary. They hear antiphonal chanting from balcony or nave; they smell the fragrance of hundreds of beeswax candles punctuated by frankincense from the censer. It is sensory overload all in the context of highly-ritualized worship: a form of worship that at leads many to an experience of sacred mystery. We in the United Church of Christ are close to the other end of the spectrum. As spiritual children of the Enlightenment, our worship and our communal character have a heavy emphasis on the human intellect and ethical behavior. These are essential elements of our witness, but they have come with a cost. In a recent address to the UUC’s Council of Conference Ministers, John Thomas comments that
Whether we ‘get that’ or not, Jesus certainly does, and our gospel reading for today is an odd and challenging reminder of the spiritual and mysterious aspect of our faith. Up to the point of this story, Jesus has been all about action, healing and teaching throughout the region of Galilee. Now he changes pace and immerses himself in God’s presence. Transfiguration is, in Yogi Berra’s immortal words, déjà vu all over again. This story of a voice from the heavens splitting the silence, claiming Jesus as the beloved son takes us back to the very beginning of the gospel, when that same voice claims and names Jesus as son in the waters of baptism. It is a story that drinks deeply from the well of Jewish scriptures. In the baptism story, Mark makes the clear connection between John the baptizer and Elijah. Today, Mark makes the clear connection between Moses’ transfiguring experience of God on Mt. Sinai and Jesus’ transfiguring experience of God on a high mountain. Jews would have needed no reminder that mountaintops are understood to be the location of divine/human encounters...the place where earth and heaven meet...or as our Celtic sisters and brothers call it, a thin place. One of the remarkable things about this transfiguration/mountaintop experience is that it is not a retrospective, like Martin Luther King’s “I have been to the mountaintop.” Nor is Jesus standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, dreaming for an entire nation. He isn’t setting out his vision of ministry, he isn’t inspiring his key leaders, he isn’t playing the role of a divine chameleon to dazzle his followers; he isn’t doing anything...except taking himself and members of his community out of the traffic of their daily activity and into the presence of God. There in God’s radiant presence, Jesus becomes transfigured, reflecting the light of God’s love so intensely that even his clothes put OxiClean to shame. The disciples are dazzled–terrified–offering to mark the occasion by doing something religious, like building an altar. And that’s all before they hear The Voice.“This is my son, the beloved one; listen to him!” The focus of the action is on Jesus, but it is God who is the pivotal speaker in this story. This is the response God calls for. We disciples are charged with listening to Jesus–and we try to do that, only to find that oftentimes we have a hearing problem. You know that I commute between Germantown and Frederick, and most of you have made that same trek at least on occasion. How many of you have noticed that between Boyds and Urbana your radio signal sometimes picks up another channel at least for a moment? Or if you’re on your cell phone, your call may be dropped? Does this mean that the radio waves are no longer flying through the air, or that your cell phone signal isn’t being sent out? Of course not! Those signals are there whether or not we actually receive them. Sometimes there is just too much interference. That interference may be a hill that blocks the signal. For me, the interference is more likely to be the busyness of my life, the tumble of thoughts and to-do’s in my mind. Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, the forty days excluding Sundays that come before Easter. The story of transfiguration is the signal to each of us to slow down and immerse ourselves in the presence of the God of mystery. May the weeks ahead be a time where the love of God touches us in a different way, that we may be strengthened and empowered by the faith we share, to be the people we are created to be.[2] *** [1] John H. Thomas, “Reflections on the State of the United Church of Christ for the Council of Conference Ministers, February 18, 2009. |