FIrst Sunday of Lent Year A, March 9, 2014

No Ifs, Ands or Buts.

For audio, click here:  https://soundcloud.com/emsworthup/march-9-2014-11-19-03-am/s-MWClD

Matthew 4:1-11

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. ²He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. ³The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” ⁴But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” ⁵Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, ⁶saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” ⁷Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” ⁸Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; ⁹and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” ¹⁰Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” ¹¹Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

Every year in the lectionary, the beginning of Lent is separated by just one punctuation point from Jesus’ baptism in the Jordon River. The same Spirit that just moments ago pronounced Jesus as God’s “beloved” proceeds to kick Jesus out into the wilderness with nothing but the clothes on his back. Before Jesus has even had a chance to dry his hair or catch his breath, we move from the water to wilderness.  And just a few weeks after Jesus had heard the words,  “This is my beloved Son” he is challenged to prove it: “If you are the Son of God...” 

This is the familiar story of Jesus in the wilderness, which appears in all three of the synoptic gospels – Matthew, Mark and Luke.  The order in which the story is presented changes a bit each year, but it’s the essentially the same story.  Jesus is baptized, pronounced God’s beloved Son, and sent out into god-forsaken territory to wander for a while and discover exactly what being God’s beloved Son means.  And, it seems like “awhile” according to God is almost always 40 days.  When God’s preparing someone for important work, the person often to undergoe God’s 40 day plan, something like a holy “time out” during which the person discovers what they are made of.  Noah. Moses.  Elijah.  Jesus.  All of them spend 40 days in a strange and wild place, and came out the other end trusting God’s promises.  Which, of course, is why the early church set the season of Lent for 40 days, so Christians can wander around for a while in the wilderness, fast and pray, in hopes that we might be remember again who we are and whose we are.   It helps to have this story about Jesus in front of us as we begin so we know he’s spent some hungry days in the wilderness too.

Before we are too tempted – ahem – to skip ahead in today’s story to Jesus’ conversation with you-know-who, I want us to take time to think about those 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness all by himself.  I think it’s hard for us to wrap our minds around Jesus’ experience.  I would venture to guess that none of us have ever had the experience of going without food for 40 days. I would also imagine that none of us have existed in complete isolation without some form of human communication for 40 days.  It is hard for us to imagine how those 40 days felt for Jesus.  The first few days were probably not so bad.  Jesus may even have welcomed the calm and quiet.  There was time for him to pray.  Time to for him to clear his head.  Time to reflect on what he had heard when he emerged from the Jordon River.  Perhaps Jesus even dared to dream of what lay ahead. 

But after a week or so in the wilderness, Jesus may have grown weary of nothing but lonely meditation and sick of centering prayer.  Maybe he was tired of sleeping on the cold, hard ground, and tired of living under a relentless sun.  No doubt, he was beginning to feel a gnawing hunger in his belly.  As one week stretched to two weeks, then three weeks, then four, then five -- Jesus no doubt felt a little lost, more fearful, and certainly a growing anxiety about how long the exile would last.  

This week in the New York Times, David Brooks wrote a piece about a reform movement in several states to significantly limit the time that prisoners can be required to spend in solitary confinement.  For decades, people who run the prisons in this country have assumed that the pain of being isolated from other people – social pain – is not the same as enduring physical pain.  Prisons cannot beat prisoners, but they can impose long periods of solitary confinement.  But, in fact, researchers have found that the brain doesn’t really make a distinction between social and physical pain.  The brain processes both in almost identical ways.  If anything, being isolated from other people for a long period of time is more traumatic, more long-lasting and more destabilizing than physical pain. Think about what happened to the babies that were found in orphanages years ago who had been left alone in cribs for hours on end, only receiving the bare minimum of social contact.   Brooks says that what prisons do by putting inmates into narrow cells by themselves for days, weeks or months at a time with only minimal contact is more inhumane than inflicting physical injury.[1] 

How hungry do you have to become to arrive at the point where you’d do just about anything for a piece of bread?   How lonely do you need to be that you’d sell your soul for  someone to talk to?  That’s the place to which the Spirit has led Jesus.  Hungry.  Famished for food, comfort, and simple human contact.  In no kind of shape to deal with temptation, but that is the shape in which temptation finds Jesus.  When he is weak, sick and vulnerable.

So vulnerable that the voice that finally does speak to Jesus probably doesn’t sound very much like evil.  Which is the problem about voices of temptation.  They almost always sound perfectly reasonable.  Perhaps the voice even sounds familiar to Jesus.  Maybe it sounds like his mother’s voice, gentle and kind.  Maybe it sounds like the voice of a childhood friend or a trusted rabbi.  Maybe it even sounds a little like the voice Jesus heard just a few weeks ago at the Jordan River.  When we are at our most vulnerable, it is so easy to hear what we need to hear.

And that reasonable, lovely voice tells Jesus that it’s perfectly understandable if he’s had enough of this wilderness stuff.  Why not give in right now?  The voice assures Jesus that it’s okay to give in to the pain in his spirit and the emptiness in his belly.  The voice promises Jesus that if Jesus will just forget who is he for one minute – just one minute – all the pain, all the hunger, all the loneliness will be over.   Jesus can summon up all the power at his disposal and become be just the kind of machismo messiah that can smash the Romans and dazzle the crowds.    After all, if he is the Son of God, what’s he doing laying around half-dead in the desert?  If Jesus is the Son of God, doesn’t he deserve better than that?

But Jesus refuses the Bread and Circuses approach.  He won’t take power.  He won’t make the magic bread, he won’t call the angels in for a dramatic rescue.  Even as the voice promises Jesus that he can have it all, Jesus holds only to who he is.  Which is the beloved Son of God. No ifs, ands, or buts.

You don’t have to look very far or work very hard to find the same kinds of voices.  I hear them all the time, don’t you?  I hear those voices in the middle of the night when I am too wide awake to sleep and too tired to pray.  I just lay there, feeling those voices of anxiety crawl under my skin, torturing me with reminders of what I've done and left undone.

Which voice will you trust during Lent? The voice of shame and guilt?  The voice of fear and anxiety?  The voice that tells you there isn’t enough, that you’re not enough?  Or will you listen instead to the voice of love and forgiveness that rings loud and true above all others?  Will you trust the voice that called you “Beloved” at your baptism and still calls you now, even in the wilderness?

It’s the last place we want to be, but every year, when the season of Lent circles around, we arrive back in the wilderness, hungry again, lonely again, so disoriented by every other road we’ve taken over the course of the year that we’re no longer certain who we are following or whose voice we are hearing.  Is it the Holy Spirit?  Is it the Devil?  Or here’s another frightening possibility – maybe the voice we’ve been following all this time is the very sound of our own ego, our own insecurities, and our own fears. 

But Lent gives us the chance to hear the voice calling us what we truly are – beloved, and tune our hearts to the rhythmic melody of grace, given and received, loved and forgiven, again and again.  Lent invites us relearn the tune as if we’ve never heard this song before. 

Being able to separate truth from illusion is one of the great tasks of our lives.  To figure out what is fantasy and what is reality.  To discern what is dead and what is alive.  What is a narcotic and what is food.  What are stones and what is bread.  It is dangerous, hard work.  What Jesus faces in the wilderness is no mere temptation to have that second piece of chocolate or use a swear word.  Out there, Jesus was fighting for his life. And those 40 days free him from everything that would attempt to distract him from his true purpose.  Jesus learned to not only trust the voice that called him Beloved at the river, but also the Spirit that led him to the excruciating pain of the wilderness.

What saved Jesus in the wilderness was not strength or smarts or even the fact that he was Jesus.  All he had was scripture, the Word of God.  All that was left for him after 40 days was what he knew by heart, and the promise given him in his baptism --that he is somebody.  He is God’s beloved, no matter what.  All Jesus has is who he is. 

And so it is for us.  We are God’s beloved ones, no matter what.  All we have is who we are.  That’s all.  No ifs, ands, or buts.  It’s hard to believe on a good day.  In the wilderness, it’s almost impossible.  Which is why we need God’s word and need one another.

We cannot save ourselves.  I will say it again.  We CANNOT save ourselves.  What saved Jesus from the wilderness is the same power that saves us.  The grace of God.  That’s all there is. 

There are so very many ways to get lost.  And most of them include some kind of stumbling over love.  Even Jesus had to wrestle with what it meant to be loved, and he had to do it more than once.  In the wilderness.  On the journey to Jerusalem.  In the garden.  On the cross.  Jesus had to learn what our life feels like with no anesthesia, no buffer, no comfort but God alone.  He had to learn to trust the will of the One who sent him into the world.   Just as we do.   

Let us pray:

Loving Jesus, You show us the way into life. You resisted the temptations of the world to satisfy one’s own desires and instead looked to what God desired for you. You resisted the temptation to test God, to wait for God to act before acting in faithfulness; instead, you remained faithful to God. And you resisted the temptation for greed and power, instead living a life for others, serving the lost and the least, lifting up the poor and the oppressed, and welcoming the marginalized. May we look to you as the example for our lives. May we empty ourselves of the desires of the world and instead seek what our Creator desires for us. May we remember in you we are a new creation, and that your intent for us is love and life.  In Your name we pray. Amen.

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[1] David Brooks, “The Archipelago of Pain.”  The New York Times, March 6, 2014.  http://nyti.ms/1nkEmRD.

Lenten Discipline -- March 8

Lenten discipline of the day: 

Give it away.

I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty.  In any and all circumstances, I have the learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need.  I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4: 12-13)

If you are reading this, odds are you have a place to live, enough to eat, and an income that sustains you, at least at this moment.  There may have been a time in your life in which you did not have much, and memories of that time still haunt you.  Or you may be concerned that what you have isn't enough or may be taken from you at any moment.  

Paul writes about his experience of scarcity and abundance, and expresses gratitude to the  church in Philippi for their gifts to his ministry.  But Paul also knows that the source of all goodness comes to him through the goodness of God.  Relying on God's mercy and love, Paul can live free of financial concerns.  

All of us want to feel the freedom of being relieved of anxiety surrounding our finances.  But sometimes, through the simple act of sharing even the smallest gift, we are blessed by experiencing God's abundance and grace in surprising ways.  

Today, as a Lenten discipline, make a small donation -- $10 or $20 -- to the non-profit of your choice.  If you are Presbyterian, you may want to make a donation to One Great Hour of Sharing -- an offering that benefits Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, which works to restore communities around the world affected by natural and human-caused disasters, the Presbyterian Hunger Program, which works with Presbyterians and other partners to alleviate hunger and eliminate its causes in this country and others, as well as Self-Development of People, which works to empower economically poor, oppressed, and disadvantaged people.

You can give through your Presbyterian congregation, by visiting the website at www.presbyterianmission.org/give-oghs, or give $10 instantly by texting "OGHS" to 20222.

Here's a video from 2013 that makes a powerful statement about the work of the agencies that receive financial support from the One Great Hour of Sharing offering.

Lenten Disciplines -- March 7

Lenten discipline of the day:

Turn it off

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Philippians 4:8)

When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is turn on the radio.  While I am showering, I listen to the news.  When I go downstairs, I turn on the computer, read the news online, check Facebook and read scripture from the daily lectionary (also online).  After prayer and coffee (also usually in front of the computer screen), I drive my son to school while listening to "his" music.  Depending upon my schedule, I will spend more time in the car during the day, listening to news or music.  When I am in my office, I an usually in front of a screen, writing or reading, with music playing.  When I get home at night, I'll listen to the radio again while cooking dinner.  My husband will have the television on in the family room and, I'm embarrassed to admit, the television will very likely remain on for the remainder of the evening whether anyone is watching it or not.  Silence does not happen in our house except in the wee small hours of the morning.  

And, of course, there is that blasted iPhone which lives in my pocket, my purse, on my nightstand and in my palm through much of the day.

I wonder what would happen if I just shut it all down for just one day during Lent?  No television. No radio.  No iTunes or iPod.  No iPhone.  No email or Twitter.  Just one day to…what?

Maybe if I shut it all down for a day, there would be room to think, as Paul suggests to the Philippians, about things that are true and good.  Once I got over the sheer panic of being disconnected, would I have the space to dream God's dream?  And would I be better able to connect with others?

Whenever I think about the end result of too much "screen time" in my life, I remember a great scene from the movie, "True Stories" featuring the Lady Who Never Gets Out of Bed. I think a lot of us are like her, except these days we can take our televisions or other entertainment with us wherever we go!  See the You Tube video below.  Lots of us suffer from "that commercial feeling."

It's worth a try.  I'll let you know how it goes for me.  I have vacation coming up, so it will be a good time to take that media break.  And if you take a "day off" from electronics during this Lenten season, let me know how it goes for you!

Let It Go -- March 6

Lenten discipline of the day:
Let it go.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. 

Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. 

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit. 

Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.


(Ps. 51:10-11)

Last night at our Ash Wednesday service, as Psalm 51 was read and during a long period of silence after, the congregation was invited to prayerfully reflect on this question:  What stumbling block, burden, situation, relationship, or habit is keeping us from being in a deeper relationship with God?  Each member of the congregation was given a piece of tracing paper and invited to write down what it is that needs to be released from their life -- or what they need to receive from God   -- to renew a right spirit within them.

Before receiving ashes, each member of the congregation set fire to the slip of paper using a candle set in a deep bowl.  As the paper burned down to ash, they were invited to pray:

“God, forgive in me what has gone wrong, 

repair in me what is wasted, 

reveal in me what is you.

What is holding you back from being the child of God that God created you to be?  What is holding you back from a deeper relationship with God and your neighbor?  Envision that piece of your life burning away for good, allowing the Holy Spirit space to renew and repair a new and joyful spirit!

And if you need inspiration, here's a silly and joyful reminder of how good it feels to finally let go and be the person God intends us to be:

With thanks to Theresa E Cho!

Ash Wednesday, March 5

Lenten discipline of the day: 

Pray for your enemies.

Sometimes, enemies are not strangers, but people close enough to get under your skin.  You know the kind of people I'm talking about:   A demanding in-law. A rebellious child.  A co-worker whose politics you simply cannot stand.  An obnoxious neighbor who's always ready to pick a fight over hedge heights or property lines.  An old friend whose success in life you envy so badly you can taste it. Enemies do not have to be those people who threaten us or mean to do us harm. Very often, our enemies are not even aware that they dredge up toxic and harmful feelings in us.  When Jesus told us to love and pray for our enemies, it was for our own sake, I think.  

The psalm for today, Ash Wednesday, is Psalm 51:1-17.  The verse I've been turning over and over in my mind is verse 10:  "Create in  me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me."  Perhaps a "clean heart" and a "right spirit" begins with praying for those for whom it is hardest to pray, however close or distant that enemy may be.  

Maybe Jesus also knew that more often than not my own worst enemy is -- gulp -- me.  So I will spend some time in prayer over this Lenten season to receive the wisdom to cut myself some slack every now and then.  

-- Pastor Susan

The Lenten Season at Emsworth U.P. Begins Tonight

Fat (Shrove) Tuesday

Tonight, we'll be enjoying pancakes and bacon here at Emsworth U.P. Church with our friends from Community Presbyterian Church of Ben Avon.  Stop by at 6 p.m. and enjoy the fun as we celebrate the last night before Lent begins tomorrow on Ash Wednesday.

Ash Wednesday

Tomorrow, we will gather for an Ash Wednesday Service including imposition of ashes and the Lord's Supper at 11 a.m. and  7 p.m. at Community Presbyterian Church of Ben Avon.

Transfiguration Sunday Year A, March 2, 2014

All Downhill From Here

Matthew 17:1-9

You can listen to the audio here: https://soundcloud.com/emsworthup/march-2-2014-11-12-20-am-1/s-rj3YL

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. ²And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. ³Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. ⁴Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” ⁵While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” ⁶When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. ⁷But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” ⁸And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. ⁹As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

Once when David was a baby, I decided to replace my very old, scratched up pair of glasses.  On the day I came home after picking the new glasses, David was just waking up from a nap so I went up to his room to fetch him.  He was just sort of gurgling when I walked into his room, but when I lifted him up from his crib, he burst into tears.  I figured he was wet and hungry, so I changed his diaper.  The child was still pitifully sobbing.  So I settled in to nurse him, but he wouldn’t stop crying long enough to eat.  And the crying wasn’t like an ordinary “Feed me now!” kind of crying.  It was more like “Mommy, can’t you see I’m having a nervous breakdown?” kind of crying. 

My mother’s intuition finally kicked in.  I put the screaming child back in his crib, went downstairs, got my purse and fished out my old pair of glasses.  I put them on, went back upstairs, and when I picked him up – viola! – the crying stopped as if by magic.  Obviously, it was my new glasses that upset poor Baby David.  He didn’t recognize me as his mom.  At least not at first, particularly just after waking up from a nap.  But over the next couple of days, he was able to handle the transition from Mommy wearing beaten up specs to Mommy in the fabulously stylish horn rims. 

Getting used to something unfamiliar or new is sometimes not so easy, right?  Change can scare us silly.  Even when are old enough to handle something as innocuous as a change in parental eyewear, there are other changes that can throw us for a loop.  We can freak out even when facing a change that seems like a good idea.  A new job.  A new baby.  A new house.  Even good change brings a certain level of anxiety and sleepless nights.  And when changes happen that are beyond our control or cause disruptions we did not anticipate, we become even more anxious and sleepless.  While we may not wail like a baby, we are all, to a certain extent, creatures of habit.  Change is hard.  Change is scary.  Even the most adventurous and open-minded among us like a certain level of certainty and predictability in our daily lives.

Well, if you were looking for familiarity and reassurance, you really picked the wrong day to come to church.  You are in the wrong place this morning if you’re looking for the same old, same old, at least according to Matthew.  Today is the Sunday between Epiphany and Lent, a Sunday when we turn away from the twinkling lights of Christmas and turn toward a different kind of light that will lead us into the deep, dark spaces of Lent.  A light that will lead us into 40 days and nights in the wilderness and we all know what that means.  In scripture, wilderness is a place of change and challenge.  Nobody emerges from God’s wilderness the same person they were when they went in.  That’s a promise you may hear as good news or bad news, I suppose, depending upon how ready you are to change.  

I remember a having a conversation with a friend who was thinking about whether or not his 13 year old daughter should go on a mission trip to a place in Philadelphia I had visited on different mission trip a few years earlier.  I went on and on, telling him all about the trip, how deeply meaningful it was for the kids and for me.  I remember saying to my friend that the trip would be transformative for his daughter and bring about amazing changes in his daughter’s perspective and faith.  And I remember him saying something I never would have predicted.  He said, “But what if I don’t want her to change?  What if I think she’s perfect just as she is right now?” I didn’t know what to say. 

Nobody can make you go into the wilderness, you know.  It is entirely possible to stay right where you are.  If that’s you, you can stop paying attention right now.  Transfiguration Sunday is just not your day. 

But if you’ve been feeling the need to get serious about your life as a disciple and enter more deeply into a life of faithfulness, this is your moment, right here on this mountain.  The Holy Spirit has invited you on this journey to the top of Mt. Tabor with Jesus, Peter, James and John. 

The disciples have already received a pretty significant hint about what they’re getting into.  Right before they go up the mountain, Jesus gives the disciples fair warning that things are about to get real.  There is the sense that there will a deepening intensity to this discipleship business they have undertaken.  Jesus tells the disciples that they are turning toward Jerusalem and things are going to look really awful for a time.  Beyond awful.  The elders and chief priests and scribes are going to make him suffer and then they are going to kill him.  But Jesus also tells the disciples that three days after humanity has done its worst, he will be raised from the dead and that most of them will live to see it.

Which, of course, sounds to us like awfully good news to us living on the other side of Easter morning, but this news absolutely blows the disciples’ minds. They are so rattled by this information that they can scarcely hear what Jesus is saying.  In fact, Peter and the others absolutely recoil at this idea of taking up a cross and losing their lives.  Well, wouldn’t you?  What kind of horrible vision is that?  All this time, the disciples imagined Jesus as the One who had come to save them, to save Israel, to make everything better.  Peter finally brings himself to blurt out what they’ve all been thinking – that Jesus is the Messiah.  And now their Messiah is telling them that not only is he not going to make everything all better, he’s also going to lead them to a place where all hell will break lose.

But they go.  Six days later, Jesus takes Peter, James and John on a hike to the top of the mountain.  We always imagined that Peter, James and John get to go because they are part of Jesus’ inner circle, his most trusted disciples.  But the opposite could be true.  Maybe Peter, James and John are the least convinced by Jesus’ plan and need something more.  It could be that they need the experience of transfiguration the most to prepare them for what is ahead of them.  Maybe words alone won’t suffice and they need to see for themselves.  Maybe these disciples are the most in need of a holy space to breathe in the presence of God before moving into the messiness of life down below.

When they arrive on the mountain, God does not hide from the disciples, but invites them to step into this crazy unfathomable demonstration of Gods power.  God demonstrates his glory not to threaten or impress.  The glory reminds us of the relationship between God and God’s son, and invites us into that relationship.  It is a glory that does not rebuke or condemn, but names Jesus and us as beloved.  It is a glory that points us to a voice we can hear and trust, even when the worst is happening.  It is a glory that assures that we can enter into those high places, those deep places, those difficult and fearsome places and we will not consumed or destroyed.  We do not have to be afraid.

The transfiguration is a flashing light designed to get our attention, alerting us to what is going to happen to the disciples – and to us -- if we’re serious about following Jesus up the mountain, then down that mountain, and up another mountain called Calvary.   Because the transfiguration story is not about how Jesus is transformed up on the mountain.  Jesus in his glory, his face shining like the sun, is what he always is when not obscured by the difficult business of human flesh.  Transfiguration is, however, OUR encounter with the holy so that WE may be transformed. 

After this time on the mountain, there’s no turning back.  Not for Jesus.  Not for James, John or Peter.  Not for you and me.  It’s all downhill from here, from now until Easter.  What we see on the mountain is just the beginning of what God will reveal to us.  We’ve got to move from the high places to the low places to see the fullness of God’s glory.

Barbara Brown Taylor calls the cloud that envelops and frightens the disciples, “the bright cloud of unknowing.”[1]  It is a cloud we enter not to become more certain of everything or even more certain about what the light or the cloud means, but to be so broken open that there can be room for “divine movement” in our lives, particularly as we enter the season of Lent.  Only when our own certainty is shattered can God’s certainty seep into us.

I have become more and more convinced over the past few years that the greatest challenge facing all of us in Christ’s service is not knowing more, but to get better at not knowing.  To survive in the wilderness without a map or a GPS and exist in the not yet knowing where God is leading us.  It is ironic that the church finds itself in such position in an age where we have the ability not only to figure out exactly where we are just by looking at a smart phone in the palm of our hand, but also know exactly where everyone else is by tracking their phone. 

Human beings know so much, and yet, when you come right down to it, we really don’t know very much at all.  And I think that Lent is the perfect metaphor for where Christ’s church we find ourselves in 2014.  We find ourselves needing to repent of the ways we have, as an institution and as individuals, made it so hard for so many to know the love of God through Jesus Christ.  Like Peter, we have been busy thinking how to contain the glory of God in a church-shaped box and have been blind to God’s glory that shines in the world all around us.  We are fearful when confronted by change, sleepy when confronted by injustice, and timid in our witness to Christ’s presence in our lives.  We so often choose to shelter in place instead of participating in the work of the Holy Spirit blowing through our communities and our lives.

The transfiguration is a story we need to hold on to as we move through the wilderness of Lent and beyond.  Because it tells us we do not go up the mountain alone.  It tells us that things can be frightening before they become holy.  But it also tells us that there is someone who will touch us and raise us up when we are too frozen and frightened to move on our own.  He is the Light that came into the world, the light we can follow down the mountain back to wildness and wonder of our existence. 

He meets us here today.  Not on a mountain, but at this table in the bread and the cup.

He lifts us up today.  Into the very presence of God.

He feeds us today.  So we may be strengthened for whatever comes next.

He sends us today.  Into a world that will frighten and delight. 

He is God’s beloved and we are his, so we can do this.  We can do this.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

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[1] Barbara Brown Taylor, “The Bright Cloud of Unknowing.” http://day1.org/5560-the_bright_cloud_of_unknowing.Downloaded on 2/28/13.