“Inviting, TRANSFORMING, Sending”
Mark 9.2-9
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
February 11, 2024
 
When was the last time you saw someone’s appearance change radically? It seems to me that something phenomenal — or at least peculiar — happened on the mountaintop, either to Jesus or to the disciples who were with him. Did Jesus undergo some sort of metamorphosis that caused him to be radiant? to shine like the sun? to have an aura? to beam? Or do you think that he was always radiant, but people didn’t notice until his followers — Peter, James, and John — go up to the mountain and literally see Jesus in a new light. I suspect that all of us have at times observed the change visage of a friend or loved one after they have had a life-changing experience. There are outward manifestations of inner changes in us that our friends and families notice.

Assuming for the moment that Jesus did change, why is that important? Does it mean that he was surrounded by the divine light? Did something in his life shift at the moment he began to glow? Does it mean that this was a moment of transformation for him, as was his baptism by John? God speaks at the moment of transfiguration, just ask God speaks at Jesus’ baptism, saying, “This is my son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased,” using exactly the same phrase.

Christians are asked to be baptized as Jesus was, but has anyone asked to go through some sort of metamorphosis or transformation? Maybe? When we join Plymouth, we commit to give ourselves unreservedly to God’s service, which is a big deal, but it isn’t quite asking us to be transformed. In many Congregational churches in New England in the 18th c., prospective members needed to have a “visible sign of conversion” in order to be admitted to membership. (Of course, you could attend worship, but being a member was [and is] a big deal.) So, if you were the town ne’er-do-well, a shift in your attitude and habits might be taken as a sign of conversion.

In a few weeks, you will hear that thorny line in John’s gospel, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above,”[1] or in the language of the King James Version, “born again.” No, I’m not about invite you to come forward for an altar call, and I’m also not going to dismiss the idea of you having a spiritual transformation or many spiritual transformations. I’m not going to try and tame the idea of your having a metamorphosis.

Marcus Borg writes, “The metaphor of rebirth, being born of the Spirit, is an image of radical transformation. An old life has been left behind and a new life has begun…Being born again is utterly central to Christianity, one of the main images for the goal and promise of the Christian life. It describes our transformation and, ultimately, the transformation of the world, for those who are born of the Spirit of God as known in Jesus share God’s passion for a more just and peaceful world.”[2]

By a show of hands, how many of us really want to be changed, transformed, pushed out of our comfort zone by the spirit of transformation? It’s not easy, and it’s not without consequences. Transformation means changed hearts and changed lives. What would you expect if you, yourself, saw Jesus in the flesh? Would you expect it to be a transformative experience?

Many years ago, I was in a therapy group for Adult Children of Alcoholics in California, and for me it was a transformative experience, and helped me to get a fresh start on my journey, and it marked a new beginning. I know others of you who have gone through the process of recovery, and it can be an incredible transformation. What are the moments of transformation in your life that have turned you in new directions or offered you a fresh start? It doesn’t have to be recovery, it could be the birth of a child, starting a new career, finding a hidden talent or a new avocation.

But having a fresh start on life because of a new relationship with God is something incredibly powerful and different.

Most of you know Plymouth’s mission statement that says “It is our mission to worship God and help make God’s realm visible in the lives of people, individually and collectively, especially as it is set forth in the life, teachings, death and living presence of Jesus Christ. We do this by inviting, TRANSFORMING, and sending.”

That middle element, transformation, can be difficult, don’t you think? …especially if we think that we’re already done transforming into new persons or that we simply have no need to change. The Kingdom or realm of God is about transformation of THIS world into the world as it would be if God were immediately in charge, instead of the forces of Empire. Doing the work of justice is about transformation. Loving the unlovable is about transformation. Moving away from self-interest and radical individualism is about transformation. Giving yourself to something bigger than consumerism and acquisition is about transformation.

We cannot try and tame transformation without taming the Kingdom of God. And we won’t be part of the Realm of God unless we are transformed and born of the Spirit. And that requires openness to new beginnings, to change, to transformation of our lives, to letting go of some old burdens, to adopting some fresh practices and ways of being Christian.

We are about to enter the 40-day season of Lent, which mirrors Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness; it was a period that was anything but tame: a period of radical transformation for Jesus, even without the radiance he experienced later. Wilderness can be a place for transformation, where we come face-to-face with our truest selves. Perhaps rather than being seen as a period of penitence, we can see Lent as a transformative journey into the wilderness, a time of gestation, of metamorphosis, of new beginnings, of being within the chrysalis — ready to emerge reborn. And it isn’t something we have to do alone…we have companions on our pilgrimage of transformation.

I invite you to open yourself as we finish this season of Epiphany and walk together into the season of Lent next Wednesday evening. I invite you to join all of your sisters and brothers at Plymouth on a pilgrimage of transformation as we walk through the wilderness for these 40 days.
May you be transformed in the midst of your life, knowing that new beginnings are possible.

May you see change as an opportunity instead of a threat.
May you be blessed as you uncover new truths about yourself.
May you know that you are journeying with kindred spirits through the wilderness.

Amen.
 
© 2024 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal at plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.
 
[1] John 3.7 (NRSV)
[2] Marcus Borg, Speaking Christian. (SF: HarperSanFrancisco, 2011), p. 169.

Transfiguration Inspiration
A Transfiguration Sunday sermon related to Matthew 17:1-8
 
CENTRAL FOCUS:
That the transfiguration story is s source of inspiration amidst struggle, a theophany of Light and Renewal to "Get up and be not afraid" as we head back down the mountain.
 
Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. 2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became bright as light. 3 Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.
 
4 Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I[a] will set up three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 5 While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, the Beloved;[b] with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”
 
6 When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. 7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” 8 And when they raised their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.
 
For the Word of God in Scripture
For the Word of God among us
For the Word of God within us
Thanks be to God
 
They were young and in love (at least 23 and 18 seem young to me now). So they married. She was pregnant and they were happy about it. They loved each other and wanted to be married. The baby came and eventually two others. Young love is not an unusual story, but this love does have an unusual twist of context. You see it was 1958 and husband Richard Loving was what our society calls white (European American) and wife Mildred was what our society called back then "colored." (Her lineage was African American and Native American.) And, in the State of Virginia in 1958, interracial marriage was forbidden, a felony, and punishable by significant jail time.
 
After marrying quietly in the District of Columbia and returning to Virginia to live quietly, someone tipped off the police who then raided their bedroom in the middle of the night and arrested them. They plea bargained for a sentence of one year in jail to be suspended, provided they left Virginia for 25 years, never in that time to return together. These country people lived in DC for years away from family and the country life they loved before Mildred appealed to Attorney General Robert Kennedy who referred them to the ACLU. The ACLU provided free legal support that over several years finally landed their case in front of the Supreme Court who overturned Virginia’s and all such state laws in 1967.
 
My wife and I watched the dramatized version of this story some years ago in the feature film titled simply and appropriately, Loving. That cinematic way of telling the story allowed me to see and feel the love between these two and the anguish, pain, and struggle that these two people, these two citizens, endured. Born of fear and systematized into law, the injustice of white supremacy caused these two to be sometimes separated from each other, separated from family, and to be exiled from their home.  It was an inspiration to witness their love, their perseverance, their strength, and their courage in staying together and in finally finding a way to publicly and legally resist.
 
It is appropriate to uplift such stories of courage and justice making, even more so during Black History month. And there are other such stories brought to film. Selma is the dramatized version of the story of seeking voting rights in Selma, Alabama and of the events and efforts of 1965 at the end of this long campaign that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 13th is a documentary film outlining the historic pattern of turning the racial discrimination of slavery into the racial discrimination of criminalization, using the 13th Amendment to the Constitution which forbids slavery, but allows an exception when one is duly convicted of a crime.
 
Difficult stories these are, yet inspiring in their witness to those who put their lives and bodies on the line for the truth of justice, the truth of liberation, the truth of the dignity of the human person, all persons.  Feature films are one of the common ways we tell stories today.
 
Our tradition of faith is also gifted with stories, ancient stories. Their distance of time and culture can make them seem less accessible than the movies which are a primary form of storytelling in our age, but the effort to overcome that distance can be worth it. These sacred stories are meant as teaching, reflection, and inspiration just as they were for the early Christian communities.
 
This morning’s story can seem particularly distant, especially if you are not a mystic and not inclined to imaginative prayer visions. It can be easy to classify this story as very "religious" and simply a story to support some kind of high theological and doctrinal view of Jesus as Divine. But, this morning, I offer that, looking closer, we can see something more, something more for Matthew’s community and something more for our community.
 
Context is important always to shape our imaginations in getting the story’s fullest impact and import. Matthew’s author is writing to a community still wondering what it means to follow the lineage of Judaism now that the Temple has been destroyed by the Romans after another failed revolt. Matthew’s author is writing to a community wondering if they will be safe, if they have a place, in this new version of Roman Empire occupying their land.
 
My UCC colleague Rev. Anne Dunlap offered insight into the context of this story of Transfiguration in an online sermon on this text and I gratefully follow her lead here in further understanding the context of this sacred story.  The baby Jesus, visited by the Magi, subsequently has to flee for safety south to Egypt. After returning, Jesus has grown up, been baptized by John in the Jordan River, and has begun teaching and healing. He has spoken his Sermon on the Mount (much longer than any I would give!), gathered and sent out disciples, and has made his way to many towns and cities.
 
But something significant happens in chapter 14 that subtly changes the tone of Matthew’s Gospel: the incarcerated John the Baptist is executed. Another movement leader killed by the empire. The one who baptized Jesus, to whom he was related in blood and in a message of Holy resistance and change, murdered by the state. We notice that Jesus from this point on seeks refuge regularly in deserted places like mountain tops. And, just prior to our story in Chapter 17, he begins to talk about the suffering he is to endure, even having to forcefully rebuke his close disciple Peter who discourages the path of suffering.  Immediately after our story of transfiguration, Jesus speaks of John the Baptist and his fate.
 
So it appears the context of the Transfiguration story is of a Jesus under duress of the system, under a growing threat as his movement grows, under the shadow of the cross. And where does he go in such a state? He goes to the mountain to pray. He takes the support of community with him. He seeks and finds the support of the ancestors.  He listens for and hears a Divine Voice of Affirmation. Faced with his mortality and vulnerability, he seeks the Divine Light. And while Peter offers to build dwellings to stay there and they all respond with fear to God’s presence and message to follow, it is Jesus who touches them and says, “Get up and do not be afraid.”

“Get up and do not be afraid.”
 
The story of Transfiguration is a story for our difficult stories, for our difficult times when Herod or Caesar, the one out in the world or the one inside of us, is on our trail. The Transfiguration Story is a story for us, an invitation to experience the Divine Light and hear Divine Affirmation so that we can be like those who persevered in their love for each other amidst hard times,

so that we can be like those seeking voting rights who got up after being knocked down by State Troopers,

and be like those who see the painful path of injustice and have the courage to seek and even suffer another path for justice. 

Transfiguration is a story of Spirit’s power to touch us, bless us, and send us back into the world as it is so we might witness with our lives to how it can be.
 
One of the possible translations here is that Peter wanted to build three sanctuaries. Jesus’ message to him was that, with the power of Divine Light and Truth, and of the ancestors, we must overcome our fear, get up, and come down the mountain to be sanctuaries in the world. Transfiguration is a story of the Divine Light that has the power to sustain us in the difficult times. We can be like the disciples focused on the power of the Christ Mystery. We can be like Jesus and become infused with God’s Light. We can know Transfiguration Inspiration so that we can come down the mountain and become sanctuaries in the world. May this be so. AMEN

Mark 9.2-9
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning,
Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado
 
Our Sunday Forum Ministry Team had a great one-liner: “Haven’t we been doing Lent for a year now? I’m tired of giving stuff up!” And if you read my Tuesday reflection, you got my take on Lent: Maybe in this pandemic year, don’t give anything up for Lent. Perhaps there are even a few things that you can shift to build back some of your deepest yearnings, whether that’s calling a friend, writing a letter, using our Lenten devotional booklet…Find something that is life-giving and restorative.

This has been a year of monumental changes for all of us, and many of us resist change not because we are curmudgeons —but I know there are a few of us who self-identify that way — but because we often equate change with loss. About 15 years ago when we were renovating the sanctuary, some of our members thought of changes in this space as loss… “My children were baptized in front of that altar,” “That railing was a memorial gift,” “We like having the choir sit off-stage behind a wall.” But there were also comment and actions that looked at the transformation of the sanctuary more positively. “We like the new acoustics,” “We appreciate being wheelchair accessible,” “We enjoy the new organ.”

The past year has been one of nearly perpetual change for us, moving our meetings to Zoom, pastoral care appointments outdoors, the sleepout vigil over FM radio in our parking lot, and numerous changes in the way we broadcast our worship. (I can tell you that this one feels especially chaotic to the staff right now!) One of the serious advantages of the pandemic is that no one can say, “We’ve always done it this way!” because none of us has ever done it this way before.

One of the advantages for our Strategic Planning Team is that in some ways, we have a nearly blank slate for some big, hairy, audacious goals, based on what we’ve heard from you all in focus groups. But instead of thinking about loss, try to think about change that is positive. You can see that right now if you try…what have we changed during the pandemic that we’ll keep around? Streaming services for one, so that if you’re not feeling well or you’re out of town (or across the world, like someone watching right now), you can still be part of Plymouth’s worship. Meetings by Zoom allow folks who don’t like to drive at night, or who live far from the church, to participate in meetings. (And some of you are probably wearing pajama bottoms and a nice, presentable shirt in those Zoom meetings!) We can preserve some of the changes we’ve made.

William Sloane Coffin, the great sr. minister of the Riverside Church in New York, once said, “Most church boats don’t like to be rocked; they prefer to lie at anchor rather than go places in stormy seas. [And God knows we’ve been in some stormy seas this year!] But that’s because we Christians view the Church as the object of our love instead of the subject and instrument of God’s [love]. Faith cannot be passive; it has to go forth – to assault the conscience, excite the imagination.[1]

What have you learned as part of this church as we’ve sailed through stormy seas over the past year? Maybe you learned that the building is great, but it isn’t the church. Perhaps you’ve discovered just how important fellowship with other folks here is to you. Maybe you’ve learned how to be connected to God in ways you hadn’t expected. What have you learned as we’ve sailed the stormy seas?

- - - - - -

The Transfiguration is a rather odd story, isn’t it. And I’m not entirely sure why it is an annual celebration. I mean, we don’t have an annual celebration of the Beatitudes, which present Jesus’ message in concise form, so why the Transfiguration? Maybe because it is a story of the miraculous? I sometimes irreverently refer to our observation of the Transfiguration as “Shiny Jesus Sunday,” but I think there is more to the story than just Jesus’ aura.

This is an earlier painting, completed in 1311, still in the style of a Byzantine icon, by Duccio, and it was originally in the cathedral in Siena…and somehow it ended up in the National Gallery in London. It is splendid, but it has none of the movement of Raphael’s famous Transfiguration, which is in the Vatican Museum. Raphael’s Jesus is airborne…which doesn’t actually happen in any of the gospel accounts, and it always made me wonder if Raphael decided to add a touch of the Ascension onto his canvas. In any case, this enormous, magnificent painting helps us to know how important the story was during the Renaissance in Italy.

But why should the Transfiguration be important to us? That’s the $64,000 question. What if we started by taking a look at the term, itself. “Transfiguration,” isn’t a word we use in our everyday discussions to describe a change of appearance or a change in the state of being. Transfiguration has two Latin roots, trans (across) and figuratio (form or shape)…but the Bible wasn’t written in Latin, so I went back to the original Greek of Mark’s gospel, and the word used is one that we are more apt to use today than “Transfiguration.” It’s the verb form of metamorphosis meta- means beyond and morphe means shape.

If we think about Jesus having a metamorphosis on the mountaintop, perhaps that is reason to think that it was an important experience in who he was becoming. We often think of metamorphosis in biological terms: a tadpole losing its tail and growing arms and becoming a frog…a caterpillar weaving a chrysalis around itself, growing colorful wings in the darkness of the cocoon and emerging as beautiful butterfly. In this story, something happened to Jesus when the cloud descended over him. He emerged as a different person, or perhaps he emerged as a person who was even more authentically himself and who he was meant to be. It is also the second time God makes an appearance with Jesus and tells his followers, “This is my son, the Beloved, listen to him,” just as he appeared at Jesus baptism.

I wonder if this pandemic is our chrysalis time, a space when we are being changed in ways of which we are not yet aware. So, what about you? Have you ever had a big change in your life that has left you profoundly transformed? I know some women have been changed by the experience of childbirth. Others of us have been metamorphosed by getting sober. Some of us have experienced laying on of hands in an ordination service and been changed by the experience. In our mission statement here at Plymouth we talk about inviting, transforming, and sending, and that center element, transforming is a big piece of our spiritual journey. We aren’t supposed to begin our faith journey and finish it in the same place…that’s why it’s called a journey. Have you experienced a spiritual transformation? Has it happened just once, or has it occurred on multiple occasions? Some people speak of being born again and again and again… You may not hear the audible voice of God, but her presence does break into our lives, especially if we are listening for the still small voice.

Lent, which starts this Wednesday, is a time when you are invited to pay attention to God’s presence in your life. And so, as we journey through this long season of pandemic, I invite you to look not just for things to comfort yourself, but also for things that have shifted, and to try and embrace them.
I’m no Pollyanna, and I know that sometimes changes in our lives leave us with scars, physical, mental, and spiritual. You may have experienced the metamorphosis of a cancer journey that left you with bodily scars and may have robbed you of different abilities. You may have gone through the grief associated with the tragic loss of a loved one. You may have been told by a church you grew up in that your sexual orientation or gender identity was sinful. There are any number of hurts that we absorb as a part of our life histories, and as my colleagues have spoken of healing the past two Sundays, I encourage you to look for the love of God to know that scars are part of you, part of your history, part of yourself.

In Japanese tradition, when a precious ceramic vessel breaks, it is not discarded, but rather handled with reverence. In a process called kintsugi, the crack is not hidden, but rather filled with gold, so that the repair glints in the light and takes on a beauty all its own. My prayer for you is that whatever seems broken within you will be filled with the golden presence of God.[end Japanese bowl] And may all of your metamorphoses become a part not just of who you are, but of who God is calling you to become.

Amen.

© 2021 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal at plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.

[1] Wm. Sloane Coffin, Credo, )Lexington: Westminster John Knox, 2004), pp. 140-141.

Matthew 17.1-9
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning,
Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado

When was the last time you saw someone’s appearance change radically? It seems to me that something phenomenal — or at least peculiar — happened on the mountaintop, either to Jesus or to the disciples who were with him. Did Jesus undergo some sort of metamorphosis that caused him to be radiant? to shine like the sun? to have an aura? to beam? Or do you think that he was always radiant, but people didn’t notice until his followers — Peter, James, and John — go up to the mountain and literally see Jesus in a new light. I suspect that all of us have at times observed the change visage of a friend or loved one after they have had a life-changing experience. There are outward manifestations of inner changes in us that our friends and families notice.

Assuming for the moment that Jesus did change, why is that important? Does it mean that he was surrounded by the divine light? Did something in his life shift at the moment he began to glow? Does it mean that this was a moment of transformation for him, as was his baptism by John? God speaks at the moment of transfiguration, just ask God speaks at Jesus’ baptism, saying, “This is my son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased,” using exactly the same phrase.

Christians are asked to be baptized as Jesus was, but has anyone asked to go through some sort of metamorphosis or transformation? Maybe? When we join Plymouth, we commit to give ourselves unreservedly to God’s service, which is a big deal, but it isn’t quite asking us to be transformed. In a few weeks, you will hear that thorny line in John’s gospel, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above, [John 3.7, NRSV], or in the language of the King James Version, “born again.” No, I’m not about invite you to come forward for an altar call, and I’m also not going to dismiss the idea of you having a spiritual transformation or many spiritual transformations. I’m not going to try and tame the idea of your having a metamorphosis.

Marcus Borg writes, “The metaphor of rebirth, being born of the Spirit, is an image of radical transformation. An old life has been left behind and a new life has begun…Being born again is utterly central to Christianity, one of the main images for the goal and promise of the Christian life. It describes our transformation and, ultimately, the transformation of the world, for those who are born of the Spirit of God as known in Jesus share God’s passion for a more just and peaceful world.” [Marcus Borg, Speaking Christian (SF: HarperSanFrancisco, 2011), p. 169.]

By a show of hands, how many of us really want to be changed, transformed, pushed out of our comfort zone by the spirit of transformation? It’s not easy, and it’s not without consequences. Transformation means changed hearts and changed lives. What would you expect if you, yourself, saw Jesus in the flesh? Would you expect it to be a transformative experience? 

Many years ago, I was in a therapy group for Adult Children of Alcoholics in California, and for me it was a transformative experience, and helped me to get a fresh start on my journey, and it marked a new beginning. I know others of you who have gone through the process of recovery, and it can be an incredible transformation. What are the moments of transformation in your life that have turned you in new directions or offered you a fresh start? It doesn’t have to be recovery, it could be the birth of a child, starting a new career, finding a hidden talent or a new avocation. But having a fresh start on life because of a new relationship with God is something incredibly powerful and different. 

Most of you know Plymouth’s mission statement that says “It is our mission to worship God and help make God’s realm visible in the lives of people, individually and collectively, especially as it is set forth in the life, teachings, death and living presence of Jesus Christ. We do this by inviting, TRANSFORMING, and sending.” 

That middle element, transformation, can be difficult, don’t you think? …especially if we think that we’re done transforming into new persons or that we simply have no need to change. The Kingdom, or "realm," of God is about transformation of THIS world into the world as it would be if God were immediately in charge, instead of the forces of Empire. Doing the work of justice is about transformation. Loving the unlovable is about transformation. Moving away from self-interest and radical individualism is about transformation. Giving yourself to something bigger than consumerism and acquisition is about transformation. 

We cannot try and tame transformation without taming the Kingdom of God. And we won’t be part of the Realm of God unless we are transformed and born of the Spirit. And that requires openness to new beginnings, to change, to transformation of our lives, to letting go of some old burdens, to adopting some fresh practices and ways of being Christian. 

We are about to enter the 40-day season of Lent, which mirrors Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness; it was a period that was anything but tame: a period of radical transformation for Jesus, even without the radiance he experienced later. Wilderness can be a place for transformation, where we come face-to-face with our truest selves. Perhaps rather than being seen as a period of penitence, we can see Lent as a transformative journey into the wilderness, a time of gestation, of metamorphosis, of new beginnings, of being within the chrysalis — ready to emerge reborn. And it isn’t something we have to do alone…we have companions on our pilgrimage of transformation.

I invite you to open yourself as we finish this season of Epiphany and walk together into the season of Lent next Wednesday evening. I invite you to join all of your sisters and brothers at Plymouth on a pilgrimage of transformation as we walk through the wilderness for these 40 days. 

May you be transformed in the midst of your life, knowing that new beginnings are possible.
May you see change as an opportunity instead of a threat.
May you be blessed as you uncover new truths about yourself.
May you know that you are journeying with kindred spirits through the wilderness.
Amen. 

© 2020 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact [email protected] for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.

Luke 9.28–36
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning,
​Plymouth Cong’l UCC, Fort Collins

Sometimes something happens within us that is so significant people can tell the difference just by looking at us. Has anyone ever said to you, “You’re just beaming!” And we don’t necessarily take that in a literal way, but we know what it looks like when something wonderful has happened to someone. We even use the word, “radiant,” to describe someone’s visage.

John O’Donohue, the late Irish priest and poet, comments on the outward reflection of what is going on inside us: “The face is the icon of the body, the place where the inner world of the person becomes manifest. The human face is the subtle yet visual autobiography of each person. Regardless of how concealed or hidden the inner story of your life is, you can never successfully hide from the world while you have a face. If we knew how to read the faces of others, we would be able to decipher the mysteries of their life stories. The face always reveals the soul; it is where the divinity of the inner life finds an echo and image. When you behold someone’s face, you are gazing deeply into that person’s life.”  [1]

So, when the writer of Luke’s gospel says that “while [Jesus] was praying, the appearance of his face changed,” you can imagine the ways that reflects a monumental internal transformation. 

For me, this story of the transfiguration isn’t so much about what happened to Jesus up on that mountaintop so much as it begs the question: how does transformation happen to us – transformation so great as to change our visage…the way we project our face in the world.
​
Have you ever had such a moment? A time when something really shifted inside you? An occasion that moved you so deeply that people could see it on your face? I think for some women the experience of childbirth can be such a moment. I don’t know what those moments are for you, but I’d invite you to think about it for a just a minute: what are some of the deepest transformative moments in your life?

The old-fashioned word for religious transformation is “conversion.” In many New England Congregational churches in the 18th and early 19th centuries, at the time of the First and Second Great Awakenings, a visible sign of a conversion experience was a requirement for full membership in the church. That said, the Unitarian Congregationalists and middle-of-the-road Trinitarian Congregationalists didn’t take much stock in hyper-emotional experiences of the divine. (This was a serious controversy that divided Congregational churches across New England.) Yet, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was ordained as a Congregational minister and eventually became a Unitarian talked much about “first-hand religion” or a direct experience of the divine, rather than the sometimes cool, intellectual apprehension of the faith that is still a hallmark of many of us in the Congregational strand of the UCC. 

The word, “conversion,” can be alienating for some of us, just like the related term, “repentance.” Conversion, in its Latin roots, literally means to “turn with” and repentance means to “reposition” something. The Greek word, metanoia, can mean changing one’s way of thinking or conversion or repentance or transformation. Metanoia (and I’m going to translate it as “transformation”) is a wonderful and important action in our lives of faith. Metanoia keeps us from becoming stale and static and self-satisfied.

Valerie Schultz, a Roman Catholic writer had this to say: “Metanoia is a word I love. It sounds like a medical condition or a punk band. I can picture it on a prescription bottle or a T-shirt.... Metanoia is more lasting than a momentary epiphany, more active than an intellectual revelation. Metanoia is a radical change of heart, forcing one to dig deeply. It is a prayer answered, but it requires a further response.” [2] And that reflection invites us, using the words of Plymouth’s theme for this year, to Go Deeper into our faith and into our very lives.

For me, and I suspect for many of you, conversion or metanoia or transformation isn’t a one-off, lightning-bolt kind of experience. I have had times when I really felt in touch with God, moments when I felt as though God was with me and moving through me. But, if I look at my faith journey, I see many moments of transformation…like coming back to church in my 30s, becoming a parent to Cameron and Chris, going to divinity school, feeling called to be the minister of this church, when I met and married Jane Anne. And sometimes I think we see transformation better in retrospect than we do at the moment. Metanoia happens, too, in the unhappy occasions of our lives. When my parents died, when my marriage ended, when I was diagnosed with cancer: those are moments of transformation as well. For me, the big question is “Where do I find God in that experience?” What are those moments for you? And where do you find God in those moments?

In our church’s mission statement, we say: “It is our mission to worship God and help make God’s realm visible in the lives of people, individually and collectively, especially as it is set forth in the life, teachings, death and living presence of Jesus Christ.” We do this by…inviting, transforming, and sending. 

How would you react if I said that we all need to experience spiritual transformation…not just once, but again and again? I think a fair number of us at Plymouth think that we are evolved and enlightened…in short, that we have arrived. I hate to be the one to break the news…but all of us are in need of further transformation, growth, renewal, even conversion. You and I are works in progress, not fully formed, and ready for growth. 

Every day, we encounter some new situation or condition or challenge, and in the course of those new experiences, we are going to be changed. The question is not whether we will be transformed, but how. In what ways can we make the deep changes in our lives shape us in positive, faithful ways?
What are the tectonic forces in our lives and in our souls that with great heat and force shape the persons we are becoming? Are we being forced into a mold by the economic forces around us? What do the teachings of Jesus say about that? Are we succumbing to the prejudices of racism, homophobia, and sexism that underlie every aspect of our culture? What do the teaching of Jesus say about that? Are we falling prey to having enough income and leisure time so that we neglect enhancing lives of others? What do the teachings of Jesus say about that? Are we becoming complacent about caring for one another because we are “too busy?” What do the teachings of Jesus say about that?

We need to let our faith become the greatest tectonic force in our lives. If we can’t allow ourselves to be molded, shaped, and transformed by our faith, then frankly, it is meaningless. None of us wants to have a hollow faith, but rather one that is vibrant, resilient, and life-giving…and it is possible when we open ourselves to the possibility that God is at work in our lives.

I suggest that during the coming season of Lent, we look at ourselves and that we use the 40-day period to examine ourselves and in what ways we need to be transformed into the people God expects us to be. How do we do that? One way may be by adopting a small faith practice during Lent, which begins with Ash Wednesday this week. It doesn’t have to be dramatic, like fasting during each day and eating only at night. And it doesn’t have to be “giving up” something like chocolate or booze or Fritos. I knew someone once who gave up his wristwatch for Lent, because he felt that he was being ruled by the pagan god, Chronos! You might try keeping a short journal, or spending five minutes in prayer each morning, or keeping track of where you saw the movement of the Spirit each day.

Soren Kierkegaard made a distinction between Christ’s admirers and Christ’s true followers, and a lot of it has to do with Going Deeper. Kierkegaard writes, “The admirer never makes any true sacrifices. He always plays it safe. Though in word [s]he is inexhaustible about how highly [s]he prizes Christ, [s]he renounces nothing, will not reconstruct [her] life, and will not let her life express what it is [s]he supposedly admires.” [3] In short, the admirer won’t admit Christ into the process of transformation.
When we take seriously the words our membership covenant, “I give myself unreservedly to God’s service,” and try to live into that tall order, we open ourselves and our lives to Going Deeper, being changed, to being transformed, to be shaped by metanoia. As we journey together, may this band of pilgrim people walk as one, into a future that is marked by God’s promise of changed lives.
Amen.

© 2019 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact [email protected] for permission to reprint.

1. John O’Donohue, Anam Cara. (NY: Harper Perennial, 1998), p. 39.
2. Valarie Schultz, “Metanoia,” in America, December 6, 2003. 
3. Kierkegaard quoted in Bread and Wine (Farmington, NY: Plough, 2003), p. 60

The Rev. Jake Miles Joseph
Plymouth Congregational UCC, Fort Collins, CO
Little Boxes: Transfiguration According to Mark, Chapter 9,
February 11, 2018
 
Will you pray with me? May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be good and pleasing to you, O God, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
 
Have you ever been driving down the road when something you see sparks your imagination? I mean something that does more than catch your attention in passing, but it opens-up entire insights into how you see the world. I would call it a mini or micro “transfiguration.” It is a moment of transformation (which is another and more relatable way to translate the Greek word used for transfiguration), and I am all for the church using more understandable language like lobby instead of narthex, but I digress. I recently read a story about someone for whom this happened: A sudden moment of vision or inspiration, a clear view on the reality of things, changed her life and has inspired others to see clearly as well.
 
Her daughter tells the story from 1962 of driving with her parents from San Francisco through Daly City in the Bay Area on their way to a political organizing gathering organized by local Quakers. Her mother suddenly, upon looking at the hillside where development was happening, threw the steering wheel to her husband who had been in the passenger seat. “Take the wheel honey, I have a song to write,” we can imagine her saying.
 
There and then somewhere in the suburbs, south of San Francisco maybe using the dashboard as a desk, a song was written. An activist, one of the founders of the Women’s Institute for the Freedom of the Press, musician, dedicated Unitarian, Malvina Reynolds, wrote a song that has come to epitomize the rebellion against conformity and being boxed-in.1 Her song was later made famous by singer Pete Seeger:

“Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky And they all look just the same.
 
And the people in the houses All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes And they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and lawyers, And [ministers]2 and executives,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all [think] just the same…”3

And they all play on the golf course And drink their martinis dry.
And they all have pretty children And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp And then to the university
Where they are put in boxes And they come out all the same. 
And the boys go into business And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky And they all look just the same,

There's a pink one and a green one And a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.” - Malvina Reynolds

1 https://web.archive.org/web/20071222231203/http://music.homegrownseries.com/?p=5 
​2 Wording changes made in brackets for context and effect.
3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUoXtddNPAM

Protest song perhaps, anthem of nonconformity, yes… but this is also my favorite (and this might surprise you) Transfiguration Sunday hymn. Every year on this Sunday in the lectionary, every single time I read Mark, Chapter 9, I always find myself humming [hum the song] this great song. "Why?" you might ask.
 
Jesus takes his closest friends to hike up a hillside with him, and when they reach the summit the disciples, as the story goes, witness a glimpse of reality: love embodied. They see Jesus, for the first time in the Gospels, reveal himself to be a sign and symbol of God’s wildly untamed love. This is a glimpse, not a whole picture, but it is a glimpse into the power, freedom, and the burning love beyond appearances. God’s voice echoes from the clouds: “This is my son, the Beloved, the One Whom I love—in whom love is invested! Listen to him.” Not only is Jesus there, but the representatives of tradition Elijah and Moses also appear for a glimpse of a different dimension. And we thought Colorado was the only place with people having special visions!
 
Our Christian tradition is filled with rich and far out stories, but there is none as strange and fabulous as this one.
 
In response to seeing something new, seeing the Transfiguration of Christ, the disciples don’t celebrate something new happening, but they revert to something old. They attempt to put Jesus in a box. There in the glowing radiant white, their shocked instinct is to take him and say, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and for Elijah…” There is a pink one and a green one and a blue one…
 
The dwelling places or booths or boxes (also translations) the disciples want to build for Jesus and his companions are highly symbolic here. They symbolize a tradition found in Ancient Near Eastern religions of that time that gods and demigods (Greek, Eastern, and others) would have portable tent-like alters and shrines (literally little boxes) built so that the people, a specific tribe, could own and claim and keep that god with them. And by doing this the people, especially nomadic people, believed they would have favor with that god and control its love in a way. Another symbolic part of this story is the mountaintop. Jesus appearing on the mountaintop in his true form is another way that the author of Mark borrows from Greek literature of the “coming out” of new gods to their human followers borrow a trope. With this the author is putting Jesus in the company of familiar stories, but then Mark inverts it entirely. The disciples’ response, however, is deeply rooted in the Ancient Near Eastern tradition in which they are embedded.

The disciples’ first instinct here, upon learning that their mountain climbing buddy, Jesus, is actually a manifestation of the Divine is to do what? When we read this passage, we often laugh (Ha Ha Ha) and think the disciples are dumb, while in fact they are just ancient opportunists. [See, see that is what happens when you read the Bible literally instead of narratively as it was intended… you miss really cool stuff.] What the disciples are suggesting they want to build in this dwelling is really a god-trap! They want to build a trap, a box, and capture this new god in it before he can get away! Not so stupid after all in context…
 
What they don’t know though is that the religion they are unconsciously part of founding, this Christianity business, is something new…or should be something new when not confined inappropriately and incorrectly by boxes of dogma and doctrine and pews and other traps like that!
 
Jesus rejects the disciples’ offer of building a box for him. We in the United Church of Christ as in other progressive Christian traditions understand Jesus as the bearer of something new—liberation for the oppressed, the opening-up of boxes, and the embodiment of a Love that cannot be held by anyone’s box or church or dogma or confine or definition.
 
Instead of accepting the traditional god-in-a-box role, in this story God is doing something different for the first time. This story is supposed to signal to both the Greek and the Jewish communities that this new tradition is something new, weird, far out, and different—Jesus refuses the traditional boxes. “This is my son, the Beloved, the One Whom I love! Listen to him.” Rather, this whole Jesus business is supposed to be about a LOVE that is free and out there in the world. It is radical, it is wild, it is new, and it won’t get in a box.
 
Our faith tradition, at its best, is one that was intended to breakout of the little boxes on a hillside, no two loves are the same, and to set God and people free. So, what happened to Christianity? What went wrong?
 
By 1962, when Malvina Reynolds wrote Little Boxes, this religion that was supposed to be all about getting out of the boxes was the one that had become more about little boxes than any other. We became the box factory. It is the subtext of her songs. We have denominational boxes. We have belief boxes. We have good and bad check boxes. Many in our religion have boxes for love they will accept and love like mine that they will not accept. We have boxes for the saints and boxes for the sinners. We have boxes for the high pledgers and boxes for those who don’t pledge. We have endless boxes—believe me—I just helped design our new database. We have so many boxes now in Christianity that even UPS is jealous! FedEx called and they want their boxes back, friends. We are called, by a loving God in this passage, to be those who reject boxes and traditional boundaries like Christ does. What reason does God give for us to listen to Jesus in Mark Chapter 9? We are only told that that he is the one whom God’s LOVE is channeled through. “Hey, I love this guy, listen up.” That is our job now in 2018 as the Body of Christ in the world—a channel of love and liberation.
 
Valentine’s Day is this week when we get a very normative view of what love looks like, and I have to say that it looks awfully straight to me from my vantage point. We all know that love is hard work, we know that it comes in many forms, we know that for some it includes having kids, and for others of us having children isn’t in the picture, for some it means being single and for others married, for some local and others have to be long distance for a time, for some in an RV and others in a house, for some communications comes easily and for others quiet is key, for some dogs for other couples cats (don’t ask me why). Valentine’s Day would tell us that everyone’s love and relationship should fit in an identical red, heart-shaped box made by Russell Stover.

Our Scripture today from Mark 9, however, says otherwise. Transfiguration or Transformation Sunday says otherwise. It is the time when we see a colorful world, where God rejects traditional boxes for deities, and when we are invited by God’s love to find new ways to define our belief, our relationships, and our own identities before a God who calls us, calls you beloved.
 
Malvina Reynolds saw something that day on the hills outside of San Francisco. She saw a physical manifestation of the attempts of society to cubical our lives, our loves, and even God. That moment of clarity, her own Transfiguration vision, led to the creation of a simple song, one that many of us know, that stands as a prophesy of counter-culture to anyone who might want to box God, you, or me in.
 
“Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
​Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky And they all look just the same.”
 
Little Boxes is a song about the uniformity, the compartmentalizing, the cubicalization of our lives and our society, but it can also be about what has happened to the church, to religion, and what we still today, just like Peter, James, and John, attempt to do to God. We try to put God into a box—a box that only serves only our tribe, our viewpoint, our people, our style of love, those like us already. Today’s story from Mark deconstructs that box.
 
May none of you ever find yourselves boxed in, and know that Jesus…that guy we talk about once a month at Plymouth… ya… he refused “the box” in the name of love on Transfiguration Sunday so many years ago… and so can you! Amen.

Transfiguration Sunday
Rev. Dr. Mark Lee        
For Plymouth UCC, Fort Collins, CO
Mark 9.2-9

I watched the opening ceremonies for the Winter Olympics the other night. It was a wonderful mix -- of tradition and technology, of cultures, and even political intrigue. They pulled out all the stops with the light show and fireworks. What struck me was how, during the parade of nations, so many of the athletes were filming -– taking selfies, running video as they walked in, trying to catch a once-in-a-lifetime moment. Someday, when they are showing the pictures to their grandchildren, loading those ancient jpeg pictures on a screen will seem as exotic as the carousel projector slides our grandparents show us now. But the stories they’ll tell!
 
I bet that Peter, James and John wish they’d had a nifty iPhone when they went that day up Mt Tabor with Jesus. Mountains are one of those places through the Bible and through history that stokes our spiritual imagination, that are the sites of significant spiritual events. As Coloradoans we totally get that. Though I am told on good authority that the deserts, the oceans, ice-fields, and prairie badlands all are prime sites as well.   
 
So when Jesus asks them to go up the mountain with him, they are tapping into deep traditions: Abraham almost sacrificing his son on Mt Moriah, Moses receiving the law at Mt Sinai, him later seeing the Promised Land from Mt Nebo. Elijah defeated the prophets of Baal on Mt Carmel. Later Jesus prayed on the Mt of Olives, and ascended to heaven from an unnamed mountain in Galilee. To go up a mountain is to intentionally set out, looking in some way for the ultimate, for God.
 
Any mountain climb takes preparation. The text tells us that this happened “six days later,” after the events of the prior chapter. It is hard to know exactly what is being referenced, but most likely it is the story of Peter’s confession. You remember how that goes: Jesus asks the disciples “Who do people say that I am?” And they say, Elijah, or John the Baptizer or one of the other prophets. “But who do you say that I am?” Jesus presses. “You are the Messiah, the son of God” Peter says. Jesus commends him, “Flesh and blood didn’t reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven showed you this!” Of course, Peter doesn’t really understand that that means. So when Jesus then starts telling them that he will be betrayed to the rulers, suffer and die, and then rise on the third day, Peter says “No! That’s not the right story! You’re going to be the King, drive out the Romans, and we’ll be the world superpower!” Jesus has heard this siren song before, from the tempter in his own wilderness, so rebukes Peter: “Go away, Satan! You’re thinking in human terms, not God’s.”
 
I wonder what Peter and the other disciples thought about this over the following week. How might it have set them up to really see what happened on the mountain top?
 
Oh, the mountain top! Even an ordinary mountain top is exhilarating. You trudge through the forest, and often can’t see your goal. That’s how it would have been for Jesus and his friends, Mt Tabor is cloaked in thick oak chaparral. On other mountains, maybe you come out above the timberline, and the way is rocky and loose. There may be dangers from cliffs and exposure. And when, huffing and panting, you climb the last boulder -- Wow! I did it! And look! You can see the whole world! And indeed, from the top of Tabor, you can see the from the Sea of Galilee to the north, east to the Jordan River and the mountains beyond, west to Mt Carmel, and spreading out at your feet are the rich agricultural fields of the Jezreel plain. What a view!
 
And then came the sound and light show. Better than lasers, fireworks and virtual reality, suddenly reality looked completely different. Jesus was transfigured –- his everyday look faded to the background, and suddenly the brilliant light of God shone though him. It was like looking at the sun at the moment the eclipse ended, the light that was always there suddenly sparking through. And then appeared Elijah and Moses, two of the towering figures from Israel’s story, representing the Prophets and the Law. Now, how the disciples knew who each of them was, I’m not sure – but in these kind of non-rational spiritual experiences, sometimes you just know things to the core of your being.
 
These kind of experiences don’t happen to most people very often, maybe only once in a life. But when they do happen, the thing to do is just go with it. Surf the wave, keep listening to the song, bask in the light. There will be time for analysis and pondering and meaning-making later. Give free rein to ….. to whatever. When I was on pilgrimage in Israel last summer, when I was at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, I went into the small shrine built around the slap where Jesus was laid after his death. The monks only let you have maybe 2 minutes there before they moved you out, because there’s only room for 3 people, that’s how small it is. So I looked around inside the shrine, read the placard, “He is not here, he is risen!” and quickly kissed the slab. And started to cry. I stepped out of the shrine, tears running down my cheeks, and knew that God was doing something with me. As I cried harder, I went around behind a pillar in a corner – and cried and cried and cried. For 20 minutes. Yeah, I was the weird guy crying his eyes out. And I still can’t tell you why or wherefore. That I was sad, or joyful, or what. Or even that I felt better when I was done. All I could figure afterwards was that something cracked loose, broke free, came undammed, deep in my soul.
 
When something like that happens, you can’t catch and bottle it. Unlike the athletes taking pictures as they entered the stadium, it would have been absurd to try to take a selfie then, to capture it for later. But that’s pretty much what Peter suggests, though the narrator notes that “He didn’t know what he was talking about.” “Look, Lord, it’s good that John, James and I are here, because we can build some quick shelters, for you, Elijah and Moses, where we can just stay.” I mean, this is amazing, don’t let it stop!
 
Then it got more intense: a cloud covered the mountaintop, echoing the cloud on Sinai, the dazzling darkness where God is, and a voice: “This is my beloved Son, listen to him!” And then, the vision ended. Silence.
 
You can imagine the quiet disciples as they climbed back down the mountain. Jesus tells them not to tell anyone, “Until after the Son of Man has risen from the dead.” They are totally confused --- confused by Jesus predicting a death they cannot accept and a resurrection they cannot understand. Was this vision something like what Jesus means about his resurrection?
 
We always have to go back down the mountain. The vision ends. The retreat is over, it’s time to go home. It is getting late, a thunderstorm is coming up, better get off the mountain! That happened to me once, when I’d climbed a 14er, Conundrum Peak. I had started up late, and kept going even as the weather moved in. I got to the summit, quickly took a picture and started down. I was barely 100’ from the top when the rain and hail opened up, and the lightening started. I sat down on my butt and slid down a rock scree chute, because I didn’t want to be higher than anything around me! Descending can be as challenging as climbing. I got drenched, and wasn’t dressed for a storm. By the time I got back to Conundrum Hot Springs and camp, I was so hypothermic I could hardly get out of my clothes to get into the hot spring. Used up a couple of my 9 lives that day! But nobody at the camp seemed interested in my adventure.
 
So I wonder about the other 8 disciples, who hadn’t gone along that day, who didn’t have the amazing experience. Instead, they had the frustrating experience of trying to heal someone but not being able to! And while Jesus had told the 3 not to say anything, I bet they spilled the beans somewhere along the lines. When you hear God speak, it’s tough to stay quiet! So what did the others feel about it? Were they jealous? Did they not believe the story? Did they need to minimize it, that it was no big deal?
 
One of the great challenges of the Christian life is finding ways to talk about what God has done for us in ways that don’t put others off. It is so easy to have a blessed experience, and in our enthusiasm imply, “Because God did this for me, God should do this for you!” Or worse, to get proud and imply, “See how spiritual I am!” Sometimes it is perfectly well meaning, we want others to experience God too, and forget that people’s psychology of religion is different.

Centering prayer is a rich well of devotion for one person, and a frustrating bore to another. A Bach requiem lifts one person to the gates of heaven, while another is thrilled at Hillsong Worship or Casting Crowns. I remember feeling so insufficient at times in my life because I didn’t speak in tongues -– forgetting all the other beautiful gifts that God had given me.
 
We do well to train our eyes to see God in the everyday wonders we encounter --- I’m reminded of the story of the monk Brother Lawrence who was the monastery cook, who in his little book The Practice of the Presence of God wrote, “The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament.”
 
But even seeing God in every flower, meeting Christ in every homeless person, learning to hear God in the sound of sheer silence isn’t the final test. As wonderful as spiritual experiences are, as rare as they are, as unique to each person they are, they are not the bottom line of our Christian walk. But:

Matthew 17 .1– 9
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning
Plymouth Congregational UCC
February 26, 2017

The season of Epiphany opens with light: the magi seeing the brilliant star in the dark night sky that leads them to Jesus. And today it ends with light, as well, as Jesus is robed in radiance.
We follow the star throughout the season of Epiphany, and if you think about the hymns we often sing during this season, many have something to do with light: “Arise, Your Light Is Come,” “Jesus, the Light of the World,” “Many Are the Light Beams,” “O Radiant Christ, Incarnate Word.”

Perhaps, it’s because of the short days and long winter nights in the northern hemisphere at this time of year, but there seems to  be a cycle of lightness and darkness in the seasons of the church year. As the days get longer in the spring, we enter the season of Lent, which culminates with the Office of Tenebrae (or shadows) on Maundy Thursday. And after the crucifixion on  Good  Friday, the risen Christ emerges again in the brightness of Easter Sunday.

We go through cycles in our own culture as well: seasons of light and seasons of shadow. It is what  Justice  Ruth  Bader Ginsburg last week called the great pendulum of American political culture, which swings back when it veers too far in either direction. But I diverge from the metaphor of light…

There are other ways in which we identify light as the image of divine presence or of divine favor. The halo that we often see in artistic representations of holy people are clearly a representation of the light that emanates within them. If your someone who believes in auras, the halo can be a visible reality.
​
Because I’m a visual learner, and I know some of you are, too, I’ve prepared a few slides of artistic representations of the Transfiguration…described in today’s text as Jesus’ face shining  like the sun and “his clothes became dazzling white. So, I’d invite  you just to look at these images and try to be observant of the light  in these different paintings. [LIGHTS OFF]

​The first three images are Orthodox icons from Russia and Greece and Byzantium from the 13th through 16th centuries. One of the things you’ll notice in icons is the use of gold leaf to project  light, and you can see Jesus surrounded by a circle of light, as well as the prominent halos of all three figures:  Moses,  Jesus,  and Elijah:

The second image shows the circle of light and actual beams projecting out from the center, and there almost seem to be spotlights illuminating Jesus. And if we could see the gilding on   this icon, it would seem even more radiant.

​You’ll notice in several of these images from the medieval period that Jesus is surrounded by an almond-shape frame called a mandorla (Italian for almond).

​Duccio was a 14th century artist born in Siena, and was the most influential Italian artist of his day. This painting has the feel of an Orthodox icon with its extensive use of light, halos, and even the positioning of Jesus’ right hand with two fingers extended in the position of teaching.

​This fresco by Fra Angelico, who was both a Dominican and a brilliant painter, adorns one of the monastic cells at the monastery  of San Marco in Florence. Look at how Moses and Elijah seem to be peeking in at Jesus from some other dimension. And there is also a mandorla, which seems like the source of light.

​You may know this painting by Raphael, which is in the Vatican, and if you look at where the light is, again, it comes from the cloud of divinity behind Jesus and it’s blinding the disciples, who are there on the mountaintop. It’s strange, though, because this one seems to blend the transfiguration with the ascension of Jesus…or the antigravity field stopped working, because Moses, Elijah, and Jesus are airborne.

​This is an altar painting in Venice by Titian, who was known for painting with light and there is radiance all over Jesus and behind him. Look at the contrasting darkness in this painting.

​Images of the Transfiguration didn’t stop in the Renaissance. This one is by the 19th c. French painter, James Tissot Look at  where the light is in this image. Jesus is wearing dazzling white,   but the great source of light is no longer behind Jesus…it IS Jesus.

​In this modern representation of the Transfiguration from Cameroon, there is a swirling cloud of divine light surrounding Jesus. And it’s interesting that Jesus, Moses, and Elijah are all portrayed as Africans. So, the hue of our skin has nothing to do with the way light is identified as divinity.

​This transfiguration by Cornelius Monsma is almost abstract, and maybe that is one of the fundamental ways we experience Christ…as an abstraction.

​[LIGHTS ON]

---------------------

So, those are the visual identifications with light. Some of the most amazing passages of scripture also have to do with light. The Psalms have great images: “The Lord is my light and my salvation.” (Psalm 27) And Isaiah’s prophecy: “I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” And  in the gospels, Luke and John tend to use the most light imagery.

John’s prologue tells us that “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.” And the gospel writer tells us that John the baptizer “was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light which enlightens everyone.” And John’s portrayal of Jesus includes the great statement, “I am the light of the world.”

So, why am I telling you this? Why does it matter if light is used frequently to portray the presence of God?

For me, God is less anthropomorphic and more like a source of energy. One of my favorite metaphors for God is The Force. (In fact, you saw an image from the end of The Return of the Jedi,  there is a scene in which three Jedi masters, Anakin Skywalker, Obi-wan Kenobi, and Yoda, all appear in spirit form, bathed in light. Sounds like the Transfiguration to me.)

That may sounds kind of strange to you, but light is energy.

Photons are elementary particles and the basic unit of light.

And it’s the sense of the mystery of God that we get in this image that makes it so rich. Perhaps for you, different images – more concrete images – of God work well. But there may be some among us who don’t relate as well to Mother or Father, who need a sense of God as being more elemental, more pervasive, and less describable or identifiable with an anthropomorphic image.

Too often we put God in a box…a box that we define. Even the name “God” over-defines the reality of the divine.

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So, where do we connect with this fairly abstract notion of God? How do we have a relationship with light or energy or the Force? There are times in our lives when we seek mystery and other seasons of our lives when we find a need for more intimate human connection with the divine – the times when Mother or Father or she or he are more congruent with our experience of the sacred than “it.” Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our language had a special pronoun for the divine that could embody both the immanent relationship of parent and the transcendent mystery of light?

Sister Joan Chittister, one of the wisest voices of Roman Catholicism today, says that “Our role in life is to bring the light of our own souls to the dim places around us.” And if we see that we 
are created in God’s image, we have the flicker of divine light within us.

“There two ways of spreading light,” wrote Edith Wharton, “To be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” And when we, as  the church, are at our best, we illumine the way for each other and we reflect the light of God, holding a mirror to shine the light in the shadowy corners of each other’s lives.

So, how does this play out in your  experience?  Are  there times in your life when you have been the recipient of light from another person? Are there moments when your light has brightened the life of another? In these days when our society is in the depths   of political anxiety, how might we be a beacon for one another?

And on a larger scale, how can Plymouth be a beacon of hope for the community?

May we, all of us, use the light we’ve been given to illumine  the path for each other and for all God’s people. To close, let me share with you a prayer I learned from Marcus Borg more than a   few years ago…it’s one of the prayers I say every morning: Lord Jesus Christ, You are the light of the world, fill our minds with your peace, and our hearts with your love.

Amen.