The Rev Josephine Robertson
All Saints, Bellevue, WA
Last Sunday after the Epiphany (readings at link)
So. First, because this is important, the reading from 1st Corinthians today is deeply problematic. Jewish folks do not have an incomplete relationship with God. They are not missing anything, their minds are not hardened. They are not missing anything. They are beloved of God, the children of God’s first covenant with humanity, and still a blessing for this world.
That God has deigned to adopt us as well does not lesson God’s relationship with Jews one bit. A fact that the Vatican and the Archbishop of Canterbury has affirmed in official statements. We don’t have to look far to see how the words of 2nd Corinthians have caused deep and lasting harm to our Jewish neighbors. Whoever wrote what we call the second letter to the Corinthians, be that Paul or someone else was, is simply wrong. This letter was written in a time of conflict as the early Jesus movement sought to define itself as something new and separate from Judaism. We can understand why that author might write such a thing, and we can also acknowledge how such statements have hurt and killed real people.
When we find places where our scriptures get things wrong, we are duty bound to call that out, to always (as Jesus did) put the welfare of human beings, whom God loves, first.
But that isn’t what I want to talk about today, not really. I want to talk about revelation and what it demands of us. Because the story from Exodus, and from Luke today are both stories of revelation.
In Exodus Moses speaks with God, face to face. And the experience is so transformative that it is as if his skin has absorbed the power and majesty of God. His face glows, as if lit from within. And it is by that miraculous light that the Israelites know he has been with God, and has brought the word of God to them. After Moses talks to God, he is different. He’s been changed.
And the lives of the Israelites have also been irrevocably changed. They can never go back to who they were before. Their journey from now on will lead them onward as partners with God, joined forever by the covenant.
It is almost certainly this story of Moses being transfigured by his encounter with God that Luke means us to think of when he tells of Jesus’ transfiguration. Here we again have a mountain top (a common theme of meeting the Divine in such high wild places), and we have Jesus meeting with the great Jewish prophets Moses and Elijah, both of whom brought revelation from God for the people of their time.
And Jesus is transformed. Like the Israelites who were awed by Moses’ transformed appearance the disciples are utterly dazzled by Jesus’ as well. Like Moses we hear that Jesus’ “face changed.” And even his clothes are made bright and dazzling.
Now, too often we’ve equated white with good, white with divine, and we’ve seen the harm that has done to those who don’t have fair European skin. I think it is important to note Luke does not say anywhere that Jesus is white and dazzling. There’s some Divine bleach for his clothes, but his face is just changed. The key here isn’t that white is good, but that direct experience of the Divine changes a person, changes a people.
And there’s something to be said about needing to sit down and absorb all that. Peter says essentially: we’ve met God here, let’s setup camp and figure this out! But God, being God, has other ideas. God doesn’t chastise Peter, or shame him. God simply redirects the disciples toward action: listen to Jesus, God says, listen.
I don’t know about you all but I like my routine. We’ve got our favorite restaurants and I’m likely to order the same one or two things every single time. My days have a routine to them, and if that routine gets interrupted I tend to feel out of sorts and out of balance. I hang out with the same small group of friends, watch the same TV shows, have prayed out of the same prayer book my whole life.
Setting up camp in the places where we’ve experienced goodness, especially where we’ve experience God is an understandable urge. All Saints has a very set rhythm. We even joke about how we always do things at 9:30am or 7pm. Our life together is predictable and for the most part pretty comfortable. Hopefully you meet God in this community. And it makes sense to not want to rock the boat of something that is working of us.
But. Notice something about our sacred stories? Who in them gets to sit comfortably where they are? Especially once they’ve met God.
Abraham? Nope.
Joseph or any of his relatives? Nuh uh.
Moses? Definitely not.
The Israelites from leaving slavery to life in the promised land? Nope.
Even the Kings of Israel don’t get to sit comfortably on their bums.
The disciples definitely don’t.
Jesus’ first followers get sent out into Gentile territory to take all these stories to totally new people.
As a community we are soon to become wanderers too. And it would be all too easy for us to want to just recreate as closely as possible what has been for twenty some years. But is that really where God is calling us?
I don’t know the answer to that question yet, right now probably none of us do. We may each be having different reactions to this season of discernment and change. Some of us might want to stay put as long as possible. Some of us might be ready to set off in a totally new direction, excited for adventure. Some of us might be feeling anxious, afraid. Some of us might just be tired, and can’t imagine what comes next. Some of us are looking for a comfortable promised land to settle in and rest. And all those reactions would be totally normal to our sacred stories.
God doesn’t need us to have all the answers before our journey begins, but to listen carefully, and follow where Jesus goes, even (or especially) when that leads us to places we never imagined. We are invited on a journey, and like the Israelites, like the people of God down through the ages God promises to go with us wherever that journey might lead. Often revelation has rooted our forebearers out of what was comfortable, what was familiar, but it has led them on ultimately to where they needed to be, to a destination only God could see. May we too find God in the midst of our lives and boldly listen and follow wherever God may lead.