my original saturday plans were to be as follows:
1. be a bum until after eating lunch. this involves sleeping in, staying in my pjs, watching tv, reading books, etc
2. after lunch, work a bit on my sermon. reading, rereading, writing notes, reading, rereading. you get the picture, i hope
3. check on a dog (food and water)
4. study break in the form of a bluegrass concert.
5. finish sermon
6. sleep and be awesome in the morning when i preach at the two sunday services
here was my real saturday:
1. sleeping in (sadly enough after a week of getting up before 6:30, sleeping in was being awake before 7:30)
2. reading a book (great start to my day of being a bum)
3. getting a phone call at 10 asking if i had gotten any of the messages left yesterday. (which i didn't. and they had left four.) house was going to be shown at 2:30 that afternoon.
4. spent three hours cleaning the house. cause i hadn't been living in it all week
5. shoveled the driveway. which i hadn't done despite the fact that it had snowed 6 days earlier. because i hadn't been living in the house all week.
6. driving north of town to make sure a dog had food and water.
7. going shopping. picked up the groceries i was originally going to pick up after church on sunday. this was because i had to be out of the house. and had nowhere to go.
8. coming back to the house for a very short stint of working on my sermon. and got nothing accomplished cause i was in no frame of mind for such an activity.
9. going to the concert. cause i had paid $14 for the ticket. loving the concert. good bands (woodpicks from thief river falls and the main feature, junior sitz and the ramblers choice from virginia). highlight: louise telling me that i should meet her grandson. that is the second grandma connection this year...
10. leaving at intermission to work on my sermon
11. coming back and getting nothing done except be frustrated by writers block.
12. going to bed at 11:30.
and this morning:
1. up at 5:30. seriously. wide awake and completely alert. which is not typical for me in the morning.
2. started writing my sermon at 5:35. handwritten, of course
3. got to church a little before 8 so i could type and print off my sermon.
4. had more interruptions than i could have expected. but managed to get everything done and ready for the service at 9
5. shocked people with my insight. some of my favorite compliments: "i normally get distracted, but i paid attention to your whole sermon", "your personality showed through", "your best so far"
6. ate out lunch with friends from church. i heart roy and laurie.
7. came back to my house for a short while. watched 'the greatest game ever played'
8. went to a valentine's party with some ladies from church. found out that they are the 'lutheran nuns'. and are crazy fun. love to laugh and tell stories.
9. came back home to watch movies and veg out. since i didn't get to do that yesterday
but as a special treat for y'all, i decided to post my spectacular sermon:
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our souls be pleasing to you, O Lord, our rock and redeemer.
What was your mountaintop experience? The time when everything was clear. When you really felt the presence of God.
I have to admit that I really like being on the top of a mountain looking all around at God’s good creation. There have been several places where I have truly seen and felt God.
I remember one hike in particular. Bear Butte in western South Dakota. I was volunteering with a Bible camp and that week I was out on day camp. It was a sunny day and my friend Ruben and I decided to take this hike. We were told to schedule at least 3 hours to make it to the top and back. Of course, we didn’t have three hours, so we hustled. And it took us just over 2 hours. But what was really interesting was the fact that this was a sacred mountain for the Lakota. So there were several places along the trail where the people had tied ribbons or strips of fabric. These were their prayers. So our entire hike was lined with prayers. And when we reached the summit, we were rewarded with a great view.
Looking back, I remember those prayers. I remember thinking that it was such a neat idea to have the bright colors lining the trail. But I myself did not think to pray.
Unlike Jesus in our text, who spent 8 days in prayer.
I have to be honest. I have never struggled so much with a text like today’s. It humbles me as I try to figure out what message or life lessons I should be learning.
Because I don’t think this text is really about prayer. Yes, prayer is vital. It is necessary. And the transformations, the transfiguration takes place in the midst of prayer. But I don’t think that prayer is the focus of today’s text.
And I don’t think the focus is on the presence of Moses and Elijah. Yes, this is a significant piece in and of itself. I mean, how often do you get to meet two of the greatest men from the Bible?
You have Moses, the one who was selected despite his hesitation to lead the chosen people out from slavery in Egypt after God heard their groaning and prayers. The one who lead them for decades. The one who inspired Passover.
And Elijah, one of the greatest prophets. A prophet who was able to prove that his God, the God of Israel was the true God. The one able to control the rain and to bring fire to drenched altars. A prophet who didn’t really die but was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind. The one who the Jews to this day set an extra place for at the Passover seder.
Two great figures in the Jewish culture. Two that Peter and the others were excited to see.
But I don’t think the focus is on them.
Today, the message I keep hearing is the fact that this Transfiguration on the mountaintop is a life-changing experience.
The Transfiguration is the time and place where the onlookers really got to see the divine glory of God in the human person of Jesus. When they saw the divine shining through the human. This is the opposite off the Incarnation. This is the opposite of the little baby born in a manger. Christmas is the time when we rejoice that God came down to earth and was human, became one of us. But today, on the mountain, we get to see the divine glory in that human being. Jesus is brought up, as opposed to God coming down.
So what does that glory of God look like?
According to Luke, Jesus’ face was changed and his clothes were a dazzling white. I have no idea what would happen to someone’s face, but we have all heard that people can shine, that their faces and eyes can light up, and that when this happens, they look differently.
But I can picture a dazzling white.
I think of a layer of white snow that reflects the sun. And it hurts to look at such a brightness.
So I can imagine that the disciples struggled a bit to look directly at Jesus.
This shining was like Moses in Exodus. Moses was able to be so close to God, that when he came back, he was glowing. His face radiated the glory of God.
The Israelite people couldn’t handle the glare, so Moses covered his face with a veil. I compare this to us reaching for sunglasses or shades when we cannot handle the brightness.
But Jesus doesn’t put on a veil. He doesn’t shield his followers from the glory of God. They get the full experience of seeing the divine in their leader, a fellow human being who is the chosen and blessed Son of God.
They get to see Jesus at his highest before the path to suffering, the cross and death. For today, he is truly the light.
So what does all this mean?
I’m not positive, but I think that it involves being able to see the glory of God in this existence. We can see God’s light all around us: in the sun and stars, but also in the clouds and rain. On mountains and prairies. In every human face.
Because God is a part of each of us.
There is no shielding our eyes. Jesus does not give us a veil, but Paul suggests that he takes it off of our eyes so that we are able to see the glory.
And so we can look into the human, the mundane, the earthly to see how God might be shining. How God might be transforming what is dark or boring into something glorious.
The past few weeks we have been celebrating the light. Epiphany is all about the clarity and eye-opening experiences. Like the transfiguration today. We see the light that is in the person of Jesus Christ.
But that light has a counterpart. We cannot handle only living in the light. We cannot live our lives only on a mountain top. Eventually we all come back down and reenter the darker parts of life.
The season of Lent is close. Ash Wednesday is in three days. On that day we will be reminded of our humanness and the fact that we are all ashes and dust.
But for today, we have the pinnacle of light. Today Jesus shines and blinds us with the glory of God. The glory that is able to shine in the midst of the darkest hours. In the midst of suffering and sorrow and pain and death.
But God is able to transform all that darkness through Jesus.
So we shouldn’t be afraid of the darkness that threatens to consume us. God is able to put the glory of God in the earthly, the mundane, the human.
So today let’s leave worship with our eyes open to see the divine glory of God.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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