Sermon for Transfiguration Year B 2018 On the Brink

Transcription

1 Sermon for Transfiguration Year B 2018 On the Brink It s usually only on New Year s Eve at midnight that we have an acute sense of standing at the threshold, being on the brink between what is past and what is to come. God is not bound by time. The same is not true for us. You and I are bound by time. As Saint Augustine noted, we are forced to act within a tiny window of time the present since the past is not recoverable and the future is not yet available. In a sense, we are always in between what was and what will be. Being on the brink, on a threshold of in-between time is something that connects the story from the Old Testament and the gospel today. Together with Elijah and Elisha, and Peter, James, and John, we are as the Lady Gaga song goes on the edge of glory, hanging on a moment of truth. And what stories these are! Fiery chariots. Dazzling clothes. Magic mantles. Blinding clouds. It's Transfiguration Sunday, the apex of the liturgical season we call Epiphany, and our readings for today are full of mind-bending wonders. Elijah ascends to heaven in a whirlwind, and Jesus is transfigured on a mountaintop. There s nothing subtle about these spectacular stories; today we stand with undimmed eyes and witness God s glory in its fullness. 1

2 But here s the odd thing: these are not happy stories. As miraculous and light-filled as they are, each story is laced with confusion, loss, and sorrow. Why? Because, as I pointed out already, embedded in each is a threshold. A boundary line marking both a beginning and an end. And let s face it: we human beings rarely approach thresholds without hesitation. Sometimes we cross over with ambivalence, glancing back over our shoulders with uncertainty and nostalgia. Sometimes, we refuse to cross over at all. But what these stories teach us is that thresholds are absolutely essential to the life of faith. Crossing over is what keeps our faith dynamic. Without thresholds, without evolution, without movement, our faith withers. To appreciate what s at stake in our Old Testament reading, we need some backstory. In 2nd Kings, we learn that Elijah calls Elisha as his heir and acolyte when Elisha is still a young man, dutifully plowing his father's fields. Directed by God, Elijah walks out into the muddy fields, wraps his cloak around Elisha's shoulders, and calls him away to a new vocation. 2

3 Seven or eight good years go by. During this time, Elisha becomes Elijah's shadow, following his teacher around out of love, admiration, and a keen eagerness to learn anything his mentor will teach him. Their bond is so strong and so well known that when the time draws near for their parting, Elijah and the established community of prophets try in concert to help Elisha say goodbye. "I need to take the next step of this journey alone," Elijah tells his acolyte three separate times. "No, I will not leave you," Elisha stubbornly insists, clinging all the harder. "Do you know the Lord is about to take your master?" the other prophets ask Elisha, hoping he'll accept the inevitable before it's too late. "Shut up!" is Elisha's gracious reply. Elisha reacts as we might if we were standing at the brink of something new, hanging on a moment at a threshold a threshold of a change of identity, situation, change of relationship or responsibility. Everything he has known is about to change, and he is filled with pain and bewilderment. Can he trust his calling to be a prophet in the absence of Elijah's reassuring presence? Can he learn to decipher the voice of God on his own, without an experienced translator at his side? Can he, a loyal and eager follower, become a leader instead? I imagine we can relate to these questions or questions like them well questions about standing on the brink. 3

4 Regardless of the particulars, we all know what it s like to get used to one way of being in the world. One way of working, one way of relating to our families, one way of identifying ourselves through our work or school or other commitments and activities, one way of doing church, one way of knowing God. By the time Elijah s ascension draws near, his student Elisha is well entrenched in finding both his God and his purpose through his mentor. He can t bear the thought of having that safety net ripped away. Who will God become in Elijah s absence? Who will Elisha become, if he is forced to step into spiritual adulthood? If he is forced to grow and take responsibility? In this story as in our lives there is no way to avoid the thresholds that God appoints. The chariots come, the whirlwind descends, and Elijah leaves. Looking back across the centuries that separate us from this fiery display of God's power, I wonder: what did the drama accomplish? The fire, the wind, the horses? Were the fireworks for Elijah, headed anyway to heaven and all its cosmos-altering wonders? Or was Elisha the one who needed to understand, right from the beginning of his career, that God's glorious unveilings come at a price? That epiphanies aren't be-alls and cure-alls? 4

5 Elisha saw glory, that's for sure. But he also saw a point of no return, and his response was neither certitude nor joy. He tore his clothes and grieved. There are few scenes in the bible more poignant than the one that ends this story of Elijah and Elisha. As quickly as the vision comes, it departs again. There is no afterglow, no surge of prophetic authority or knowledge as Elisha lies grieving in the dust. Only silence. Only loss. Only questions. Why is this so? Because it's not the vision that saves Elisha. The vision is glorious, of course, but divine wonders alone can t save anyone. Elisha's salvation comes in the long silence after the glory. It comes when he still has no idea whether Elijah's "double portion" will rest on him, or not. It comes when he chooses to stand up, shoulder his grief, take up his teacher s mantle, stop standing at the brink and cross the threshold into a new and unfamiliar life. It s clear from the details in the story that this choice is neither easy nor inevitable. But the decision Elisha makes bears witness to the faith epiphanies can forge in us when we make the hard choice to stop standing at the brink and cross over. Yes, our faith may be battered, trembling even scorched. But it is also the faith that yields abundant life. 5

6 The second threshold story in this week s readings that of Jesus s Transfiguration is recorded in Matthew, Mark and Luke. Over the centuries, it has steadily accumulated meanings most of them thickly theological. Growing up, I was taught that the Transfiguration is important because it reveals Christ's divine nature, foreshadows his death, secures his place in the stream of Israel's salvific history, and prefigures his Resurrection. All of this is true and no doubt important. But for me, the story pivots around Peter, James, and John, the three terrified disciples who witness Jesus s transfiguration and just about lose their minds. (That s literally what the Greek text tells us they were scared out of their wits!) Like Elisha, these friends of Jesus have now spent quite a bit of time following him around, listening to his teachings, and witnessing his miracles. By the time Jesus invites them to the mountaintop, they have good reason to think they know their Master. They know him as a teacher, a storyteller, a healer, and a traveling companion. His face, his manners, his mission. All of this are familiar to them. Familiar, endearing, and safe. But then, on the mountain, the unimaginable happens. Before their very eyes, Jesus changes, becoming at once both fully himself and fully unrecognizable. And suddenly, just like Elisha, Jesus s stunned disciples find themselves standing upon a threshold. 6

7 The man they thought they knew is suddenly more, suddenly Other. And the path he's walking towards Jerusalem and death is suddenly far grimmer than they could ever have imagined. In other words, one phase of their life with Jesus is ending. What will it look like to begin another? They have journeyed with Jesus their teacher, the healer, the worker of wonders. Will they now journey with him towards the cross? Or will they insist as Peter briefly does in his fear and confusion on remaining exactly where they are, sedentary and safe? Building monuments and shrines to past glories, refusing to crossover the threshold into change. Today, on Transfiguration Sunday, we come to the end of another liturgical season. Having seen the light of Epiphany, we now prepare for the long shadows of Lent. We don t know what thresholds we will cross in the wilderness. We don t know how God might invite us to change, to grow, to crossover. And we don t know what losses or sorrows or responsibilities those crossings will include. Yet, these stories of being on the brink bear witness to something true about the life of faith: we can trust the One who invites us to cross over. 7

8 Why? Because in our decisions, individually and as a community, to follow Jesus, in our decisions to listen to him, in our decisions to commune with him, eat and drink with him, God comes to us not as a remote and distant consuming fire to be feared, but as a radiant power that brings us abundant life. Because the God we think we know is always more than we can imagine. As we stand between what came before and what is to come, we can feel as if we are overshadowed with fear and the unknown. But the clouds will disperse and reveal that Jesus is standing beside us, he has always been there whether we recognized him or not. As we stand at the edge, on the brink, here is the moment of truth With Jesus, our glory days are ahead, not behind us. So let us cross over and follow the Savior! 8