"Marked by God's Love"
February 3, 2008: Transfiguration / Mardi Gras Sunday, Year A
The Rev. Caroline K. Murphy, interim senior minister
United Church on the Green, UCC: New Haven, CT
www.UnitedChurchontheGreen.org

Scripture:

"May God take these words and make from them a holy word for us today."

Exodus 24:12-18

The Lord said to Moses, "Come up to me on the mountain, and wait there; and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction." So Moses set out with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up into the mountain of God. To the elders he had said, "Wait here for us, until we come to you again; for Aaron and Hur are with you; whoever has a dispute may go to them." Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. The glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the cloud. Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. Moses entered the cloud, and went up on the mountain. Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.

Matthew 17:1-9

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.

Then Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!" When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, "Get up and do not be afraid." And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, "Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead."

"Friends, God is still speaking to the world. May our hearts be open to listen and respond. Amen."

Sermon:

It is late August, a sunlit morning toward the end of a glorious summer vacation. Our last day to gaze on the awe-inspiring sight of the Grand Tetons, rising out of the high plains of Wyoming into snow-capped magnificence. My friends and I have decided to attend a worship service that Sunday morning, to spend one last hour sitting in a rustic chapel, looking out from our pews at the communion table and cross, and past them through a clear glass window at the high mountains beyond. The service itself is nothing out of the ordinary; I couldn't tell you much any more about the scripture that was read, or the sermon that was preached, or the hymns that were sung. What has stuck with me is simply the experience of being in worship in the presence of those awe-inspiring mountains in a place aptly named the Chapel of the Transfiguration.

Transfiguration is one of those very long words that Christian churches came up with centuries ago in an attempt to find some way of talking about an experience that almost defies being put into words. It's as if someone figured that, if you threw enough syllables at something, you'd somehow pin it down! Transfiguration is a concept that cannot quite be pinned down, but its essence has to do with change, with transformation, with utter and striking clarity about the sacredness that is at the heart of the universe.

The biblical story of the Transfiguration comes right in the middle of Jesus' ministry. Following his baptism by John and his forty days in the wilderness, Jesus has been gathering disciples, teaching, preaching, healing, and spreading the word about God's kingdom throughout the region of Galilee. This mountaintop experience seems to cap it all off. Jesus' whole being, right down to the clothes he is wearing, becomes dazzling white. Moses and Elijah, the two great towering figures from the Hebrew scriptures, engage him in deep conversation. A cloud, representing God's own presence, surrounds them, and out of that cloud comes a voice: "This is my Son, the beloved" — or, as the contemporary translator Eugene Peterson puts it, "This is my Son, marked by my love."

A magnificent moment — surely now all will be clear, all will be well! Peter enthusiastically offers to set about building some huts or booths, so that everyone can stay right there, basking in all that light and glory. It's the same instinct, perhaps, that propelled me to take home a postcard of the Grand Tetons as viewed through the window of the Chapel of the Transfiguration and tape it to the door of my church office, or that leads us to set around mementos of weddings or graduations or ordinations. Like Peter, most of have a very human desire to hold onto such moments — moments that we wish would never end.

The moment does end, of course, and the story moves on — as Jesus knows it must. Before he ever starts climbing up that mountain, he has begun preparing his friends for the suffering that lies ahead. Jesus' path, and the path of those who would follow him, will lead down the mountain and south toward Jerusalem, into the very heart of suffering and death. The story does not end on the mountaintop, any more than the Exodus story ends on the top of Mt. Sinai; and the road ahead may be full of peril.

This week I had the opportunity to see a play at Long Wharf Theatre that reminded me forcefully of those perils. The play, which was essentially a series of vignettes loosely organized around the theme of the human body, is by turns thought provoking, hilariously funny, and profoundly disturbing. As I was anticipating this Sunday, I couldn't help but be struck by one segment in which the playwright and actress, Anna Deavere Smith, spoke in the voices of some of the folks who were on the ground in New Orleans in the immediate aftermath of Katrina.²

An internationally seasoned news reporter spoke of the utter shock he felt in witnessing scenes that he would never have expected to see in this country — bodies strewn about in the chaos or floating along the water-clogged streets of the city, days after the hurricane had hit. A medical professional at Charity Hospital who had fervently believed that every person could expect to receive appropriate medical attention, regardless of which hospital they entered, spoke of her dawning realization that long after the patients at the wealthier hospitals had been helicoptered out, her patients were still stranded, and were probably not going to be rescued.

This Mardi Gras service — your third here at United Church on the Green — is a conscious effort to remember both the acute suffering of those first days and the enormous struggles that New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast still face in the wake of all that devastation. And yet this service is also a joyful one. The celebration of Mardi Gras — the food, the costumes, the laughter, the incredible jazz music — all this has been key in sustaining the spirit of a city that has suffered so much. Mardi Gras is, for the city of New Orleans, an annual mountaintop moment, just as Transfiguration Sunday is in the liturgical calendar of the church. How fitting that your senior pastor, John Gage, is starting his sabbatical by celebrating Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I hope he whoops it up and has a fabulous time!

Because those mountaintop moments are crucial. We can't stay in them forever; there's no fairy-tale ending in the 17^th chapter of the Gospel According to Matthew whereby Peter and James and John and the rest of us might simply live happily ever after. The story does go on, full of disappointments and challenges and hardships. But something will linger with those disciples. Maybe it is the vision of that dazzling, white light. Maybe it is the way Jesus came to them and touched them, telling them not to be afraid. Maybe it is the sound of the divine voice, speaking the same words that had reverberated through Jesus' baptism: "You are my Son, my Child, marked by my love" (Matthew 3:17).

These are words which shimmer through every baptism. But if we listen for them, they can be heard not only at the beginning of our life of faith. They shine through moments of illumination all along our journey — moments when we climb out of the everyday to recenter ourselves in God's presence and in our own identity as God's beloved children. We may not be able to stay in those moments forever, but if we seek them out and live into them, slowly but surely we may feel them working their transforming effect on us. The great spiritual writer Henri Nouwen once said, "Every time you listen with great attentiveness to the voice that calls you the Beloved, you will discover within yourself a desire to hear that voice longer and more deeply."

When or how do you hear God's voice calling you Beloved? When have you known in your bones that you are God's own child, marked by God's love? Another way of asking the question might be this: When do you find yourself living fully in the present moment, your spirit uplifted, your cares and anxieties and doubts and insecurities sloughed off, left to the side? When do you find yourself seeing life from a broader, deeper, truer perspective? When do you feel centered in God's love and joy?

Those moments may come in the presence of mountains that literally lift us up out of the flatlands. East Rock, while not quite in the same league as the Grand Tetons, can have that effect on me — the sight its red cragginess reflected in the waters of the Mill River. So can the experience of music or dance or worship. These are all times when I may feel God's Spirit quenching the dusty and dry places within my own spirit, recentering me in a sense of love and joy, filling my being with a light that, with God's grace, may shine through the more ordinary or even difficult parts of my life. What do those places and experiences look like for you? Whatever they are, seek them out. Live into them. We may not be able to stay on the mountaintop and live our whole lives there. But we can take the light of that moment and the truth of that voice with us wherever we go: "You are my child, my beloved child, marked by my love." That voice is speaking to you this day. That voice is speaking to your neighbor this day. Listen to it. Listen to it long and deeply, and by God's grace we shall indeed be transformed. May it be so! Amen.