THE KIRK OF KILDAIRE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

CARY, NC

www.kirkofkildaire.org

A sermon preached by Warren Bock

"Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!"

Transfiguration Sunday

February 18, 2007

We come to the Bible in search of two understandings:
first, to understand who Jesus is, since Jesus is central to the Biblical story and to our Christian faith;
second, to understand whom we are in light of whom Jesus is.

Today is Transfiguration Sunday.
We have just read the Transfiguration story according to Luke.

Jesus goes to the mountain to pray,
and while praying he goes through some life transforming experience, some metamorphosis that is "seen" by three of his disciples.

I am a " news junky."
One of the things a "news junky" learns about is
the practice of "background briefings."

A background briefing gives reporters
knowledge that will help them better interpret
the information that they will receive later
in a public press conference.

I would like to give you two "back-ground" briefings on the Transfiguration story.

First background briefing: I want you to think about location, location, location.

And the locations I want you to think about are mountains.
Many, if not all, religions think of mountains as holy spaces.
Eastern religions have their sacred mountains in Tibet [Mt. Everest], in Japan [Mt. Fugi]. Western Native Americans have their holy mountains.
Jews, Christians and Muslims all have "holy mountains in common: Mt. Sinai, Mt. Carmel, Mt. Zionin Jerusalem
Then for Christians there is, of course, Mt. Olive
and Mt. Calvary, though, in truth both are more hills than mountains.
These mountains are geographically "real"-we can locate them on a map.
But they are also mythologically real!

By which I mean they take on a life of their own in art and poetry,
song and saga, hymn and communal memory.
They inform and inspire the minds and hearts of the faithful.

In the Bible, mountains are those places, real or mythic--or both-
where the One whom we call God touches
human life in an unexpected and, shall we say, unbelievable way.
Moses goes to rugged Mt. Sinai, and there he comes into
the presence of God-a presence that is fire and cloud.
Moses comes away from that meeting, in the words of the old hymn, 'glowing with the fire divine.'
He has met God and he comes away changed.
The story is that he so radiates the light of the divine presence
that he has to wear a mask to shield those around him from that light.

Then there is Elijah, the prophet. Cowering in a cave on Mt. Sinai, because he bravely challenged wicked Queen Jezebel
and is now running for his very life.
Elijah e comes to the mountain-the place of earthquake, wind, and fire-and the divine presence comes to him "in a sound of gentle stillness"
He complains to God that he has been left alone to challenge Jezebel.
God's answer is simply silence: the silence of God's Presence. He is not alone; God is there.

Mountains in Scripture are those spaces where the One whom we call God touches human life in an unexpected and unbelievable way.

Background briefing two: The Biblical word to describe God is the word "Glory". It is a term used to describe, but not to define.
In the Hebrew Scriptures God is called "the Nameless One".
When Moses asks God who he is,
God tells Moses that he is "I am" . "I be!"
That name says that God is; yet God is not defined.
So, when we speak of the Glory of God, we are using a term
that we cannot define.
All we can say is that God is what philosopher Will James calls "The More".

"More" than anything to which we can give definition.

I believe, and I believe this strongly,
that any time we have dealings with God
we are having dealings with "The More", The Mystery.
Over the years, in my preaching, I have used the words "The Unlike One."
I can't really say who God is.
All I can say is who God is unlike.
God is unlike you,
God is unlike me,
God is unlike anyone or anything we know, have known, or will know.
Un-equaled. Un-paralled. Matchless. Unique.

No description ever comes close to capturing who God is.
God is not defined nor is God definable.
God is, in Biblical words, "The Glory".

Still, the very metaphor "Glory" leaves us
with an image of "glowing", of radiance, of "shining";
of an inner energy or power that "busts out" of whatever
we build to contain it.

I believe that however else we might speak of God,
or think of God,
there is of God an empowering presence

that touches our inner-most lives so that we come away
from being touched with a deep sense of "the glory".
Now, let's turn to the story of Jesus
"come up to the mountain to pray"--
to quote the old gospel song.

Something fantastic happens on that mountain.
We don't really know what.
All we have are the gospel witnesses
and they each have a differing perspective.
Whatever happened and however it happened,
the witnesses are sure of this:
the glory of God "shined" in a human's life.
In and through Jesus of Nazareth, as ordinary, as common a perspm as you or I-in him the very Presence of the One who is "The More", is somehow revealed.
The disciples perceive him as somehow the dwelling place of "The More".

In this story we discover,
or perhaps better said,
it is shown to us
that God lives in our ordinary human life.
In this story, the location of God's presence becomes a human being, not a geographical place;
the Glory which is God's presence is no longer on a mountain,
or in a fire, or in a cloud [which is old Israel's experience]-out beyond us,
but in the Person of Jesus in whom the Glory is focused in ways that we can "see" and "know" and "touch". In other words, in human terms.
He, the radiant one, is one with us and one of us.

The sacred place, for Christians, is Jesus.
The sacred Light, for Christians, is Jesus.
I used to try to analyze and explain this Transfiguration.

I would try to explain what happened or didn't happen on this holy mountain.
I would try to make what happened fit into rational categories.
Or I would abandon that, and speak of poetry or metaphor.
But, I've given up on explanations. On analyses.
On trying to make sense of this story.

I heard a Lutheran preacher a few months ago,
who would have said after reading this story, "This is fantastic!".

It is fantastic!
It is incredible; it is an impossible tale.
Think about it for a minute: fantasy.
The Greek word for fantasy is "to make visible."
So here we have this improbable event, this fantastic
occurrence that makes visible to the disciples and to us
that this human person, Jesus, is somehow an expression of "The
Glorious More".

"This is my Son, my Chosen. Listen to him."

And what do we do in this Presence of the Mystery of "The More".
We worship the Son, the Chosen One. We kneel and adore.

Well, now, whom do we understand that we are
in the light of this story.

Well, the sacred place is us, in whom God's Presence lives. .
We reflect the holy light that we see in Christ.
In a strange sense, we become 'The Chosen'.

The Apostle Paul says that, in the Spirit of Jesus,
our human existence is permeated with "The More"
so that we are always being "metamorphosed",
transformed- "changed from glory to glory"
-renewed by the living Spirit of God within us-the Spirit that somehow permeates the very heart of our being.

I read this to mean that God is not out there somewhere.
But that God is somehow "in here"-at the core of whom you and I

are, continually bringing us, you and I, "from glory to glory",
into a deeper and deeper relationship with God in Christ.

Thomas Merton has been one of my mentors for forty years.
Merton was a Trappist monk, living in the monastery in Bardstown, Ky.

One day he had to go into Louisville, and was wandering around the downtown waiting for his ride.
And he says, he looked at the people around him on the corner of 4th and Broadway,
and he saw every human being in his view "radiating the glory of God."
Permeated by the Presence.

He was stunned into ecstasy.
This is what he wrote in his journal:
'There is no way of telling people that they are walking around shining like the sun."

I look out and I see you, Christ's own, shining like the sun. Believe it.

Metamorphosis-being changed from glory into glory.
Walking around shining like the sun.

In Christ, there is The Glory

In Christ, we share that Glory.
Glory, glory, Hallelujah.

Amen.

In light of what I have just said to you, I want to say something about Stephen Ministers.

In a few moments we are going to commission Stephen Ministers and a Stephen leader.
We are commissioning them for a particular task at the Kirk and in the community.

I trained as a Stephen Minister, and have been serving as their pastoral liaison.

I want to tell you four things about the Stephen Ministers.

First of all, these are folk full of faith. These are folk who believe that God is somehow at work in our lives, in our human journey, to bring us to newness of life. When folk ask for a Stephen Minister, it is often because they are struggling to journey alone. They want someone to listen to them,to be with them-and often to pray with and for them.
Stephen Ministers are those who understand that we are walkingaround shining like the sun, even if we feel we are in the valley of the shadows.
To use another metaphor, they understand that a beautiful butterfly
can only be born through the painful breaking through the chrysalis of its earlier
life.
Stephen Ministers of full of faith.

Second, these Stephen Ministers are trustworthy. Stephen Ministers know how to keep confidences. And they keep them well. You can trust them to hear you, and keep what you say to themselves.

Third, these Stephen Ministers are compassionate. They will listen toyou, feel with you and feel for you. They will offer you their heart-felt care and concern. They will-and I know this-radiate the grace of God and the love of God. These are folk who, often, in their own lives have been "stunned into silence" by the Glory of God.

They will sit with you in that silence. Part of this compassion is their praying. My own prayer life has been revived and renewed by being with the Stephen Ministry. These folks believe in prayer. And they practice what they believe.

Fourth, these Stephen Ministers are skilled. All of us have been through fifty hours of intense training, and we continue that training each month. We have been trained in listening skills, in discernment, in keeping our own balance, and in other useful skills. Stephen ministers are competent.

All of us reflect the Glory of God. All of us "shine" like the sun. Stephen Ministers offer us at the Kirk a way of allowing the Spirit of God to work in us to bring us into deeper knowledge of our selves and a deepening relationship with the One whom we call Glory.
Thanks be to God.
Alleluia. Amen.