When God Calls Us To Work In The Vineyard

Jesus tells a parable, recorded in Matthew 20:1-16, about a landowner who goes to the town square to hire day laborers to work in his vineyard. The landowner promises those hired at six in the morning the proper day’s wage. Every three hours he employs more workers and promises to pay them “What is right.” Finally, at five in the afternoon he finds more who need work and sends them to the vineyard as well; without promise of specific pay. Most of us know this story:  at the end of the work day, the laborers are called and paid, beginning with the last employed and ending with the first. All are paid the same, and those hired first are unhappy and feel they have been treated unfairly. The landowner reminds them that they received the agreed upon pay and that he has the right to be generous with what is his.

This is a story of Grace and The Kingdom of God. God invites us all into his Kingdom in different ways and at different times. Some of us are invited many times before we accept his invitation to “go into his vineyard.” When we (finally?) accept God’s invitation, we go, and work: without counting the cost and without expecting pay. However, we are paid generously. God pays us all the same, and the pay is much, much better than “a day’s wage!”

Our pay is Eternal Life, membership in the Kingdom of God, a relationship with God and God’s people forever. Oh, and an opportunity to invite others into God’s Kingdom, into the Vineyard. Our work in the Vineyard is to share the Good News and to become Co-Creators with God.

God’s Good News: While we were yet sinners, Jesus died for us; it is never too late to enter the Kingdom of God; Jesus came into the world that we (all) might have abundant life. We become Co-Creators with God by: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked; by setting the prisoners free: free from sin, drugs and alcohol addiction, poverty, unjust laws, discrimination, and free from hatred, anger, bitterness and fear.

Hatred, anger, bitterness and fear are a major problem in the world today. This was true in Jesus’ day as well. The workers in his parable were so afraid that others might get more than they received, more than they deserved. It was not fair, it just was not fair. And at times life isn’t fair. But, Jesus is telling a different story, giving the people of his day, and us, a different message. Jesus is preaching about Grace. He is telling and showing us that life is not a “zero sum game, that for me to win, it is not necessary for you to lose.” He is proclaiming a Gospel not of scarcity, but of abundance!

Jesus is proclaiming that your good education does not prevent a good education for me; that your having a living wage will not prevent me from having a living wage; and that my having health insurance will not prevent your having health insurance.

It does mean that we need to plug in to Jesus, that when He asks us to work in his Vineyard that we go! No matter what! That we use our God given gifts and talents to create more good jobs that pay people fairly. That we work to help find ways to insure all people justly and affordably. I know these things are not easy. I know that there are many people wiser than I, who are trying to make these things happen. Yes, it is not easy, but it is important. God cares about our souls, yes, but God also cares about our earthly, physical lives as well.

What can you and I do to make the Master’s Vineyard blossom and grow? We can learn to work together and play together. We can learn not to call people idiots, losers and worse when we disagree with them. We can write and call our Senators, House Members and others in government to thank and encourage them. It is important that we stay informed about the world and what is happening, but, please, let’s not watch and listen to the news all the time! It will make us crazy and angry. Get outside, disconnect: paddle a kayak, buy a pair of boots and find a trail, play a round of golf, go fishing or simply sit on a creek bank and open you mind and heart to the beauty and power of God’s creation.

As we live and move and have our being in God’s Kingdom, let’s give up grumbling, let’s learn to pray to God for guidance and wisdom and peace, and to learn how to talk with and listen to one another with understanding, respect and grace.

“But Jesus replied to one of them, friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Are you envious because I am generous?”

“So the last will be first and the first will be last.” Something to think about. . . .

Forgiving and Being Forgiven

In the Gospel of Matthew 18:21-35, we read the story of the servant who owed his master so large an amount of money that it would have been impossible for him to repay it in his lifetime. The master planned to recoup his money by selling the man, his wife and his children. The man begged forgiveness of the debt and received it. As it turns out, on his way out the servant ran into a fellow servant who owed him a “few dollars.” Servant number one grabbed servant number two and demanded his money. The man begged for mercy and was thrown into prison by his colleague. Most of us know the rest of the story. The first servant was thrown into prison by an angry master who had shown him mercy, forgiveness.

Jesus tells this story in an attempt to show us that forgiveness is a two-way street. “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. . .forgive us our trespasses (sins) as we forgive those who trespass (sin) against us.” (Matthew 6:9-13)

Our “hero” apparently did not understand this simple lesson. He certainly understood the wanting to be forgiven part and its importance to him. He seemed to miss or not care about the “as we forgive those who trespass against us” part. I have thought a great deal about this and asked myself why he only acted on the being forgiven part:  Did he simply not understand? Just not care? Want to have his cake and eat it too? Was he just unable to make the connection between being forgiven and forgiving? Or did he, in Jesus Parable, represent “everyman and everywoman, showing us how easy it is to accept forgiveness and yet not understand that we must also forgive.

Remember how Matthew began this passage. He began with his disciple Peter asking Jesus about forgiveness, about how often he should forgive a brother or sister. I do not believe Peter received the answer he hoped for. Peter was hoping for a finite number, “7.” Jesus gave him basically an infinite number, “77.” And, just in case Peter (and the others) missed the point, he answered with a story, as he often did, with the story we just looked at.

So why is it easier to accept forgiveness than to forgive? Perhaps we believe we were correct in the first place and are only receiving what we deserve; or, we are unwilling to accept our part in the conflict, our fault, our sin. Last week I attended a workshop for the Clergy of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama entitled “Leadership in Anxious Times.” The leader, a Mennonite, reminded us that in any Church conflict, all parties have played some part and no one is completely free of responsibility. My mind and emotions immediately went back to a conflict in which I was involved and after which I resigned my pastorate. Was I the victim, was the church the victim, could I have done some things differently, could the church have done things differently? The answer to all these questions is yes. Would the results have been different: maybe, maybe not. I might still have resigned from my position, the church might still have been divided, but healing may have come easier to all concerned, and all of us just might have learned a lesson in how to react and function the next time we find ourselves in a similar situation.

The best example of forgiveness I have ever witnessed and the model for most such efforts in the world today is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa which was formed in 1994 at the end of the Apartheid segregation in that nation. Anglican Archbishop, Desmond Tutu headed the commission, and it was designed to give the victims, those who had lost family members, property and homes to tell those who had committed these atrocities how their lives were affected by them. The perpetrators who desired were given the opportunity to respond and ask for forgiveness. This process paved the way for a peaceful transition in South Africa and gave the people and the nation hope for the future. Archbishop Tutu later wrote a book, No Future Without Forgiveness.

I leave you with a prayer and a scripture:

Prayer of St. Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

2 Corinthians 5:17-19

“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see! everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.”

 

Grace and Forgiveness

Thanks to my friend Evan Garner for reminding me how important it is to read a Gospel passage in context with the surrounding verses, in order not to lose or distort the real purpose of the passage. The Gospel recommended in the Common Lectionary for this past Sunday was Matthew 18:15-20 in which Jesus tells his followers how to deal with a person who sins against them.

Jesus said, “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”

Think about the implications of bringing your offender before the entire church. The mechanics are good, but the act could be awkward, to say the least. If we look at the passages before and after, however, we begin to see a larger story. We see a story not just about “how to confront a sinner,” but, one about how to give as well as receive forgiveness.

In Matthew 18:10-14 we read Jesus’ parable about the lost sheep, in which God searches out the one lost sheep and rejoices in heaven when it is found.

‘What do you think? If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.

“So the purpose of Jesus’ process of confrontation is not just about setting up an elaborate process for seeking reconciliation, or excommunicating the sinner but about showing the great lengths to which one must go for forgiveness.” (Evan Garner, A Long Way From Home) In fact, Matthew moves us quickly to a piece that pulls Jesus’ message together, ‘the question of forgiveness.’ Then Peter came and said to him, ‘Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?’  Jesus said to him, ‘Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times. (Matthew 18:21-22)

Jesus’ message is not about rooting out sin, but about showing forgiveness.

The Amish response to the killing of 10 young girls in 2006 brings Jesus’ message of forgiveness to our day in a very powerful way.

In the hours and days following the tragic Amish school shooting of 10 young schoolgirls in a one-room Amish school in October 2006 , an unexpected story developed.

In the midst of their grief over this shocking loss, the Amish community didn’t cast blame, they didn’t point fingers, they didn’t hold a press conference with attorneys at their sides. Instead, they reached out with grace and compassion toward the killer’s family.

The afternoon of the shooting an Amish grandfather of one of the girls who was killed expressed forgiveness toward the killer, Charles Roberts. That same day Amish neighbors visited the Roberts family to comfort them in their sorrow and pain.

Later that week the Roberts family was invited to the funeral of one of the Amish girls who had been killed. And Amish mourners outnumbered the non-Amish at Charles Roberts’ funeral.

It’s ironic that the killer was tormented for nine years by the pre-mature death of his young daughter. He never forgave God for her death. Yet, after he cold-bloodedly shot 10 innocent Amish school girls, the Amish almost immediately forgave him and showed compassion toward his family.

In a world at war and in a society that often points fingers and blames others, this reaction was unheard of.

Me: “How many times must I forgive one who sins against me?” Jesus, “As many as it takes.”
 

It Takes a Village to Overcome Disaster: Reflections on Jesus and Hurricanes

Sermons grow out of the interaction of Holy Scripture, prayer, and the life that is going on around us right here and right now. As I reflected on the scriptures this past week in preparation to preach, I also kept track of the news of Hurricane Harvey and the devastation poured upon the people of Houston and Southeast Texas, a place once home for my wife and me. We still have friends in the area, some of whom lost everything they had, and others are working as I write to help those in need. How do the Scriptures and the teachings of Christ inform our lives in situations such as this?

On Sunday, we prayed: “Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works. Amen.”

This prayer was followed by a reading from Exodus 3:1-15 in which Moses encounters God in a burning bush, and is reminded by God that he is standing on Holy Ground. Truly the Earth is the Lord’s for he made it, the whole Earth is Holy Ground, and we, as God’s people, are its stewards. This is especially true during times of devastation such as that experienced by the residents of Texas through the winds and waters of Harvey.

St. Paul (Romans 12:9ff) encourages us to love genuinely, to rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering and to persevere in prayer. He encourages us to contribute to the needs of the saints and to extend hospitality to strangers. Finally Jesus challenges us (Matthew 16:21-28): “If any want to become my followers, they must deny themselves, take up their crosses and follow me. Those who want to save their lives will lose them, and those who lose their lives for my sake will find them.”

Twelve years ago, I was involved with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. I lived in Beaumont, Texas and am a hurricane survivor. First we welcomed thousands of Katrina refugees into Beaumont. After helping provide food, clothing and shelter to those in need, Rita headed our way and we were forced to join our Louisiana refugees and evacuate to safety. The evacuation and clean up, were difficult physically, mentally and spiritually.

People in Beaumont, many my friends, as well as people in Houston and other coastal towns have had their homes flooded. Water anywhere from a few inches up to eight feet fills some homes. Beaumont was without running water for four days, and even now those who have water must boil it before drinking. Power is slowly being restored, but still some are without. Many have been evacuated, and some of these may never come back to Beaumont, and will begin a new life in a new location.

Those following Jesus’ admonition to “pick up their cross and follow him are making a difference and are bringing life back to a soggy and exhausted community. The Coast Guard, friends and neighbors, the Cajun Navy from Louisiana, FEMA, as well as other people with boats and dump trucks have rescued people and are now helping them get back to their homes to begin the difficult task of rebuilding their lives. Power companies from other states are there, and local churches and synagogues, including my friends at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, are providing food, water, clothing, books for children and even reading to the children. They are providing Bibles and prayers and a listening ear.

These people need our support. We cannot be there with them on the ground at this time, but we can send money through our denominations, The Red Cross, and other organizations on the ground. We who are Christ Episcopal Church are supporting the Episcopal Diocese of Texas, centered in Houston and St. Stephen’s Church in Beaumont with our gifts. I pray that you will find a way through your Church, Denomination, the Red Cross or other reliable organization to partner with in this rebuilding of God’s Kingdom on the Holy Ground in Texas.

I leave you with a prayer from my friend, the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas, The Right Reverend Andy Doyle:

Heavenly Father, in your Word you have given us a vision of that holy City where the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea: Behold and visit, we pray, the cities of the earth devastated by Hurricane Harvey. Sustain those displaced by the storm with food, drink, and all other bodily necessities of life. We especially remember before you all poor and neglected persons it would be easy for us to forget: the homeless and the destitute, the old and the sick, and all who have none to care for them; that, among all the changes and chances of this mortal life, we may ever be defended by your gracious and ready help; through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN. 

The Canaanite Woman, Jesus, and Crossville, Alabama

Most of us have heard the story. Jesus is traveling with his disciples when he encounters a Canaanite woman who asks him to heal her daughter, to rid her of a demon. Jesus does not even answer her, but he does tell his disciples, in her hearing, that he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

She then comes and kneels before him and asks again, “Lord help me,” to which Jesus responds, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She stands her ground and replies, “yes Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the table.” Jesus then commends her faith and grants her wish. (Matthew 15:21-28)

This was always a difficult story for me to hear. How could the Christ, the Son of God, be so uncaring, so cruel, to a mother whose child was in dire distress? That is, until I remembered the fourth century struggles and fights and shouting matches that led to the creeds: the creeds that declare Jesus both fully God and fully human. As I reflected on a fully human Jesus I was able to look at him in the same way I have looked at and studied the human race as a whole. Human beings are and always have been a tribal species. It is only the grace of God that allows us to see ourselves and all human beings as children of God.

Jesus as God was above this tribalism. Jesus as a human being was a first century Jew and like all human beings, first century Jews had their own religion, customs and foods. They were loyal to their families, their tribe and their religion. Other nations and peoples in the region and at that time had the same loyalties. The human Jesus lived into his time and place on Earth with all that implies. The Canaanite woman stood her ground, looked Jesus in the eye and pushed him to expand his human boundaries, to enlarge his vision of God’s plan for him. Jesus saw the world through both human and divine eyes, and after this encounter his two views of the world became one. We see this in an encounter with another woman, at a well in Samaria. “The time is coming,” he told her, “that true worshippers will worship God in Spirit and in Truth.” (John 4:23)

The important lesson for us is this: like the human Jesus, we human beings are bound by family, tribe and nation. We are peoples of different denominations, different faiths, or no faith at all. We eat different kinds of food, have different customs, ways of worship and languages. We used to be a national society, but now we are a global society. We may or may not like it, but this is the way life on this earth has evolved.

So, how do we adjust to these changes? How do we adapt? Do we even want to adapt? How can we be loyal to our family, our tribe and our nation, and at the same time be loyal and faithful to our God? Remember, it was not easy for Jesus either.

I share a story that just may give us a vision that will help us find answers to some of these questions. A story that may be, our “Canaanite Woman.” So, I give you a modern story, a Sand Mountain story, a story from a place and time with changes as dramatic as the changes that took place in Jesus’ day. This story was published on August 8, 2017 by the online news service, AL.Com, by Anna Claire Vollers, avollers@al.com, and focuses on Crossville High School, Principal David Uptain and the Mexican and Guatamalan immigration into North Alabama in the early 2000’s to work in the newly expanded poultry industry. I will summarize for you and encourage you to read the entire article as well as the following seven installments of the series, “Sand Mountain, a world in transition.”

David Uptain grew up in all-white Crossville Alabama, and forty-three years ago he was Quarterback on the all white football team. Today he has just retired after two decades as Principal of his Alma Mater, now a high school whose student body is 70% Mexican and Guatamalan. The immigration debate in the United States today is not an abstraction in Crossville, where languages, cultures and assumptions collide.

In the early 1800’s the original English and Scots-Irish settlers came to the isolated mountain top in Alabama, and like many immigrant communities they were proud, resilient and hard working. With the wave of new immigrants from the south, those who had lived there for generations were angry at worst, wary at best. How do you look out for your neighbors when you don’t speak the same language, eat the same food or have the same history? How do you learn to trust “outsiders.”

Uptain freely admits that he was prejudiced just as many of us who grew up on this mountain were. His attitude began to change when his sister started to date a Kuwaiti Exchange student. He did not want to lose his sister so he got to know the new boyfriend and learned to like him.

David Uptain saw himself as an ambassador of sorts, and made a commitment to use whatever influence he had as Principal to “take hold of both sides and pull them together.” “Patience is the key,” he said, “and understanding, prayer and a belief that everybody deserves a shot at anything we have to offer.”

Maria Quintana sits at the main desk in Crossville High's front office, about 10 steps from Uptain's office. She is technically the School Secretary, but also serves as translator and assists parents and grandparents in filling out forms and helps them make the school experience better for their children and grandchildren. Quintana came to Crossville as a child in the early 2000’s and began school in kindergarten and graduated from Crossville High School. She says the Crossville she loves today is not the town she experienced when she and her family arrived. “Then the whites and Hispanics didn’t mix, the new culture was not accepted and one could feel the tension.” In school she was bullied and the white boys would pull her long black hair. The English Learning Language teacher was called a “Wetback Lover” and worse.

Looking back, she says, “Things have changed so much. People are more accepting of each other; they are friends with people of other races.” And, she says, white people now shop at the Mexican grocery store and bakery. Everyone is trying new things.

Uptain reminds us that “Crossville still hasn’t made it to a place where everyone’s ok with everyone else. Most people, including Crossville’s teachers and students will tell you that.” But, he continues, “Profound change takes decades to work through. Crossville is home. I could have been one of have been one of those folks that said, I’m not doing this, I’m leaving. But Crossville means more to me than that. It meant we need to accept and change and grow, and become the right kind of person. It’s way beyond picking a side. It’s rooted now, down in my soul.”

The Canaanite woman, and Jesus would be proud!

A Tale of Two Marches:

A Tale of Two Marches:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

(With Apologies to Charles Dickens)

Two marches took place on Saturday, August 12, 2017: one in Hayneville, Alabama and one in Charlottesville, Virginia. I had written my sermon on Friday, August 11, before the events and aftermath of the two Marches. It was entitled, “If you want to walk on the Water, you have to get out of the boat,” and was based on Matthew 14:28-33.

Peter answered him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ He said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came towards Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’ When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshipped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’

It was, I thought, a pretty good sermon. By late afternoon on Saturday, I knew that today, Sunday, was going to begin very early in the morning, before daylight. Who knew we would have to “get out of the boat” so soon?

I did manage to keep the first couple of paragraphs of the original sermon, so there is that. I began with two questions: What is the situation in the church and the world today? Of what are we afraid? And, if we are afraid, we get out of the boat anyway. At Christ Episcopal Church, our drive circles around the church building and the entrance and exit are marked with signs, “Enter to Worship, and Exit to Serve. The message we receive each week is “come together in community to worship and receive strength, then go out into the world and do what Jesus did.” And do this, even if our feet get wet, and even if we are out of step with the world. To quote from the Beatitudes,

Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil

against you falsely for my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in

heaven, for in the same way the persecuted the prophets who were before you.

(Matthew 5:11-12)

Now back to our two Marches. The first March in Hayneville, Alabama, a March for justice, peace and equality, is in memory of Jonathan Myrick Daniels, an Episcopal Seminarian and graduate of Virginia Military Institute, who came to Alabama in 1965 to help African Americans register to vote. Daniels and several others, including Ruby Sales, an African American teenager, were arrested and held in the Lowndes County Jail. When they were released, some of them crossed the street to Cash’s Grocery to by something to drink. As they entered the store, a part time Deputy Sheriff leveled a shotgun at Sales and fired just as Daniels stepped in front of her to save her life. He died instantly. The Episcopal Dioceses of Alabama and the Central Gulf Coast sponsor this yearly pilgrimage to commemorate Daniels and all other martyrs of the civil rights movement.

The second March, which took place almost simultaneously, was “Unite the Right,” and was about hatred, terrorism and murder. Both of these Marches force us to “get out of the boat.” As we get out of the boat, we, like Peter, must keep our eyes on Jesus in order to withstand the storm and stay afloat.

Where were the Christians on this weekend in Charlottesville? On Friday night they were inside St. Paul’s Church on the Campus of the University of Virginia praying for justice and peace and surrounded by White Nationalists with torches. They were not able to leave until marchers disbursed. On Saturday, clergy and lay Christians were on the sidewalks carrying signs proclaiming justice, peace and equality and singing “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.” I believe Jesus would be and was there with them.

The White Nationalists were also on the streets. They were carying Nazi flags and Confederate Battle flags, making Nazi salutes and proclaiming Blood and Soil, a German expression coined in the late Nineteenth Century which refers to an ideology that focuses on ethnicity and territory. The phrase was popularized in the 1930’s with the rise of Nazi Germany.

President Trump finally made a generic statement that condemned the “egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides, on many sides.” But in this case there were not “many sides,” the perpetrators were White Nationalists. Terror is terror whether it is carried out by an ISIS driven car or a White Nationalist driven car, whether people are killed by radical Islamists or radical White people. Thank God for Congressman Paul Ryan, Senator Marco Rubio, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and others who were willing to call this a terrorist event carried out by White Nationalists. Sessions has called for an investigation into the incident as a terrorist attack.

We as Christians, as Americans, must call terror, terror. We must call racism, racism, and we must call hate, hate. One of the people interviewed in Charlottesville was David Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the KKK. I have met David Duke, looked into his eyes and felt I was in the presence of pure evil. I believe we as Christians can never, ever be a part of any movement that Mr. Duke is involved in. Historian, Howard Zinn wrote a book several years ago entitled, “You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train.” We can never be neutral, we must choose sides. Remaining neutral, not choosing sides, is to side with the oppressor.

Remember what Jesus said: “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely for my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way the persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:11-12)

Rejoice and be glad! Proclaim God’s Kingdom “on Earth as it is in Heaven!”

Jesus is Transfigured, We are Transformed

The Gospel of Luke records the remarkable story of Jesus’ Transfiguration. The story tells of the Mystical Experience that Changed Jesus’ life as well as his disciples, Peter, John and James. I believe hearing and reading and living into this story also transforms our lives.  

Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions. . .saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. . .Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. . .” While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen (Beloved); listen to him!” (Luke 9:28-36)

Like Peter, John and James, we want to preserve our mountain top experiences, we don’t want to let them go. Mountain top experiences can take different forms for different people: a retreat, a beautiful worship Service, a profound course of study, time spent outdoors in God’s Creation. We all have had experiences that touch our souls and bring us into the presence of the Creator of Heaven and Earth.

This story stimulates my imagination to envision this conversation between Jesus and Peter. In my imagination, Peter says to Jesus, “this is great, we can build these shelters for you and Moses and Elijah, and we can put you in a box, and we can worship you, and sing songs to you and about you, and take you out when we need or want you. Then we can put you back in your box so you won’t get in the way of what we want to do.”

But, Jesus says to Peter, “Peter, don’t you understand that I am bigger than that. You cannot box me in, you cannot create me in your own image.” Jesus continues, “I came to set you free, to create you in my image, and not only you, but the whole world, all people, nations and races.” As we read in the Gospel of John, “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:17)

I believe that we like the three disciples have seen God’s Glory. I invite you to let your imaginations reflect on that glory. Is God calling us to live into that Glory and to share it with others?

This past Sunday, we at Christ Episcopal Church celebrated the lives of our students and teachers and prayed for them and their backpacks, brief cases and book bags. We prayed that God will bless them in their learning and teaching as they journey together in search of both knowledge and wisdom. As important as this is for us to do every year at this time it is just as important for us to realize that we are all teachers as well as learners. As Jesus said on another mountain top:

 All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’ (Matthew 28:16-20)

As we teach, reading, writing and arithmetic, as we teach computers, music and sports, and how to think, we are also called by our God to teach one another how to love our Lord and our neighbors as we love our selves. (See Mark 12:29-31)

God is using us to teach others how to let God out of the boxes we put God in, to teach others how to let God be God, and how to experience God on “the mountain top,” and then come down the mountain and live in the world God has created. For it is in God that we live and move and have our being. (Acts 17:28)

As we see the Glory of God, my we live so that others may see God’s glory through us.