Pastor Paul E. Hoffman

The Transfiguration of Our Lord

Beloved in Christ, grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In her novel, St. Maybe, Anne Tyler paints with words a tender scene between a brother and sister in which they long to hold, remember, hope.

The two are elementary school kids, being raised by their loving but unwilling grandparents after being orphaned by two separate tragedies that took first their father, and then their mother.  

Looking through their mother’s things, the sister finds a photograph.

Holding the picture by one corner, [she says]  “Don’t you dare get a speck of dirt on it,” she said. He took it very, very gently between the flat of his hands, the way you take an LP record. The crinkly edges felt like little teeth against his palms. 

It was a color photograph, with Jun 63 stamped on the border. A tin house trailer with cinder blocks for a doorstep, A pretty woman standing on the cinder blocks — black hair puffing to her shoulders, bright lipstick, ruffled pink dress —  holding a scowly baby (him!) in nothing but a diaper.

If only you could climb into photographs. [Little Thomas thought.] If only you could take a running jump and land there, deep inside.

If you could climb into a photograph and hold a moment, what moment would it be?

Seeing Moses and Elijah on either side of Jesus like two exclamation points framing him as they had never seen him before, Peter speaks for human longing to capture and save a moment. Climb into it, hold on to it forever. Lord, if you wish, I will make three dwellings here…

We, too, want to climb into the happy moments pictured in our heads and relive them, recall them, hold them. And why not?

In a world where the news is rarely good, can any of us be faulted for hoping to hold that which is lovely, if even for just a moment? We want to hold it by its crinkly edges, keep it from even a speck of dirt, and take a running jump and land there, deep inside.

As tempting as that sounds, it just isn’t the way life is though, is it? We don’t get to live only in the mountaintop moments. Like Jesus leading his threesome to the plain we are constantly reminded that life where we live it is life just one breath away from death. And if not the final death, then certainly all the little deaths that fill the moments, the hours, the months and years that cannot, will not be negated by in some random single triumphant moment. 

Do you remember the brilliant Steven Sondheim lyrics from A Little Night Music about all those little deaths?

         Every day a little death/in the parlor in the bed,

         In the curtains, in the silver/in the buttons, in the bread,

         In the murmurs in the pauses/in the gestures, in the sighs

         Every day a little sting/every day a little dies

         In the heart and in the head/in the looks and in the lies

That about covers it, doesn’t it? Try as we may to preserve those mountaintop moments, to take a running jump and land there, deep inside them, life happens. Death happens.

Far from the mountains’ bright resounding clouds where the voice of God seems so unmistakably near, most of our days are lived in the stifling valleys of dreaded diagnoses, unsettling scandals, endless, meaningless sound bites, threats of violence, unrelenting irrelevance, a planet we seem hell-bent to push to its peril. Is it any wonder we long to join Peter in enshrining the beautiful in a moment, a snapshot, a dwelling where we can hold it forever?

But Jesus is having none of it.  The transfigured one turns the tables and leaps instead into all the cherished and all the regrettable photos from the albums of our lives. There is no snapshot into which he will not go, even into the deepest darkest valley of the shadow of death. This story of the Transfiguration, is the mid-point mountain halfway between the celebrations of Jesus’ birth and Jesus’ death. Christ himself reminds the disciples that they are coming down the mountain to his death. This is no Kodak moment to which they descend with holding his dazzling presence in their minds’ eye. They are coming down the mountain where Jesus will leap into the deepest, most dreaded experience of human existence since Eden. They are descending to the grave. His grave. In Christ’s own death and resurrection we are pulled from the grave’s crinkly, jagged edges and into the transfiguring light of eternal hope. The wonder and resplendence of such hope no human eye has ever before seen or dared to imagine.

Christ promises the possibility of turning every day’s little deaths into brilliant, glowing life. Freed from any fear that might be holding us back, we are called to build booths of justice, mercy, and compassion for a world in need. We can only imagine taking care of ourselves. But Jesus brightens our imaginations to see the wonder of love extended to others, that the earth he loves might flourish as each and every life is filled with grace.

Picture this:  a world in which the murmurs and the sighs, the stings, the looks, the lies, are replaced forever with pure, bright, unmitigated compassion. That is the picture into which Christ leaps to join us with hope that will never die. That is the snapshot to sustain us as, in Jesus’ name, we work for a transfigured future of endless resurrection and life for all people everywhere.  Imagine it – as Jesus’ partners handing those in the  world a snapshot of justice where they’ve known none. Of mercy, where they’ve never been seen or heard. Of compassion where they’ve only ever been sidelined or disregarded. Imagine it, as Jesus’ partners. Then imagine watching those snapshots, by the power of the Risen Christ, being transfigured into scenes and movies, and eventually completely new and vibrant lives for all God’s people everywhere. To such sights as yet unseen in this self-absorbed and greedy world, Christ walks with us down the mountain. And in the valleys, Christ equip us to pour our lives into just such grateful service.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Paul E. Hoffman

The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany

Beloved in Christ, grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

If you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.

Can you imagine how long that might take? Jesus says: First, be reconciled to your brother or sister…. Rather than the few minutes we set aside in the Eucharistic liturgy to share the peace with one another before we bring our gifts to the altar, can you imagine how long it might take for us to first be reconciled with one another, and then move on to the offering and what follows?

It’s a beautiful if somewhat impractical thought, isn’t it? This business of reconciliation is a rich and messy endeavor. And, granted, some of those with whom we need to be reconciled are here with us in the assembly, but certainly not all. How long would it take? How long would it take, do you suppose, to do what it takes to find those who we believe might have something against us – note that Jesus says those who have something against us, not those we have something against…  How long would it take do you suppose for us to track those people down, lay ourselves humbly at their feet, seek their forgiveness, and then return to the assembly to continue with our worship? I think that it could take a really long time.

This idea of being at peace with one another – whoever, wherever those one anothers might be – stands at the centerpiece of this part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. At the heart of his message, Jesus imagines, even if we cannot, a community of followers who live together in peace.

It would be easy to make this all very legalistic, to set up this varied and eclectic catalog of ethics from Jesus as a new form of righteous-ness, which, as you know, almost always turns south into self-righteousness. So far in the history of humanity, no one has been able to keep the Law. So it is a fool’s errand to believe that now Jesus is setting up a new even more rigorous system that will frustrate us with failure at best and shame at worst.  

No, Jesus sets this scene of reconciliation with one another as a prerequisite to bringing a sacrificial gift to the altar. He wants it to be clear: harmonious relationships are more important than ritual satisfaction. Holy living, à la Jesus, is more than checking a box.

First be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. First, be reconciled.

This new way of living together in justice and mercy is tucked into a list of ways that we manage to alienate and take advantage of one another. It was as true for the ancients as it is for us this very day.

Maybe we’ve never drawn a gun on anyone, but anger festers, insults, abound, the culture calls everyone with whom we disagree “a fool” in one way or another, but usually with much harsher words

Jesus paints a picture of a world in which women are not treated as property to be disposed of at the whim of a man’s desires.  He imagines a community where every person in valued, and believed worthy of reconciliation. He challenges us to imagine a world in which one’s word is honored and respected. A world where saying YES is the same as meaning YES. The same as DOING yes. No swearing necessary.

And if you think that these are standards of compassionate living that were only needed in his time, think again. We continue to live in a world where women and people of color are still forced to scratch and claw in a culture deaf to their quest for equality. Persons whose self-expression challenges the hetero-normative culture long to be seen, but too often are dismissed in ways that closely resemble handing them a certificate of dismissal, as men did with their wives in Jesus’ day, waving them off, putting them away. Out.

We dismiss people with modern day equivalents of ritual sacrifice by sending a dismissive email and washing our hands of them and their paltry opinions. We salve our souls with a perfunctory text but fail to get to the bottom of what others long for or need. We reconcile with non-apologies. You know the kind, “If something I did offended you, well, sorry.”

Jesus wants more for us. With eyes of love fashioned before the Creation was formed, he looks on us and longs for us to live a reconciled life with one another. A life where sin and guilt and injustice and dis-ease are crucified, dead and buried. And here in words meant to heal, not condemn, he raises up a new vision, the entrance ramp to his new creation. First, go and be reconciled… Christ wants us to be partners with him in that New Creation, living in the spirit of his love, his life, his endless possibilities for purpose and depth – in what we say and do in the community of Christ and in the world. Do you see that he wants that first? Jesus wants us to live together in harmony more than he wants an offering. Especially an offering that is less than genuine. Especially an offering that just checks off a box. Jesus wants us to share the peace. And yes, I think it could take a really long time if we do it with all our hearts. But then the table is waiting, spread with a taste of the New Creation. And whether we’ve succeeded or whether we’ve failed, we are still invited.

This new life to which Christ invites us begins with reconciling. It begins with sharing the peace. It begins with taking that peace beyond these doors and into a world that is longing for meaning and hope. It is our joyful task to seek that peace of Christ in every person, in every nation. It is our baptismal call to be partners with Christ in bringing the light of dignity to every living being.

It may take a very long time. But in his dying and in his rising, Christ promises a day when time will be no more and we will all live together in both his presence and his peace. But there is no need to wait. First be reconciled to your brother or your sister, right here, right now.  And Christ’s peace will come flooding back upon you.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.