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August 31, 2006
Fred Heard - August 27, 2006
Sermon—August 27, 2006 Holy Trinity Episcopal Church
Father Fred Heard
Ephesians 5:21-33, John 6:60-69
It is always interesting to me to enter into a discussion when people start quoting their favorite Bible verses. Sometimes, their favorites are really from the Declaration of Independence or one of Shakespeare’s plays.
It gets awkward when they turn to you and insist that you provide the scriptural citation and with a straight face you must tell them it’s Romeo and Juliet!
And so today, we confront the elephant in the living room! You remember a few weeks ago when I quoted the bumper sticker that reads, “It’s in the Bible and I believe the Bible, end of discussion.” Mary Lambert has been a member of a First Baptist church in Watertown, New York for the past 60 years and she has been a Sunday school teacher there for 54 years. Last Thursday she was dismissed because the Diaconate Board adopted the scriptural qualifications which prohibit women from teaching men. The letter suggested that women should learn in quietness and be in full submission to men. They said Adam was formed first and he was not the one deceived. It was the woman who was deceived and became the sinner. The letter was signed by the wife of the pastor who is also a city council member in Watertown.
In this morning’s second reading we read, “Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord.” Misinterpretation of our second reading has actually led to women’s deaths over the years and has certainly played into the thinking that led to Mary Lambert’s dismissal as a Sunday school teacher. Interpretations of this scripture is one of the reasons that former President Jimmy Carter moved his membership to a more accepting and open Baptist church. But lest you think it is a Baptist problem, Adair’s mother, a devout cradle Episcopalian, had taught Sunday school for many years in Oregon and was told when she was pregnant with Adair’s youngest brother that it was “unseemly” to be around the children while she was pregnant and it would be best for her to take the year off from teaching. She never returned to church.
Unfortunately, there are Christian women whose husbands abuse them and then cite Ephesians 5 as their authority for the abuse, “Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord.” Something is wrong when a portion of the Bible is used as justification for abuse of anyone.
When I was in seminary, the day came when the New Testament professor was to lecture on Paul…great groans came from the class members. I will never forget the professor’s comment. He said, “Don’t be hard on Paul—he really was a liberal and has been given a bum wrap…by misinterpretation.”…and so what about this misinterpretation—well let’s look at it and I hope you will take this message and spread it throughout our community.
In Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia, Paul says without qualification that in Jesus Christ there is neither male nor female. He says that in Christ men and women stand on level ground. Where do society and Paul come from in reaching this point where Paul is so much inclined toward liberation of women? Ancient Greece followed the teachings of Socrates. He maintained that being born a woman is divine punishment and that a woman is halfway between a man and an animal. Socrates did suggest that a woman could serve in the armed forces because a female dog is as useful to a shepherd as a male dog. Aristotle noticed that a swarm of bees is led by one bee…a king bee, since males by nature are more fit to command than are females. Aristotle maintained that men show their courage by giving orders, while women show their courage by following orders. In ancient Athens women took no part in public affairs, never appearing with men at meals or social occasions. Things were better for women in Sparta and Egypt but neither influenced the world as Athens did.
In the Roman era which followed the Greeks, women were permitted to accompany husbands socially but were still regarded as humanly inferior. It was little better in the Jewish world. It was improper for a man to speak to a woman in public, even if she were his wife. If a married woman spoke to a man on the street, the rabbis said her husband could divorce her on the grounds that her conversation was insipient adultery. Now this is the background that Jesus and Paul emerged from as they conducted their ministries so think what a revolutionary Jesus was—every day he spoke to women in public! They even spoke to him! Women—married and unmarried were included in Jesus’ group of disciples. It was a woman who wiped his feet with her hair. Don’t you think Paul knew what Jesus was doing? Paul mentions female supporters by name. In the gospel, there are two women who struggled “beside me.” He doesn’t say under me. Paul refers to a married couple as fellow workers in Jesus Christ. He refers to them as Prisca and Aquila with her name first—which just wasn’t done. At the end of his Roman letter, Paul mentions several church leaders by name, and that list includes eight women.
One qualification for being an apostle was to have been an eye-witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Women were the first witnesses. Women preached and prayed and traveled with Jesus and it truly makes one wonder why they were good enough to minister in the company of Jesus Christ—but not, in the minds of some, good enough even today to be ordained and even serve as Bishop and Presiding Bishop in the Episcopal Church.
Notice that verse 21 precedes verse 22 in today’s reading: “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” This is for everyone…mutual subordination, mutual subjection, mutual self-denial. “Be subject to” does not mean obey. Paul never says that a wife or a husband is to obey the other.
In Ephesians, the theme is the unity of Christ and his people. Paul emphasizes this same unity between a husband and a wife and Christ and the church. In Ephesians 5:31-32 we read, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one.”
English is a difficult language because one word can have so many different meanings. So when we read that the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church—the key word is head. We turn to English and for our purposes the head is either a part of the body attached to the neck or a political head or chief boss or governor. Just as English has different words and meanings, Greek does also and that is the case with the words obey and head. In Greek and Hebrew, there were different words and meanings for head and obey.
The Old Testament was first written in Hebrew and later translated into Greek. Most of the Jews did not know Hebrew. Paul did—but he always quotes the Old Testament in Greek so that he might be understood. In Hebrew Rosh is the word for head when describing a chief, ruler, or a boss or commander. In Greek, the word for the same definition for head is ARCHON. Indeed, the President of my Greek fraternity in college was called the Archon.
When speaking of the “force of life” the word for head was KEPHALE. Paul speaks of the husband as the Kephale of his wife, not the Archon. In military parlance, Kephale is also used to speak of the front line soldier who is the first in line of fire. Paul often used military metaphors and compared the Christian journey to soldiering. Paul, then, believes the husband is like the soldier who incurs great vulnerability—the great risk— and is self forgetful…all for the sake of others.
The theme today in Ephesians is the unity of Christ and his people and the unity of husband and wife—it is not the hierarchy of either. “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Recognize each need in the other and help each other at whatever cost. Jesus said in today’s gospel, “I am the bread which came down from heaven…the one who eats this bread will live forever.” The “one who eats this bread”—neither male nor female is designated—but the one. Jesus has the words of eternal life. Those words do not include abuse or superiority…They are the words for all for all of the ages. AMEN
August 20, 2006
Anne Jensen - Aug 20, 2006
Proper 15B Pentecost 11
Proverbs 9:1-6, Psalm 34:9-14, Ephesians 5:15-20, John 6:53-59
“Taste and see that the Lord is good!”
Never has it been easier to imagine a feast than in the month of August in California. Farmers’ markets spring up all over the place, filled with beautiful vegetables and luscious fruits: hundreds of kinds of tomatoes, squashes, potatoes, plums, peaches, nectarines, strawberries, red and yellow raspberries, red and yellow cherries, blackberries and blueberries. Lettuce, all kinds of big leafy greens. Red beets, yellow beets. Still some apricots. Lemons, local wild salmon, fresh herbs from the garden. Melons, I forgot melons! Surely all this is a taste of heaven…a sign of God’s provision and love for us. Surely we would not turn down an invitation to feast knowing what is at hand.
In the reading from Proverbs Holy Wisdom, a personification of God, has laid the foundations of the earth—the seven pillars—and she has prepared a feast to which she invites all people. She has meat and drink. There are no prerequisites, no conditions to meet-- only an invitation, “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity and live, and walk in the way of in insight.” It is an invitation to fullness of life, not just materially, but spiritually as well.
Jesus and the people who came to hear him certainly would have known of this tradition, along with the story of the Exodus, when God sent manna from heaven to the people wandering in the wilderness.
Our gospel this morning comes from Chapter 6 of John’s gospel, Jesus’ discourse on bread, which begins with “I am the bread of life.” It follows the feeding of the 5000. Later that night he stills the stormy waters and returns the disciples to land. The crowds notice that Jesus is gone and they go look for him. When they find him they have many questions: Among them-- When and how did you come here? What must we do? What can you do for us to show us that you speak for God? Will you give us the bread that grants eternal life, and give it to us always? As in many parts of this gospel, there is a mystical quality to the words Jesus speaks. The words are profound.
They are also very graphic—startlingly so. Taking them literally has been a stumbling block for people from the moment they were spoken. This metaphor of flesh and blood works on several levels at once. Jesus’ deeds, his words, and his whole life, including his physical self, his very being—all of that is given as bread for the world to lead them to God. He is bread. Eating his flesh means incorporating him, accepting his teaching, but more than that, it means allowing him to abide in us, and making him part of our lives.
To eat of the bread of Jesus is to experience a personal encounter with the transcendent. Jesus is the new manna, the bread of life that satisfies both our physical hunger and our deeper communion desires. St. Augustine makes the point that the bread of which Jesus speaks “requires the hunger of the inner [person.]” He says the believer who eats in the heart is not one who merely “presses with his teeth.” I believe it’s August who says, “Become what you eat.”
Communion with Christ is at the heart of our faith. It is a mysterious participation in the ongoing life of Christ. Christ is bread, the staple of life, and unless we partake of him and his resurrection life, faith cannot live. There is something about taking another’s physical life into ours that changes our own, as marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, and adoption exemplify. When we eat this bread of life, our lives are conjoined with Christ’s. We are to be the bread for the world, living in such a way that we nourish the lives of others. We are called to live simply in a culture that praises consumption so that we can share that bread with the world.
But what if we feel like we’re only eating a tasteless wafer? Someone once confided to priest friend that she saw other people coming back from communion looking so holy that she felt she must be missing something. He assured her that most of them weren’t feeling anything more than she was. I guess she felt better after that.
Yet even when we are not on a spiritual high, there is a compelling Spirit that draws us to the altar rail to receive God’s gift of love, kneeling next to another human being whose need and love is just a great as ours, with hands lifted up to receive that precious bread…little hands, sometimes grubby with paint from an art project, old hands, hands rough with ground-in motor oil from years of labor, mom’s hands holding baby…and all of them beautiful, all of them asking for this life-giving bread.
How might we deepen our experience of communion? I’ve heard people say, “Preachers always say we should deepen our spiritual lives, but they never tell us how.” I can share a few things with you. One is singing the hymns—Paul points to the effect of raising our voices in song—it is to be filled with the spirit. Many times I have felt sort of flat in a service, and then in the words of the hymn, combined with singing, even if I can’t hit all the notes, and being part of a larger group, the Holy Spirit flows in. My heart changes from wood to something much more flexible and available, more willing to trust, to love and to receive love. Sometimes I sing a hymn or chant a psalm all by myself.
Another way to deepen our spiritual lives is to develop a spiritual practice. Many thriving churches have found renewal after they started being intentional about their spiritual practice, employing a kind of discipline that deepened their faith. There are many practices, and through experimentation you can find one that is helpful for you. Many people use daily devotionals such as Forward’s Day by Day. We’re trying another one that is similar. You read the short scripture passage at the top of the page, meditate on it; then read the reflection. Think about how it fits with something in your life, and close by making your own prayer about it.
Yet another way is through the practice of lectio divina. This is an ancient practice, a devotional reading of the Bible or some religious writing. You can use this same process anytime you read the Bible or other religious writing. We did this in Bible study, using today’s gospel, and it was very powerful, so I want to share it with you as a preparation for feast that God is preparing for us this morning. I’m going to read through the gospel again. Listen carefully and let the words wash over you. After a moment of silence, I’ll ask you, “What catches your attention?” You choose a word or phrase or sentence. We’ll read it a second time, and I’ll ask, “Where or how does this connect with my life?” and then, “What is God calling me to do, be or change?” You only need a few words because God knows your heart, and if you are moved to simply be in communion with the living Christ, nothing could be better.
53… Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; 55for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. 56Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. 57Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”
1. What catches your imagination?
2. Where or how does this connect with my life?
3. What is God calling me to do, be or change?
Taste and see that the Lord is good. He shall dwell in us and we in him.
August 13, 2006
Fred Heard - August 13, 2006
Sermon—August 13, 2006
Holy Trinity
John 6:37-51
Father Fred Heard
This summer, I have really gotten to preach on some interesting topics: Jesus feeds the 5000 and then two weeks ago he is walking on water, last week we talked about transfiguration and then today, “I am the bread that came down from life.”
I hope I never become one of those people who thinks that changes in our world or life or fads of our young people mean that the world is surely coming to an end within the next week or so…and you know it will someday, but not when we predict it and not because of some fad or style we do that wasn’t done in Grandpa’s day.
Our world has changed a lot during our lifetime and it will continue to change. There are a few people who are still living that have lived in three centuries: the end of the nineteenth, all of the twentieth and these six years of the twenty-first century. Imagine what they have seen. My young grandson—Christopher—will soon leave Texas and head up to Oregon to begin his college education at Linfield. One of his grandfathers gave him a nice new computer for high school graduation. I was thinking when he received it that I went from first grade on through high school and college and earned two degrees without a computer. I didn’t turn to the computer in my education until I went to seminary. I found it was indispensable during those seminary years and I marveled at how fast I could write a term paper or do research when the entire Bible and numerous commentaries were at my fingertips on my computer. How well I remember typing papers into the wee hours and wrestling with carbon paper and later white out and counting up from the bottom of a page to place footnotes just where they should go when I started college nearly fifty years ago. I even typed papers in college for others to earn extra money. The world today does seem to be a stretch from the one we have left behind. We conduct our telephone conversations in public today and if we don’t turn away, we will get that dirty look implying that the person wants privacy. Our kids spot dial telephones and wonder what they are.
And what about food? Food and our consumption of it is a major tool today in keeping us healthy. At a recent meeting of the board for Pacific Church News, we talked about the spirituality of food and how we can make a statement within the pages of our church newspaper. One day in frustration, I told Adair I was so tired of being told what I could eat and what I couldn’t eat—when what I really wanted was some fried potatoes and steak. I was thinking of some of that comfort food from my childhood. I loved wilted lettuce salad—hot bacon grease poured over lettuce. What would the food police say about that? Now so many things are not on this diet or that diet. Meat is the enemy. Eat your vegetables. Don’t eat rich deserts. Don’t drink sodas. But you know what? You really are what you eat.
Much of the Bible talks about food. In Deuteronomy this morning, we are fed with manna and God has brought us into a good land flowing with water and where wheat and barley and fig trees and pomegranates freely grow. There are olive trees and honey and it is a land where you may eat bread and you will lack nothing. We are told we may eat our fill and bless the Lord our God for the good land that he has given us. In the same reading, we turn to one of the most familiar quotes from the Bible, “one does not live by bread alone…” and often overlooked, the rest of that quote reads, “…but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” This reading is thought to be a sermon given by Moses. So you see while God feeds us physically—that is not enough…and so we must be fed spiritually and emotionally also.
And now in this morning’s gospel, Jesus takes us to the next level. Plain bread will sustain our physical bodies for everyday chores. But there is higher nourishment and it gives us strength to move from ordinary humans into beings reflecting the image and likeness of God. This new life is one that moves us beyond everyday existence to one of eternal hope. Episcopalians are reminded of this each time they participate in the Eucharist. With this meal, we are eating with a community we know and also with people we don’t know throughout the world. In a few minutes we will consume bread and wine and we will acknowledge our common journey deep into the heart of God. My liturgics professor Louis Weil said, “When we hold the bread and drink the wine, we are touching the most sacred things on earth” and that is what we believe as Episcopalians…and over the years we, by custom, have come to make the Eucharist the central part of our liturgy. In taking the Eucharist, we invite Jesus Christ into our beings.
Many people believed the Messiah would come as the King of Kings to live in great luxury and privilege—instead; he came to us in a manger. When Jesus asked us to remember him, he didn’t use prime rib or some other elegant food. He chose the mundane. He chose bread. Jean-Pierre Caussade wrote in Abandonment to Divine Providence: "God speaks to individuals through what happens to them moment by moment… The events of each small moment are stamped with the will of God…we find all that is necessary in the present moment. So often we are bored with the small happenings around us, yet it is these trivialities—as we consider them—which would do marvels for us if only we did not despise them. "Bread, he wrote in the 1740s, is a perfect example of God speaking to us through the mundane. Ordinary bread, something we know well, becomes divinely significant and sustaining when people gather together and share it in recognition that all of us start in the heart of God and spend a lifetime journeying back there together.
A very wise priest friend of mine, Jay McMurren once said, “Wow! This is big stuff—this is church.” Well Jay, this is ordinary stuff. It is stuff we know. It is enduring stuff that will carry us through the ages. I know there are divisions within our church. I know there are brothers and sisters with differing views and positions and I know their hearts are breaking—but it is the Eucharist that binds us together and moves us through this life to the next. God is here—He is here this moment and He will be at the altar rail as you take communion today. There will be new interpretations of the Bible, there will be new Prayer Books, there will be new hymnals, we will ordain or not ordain, we will experience human conflict—but always remember: the tie that binds us together is Jesus Christ who we encounter each time we take the Eucharist. And that is ordinary stuff we know as Episcopalians. It is strong enough to endure shifts and bumps and fights and disagreements…because we share in the bread of life. Some people will try to make it more than it is. Some want it to be more because it is ordinary. In its simplicity it is magical, powerful and glorious.
Remember that very special hymn we sing:
I am the bread of life—
They who believe in me shall not hunger;
They who believe in me shall not thirst
No one can come to me unless the Father draw them
And I will raise them up, and I will raise them up. AMEN
August 06, 2006
Anne Jensen - Transfiguration Sunday-- FACING GOD
Today is a special day! It’s not just the 9th Sunday after Pentecost. It’s the Feast of the Transfiguration, and it is always on August 6. This year it falls on a Sunday, so we are celebrating it. If a feast day of our Lord falls on a Sunday, it takes precedence over the usual readings.
The Transfiguration is important for many reasons; among them is that this event is one that is literally burned into the brains of Peter, James and John by the power of its brightness. After this there can be no doubt in their hearts about who this Jesus is, and it may well be the vision that keeps them going on their own journey carrying their cross as Jesus says the disciples must. It also is a story that demonstrates what it means to be human in the presence of God.
The context of this story is important. Jesus has sent out the disciples to tell them the good news. He taught the people and then fed thousands with five loaves and two fish. He has stilled the wind and the waters. He has healed people. Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” Peter blurts out, “The Messiah.” Jesus tells them not to tell anyone and then predicts his death. He goes on to say that those who wish to follow must pick up their crosses daily.
Through the startling tale of the Transfiguration, the familiarity of the very human Jesus is transformed into the awesome power of the divine Lord. And the disciples—there on the mountaintop, and probably here in this church—don’t know what to make of it.
Now before we go any further, I have a confession to make. I find this story very difficult to preach on. Why?... because it is a story of mythic proportions. Madeleine L’Engle writes, “The story of the Transfiguration is…strong stuff, not to be understood in the language of provable fact. Jesus, like Elijah, stands ‘upon the mount before the Lord.’ He took with him Peter and James and John, and extraordinary, incomprehensible things happened. Jesus’ clothes became shining, and Elijah himself appeared to Jesus in the brilliance… Moses came, too, and they talked together, the three of them, breaking ordinary chronology into a million fragments. And then a cloud overshadowed them, as it overshadowed Moses on the mount, and the voice of God shouted out from the cloud.”
Strong stuff. Mythic stuff. That stuff which makes life worth living… lies on the other side of provable fact. How can we be Christians without understanding this? The incarnation itself bursts out of the bounds of reason. That the power which created all of the galaxies, all of the stars in all of their courses, should willingly limit that power in order to be one of us, and all for love of us, cannot be understood in terms of laboratory proof, but only of love. And it is that love which calls us to move beyond the limited world of fact and into the glorious world of love itself…Of Jesus standing with Moses and Elijah, both of whom had themselves stood on the mount and been illuminated by Gods’ glory. When Moses went down from the mountain his face was so brilliant that people could not bear to look on him, and he had to cover his face in order not to blind them. The brilliance of God is indeed blinding, and we need myth, story to help us bear the light.”
My brain, trained in world that values reason and the scientific method, trips and stumbles on this story. Which is why, of course, this story is so important. What actually happened on the mountain and what was the experience of the three disciples? The event and the experience are inseparable. Jesus is transfigured before them—that is, his form or appearance was dramatically changed. This metamorphosis is the harbinger of his glorified state. But there is not an event without its reception in faith, no revelation without an open heart to receive it. Their faith wasn’t perfect, but it was enough. This story reveals to us to a God who cannot be explained, a God who can only be experienced.
Whenever, I teach confirmation class, we always get into a discussion about whether the Bible is “true.” Then we get into a discussion about what is “truth.” It is clear to me that when we are talking about Holy Scripture, “truth” is not the same thing as “fact.” Indeed, for me, scripture is a mixture of history and myth—not myth in the sense of make believe, but myth in the sense of symbolic story—story that leads us beyond the world of rational knowing, into the world of spiritual knowing. As such the myths of scripture form a window which invites us to see the holy—a world we do not create or control, a world which, instead, creates and shapes us. If we now look at the Transfiguration story as—as holy symbol—maybe we will be transformed in some new way.
When the story begins, it has been eight days since Jesus announced that he must suffer and die—a totally confusing and unsettling reality for the disciples. Though Jesus has said the words, even for him they are still sinking in. And so, as a way of sorting it all out, Jesus decides that his daily discipline of prayer needs to be more intentional and more focused. So, Jesus invites three of the disciples to go with him to the mountaintop—up away from the daily distractions—up away to the mountain top—always a place in the history of human yearning where God can be found. Jesus wipes out his calendar for an entire day, sends a memo that he’s out of the office, dismisses the pressure and people who need him, and then takes off to the mountain top. My friends, maybe this is the first way that this story can recreate us. Maybe we too need to go to the mountaintop. Do we—do you and I take the time to get away, to intentionally find God? I know I need that time. I am looking forward to being on retreat this week.
On the mountaintop Jesus prays with intense need and energy—but the disciples are in the edge of sleeping. Then, all of a sudden, something happens. Jesus begins to glow—a light bathes his body and his face and his clothing. Out of the mystery of nothingness, Moses and Elijah appear—the archetypal figures of Israel’s story—Moses who represents the Law and Elijah who represents the Prophecy. These two historical giants appear, talking with Jesus affirming that Jesus is also God’s person.
Jesus must suffer and die for the holy work of God to be complete. All of this mysterious activity finally rouses the sleepy disciples. Indeed we must wonder if God didn’t and doesn’t do such spectacular things just to make us wake up. And what do the disciples do? What do we do when something mysterious happens? We immediately try to make sense of the experience, to categorize it, to nail it down—to make it fit—to make it permanent, tangible, and rational.
Peter suggests that they build three booths—to ritualize and capture the moment. But God will have none of it. Immediately a cloud overshadows the whole mountaintop. The cloud represents the uncontrollable mystery of God—and out of the cloud, God speaks. “You blockheads—you are missing the point. Jesus, the one who has loved you and nurtured you and who has told you that he must suffer and die is different. He is more than human. He is my son. He is my Beloved, my Chosen. Jesus is me,” God says, “Listen to him. Love him. Cling to him. Follow him.”
For a little while Jesus turned away from his work of ministry and the world, seeking God on the mountaintop—and he was not disappointed. The holy breaks into the human—and the ordinary becomes the extraordinary.
When we see with eyes of faith, the ordinary can be the source of transforming experience. We can meet Jesus in a million different places and as a result be changed; because such encounters shape and change us. The truth of the Transfiguration becomes clear: Jesus speaks with the depth, the power, the love and the authority of God.
Here’s an example of what I mean. Susan Andrews, a Presbyterian minister, writes of her summer of Clinical Pastoral Education. “We spent several hours each day relating to patients on the floor. One of the wards I covered was a surgical/medical ward—where the patients were not only mentally ill, but also were recovering from major surgery or life threatening illnesses. Add to this the fact that most of these patients were poor, black, and victims of addictive behavior—and I found myself in a wilderness that terrified me.
One day, after I used my ring of keys to unlock the door to this ward, there was a new patient—a man in isolation—all alone in a room—hanging between life and death—both legs amputated, but with gangrene still creeping through his body. You could smell the stench of his decay even before you entered the room, and he moaned and sweated in a miserable delirium. For an hour I wandered up and down the hall resisting going in to see him—nauseated by his disease and at a total loss as to what to do. What could I—a naive, twenty-five year old white woman—possibly do or say to ease this man’s suffering? For that matter what could God do? And where was God, anyway, in the midst of all this misery. Finally, I walked into the room, took his hand, and found myself repeating the words of the Lord’s Prayer. And that’s when it happened. That’s when the holy broke into the human—when God took over and grace flowed through me. This man stopped moaning, his eyes stopped rolling, his body stopped shaking. He turned to look at me and then started repeating the words of the Lord’s Prayer with me. And for a moment, time stood still. There was, in that room a peace that passes all understanding. A few minutes later, after I left the room, that man’s suffering ended. He died, finding his own peace at last.”
She continues, “I can’t explain that moment to you any more than I can explain the transfiguration, any more than I can explain to you why Moses’ face shone every time he talked to God. But it was for me and for that nameless, miserable man, a holy moment, a transforming moment, and I have rarely doubted the existence of God or the power of prayer since."
To be transfigured and transformed by the power of God is not something we can understand or explain or make happen. Instead it is something that happens to us—if we open up and pay attention—if we condition ourselves to climb the mountain—if we take the irrational step of offering ourselves as a channel of God’s grace.
Recent Sermons
- Fred Heard - August 27, 2006
- Anne Jensen - Aug 20, 2006
- Fred Heard - August 13, 2006
- Anne Jensen - Transfiguration Sunday-- FACING GOD
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