L. Gregory Jones - "The Face of God" (March 5, 2000)

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Susan	Our third reading	0:04
	is from The Gospel According to Mark, the ninth chapter:	0:05
	"Six days later Jesus took with him Peter and James	0:10
	and John and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves	0:14
	and he was transfigured before them,	0:20
	and his clothes became dazzling white,	0:23
	such as no one on earth could bleach them,	0:26
	and there appeared to them Elijah with Moses	0:30
	who were talking with Jesus.	0:33
	Then Peter said to Jesus,	0:36
	'Rabbi, it is good for us to be here.	0:38
	Let us make three dwellings, one for you,	0:42
	one for Moses, and one for Elijah.'	0:44
	He did not know what to say, for they were terrified.	0:48
	Then a cloud overshadowed them	0:53
	and from the cloud there came a voice:	0:55
	'This is my son the Beloved. Listen to him.'	0:59
	Suddenly, when they looked around,	1:06
	they saw no one with them anymore but only Jesus.	1:07
	As they were coming down the mountain	1:13
	he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen	1:15
	until after the son of man had risen from the dead."	1:19
	This is the word of the Lord.	1:24
	(congregation murmurs)	1:27
	It is an honor and a privilege	1:39
	to be here with you this morning	1:41
	and, especially, to be designated	1:44
	the W. Kenneth Goodson preacher.	1:45
	He was a good friend, a bishop for the Methodist Church	1:49
	and someone who loved this University and this chapel.	1:54
	And it is an honor to be able to honor his memory this day.	1:57
	Let us pray.	2:03
	Gracious God, may the words of my mouth	2:07
	and the meditations of all of our hearts	2:09
	be acceptable in thy sight.	2:11
	Oh Lord, our strength and our redeemer Amen.	2:14
	I have long been weary and even resentful	2:22
	at anti religious bigots.	2:27
	The type of people who think that it is impossible	2:30
	to both, have a mind and to be a believer.	2:33
	I've also been weary of non-religious cynics	2:39
	who think it's a waste of time to gather together	2:44
	to pray, to worship God.	2:47
	They're not so much hostile as indifferent and cynical.	2:50
	More recently, I have become weary	2:57
	of a phenomenon within the household of faith,	3:01
	what I call Christian winners.	3:04
	The people who are believers	3:08
	and want to have it all on the world's terms,	3:12
	who want to be able to have all the glory of this world	3:16
	while also claiming to be a believer.	3:21
	They're the kind of people who know all of the answers	3:26
	even before the question is asked.	3:30
	You may know the story of the preacher	3:35
	who had called together the children around him	3:36
	for children's time on Sunday morning and he said,	3:40
	"What I'm thinking of children is brown,	3:42
	has a bushy tail and gathers acorns to himself every fall,	3:44
	what am I thinking of?"	3:48
	and a little child in the back raised his hand and he said,	3:51
	"I'm sure the right answer is Jesus	3:56
	but it sure sounds like a squirrel to me."	3:57
	(Congregation laughs)	4:00
	We live in a world where we're far too certain	4:06
	of the answers and unwilling to live with the questions.	4:09
	Particularly, questions which may seem to be unanswerable	4:15
	when we face the realities of sin	4:21
	and evil and tragedy in this world.	4:25
	You see, Christian winners think	4:32
	that to talk about the glory of Christ	4:34
	is to talk about unrelieved success, unmatched property,	4:37
	the promise of a life free from troubles.	4:42
	Living long and happy.	4:46
	But I find it difficult to believe	4:52
	in such a God	4:57
	or such an account of glory.	4:59
	I do not believe in God because of the promise	5:03
	of success and material prosperity.	5:09
	When such prosperity comes we give thanks to God	5:14
	for the blessings of life and we're called	5:17
	to use that as an opportunity for stewardship	5:20
	and for service to other, to give to others.	5:22
	But it should never be the basis of a belief in God.	5:28
	For as Mary's Magnificat	5:34
	at the beginning of Luke's gospel so eloquently tells us	5:37
	and it shines through all of scripture;	5:40
	God has a special favor for the poor.	5:43
	Those students who are going on mission teams	5:47
	over spring break will encounter people	5:51
	undoubtedly, who are economically impoverished	5:54
	and yet filled with faith in God in ways	5:57
	that sometimes make our faith seem so small.	6:01
	I've been in places where and egg is a delicacy	6:10
	that costs a week or more's wages	6:14
	and yet the people's faith has shamed my own.	6:18
	It's not material prosperity or even success	6:25
	that ought to shape our faith and our life.	6:32
	For in good times as well as bad,	6:37
	we are called to bless the Lord	6:40
	and to worship God.	6:45
	I do not believe in God because of the promise	6:48
	of a life free from troubles.	6:53
	Sometimes the Christian winners make it sound like	6:59
	ever since the day of their conversion	7:01
	it's just been one endless success after another.	7:03
	They're so filled with smiles	7:07
	that makes our inner turmoil even worse.	7:10
	Christians no less than anyone else,	7:20
	face troubles throughout life.	7:23
	There are good times and there are bad.	7:28
	There are joys that come our way	7:33
	but, also, griefs that fill our hearts with sadness.	7:35
	In Wallace Stegner's novel, Crossing to Safety,	7:42
	two couples have gone to Italy	7:47
	and they're looking at various pieces of works of art	7:50
	and when they come to Pierre De La Francesca's	7:56
	powerful and haunting painting	8:00
	of Christ starting up from the tomb,	8:02
	two women see it in very contrasting ways.	8:07
	The image is not of a triumphant Christ who has no pain.	8:13
	The image in the painting is of a Christ	8:19
	barely rising from the dead still bearing the wounds,	8:22
	the agony of the cross.	8:26
	One of the women whom the narrator tells us,	8:31
	was developing a sun dial theory of art	8:34
	that would count no hours but the sunny ones,	8:37
	was unimpressed.	8:41
	But the other woman,	8:45
	who had suffered physical ailment,	8:48
	whose health was debilitating,	8:53
	who was barely able to stand	8:57
	even to see the painting	8:59
	because the chronic illness had caused	9:01
	so much physical and emotional, and mental pain,	9:03
	stayed fixated on that painting	9:07
	and the narrator tells us,	9:13
	"She stood watching	9:17
	as if those who have died	9:21
	can see things that those who only lived	9:24
	can never see."	9:29
	Charity, the woman with the sun dial theory of art,	9:33
	is a Christian winner	9:37
	taking no account of any hours but the sunny ones.	9:39
	But Sally had a sense of what it means to die	9:44
	and so, also, a deeper sense of what it means to live.	9:51
	No, I don't believe in God	9:57
	because of the promise of a life free from troubles.	10:00
	Nor do I believe in God	10:06
	because of the promise of a long life.	10:07
	When we are granted a life of many years	10:12
	of three score and 10 and beyond,	10:14
	we give thanks for the blessings of such a life,	10:16
	for the opportunities to worship God,	10:21
	to be with family and friends,	10:23
	it is a gift for which we give thanks.	10:25
	But it is not a promise given to all the faithful.	10:31
	As we launched a new institute of care	10:36
	at the end of life this past week,	10:39
	we were reminded and reminded ourselves	10:43
	that this isn't only about old age,	10:45
	for end of life comes all across the spectrum	10:49
	of the lifespan.	10:52
	And I've been with too many parents as they struggle	10:55
	with the illness or the death of a child.	10:59
	Too many spouses who grieve	11:04
	the untimely death of their loved one.	11:08
	To believe that there's a promise	11:14
	of a long life on which we should base a faith in God.	11:16
	My divinity school roommate my first year	11:23
	here at Duke, was a good friend.	11:26
	Susan and I were in his wedding and he was in ours.	11:29
	We had just gone off to serve congregations,	11:36
	we in Baltimore and he in Indiana.	11:40
	But one day in the middle of August the phone rang	11:43
	and he was on the phone to tell me	11:51
	that his wife had died	11:54
	the previous day in a hiking accident.	11:56
	He asked if we would come to help celebrate	12:01
	the memorial service	12:04
	for a wonderful 26 year old woman.	12:07
	And we did.	12:12
	And as we gathered, as a broken broken body,	12:16
	to mourn her loss, to grieve the sense of someone	12:21
	who had died, who not yet even reached	12:26
	the prime of her life.	12:29
	I didn't know how I could even get up	12:32
	to help lead the worship service.	12:35
	And then my friend got up to bear testimony.	12:40
	He told first, of how she had died in his arms	12:46
	after she had fallen off a cliff	12:49
	and how when the ambulance driver finally got there,	12:54
	they were loading her lifeless body into the ambulance	12:58
	and the driver turned to him and said,	13:04
	"What do you do?" And he said, "I'm a preacher."	13:06
	"Oh," said the ambulance driver,	13:12
	"then you of all people would know,	13:14
	God has a purpose for everything."	13:15
	and my friend, ever alert, said,	13:20
	"Well, if that's true, this purpose stinks."	13:23
	Life is filled with questions	13:30
	that we live into even as we cannot answer.	13:32
	When God speaks out of the whirlwind to Job,	13:37
	it isn't with definitive answers	13:40
	but a call to trust in a God	13:42
	whom we can know but not know fully.	13:48
	When we gathered we mourned	13:55
	the loss of someone who had died young	13:59
	and yet we praised God in a way	14:03
	that offered a profound opportunity for healing.	14:05
	No, I don't believe in God	14:08
	because of the promise of a long life.	14:09
	Why, then, do I believe in God?	14:15
	Because I have beheld in the glory	14:20
	of the transfigured Christ,	14:24
	the very face of God that offers truth	14:28
	and life and light.	14:34
	The story of the transfiguration in Mark's gospel	14:39
	is a story of the definitive revelation of God.	14:44
	His transfigured face and the voice coming down from God,	14:51
	"This is my beloved son, listen to him."	14:56
	It is as we behold Christ,	15:04
	that we begin to understand who God is,	15:08
	and God's grace and God's love for us.	15:13
	But it's not just any glory we behold.	15:21
	You see, Peter has just had the kind of problem	15:27
	of wanting to create an image of we want from God,	15:30
	not what God provides.	15:35
	When Jesus tells him that he is going to suffer	15:38
	and die and on the third day be raised from the dead,	15:43
	Peter shrinks back.	15:46
	He doesn't want that kind of God.	15:46
	None of us in some sense want that.	15:51
	We'd like prosperity, a life free from troubles,	15:55
	a long life and assurance that if we just make	15:59
	that right bargain with God,	16:01
	everything will turn out alright.	16:02
	But immediately following Jesus's encounter with Peter,	16:08
	and the injunction that Jesus says,	16:14
	"To get behind me Satan," to Peter,	16:15
	we have the story of the transfiguration.	16:21
	That the glory of Christ,	16:25
	what it means to behold the face of God	16:27
	is a glory that is found	16:31
	in suffering death and resurrection.	16:34
	The way in which we behold the face of God	16:39
	is by patterning our lives in Christ,	16:42
	by following, and living with the questions	16:46
	that recur as we follow, gaining clarity, deeper wisdom,	16:49
	deeper understanding but never having all of them resolved.	16:53
	As Saint Paul says, "Now we see through a glass darkly,	16:59
	then we shall see face to face."	17:02
	I have beheld in the glory of the transfigured Christ.	17:08
	The very face of God.	17:13
	And not only that, but I have learned	17:19
	that it is only as I stay close to Christ	17:24
	but not cling to him,	17:28
	that I can continue to follow.	17:33
	Peter engages in that all too tempting strategy.	17:36
	You see the transfigured Christ and you say,	17:42
	"Oh, let's set up shop here.	17:44
	This is wonderful, it's a mountaintop experience.	17:47
	If only we can hold on."	17:50
	But that's not an option.	17:58
	They are to go down from the mountain	18:01
	to follow in the midst	18:04
	of the joys and griefs,	18:08
	that hopes and fears, the agonies, the loves,	18:09
	of life in this world.	18:13
	And those of us who have beheld the glory of Christ	18:16
	and seen the face of God are thereby called	18:21
	to proclaim that message.	18:25
	It's what Saint Paul describes in the second letter	18:29
	to the Corinthians that Susan read	18:31
	just a few moments ago.	18:33
	That we have seen the light shining out of the darkness	18:36
	of pain and suffering in this world.	18:40
	And we are called to bear witness,	18:44
	not to proclaim ourselves as Christian winners,	18:47
	but to proclaim the glory of Jesus Christ as Lord.	18:53
	I believe in God because I've seen men and women	19:02
	who are like that, for whom the light of Christ	19:05
	that they have beheld is now reflected	19:10
	in the power of their lives.	19:13
	In the life of Kenneth Goodson,	19:17
	who was the Methodist Bishop in Alabama	19:20
	during the Civil Rights struggles	19:23
	and who 35 years ago, as black marchers	19:26
	were in a standoff trying to cross a bridge,	19:30
	in a standoff with Alabama troopers,	19:33
	talked with one of his flock, George Wallace,	19:39
	and told Governor Wallace to let the marchers pass.	19:44
	I've seen those people who proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord	19:50
	and the lives of Charles Putnam or Tom Langford,	19:56
	who on this campus, over many years,	20:01
	bore witness in their life	20:05
	and work at Duke University.	20:10
	In the lives of countless men and women	20:12
	around the world, in South Africa	20:15
	as people refuse to allow despair and suffering	20:17
	and untimely death and oppression defeat them,	20:21
	but have beheld the face of God	20:26
	and a light shown in the darkness of reconciliation	20:30
	and hope for a new future.	20:34
	Of Elias Shakur in the Middle East,	20:37
	refusing to allow the plight of Palestinians	20:39
	to become an occasion for despair	20:42
	but starts a school to bring people together	20:44
	for education and reconciliation and hope.	20:47
	The people who proclaim, not themselves	20:53
	but Jesus Christ as Lord in word and deed,	20:56
	in countless congregations, in families,	21:00
	in friendships, in small ways over the years.	21:03
	As the novelist George Elliot put it in the 19th century,	21:08
	"that things are not so ill between thee and me	21:11
	is half owing to those who lived faithful lives	21:15
	and rest in unvisited tombs."	21:20
	Those are the reasons I believe in God	21:25
	because I beheld in the glory	21:30
	of the transfigured Christ, the very face of God	21:33
	and have seen that glory reflected	21:36
	in saintly men and women.	21:39
	It requires us to stay close to Christ	21:44
	without clinging to him.	21:49
	Staying close by following.	21:52
	A following that begins a Lenten journey this week.	21:56
	As we begin that Lenten journey,	22:03
	let us stay close and follow,	22:07
	not shrinking away as we move toward suffering	22:13
	and the cross	22:18
	but staying close so that on Easter	22:22
	when we rise again with Christ	22:27
	we will be able, like Sally,	22:30
	to look at Christ rising from the tomb	22:36
	with the clearness of vision that comes from those,	22:40
	who not only have lived, but have suffered and died	22:45
	and understand afresh what it means	22:51
	to behold the living God.	22:54

Item Info

Title:

L. Gregory Jones - "The Face of God" (March 5, 2000)

Description:

In the glory of the transfigured Christ we see the face of God. Yet this glory is not separate from suffering but comes through it. Thus, we reflect the glory by following Christ closely (without clinging to him) on his journey to Jerusalem, the cross, and the tomb, before rising in glory on Easter morning. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Sermon start time: (Part 1) 01:39. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 22:59.
Key quotation: “The glory of Christ, what it means to behold the face of God, is a glory that is found in suffering, death, and resurrection. The way in which we behold the face of God is by patterning our lives in Christ, by following, and living with the questions that recur as we follow, gaining clarity, deeper wisdom, deeper understanding but never having all of them resolved.”

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4319sh5d

Date:

March 5, 2000

Speaker:

Jones, L. Gregory

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Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-1001
ref10159_619
uachapelsermaud
duke:321091
dcrau001645
ark:/87924/r4319sh5d
8854ec15-9a02-4b19-9d2b-cf97d1ec5a77

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The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

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