L. Gregory Jones - "Reflected Glory" (February 25, 2001)
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| - | The third lesson is from the Gospel according to St. Luke. | 0:11 |
| The ninth chapter. Now about 8 days after these sayings, | 0:15 | |
| Jesus took with him Peter and John and James. | 0:22 | |
| And went upon the mountain to pray. And while | 0:27 | |
| he was praying, the appearance of his face changed. | 0:30 | |
| And his clothes became dazzling white. | 0:34 | |
| Suddenly, they saw two men: Moses and Elijah talking | 0:38 | |
| to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking | 0:42 | |
| of his departure. Which he was about | 0:46 | |
| to accomplish at Jerusalem. | 0:48 | |
| Now Peter and his companions were weighed down | 0:52 | |
| with sleep. But since they had stayed awake, | 0:54 | |
| they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. | 0:57 | |
| Just as they were leaving, Peter said to Jesus, | 1:03 | |
| "Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us | 1:07 | |
| make three dwellings. One for you, one for Moses, | 1:11 | |
| and one for Elijah," not knowing what he had said. | 1:16 | |
| While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed | 1:21 | |
| them, and they were terrified as they entered | 1:25 | |
| the cloud. Then, from the cloud | 1:28 | |
| came a voice that said, "this is my | 1:31 | |
| son. My chosen. Listen to him." | 1:34 | |
| When the voice had spoken, Jesus | 1:39 | |
| was found alone. And they kept silent, and | 1:41 | |
| in those days, told no one any of the things | 1:46 | |
| they had seen. This is the word of the Lord. | 1:49 | |
| - | Let us pray. | 2:04 |
| Gracious God, descend your Holy Spirit upon us, | 2:08 | |
| speak through me; if necessary, in spite of me, | 2:11 | |
| and always beyond me. Hide the preacher | 2:17 | |
| in the shadow of the cross, that your | 2:21 | |
| word might be heard by your people this day. | 2:25 | |
| In name of Jesus, we pray, Amen. | 2:29 | |
| Who is this 'Jesus?' He is a figure | 2:36 | |
| of endless fascination, in part because | 2:41 | |
| of the legacy that he has left over | 2:46 | |
| 2,000 years. Scholars have engaged | 2:49 | |
| in quest to try to understand who he was | 2:53 | |
| in the first century. Books have been | 2:56 | |
| written, movies have been filmed, TV shows, | 2:59 | |
| and documentaries, all seeking to understand | 3:03 | |
| who is this 'Jesus?' He is, after all, | 3:06 | |
| an interesting character. | 3:11 | |
| Four Gospels within scripture and additional | 3:15 | |
| apocryphal gospels have been written about | 3:18 | |
| him, and even in the first century during the | 3:20 | |
| time of his ministry, people were fascinated | 3:24 | |
| by that question. Who is this Jesus? | 3:27 | |
| A charismatic teacher? A prophet? A miracle worker? | 3:32 | |
| A healer? When Jesus would come to the | 3:40 | |
| neighborhood, crowds would come out. | 3:44 | |
| An intriguing figure; who is this Jesus? | 3:48 | |
| Well, we wanna know and often what | 3:53 | |
| we really want is to find someone | 3:57 | |
| who can touch us in the ways we really want | 4:02 | |
| to be touched. | 4:06 | |
| We create a Jesus in our own image. | 4:07 | |
| Someone we can like, someone we can enjoy, | 4:11 | |
| someone we can have as our co-pilot on the | 4:16 | |
| airplane flight of life. A century ago, | 4:20 | |
| Albert Schweitzer noted that even the | 4:24 | |
| best of scholars, when they sought to understand | 4:27 | |
| the historical Jesus, often ended up describing | 4:29 | |
| Jesus in ways that look remarkably | 4:33 | |
| like the authors of the books. | 4:35 | |
| How often, the Jesus we end up with | 4:39 | |
| is a Jesus that we want. | 4:43 | |
| And yet, that Jesus is also | 4:47 | |
| in tension with the one we really need. | 4:50 | |
| You see, the Jesus is one who can call | 4:55 | |
| us out of the predicaments that we find | 4:59 | |
| ourselves in. Who can offer | 5:01 | |
| hope in the midst of despair. | 5:03 | |
| Joy in the midst of grief, love | 5:05 | |
| in the midst of division and hatred. | 5:08 | |
| But are we prepared for that kind of Jesus? | 5:13 | |
| Are we prepared for the Jesus that | 5:18 | |
| we need? Well beyond the Jesus that | 5:20 | |
| we want? The time comes to all of us | 5:25 | |
| when we realize that an optimistic | 5:29 | |
| assessment of the world just isn't enough. | 5:31 | |
| Sometimes it's because of things | 5:35 | |
| we do. | 5:37 | |
| Perhaps it happened as a child, | 5:38 | |
| or as a youth and we engaged in some | 5:41 | |
| kind of experiment, or undertook | 5:43 | |
| some kind of act of rebellion that | 5:45 | |
| we found ourselves out in the | 5:48 | |
| far country and wondering whether our | 5:49 | |
| parents or our families or our friends | 5:51 | |
| might ever welcome us back, might ever | 5:54 | |
| offer us forgiveness. Or is it the case | 5:56 | |
| that once we fall, we fall for life? | 6:00 | |
| Maybe it was in young adulthood, | 6:06 | |
| or as an adult when we discover | 6:09 | |
| that the world isn't quite as | 6:11 | |
| malleable as we hoped. | 6:13 | |
| When a child suffered and died, | 6:16 | |
| when a spouse betrayed us, | 6:19 | |
| when a boss failed us, | 6:23 | |
| when we experienced a tragic death of a loved one, | 6:27 | |
| and we begin to wonder whether the | 6:32 | |
| world makes any sense, whether there is | 6:34 | |
| any meaning or purpose beyond the | 6:36 | |
| suffering that happens to us. | 6:39 | |
| Whether it is things we've done, | 6:44 | |
| sins we've committed, or whether | 6:46 | |
| it is things that have been done to us, | 6:49 | |
| that have marked and scarred and wounded | 6:52 | |
| us and left those wounds open and | 6:54 | |
| festering. We wonder whether there is | 6:56 | |
| a Jesus we need. Someone who rises | 6:59 | |
| above the circumstances and the | 7:02 | |
| divisions of our life, who offers that | 7:04 | |
| hope, that joy, that love. | 7:08 | |
| We encounter in our gospel lesson for this morning | 7:15 | |
| the story of the transfiguration | 7:19 | |
| that powerful that story that comes | 7:21 | |
| right on the hinge, that displays the | 7:23 | |
| tension between the Jesus we want | 7:26 | |
| and the Jesus we need. | 7:28 | |
| When they get to the mountain, Jesus | 7:35 | |
| is transfigured. His robes become | 7:38 | |
| dazzling in white, a sign of the heavens | 7:41 | |
| and of holiness. The disciples | 7:44 | |
| look and behold him | 7:50 | |
| rising above Moses and Elijah, | 7:52 | |
| fulfilling and transcending all that | 7:57 | |
| was told in the law and the prophets, | 7:59 | |
| and Peter wanting to find a way to | 8:04 | |
| manage the situation, said "Hey, | 8:06 | |
| this is pretty neat, let's keep it | 8:08 | |
| this way. Let's build some booths | 8:10 | |
| and let's stay up here, I like it this way. | 8:12 | |
| Peter had a Jesus he wanted. | 8:18 | |
| But this Jesus, is one who is on the | 8:23 | |
| way to Jerusalem, whose glory and whose | 8:28 | |
| robes that are so dazzling in white, are going | 8:32 | |
| to be washed in the blood of the cross. | 8:36 | |
| On that journey to Jerusalem, | 8:41 | |
| we discover that the Jesus we need | 8:44 | |
| is one who journeys unto suffering and | 8:46 | |
| death, on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, | 8:49 | |
| and that the glory of Easter comes only | 8:53 | |
| through that encounter, not in bypassing it. | 8:55 | |
| This Jesus whom we encounter in the | 9:01 | |
| transfiguration, isn't simply a nice guy, | 9:03 | |
| a wonderful teacher, | 9:06 | |
| a miracle worker, | 9:09 | |
| for the heavens open up and God declares, | 9:12 | |
| "This is my beloved son, listen to him." | 9:15 | |
| We ready to listen to the one who calls | 9:21 | |
| us to journey with Jesus through Lent, | 9:24 | |
| on the journey to Jerusalem? | 9:28 | |
| Are we willing to listen to the Jesus, | 9:31 | |
| not only as he enters triumphantly on | 9:34 | |
| Palm Sunday, but he is betrayed and abandoned, | 9:37 | |
| and left hanging on a cross? | 9:42 | |
| In the days of Civil Rights in Georgia, | 9:49 | |
| Clarence Jordan founded the Koinonia farm. | 9:53 | |
| He also is the author of the Cotton Patch Gospels. | 9:58 | |
| Jordan, through the people of the | 10:01 | |
| Koinonia Farm and the Koinonia community, | 10:03 | |
| was embarked on a process of trying | 10:06 | |
| to bring about racial reconciliation, | 10:08 | |
| trying to offer those signs of hope and joy | 10:10 | |
| and love in the midst of the racism and the | 10:13 | |
| oppression and the suffering that was | 10:16 | |
| still prevalent. | 10:18 | |
| And as might be expected when he was | 10:22 | |
| trying to embark on that ministry | 10:24 | |
| of reconciliation. They encountered | 10:26 | |
| all kinds of opposition and hatred, | 10:29 | |
| in the surrounding areas and they | 10:32 | |
| were being attacked by the Klan and by | 10:34 | |
| other agents of suffering. | 10:37 | |
| They got to a point where Jordan | 10:42 | |
| realized they needed some legal assistance. | 10:43 | |
| And so he went to his brother, who was | 10:48 | |
| involved in Georgia State Politics at the time. | 10:49 | |
| He went to his brother and said "we need | 10:52 | |
| your assistance." His brother said, | 10:54 | |
| "I can't provide it." And Clarence | 10:56 | |
| said, "Why not? We need it. You see | 10:59 | |
| what's happening to us; we need this | 11:01 | |
| ministry, we need the legal aid that | 11:03 | |
| you can provide me." He said, "you know | 11:05 | |
| if I do it right now, it'll compromise | 11:06 | |
| my career, and I've got delicate | 11:08 | |
| relationships in the legislature | 11:10 | |
| and in politics, and I just can't | 11:12 | |
| take that kind of a risk." | 11:14 | |
| And Clarence said to him, "Well, what | 11:17 | |
| about your following of Jesus?" | 11:19 | |
| His brother just looked at him and then | 11:23 | |
| Clarence said "I remember very distinctly | 11:24 | |
| that day when we were young teenagers | 11:27 | |
| and both of us went down to the altar | 11:29 | |
| of the Baptist Church we were members of | 11:31 | |
| and we dedicated our lives to Jesus, | 11:34 | |
| what does that have to do with whether | 11:36 | |
| you take a risk?" | 11:37 | |
| Clarence's brother looked at him and | 11:41 | |
| he said, "Well," he said "I don't really | 11:43 | |
| consider myself a follower of Jesus, | 11:45 | |
| I prefer to think of myself as an admirer of Jesus." | 11:48 | |
| Well, I have to confess that there's | 11:58 | |
| a part of me that would rather be an admirer of | 11:59 | |
| Jesus, than a follower." | 12:02 | |
| To be an admirer means that I can | 12:06 | |
| keep my distance, I can look | 12:08 | |
| and behold his beauty, even his transfigured | 12:11 | |
| appearance from afar. | 12:14 | |
| I can rest content at that distance, with the | 12:19 | |
| Jesus I want. Without recognizing the Jesus I need. | 12:24 | |
| What the gospel tells us, | 12:31 | |
| is that the only we can really | 12:34 | |
| understand who this Jesus is, is if | 12:36 | |
| we embark on discipleship. If we | 12:40 | |
| are following Jesus, then we will | 12:44 | |
| be in a better position to understand | 12:46 | |
| him, and to understand the depths of | 12:49 | |
| what we need, and to discover the riches | 12:51 | |
| of what God offers unto us. | 12:54 | |
| You see, the transfiguration points us | 12:59 | |
| to the son of God, the sinless one, | 13:01 | |
| the one who breaks apart all the ways | 13:07 | |
| in which we diminish and destroy ourselves and one another. | 13:10 | |
| Because, he is the one who rises above our sin, | 13:15 | |
| and he is the one who offers us the forgiveness | 13:20 | |
| that wipes away the burdens of the past, and | 13:24 | |
| offers the possibilities for new life. | 13:28 | |
| The novelist Iris Murdoch, | 13:34 | |
| said in one of her novels, "A saint is someone | 13:37 | |
| who absorbs evil, without passing it on." | 13:41 | |
| It's a challenge isn't it? To be able to absorb | 13:46 | |
| what we do, to be able to absorb what is done to us; | 13:49 | |
| without then passing it on to others? | 13:54 | |
| The one who has done that perfectly | 13:58 | |
| is the one who stands on the Mount of Transfiguration; | 14:01 | |
| robes in dazzling white, who absorbs all | 14:07 | |
| of our sin, all of our destructiveness, | 14:11 | |
| all of our evil, but rather than passing it on, | 14:14 | |
| offers forgiveness to us. | 14:18 | |
| But we can only really receive that forgiveness | 14:24 | |
| if we get close to him. If we avoid the temptation | 14:27 | |
| to be admirers, and instead become followers. | 14:32 | |
| Because it is in being befriended by Christ, | 14:37 | |
| by being found in Christ's good company, | 14:41 | |
| that we discover what true glory really is. | 14:45 | |
| In Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, read | 14:52 | |
| just a few minutes ago, Paul says "We, who have | 14:55 | |
| beheld Christ, are being conformed, changed | 15:01 | |
| into this image, changed from one degree | 15:04 | |
| of glory to another. It's a glorious image | 15:07 | |
| that we also are being transformed by Christ. | 15:13 | |
| Not from afar, but by being found in Christ's | 15:19 | |
| company. Not because of who we are, | 15:23 | |
| but because of whose we are. | 15:26 | |
| Because it is the work of the Lord, the work | 15:32 | |
| of the spirit of the Lord; to touch | 15:36 | |
| us, to transform us, to redeem us, to | 15:38 | |
| take our lives, to pick them up in their | 15:42 | |
| scattered fragments, and to meld them | 15:45 | |
| into a new life." In that transformation | 15:48 | |
| of glory, we discover that there is nothing | 15:55 | |
| so whole as a broken and redeemed heart. | 15:57 | |
| Nothing so strong as the fragments of | 16:02 | |
| a life redeemed by the glory of Christ and | 16:05 | |
| brought together into a new life. | 16:08 | |
| What God in Christ calls us to | 16:16 | |
| is a journey through suffering, | 16:20 | |
| through pain, through dying; | 16:25 | |
| a journey through Holy Week, that begins this | 16:30 | |
| Wednesday. Throughout Lent, culminating | 16:33 | |
| in the drama of Holy Thursday and Good Friday, | 16:37 | |
| so that on Easter Sunday, all those of | 16:41 | |
| us who grieve, all those of us who suffer, | 16:44 | |
| all those of us who carry the burdens of the past | 16:47 | |
| around with us, weighed down by the miseries of life. | 16:51 | |
| In other words, all of us who live | 16:57 | |
| will be equipped to sing the Easter | 17:01 | |
| Hallelujah, because we have beheld | 17:04 | |
| the transfigured Christ, and because we | 17:07 | |
| have been changed. We have beheld | 17:11 | |
| that glory in a way that reflects onto us. | 17:15 | |
| And that reflected glory then can shine | 17:19 | |
| in our own lives. | 17:23 | |
| Dorothy Day used to say she wanted | 17:28 | |
| to live her life in a way that just | 17:30 | |
| wouldn't make sense if God doesn't exist. | 17:33 | |
| That's what following Jesus is all about. | 17:37 | |
| Living in ways that don't make sense, | 17:41 | |
| unless, we've discovered God's forgiveness. | 17:46 | |
| Unless, we've discovered God's love. | 17:51 | |
| Unless, we've discovered the joy that | 17:54 | |
| comes in the kind of music that this choir | 17:56 | |
| and the organ plays, week after week, | 17:59 | |
| that calls us out of ourselves into the praise of God. | 18:02 | |
| It doesn't make sense, unless, we have | 18:07 | |
| beheld the glory of the Christ we need, | 18:11 | |
| rather than the Christ we want. | 18:15 | |
| In recent years, this has been displayed in | 18:20 | |
| a powerful way, in the musical Les Misrabales. | 18:22 | |
| Many of you have seen it, the story | 18:27 | |
| of Jean Valjean, a man who had | 18:28 | |
| been imprisoned, who had suffered | 18:31 | |
| for what he did, and then what had been | 18:34 | |
| done to him, even after he paid his | 18:36 | |
| time, he thought he would be free, | 18:37 | |
| but, no, he was still a marked with a | 18:39 | |
| number two-four-six-o-one, that was | 18:42 | |
| carried with him, until he encountered | 18:45 | |
| one of those saints, a bishop of dean, | 18:48 | |
| who forgives him, and as he sends him forth, | 18:52 | |
| says, "Remember, you've been claimed | 18:57 | |
| by God, live differently." | 19:00 | |
| Valjean struggles with that, struggles to live | 19:03 | |
| into a different future, but he | 19:05 | |
| knows he's been claimed. He begins | 19:08 | |
| to show some of that reflected glory | 19:12 | |
| as he struggles to unlearn and to | 19:14 | |
| get rid of the mark | 19:17 | |
| that wore him down, | 19:21 | |
| and to bear witness to that | 19:24 | |
| forgiving and redeeming love, and | 19:25 | |
| he does it in relationship after | 19:27 | |
| relationship, it doesn't mean he | 19:29 | |
| avoids struggle, it doesn't mean he | 19:31 | |
| avoids pain, or confrontation with sin, | 19:33 | |
| but he continues to bear witness, | 19:37 | |
| through it and above it, and in | 19:39 | |
| the final scene, you see, as the music | 19:42 | |
| is playing in the background, the | 19:48 | |
| lighting shines on his face, and he | 19:51 | |
| is in a white robe, bearing witness | 19:55 | |
| to the ways in which he has been changed, | 19:59 | |
| from one degree of glory into another. | 20:02 | |
| And then someone sings to him, | 20:09 | |
| to love another person, is to see | 20:10 | |
| the face of God, not sentimental love, | 20:12 | |
| but Jesus love. A suffering love, | 20:19 | |
| a costly love. | 20:25 | |
| We behold the glory of Christ in the transfiguration. | 20:30 | |
| And as we behold that glory, not from afar, | 20:35 | |
| but in the midst of seeking to follow Jesus, | 20:39 | |
| that glory reflects onto us. | 20:44 | |
| And as we seek to live faithful, to this gracious | 20:48 | |
| and wondrous God, we are changed, | 20:53 | |
| from one degree of glory into another. | 20:57 | |
| I don't know how you've been marked in life, | 21:02 | |
| whether it's with a number, | 21:06 | |
| whether it's with something that you did | 21:09 | |
| as a child, or a youth, or a young adult, | 21:10 | |
| or something that you did yesterday, | 21:13 | |
| whether it's with something that's been | 21:17 | |
| done over and over again to you, that | 21:18 | |
| weighs you down, whatever it is, | 21:21 | |
| the transfigured Christ calls you | 21:28 | |
| into a new way of life. | 21:34 | |
| To be set free from the burdens by his forgiveness. | 21:38 | |
| To enter into his good company. | 21:43 | |
| Who is this Jesus? | 21:48 | |
| He is the one, whose glory | 21:51 | |
| shines forth into our lives, and calls us | 21:56 | |
| not simply to admire, but to follow him, | 22:01 | |
| this day, and all our days. | 22:06 | |
| Thanks be to God. Amen. | 22:10 |