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Tag Archives: Transfiguration
Tell no one
On the mountain top, a conspiracy: Elijah, Moses, and Yeshua plotting to overthrow sin and save the world. Below the cloud line all is clear. In the valley, people die, live, love, and hate without once looking up. Here on … Continue reading
Transfiguration and the transformative gospel
I enjoy a cleverly devised myth as much as the next person; but what sustains me is this: that I know that God is with us, that God loves us more than we love life itself; that when the world is too loud, or stuns us into silence, Christ is still speaking in that still, small voice, the language of mercy. Listen to him. Continue reading
Dwelling in glory
It takes time for the glory of God to sink in, to make our bones tingle with it, to make our hearts glad of it, and our spirits ready to respond in kind. Continue reading
Posted in sermon
Tagged Exodus 24:12-18, gun violence, idols, MAtthew 17:1-9, Transfiguration, Year A Epiphany Last
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Fall silent
A short (but true) story for the Sunday Last before Lent: “We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven” (2 Peter 1) _______ Every day, at around about eleven in the morning, the world stood still. Teachers fell quiet mid-lesson, … Continue reading
From the cloud
We want the revelation of the Christ, the epiphany of the Messiah, to be the brightness of the cloth, but it includes the cloud of the continuing conflict between Herod and the Magi, the worldly and the wise, the kingdom of heaven and the pursuits of a lesser form of majesty. And it is the promise that in all of these things, wherever we find them still active in the world, Christ is at work transforming them through the power of the Cross and the Resurrection that it engendered. Continue reading
Bright cloud
There are those bright clouds in which we recognize God’s presence already among us, working in us and through us as we struggle to do the right thing, even when the way is obscure and foggy, even when we are terrified, even when we confronted with anger, grief, failure. The way of the cross is not an easy road, but it does lead to deliverance, to freedom from unclean spirits, eventually to resurrection. Continue reading
Posted in current events, lectionary reflection, sermon
Tagged grief, Jesus, justice, LGBTQ, Transfiguration, UMC
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A fleeting vision of glory
If Epiphany is about its revealing, then Lent is about our looking for it; but we have the assurance, as we enter the search, the forty days of wilderness wandering, that it has already been found, and that God, the God of Abraham and Hagar, of Ismael, Moses, and Elijah, the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ will not let us wander alone, nor fail if we falter. Continue reading
This is not Sunday’s sermon
On Sunday, I may speak of mountaintop miracles, the art of the divine fuller, bleaching all blemishes out of our vision of God Incarnate, revealing glory. But today is Friday. The week was long and the mountain high and hard. … Continue reading
Posted in holy days, lectionary reflection, prayer, sermon preparation, story
Tagged Epiphany, Jesus, Transfiguration
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Heaven on earth
Looking ahead to Sunday’s Transfiguration and the disciples’ awe-filled witness to the glory of God revealed in Christ, I have been thinking about religious experiences; extraordinary revelations of the divine. I occasionally wonder if I was “done out of” a … Continue reading
Posted in holy days, sermon preparation, spiritual autobiography, story
Tagged Incarnation, Transfiguration
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Last Sunday after the Epiphany: shining through
The closer we come to the core, the center of the gospel, the more clarity and the more mystery we encounter. On the one hand, the story is straightforward. A child’s board book would show Jesus and the disciples dusty … Continue reading
Posted in sermon
Tagged #growrule, heaven on earth, Lent, Luke 9:28-36, Transfiguration
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over the water 