Last Epiphany February 22nd, 2009

Last Epiphany
February 22nd, 2009
Last Epiphany

This Sunday, the Last Sunday of Epiphany, is a hinge swinging between the two most holy seasons of the church year: Christmas-Epiphany and Lent-Eastertide.
And what are we given?: a story of glory, fear, and transformation

On that mountain Jesus became transfigured, transformed. His “face changed and his clothes became dazzling white.”
Jesus was not changed from one kind of a being into another—like the “transformer” toys of my son’s childhood. The transfigured Jesus revealed something new to the three apostles shell-shocked on the ground in front of him—Jesus’ glory shining around and out of him—the glory of his divinity. Jesus revealed to his friends as much of his holiness as they could bear.
And scared them just about to death.

So much of our faith centers around transformation—or better, transfiguration. Transfiguration occurs when things aren’t just changed, but rather become more truly what they really are. Or, another way of saying it, transfiguration is when heaven and earth are revealed as parts of one whole reality.
Think of what happens when we come together for Eucharist. It’s all about transfiguration
A simple coming together of people on Sunday morning—you and me here at 170 North Main Street in Plymouth—is transfigured into a heavenly feast, a foretaste of heaven, in which we all participate.
The wafers and the tawny port, these ordinary things, are transfigured into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, shared freely with us in an outpouring of his love.
We, this motley crew of us, each of us perfectly ordinary people, are transfigured each time we come together for Eucharist, into very special people, the People of God.
I remind us of that every Sunday when, just before Communion, I lift the broken host and the chalice of wine and say to you: “The gifts of God for the People of God.”
Does it ever strike you how outrageous that is! I am claiming on behalf of all of us, that participating in Eucharist has changed us, has transfigured us into the people God yearns for us to be.

I sometimes think that it’s unfortunate we’re the opposite of Peter, James, and John. We Episcopalians don’t tend to get knocked to the ground.
But maybe we should be! Why aren’t we “slain by the Spirit”—like the Pentecostal folks are—in front of the altar as we all swallow the bread and the wine (how unEpiscopalian that would be!). One of my favorite hymns at the Orthodox monastery I go to begins “Come, let us worship and fall down.” What if, one day, we let ourselves go and just succumbed, right here, to the wonder of it. How embarrassing! How could we hold up our heads at coffee hour!
The writer Annie Dillard gives a great description of our refusal to admit the reality of what we say is happening:
“Why do people in church seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? .. . Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should last us to their pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us to where we can never return.” (from Teaching a Stone to Talk)

Crash helmets or not, what do we do next, we transformed people fed with heavenly bread and heavenly wine?
We leave, we get out. “Go forth!,” I shout from the back of the church. “Let’s get out of here! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!” And we gather our coats and scarves and gloves (and at 9:30 a cup of coffee and a bit of cake) and brave the snow and wind.
We probably look pretty ordinary at that point. We’re probably not glowing so’s anyone could notice. Often we don’t feel a bit different.
But in this holy ritual of Eucharist, God is working in us in a place deeper than feeling. It doesn’t really matter whether we feel it or not. As we participate in the Eucharist, is transforming us, transfiguring us, little by little.
When we leave the church, we may think we’re the same as we were when we came in, but that scary glory that shown around and through Christ that day on the mountain?—we carry our own bit of that glory out of the church doors, down the stairs right into the world.