“Holy
Moments”
Matthew
17:1-9
First
Presbyterian Church
The
Reverend Donald E. Ray
March
6, 2011
Transfiguration
Sunday
Lest you didn’t
catch the “tongue in cheek” humor in Tom’s comments last week about my
passion for Transfiguration Sunday, to set the record straight what I really
said -- muttered, -- was, “There is no justice. I
get Transfiguration Sunday two years in a row.”
Then Tom closes the back door by using last week the possible alternative
text of what would be the eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time were there one more
week before Lent. So, here I stand,
the now designated “Transfiguration Sunday preaching specialist.” No
pressure.
Indeed,
Transfiguration is a favorite of many preachers as a “glowing Jesus” gives
weight to the divine side of the Jesus’ humanity-divinity discussion. It
is for that reason this is NOT a
favorite of mine. You may remember
the popular television series, Touched by
an Angel, from the mid 1990’s. Monica
and Tess were angels sent by God to
touch the troubled lives of story characters week after week. If
there was a fault in the show in my mind, it was the point when the angel
“glowed” to reveal her real identity. That
often initially confused the persons whose life she was trying to reorder while
the care and acceptance and gentle guidance she offered was what made the
difference.
My saving grace in the
midst of preparation for today was a trip to the
”I lift up mine eyes to the hills—
From where will my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.
(Psalm 121:1-2)
If I am to be
the Transfiguration preaching specialist, then
I need draw on my qualification. I
have been to this mountain. I have
observed that a sign of age is to begin counting time past in decades rather
than years. This morning, I count
back by a half century.
My initial career
choice was not the ordained ministry. Through
much of my teen years I was minimally involved in church. I
wasn’t anti - just other oriented. Farm
life tends to be isolating. My
social life was limited to high school. That
ending with graduation, I did turn to the church again to fill that void. My
career choice gravitated toward the automotive field where I worked as a service
tech. My dream was to have my own
shop one day.
Through my link with
the Methodist older youth group, I somehow sensed what would traditionally be
called a call to ministry in the
church. I talked to my pastor about
it but then dismissed that call.
My course in high school had not been college prep. I
had other plans. I could stay
involved in the church as my family had before me. But
for nearly a year, I was haunted by a sense, a feeling that would not go away.
A young student
pastor, who later was my roommate in the Seminary dorm, spoke at the service on
a Sunday evening. After sharing the
story of his call to ministry, he invited folks to come and pray - an altar
call. You need to know here that
this was not foreign to my experience in my moderate-conservative Methodist home
church fifty years ago. I and, as I
realized only later, two friends from our older youth group made our way to the
communion rail. It was for me, like
out of the cloud of eleven months fumbling my own way while in torment over this
call, I heard; “This is my Son, the
Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” (Matthew 17:5)
Now, I heard no voice.
Congenital skeptic that I am, it’s
never that easy for me. But I felt
peace and confidence in an overwhelming conviction that I would become a
minister in the church. While it’s
not about clinging to vivid memories of a long ago night through all these
years, what might be called a Transfiguration Mount experience has guided and
sustained me through six and a half years of college and seminary (and I am not
an eager student); a beginning career as pastor; and then, after a sabbatical
year of clinical education, nearly three decades as a hospital chaplain and
apparently today, a Transfiguration
preaching specialist. It is
certainty of the authenticity of that experience that has kept me on track
learning and growing through doubts, pains of loss, and times of success and
effectiveness. When present
feelings, thoughts, understandings become muddled, it is the holy moments that
provide and anchor.
I have lost track of
one of my friends from that evening a half-century ago. The
other, in an era when the potential for a woman in ordained ministry was
limited, pursued a career in nursing, sharing her faith and love in schools and
mission ventures. For me, it has
been the phases of ministry.
At the risk of
repeating what I said last year, Transfiguration Sunday is not about scoring
points for the divinity side with a glowing Jesus. Transfiguration
is about climbing the mountain. I
recommend a trek through the Adirondacks, along the Appalachians and
The Gospel accounts of
Jesus’ life tell of the frequent times he withdrew from the busyness and
demands, often to a mountain, evidently for meditation and prayer.
On the occasion of today’s text, a transition time in his life and in
the lives of those he called to follow him, he took Peter, James and John with
him to his mountain retreat. They
later report a vision of Moses and Elijah, also mountain
men.
Moses, tending his
father-in-law’s flocks in Midian, came to Horeb, the
Elijah had fled for
his life to Horeb and after earthquake, wind and fire, there met God in a still
small voice. In that holy moment,
Elijah found the courage to return to the wilderness of
There is wisdom in
this church year, when we trek from the steep terrain of the Sermon on the Mount
where we struggle with challenges to be and do what seems impossible, to the
wilderness of disciplines and temptations in Lent, pausing along the way for a
climb up the Mount of Transfiguration.
There are in our faith
journeys those holy moments that bring peace in our struggles, assurance in the
uncertainties, hope in a greater dimension to our prayer and worship than our
own enhancement.
This may be a time to
remember a moment and renew the difference the assurance that the Christ
journeys with in and through us provides.
This may be a time to
climb the
Between
Amen.
Copyright © 2011 First Presbyterian Church