Shine On!

Sermon by the Rev. David Anderson
Matthew 17:1-9

The Transfiguration is the mother of all Epiphanies. Jesus takes his disciples up the mountain and in a moment of clarity, they see the glory hidden beneath his ordinary flesh and blood. Jesus is “transfigured”—his face shines like the sun and his clothes dazzle white. It may look like an ad for Tide with Bleach, but it’s all about the presence of God, the Light of Light.

And Transfiguration is about who can see the light—that is, who can sense the presence of God—and who can’t. Who can see the light hidden in ordinary human flesh, and who misses it.

I used to read this story as an event that underscored the uniqueness of Jesus the Christ: He shines like the sun—and the rest of us aren’t even glow worms. In the movie Cocoon, space aliens visit the earth to reclaim the cocoons of the title—the pods that hold their baby aliens. The aliens take on human forms, (like, for example, the body of Brian Dennehy, the alien leader) so they blend in. But when they’re alone (or think they are!), they peel off their skin and the blinding light pours out. They’re really beings of pure light that flit and fly through the air.

This is the way I used to think of the Transfiguration. Jesus sort of peeled off his skin and the disciples could see a figure of pure light. But we know this is heresy. Jesus was not just fully divine—fully Light—he was fully human. The light was integrated completely into his earthy flesh. But we like to have it that old way—the pure being of light somehow shrouded in flesh—because it romanticizes the story as a one-time event, trapped in the inaccessible world of the Bible. It’s like a fairy tale, the kind of thing that doesn’t happen in our world.

In fact, the Transfiguration reveals the light within every one of us. For some people it’s hidden pretty deeply, but it’s there in all of us. That’s not to say that our light is the same as the brilliance we see in Jesus on that mountain top. The light that burns deep within every human being is not our own. It’s a reflected light. The only light we bear is a reflection of the Light of Christ.

But make no mistake—there is a light in you! There is a light in me! It’s the very same light we see in Christ at the Transfiguration, and it burns as an eternal flame at the core of our being as an unmistakable, unquenchable sign of our provenance and identity. We are children of the Light! And the only question is: Can you see it? Can you see it in yourself? Can you see that light in others?

If it works, Epiphany is like a visual touchstone: What we see in Jesus trains our eyes so that we can see that same light in every human being. Can you see it?

We stand on this climactic mountain top on Annual Meeting Sunday, the one day in the year when we pull back the curtain, as it were, and look at the workings of this congregation. How we actually do the work of this place—and so much of the work of this great parish is hidden. You don’t see the preparation, you just see the outcome. All the staff and hundreds of volunteers are effectively hidden. And when I pull back that curtain and look at all the whirring parts, when I pull back that veil, I see Light! So I want to just point your eye to a few places where the light is leaking out around the edges of this community and its people.

You can see my full assessment in the 2007 Annual Report, so I’ll just paint with the broadest brush this morning. We’re working the vision we laid out just a few years ago. To Grow personally in faith, Build an accepting community, and Work alongside our neighbors. We’ve made a major shift to a new service schedule and new time slot for Discovery Hour, and I should have been drawn and quartered for all the changes we put this congregation through—and instead, people just smiled and tried the new and light was leaking out of those smiles.

To continue to Grow personally in faith, we’ve offered a new program—a sequel to our two years of DOCC—called “Living the Way,” where 75 people came together for ten weeks to learn about the three parts of our vision and how they could take a step toward living it personally. On the last night we gathered in a circle for Eucharist and then shared a meal together. And after dinner, people just told stories—of how the program and the people they came to know and love had changed their lives. Ordinary people spoke and we could see their light.

We did a lot to Build that accepting community. We undertook the enormous task of changing 150 years of “Pastoral Care” to “Caring Connections,” where literally hundreds of people help us take care of one another. So caring for people is not just what “pastors” do—it’s just what we do for one another in the Body of Christ. But the move is on—the culture is shifting at Saint Luke’s. I’ve sat and listened to a half dozen people give “A Minute for Stewardship,” and I’ve hardly heard a word about money! All they’ve talked about is the struggles and joys of their very real lives. And I listened to these people and I thought, “No one told them to get up here and be honest and tell people where they’ve struggled and found grace.” They just spoke truth because I think we’re starting to see that it’s ok, and in fact it creates the kind of community we all really want anyway.

But the coup de grace for me was the sermon I heard here on Youth Sunday, when young Austin Anderson stood in this pulpit and told us his life story—and I sat back there and thought, “Is that young man really saying what I’m hearing? How can he feel safe enough and empowered enough to tell his story?” But he did, and he told us how this community and the Lord of this community saved his life. That’s Building an accepting and transforming community big time. Austin was on fire. It was a transfiguration and I saw it.

I could talk about so many ways we’ve been Working alongside our neighbors this year, globally and locally. And I’m so incredibly proud of our own Person-to-Person. As the economy stumbles the most vulnerable feel it—and just the need for food has skyrocketed. But P-to-P is meeting that kind of basic need right here at Saint Luke’s every day for nearly twenty thousand people every year. And if you haven’t thought about that in a while, it’s time to marvel at the light pouring out of Franklin House over there!

Just yesterday I went with the Molkenthins, the Martins, the Bowmans and the Meinerths to host the meal after the Spanish Eucharist at St. John’s in Bridgeport. They’re one of our partner churches who help us host Vacation Bible School, and we’ve helped them start this Spanish Eucharist on Saturdays—just by buying some Spanish Prayer Books and some other basics. So now once a month a group will make lunch—really a fabulous dinner!—and serve it after church.

So I’m helping with the Spanish Eucharist and I don’t know a word of Spanish, but Fr. Geoff says—“You’re a chalice bearer. This is all the Spanish you need to know. ‘La sangre de Cristo,’ The Blood of Christ.” Ok, I can do that. But all these people just blessed me in that service.

And then we went to the parish hall where our four families—along with six of their kids—were serving this great meal. The man next to me said how good this lunch was, and the woman on the other side of him said, “I think it’s because it’s served with love. I really do.”

Now, I’d been told that the meal we serve is only half of the blessing—the other half is all the food these people take home. (Which is why we always bring a raft of those Styrofoam food containers with us.) But I sat and watched nearly every person fill container after container. One young woman said to Allison Molkenthin, “I have three children and I can’t feed them. Can I have some more?” And we got that woman a box to fill with containers—and more good things like apples and oranges.

Next month the Worship Committee is making and serving the meal. We’re starting to see that this kind of work isn’t just for the Outreach Committee. It’s a privilege that all of us share in. And if your worship—your Growing personally in faith—doesn’t lead you to Work alongside your neighbor, then we’ve severed the nerve of the Gospel in Body of Christ.

Week before last three people walked out of church and said, in one way or another, “Something remarkable is happening here, and it’s blessing my life.” One person added, “You may be too close to it—like watching a child grow,” she said, “and maybe you can’t see it.” So she pointed me to the light.

I’ll stop now. But I want to say how much fun I’m having. This has been a year of a lot of transition—with three staff leaving and three coming on. And with our advance planning for our capital campaign, we’ve had our hands full. But we’re having fun!

I looked at the three to five year goals we established in 2006, and some we’ve accomplished and some we haven’t, and a lot of things have just happened that weren’t on our list. And maybe you’re like me—my eyes went to the unfulfilled goals and I felt all the shoulds and oughts well up in me. And then, thank God, I had enough sense to say, “You bonehead. Saint Luke’s is doing major strategic planning, doing great work, and you’re having fun. What more do you want?”

I haven’t told the Wardens yet, but I am amending my goals for 2008 so that after all the serious and strategic stuff there will be one more important goal—“Have fun. Make sure other people have fun unless they really just don’t want to.”  I’m quite serious.               

Can you see my light?  I can see yours.