Transfiguration Sunday: Not fade away

2/15

It’s Transfiguration Sunday. And freezing cold. We start the service with a prequel, reading the story of Elijah’s exit via a flaming chariot.( 2 Kings 2: 1-12)

While we’re reading, Jeremy plays a few bars of Chariots of Fire.  And after we’re finished, we sing Swing Low Sweet Chariot.

Then I read the streetlight passage from Zora Neal Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. When the small African-American town lights it’s streetlight for the first time, they gather round and sing Jesus the Light of the World. And so do we.

After we’ve read the Transfiguration story, (Mark 9: 2-9) we sign these words from Julia Ward Howe’s Battle Hymn of the Republic.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,

With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.

As He died to make men holy, let us live  to set all free ^[12]

While God is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

While God is marching on.

And then our reflection. I saw a movie last night, Imitation Game, and one of its repeated quotes is Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine. Just wanted to share that. Though it could apply to Jesus who up until age 30 was a bit of an odd duck, unmarried, still living with his family, working for his father in a small town.

And I read the names: Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21; her husband, Mr. Deah Barakat, 23; and her sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, the three Muslims murdered in Chapel Hill last week. Because we need to remember.

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day. Today Is Transfiguration Sunday. Time for one final burst of light…..bringing the light by being the light as we’ve been talking about during this season..…one final epiphany moment of getting it…so what is it we get?

This story is at the very center of Mark’s Gospel…Jesus goes to the mountain top. Peter, James and John go with him…they see Jesus in dazzling white…(like the young man who will appear at the end of the story…) Who is with him? Moses and Elijah…the Law and the Prophets…every Shabbat, in Jewish worship they read from torah ..the law, the first five books of the Bible, the books of Moses and hafttorah…the prophets

A voice comes from a cloud…this is my son, the beloved….listen to him…it is the same voice we heard a few weeks ago, at the  baptism of Jesus…and the same words..

Peter, always with no impulse control,  wants to build 3 booths…wants to stay there…enjoy the glory..

But wait..Let’s back up…how did we get there?

To understand that we need to understand the context. To see what came right before this.

Beginning at 8:31 we read:

 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. ³² He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ³³ But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

³⁴ He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵ For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel,^[a] will save it. ³⁶ For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? ³⁷ Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? ³⁸ Those who are ashamed of me and of my words^[b] in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” 9 ¹ And he said to them, “Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with^[c] power.”

Jesus has told them his path lies towards Jerusalem. And the cross. Peter doesn’t want to hear it and Jesus says get behind me Satan because the temptation is to turn back. No one wants to go to the cross.

And now , here on the mountain,they have now seen the glory…but that glory is directly related to the announcement of his mission…the journey to the cross.

As for law and prophets, it’s easy to miss that the job of the prophets was to bring people back to the center of the law…and at the law’s center was justice…if the laws were followed, there would be no poor…

That’s why you can’t stay on the mountaintop, you have to come back down and get to work…

So…where is the light here? What are we to get?

1.Yeah, we have to go back down, but the mountain top experiences are necessary….we have to allow ourselves to experience them..for me that would have been  Christmas Eve a year ago (http://west-parkpress.blogspot.com/2013/12/christmas-eve-sign.html), when I felt we were being reborn. Or this year’s  No Place Like Home concert for the homeless…we need them, this mountaintop experiences…and to allow ourselves to experience them fully…in that light we see the promise of not only of what can be but what already is….

2. We have to come back down and get back to work….the work of the law…the work of prophets…knowing where it can lead…but allowing the glory to shine on us nevertheless

I have to reference Martin  Luther King,Jr. here. He had his mountaintop experience, and that amazing mountain top speech,

( http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm) right before he was assassinated  in Memphis …but also from Julia Ward Howe’s Battle Hymn…it is the language of transfiguration, and the language of glory…

…as he died to make men holy let us live to set all free….God’s truth is marching on…

Let that light shine …and keep shining..

For our offertory, Jeremy and I sing Storm Large’s Stand Up for Me , as our Home Band did at the benefit concert(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wko3jF_qlNw).

And we finish with  Not Fade Away…as in the light should not fade away... and amazingly, the congregation gets up and follows Jeremy and I as we march around the sanctuary playing and singing that much covered Buddy Holly hit. 

 And after our final circle of blessing, the service is over.

And almost immediately, those young Koreans are on their way in.

enLIGHTen 3: All things to all people

2/8

Animals out of Paper

This week we start precisely at 11. Regardless….

It’s the third Sunday in bringing the light by being the light…..And today we’re looking  at Paul’s comments about being all things to all people…In 1 Corinthians 9: 16-23:

 ⁶If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel! ¹⁷For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission. ¹⁸What then is my reward? Just this: that in my proclamation I may make the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my rights in the gospel.

¹⁹For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. ²⁰To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. ²¹To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. ²²To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. ²³I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.

Last night I saw the play currently running in Mc Alpin Hall, Animals out of Paper…(https://www.facebook.com/events/1532910106970706/) It’s a play about origami…..a subject I knew little about. It’s intelligent and well done and through a taking us deeply into a trio of characters who live intensely in the world or origami illustrates that what opens the doors to one world, opens doors to all worlds. It also has a great signature quote: So much of what I am is what I've lost...Like we used to say when I was in  college, anyone who’s into anything is into the same thing…

Then there’s the story of the Hot Metal Bridge Church in Pittsburgh (http://www.hotmetalbridge.com/) that began as a Bible Study in a tattoo parlor…then moved into a bar, then bought the bar….then....

In some ways , this is a continuation of last week’s conversation….everything permitted, not everything is wise, …and making good use of that freedom…When I was in Tulsa, single, young, free,  I went everywhere…sports, music, theatre, community events…every night of the week. I was in a large church…over 5000 ,members. So everywhere I went, I ran into church members. When they would see me at their event, the members felt, wow, he shares my interest, he understands me…

It seems we have all kinds of group ….jocks for Jesus, hikers for Jesus, bikers for Jesus…

The point is, we’re each made different and special…..with  different gifts, skills, talents, interests, passions…all of which are gifts of God and reflections of God, part of God’s light….that is where we find the light, our light today.

On Fridays we have an Open Mic here….it is accepting of all…each performer welcomed, supported, encouraged, given the room to grow, to  improve,  get better, move closer to the dream of what they want to be…that’s what we should be doing in the church as well…helping each other to see the light that it is in us and helping us to shine brighter, sharing that light with each other….

We sing our songs, finish with Shine on me one more time…and the service is over….and as soon as we are finished, the In2 Korean church is on its way in, ready for their service.

Fridays are for open Mics

1/30

Welcome back, Nick

A woman seeking space. A man sleeping on the pews. A young woman, the same troubled person I’ve seen before, asleep.

I come to Open Mic after having watched the Yale-Columbia game with Nate.

Yale won

Pat O is still perfecting his traveling set including the song about his divorce, which always gets me, and the World War 1 centennial inspired Old Soldiers.

Pat O

A singer, Divine Life (…or Light?) does a solid R&B/hip hop set.

A Divine set....

Young Nick Lantigua is back with his original banjo work. And Alex Fry is here to celebrate the release of her first EP.(http://rippletunes.com/album/Alex-Fry/Brave-New-World-EP/957407570/t0)

Alex plays

And she’s brought a friend who sings harmony, especially on that insidious song from Once, Falling Slowly,

Alex and friend

insidious because of how it gets me. And as for me, I go with my Southern Lady, to recall my Yale days, (Texas girl in New Haven…), Love Again Tomorrow (due some special treatment by Milica on Monday) and Leonard Cohen’s Tonight Will Be Fine… and feel good about it….

2/6

Animals out of Paper

Morning  session with Jeremy, including a lesson to help me with my sense of rhythm. Pat O and I will spend a long session going through the strategy to see what steps can be taken to build the congregation.

Long conversation with Nairobey Otero, who’s got a production of the origami play (a real understatement) Animals Out of Paper going on in Mc Alpin.( https://www.facebook.com/animalsout )Last night she had her wallet and cell phone stolen during her performance. With Dzieci and Work Center in the building, it’s hard to imagine how that happened. I decide to watch her performance. Leila’s got to scramble around to find another theatre group rehearsing a play called Under God’s Tongue because either gym or chapel will interfere with Nairoby’s production so we decide to delay the Open Mic so that they ca get a solid hour and a half rehearsal at least.

Nairoby’s Animals…takes me by surprise. It’s a fine play. Written by Rajiv Joseph, it opens up the world of origami and as follows, whenever any world opens up for us, we find another door into understanding our own better. The level of professionalism is also impressive and I’m once again struck as to how Mc Alpin Hall can be easily transformed into another world by good theatre people. Both Nairoby as Ilana and her one co-lead, David Beck as Andy, are Equity pros and Manesh Sasikumar, is a bundle of energy and creativity as Suresh, Ilana’s apprentice. I learned a lot about origami, but was also legitimately moved by a good story.

Down in the sanctuary, Open Mic is going on. Joel is into another of his improv adventures.

Joel

 David S plays his own This is just a Test after some 80’s rock

This is just a test

and David L takes us to Waylon and Willie country again.  

Waylon and Willie and David

Alex (who I always love talking wrestling with, his son wrestles at Muhlenberg) is back again.

Alex on guitar

He’ll pull out his violin for RL’s Stay Awhile.  I’m sorry Don was here for one stand up guy’s crude and obscene performance that came off as disrespectful. There’s so much more….As for me, I open with Southern Lady, follow with Love Again Tomorrow (Milica’s  performance was snowed out Monday night…so we’re still awaiting…) and finish with Girl from the North Country, a good winter song. Tonight, I’m singing with Kristen Leigh in mind whose cabin in the woods has become uninhabitable.  The song is starting to feel like I’ve got my own take on it. And that feels good.