Looking Ahead to March 2, 2025 -- Transfiguration Sunday

As this is the first Sunday of the month we will be celebrating Communion. Also as we do on the 1st Sunday of each month we encourage people to support our Local Outreach Fund.

Following worship this Sunday all are invited to remain for our Annual Congregational Meeting.

The Scripture Readings for this week are: 

• Exodus 34:29-35 
• 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2

The Sermon title is See Through the Veil

Early Thoughts: "Now we are seeing a dim reflection, as in a mirror; but then we shall be seeing face to face" (1 Corinthians 13:12a, Jerusalem Bible)

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What if 'then' could be NOW? What if we could see clearly and fully, not just a dim reflection? What if the veil were removed and we saw God present in our midst? WHat if we were fully aware that the Shekinah , the divine presence of God was among us?

This Sunday is the last Sunday of the Season of Epiphany, next week we begin the Lenten journey to the cross. One of the traditional themes of the Season of Epiphany is recognizing that God is in our midst. Certainly that is one of the themes for this Sunday.

I invite you to think back to the Sunday right after Christmas (December 29). On that day we heard the story from Luke where Simeon and Anna both run into Mary, Joseph and their new baby in the temple. Both Simeon and Anna recognize who this baby is, and that morning I asked in the reflection "how did they know?". The next week was Epiphany Sunday when we remember the story of visitors from the East who have come to honour the newborn king -- they too knew something, they too recognized that God was present.

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Now this week we come to Transfiguration Sunday, a day when the Gospel story (which will be told during Children's Time) tells of an experience Peter, James and John have with Jesus on the top of a mountain. They have a vision of Jesus with the full glory of God shining through him. God is revealed in sight and sound in this man they have been following around, this teacher who inspired them to leave their old lives behind.

How might we becomes aware of where God is hiding in plain sight in our world? Do we really want to?

This week's reading from Exodus, which Paul references in his letter to the Corinthians that we are also reading, talks about how the people of Israel responded to seeing the glory of God reflected in the face of Moses. They were afraid so Moses had to veil his face, to mute the glory of God shining in him. Paul, after a slight diversion into what seems like a bit of an anti-Semitic argument about Jews  remaining unable to comprehend what God is doing, encourages us to remove the veil, to allow each other to see God reflected in each other as we are being transformed in to who God calls and creates us to be.

Can we take the risk to allow God shine through us?  If, as Genesis 1 tells us is true, we are all created in the image of God what keeps that image from  being what people see in us? How do we remove the veil(s) that life has pushed on us? How do we see through the veil(s) that other people wear?

I suggest that when Jesus takes Peter, James and John up the mountain Jesus himself is not changed --- the other three get a chance to see more clearly what has been in front of them all along. What have we been missing all along? Where has God been hiding in plain sight?  Is this why Jesus says (in Matthew 13)" Blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear"?

I think one of the gifts God gives us is the ability to see the world as it is. Sometimes this is unsettling because we don't see what we wish the world was. Sometimes it can also be uplifting when we see God revealed in our midst. In practice I think we see without the veil in glimpses and flashes, but maybe with openness and faith we can see more. 

How do we see beyond the veil? Are we willing to take the risk of removing the veils we put up to protect ourselves?
--Gord

Looking Ahead to February 11, 2024 -- Transfiguration Sunday

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• 2 Kings 2:1-12
• 2 Corinthians 4:1-7

The Sermon title is What Do You See?

Sunday's stole?

Early Thoughts: Of all the courses taught at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry I think I would most want to take Transfiguration. Transfiguration changes what we see. Or maybe it changes how we see?

Commonly on Transfiguration Sunday we read about Jesus on the mountain top with Peter, James, and John. This story pushes the disciples, and through them us, to see Jesus in a new, different way. There is a lot to talk about there. But it is not the only place in Scripture that we can be pushed to see things differently.

What/how we see is largely shaped by where we stand -- physically, mentally, philosophically, emotionally. Elisha has to be in the right physical mental and emotional place to see what God reveals as Elijah is taken up in the whirlwind. But because God is with him he can see through his grief and loss. He sees the event differently than the other prophets who stop on the other side of the river.

If we are to see clearly what God is doing in the world we need to see differently. We need to cast aside the veil that the world places over our sight. Or maybe more appropriately we need to let God pull aside the veil that we might be clinging to. Sometimes we are the ones that get in the way of seeing clearly.

In the end we have to see differently. We have to see past the whirlwind or the clay jars.. We only do that when God helps us.

Maybe then the tea cup will turn into a rat. Or the professor into a cat. Or the water into rum.
--Gord

Looking Ahead to February 19, 2023 -- Transfiguration Sunday

 The Scripture Reading this week is Matthew 17:1-9

The Sermon title is Glory Revealed

Early Thoughts: Every year, on the Sunday before Lent begins, the lectionary invites us to ponder the story of the Transfiguration. This year we have the story as Matthew tells it, but both Mark (9:2-10) and Luke (9:28-36) also recount the event. All 3 versions are really quite similar.

Jesus takes the inner circle of the inner circle away to a private place. [Note that there are other times Peter James and John are taken out of the larger group, the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus prays before his arrest is another example.] While they are up on the mountain they have a mystical, mysterious experience. Jesus is revealed in a different way.

In the Lord of the Rings, as Frodo and his friends are being chased to the Fords of Bruinen Frodo sees a figure that shines brightly. Later Gandalf tells him that this was the elf Glorfindel and that as Glorfindel had lived in the Blessed Realm there was a hidden power in him and Frodo saw him as he was on the other side. I have often thought that Frodo was better able to see this side of Glorfindel as a result of Frodo's own wounded-ness, he was starting to fade at the time.  

In the Transfiguration story, do Peter James and John indeed see Jesus as he is "on the other side"? Are they getting a glimpse of the glory that is contained in the mortal frame of Jesus of Nazareth? Are they seeing the hidden power that can help to fight back the evil in the world?

Some scholars think that the Transfiguration story shows some signs of being influenced by the Easter story, that the Resurrected Jesus is being read back into earlier parts of the story. I think that is possible, I also think it is possible (or maybe even probable) that the disciples could not truly comprehend what had happened until they Easter had come and transformed their understanding of who Jesus was. Is that maybe why Jesus tells them not to tell anybody what had happened?

To be transfigured is to be changed. Those who have read the Harry Potter series (or even just watched the movies) will know that all students at Hogwarts take Transfiguration. In that class they learn how to change items into something else, such as a rat into a teacup. Jesus is changed on the mountain top, or at least the understanding Peter James and John have of Jesus is changed on the mountain top. They are left awe-struck and more than a little gobsmacked -- why does Peter want to set up tents?. They don't know quite how to respond appropriately. Radical change in how we see things will do that to you.

The glory of Jesus gets revealed in this week's story.  The disciples get a glimpse of what is happening but they don't really get it. In a few weeks we will tell the story of a cross and an empty tomb and the glory of Jesus being revealed yet again. Do the disciples get what is happening then? Do we get what is happening when the glory of God is revealed in our midst and we are left awe-struck?
--Gord