Friday, February 17, 2012

It's Transfiguration Sunday Again. Yawn. Mark 9: 2 - 9

I have been trying mightily to get students interested in a workshop on spiritual autobiography that we are offering here next week. It has been an uphill journey. Add to that the fact that the event falls just after Ash Wednesday, another excuse for many Protestants to yawn, and the task becomes that much more challenging. It is relatively rare that my constituents get terribly excited about events dealing with faith. They are so busy with classes and social events that there is precious little room (desire?) in their lives for other events that require an hour of their time in what is already an over-scheduled week. In the past couple of weeks I have been made acutely aware of how little some members of this community who are not students understand the nature of the work that I do here.
Having said all of that, the Sunday of the Transfiguration should be anything but a yawn. Sure, it's a bit of a stretch to understand the imagery portrayed by Mark. After all, the events described therein can cause one to wonder if drug use was prevalent in biblical times. Who else has such visions? Well, we do, actually. Or, to be more exact, we can. Have you ever been walking along on a certain type of day when you become aware, quite suddenly, of the perfection of everything around you? I have had several of those epiphanies, and they have almost always occurred on a country road in the summertime, when every flower bends in just such a way in the breeze, and cattle graze happily nearby, and I can hear nothing but the deafening silence of that perfect place. I have begun to think of those moments of vision as a gift from God, a way of reminding me of how fortunate I am to have all that I have, and to remind me as well that I am never alone, even though it feels that way sometimes. The most important element in the story of the Transfiguration may be that Jesus came down off the mountain and bid his disciples to do the same. They could not stay in that seemingly perfect place, but they could use that experience to steady themselves when the going got tough. And, as we know, it was about to get very tough, for everyone. We may lament the fact that we are not granted such an audience as Peter, James and John were given on that mountain. But the fact that they were allowed to have that glimpse of the divine realm should energize us for our Lenten journey, and instill in us a sense that this time of the liturgical year is anything but a big yawn. So, look around this week, your moment to be awestruck is about to become manifest. You will have your own epiphany and God will get your attention. But only if you are looking, not yawning.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

The Candidates Do Not Have the Last Word! Isaiah 40:21-31

I don't know about you, but I am very tired of the circus that has come to be known as the presidential primary season. Each day, we learn that one or another of the candidates has said something even more fantastic or ridiculous than the others. And it's a moving target; each day someone "one ups" another in the silliness department. I cannot help but believe that, at their worst, the primaries show to what extent men and women will go to grasp power. The Republican candidates will stop at nothing to wrest power away from the Democrats, and I am certain that the Democrats will be just as ruthless in trying to hold on to the power they have. To make matters worse, there is no shortage of cnadidates claiming the "true" religious faith that will assure victory.
How far we have come from the tragic times that the Israelites faced during the exile in Babylon. Not all of the Children of Israel were forced to make the trip, just those with money and power. After all, the Babylonians probably had little need or desire to increase the numbers of poor among them. Those who were exiled must have wondered what had become of their God, Yahweh, the One who had made covenant to always to with them. They were living in a strange land, with people who practiced what must have seemed a strange religion, worshiping Marduk, in a theological system that celebrated the rise of chaos out of order. In contrast, the creation stories in Genesis describe the peaceful order out of chaos that Yahweh had set down, until humans decided to test the limits of power and thus created their own chaos. So, in the midst of all of this, we have Deutero-Isaiah's words of encouragement to the people.
"Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in; who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing....To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal? says the Holy One." W. Dennis Tucker, Jr, Associate Professor at George Truett Theological Seminary, modifies these verses to make them conform more closely to the original Hebrew text: "Thus the final rhetorical question is actually the climax in a short series of staccato lines: surely you know, surely you have heard, surely it has been told to you; surely you understand the foundations of the earth. And if you understand the foundations of the earth, how can you believe in the possibility of any other god at work in our world? This God, and this God alone, stands above the world, creating a place for those who are like grasshoppers (verse 22) to live."
What we have here is a strong reminder from Deutero-Isaiah that the people must not forget the God who has been there from the beginning. No doubt, this was hard for the people in exile to believe. Folks who are experiencing hard times are not always able to place their faith in a promise, when everything around them seems to be working to convince them of the falsehood of that promise. One need not be in exile to identify with feelings of isolation or worry. Who among us has not awakened in the middle of the night, unable to fall asleep again because we begin to worry about every task or unsolved problem with which we deal during the day? In the darkness of the night, God can seem far away. How much worse, then, must it be for those in our world who are beset by poverty, illness and injustice? How are they to hold on to promises that show little evidence of fulfillment any time soon? Such despair and weariness is very real, but can it deny the reality of a living, creating God? The beautiful prose at the end of Isaiah 40 queries the reader: "Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." These are not platitudes meant to quiet the restless and appease the down-trodden. They affirm the promise of the God who has been there from the beginning and who will be there to the end. We may not understand our plight, and we may find it hard to believe that our personal situations or our global condition will improve any time soon. The people in exile returned home eventually, and had to start over, with a new idea of who their god was, based on their experience of loss. That should encourage us. And, when I look at our secular leaders, my despair is tempered by the belief that they do not have the last word. My ultimate trust must be found in One whose ways I cannot begin to comprehend, and whose grace I cannot deny.