Shining Like the Sun

Last Epiphany

Exodus 34:29-35; Luke 9:28-36

My youngest daughter, Maya, will turn 9 years old on Tuesday.  Which makes me feel a bit nostalgic. Just yesterday she was my baby, happily toddling after her older brother and sister.  A naturally joyful person, she was just as excited about a trip to the grocery store as a trip to the zoo, so she transformed our boring chores into adventures just by her presence.  And now she is this big kid -- a total extrovert who loves making slime and turning cartwheels.

Sometimes Maya’s birthday is just a regular day.  Every once in a while it falls on Ash Wednesday (which makes celebrating a little hard).  This year, it’s on Shrove Tuesday, which is perfect for her! Because Maya is our pancake fairy.

In our house, whenever we find ourselves with a free Saturday morning, Maya and I make pancakes.  We work side by side, laughing and sniffing and tasting -- and sometimes pretending we are competing on a Chopped championship.  Often there is a mystery ingredient or two -- cranberries or pumpkin puree or apples. Then we gather everyone for the meal and the wild rumpus begins.  Fruit and syrup and whipped cream go on the lazy susan in the middle and we spin it around madly, competing to see who can create the more beautiful and delicious concoction.  Or, more realistically, who can create the highest mountain of whipped cream. Even our cat, Mookie gets into the fun -- he comes running when he hears the sound of the whipped cream and gets a little taste.

There is something holy in the way that plain ingredients, like pancake mix and milk and eggs, can be transformed into something so full of joy and connection.  The seemingly ordinary is changed into something extraordinary. And it isn’t just the addition of syrup and whipped cream, although those are delightful. It’s also Maya’s increasing independence and creativity in the kitchen.  And the family time around the table. The rare and lovely laziness of a morning together, a wide open piece of the day when anything still seems possible and no one is hurried or grouchy.

And so it seems very fitting to have pancakes for dinner -- AT CHURCH -- on Shrove Tuesday.  It is like an affirmation of my experience of the sanctity of pancake-eating.

I give that background so you’ll understand why when I came to our readings for today pancakes struck me as a perfect metaphor for the transfiguration of Moses and Jesus.  The ordinary turned extraordinary.
During Moses’ mountaintop experience from our Old Testament reading, Moses is no longer the reluctant and sometimes grouchy leader of the exiled Israelites, but shines like the sun.  There can be no doubt that he is God’s Chosen Prophet and Lawgiver.

And during Jesus’ mountaintop experience from our Gospel reading, Jesus is no longer seen as a wise and challenging human leader.  The glory of God his Father shines from his very being.

Moses and Jesus experience God and are transfigured.  
But then I realized that Jesus hadn’t actually changed in this encounter at all – he was divine all along; he was the beloved Son of God all along.  To him, this gathering on the mountaintop was just a chat with his dad. What really changed in this story was the disciples. The way they saw Jesus and the way they now understood themselves and their mission.  In that thin space on the mountaintop, they got a little glimpse of what had actually been there all along -- a glimpse of the light that is always shining in the darkness.

And it was similar with Moses.  He’d been talking to God for ages before this moment.  He’d heard God in the burning bush, been getting daily directions from God as he led the people into the Promised Land.  This wasn’t a change for Moses as much as it was for the people traveling with him, who at that moment perhaps finally realized that Moses wasn’t a nagging rule-giver but an example of what it might mean to live into their covenant with their relational God.  In that thin space on the mountaintop, they got a glimpse of what had actually been there all along -- and a glimpse of what was possible for them too.
Maybe these stories aren’t just about the transfiguration of Moses and Jesus, but are invitations to us to be transfigured by the thin spaces all around us.  

Maybe WE are the pancakes!  We are the ones living our ordinary ingredient lives when suddenly, every once in a while, we get a glimpse of the ultimate glory.   This is what we were made for! This is what it means to be truly alive!
It’s interesting to watch what happens to Peter, James and John in the span of just a few minutes during their mountaintop experience.  

First, surprise.  They see Jesus’ shining face and glowing clothes and they are stunned.  

Next, an attempt to control and capture the situation.  “Lord, let us build you all houses” so you can stay RIGHT HERE with us forever.  

Then they hear God’s voice and they are filled with fear.  

I think we can all relate to all of those emotions.

But then God incarnate touches them and tells them not to fear.  And so they rise, shaky but renewed and ready for the work ahead.  

It is time to take their transfigured selves back down the mountain and reenter the world.

My guess is that when the disciples went back down that mountain with Jesus, their faces were shining too.  They’d discovered a whole new way of looking at Jesus, at God, at themselves. A whole new way of living in the world.  And now they understood, even if just for a moment, their call to reflect the light of God in the world around them.
Now what about us?    
Every Sunday right here in this place we have opportunities to look beyond what we think is real into something even more Real – opportunities to get a glimpse into the reality of God.  We open this book to hear scripture read and are invited to enter into the story of God that is still speaking, still inspiring.  We shake hands with friends and strangers – just regular people - during the Peace, and become connected to each other as the Body of Christ.  We eat regular bread and drink regular wine at this table and somehow Christ is present among and within us.

And then we are dismissed into the world, encouraged to go out and love and serve the Lord.  And hopefully, because of our experiences in here, when we go out our faces are shining too.
But it isn’t only in here that we are exposed to God’s Reality.  Thomas Merton, Trappist Monk and spiritual writer, wrote about an experience he had in Louisville, Kentucky, on March 18, 1958.  It was an ordinary day and ordinary people were going about their ordinary business. But for some reason it suddenly all changed for him.  As he described it:

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, ... even though we were total strangers.  It was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, ... the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed.  [It] was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. . . . It was like waking from a dream.... I have the immense joy of being human, a member of a race in which God became incarnate. [I]f only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

What if when we head out of this place today, we look at the people around us, and ourselves too, as we all are in God’s eyes -- vulnerable and flawed and broken, and also incredibly beloved and shining like the sun.  What if we open our eyes to the glory of God that shines even in the darkness and allow it to transfigure us? Amen.