Welcome to the new school year!

                                                                                                Epiphany last -- Transfiguration

                                                                                                St. Stephen’s

                                                                                                2/22/09

As the recessional at the end of today’s mass, we are going to sing a little song that has been causing a lot of consternation around here—no one could find the words, then no one could find the music.  When I asked Father Stowe to put it in the bulletin, he was momentarily stunned:  “You’re using that hymn?”  He asked.  “I can’t believe it.  Praise music!”  One word answer:  “Transfiguration.”  Indeed, today is the feast of the Transfiguration, and it’s the only time in the church year when it’s really, really appropriate to sing “Shine, Jesus, Shine.”

Today’s lessons are all about shining.  I’m not exactly sure whether it is a good thing or a bad thing to be shiny.  I know that women, for some reason, are not supposed to want shiny faces, and cover all the shiny parts with makeup, often in vast quantities.  On the other hand, on the Harvard campus there is a very moving plaque that reads, “For thirty-three years, Andrew Preston Peabody moved among the teachers and students of Harvard University and wist not that his face shone.”  That’s a heck of a way to be remembered by your colleagues and students.  And of course, it is a reference to the light shining from the face of Moses after he received the ten commandments—the light of sitting in God’s presence.

When we hear of Moses’ and Jesus’ shining faces, however, we are not meant to be put in mind of Jack Nicholson leering through a shattered door or even of enlightened college professors.  The illumination does not come from them at all, of course, but is the reflected light of the glory of God.  To see God face-to-face is to be utterly changed, radiant.  I think of this particularly this week in the wake of the deaths of two friends, whom I devoutly hope are now reflecting and basking in God’s love and glory.

This metaphor of shining is not beyond our experience.  We are familiar with people who seem radiant after a life-changing experience.  Pregnant women are said to be radiant, though I am quite sure I was not the least bit shiny when I was in that state.  But the faces you see at some revivals or places where Mary is said to appear can sometimes look almost unworldly, even on TV.  People obviously can be transformed—transfigured, even—by religious and deeply emotional experiences.

But the fact is that few of us will come down from a mountaintop encounter with God with our hair turned completely white, like Charleton Heston, or have God acknowledge us out loud in front of our friends.  This kind of shining is apparently reserved for the very special few, among whom we can safely count Moses and Jesus and I suppose that Harvard professor.  This is not the kind of shining which most of us will ever do.

Most of us will have to find a different way to shine.  Enter St. Paul, in today’s reading from the letter to the Corinthians.  I’m sure all of you contentedly recognized the famous passage on love.  You have heard it at weddings, or perhaps even seen it on a decorative wall plaque.  All the rules about love, describing the ideal relationship between two people, the Christian vision of a happy marriage.  Not.  Paul, of course, is not referring at all to romance in his famous dissertation on love. 

What he is doing—and better than anyone else ever has—is putting Christianity in context, providing perspective, making sense of a very complex matter.  In doing so, he also creates some of the most beautiful poetry ever written.  And what he says is that God has made us wonderfully gifted—diverse, talented, noble, able to bring joy and inspiration and meaning into a chaotic and hurtful world.  Some of us can see the Big Picture, and prophesy how it will unfold so that others may prepare and take heart.  Some of us can heal, perhaps the body, perhaps the mind.  Some us are natural leaders and can actually make a meeting go quickly and painlessly.  Some of us speak in tongues, though I’m not quite sure why that is a gift and I’m just as glad I don’t have it.  Some of us are artists and musicians—church organists, even—and bring beauty and insight into our lives.  Some of us who can’t do anything else wind up being teachers.  Some of us are great at what Paul calls “forms of assistance,” or are amazingly successful parents or just super, all-around folks. 

You might have one of these very special gifts—heck, you might have all of them.  You might speak not just in the tongues of Benny Hinn, but of angels.  You might be so gifted that your faith can even overcome the natural world and bring forth miracles and make mountains relocate to new places.  You might be so dedicated and deeply caring that you give away everything to the poor—and how many of us are ready to do that?  You might be so holy that you become a martyr for your faith—beaten, bruised, or slaughtered. 

This is the catalog of our faith, the signs that we are Christians, the ethics that form the structure of our lives, the gifts that cannot be hidden once given.  These abilities encompass the Christian history of selfless devotion, miraculous acts, steadfast faith, burning truth—the legacy of apostles, prophets, and martyrs, the mystery of angelic presences, the spark of God in humankind.

“And yet,” says Paul, “I will show you a still more excellent way.”  This is one of the great, brave lines in Christian literature.  For all those gifts, he tells us, will fade away—knowledge, prophesy, even the inspiration of the Spirit.  Only one thing endures forever.  And he calls that one thing “love.”  If you still think he is just referring to how you feel about your partner, you have no poetry in your soul.

“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”  This is not love for that special other, this is not love for your family, this is not even love for God.  This is not really even “love” the way we normally use the word.  This is a sweeping affirmation of all that is—and that it is good.  This is the deepest, most poignant appreciation of the great ebb and flow of life, of its beauty and its sorrow, of its triumphs and disasters, of its gains and losses;  of a natural world so terrifyingly beautiful that it can bring tears, of a supernatural reality so unknowable that our yearning for it can never be satisfied.  This is to revel in our ability to act, to feel, to respond.  This is to love all creation, and that which created it, a love that demands from us absolutely all or nothing.

This is not a list of polite behaviors—don’t be rude or arrogant or impatient or envious. This love is not simple charity, a good deed done for its own sake, or even for pleasure.  This is not simple tolerance of one another.  This is not the finding of a great passion, or its satisfaction.  This is not the completion of a lifetime’s contribution to art or learning or even the church.  This is a State of Being.

I suspect that reaching it is an ecstatic experience, what the Buddhists call Enlightenment, the Hindus Nirvana.  And it probably can’t be sustained indefinitely without leaving the mundane world altogether for another reality.  But it’s the quirky little secret that rational folks like Episcopalians often don’t want to hear.  This Christianity thing—it isn’t just about doing your best against hopeless odds, or forcing yourself to contribute here and there, or going to church semi-regularly or even receiving the Eucharist.  It’s about changing your life, and seeing with different eyes.  It’s about being One with all you see and know. It’s about recognizing that everything—everything—is an awesome mystery.  It’s about encompassing more than the human heart can hold, and being eternally thankful for it.

And when you have found the more excellent way, you shine.