Unveiling Our Eyes
Last Sunday of Epiphany, 2021
2 Kings 2:1-12 • 2 Corinthians 4:3-6 • Mark 9:2-9
The season of Epiphany that began with that bright star above the stable ends today in a dazzling mountain top experience, with Jesus revealed and radiant with divine light: not only transformed into a being of breathtaking wonder, but also joined by Moses and Elijah! No wonder that Peter, James, and John are terrified at first! No wonder too that they want to hold the moment longer by building three dwellings. But as we know all too well, those precious sacred, timeless moments are fleeting and cannot be held in any way.
Many years ago, I had been walking in the hills above Stanford. I sat down to rest under a shady live oak. Suddenly the world seemed to disintegrate, terrifyingly, with an explosion of chaotic noise, flying air, and golden movement, with wings sweeping me up. As the moment passed and I was recovering, I recognized my so rational mind trying to restore and recalibrate my equilibrium by making light of the experience: I had ‘just’ disturbed a large hawk. But the part of me that yearns to recognize the divine in the everyday, was thrilled.
We have choices about what we see and hear, and how we interpret our experiences. We can be moving so fast, everything blurs into a ho-hum vanilla, or we can take the time to take in the wonder of so much that is happening around us. The extraordinary is woven intimately into every so called ‘ordinary’ experience: from the small scale to the more startling.
We can also jump to conclusions about how we interpret events: conclusions that are not only wrong, but are also tragically damaging. Which is exactly what much of the Western Church did with today’s telling of Jesus’ transformation on the mountain top. For them and many Christians today, it wasn’t just that Jesus’ clothes that became dazzling white, but that Jesus himself, an olive skinned Galilean, became white. And that error has supported the growth of white supremacy and Christian Nationalism across this country.
Yesterday, the Episcopal church celebrated The Rev. Absalom Jones. In 1794, Jones founded the first black Episcopal congregation, and was the first African American to be ordained as an Episcopal priest. This year, we also celebrate the founding 200 years ago of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. A founding that was only necessary because of the racism of white Christians who refused to allow African Americans to worship in St. George’s in Philadelphia, actually pulling them up from their knees while praying and throwing them out of the building.
We can be so limited in what we are prepared to see and welcome, and yet all is not lost. We are all on a journey, and what seem like impossible challenges can actually be marvelous opportunities for transformations, as uncomfortable as they probably will be. As a friend pointed out recently, the extraordinary process whereby a caterpillar is transformed into a beautiful butterfly involves the body of the caterpillar dissolving into a soup before reshaping. This cannot be a comfortable experience, and yet look what results!
On Wednesday evenings, a group of us have continued discussing Bishop Steven Charleston’s book ‘The Ladder of Light’. We have climbed the rungs of faith, blessing and hope, and this week we climbed the rung of community. Charleston tells us that with and through faith, blessing and hope, we can begin to recognize each other in a new way. To quote:
“not by the color-coding of oppression. Not by the exclusive religion of private salvation for the few. Not by social status or any entitlement of privilege. Not by any measuring stick of our own design. Instead on the fourth rung we accept a powerful, liberating realization: we are all the same.” (p.54)
All the same: each one of us, an amazing, exquisitely beautiful creation of the God who loves us so intimately. Each one of us capable of growth and transformation. Each one capable of unveiling our eyes to see the dazzling extraordinariness that is all around us.
May we all have faith to trust what we cannot see, the blessing to accept God’s grace within us, the hope in the light that is to come, and willingness to recognize that we are not alone: we are all in this together, all waiting for the parade.
I want to end with a story by Steven Charleston:
I saw an older man standing alone by the side of the road. He kept looking down that road as if he was expecting a bus, but no bus stopped there. When I mentioned that to him, he said he was not waiting for a bus. He was waiting for a parade. He had heard that if you wait long enough, the parade would come down your street. He had missed it before and he did not want to miss it again. I looked at him. He was different from me. Different color. Different religion. He looked a little grubby and he had an accent, but I decided it didn’t matter. He was a person. He needed a parade. I needed a parade. He had hope. I had hope. So I waited beside him, looking down the street in the same direction. And the minute I did, we both heard the music in the distance. (p.58)