A Sermon preached on February 15th,
Last Sunday after Epiphany, at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden
2 Kings 2:1-12, 2
Corinthians 4:3-6, Mark 9:2-9
I don't know if
any of you have ever attended a Passover Seder meal. I was privileged to join
one while studying at seminary. A Seder is the Jewish ritual feast that marks
the beginning of the holiday of Passover. It involves the retelling of the
story of the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt. Other customs
include drinking wine, eating unleavened bread and partaking of other symbolic
foods, bitter herbs for example. An extra cup of wine is left untouched and a
seat is left free at the table free for the prophet Elijah, who, according to tradition,
will return one day as an unknown guest to herald the advent of the Messiah.
And that’s what made me think of the Seder meal – although Passover, i.e.
Easter is still a long way off.
As we heard in the
Old Testament reading from 2 Kings, Elijah did not die. He was taken directly
up into heaven and so was expected to return:
“Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible
day of the Lord comes,” (Malachi 4.5) the prophet Malachi tells the Israelites.
Moses too, whose burial place was unknown, or at least a prophet like Moses was
expected to come back: “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among
their own people.” (Deuteronomy 18:18) That is why it these two prophets who
appear at the Transfiguration on the top of the high mountain – and because
they personify the “Law and the Prophets” that Jesus came to fulfill.
And that got me
thinking about what the ritual feast of the Seder has in common with our ritual
feast, the Eucharist, and also, just so you know where I’m going with this one,
what these rituals have to say about transformation - to come back to the theme
of today’s Gospel, which is about Jesus’ physical transformation in the
presence of Peter, James and John.
One thing the two
“meals” have in common is that one is the source for the other. Our practice of
a weekly communal meal derives directly from the Passover Seder meal. At least
in Matthew’s, Mark’s and Luke’s gospels the Last Supper is described as a Passover
meal. Like the Jews that all the first Christians were, we break and share
bread and a cup of wine. We retell and relive a story of salvation. In our case
not the story from Exodus, but some part of salvation history is always part of
the Eucharistic Prayer, as is the story of the Last Supper.
Retelling and
reliving a story is not about nostalgia or looking back. That’s not the
direction Christians should look in, as people of hope we should always be
looking forward, looking ahead, living in the future, not the past. Retelling and reliving salvation history allows
us to become part of an ongoing story, to take on the roles God has prepared
for us in this story, as a means of our transformation. Some years ago the Convocation
pioneered a program called Transformed by Stories that uses this premise: telling
and integrating our personal stories with the great faith stories to help us
change ourselves the world we live in.
This is also what
we see happen in the story of the Transfiguration. Peter, James, and John
suddenly find themselves caught up in Israel’s great story when two great
heroes of Hebrew Scripture, Moses and Elijah appear. They won’t have understood
just what this meant at that time, because as we heard the experience was
terrifying and confusing. But later, reflecting on the encounter with Moses and
Elijah, on Jesus’ transformation, and on the message from above they will have
realized that the promise of Elijah and Moses’ return is being fulfilled in
Jesus, that their teacher and companion is much more than a prophet, though it
is only much later after Jesus’ death and resurrection that they see the whole
picture. The next time Peter, James, and John are alone with Jesus is in the
Garden of Gethsemane, and when Jesus is arrested they run away. Transformation
takes time – even for those who accompanied and knew Jesus personally!
At our ritual
meal, unlike the seat at the Seder for Elijah, we do not leave a space free for
Jesus just in case he comes. But Jesus is present every time we
celebrate the Eucharist. At our Bible Study this week we talked a little about
how different people experience the presence of God or Jesus in their own
lives. Some can sense and feel Jesus’ presence by their side, for others it is
God’s Spirit that is present as the source of guidance, strength, and inspiration,
and of course for catholic Christians, with a small “c”, which Anglicans are
too, Jesus is always present at the altar in the bread and wine made holy.
I’m not going to tread
on any theological minefields and start explaining exactly how Jesus is present
in the bread and wine. That was one of the divisive issues during the
Reformation, a source of much conflict and sadly killing, a disagreement
besides which our own disagreements and divisions pale in comparison! Yet what
happens at the altar is a genuine transformation. Jesus is present in the bread
and wine, without it not being bread and wine, just as his divine nature was
fully present in the human Jesus Christ – briefly shining through at the moment
of the Transfiguration when his clothes became dazzling white. The theologian
Tom Wright describes this as a sign of Jesus being “entirely caught up with,
bathed in, the love, power and kingdom of God so that it transforms his whole
being with light.”[1]
Or as St. Paul puts it in the extract from 2 Corinthians, it is the “light of
the knowledge of the glory of God that shines in the face of Jesus Christ.”
(4:6)
But that’s only
the first part of the transformation. The second part is ours. We come up to
the altar to be transformed by Jesus’ presence, to be bathed in the love, power
and kingdom of God. During the Consecration I pray not only that the bread and
the wine are changed, but that we are made special too: “Sanctify us also that
we may faithfully receive this holy Sacrament.” Receiving it faithfully means both
wanting and expecting to be changed to.
In fact coming to
church also means wanting and expecting to be transformed by the Gospel, by Jesus’
words and deeds. The voice from the cloud tells Peter, James, and John and
us that Jesus “is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” (Mark 9:7) Yes, listen
to him when he describes the values of the Kingdom of God – faith, hope and
love. Listen to him when he tells and shows us who God is – love and
compassion. Listen to him when he tells us what God wants from us – to love God
and to love our neighbor. And listen to him when he describes what God
promises: reconciliation, God’s love, new life, hope! In the latter part of our
discussions at last week’s AGM fear and lack of trust played too large, and
faith and hope played too small a role. We still have a lot of transformation
ahead of us and a lot of new reconciliation work too.
The good news is
that we are not left alone with this work. In Paul’s words God lets light, the
light of the gospel, shine out of darkness. (2 Cor. 4:4,6) But we have to be
willing to use that light, and not our own ambitions, to guide us forwards as a
church whose purpose is not to proclaim ourselves, but to “proclaim Jesus
Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake.” (2 Cor. 4:5). And
God’s Son instituted the ritual meal, the Sacrament of Transformation,
Reconciliation, and Unity that we will share in a short while here at his
table. But when you approach the altar, you must come forward willing to be transformed,
reconciled, and united and to work towards those goals.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment