On this last Sunday of the Epiphany season, we see
that happen for Moses, the newly liberated people of Israel fresh from their
exodus out of slavery in Egypt, and in Jesus and his disciples who witness his
Transfiguration.
Moses went up to the Mountain and received the law
from God. His encounter with God literally left him aglow with the holiness of
God.
And in the Gospel, we hear today how Jesus encountered
on the mountaintop both Moses and Elijah, who represent the fullness of the Law
and the Prophets.
Jesus’ disciples want to freeze the moment in time by
building booths, a kind of religious shelter, to commemorate both the moment and
the spot where heaven and earth, law and prophet, God’s time and our time, came
together. But a voice from heaven interrupts them and tells them that the way
to understand and remember the moment is to listen to and follow the teachings
of Jesus, God’s beloved Son.
The transfiguration revealed Jesus’ true nature, that
he is at once fully God and fully human, and also showed us God’s purpose to
bring heaven to earth. So, instead of building a shrine, Jesus’ true self is
shown as he teaches, heals, and empowers ordinary people to take part in God’s
work of reconciling humanity to each other, creation and to God.
In both these encounters, our need for God and our
need for reconciliation is put square in our faces.
I’m sure that you have been as shocked and as captivated
by the events unfolding in Ukraine as I have. We’re witnessing in real time an
autocratic ruler, defined by his own fear-filled, self-serving view of history
and surrounded only by people who dare not caution or correct him, brazenly
invade a neighboring country whose land, people, and resources he covets. And in
the process, we discover in this moment of crisis how character shows itself.
In contrast to the conqueror’s greed, we have seen numerous
reports and images of people gathering in prayer both in Ukrainian Orthodox and
Ukrainian Catholic churches, as well as in public parks and streets. The Ukrainian
people, even those who did not vote for him, have been amazed at the leadership
of the former stand-up comic, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. As I write this, his capital
city is under attack, but he has not cut and run and neither has he hidden. I
suspect that many people felt that he would be a light-weight, who would fold
under pressure. Instead, the crisis of the invasion has revealed his true nature
and inner character, and that of the Ukrainian people..
As I said, crisis often reveals character, and we are
seeing it again. On this celebration of the Transfiguration, I am mindful of
the many people who, in the moment of decision, chose against all odds to do
the right thing, for the right reason, in the right way.
One of those people was a man named Allan McDonald.
You may not have heard of him, but he was an aerospace engineer for the company
that built the solid rocket boosters for the space shuttle, back in the 1980s. And
he refused to certify the launch of the shuttle Challenger on January 27, 1986,
because he knew that the unusually cold temperatures experienced on the Space Coast
that year would make the “o-rings” on the booster brittle and liable to fail.
His bosses over-ruled him, and the launch proceeded where, as we all know, the shuttle
exploded about 78 seconds into its flight killing the crew. During the
investigation, McDonald did not keep silence and was demoted. But after members
of Congress threatened to strip the company of all future space and military
contracts, they changed their mind and was put in charge of rocket engine safety
protocols and engineering, and the changes he led allowed the shuttle program to
resume.
In an interview after his retirement, McDonald said
something which has become something of a mantra for me: he said, “always do
the right thing for the right reason in the right way at the right time with
the right people and you will never have regrets in your life.” He was a person
whose character was revealed in a transfiguring moment.
The late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who died recently at
90 years old, told the story of his own transfiguring moment. It happened when
Tutu was 9 years old, while he and his mother were walking down the street at
the height of the Apartheid era of his native South Africa. They were approached
by tall white man dressed in a black suit. In those days in that place, when a
black person and a white person met while walking on a footpath, the black
person was expected to step aside, even into the gutter, to allow the white
person to pass — and to nod his or her head as a gesture of respect. But that
day, before a young Tutu and his mother unbelieving eyes, it was this white man
who stepped off the sidewalk. And as they passed, he tipped his hat in a
gesture of respect to her!
The white man was the Rev. Trevor Huddleston, an
Anglican priest who was bitterly opposed to apartheid. And that tip of the hat
changed Tutu’s life. When his mother told him that Trevor Huddleston had
stepped off the sidewalk because he was a “man of God,” Tutu found his calling.
“When she told me that he was an Anglican priest I
decided there and then that I wanted to be an Anglican priest too,” he said.
“And what is more, I wanted to be a man of God.”
Huddleston later became a mentor to Tutu; and he later
said that encounter was his ‘transfiguration’ that led to the transformation of
a people and eventually a nation.
In his review of Philip Yancey’s book, Rumors
of Another World, Keith Parkins talks about the spirit of mercy that
pervaded South Africa after Nelson Mandela was released from prison.
“As apartheid drew to an end and Nelson Mandela was
released from Robben Island, Mandela could have called upon the blacks to rise
up and seek vengeance on the whites,” Parkins wrote. “He did not; he showed
grace and appointed Desmond Tutu to head the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission. There was an understandable desire for [revenge and] retribution;
instead, the path of forgiveness and reconciliation was chosen.”
South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission was
a transfiguring moment for both that nation and the world. The rules were simple
— the perpetrators needed to tell the truth, the whole truth; and their victims
were given the opportunity, but not be forced, to forgive. Many of the
atrocities were truly horrific. A policeman called van de Broek told of how he
and his fellow officers shot an 18-year-old youth, then burnt the body. Eight
years later they went back, took the father and forced his wife to watch as he
was incinerated in front of her. She was in court to hear that confession and
was asked by the judge what she wanted.
She said she wanted van de Broek to go to the place
where they burned her husband’s body and gather up the dust so she could give
him a decent burial; van de Broek agreed. She then added a further request.
“Mr. van de Broek took all my family away from me, and
I still have a lot of love to give,” she said. “Twice a month I would like for
him to come to the ghetto and spend a day with me so I can be a mother to him.
“And I would like Mr. van de Broek to know that he is
forgiven by God, and that I forgive him too. I would like to embrace him so he
can know my forgiveness is real.”
Spontaneously, some in the courtroom began singing
“Amazing Grace” as the elderly woman made her way to the witness stand. But van
de Broek didn’t hear the hymn; he had fainted, overwhelmed. It was a transfiguring
moment, where the true character of these persons was revealed.
Pastor and activist Jim Wallis tells about a time the
South African government blocked a demonstration against apartheid during a
worship service at St. George’s Cathedral.
“The walls were lined with soldiers and riot police
carrying guns and bayonets, ready to close it down,” Wallis said. “Bishop Tutu
began to speak of the evils of the apartheid system—how the rulers and
authorities that propped it up were doomed to fail. He pointed a finger at the
police who were there to record his words.
“‘You may be powerful — very powerful — but you are
not God! God cannot be mocked! You have already lost!’ Then in that moment of
unbearable tension, the bishop seemed to soften. Coming out from behind the
pulpit, he flashed that radiant Tutu smile and began to bounce up and down with
glee. ‘Therefore, since you have already lost, we are inviting you to join the
winning side.’ The crowd roared. The police melted away and the people began to
dance.”
Those of us who love Jesus and who work for God’s justice
will carry on that dance in many ways, but let’s be clear: at this moment,
there is no dancing in Ukraine. But that same holy defiance and transfiguring
power is seen both in the people of Ukraine who gather and pray in parks and
streets, and also in the Russian citizens who have bucked their government (and,
I am sad to say, their church) in lining the streets in protest, prayer, and candlelight
vigils.
It is moments like these, we see God’s transforming,
transfiguring, transcendent love at work infusing our lives, and healing our
relationships. In these moments, we see the character of God’s people as they make
room for God’s restorative justice to flourish.
+ + + + + + + + +
Here is a link to the bulletin for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany.
Here is a link to a video of the liturgy at St. John's Episcopal Church, Clearwater
Here is a link to a video of the sermon.
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