The Reverend Ronald J. Kolanowski
February 22, 2009
The Last Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B

Mark 9: 2-9

“Rabbi, it is good for us to be here.”  Amen. 

It is good for me to be here with you again.  It is good to be here on this Last Sunday after the Epiphany, which holds some important truths for us about who we are as individuals and who we are as a community.

This brief story from Mark’s gospel is filled with high drama.  It begins by noting that recently Jesus told his followers that he was going to die and then rise.  Days later Jesus, Peter, John and James go up a high mountain to pray.  …Ah, the mountain – usually a sign in scripture that something’s going to happen.  And something did happen:  Jesus was transfigured, revealing his glory.  He stood there with Moses and Elijah and God speaking from the cloud.  Peter says, “Wow, this is really great…let’s build a booth.  Let’s capture this moment forever.  This is simply too good to let it go.”  But it is not to be; the moment passes and they keep silent, telling no one about the things they had seen.

The Transfiguration teaches us two important lessons.  1) Life is fleeting and ever changing and 2) there are moments so profound that they transcend the fleetingness of life and point us to that which is eternal.

In short…life changes on a dime…and is also eternal.

The Transfiguration stands in opposition to one of the pillars of most churches.  Transfiguration challenges the notion “but we’ve always done it that way.”  It reminds us that in spite of our desire to keep things the same…they WILL NOT stay the same.  In spite of our very human desire to resist change, life is not that way and changes on a dime….like being diagnosed with a life-threatening illness or being involved in a traffic accident.

These changing moments are not always tragic, either.  Life is also punctuated by moments so beautiful, so extraordinary, that we want to hold on to them forever.  In a flash they’re over….there’s no time to build booths….no time to bottle it up and keep it safe.  We experience it and what we are left with is the sweet memory. 

In those moments we encounter something eternal and true…if only for a moment we encounter the kingdom where heaven touches earth...and we get a glimpse of the face of God.

I found a greeting card that I loved to share.  It said, “Life is measured not so much by the number of breaths that we take, but by the moments in life that take our breath away.” 

I want to share with you one such moment of transfiguration that I experienced a couple of years ago while volunteering at Greater Hartford Regional Ministries.

One of the goals set for me was to establish a lay preaching ministry.  GHRM has four churches.  Each parish vestry designated three of its members to meet with me to discern who might be called for this ministry.  We gathered to pray and sometimes it surprised the vestry members whom they discerned to call.  Probably no one was more surprised to be called to this ministry than Henry Slivia of St. James’ parish on Zion Street here in Hartford.  Henry was a faithful member of the early service at St. James’ for many years.  You knew Henry by the way he would lead hymns and prayers with his booming voice. 

When I called Henry to consider this ministry he was emphatic that he would not do this, but I asked him to simply come to a meeting of “would-be” preachers and check it out.  He came, and he kept coming.  Not a meeting went by that Henry did not question why he was there.  He enjoyed the fellowship, but made it clear that he was NOT going to give a sermon. “I have nothing to say,” he would tell us each week.

Then came our retreat in November.  We studied the readings for the first Sunday of Advent – readings of Zephaniah and the Coming of the Son of Man from Luke’s gospel – readings filled with apocalyptic imagery.  For the retreat each member was to write a sermon on these texts and deliver it before their peers. 

Henry came.  We weren’t sure if he had a sermon or not.   I was a bit surprised and delighted when he said he had a sermon and offered it to the group.  With the skill of a poet – someone who appreciated the use of words – Henry began “Happy New Year – Advent begins a new Church year.”  Then he proceeded to talk about love and about God’s great care and love for us even in the darkest times of our lives.  We sat spellbound by his words.  By far it was the most beautiful sermon delivered that morning and more than just I had moistened eyes when he finished. 

There’s an expression that all of us have one sermon in us that must be preached.  That first Sunday of Advent, Henry preached the sermon of his life…a moment when the divine was encountered…a moment when the kingdom that Henry was preaching about came very close indeed… A moment that took our breath away.

The very next week Henry was missing from our preachers’ meeting.  He had fallen down a set of stairs and lay amid broken glass on the floor of his home for five days before being discovered by a member of the church.  He was hospitalized and after a few weeks died.

Like the transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain…for a brief moment Henry preached the sermon of his life and stood transfigured before his beloved congregation.  For a moment something beautiful and right and true and eternal was present…no time to build a booth…and he was gone – having left behind this story to remember and recall.  

Transfiguration teaches us that life changes on a dime and is punctuated by moments that are eternal…that reveal the divine to us…and the divine IN US…as individuals and as a community.

In spite of the changes that swirl around us, in spite of the unpredictability of life, in spite of the fact that people come into our lives and in a flash are gone….Transfiguration teaches us that while this is true, life is also filled with moments when we experience intense beauty and truth, when we touch the eternal….moments that simply take our breath away.  As we end this season of Epiphany, as we are about to enter the season of Lent, may we reflect and give thanks for those moments in our lives where we had a glimpsed God’s divine light that comes in a flash….transfiguring and transforming us that we might leave this place and share that light with the wider world.  

Peter exclaimed, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here.”  It is so good for us to be here….if but for only this moment to glimpse the divine in our midst…to glimpse the divine in one another.  Amen.

Copyright © 2009 by The Reverend Ronald J. Kolanowski