Monday, 8 February 2016

SERMON 70 - SUNDAY 7 FEBRUARY 2016

Sermon delivered at St. Mary’s Church, Alderbury, Wiltshire – Sunday 7th February 2016

Exodus 34:29-35; 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2; Luke 9:28-36

May I speak in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and may these words be a blessing to all who hear them.  Amen

In the Old Testament reading we heard first, this morning, Moses returns down from the summit of Mount Sinai after having conversed with God and having been given the law (in the form of the tablets containing the Ten Commandments).  Totally unbeknown to him, the skin on his face was shining so brightly following this divine encounter that Aaron and all the Jewish leaders were afraid to come near him.  Such was the glory of God reflected in his face that Moses had to place a veil over that face in order to converse with the leaders and congregation. The passage goes on to suggest that every time, afterwards, when Moses went to converse with God he would remove the veil only to cover up his face again when returning from the mountain.

Quite a story. Here the glory of God is revealed by the light shining from Moses skin which is also mirrored in our Gospel reading by the account of the Transfiguration when Jesus appears to be joined by Moses and the prophet Elijah. Again we read how the figures appeared to glow dazzlingly white and the two prophets are described as appearing “in glory”.  Any Jew seeing this amazing sight would have immediately been transported back in time to our earlier reading – an acknowledgement that these figures, just like Moses himself on Mount Sinai, had been clothed in the light of God’s glory. Only Peter, and his companions, James and John, were present to see this. They also heard the voice of God coming from a cloud, “This is my Son, My Chosen, listen to him”.

It must have been awesome – perhaps terrifying. For Peter, it was clearly a revelation and an affirmation of his faith in following Jesus, recognising the importance of this event.  But Peter, like so many of us, brings it down to basics and the factual, rather than the spiritual. He thinks of it as some permanent state requiring the building or three shelters.  He thinks the moment can be bottled and preserved – perhaps just like the way his fish can be salted.  He misses the point – here is a short revelation of God’s glory through his Son who is soon to make the journey to Jerusalem and the horror of rejection and crucifixion.

And here too is a parallel, Moses himself was rejected several times by those he led out of Egypt.  Many believing that they might have been better off staying under the control of their slave masters than traipsing through the wilderness on a “wing and a prayer”.  Indeed, you will recall that whilst Moses was up the mountain conversing with God, the people built and started to worship a golden calf idol.

In our Epistle reading from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, the author refers back to our first reading. Such was God’s glory revealed that it proved too dazzling to the people and it seemed Moses reserved his glowing face only for conversing with God. Paul, writing to the early Christian church members, who would have been Jewish in origin, would have known their Hebrew Scripture and recall this passage.  Paul suggests that the veil which separated the people from a realisation of God’s glory was not the veil over Moses face but a veil across the hearts of the people themselves – a hardening of their hearts. Such a veil would prevent the glory being reflected in the faces of Moses’s hearers – just as if we were to place a curtain over a mirror so we could no longer see our own reflection.

Paul is saying that the veil should be removed so that God’s glory can shine in the faces of us all.  I am reminded of two further pieces of scripture when I read this – the tearing of the veil of the Temple at the moment of Jesus’s death on the Cross – symbolising that we all have access to God’s forgiveness and grace without shutting him away behind a screen and also that piece in Matthew 5:15 “Don’t hide your light under a bushel”.

When I was a young lawyer I used to commute most days between Brighton and London Victoria. As time went on I would travel in the same carriage each morning with the same travelling companions. One of those was a young lady named Val whom I discovered was also a lawyer working in the city. But what struck me about her was that she didn’t look like the average business commuter – the lawyer, accountant, business executive. Whilst most commuters would be quiet, reading their papers or asleep, she would read her daily devotions and she literally beamed as she sat there and engaged in conversation. I got to know her over a number of years commuting and discovered that she was an Evangelical Christian, a member of the Christian Lawyers' Association, which through her I later joined, and she made it her business not to undertake any legal matters in an adversarial way but only undertook pro bona work or constructive work to help people. I tell this story because there was surrounding her a glow of God’s grace.

You can often see this same glow in the faces of people in love.  And what greater love can there be than to love God with all your heart and soul. Indeed, Jesus himself, when questioned, relayed this to the teachers of the law as being the greatest of the commandments, followed by loving each other. From these two simple yet, often for us humans, quite difficult things to achieve, will flow the glory of God.

When people are in love they will feel fully alive. St. Irenaeus is often quoted as saying “The glory of God is a human being fully alive”. When we love God we should feel fully alive and that should be seen by others. When I saw Val on the train and saw the love and compassion she showed to others, even towards grumpy fellow commuters, I really felt that I wanted some of what she had got.  Just as Peter wanted to bottle the moment of the Transfiguration – keeping Jesus and the prophets there - we too would love to be able to stay up there on the mountain top.  But these are often only just that - mountain top experiences – in the case of Moses and Jesus quite literally. 

Being a Christian is hard work – nobody ever said it would be any different [and if they did they were misleading you]. The disciples often found it hard to believe and follow, hard to heal, hard to minister and were often chastised and challenged (sometimes by Jesus himself). In today’s world there is a great revival of Christianity – not in the western world but in Africa and Asia. There the poverty and war and famine could hardly be described as a mountain top experience yet in amongst all those dark valleys towering mountain tops do appear – miraculous healings and steadfast faith.  As we have seen both Moses’s and Jesus’s mountain top experiences preceded very difficult and challenging times indeed.  People like Val glowed in amongst the tired and grumpy commuters. Moses shone amongst the disgruntled wanderers, Jesus’s Transfiguration came at a time when he was about to be crucified. We shine brightest when our surroundings are dark.

I can speak from personal experience too.  After my licensing as a minister I was on a high – right at the top of the mountain. I remember our curate telling me (and others too) to be wary for it is when we give our life to God’s ministry we will find Satan just around the corner to pull us down. Six months later my world seemed to collapse around me when I encountered a major personal storm. I was determined, however, that my faith would remain steadfast and that experience (entering a deep and very long and dark tunnel) tested my faith to the utmost. I needed a light to see me through that tunnel until I could see natural daylight at the end of it.  I never felt alone during that time but it was not easy. Now, thanks to God and the power of the Holy Spirit I am out of the tunnel, into the bright sunshine and the tunnel is not only behind me but round a corner where I can no longer see it – or to use another metaphor, I am now once again standing on the summit with the dark valley down below me.

At some stage I will be forced to come down again, just as Jesus and Moses and Elijah had to come down from their mountains but that glory which God has shared out to us, that light which we have received through the power of the Holy Spirit, we must bring down with us and spread through the dark canyons of this bitter dark and sometimes, it appears, Godless world. With the Holy Spirit in us and shining from us we have a piece of God’s chosen Son also in us. A Son in whom God the Father is well pleased.

Let us pray:
O God, Glorious and Faithful
To those who seek you with a sincere heart
you reveal the beauty of your face
Strengthen us in Faith
to embrace the mystery of the cross
and open our hearts to its transfiguring power;
that clinging in love to your will for us,
we may walk the path of discipleship
as  followers of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord

Amen



MFB/70/05012016

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