Last Epiphany February 22, 2009

2 Corinthians 4:3-6                                                            

Mark 9:2-9                                                                          

 

I am not usually into yard sales, which I realize means I miss out on one of the great opportunities of local life. But driving along Concord Stage Road one day last summer I saw a yard sale that I had to stop for. The reason was a mounted deer’s head, just the thing to bring home to Anne and hang on our screened porch. It turned out the deer’s head was priced beyond my reach (which may have saved my marriage). But browsing the sale was an experience I’m glad I had.

 

I think these people were moving. Maybe into a retirement community, because they were older. At any rate, they were getting rid of a lifetime’s possessions. The items displayed on tables and blankets were like their autobiography. There were baby things and child things, teen things and adult things. There was even a walker and a potty chair. And there were the evidences of the successive waves of gadgets that have marked the last half century of American life. There was a VCR, made obsolete by DVDs. A turntable, accommodating 78 and 45 rpm’s no less. A Mix Master, which was the prehistoric forerunner of a Kitchen Aid. And, of particular interest to me, there was a sampling of the self-help and diet books, the exercise equipment, that my generation has employed over the years in an attempt to achieve the goal of mens sana in corpore sano, a sound mind in a sound body.

 

Life is a journey, that much is a truism. It has its ups and downs. The ups—10 pounds lost on the low carb diet—are always followed by the downs—15 pounds put back on. The perfect new house is discovered to need a new roof and entail property taxes we can’t afford. The new spouse or boy- or girl friend turns out to have habits that make us remember the old one with fondness. But along the way there are glimpses, promises as it were, that the journey is still work the trekking. A handicapped friend, facing a new setback, asks me, “What do others in my position do? Just give up?” No. They adjust, reset their sights, go forward again.

 

Why? Because of the glimpses of glory that God gives us along the way—moments, to use the image of today, of Transfiguration. Moments when the perfectly ordinary, even the tragic and terrible, is suddenly transfigured in our sight to reveal depths of wonder and radiance we had never suspected.

 

For the umpteenth time I go around the circle at the Altar, distributing pieces of ordinary broken bread. I am tired, discouraged by the attendance that morning, burdened by meetings to preside over and bulletins to photocopy, a building to pay for and worry about, my shrunken retirement portfolio. But then someone looks me in the eye, a woman who’s been central to this parish for years and years, who’s shared the dreams, stuck through the crises. “The Body of Christ, the Bread of Heaven,” I say. And suddenly, returning her look, that’s what it is, exactly what it is. Suddenly I see it, I know it, I believe it. Not just the bread, but the whole circle around the Altar, the whole Church, the whole world. My eyes fill with tears and I can hardly continue around, saying again and again those worlds. “It’s true! It’s true!” I want to say. “Can’t you all see it? Can’t we freeze it, keep this always before us?”

 

Of course we can’t. That’s the point of the story. The vision fades, we have to go back down the mountain. As though to rub it in this Last Sunday after Epiphany, Ash Wednesday lies just below us, with its reminder of how we’ve slacked off, drifted away, lost the hope of glory. Back to the drawing board of Lent, to renewed discipline.

 

But there’s this to remember. The glimpses of glory always fade, but we are left—if we look around and notice—not with nothing, but with Jesus. “Only Jesus,” as Mark says. Only? Why “only”? You know those games where you can take only one thing with you to a desert island? What would it be? If it were Jesus, wouldn’t we have all that we needed, really? For having him, we could get all the rest.

 

We keep having to be reminded: God is not a thing, an object, that we can possess and live happily ever after. That’s the devil talking like that. God is a destination, reached only by a journey. And the journey is Jesus. In walking to Jerusalem with him, we become him, that we may die with him and, at journey’s end on Easter, rise with him. That is what this is all about.