Ukraine – pastorsusan

How Can We Celebrate Resurrection in the Midst of War?

On Easter Sunday, it’s become my tradition to read two of the four gospel accounts of the Resurrection: the original short-form version from Mark (ending at 15:8) and one of the other three gospels. This year that will be Luke. I ‘stole’ this idea from Bruce Epperly, author of The Adventurous Lectionary blog, where he says:

The gospel accounts present two different perspectives on the resurrection,
and they need not be harmonized, without glossing over their differences, much as we as we often do with the Christmas stories. In contrast to the approach of many Christians today, the early church was comfortable with diverse witnesses to Jesus’ birth and resurrection. The differing stories are not stumbling blocks to faith or veracity, but reminders that resurrection is ultimately indescribable.

And now – my Easter sermon:

This is part of my egg collection. Many of these are pysanky from the Broadway Market in Buffalo, from the years I lived there. Pysanky are the Polish/Ukrainian painted eggs – like the ones Katerina made for today’s fundraiser for Ukrainian refugees.

The Broadway Market was started in 1888 by Eastern European immigrants wanting to preserve their traditions and heritage. Every year before Easter I would make a pilgrimage to buy another egg for my collection. I haven’t gotten one for many years now, so am delighted to have this special one from one of our Confirmation student’s service project.

So, although Easter is next week for Eastern Orthodox Christians, I couldn’t help thinking about Ukraine as I prepared for our Easter celebration today. And I wondered: how do can we celebrate the resurrection in the midst of war?

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t intend my question to be a downer. Today is a day of celebration. But frankly there are so many things going on in our world right now that mitigate against believing that resurrection could have anything to do with us beyond a day 2000+ years ago when something happened.

And we don’t really know what that something was. The gospels aren’t much help; they each have a different version of what happened. Author Barbara Brown Taylor has noted that “the resurrection is the one and only event in Jesus’ life that was entirely between him and God.” So we just do not know.

Maybe it’s better that way. Years ago, when I saw the Passion Play in Oberammergau, Germany, I was unimpressed with the portrayal of the first Easter morning. What I remember was a lot of flashing lights and people raising their arms and exclaiming, but there was nothing about Jesus that you could see – obviously.

In the ‘Living by the Word’ column in this week’s “Christian Century,” Katherine Willis Pershey described her experience:
I once watched a video marketed to churches for use in Easter worship. A man wrapped in linens lay on a table. As an orchestra played dramatically in the background, the man slowly began to stir. The music billowed to a climax as the man sat up. I hated it. It reduced a miracle to a cartoon, a holy mystery to a crude farce.

But even if the gospel stories don’t give us consistent details about just what was happening to Jesus , they are informative in what was going on with other people.
The women are grieving; they are coming to the tomb with spices to anoint the body. They are anxious, not knowing how they would roll the heavy stone away. Then, after their encounter with the young man (in Mark) and the two (in Luke), they are frightened, bewildered, trembling, terrified.

And what of the men? In Mark, the women don’t say anything to anyone because they’re so afraid. In Luke, the women do go and tell the others, but the men choose to disbelieve their news as idle tales (obviously, this is pre-“believe women” ). Peter looks into the tomb, sees the discarded grave clothes – and leaves. Luke says he was amazed – but at what?

We love Mary Magdalene recognizing Jesus in the garden, but just one of the stories.

Frankly, today I’m strangely comforted by the ones who are bewildered, doubting, if not disbelieving (we’ll get to Thomas next week), and amazed – but at what?

With news from Ukraine with horror upon horror, political mayhem, Dr. Fauci reporting we’ll never reach herd immunity, news of a friend’s recurring cancer, and you can add your heartaches to the list – we feel frightened, bewildered, trembling, and terrified.

I had a friend in seminary whose mother died just before Easter in our senior year. I experienced her as a woman of deep faith. But on that Easter Sunday, she just could not feel it. She did not want to participate in the joy of the day. I have always remembered that incident – and the realization that just because it’s Easter Sunday, the grief we carry does not instantly disappear. And in the midst of the woes of today’s world, I found the entire Holy Week experience to be necessary.

On Maundy Thursday, we remembered the inclusivity of the Table, Jesus’ welcome, hospitality, and servanthood towards all people. And on Good Friday, we named and prayed for the woes of the world and remembered that God is with us in suffering. I even kept one of my eggs when it broke. Somehow it reminds me of the presence of God even in brokenness of the world.

We didn’t meet on Holy Saturday, but that day has always been meaningful to me. Even though I’m immersed in Easter bulletin and sermon, I recognize the importance of sitting in the darkness of the tomb – in that liminal space between death and life, between an ending and a new beginning. And I recall the wisdom of Sikh speaker and activist, Valerie Kaur (see her brilliant TED talk here):

In our tears and agony, we hold our children close and confront the truth:
The future is dark.
But my faith dares me to ask:
What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb?

This is Resurrection hope – and it’s obviously even bigger than Christianity. So if today is going to be more than just a remembrance of what happened about 2000+ years ago, we need to embrace Revolutionary Love and relentless optimism. And this is her prayer:

In the name of the Divine within us and around us, we find everlasting optimism.
Within your will, may there be grace for all of humanity.

The new thing about to be born, the end of war, the solution to the problem – might not be today. You don’t even have to be happy today. The power of God to bring life out of death, peace out of war, hope out of despair – isn’t dependent on our acceptance of doctrines, dogmas, a specific version of the Bible, or a church holy day. It just is. It’s just how God works (or Spirit, Divine, Love with a capital L).

So I can enjoy my pysanky eggs and celebrate Ukrainian culture, even while I lament and pray for the people of Ukraine today. We can lament all the death-dealing things of our world today. Easter doesn’t demand that we shut our eyes to reality. It does ask us to consider that there is something bigger, something better than us.

Back in seminary, I had a professor who was known to be very difficult. It was rumored that he asked only one question on the final exam: “Who is God?”
The answer he wanted was: “the one who raised Jesus from the dead”.

I would now add “however that happened.” Because into my story, and into your story, and into our world’s stories of suffering and sorrow – we bring that Revolutionary Love and relentless optimism – that the one who raised Jesus will also raise me, you, our world into new life – however it will happen and whatever it will mean. That door is always open. Easter Sunday asks us simply to walk through.

Amen.

Mark 16:1-8

When the Sabbath was over, Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought perfumed oils so that they could anoint Jesus. Very early, just after sunrise on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb.
They were saying to one another, “Who will roll back the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked, they found that the huge stone had been rolled back. On entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting at the right, dressed in a white robe. They were very frightened, but he reassured them: “Do not be amazed! You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, the one who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. Now go and tell the disciples and Peter, ‘Jesus is going ahead of you to Galilee, where you will see him just as he told you.’”
They made their way out and fled from the tomb bewildered and trembling; but they said nothing to anyone, because they were so afraid.

Luke 24:1-12

On the first day of the week, at the first sign of dawn, the women came to the tomb bringing the spices they had prepared. They found the stone rolled back from the tomb, but when they entered the tomb, they did not find the body of Jesus. While they were still at a loss over what to think of this, two figures in dazzling garments stood beside them. Terrified, the women bowed to the ground. The two said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? Jesus is not here but has risen. Remember what Jesus said to you while still in Galilee, that he must be delivered into the hands of sinners and be crucified, and on the third day would rise again.” With this reminder, the words of Jesus came back to them. When they had returned from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and the others. The women were Mary of Magdala, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James. The other women with them also told the apostles, but the story seemed to them an idle tale and they refused to believe them. Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. He stooped down, and looking in, saw nothing but the linen cloths. So he went away, full of amazement at what had happened.

Gospel for the Brokenhearted

Back in 2020, Michelle Obama wrote in an Instagram post that she was “pained “and “exhausted by a heartbreak that never seems to stop.” She was responding to the news of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police. I don’t want to take anything away from that horrific event, but I think that her words just might echo the feeling that most people in the world are experiencing today. Our theme for Lent is Our Whole Hearts, and the word for today is ‘Brokenhearted.’

So much grief in the world. We thought we might be through the worst of the COVID war, only to be hurled into another maelstrom. The Bible study for today in Our Whole Hearts asks these questions:

What is breaking your heart right now?
Where is God in the heartbreak for you?

I’m not having any trouble answering the first question: what’s breaking your heart right now? And I’d bet you’re not either. I mean, just pick a story or a picture. The mom, who was a tech worker in Palo Alto, and her two children killed by Russian forces as they tried to flee the town of Irpin, a suburb of Kyiv. The bombing of a maternity and children’s hospital in southern Ukraine. Meanwhile, the number of known Covid-19 deaths around the world surpassed six million. And just two weeks ago, Oscar Grant would have celebrated his 36^th birthday, had he not been shot and killed on New Year’s Day 2009 at the Fruitvale BART station when he was just 22 years old. Sadly, I could go on and on. And we could add our own personal heartaches. What is breaking your heart right now?

That question, unfortunately, has easy answers. The second one: where is God in the heartbreak for you? – maybe not so easy. Or maybe it is an easy answer – at least on the surface. We can surely think of ways we could or should respond. We can certainly turn to scripture:

You, O God, are a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. You have never forsaken those who seek you. – Psalm 9:9-10
You are my hiding place; you’ll protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. – Psalm 32:7
God will fulfill all your needs in Christ Jesus. – Philippians 4:19
We know that God makes everything work together for the good of those who love God and have been called according to God’s purpose. – Romans 8:28
When evildoers attack me, spreading vicious lies about me wherever they go, they will stumble and fall. Though an army encamp against me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, I will still be confident. – Psalm 27

These words of scripture can be great comfort to us in times of trial. But when we’re in the midst of it, it can be hard to see how these words of assurance can possibly be true. We might be drawn more to words of lament. Although we might hesitate, thinking that lamenting is a failure of faith. But it’s not; lamenting is part of faith, an act of faith. We cry out directly to God because deep down we know that our relationship with God counts; it counts to us, and it counts to God.

Lamentation, a prayer for help coming out of pain, is very common in the Bible. Over one third of the psalms are laments. Lament frequently occurs in the Book of Job and in the prophets.

2 Chronicles, the people cry, “We are powerless before this vast multitude that comes against us. We are at a loss what to do, so our eyes are turned toward you, O God.”
Jeremiah moans: “Why is my pain continuous, my wound incurable…?”
Psalm 130 wails: “Out of the depths I cry to you, O God!”
One whole book, Lamentations, expresses the confusion and suffering felt after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians.

How lonely sits the city
   that once was full of people!
How like a widow she has become,
   she that was great among the nations!
She that was a princess among the provinces
   has become a vassal.

She weeps bitterly in the night,
with tears on her cheeks;
among all her lovers
she has no one to comfort her;
all her friends have dealt treacherously with her,
they have become her enemies.

And of course, Jesus in today’s gospel reading:
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! How often have I wanted to gather your children together as a mother bird gathers her brood under her wings, yet you refuse me!

It seems to me that in these times, lament is the appropriate response. For some reason, what popped into my head was a video from back when the pandemic had just started, and everything was moving online. This video was made by a very sweet-looking music teacher who said she’d written a song to help her process the transition to online teaching. Smiling, she began playing a little upbeat tune on her ukulele. After a little introduction, she kept on playing, but she also started screaming at the top of her lungs. The video went viral because who couldn’t relate to her screams? Maybe she gave the rest of us permission to scream, too.

And that’s what these biblical laments do, too. Father Michael Guinan, Professor Emeritus at the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley has said, “When we hurt physically, we cry out in pain; when we hurt religiously, we cry out in lament. Lamentation can be described as a loud, religious “Ouch!” I hear that “Ouch!” as the kind you emit when you stub your toe on a rock, or you step on a stray Lego, or when you close the car door on your finger – a long, wailing, “Owwwwwwwwwwwww!”

Another way of expressing this is through the Via Negativa, which is an ancient Latin phrase meaning “by way of negation.” Its origins can be traced to a way of seeking to understand God by negating everything that God is not. Naturally, once you remove everything God is not, you get the definition of God.

But Episcopal priest Matthew Fox has a bit of a different take on it. In his system of creation spirituality, he describes a spiritual process consisting of four paths. I’ve probably spoken on this before – and probable will again because I’ve found it so helpful. I’ll get to the Via Negativa in a second, but I want to start with the first path: the Via Positiva. To put it very simply, Via Positiva is the path on which we befriend Creation in a positive way, not from a place of a fallen humanity but as recipients of original blessing. It’s a place of awe, wonder, and delight. Listen to Fox’s description: “The experience of divinity is light. Awe is what triggers our intuition and wakes us up; it ignites and surprises us – like falling in love with another person or with music, science, flowers, poetry, and the earth.”

Think of the most upbeat, celebratory church service you’ve ever attended – maybe Christmas, or Easter, or Pentecost. Or a child’s baptism, or a wedding. Maybe your own personal encounter with the amazement and overwhelming delight in the Divine Presence – the ocean. That’s Via Positiva.

The second path of this spiritual process is the Via Negativa. Via Negativa is the path on which we befriend uncertainty, darkness, suffering, and letting go, in which we recognize those things that sometimes get in our way, such as pain, emptiness, silence. When we don’t deny ourselves the opportunity to feel, and express, and lament our griefs, we can recognize how powerful they are – and also how connected we are to one another, to the earth, to God. It can be painful, yes, but it can also be powerfully cathartic.

In a worship service created by Matthew Fox, the Via Negativa is experienced by literally weeping and wailing, expressing through the body the suffering of the world. And not for just a few seconds, either. You do it long enough to get over your self-consciousness and allow yourself to go deep and wrestle with those truths you’re willing to find. I tried it once in a congregation. It went over like the proverbial lead balloon. Sunday morning church probably isn’t the right setting. But I hope you’ll think about trying it some time. Make a video, like the music teacher. She found a way of catharsis that went viral.

Somehow, we need to find our way into a gut-deep, full body lamentation for the sorrows of the world. Frankly, right now, as we watch the news from Ukraine, this is what is needful. It’s where Jesus was when he cried over Jerusalem, when he screamed words from Psalm 22 from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent.” Or as Fr. Guinan puts it, “I call to you, O Lord, and all I get is your voice mail!”

This is where we try to answer the question: Where is God in all this heartbreak for you? Part of it is knowing that God is with us in times of suffering and heartbreak. It might not feel like it; we might lament the silence of God, the seeming absence of Divine Presence. But we do not go by feelings alone. We rest on the foundation of what we have learned and what we have experienced in the past.

I often think of Psalm 51 in the midst of Via Negativa, where the psalmist pleads, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation; and uphold me with your free spirit.” Via Negativa can be seen as being part of a theology of the cross.

And then, in this spiritual process, through our lamentation and soul-searching, we eventually move into the Via Creativa. Via Creativa is the path on which we befriend Creativity, exploring how we bring beauty into the world, how creativity is a form of birthing something that wasn’t there before. Via Creativa can be seen as part of a theology of resurrection, which is the most elemental, inner-most and deeply spiritual aspect of our beings. This is where we begin to imagine a better way. Fox says, “Imagination brings about not just intimacy but a big intimacy, a sense of union with the cosmos, a sense of belonging and being at home, of our knowing we have not only a right to be here but a task to do as well while we are here.” Through our creativity – whether that is nurturing children, making art, gardening, writing, teaching, building houses – we connect to the Divine in us and bring the Divine back to the community.

Going back to Michelle Obama who lamented, “I’m exhausted by a heartbreak that never seems to stop,” but continued, “if we ever hope to move past it, it can’t just be on people of color to deal with it. It’s up to all of us — Black, white, everyone — no matter how well-meaning we think we might be, to do the honest, uncomfortable work of rooting it out . . . it starts with self-examination and listening to those whose lives are different from our own and ends with justice, compassion, and empathy that manifests in our lives and on our streets.”

Another example is the late Phyllis Tickle’s response to the 2015 Pew Research Center’s report, “America’s Changing Religious Landscape.” The report verified what we already know – that the religious landscape is dramatically shifting as more people move away from organized church. And there’s a lot to lament about that. But if we stay stuck there, we won’t get to the creative and transformative stages. Phyllis Tickle, who wrote the landmark book, The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why, responded to all the anxiety produced by the report by saying, “Christianity isn’t going to die. It just birthed out a new tributary to the river.” She also said, “Christianity is reconfiguring. It’s almost going through another adolescence and it’s going to come out a better, more mature adult. There’s no question about that.” That’s Via Creativa!

Which leads us to the fourth path where we bring all of our grief, love, and creativity together. The Via Transformativa Via Transformativa is the path on which we befriend New Creation, which shows the way of the future as a time that can be present, images of God in motion in the world and at work in people everywhere. It’s about justice, healing and celebration. Via Transformativa has been called part of a theology of the Holy Spirit and provides a way for our creativity to move into areas of compassion and justice.

Creativity by itself isn’t enough. Obviously, we humans can take our creativity to negative places. Creativity can make bombs, for example. So creativity needs direction. That’s where our spiritual teachings come in: to channel our imagination into ways of compassion, healing, justice, and gratitude. That’s the purpose of being Church, to move into these ways together – honestly wrestling and confessing, grieving and letting go, visioning together how to channel our corporate creativity for the sake of the world.

So how does all this relate to the chaos that is all around us today?

1. It gives us permission to celebrate – even with bad news all around. You know that Sundays don’t count as days in Lent because each Sunday is a service of resurrection, Easter. So even amidst our lamentations, we can find joy. I call on each of you to take in as much awe and wonder as you possibly can. Stare into a child’s beautiful face. Marvel at a cat’s paw or the perfect symmetry of a flower. Or how about this – look at your own face with delight. Ignore the imperfections; we all have them. See the unique masterpiece that is you. Say “Wow!” out loud.

2. It gives us permission to grieve. We have so much to lament; it can indeed feel overwhelming. One place we can go is the Psalms. Find the psalms of lament. Be aware of all the feelings the psalmist expressed. And then don’t be afraid to express all your feelings in your prayers. Surely God’s heard it all and knows how you’re feeling anyway. Allow yourself to be immersed in the Via Negativa. Cry and scream for Ukraine, for George Floyd, for the earth, for 6 million COVID deaths, and all the other heartbreaks on a list far too long. People in biblical times would cover themselves in sackcloth and ashes. We’re too civilized for something like that – or so we think. Maybe a good collective, national cry or scream is what we all need about now.

3. Here’s where it gets pretty radical. By following this path, we are choosing to open up some space in the world, in our church, in our hearts for a new thing to be born. It’s a radical kind of faith that trusts in the creative power of God to bring it into being. The Via Creativa is the path that can find solutions to conflicts, better ways of living together in harmony. Maybe you’re part of a group working on something right now. But even if you’re not, don’t wait. Let Via Creativa work in you. The Holy Spirit will take the seeds you plant, however small, and make something of them.

4. Then Via Transformativa is the promise of Easter. We’re not there yet, even though it’s Sunday. It’s still Lent; the ‘alleluia’ is still buried. But resurrection is real. It is ours. It is what will channel us into those paths as yet untrodden, into ways of mission and ministry that will contribute to the healing of the world. This is no pie-in-the-sky naiveté. God has done it before and will do it again and again, despite how the powers of this world rant and rave.

I’m under no illusion that things will suddenly get better, that Putin will give up and go home any time soon. But as they say, it’s a marathon not a sprint. It’s no reason to give up.

Via Negativa is not depression; it is not despair. It’s an honest part of faith, part of the spiritual process. We have to take it seriously, be honest about it, while at the same time knowing that it’s not the only part of the process. We’re in this for the whole race. Or as the great African-American pastor S. M. Lockridge preached it, “It’s Friday. But Sunday’s comin’.” Violence, oppression, death and destruction will have their day, but they will not have the last word.

“It’s Friday. But Sunday’s comin’.”

Amen.

Luke 13:31-35

Just then, some Pharisees came to Jesus and said, “You need to get out of town, and fast. Herod is trying to kill you.”
Jesus replied, “Go tell that fox, ‘Today and tomorrow, I’ll be casting out demons and healing people, and on the third day I’ll reach my goal.’ Even with all that, I’ll need to continue on my journey today, tomorrow and the day after that, since no prophet can be allowed to die anywhere except in Jerusalem.

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! You kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you! How often have I wanted to gather your children together as a mother bird gathers her brood under her wings – yet you refuse me! So take note: your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is the One who comes in the name of our God!’ ”

“Make Art Not War” by street artist/social activist Shepard Fairey

Transfiguration in a Time of War

I usually love Transfiguration Sunday. It’s the grand finale of the Epiphany season – the spectacular revelation of Jesus on the mountaintop with the two biggest heroes of Jewish faith and history. The glorious spectacle almost reminds us of Easter.
And as we stand in the doorway between Epiphany and Lent, we could see this as a bookend, paired with the splendor of Easter Sunday to come.

I also love the mystery of the mountaintop experience witnessed by the disciples, the rending of the veil between heaven and earth. We can’t fault Peter for wanting to capture the moment, store it in a structure, to be savored over and over. Having such an up-close encounter with the Divine would be both amazing and unfathomable. I envy Peter and the others who were there. So, yes, I love the glory, the mystery, the brilliance, the knowledge that such encounters can even be possible.

But today – once again with news of the world intruding on our celebration – it’s hard to feel celebratory. Those of you from the Roman Catholic tradition may know that Transfiguration is celebrated annually on August 6 – which creates an interesting juxtaposition in light of current events.

August 6 is Hiroshima Remembrance Day. In 1945, the Enola Gay, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. There was a dazzling, blinding light from the blast followed by an overshadowing cloud. Sounds eerily like the description in the gospel stories.

Going back even further, August 6, 1456, Pope Callixtus III declared the Feast Day of the Transfiguration due to the victory of the crusaders over the Turks. Interesting, to say the least, how this day is intertwined with acts of war. What is a preacher to do?

The mountaintop experience of Divine glory seems far away from the news of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The image of Jesus and Moses and Elijah as the superheroes of the world seem pale beside images of political strong men and heavy artillery. I have always thought of the Transfiguration as the possibility of trans-formation for all of us, indeed for the whole world. But war brings feelings of hopelessness, of despair for the future of the human race if we cannot – or will not – live together in peace.

You know, I used to not like the way the lectionary includes the next section of the gospels, where Jesus is confronted by a man with a son who had epilepsy (although Luke says the boy is afflicted by an unclean spirit, demon) and heals him. It felt to me like it took away from the majesty of the transfiguration. I guess you could say that I wanted to build a booth and stay up on the mountain with Jesus.

But one thing today’s juxtaposition of Divine revelation and military invasion has done is flesh out a little more of these two stories together and what they can mean for us. Think about that mountain. We don’t know what mountain it was, but I am imagining that from its heights Jesus and the disciples were able to see down into the countryside where there were hundreds of people crucified on Roman crosses. So even though they had their mountaintop experience, the realty of everyday life in Palestine was never far from their sight. So coming back down and encountering a real-life situation is not as jarring as perhaps we might read it.

Divine revelation and everyday life are not at odds with one another;
they are both part of the whole reality of faith and life.

As Franciscan priest and mystic, Richard Rohr has written:
We have created an artificial divide or dualism between the spiritual and the so-called non-spiritual. This dualism is precisely what Jesus came to reveal as a lie. The Incarnation proclaims that matter and spirit have never been separate. Jesus came to tell us that these two seemingly different worlds are — and always have been — one. Rohr challenges a ‘mountaintop’ religiosity that divides the sacred and special from the secular and ordinary.

I like to believe that’s true, at least I do when we’re talking about the ordinariness of everyday life. I do believe that our time with family, our time at school, at work, at play are all part of our spiritual lives. But war – that’s another story – as is any violent act, bullying, any kind of abuse. These should not be part of the ordinariness of everyday life. So what do we do with the ugly side of life, the view of crosses from the mountaintop?

Jesus certainly knew what to do. Even though he could see those crosses and could look ahead and envision one in his own future, he came down from his mystical, glorious, Divine mountain and back into the maelstrom of human misery and need. A demon had seized a boy and was making his life a living hell. We could discuss their understanding of demons and unclean spirits, but the point was that for Jesus, there was work to be done. And he did it.

We could say that a demon or unclean spirit has come upon us. War is not part of God’s intention for God’s people. But lust for power and domination, violence have infected our world from time immemorial. The invasion of Ukraine is just the latest episode of our warring madness.

It is not part of God’s intention, but it is part of our reality. Our secular lives are not separate from our spiritual lives. And so we must consider what our response will be to this war, as well as to any part of the maelstrom of human misery and need.

Perhaps you feel that church is no place to discuss a political situation, that this hour on Sunday morning is sacred, our mountaintop, where we come to commune with the Divine, to get away from the worries of the world. And that may indeed be true. We do come here to be refueled by the Spirit. And that is as it should be. But like Jesus and company, even from the loftiness of our spiritual high, we can see the crosses. We might try to shut them out of our consciousness, but its hard to do. Especially when we have Jesus himself talking about going to Jerusalem to die. The cross always looms over Transfiguration Sunday.

And we know what to do. Like Jesus, we come down from our Sunday mountaintop experience and back into the maelstrom of human misery and need. How do we respond to this latest war? Partly it’s up to each of us to decide how to respond based on our own sense of calling as a follower of Jesus. There are certainly many appeals for money for medical supplies, humanitarian aid, or refugee assistance. I’m sure organizations such as Heart to Heart International and Church World Service who have gathered hygiene and school kits in the past are in the process of mobilizing to do so again. I remember at the start of our Iraq invasion, there was an initiative here in the Bay Area to send school kits to the children of Iraq. We should be on the lookout for opportunities.

And of course, we should be in prayer – for both Ukraine and Russia. If praying for Russia seems extreme, remember Jesus’ words from last week: “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”

Jesus was no stranger to violence, oppression, and war. He didn’t call disciples into a hermetically sealed bubble, safe from the realities of everyday life. We are not called to be followers of Jesus who seek only mystical union with the Divine. Those transfiguring, transforming experiences are of one piece with the gritty, messiness of human experience. He calls us now – to pray for oppressed and oppressor, to tend to the afflicted in whatever way we can.

As we move into Lent and ever closer to the cross, it may be hard to remember the gloriousness of the Transfiguration or to anticipate the splendor of Easter. In the shadows of Lent, we embrace the suffering of the world – hoping and trusting that resurrection life will prevail, but unsure that it will. For Jesus, yes. But for our situations of discord and death and war? We’re not always so sure. But it’s not called a wilderness time for nothing. Our faith will be tested. Our discipleship questioned.

Now is the time to remember Jesus on the mountaintop with the great heroes of faith, to bask with the disciples in that glory. The Divine Presence is in the world. Now is the time to go back down the mountain with Jesus into the needs of the world. We now bring that Divine Presence to others. As C.S. Lewis, author of Mere Christianity and The Chronicles of Narnia, wrote:

Christ became human in order to spread to other human beings the same kind of life. Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else.

The rhythm of the church year has brought us now to this liminal moment, this threshold between the Advent/Christmas/Epiphany cycle and the Lent/Easter/ Pentecost seasons, this dazzling moment of timeless Holy glory and endless possibility. It has been said that the mission of the Church is to be a vessel where transformation can happen. Where lives are changed – from the bottom up, from the inside out – by the enlightening presence of God. We have to leave the mountaintop. But hopefully we go as transformed people. Something has changed or something has shifted. We’re not exactly the same as when we arrived. There’s a little bit of extra glow around us, a renewed vigor to be salt for the earth and light for the world. A re-energized optimism to believe in God’s vision for the world – a world of justice and true peace.

We can’t know what mountains and valleys lie ahead. We can’t predict how God will speak, and in what guise Jesus might appear. But we can trust in this: whether on the brightest mountain, or in the darkest valley, Jesus abides. Even as he blazes with holy light, his hand remains warm and solid on our shoulders. Even when everything else we’re counting on disappears, Jesus remains among us — Jesus alone. So keep looking and listening for the sacred, no matter where the journey takes you. Because Jesus is present everywhere. Both the mountain and the valley belong to him.

It is all of one piece.

Amen.

Photos
Transfiguration, 1973
JESUS MAFA is a response to the New Testament readings from the lectionary by a Christian community in Cameroon. Each reading was selected and adapted to dramatic interpretation by community members. Photographs of their interpretations were made, and these were then transcribed to paintings.

Attribution: JESUS MAFA. Transfiguration, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48307 [retrieved February 27, 2022]. Original source: http://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr (contact page: https://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr/contact).

Gospels, Jesus heals a demon-possessed boy, Walters Manuscript W.592, fol. 48b by Walters Art Museum Illustrated Manuscripts. This work has been marked as dedicated to the public domain.

Transfiguration by Alexandr Ivanov, 1824
This is a faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional, public domain work of art.

Luke 9:28-43a
About eight days after saying this, Jesus took Peter, John and James and went up onto a mountain to pray. While Jesus was praying, his face changed in appearance and the clothes he wore became dazzlingly white. Suddenly two people were there talking with Jesus—Moses and Elijah. They appeared in glory and spoke of the prophecy that Jesus was about to fulfill in Jerusalem. Peter and the others had already fallen into a deep sleep, but awakening, they saw Jesus’ glory—and the two people who were standing next to him. When the two were leaving, Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, how good it is for us to be here! Let’s set up three tents, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah!” Peter didn’t really know what he was saying. While Peter was speaking, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and the disciples grew fearful as the others entered it. Then from the cloud came a voice which said, “This is my own, my chosen one. Listen to him! “When the voice finished speaking, they saw no one but Jesus standing there. The disciples kept quiet, telling nothing of what they had seen at that time to anyone.

The following day when they came down the mountain, a large crowd awaited him. A man stepped out of the crowd and said, “Teacher, please come and look at my son, my only child. A demon seizes him and he screams, and it throws him into convulsions until he foams at the mouth. It releases the boy only with difficulty and when it does, he is exhausted. I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they couldn’t.” Jesus said in reply, “You unbelieving and perverse generation! How much longer must I be among you and put up with you? Bring the child to me.”

As the boy approached, the demon dashed the child to the ground and threw him into a violent convulsion. But Jesus reprimanded the unclean spirit, healed the child and returned him to his father. All those present were awestruck at the greatness of God