Once a month or so I give you a piece of writing that is actually a short sermon. I planned to pen some thoughts about that big old revival, but then I left a book on American Revivalism at a friend’s house and also remembered that sermons are yet another form of writing. So, voila! It’s Fat Tuesday: you get a sermon, and both of us, perhaps, get a stack of pancakes tonight.
I saw it again this week: a little glimpse of holiness wrapped up in the ordinary.
A book deadline has been on the horizon for several months now. I meant to get my agent chapters back in October, but then October turned into November and December, as it always does, soon followed suit. Pretty soon, January had arrived, and how was I supposed to make a March 1st deadline with everything else on the calendar?
But then, a gift: an offer to hole up in a friend’s basement for 48 hours. An invitation to be with my words, penning chapters and book proposals alongside another dear writer-friend. A gift of generosity I could only receive, when the refrigerator was stocked with salads and sparkle water, yogurt and fried chicken,1 upon our arrival. A husband (mine) who knew what it meant for me to get away, who dropped off children in the morning and picked them up in the afternoons, who took care of a sick kid and cooked all the meals – who didn’t partake of parental sharing, as is our usual habit, but instead, released me from all duties.
I couldn’t say thank you enough, not to the ones who made this wordy getaway possible – not to all those God appearances I saw along the way.
One of my favorite writers, Sister Macrina Weiderkehr, calls these moments theophanies – “theos” meaning God, “phainein,” to appear:
You live in a world of theophanies,” she writes. “Holiness comes wrapped in the ordinary. There are burning bushes all around you. Every tree is full of angels. Hidden beauty is waiting in every crumb. Life wants to lead you from crumbs to angels, but this can happen only if you are willing to unwrap the ordinary by staying with it long enough to harvest its treasure.2
Yes, I say. Yes, yes, yes.
So, what theophanies have been made real in your world today?
In more ways than one, this week’s lectionary text is one of the biggest, fattest theophanies that ever existed. Certainly, Peter, James, and John witnessed holiness wrapped in the ordinary when Jesus transformed before their eyes on top of a mountain. His face shone like the sun! His clothes became dazzling white!
And then there’s Peter: mere scenes before, he had walked on water because Jesus told him he should do it. He calls Jesus “Messiah,” only to deny, minutes later, that he will suffer and die – so, Jesus rebukes him in return. But finally, up there on the mountain, Peters starts putting the pieces of the puzzle together; he says aloud, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
And right as he is in the middle of getting it all figured out, BOOM! A bright cloud overshadows them and a boomy voice from heaven proclaims, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”
Peter, of course, is beside himself. With James and John, he falls to the ground, overcome by fear.
It isn’t until Jesus walks over to the three of them, puts a hand on their shoulders, and says, “Hey there: don’t be afraid,” that their hearts are calmed.
Theophany of theophanies, I’m telling you.
So, where do we go from here?
Certainly, we start looking for theophanies, for hidden beauties waiting in every crumb, for holiness wrapped up in the ordinary, in our everyday, ordinary worlds.
Last week, I preached at St. Paul’s Episcopal in Oakland. After the service, a man came up to me: “I don’t know why I’m here,” he said. “I don’t know if I believe in God; I don’t know if I agree with all the prayers; I don’t know if any of the words that even come out of my mouth are true. But something draws me in. Something keeps me coming back, week after week. Is that okay?”
I looked at him, head bobbing up and down, as if into a bucket of apples at the country fair. I thanked him for his honesty, and I noticed the God-moment, the theophany alive and present and sparkling before me. And so I ask you again, what does it mean to notice the theophanies alive and present and sparkling in your life?
Of course, our text is strategic, which brings me to the next point: as one theologian points out, the transfiguration (which is what Matthew 17:1-13 is traditionally called), has a transitional function. “The Advent, Christmas and Epiphany Day texts point to Jesus as God’s agent in the apocalyptic transformation of the world from the old age to the new.”3 In Epiphany, we lean into Jesus’ teachings about how to live in the light – in the light of the one who is Christ.
Here, mere days before Ash Wednesday, there is a climax of light – literally, Jesus, the light of the world, face shining like the sun, clothes a dazzling white, at the heights of the highest mountain in the Old World.
We read this text now to remember Jesus in the days and weeks to come, for “the transfiguration offers a vision of the future to sustain the congregation through the sober days of Lent.”4
Lent, after all, is a season of remembering. A season of sometimes looking inward so that we can remember the Christ. Sometimes, we give things up. Sometimes, we intentionally enter into a season of darkness and light and waiting. Because “in the middle of the waiting,” my friend Micha writes, “we begin to notice things. Notice the cracks and shadows and how to attend to the broken spaces.”5
Oftentimes in Lent, we walk through our ordinary, everyday lives, a little more in tune with grace – after all, “Lent is about reminding ourselves that we need God more than anything else.”6
So we return to the place in which we started, which is to say, we return to theophanies and God-sightings. We return to looking for God-lights, for transformations and transfigurations in the world around us – simply and solely because we need this God more than anything else.
So, one last story: on Friday night, I gathered around the table with three other writers.7 A spread of Mediterranean food between us, we feasted on warm pita bread and hummus with beets, falafel, fresh from the fryer, and chicken, sizzled on a skewer. We clinked our glasses and shared our stories; we lamented and we celebrated; we ate of a conversation and a meal only the four of us could share.
At one point, one of the women asked me to tell her more about gardening. Like many of you, gardening is something that makes me feel fully alive. I watch a tiny seed, no bigger than a freckle, transform into the food that feeds my family. I laugh out loud when bright pink tendrils burst from the pineapple sage, when a bright purple cauliflower all of the sudden bursts out of a giant bouquet of leaves.
Often, I visit the garden after I’ve been staring at the computer for too long, mind numbed by various duties.
Soon enough, God-sightings are all around me, maybe, probably, perhaps because they’ve been there all along. Soon enough, theophanies burst out of the ground. Soon enough, I am reminded that I need this – this burst of beauty, this food that feeds, this gift of God.
You and me, we need God. That is the reminder this text brings, and that, perhaps, our invitation today.
Amen.
Liz, did you know I ate a piece of fried chicken, cold from the refrigerator? It was divine.
From Seven Sacred Pauses by Macrina Weiderkehr
Ronald J. Allen: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/transfiguration-of-our-lord/commentary-on-matthew-171-9-6
Also Ronald J. Allen, above
From a conversation with Micha Boyett on Faith Conversations with Anita Lustrea