Eulogy for my mother

On Christmas Day this past year when my mother asked me to compose a eulogy for her funeral, I was naturally reticent. She had been perilously close to death in the preceding days, but had miraculously rebounded very early Christmas morning. I tried to talk her out of her decision--explaining that I did not think I could get through it without breaking down. She was immovable however. My mother possessed an iron resolve once she had made a decision. Furthermore, in general I would say she asked very little of me and at the same time she gave herself so freely and completely to her family that I had finally to accept that she was not to be refused and I had little power or right to refuse her in this request.

It is true that I have been called into the priesthood and serve an Episcopal congregation in New Jersey. Today, however, I stand before you as Judy's youngest son, the last of five children born to her and my father. I cannot of course set aside my faith--nor would mom want me to do so--but my primary aim is to speak well and truly of her, and in this, I hope my remarks will represent the feeling of all of our family.

My mother was born in 1947 in Columbus, Ohio in a decidedly middle class family. One of the great loves of her life was her father, Robert Swan, who died tragically when she was only 12. Though this was a great sadness in her life, his memory was kept alive in our family by her warm recollections of him. Though he died more than 20 years before I was born, we always had a sense of him and that he was our grandfather. She gave his name to my brother, and I, in turn, have given it to my son.

Though my grandparents were not terribly religious, especially during the early part of their marriage, they had both grown up in devout households. My mother used to tell the story that while in Elementary School, she came home one day, and asked her parents what Sunday School was. After that, the story continued, her parents took her regularly to church, principally St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Park Ridge outside of Chicago. Here she was eventually confirmed and married and where her eldest daughter was baptized. Mom was always a daughter of the church, and served in a whole host of ways as a layreader, chalice bearer, member of vestry, member of altar guild. She volunteered at the gift shop of the cathedral here in Albuquerque for many years, and taught a Bible study out of her home during the last decade of her life.

Though she was very active in the life of the church, she would have been the first to say that all of that activity is no substitute for a lively and heart-felt faith. Although she was baptized, confirmed, and attended weekly service through almost all of her life, it was clear that she was awakened to matters of faith in a more substantial and thorough way after a retreat she went on with my father in the early nineties. It was during and after this time that she became a real student of the Bible, reading it through numerous times and becoming involved with many Bible studies. In her life, it has to be said, she was a woman of strong and abiding Christian conviction.

If my mother were asked what her greatest accomplishment was, there would be no disputing about her answer. It was as a mother. The trajectory of her life was clear from the beginning. Her life's work would not be the type of thing found in newspapers or books. It was not the type of work to gain her honors and awards outside of the love and devotion of her family. No, she always knew that she wanted to be a mother. As a little girl, she had her Jenny doll and picked out the name Beth from Little Women. She was naturally inclined to care in a maternal way for her younger sister Debbie who was seven years her junior. By the time she started dating my father in the mid-1960s, it was clear that she wanted to be a full-time mother. She loved to tell the story about how in the summer of 1966, three years before they were married, she and my father picked four names, Jenny, Beth, Robert and John. Of course, my mother had other occupations in her life--she worked as a special education teacher out of college and was a secretary for a non-profit in my teens--yet even these employments seemed to be drawn in and tied to her work as a mother. She always spoke of how her training and experience in education was an asset to her as a mother, and I believe part of her motivation in going back to work as a secretary was to help fund her children's education. In some notes that I took after she asked me to give this eulogy, I wrote down the following quote. Concerning her children, she said, "I could not be more blessed." She was not invariably proud of decisions I or my siblings made, but there was never any question of the constancy of her love as a mother.

Dad, it was clear that she loved you in part because you gave her what she always wanted: a family; she also loved you because you supported her in the work that she most wanted to do: being a stay-at-home mother. But in addition, it was evident to all that you were the love of her life. My mother was not quick to judge those who remarried after being widowed. She said that often times people remarry because marriage had been good to them. In a sense, remarrying could be a tribute to a happy marriage. She also said that for others, one marriage could give the fullness of matrimony; for these, remarriage would never be an alluring option. Dad, I believe she hoped the former for you, but I know that she felt the latter way about her marriage to you. You were it.

Last November my mother came to visit me and my family in New Jersey. A few weeks earlier she had noticed a small bruise on her breast. While visiting, she learned that she had breast cancer. The news went from bad to worse in the weeks following: first her cancer was determined to be a rare and aggressive form of breast cancer; then we learned it had metastasized into several other parts of her body. It would be misleading to say that she was not sad at these developments--I will never forget when she told me her diagnosis--but there was a devout acceptance and a holy resignation to whatever the future would bring. To those who observed her, she put in practice the words of what she called her life verse, Proverbs 3:5-6; "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths."

I suspect for her the hardest part of dying was leaving her family: her husband, her children and grandchildren. But she also spoke of the hope and expectation of being reunited with her family that had gone before her: her father and her mother; her beloved grandparents, Guy and Gladys, her firstborn son who died shortly after birth and for whom she never stopped grieving. When my father called early Wednesday morning to tell me the news of mom's death, it was the words of an Easter Hymn that came to me: "The strife is ov'r, the battle done, the victory of life is won." The hymn is of course speaking of the triumph of Jesus over sin and death in his resurrection, but it applies in a measure to my mother as a Christian. It is to this hope of the resurrection that she witnessed, and it is to this hope that I commend her. Her strife is over; may she now and evermore know the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Easter Sunday

Jesus said, A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.
- St. John 16:21-22

On the night that our Lord was arrested, he said the forgoing words to his disciples. He knew that for three days they would be distressed; they would be sorrowful, but he promised them joy on the other side of that anguish. He uses the image of a woman in labor. The suffering and sorrow of his death will result in a new birth and new life. This new birth is represented when the soldier thrusts his spear into the dead body of Jesus. John tells us that out of his pierced side flowed both water and blood, the fluids of new life. Out of his side, new life is come for us. We have the assurance of this because of his resurrection.

We have come to the day that is at that heart of the Church's proclamation. On Easter Sunday we recall our Lord's triumphant resurrection from the dead. The prayer book helpfully reminds us that every Sunday is a feast of the resurrection, but once a year we set aside a time to go into the desert for 40 days to fast and pray with the Lord and then in the final week of that period we walk again the path of his passion and death.

The first thing that we need to say about the resurrection is that it is a historical event. In modern times there have been attempts to try to rationalize the resurrection by spiritualizing it or making it metaphor of a kind of enlightenment that set in for the disciples after Jesus' death. It is difficult however to imagine twelve working-class men, traveling all over the known world and being martyred, for a metaphor. A passing reading of the Gospel accounts indicates the kind of transformation that occurred in the disciples as a result of seeing and touching the resurrected Lord. Peter who during our Lord's trial denies even knowing Jesus is seen in the book of Acts proclaiming the crucified and risen Jesus even after repeated threats of punishment by the religious authorities.

Having said that our Lord's resurrection is a historical event, it must also be asserted that there are unusual things about our Lord's resurrected body. He can and does eat food--Luke tells us he eats some fish before his disciples to demonstrate to them that he is not a ghost--but, on the other hand, he enters rooms where all the doors are locked. In describing the general resurrection, St. Paul speaks of our current corruptible bodies and of the spiritual bodies we will have after the resurrection. A spiritual body seems like an adequate description to describe this mystery of the resurrected body of Jesus.

But the resurrection of Jesus has more relevance for us than just as an historical event. From a Christian standpoint, saying that Jesus rose from the dead, is not like saying Julius and Augustus were Ceasars of the Roman Empire. For the resurrection of Jesus has implications for our lives here and now. In fact, the first proclaimers of our Lord's death and resurrection described these events as Good News or Gospel. The resurrection is Good News not just for churchy or religious people, but for all kinds of people. How so, you might ask? Well, as our collect reminds us, the resurrection is not just the hope of some future life, but an on-going reality of new life to which we are called and which can transform our lives here and now. This transformation is not about removing every difficulty or every trial from our lives, but about God transforming the darkness and sorrow of our own lives by his Holy Spirit. The Christian Gospel is not really for pollyanna type of people. The Gospel is not at its essence telling us that everything is okay. The Gospel is not addressed to a comfortable or settled people with no problems or no defeats. No, the Gospel is for those that are struggling with depression. It is for those feeling burdened with some besetting sin. It is for those feeling lost as a result of the death of a loved one.

We can be confident of this because our Lord Jesus has laid out the pattern of God's grace breaking into our world: "And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice." If calvary tells us nothing else, it tells us that God is present with us in the darkness and dryness of our lives. He is with us in despair and agony, and he is especially with us when we become convinced that we cannot go any further, we cannot take another step. Such a calvary is the place of brokenness and surrender, and it is the point at which God, by his Holy Spirit, can begin to give us new life. Again, this new life is not without complication or difficulty--remember that our Lord still has the wounds of the cross on his resurrected body--but it is a life in the light and love of God. The death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus gives us the confidence to know that whatever we face in this life nothing earthly can or ever will be able to separate us from God's love. As St. Paul writes, I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Again, all this true not because our lives are perfect or without the marks of sin, but just the opposite. Christians are those who are sorrowful, but they have hope, the hope of a new, resurrected life, "I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice."

Passion Sunday

      St. John 11:1-45

In the last several weeks we have been hearing extended narratives from John's Gospel. Three weeks ago we heard about the midnight meeting between Nicodemus and our Lord in John 3. Two weeks ago we heard the narrative of the Samaritan woman who meets our Lord at the well and is restored to new life by him. Last week, we read the story of the man born blind whom our Lord heals, giving both natural sight and spiritual vision. The common element to all of these narratives is a transformation that comes as a result of a meeting with our Lord Jesus. The point is that if you meet Jesus, you will be changed. In each of these scenes there was a sense in which the individuals were ailing or afflicted. Nicodemus comes at night out of apparent fear of what other Jewish leaders would think of his interview with Jesus. The Samaritan woman is an outcast of society and comes to draw water at the hottest part of the day just to avoid others. The man born blind is crippled by his handicap and is facing a lifetime of begging for bread. In each case they are born to new life through this encounter with Jesus. In the Gospel lesson this morning, we hear of the narrative of a man Lazarus who dies. The gravity of the afflictions of those whom our Lord meets reaches a climax with the death of Lazarus.

Death puts what feels like a definitive period on our lives. Death tears apart families. As C.S. Lewis notes in the book he wrote after his wife died, A Grief Observed, simply remembering the deceased love one is pale substitute for the real person; the person in our memory does not respond with the spontaneity and surprise that the person of flesh and bone has the ability to do. Even the person you have known for decades can say or do the unexpected, but not a memory nor a figure in the imagination. Death also shatters the images of what we imagined the future to be. Most of us live by such images. We think about future family trips; we assume that family traditions at the holidays will continue without ceasing; we picture an easy retirement with a beloved spouse. Death kills the person and all such images.

Theology teaches that death is in part the judgement of God for sin. In the scene of the Fall in Genesis 3, the Lord tells Adam, from the dust you were taken and unto dust you shall return. As humans we are given the gift of life. We squander the gift. We fritter away the time given to us in trivialities or wallowing in laziness. But we are guilty of more than just neglect and inaction. We also hurt others and hurt ourselves. We chase after vanities as if they would make us happy. We curse our fellowmen and wish them evil. We slay others and even sometimes our loved ones with careless and angry words. The folly and wickedness of human existence has upon it the divine sentence of death. If one unbiasedly consider the moral disorder of society and of our lives, it is difficult not to perceive the justice of this sentence. This is the sober thought of Psalm 130, the Psalm appointed this morning. It is a Psalm as if spoken from the grave, "out of the deep have I called to thee." The Psalmist recognizes the collective weight of sin, "if thou wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who may abide it?" Yet, like all of God's judgements, there is a grace hidden in death. An extension of the duration of human life would hardly result in remedying our collective or individual disorder. It would simply be more time for vanities and castles in the air.

The scriptures say that our whole life long we are in bondage to the fear of death. Consider the dread and fear that comes on at the news of a grave diagnosis. It seems to confirm the fear and anxieties that were always present, sometimes conscious, sometimes unconscious. Our Lord has come to free us from this fear of death. He has come that he might overcome death.

In John's Gospel, Jesus makes this mission abundantly clear. He says, I am the bread of life. Not the bread of transitory life, but of an eternal life in God. He says, I am the light. He casts light into the darkness of death. Death is darkness; it is rightly said to be in valley where the sun does not shine, the valley of the shadow of death. He says, I am the resurrection and the life. He has come to take away from us the futility, the vanity, the wickedness of this transitory life; he has come that we might have life and have more abundantly. He goes before us to prepare a place for us that where he is we may be also. He prepares a place where we may abide in God everlastingly.

The Gospel lesson shows that our Lord understands the grieving and morning of human life. He even shares in this mourning in his sympathy for the sisters of Lazarus, Mary and Martha. Never once do we get the sense that Jesus is unfeeling or uncaring of the pain, suffering and anguish of death. I once heard a funeral directer tell a grieving family that death is nothing; his comment was not said of malice but there is a pastoral cruelty in this lie. There is an unvarnished harshness to the reality of death. And yet for our Lord Jesus, death is just another affliction that keeps us from the new life which he has come to give. He knows our hearts are broken by sickness and death; he has known this pain personally and his heart of love is touched by our sorrow. But he was not thwarted by the Samaritan woman's checkered history in his offer of new life. He was not powerless over the affliction of the man born blind to give him new life. Death for him was not a finality in giving new life to Lazarus.

The question we must consider is are we open to an encounter from the Lord Jesus? He wants to give us new life, like he did to the Samaritan woman and the man born blind and the deceased Lazarus. We can obstruct this meeting or cover our eyes from the light of his glory, but the change, this new life is his to work in us. "Lazarus, come out"; "unbind him and let him go."

3rd Sunday in Lent

St. John 4:5-42

Most human beings feel like they are on a search for God. I am convinced, however, that most of us are trying to avoid God and avoid the truth. Most of our lives are elaborate coping and avoidance strategies. Entertainment in moderate doses can help one deal with the stresses of everyday life, but we now live in a world in which we are being entertained to death. Even religion can become an avoidance strategy. Years ago I knew a nice, devout woman who went from church to church looking for a service or Bible study every night of the week. A large part of why she was doing this however was to avoid her painful home life of a loveless marriage in which husband and wife were enemies living under one roof.

The Gospel lesson this morning is one of the longest in the modern lectionary. I elected to forgo a lesson from the Old Testament with the hope that we would not be fatigued and unable to concentrate by the time we came to this powerful narrative. The Samaritan woman in this Gospel is an example of avoidance and evasion. In this she represents humanity as a whole. Our Lord on the other hand displays perfect tact in responding to her evasions and avoidance. He leads her gently and loving yet definitely towards the truth. In this he shows us how God pursues us and leads us into the light. We tend to think in terms of our search for an unseen and invisible God, but the profounder truth is that more often God is in search of us. Not of course that God does not know where we are. Consider the scene in Genesis immediately after Adam and Eve have transgressed God's commandment. The text reads, Adam and Eve heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" Here was Adam's chance to be honest, but of course, he did not step into the light to admit his transgression until God exposed it. In the Gospel lesson this morning, our Lord is essentially calling to this woman, "where are you?"

Now the first thing that needs to be said about this scene is the degree to which our Lord transcends and breaks social barriers of his age. Our Lord was a man, and she was a woman. It was severely frowned upon for a men and women to spend time alone together except for spouses and families. Further, he was Jewish, she was Samaritan. The Samaritans and Jews had a long history of antipathy and discord. Jews perceived the Samaritan religion as a watered-down, heretical version of Judaism. In contemporary idiom, she was Mormon or Jehovah's Witness. Finally, she was a woman of bad repute. To by-standers, this would look like a priest talking alone with a prostitute. To the itching ears of gossip and social propriety, this looks delightfully bad.

There is a hint of this woman's bad reputation in the detail that she comes at the sixth hour to draw water. The Romans numbered the hours of the day from sunrise and so the sixth hour would be about noon. Nobody, but the person who is trying to avoid contact with others, would come to draw water during the hottest part of the day. You might come in the morning or in the late afternoon, but not the middle of the day. Under ordinary circumstances these two would have completely ignored one another's presence. According to the mores of the time, there could be no reason nor benefit from a conversation. But our Lord approaches her and initiates a conversation.

There are two things that are remarkable about the interaction that unfolds between them. The first is that Jesus gradually leads up to this revelation of her history. It is as if he takes her by the hand and gently leads her into the light by degrees. One imagines how a zealous street preacher might approach this woman, abrasively calling attention first to her sins and short comings. Instead our Lord repeatedly mentions the call of God to transform humanity: "you would have asked of him, and he would have given you living water"; "God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." The second thing that is remarkable in this conversation is the way this woman tries to evade and avoid the pursuit of our Lord. She understands his offer of living water literally, thinking that he is offering running water from a spring or stream rather than the standing water of a well. She also falls back on formulaic answers from the entrenched hostility between Jews and Samaritans. "our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship" "when Messiah comes, he will shows us all things." Both remarks are intended to halt the conversation as she falls back into her entrenched position as a Samaritan. It is like two people of opposing view having a debate about abortion; inevitably they fall back onto formulaic expressions and arguments and so the debate goes no where. Except, of course, in this case our Lord does not see himself as the adversary of this woman. He is calling out to her, as his Father's agent, "where are you?"

The most explosive moment comes when our Lord asks her to bring her husband; she responds that she has none. Our Lord proceeds to name her history, not in the spirit of condemnation and judgment. By naming this history, he casts his light upon it. By naming it, there is implicit forgiveness and new life. She certainly saw it as new life because at the end of her interview she goes to her neighbors--the very people she was trying to avoid in going to the well at noon--and tells them, "come, see a man who told me all that I ever did."

Most Christian people I know have two identifies. There is the public religious identity that is marked by regular devotion and piety. Then there is the private fallen identity that gives in all too easily to temptation and besetting sin. You might say that sounds like a hypocrite; am I saying everyone is a hypocrite? Well, partly, yes, but in my observation most people are quite sincere in their Christian devotion and piety. The purpose of Lent is to allow our lives--all of our lives--to be exposed to the light of the Lord, in a sense to bring those two identities together. In our special devotions, we are supposed to hear the Master calling, "where are you?"--as he searches for us amidst our distraction, our entertainment, our waywardness. Imagine what it would be like for our Lord to name your history--both the good and bad--and to know that if you did not stop him or obstruct him, there was forgiveness implicit in that naming. Could you this Lent let our loving Lord Jesus name your whole life not just the Christian part of it; could you let him name your whole history not just the parts you are proud of? Even now, God is calling, "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light" (Ephesians 5:14).

1st Sunday in Lent

In the current young people's confirmation class, we have been studying the opening chapters of Genesis to see how they lay out the framework for the entire narrative of the Bible. This past week we looked at Genesis 3, the story of the Fall, in which the serpent tempts Eve to break God's commandments. The serpent cunningly asks Eve, "did God really say, ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" The implication of the question is that somehow God is depriving Adam and Eve of something they rightfully should enjoy. The serpent hints that God is capricious in his commands, in the way that a child might be tyrannical if suddenly he were given unlimited power. Eve's and Adam's decision to break God's commandments indicates that they want to live apart from God. In the narrative, that is precisely the result of their decision, as they are cast out of the Garden of Eden. It is not surprising that in the succeeding chapter of Genesis, someone implies by his actions that he wants to live apart from his fellow-man: Cain murders Abel. You see, in sin there is a desire for autonomy and self-sufficiency, a desire to live apart from God and others, a will to live by one's own light rather than the light of God. Americans have always prided themselves on autonomy and self-sufficiency but neither is a particularly biblical value.

In the Gospel lesson this morning, we have the account of our Lord's temptation in the wilderness. St. Paul and the early church fathers spoke of Jesus as a new Adam. The old Adam, sought to live by his own light; he desired to be autonomous and self-sufficient, and every child of this Adam has followed in his footsteps. The story needed to be rewritten. Genesis 3 needed to have a different decision and a different outcome. We needed a new Adam.

In the first temptation, our Lord is tempted to turn stones into bread. The narrative relates that our Lord had been fasting for forty days; undoubtedly, he was hungry. The body requires food and sustenance to live, but in our fallen condition, we desire more than we can handle. Ironically we desire that which will ultimately hurt us, because we desire inordinately and excessively. Such is the deception of the flesh. Such inordinate and excessive desires indicate that we are hungering for something more, something deeper and more profound. Think of the person who eats not because he is hungry but because he is sad or lonely. Or of the person who sleeps around because she is looking for love. Our Lord understands all of this, but he rejects such empty searching. There is a hunger in us that can only be filled by God. The bread of this world will not suffice. That is why there is a kind of emptiness evident in the lives of those who only seek the things of this world. If the things of this world could satisfy, the wealthy and the famous would be the most joyful and loving people around, but it is, I think, fairly obvious to the casual observer that there is just as much misery in Hollywood as every else, and perhaps a little more.

In the second temptation, our Lord is placed on the highest point of the temple and exhorted to cast himself down, confident that the angels would catch him. The temple, of course, was a public place, a place where many observant Jews could have observed first-hand this extraordinary miracle. Who could doubt that this man was the Messiah, once they had seen this miracle? Certainly not Jesus nor those religious folks standing by. In our fallen nature, we want proof. We want to know for certain that God exists, and we would like to hear him tell us exactly what to do.  We do not like ambiguity or uncertainty. The way God has made us, however, is that we are built for faith and trust. He did not whisper over Adam and Eve's shoulders, "don't do that." Rather, he gave them the freedom to obey his command without restraint or coercion. Occasionally, we will try to bargain with God: give me some sign that you are real or that I am supposed to do a particular action; such bargaining does not succeed because we are built for faith, and proof would destroy this faith. Consider the fact that every human relationship is built on trust. You open yourself up to someone by degrees, trusting that they will not harm you. Our relationship with God is similar. We will not ever get "the proof" that we, in our fallen nature, desire. Rather we have to walk and live by faith, handing our lives over to God trusting that he will work out his good purposes.

In the third temptation, our Lord is tempted to gain worldly power by worshiping Satan. "All the kingdoms of the world will I give thee, if thou wilt worship me," Satan bids our Lord. We say that Jesus was born a king. He was born of the family and lineage of David, the kings of Israel and Judah. But Jesus is a different type of king from every earthly power and authority. In our fallen nature, we believe that might is right. To have power is to control and to dominate. The tools of such power are fear and coercion and intimidation. Our Lord rejects this type of power in rejecting this temptation. True power, he shows us by his life and ministry, is to serve and to love. The tools of such power are humility and kindness and love.

In overcoming these temptation, our Lord becomes for us a new Adam: An Adam that does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God; An Adam who does not live by proof but by faith, not by sight but by trust; an Adam who rejects the power of tyranny and oppression in favor of the power of love and service. St. Paul tells the Church that we belong to this new Adam by virtue of baptism and faith in him. The story has been rewritten, and we do not have to live according to that fallen Adam. Now we may live according to this new Adam, our Lord Jesus, who renews and transforms us into the image of his glory.

History of the Book of Common Prayer

This excellent video helps to explain the origin and purpose of the Book of Common Prayer.

Last Sunday after Epiphany: the Tranfiguration

St. Matthew 17:1-9

He was still speaking, when lo, a bright cloud overshadowed them.

In the sermon last Sunday, I spoke of how grace not only reveals God’s goodwill towards us but also changes us so that we might love with a divine love and be as God is. The verse which ended last week’s Gospel lesson--“be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect”--is less a command than a description of what will happen to us and to humanity as we become more open to this transforming grace of God. It might be justly asked what does it mean to be open to the grace of God? Just it merely mean being especially religious or spiritual? The typical attitude towards grace as well as many things in life is that if I want something I am going to have to earn it and work for it. That is a fine model for the ego, but it fails to account for the way in which God is the source, continuance and final end of our existent.  The lessons this morning indicate the path which we must take to receive this transforming grace.

The lessons all relate to the transfiguration of Jesus on a mountain. Transfiguration is a word used to describe the change in the appearance of Jesus at this event. Coming at the end of Epiphany season, there is a hint of our Lord’s divine nature as well as his perfect human nature in this transfiguration. The Old Testament lesson shows Moses ascending a mountain to receive the Ten Commandments on the two tables of stone. The mountain is full of clouds and fire as Moses encounters the glory of the Lord. In the Epistle, we have a first-hand account of the transfiguration with the voice heard from heaven. Finally, in the Gospel lesson, our Lord takes three chosen disciples up to a mountain where the glory of his perfect human nature is revealed. Moses and Elijah appear with our Lord; Moses represents the law while Elijah represents the prophets; together they imply the unity that is between the New Testament and the Old Testament.

A common element in these lessons is clouds. The cloud covers Mount Sinai as Moses enters the glory of the Lord. The cloud interrupts Peter’s misguided suggestion to build tabernacles.  But clouds are also a motif in Scripture generally. They often symbolize God’s presence. For example, the cloud and fiery pillar that accompany the Hebrews in their journey from Egypt to the promised land. Consider too the clouds into which our Lord ascends forty days after Easter, as he enters the very presence of God.

We have a word for clouds into which we enter: fog. Fog probably makes us think of lack of visibility. It can be disconcerting and scary driving in fog because of the uncertainty of what lies ahead. Scripture uses clouds to symbolize God’s presence; we think of clouds as obscuring and limiting vision. These two ways of understanding clouds are not as different as they might at first appear. To enter God’s presence, to see his glory is to accept a degree of uncertainty, a degree of blindness.

Allow me to explain. We naturally want to know what our future looks like. We would like to have some certainty about employment, money, the welfare of our children and other loved ones. In order to secure this certainty we work very hard to plan and protect that which we hold dearest. We worry whether our children will ever sort out their lives. We worry that family members will become gravely ill. So often all this planning and anxiety comes to nothing, in large part because we anticipate events over which we have no control. "The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry." We make our plans but are never truly ready for the tempest of time and decay.

There is an alternative to this constant fretting over the future, and it is called faith. Faith is accepting our limited ability to see into the future or change it and trusting that God will order every part of our lives. This necessarily involves surrendering our plans and anxiety. We have to surrender our children to the grace of God which can preserve them through every trial and trouble of this life. We have to surrender our loved ones to God knowing that their ultimate security and health can only be found in God. To accept this faith, to surrender in this way is to enter into a cloud. It is not a cloud of confusion and chaos, but the cloud of God’s sure mercies.

Consider the Hebrews who came out of slavery in Egypt. They had visions of what the free life would look like, but when these images did not immediately materialize they actually told Moses they wanted to return to slavery in Egypt. The comforts of prison life were more alluring than the uncertainty of wandering in the desert on the way to an unknown, unseen promised land. Moses enters into the clouds of faith and hears these staggering words of God: “I bore you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself.” For the Hebrews the alternatives were these: the comforts of a known prison or the uncertainty of faith in God’s plan for them as a people.

There is a similar faith in the account of our Lord’s transfiguration. The passage about our Lord’s transfiguration is preceded by Peter’s great confession. Jesus questions his disciples, who do you say that I am? To which Peter answers, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Now Christ is simply the Greek word for Messiah, and for a Jew to confess someone as messiah would mean that he would very much anticipate the world to change in a dramatic and definitive way. The hope of many first century Jews was for the Romans to end their occupation of Israel. For the pious, the messiah would be the one to win this independence. But for Peter and the disciples no such victory is given. Instead, they witness Jesus transfigured and then as they come down the mountain, in the verses following our lesson, they are told that “The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men: And they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again.” This was not exactly what they were expecting of their messiah. Matthew writes, And they were exceeding sorry. The disciples are soon going to have to enter the uncertainty of Good Friday. They will enter the cloud that is said to have covered the sky the three hours our Lord was nailed on the cross.

My friends, we have been called to come up the mountain, to enter the cloud of faith and uncertainty. It is the uncertainty of the wandering through the desert on the way to a promised land. It is the uncertainty of the loneliness and desolation of the cross on the way to the empty tomb. If we are prepared to surrender the images of what we want our lives to be like or what we think they should be like, then we will open ourselves up to receiving God’s grace, because in surrender, we become open to love, joy and peace. After all, if you are so busy pining after the comforts of prison life, a life that you think is certain and secure, there will be no energy or openness for love or joy or peace. Prison life is not about love but about self-preservation. Prison life is not about joy but about accumulating as many moments of fleeting happiness as possible. Prison life is not about peace but about trying to forget that you have resigned yourself to bondage. My friends, in the words of St. Paul, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1).