2 Corinthians 4:3-6
"Transfiguration" - Year B
Even as unmasked as we can get, as clear about G*D-light as we can be, there is yet no guarantee of another understanding our joy.
What we know is that our life has been enlightened through church stories (bible) and personal connection with the Spirit of the risen Christ having taught us more than our ancestors in the faith knew how to teach us. In the midst of these gifts we connect back through the church, Jesus, Elijah, Moses, Eve, to that oldest of commands - let there be light!
We connect forward by standing aglow, being what beacon we can be.
"There is no way of telling people that they are walking around shining like the sun." [Thomas Merton] But we may also connect forward by catching whatever glow others have and reflecting that back to them - a little spiritual bio-feedback that goes beyond "telling."
So we proceed through the storms and rocky landings of life - lighthouse to lighthouse. Shine, yourself, and reflect the light of others - in so doing, life is good.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/march2003.html
"All we are is messengers, errand runners from Jesus for you. It started when God said, 'Light up the darkness!' and our lives filled up with light as we saw and understood God in the face of Christ, all bright and beautiful." [The Message]
Presuming that this is the experience of progressive christians, it is time to claim how central is our experience of G*D. We are not fringe people of faith or people of a fringe faith. We are connected with the beginning of G*D's presence - creation. The Light, first commanded word, still reflects in our lives.
Let us live in this new first day. Let us be bright and beautiful as people see our faces and then see Christ and in Christ see G*D and in G*D see themselves.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/march2003.html
And just how powerful is the "god of this world" that it can blind folks from a "God ... who has shone in our hearts"?
It is all very well to try to make this an external game between divinities, but ultimately it is pretty unsatisfying to have to eternally see good in ourselves and bad in others. Somehow or other we tend toward setting up untenable arguments that are good for bashing, but not for healing. Here predestination is right around the corner. Our good, all powerful God must have allowed others to be condemned to blindness as a lesson to us to keep on the straight and narrow with this God.
This sounds a bit like those lists that claim a good quality for myself when I am behaving poorly and a bad quality for you when you are exhibiting the same behavior. If any of you have access to one of these lists, I'd appreciate getting it. some examples are: I am forceful, you are ruthless; I am fair and balanced, you are partisan.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/february2006.html
Our transfiguration: their blindness. So we set Shi'a against Sunni, evangelical against progressive, democrat against republican, sister against sister, me against myself.
The expected resolution is that they will become us. The reality is that we draw closer to one another and never achieve uniformity.
Let's take the glory shining in our hearts and see through the outstretched arms of a cross the gift of forgiveness that does not demand one to one correspondence in all things, but honors the differences as well as the similarities (and the similarities may be harder to swallow than the differences).
Light your knowledge and offer it in the presence of the light of the knowledge of others.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/february2006.html
2 Corinthians 4:3-6
2 Kings 2:1-12
Psalm 50:1-6
Mark 9:2-9
A whirlwind - horses of fire, a chariot of fire - fire before and tempest around. These images call to let light shine out of darkness. They hearken back to the energy of creation - and let there be light (as though that were an easy, instantaneous event leaving no cosmological trace over time). There is judgment in these images, there is death and inheritance. We find here markers of transition from one generation to the next and a separation of the past from the future. All-in-all, blind violence is very much present.
Listen for another light, perhaps an energy saving compact fluorescent rather than a strobing spotlight, with the mystery of a floating cloud rather than a known tempestuous whirlwind. This comes with a message different than separation and doubling, different than judging and perishing. A message here is that of belovedness that can bridge the gap between what has been and what might yet be.
If we were to compare it with what might otherwise have been the pericopes of the seventh Sunday after Epiphany:
Isaiah 43:18-25
Psalm 41
2 Corinthians 1:18-22
Mark 2:1-12
we find a new thing springing forth. A whirlwind of fire becomes a whirlwind of mutual care as a roof is blown off that a paralytic, one already judged and found wanting, might find a healing of forgiveness and walk forth. A way will be found in the wilderness that is as refreshing as a river in a desert. There is an opening up, not a closing down to one transitional moment - every moment of opening leads us onward and reveals the Yes of life. We find a life to be a first or next installment of Life, not a final culmination. We don't need to build more houses to separate us, but an opening of the houses already present that belovedness might enter and go forth.
- - -
a double portion of spirit
so cries the religious capitalist
making a profit off the prophet
to build more and bigger
dwellings to be franchised
of course this is intended for good
the veiled, the perishing
will be left behind
those who work hard
and persevere will triumph
equally true is the way
this keeps us separated
one profiteer from another
claiming a quadruple spirit
or a hundredfold
eventually we return
no prophetic profit
only a gentle quiet
a light-dimming cloud
murmuring a beloved lullaby
- - -
Thomas (Reader) said...
re: Isaiah 43:18-25, Psalm 41, 2 Corinthians 1:18-22, Mark 2:1-12
... We find a life to be a first or next installment of Life, not a final culmination. We don't need to build more houses to separate us, but an opening of the houses already present that belovedness might enter and go forth.
perhaps
we do need
to build more houses
for those
who do not even have as much,
that they may know
appropriate separation
(boundaries, shelter, privacy)
and at the same time
invite those
whose houses have become prisons
to turn from their barred prison window
and walk through
the door
that has always been open
(wisdom, compassion, love)
what is this belovedness
in the presence/context of which
both the whirlwind
and the quiet lullaby
find home?
Wesley (Blogger) said...
Yep. I do appreciate your ability to see the more that yet needs to be said. I might have gotten to this in another year.
I am reminded of an op-ed piece in today's NY Times that can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/12/opinion/12mon4.html?th&emc=th
though you may need to a free signup to read it. Being a Yeats fan, I enjoyed it.
The closing was "Yeats, who grew up feeling "sort of ecstasy at the contemplation of ruin," did not just welcome whatever new order his rough beast was ushering in. He believed the only way it could plausibly be spoken of was in the form of a question."
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html
To stay in the realm of "Yes and No" is to veil ourselves – not veiling Moses, Jesus, or G*D, but ourselves.
There is the reality that there is always more information coming and our very decision to say either "Yes" or "No" changes the situation. And so we have plenty of excuses of which we might avail ourselves.
Our call is to let the "Yes" and "No" living within us loose. In this a clear "Yes" will brighten the darkness of a veiled "Yes/No" and a clear "No" will shine on nearby paths to identify the darkest down which we need not go. For generations we have tasted the knowledge of "Good" and "Evil". It is time to take that knowledge and put it to work with good energy.
Of course we will need to be gentle with those who get their "Yes" mixed up with their "No" and stick their head where the sun shines not. Likewise our compassion will be with those yet unable to leave the comfort of confusion and who enjoy the speculative play of forever pitting a "Yes" against a "No." Sometimes that gentle compassion will need to be directed toward our own self.
Through whatever fits and starts you need yet to come, let your light shine out of darkness. For my sake, please, shine. I'll do my best to return the favor.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html
Good news is veiled, burka-ed. What it shall yet become is unknown. There may be a sweet perfume emanating, but it is like catching a mere glimpse of beauty - looking around for more - and wondering what triggered that sense for everything still seems everyday-ish.
This is true for all of us, whether we want to claim any particular one is on a track to perishing or flourishing. Our own beauty seems pale, not transfigured at all, very ordinary. What beauty is present in us and will last beyond us? - inquiring minds want to know.
Our current circumstance of mores, taboos, economies, powers, authorities blind us to the gifts available to and through ourselves and our neighbors.
While it is so comforting to be humble and claim our unimportance in relationship to mighty prayer-warrior Jesus or judge and sender-off-to-hell Jesus, we really cannot deny the good news that is inside us and is ours alone to reveal.
If light is going to shine out of darkness, it cannot be a slave-light. It will be our own knowing that we, too, are a light of the world and sin is our hiding of that under whatever cultural basket is convenient at the time. This is a week to practice shining forth.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/02/2-corinthians-43-6.html