Transfiguration

 

Kreg Yingst

August 6, 2023

+ Today is an important anniversary.

If any of you have seen the film Oppenheimer you know what happened on this day.

It was on this day in 1945 that the Atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

Now, not a lot of people know this, but I actually know a fair amount about Hiroshima, because I actually wrote a book about it.

I know. None of you have read this one.

Not many people have.

My little-know third book, Cloud, published  way back in 1997, is a long (166 page), two-act poem (verse play) about Hiroshima and its after-effects in the lives of five people.

It was based in Japanese Noh drama.

And the five main characters were the ghosts of five people killed at Hiroshima, each dressed in the clothes they were wearing at the time of the blast.

And because it is a Noh drama, they also wear masks.

I think three people read the book.

It’s now  out-of-print.

I saw once that a copy of it was for sale on Amazon for $49.99.

(Trust me, I never saw that 50 bucks!)

The theme of that book is the light of the bomb, and how that light illumined more than just the event of that day.

We, in a sense, are still living in the afterglow of the Light of that event.

It changed all of us and transformed us in ways we could never imagine.

In that white light, a violence like we have never known was unleashed upon the world.

Today in our Gospel reading we also get light—a very different Light—and hear the story of Jesus’ being transformed on the mountain top. 

Actually, we more than just hear it.

We get to see it.

It’s a very vivid description of what happened.

And it’s truly one of those incredible moments in scripture.

It’s incredible because, for one holy moment, the veil between our world and God’s world is pushed aside.

On that mountain top, Jesus seems for a moment to have one foot in each world—one in this world, in which he is a human being just like the rest of us, and one foot in the next world in which he is much more than just another human being.

That would have been, in and of itself, enough.

But Jesus is also seen standing between Moses and Elijah—a sign obviously that what they foresaw in their prophecies of the Messiah, the Chosen One of God, in their visions of what was to come, is fulfilled in Jesus who stands between them.

Jesus is the fulfillment of what those great prophets foretold.

This is a visual sign from God to those who witnessed it that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God present among them.

The presence of Moses and Elijah shows us that—in a sense—their mission is complete.

Here, in this glorified person they flank, all that they foretold—all that they looked forward to—has found its completion.

Everyone who witnesses this vision is affected by it.

The Apostles who witness it—Peter, James and John, that inner sanctum among the Apostles—don’t quite know what to make of it.

They have been roused from their tired state by this incredible experience.

They are obviously baffled by what they saw.

And in doing so, they do the only thing they can do—they offer to build three sanctuaries there—to worship what they see as divine.

Finally, they seem to come down from the mountain in what I’m sure was a dazed state.

But why is any of this important to us?

Why is this story that seems so strange and so exotic—so much like a technicolor scene from a 1950s Biblical epic—so important to us—in this day and age?

We have a hard time wrapping our minds around these images of dazzling white light and booming voices from clouds.

We don’t experience God like this in our lives.

I suppose the question could be: why not?

Certainly, we are longing and searching for God in our lives, aren’t we?

We hear about it all the time.

We hear of people searching for God.

But, to search for God means that, somewhere along the way, we seem to think God got lost.

But…we know better than that.

We don’t worship a lost God.

And we don’t come to church on a Sunday morning to search for God.  

We come to church because we long for God—we long for an experience similar to the experience those apostles encountered on the mountaintop.

So then, what is this story of the Transfiguration saying to us?

Do we too need to be crawling around on top of hills to find a place in which the veil between this world and God’s world is lifted?

Well, to some extent, that is exactly what we do every Sunday.

In a sense, when we come together today, here at this altar, we too are coming to a place every much like the mountain top experience we heard about in this morning’s Gospel.

In the scriptures we have just heard, we have heard God’s voice, speaking to us.

Here, we get to hear God say to us, just as God said to Jesus, that we too are God’s beloved, we too are chosen ones of God.

We too get to be reminded that God planned for us from the very the beginning.

And here we too get to be infused with the Light of God, and show that Light to others.

And we too get to experience God in each other—in all of us who are gathered here together.

But I think the interesting thing we need to remind ourselves of is this: it’s all right to seek out these experiences of God’s presence in our lives.

But why our searching and longing for God is different than others is that, in our case, as followers of Jesus, our God is not evasive or elusive.

God is not playing hide-and-seek-with us.

God is here.

God is with us.

Right now.

All we have to do is ask.

All we have to is look.

All we have to do is seek.

And we will find.

We have never lost our God.

God has come to us as dazzling Light, yes.

God has spoken to us—at least through the scriptures.

God is no further from us than right here, in our midst, when we gather together to worship, to hear the scriptures and to break the sacrificial  bread.

And like those disciples, we must, when we’re done, go from here.

We must leave the mountaintop experience and go back down, to share our experience, to live out what we have learned and seen and felt here.

We are compelled to live out that experience out in the world.

We do that be by being, honest, humble, authentic followers of Jesus.

Being an authentic follower of Jesus means being loving and compassionate and accepting people.

It means walking in love.

Of course, we will fail in that.

I fail in walking in love—in being compassionate and loving—all the time.

I get angry at the guy who cuts me off in traffic or at the injustices in the world around me.

I complain.

I grumble.

I can tell you, I am not always a walking talking billboard for the Christians faith.

But hopefully, our experience here—our encounter with God in this place on this day—can make enough of a difference in our lives that we will be able to carry it with us throughout our week and into our very day-to-day lives.

Hopefully, we can go from here glowing with the experience we have here.

That glow might not be a visible glow, but hopefully it is one we can feel within us.

That glow—that aftereffect of our experience of God—is what we can carry with us and cherish within us long after we leave here.

Our experience on the mountain-top—like all life-altering experiences—will fade from us eventually.

It did for those apostles who accompanied Jesus there.

All of them—Jesus, Peter, James and John—would experience much sorrow in the weeks and years ahead of them.

The experience of the mountaintop cannot be preserved.

We cannot build “booths” to preserve the experience.

Like all the wonderful moments in our lives, they can only be cherished.

And they can be shared.

But we have the continued opportunity to come back here to the Eucharist and to participate in it again and again.

God is here.

God is present among us—God’s people.

God is longing too.

God is longing for us—to know us and to have us experience God.

So, let us go from here—let us go back down the mountain, into the valley below, with our experience of God glowing brilliantly on our faces.

Let us cherish this experience we have of God.

And most, importantly, let us live out this experience in our life, as we walk in love.  

 

 

9 Pentecost

 

July 30, 2023

 

1 Kings 3.5-12; Romans 8.26-39; Matthew 13.31-33, 44-52

 

+ Yesterday was an important anniversary in the Episcopal Church.

 

49 years ago, on July 29, 1974, eleven women were ordained to the Priesthood in the Church of Advocate in Philadelphia.

 

Now, hearing that now, in this day and age, it doesn’t seem like a big deal.

 

But in 1974, they were the first women ordained to the Priesthood in the Episcopal Church.

 

And it was a BIG deal!

 

Those eleven women, known as the Philadelphia 11, changed everything.

 

 Merrill Bittner, Alla Bozarth-Campbell, Alison Cheek, Emily Hewitt, Carter Heyward, Suzanne Hiatt, Marie Moorefield, Jeannette Piccard (who was from Minnesota, where she would serve until her death in 1981), Betty Bone Schiess, Katrina Swanson, and Nancy Wittig broke the barriers of the Episcopal Church.

 

It changed everything.

 

Some of you here today remember well when those women became priests.

 

Some in the Church cheered.

 

Some definitely did not.

 

And for Episcopalians in the 1970s, when society was being unended, when Prayer Book revisions were being introduced, women in leadership roles in the Church were at the forefront.

 

Let’s look at our Mary & Martha Window.

 

Look at those dates.

 

Our first female Lay reader was in 1970.

 

Our first female Senior Warden was in 1971

 

Our first female acolyte was in 1972.

 

And by the way, July 29 is an important day liturgically int eh church.

 

It is the feast of. . . Sts. Mary and Martha.

 

Now, for us, here, now, almost 50 years later, we celebrate this event.

 

We rejoice in it.

 

You have heard me say how many times? What would our church be without women like the Philadelphia 11.

 

They have saved the Church.

 

They opened the door for generations of women’s leadership in the Episcopal Church.

 

Just for a moment, imagine what the Episcopal Church would be like right now if women hadn’t been ordained.

 

It’s awful even to ponder.

 

But all of this was not without a price.

 

That day in Philadelphia, as joyful as it was, was also a day of fear.

 

There death threats made against those women.

 

There was a bomb threat in the church.

 

People were furious over it all.

 

Those women feared for their lives for what they did.

 

And yet they went there that day knowing full-well what doing so might do to them.

 

They did what they did bravely, but with fear in their hearts.

 

Because they did what they did, because they faced their fears, because they listened to the prophetic Voice of God in their lives and in the life of the Church, we as a Church have been not only enriched, but  revitalized.

 

Their lesson to us, 49 years later is a clear one.

 

Under no circumstances should we let fear win out.

 

We know fear.

 

Politically, religiously, personally, there’s a lot fear at work in our lives right now.

 

Real fear.

 

But what is most shocking to me is how so much fear, so much anxiety, so much darkness, can come forth from some seemingly small, other-wise  insignificant actions.

 

We all don’t have to face death threats and bomb threats to fear real fear in our lives.

 

Sometimes—more often than not—it is the small things that affect us most.

 

In our Gospel for this morning, we heard the Kingdom of God being compared to several small things: mustard, yeast, treasure, pearls and a net to catch fish.

 

The gist of these parables is that something small can make a difference.

 

Something small can actually be worth much.

 

As I pondered this these last few days, I realized that Jesus really is, as always, VERY right on with this.

 

When we do a bit of good—like planting a little bitty mustard seed—a lot of good can come forth.

 

But, we also realize that a little bit of bad can also do much bad.

 

A little bit of fear can grow into something out of control.

 

And I’m not just talking about the news and the government.

 

Or a former President

 

We all live with various forms of fear.

 

Fear of the future.

 

Fear of change.

 

Fear of things that are different, or strange, or that don’t fit into our confining understanding of things.

 

Our fear of these kind of things can be crippling.

 

We sow the small seeds of fear that grow into larger ugly plants of fear when we when wallow in that fear, when we let fear grow and flourish into a huge, overwhelming weed.

 

When we let fear reign, when we let it run roughshod through our lives, we see

bitterness and anger following.

 

We become bitter, complaining, nitpicky people who by doing so, expose our own fear and privilege.

 

Our reading from the Hebrew scriptures is a great example of how we should respond to issues of fear.

 

In our reading from the 1 Kings, we find God telling King Solomon that anything he asks will be granted.

 

This would be something most of us really would want God to say to us as well.

 

If God spoke to you and told you that anything you prayed for would be granted, what would you ask for?

 

I know a few things I would ask for.

 

And most of those things we ask would be normal.

 

But Solomon doesn’t ask for the normal things, if you notice.

 

Solomon asks God for the gift of understanding.

 

And that is the gift God grants Solomon.

 

And to us too!

 

When we ask for the gift of understanding, God usually seems to give it.

 

As long as we are open to the gift.

 

The fact is, most of us aren’t open to understanding.

 

We are too set in our ways, into believing we know what is right or what is wrong.

 

But when we ask, when we open ourselves to this gift, God gives us the Holy Spirit. 

 

And how do we know when the Holy Spirit is given to us?

 

We know the work of the Holy Spirit, by the Spirit’s fruits.

 

Those fruits blossom into real, tangible signs.

 

But when we resist the Spirit, when we resist the movement of God, we find ourselves trapped—in fear, in bitterness, in anger.

 

But it is not an option for us as Christians to be stuck and trapped in fear. 

 

How can we fear when we hear Paul say to us in his letter to the Romans:

 

“if God is for us, who is against us.”

 

We cannot let fear rule our lives.

 

After all, who will separate us from the love of God?

 

Will any of the hardships of life be able to defeat us or separate us from the love of God?

 

“No, in all these things we are conquerors through him who loved us.”

 

Nothing—not “death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, not things to come, not powers, not height, not depth, not anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

 

(By the way, I am convinced that this might be the most powerful scripture we have as Christians!)

 

After all, when we get stuck in fear, when we let ourselves be separated from the love of God in our lives, that is when we hinder the Kingdom.

 

It prevents the harvest from happening.

 

It prevents growth from happening.

 

It makes the Church—and us—not a vital, living place proclaiming God’s loving and living and accepting Presence.

 

Our job is to banish fear so the Kingdom can flourish.

 

The flourishing of the kingdom can be frightening.

 

Like the mustard seed, it can be overwhelming.

 

Because when the Kingdom of God flourishes, it flourishes beyond our control.

 

We can’t control that flourishing.

 

All we can do is plant the seeds and tend the growth as best we can.

 

Rooting our endeavors in God’s love is a sure guarantee that what is planted will flourish.

 

Because rooting our endeavors in God’s love means we are rooting our endeavors in a living, vital Presence.

 

We are rooting them in a wild God who knows no bounds, who knows no limits and who cannot be controlled by us.

 

Rooting our endeavors in God’s love means that our job is simply to go with God and the growth that God brings about wherever and however that growth may happen.

 

When we do, God banishes our fears.

 

So, let us help God’s Kingdom flourish!

 

To be righteous does not mean being good and sweet and nice and right all the time.

 

To be righteous one simply needs to further the harvest of the Kingdom by doing what those of us who follow Jesus do.

 

It means seeking understanding from God.

 

It means planting good, small seeds.

 

And in those instances when we fail, we must allow the mustard seed of the Kingdom to flourish.

 

And when we do strive to do good and to further the kingdom of God, then we be doing what Jesus commands us to do.

 

The Kingdom will flourish.

 

And we can take some joy in knowing that we helped, working with God, to make it flourish.

 

And, in that wonderful, holy moment, we will know the fruits of our efforts.

 

And we—like the kingdom of which we are citizens—we will also truly flourish!

 

Let us pray.

Holy and loving God, plant in us the seeds of your love so that your love will flourish within us and in all whom we encounter in this world; we ask this in the holy name of Jesus. Amen.

Homily for the 20th Anniversary of my Ordination to the Diaconate

 

July 26, 2023

 + So, why, you may be wondering, would I celebrate my diaconal ordination anniversary?

Well, I’ll be honest.

I never stopped being a deacon.

When I was ordained to the Priesthood on June 11, 2004, I didn’t magically stop being a Deacon.

I am still very much a deacon.

I see my diaconal ministry as a basis for my priestly ministry.

Now, there are some in the Episcopal Church who have been advocating what is called “direct ordination.”

Direct ordination means that one who is called to the Priesthood should be ordained directly to the Priesthood, without Diaconal ordination.

The thinking here is that by doing so, it upholds the dignity of Diaconal ministry for those whoa re called to being vocational Deacons.

(I can’t help but wonder if there will then be “direct ordination” to the Episcopate, just because someone is “called” to be a Bishop.)

As you can imagine, I am opposed to such a view as direct ordination.

On one hand, it has been a foundation aspect of ordained ministry throughout most of our history.

And to change it will essentially break our Catholic tradition.  

But, I see my Diaconal ministry as vital to who I am as a priest.

Yes, I might not have been called to be a Deacon.

But I am grateful that diaconal ministry is the foundation on which my priestly ministry is based.

And my diaconal ministry is as much a part of my life as being a priest.

20 years is a long time.

I have seen clergy come and I have seen clergy go.

Ordained ministry is a difficult vocation.

When it’s bad, it’s really bad.

It doesn’t help when one loves the people one serves.

Their pain becomes my pain.

But when it’s good, it’s amazing!

Those are the moments I live for.

I am so very grateful to God for these 20 years.

I am thankful for every one who has walked with me so far.

I am thankful for those who have defended me when I needed defending.

And I am especially grateful for those who have cared for and loved me during this time.

I am going to close this evening, with the prayer I adapted and had printed my ordination bulletin 20 years this evening.

 

On my Ordination to the Diaconate

 

(after John Henry Newman)

 

 

Holy and Loving God, help me to spread the fragrance of  your presence

wherever I go. Let my soul overflow with your all-consuming spirit and life.

Let your brilliance radiate through my entire being.

 

Let your presence flow through me so that everyone I know

may, in turn, know the comforting rain-like gentleness of your presence.

When they look at me, let them not see me, but you.

Let them know you as I know you.

 

Shine through me and let me be a beacon for others—

for it will be your light shining in me, O God, not mine.

Let my pale reflection of your light be like a song of praise to your ears.

 

Let me preach you without preaching—

not with words, but by example,

by the fire that rages within me,

by all the good I do,

and by the reflected image of your love I carry

branded deep within my expectant heart. Amen.