Visions And Voices
Sermon
SERMONS ON THE GOSPEL READINGS
Series I, Cycle A
I don't know about you, but I envy Moses and Peter and James and John. I envy Joseph and Mary and Abraham and Sarah and Paul and Jacob - all the biblical folk who see visions and dream dreams and are swept into the palpable presence of God. And I particularly envy the many parishioners I have known over the years who have shared their holy experiences with me. Jeanne Grimm's blinding moment of light when a dazzling Jesus stood by her death bed. A widow's glimpse of her beloved after his death, once again whole and healthy by her side. A young man's incredulous tale of his father's voice affirming him after death in a way he had never affirmed him in life. It seems to me that such dramatic epiphanies must certainly make faith a whole lot easier to swallow.
This morning, if we allow our imaginations to sweep us up the mountain, we may experience an inkling of visionary magic. But beware. If you try to understand this story with your mind, you will most certainly be disappointed. It is only if you try to see it with your soul, that you may find your heart strangely warmed. In this pivotal story in the gospels we are midway through the story - halfway between the birth and the death - teetering between the baptism and the resurrection. And as midlife, midpoint travelers we are still trying to find Jesus. Up until now this Jesus story hasn't been all that hard to swallow. As a baby, as a teacher, as a preacher, as a moral example, even as a healer, Jesus has inspired us, but he hasn't yet mystified us. Until today - when we hit a brick wall of magic. All of a sudden the earthy Jesus with his dusty feet and tired eyes becomes the ethereal Jesus - robe glowing and face shining - a shimmering window into pure, unadulterated divinity. This isn't just a "thin place" where hints of the holy seep into the ordinary. This is a ripping of the barrier between God and us - and God comes flooding into our midst.
In the mid--'50s Martin Luther King, Jr., was a 26--year--old rookie, fresh out of divinity school, a young father, an inexperienced pastor just trying to figure out how to manage the details of parish ministry. The last thing he was prepared to do was to pick up the mantle of a massive grassroots movement to abolish racism in America. And yet after Rosa Parks decided to rest her weary body in the front of a bus, all hell broke out in Montgomery, Alabama. And King was thrust into leadership almost without his consent. He quickly felt the grip of angry resistance as he was jailed for driving five miles over the speed limit, and as he received threatening phone calls: "Nigger, we're gonna blow your brains out."
One late night he sat in his kitchen, his wife and young daughter asleep in the next room. And he found himself wrestling and murmuring with God. King was unsettled, scared, angry, and he felt very distant from God. And then he found himself praying: "Lord, I think what I am doing is right. But I'm weak. I'm faltering. I'm losing my courage." And at that point - a moment of brutal honesty and need - King heard a voice. He heard The Voice: Martin, stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth. And lo, I will be with you even until the end of the world. It was the crystallizing moment of his life. And even three nights later, when a bomb exploded on his front porch, Martin never forgot the power of those words, the reassurance of that Voice, a Voice that echoed again and again and again in his soul through all the dark days of his crusade. God had promised never to leave him, never alone, never to leave him alone.1
What are the voices, ethereal and otherwise, that murmur in your soul, in your conscience, in your memory this day? What are the voices that have called you to your truest self - cutting though fear, demolishing inadequacy, dueling with doubt, lifting laziness? What are the voices that have given you focus and given you courage for the living of your days?
I remember the voice of my father, his warm, firm preaching voice, lulling me and shaping me as a child, week after week, in worship, spinning out the stories of our faith, providing the foundation, the safety net of good news that has grounded my life for over fifty years.
I hear the voice of my mother, every Good Friday, singing, "He was despised and rejected - a man of sorrows acquainted with grief." And in the rich melancholy of that voice she captured all the forlorn pain of the world, reminding me that there is no sorrow and no affliction that Jesus does not share with me and with you.
I hear the voice of the college chaplain suggesting that I go to seminary, suggesting that I do something to rise above my tedious, self--absorbed, young adult angst.
I hear my husband's voice teaching me how to pay attention to the exquisite details of life: the shape of a tree, the shadows of a painting, the soft satin of a baby's skin, the small ordinary "visions" that reveal the holy, day in and day out.
I hear the voice of John Adams calling me on my fortieth birthday, telling me that Bradley Hills wanted me to be their pastor - to hear the voice and be the voice that nurtures all the voices of this amazing congregation.
And I hear the voice of my man--child calling from the heart of South America and in a light moment of affection calling me "Mama," a reminder that 23 years ago, for some kind and crazy reason, God empowered me to be a mother, even though I was more terrified by that calling than anything else God has ever asked me to do. Yes, it has been voices - and not visions - that have slowly opened my life to God.
The Voice in today's story reassures and empowers Jesus just before he turns his face toward Jerusalem, toward the cruelty of the cross. It reassures and empowers the disciples who have just been told to deny themselves and pick up their crosses. And it reassures and empowers us as we embrace our own Christian journey, a journey which demands that we regularly wrestle, in the wilderness of temptation, in the wilderness of repentance, in the wilderness of suffering, in the wilderness of commitment.
The Voice says several important things. First of all it says, "Remember your baptism." Remember, my friends, your baptism - that you are the Beloved - that you are uniquely created, named, blessed, and set apart by God for holy purpose in the world. That alone is all we really need to know in order to get through whatever the world hands us. God tells us, like he tells Martin Luther King, Jr., that we will never be alone. Never alone. God will never ever leave us alone. And that promise is reiterated every time we listen, every time we listen for the voice of Jesus, first and foremost in the voice of scripture, but then echoed in the newsroom, in the dining room, in the sanctuary, in the boardroom, in the bedroom, in the classroom - a voice that echoes if we have ears to hear and the heart to respond.
A few months ago I read the best--selling novel Lying Awake by Mark Salzman. I loved it for its vivid prose. And I hated it for its disappointing ending. It is the story of Sister John, a cloistered nun, who is slowly drawn into the intimate presence of God through stunning, dazzling, disintegrating visions. An ordinary woman becomes a quivering mystic, disappearing into "pure awareness."
She became an ember carried upward by the heat of the invisible flame ... until the vacuum sucked the feeble light out of her. A darkness so pure it glistened, then out of the darkness ... nova.... More luminous than any sun ... all that was her ceased to exist. Only what was God remained.2
Unfortunately for Sister John, there is a complication. Along with her visions come excruciating headaches, which demolish her for days at a time, making her unavailable for the work of the cloister and causing her to be a great burden to the other nuns. Finally, a doctor diagnoses her with epilepsy, a condition that will get worse unless she chooses an operation - an operation that will relive the pain, but most likely destroy the visions. What should she do? After an intense wrestling match, Sister John chooses the operation. Why? With great reluctance, she denies herself, for the health and well--being of the larger, convent community. And sure enough the debilitating pain disappears. But so, too, does the exquisite passion - those intimate, ecstatic encounters with God. She goes back to the ordered, plodding life of the community where she is but one of many, serving God in the mundane moments of daily discipleship. I'm not sure I could have made that choice. I'm not sure that I would have been willing to give up all those visions and voices. What about you?
In a final moment of wisdom in the book, the Mother Superior offers Sister John words that sustain her after the mountain moments have disappeared, when her daily faith journey seems dull and tentative:
We stretch out our emptied hands to take hold of the Light. We may feel that our prayers are arid, or that God has abandoned us. Although we suffer deeply, those become our most precious hours, because only in complete darkness do we learn that faith gives off light.3
My friends, in the long run, it is not the dazzling moments of transfiguration that connect us to God. It is the slow plodding - through the daily trenches of faithfulness that truly connect us to God. Our gospel story today ends with a very human Jesus - the glow completely gone. Once more he stands alone, his feet still dusty, his eyes still tired. Gently he touches the disciples and encourages them to rise up. The Greek word here is "resurrection." Yes, Jesus gently resurrects the disciples this side of the grave, so that they can travel with him down into the valley - down into the reality of the way things really are. Jesus resurrects us this side of the grave, so that together with God's low, steady wattage simmering quietly within us, we can turn our faces toward Jerusalem. So that together we can do what needs to be done.
If voices and vision come your way, treasure them and savor them for all the joy they can bring your way. But remember. The true light of God's presence is in the trust of your heart and in the daily faithfulness of your lives.
May it be so - for you and for me. Amen
____________
1. As told by Philip Yancey in Soul Survivor (New York: Doubleday, 2001), pp. 20--21.
2. Mark Salzman, Lying Awake (New York: Knopf, 2000), pp. 5--6.
3. Ibid., pp. 177--178.
This morning, if we allow our imaginations to sweep us up the mountain, we may experience an inkling of visionary magic. But beware. If you try to understand this story with your mind, you will most certainly be disappointed. It is only if you try to see it with your soul, that you may find your heart strangely warmed. In this pivotal story in the gospels we are midway through the story - halfway between the birth and the death - teetering between the baptism and the resurrection. And as midlife, midpoint travelers we are still trying to find Jesus. Up until now this Jesus story hasn't been all that hard to swallow. As a baby, as a teacher, as a preacher, as a moral example, even as a healer, Jesus has inspired us, but he hasn't yet mystified us. Until today - when we hit a brick wall of magic. All of a sudden the earthy Jesus with his dusty feet and tired eyes becomes the ethereal Jesus - robe glowing and face shining - a shimmering window into pure, unadulterated divinity. This isn't just a "thin place" where hints of the holy seep into the ordinary. This is a ripping of the barrier between God and us - and God comes flooding into our midst.
In the mid--'50s Martin Luther King, Jr., was a 26--year--old rookie, fresh out of divinity school, a young father, an inexperienced pastor just trying to figure out how to manage the details of parish ministry. The last thing he was prepared to do was to pick up the mantle of a massive grassroots movement to abolish racism in America. And yet after Rosa Parks decided to rest her weary body in the front of a bus, all hell broke out in Montgomery, Alabama. And King was thrust into leadership almost without his consent. He quickly felt the grip of angry resistance as he was jailed for driving five miles over the speed limit, and as he received threatening phone calls: "Nigger, we're gonna blow your brains out."
One late night he sat in his kitchen, his wife and young daughter asleep in the next room. And he found himself wrestling and murmuring with God. King was unsettled, scared, angry, and he felt very distant from God. And then he found himself praying: "Lord, I think what I am doing is right. But I'm weak. I'm faltering. I'm losing my courage." And at that point - a moment of brutal honesty and need - King heard a voice. He heard The Voice: Martin, stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth. And lo, I will be with you even until the end of the world. It was the crystallizing moment of his life. And even three nights later, when a bomb exploded on his front porch, Martin never forgot the power of those words, the reassurance of that Voice, a Voice that echoed again and again and again in his soul through all the dark days of his crusade. God had promised never to leave him, never alone, never to leave him alone.1
What are the voices, ethereal and otherwise, that murmur in your soul, in your conscience, in your memory this day? What are the voices that have called you to your truest self - cutting though fear, demolishing inadequacy, dueling with doubt, lifting laziness? What are the voices that have given you focus and given you courage for the living of your days?
I remember the voice of my father, his warm, firm preaching voice, lulling me and shaping me as a child, week after week, in worship, spinning out the stories of our faith, providing the foundation, the safety net of good news that has grounded my life for over fifty years.
I hear the voice of my mother, every Good Friday, singing, "He was despised and rejected - a man of sorrows acquainted with grief." And in the rich melancholy of that voice she captured all the forlorn pain of the world, reminding me that there is no sorrow and no affliction that Jesus does not share with me and with you.
I hear the voice of the college chaplain suggesting that I go to seminary, suggesting that I do something to rise above my tedious, self--absorbed, young adult angst.
I hear my husband's voice teaching me how to pay attention to the exquisite details of life: the shape of a tree, the shadows of a painting, the soft satin of a baby's skin, the small ordinary "visions" that reveal the holy, day in and day out.
I hear the voice of John Adams calling me on my fortieth birthday, telling me that Bradley Hills wanted me to be their pastor - to hear the voice and be the voice that nurtures all the voices of this amazing congregation.
And I hear the voice of my man--child calling from the heart of South America and in a light moment of affection calling me "Mama," a reminder that 23 years ago, for some kind and crazy reason, God empowered me to be a mother, even though I was more terrified by that calling than anything else God has ever asked me to do. Yes, it has been voices - and not visions - that have slowly opened my life to God.
The Voice in today's story reassures and empowers Jesus just before he turns his face toward Jerusalem, toward the cruelty of the cross. It reassures and empowers the disciples who have just been told to deny themselves and pick up their crosses. And it reassures and empowers us as we embrace our own Christian journey, a journey which demands that we regularly wrestle, in the wilderness of temptation, in the wilderness of repentance, in the wilderness of suffering, in the wilderness of commitment.
The Voice says several important things. First of all it says, "Remember your baptism." Remember, my friends, your baptism - that you are the Beloved - that you are uniquely created, named, blessed, and set apart by God for holy purpose in the world. That alone is all we really need to know in order to get through whatever the world hands us. God tells us, like he tells Martin Luther King, Jr., that we will never be alone. Never alone. God will never ever leave us alone. And that promise is reiterated every time we listen, every time we listen for the voice of Jesus, first and foremost in the voice of scripture, but then echoed in the newsroom, in the dining room, in the sanctuary, in the boardroom, in the bedroom, in the classroom - a voice that echoes if we have ears to hear and the heart to respond.
A few months ago I read the best--selling novel Lying Awake by Mark Salzman. I loved it for its vivid prose. And I hated it for its disappointing ending. It is the story of Sister John, a cloistered nun, who is slowly drawn into the intimate presence of God through stunning, dazzling, disintegrating visions. An ordinary woman becomes a quivering mystic, disappearing into "pure awareness."
She became an ember carried upward by the heat of the invisible flame ... until the vacuum sucked the feeble light out of her. A darkness so pure it glistened, then out of the darkness ... nova.... More luminous than any sun ... all that was her ceased to exist. Only what was God remained.2
Unfortunately for Sister John, there is a complication. Along with her visions come excruciating headaches, which demolish her for days at a time, making her unavailable for the work of the cloister and causing her to be a great burden to the other nuns. Finally, a doctor diagnoses her with epilepsy, a condition that will get worse unless she chooses an operation - an operation that will relive the pain, but most likely destroy the visions. What should she do? After an intense wrestling match, Sister John chooses the operation. Why? With great reluctance, she denies herself, for the health and well--being of the larger, convent community. And sure enough the debilitating pain disappears. But so, too, does the exquisite passion - those intimate, ecstatic encounters with God. She goes back to the ordered, plodding life of the community where she is but one of many, serving God in the mundane moments of daily discipleship. I'm not sure I could have made that choice. I'm not sure that I would have been willing to give up all those visions and voices. What about you?
In a final moment of wisdom in the book, the Mother Superior offers Sister John words that sustain her after the mountain moments have disappeared, when her daily faith journey seems dull and tentative:
We stretch out our emptied hands to take hold of the Light. We may feel that our prayers are arid, or that God has abandoned us. Although we suffer deeply, those become our most precious hours, because only in complete darkness do we learn that faith gives off light.3
My friends, in the long run, it is not the dazzling moments of transfiguration that connect us to God. It is the slow plodding - through the daily trenches of faithfulness that truly connect us to God. Our gospel story today ends with a very human Jesus - the glow completely gone. Once more he stands alone, his feet still dusty, his eyes still tired. Gently he touches the disciples and encourages them to rise up. The Greek word here is "resurrection." Yes, Jesus gently resurrects the disciples this side of the grave, so that they can travel with him down into the valley - down into the reality of the way things really are. Jesus resurrects us this side of the grave, so that together with God's low, steady wattage simmering quietly within us, we can turn our faces toward Jerusalem. So that together we can do what needs to be done.
If voices and vision come your way, treasure them and savor them for all the joy they can bring your way. But remember. The true light of God's presence is in the trust of your heart and in the daily faithfulness of your lives.
May it be so - for you and for me. Amen
____________
1. As told by Philip Yancey in Soul Survivor (New York: Doubleday, 2001), pp. 20--21.
2. Mark Salzman, Lying Awake (New York: Knopf, 2000), pp. 5--6.
3. Ibid., pp. 177--178.
