A Sermon for St. John’s Episcopal Church Charlestown, Massachusetts
Preached on February 26, 2017
The Last Sunday after the Epiphany
by the Rev. Thomas N. Mousin

Exodus 24:12-18 Matthew 17:1-9

This week, with the gift of some extra time, I beheld Glory. I was not on Mount Sinai with Moses, where the glory of the Lord appeared like a devouring fire. Nor was I with Peter, James, and John, when Jesus was transfigured before them and his face shone like the sun. Rather, I was in the small town of Gilead, Iowa, the location of three novels by the author Marilynne Robinson. I was reading the second of the trilogy, entitled Home. As with the other books, it takes place in the 1950’s and Home focuses on members of the Boughton Family. Robert Boughton, the elderly former Presbyterian minister in town, has prayed long and hard for the return of his wayward and estranged son Jack, the youngest of his eight children. The story unfolds with the prodigal son’s return, and the subsequent efforts of a father and a son to be reconciled. The other prominent figure in the story is not a resentful older brother, but rather the youngest Boughton child, a daughter. She had returned home a number of years earlier to care for her widowed and now ailing father. And her name is Glory. As it is explained at one point, the father named his four sons after other people, but the four daughters – they were named for theological concepts: Faith, Hope, Grace, and Glory.

Almost all of the novel’s action takes place within the confines of their family home in Gilead. And as much as prayer and faith are a part of these person’s lives, so is doubt. As much as Glory wants to do right by both her father and her brother, she struggles with her own resentments, and her own frustrations about her lot in life. Each of the characters in his or her own way seeks God’s guidance and strength, but frankly, there are no moments of dazzling revelation, no clouds of fire that threaten to devour, no blessed words from on high.

The lives in Gilead seem far removed from the sense of the divine presence conveyed to us in today’s lessons. Moses is enveloped in a cloud for forty days and forty nights. The three disciples are almost blinded by the vision of Jesus with Moses and Elijah. And their overwhelming emotion is not one of devotion, but rather fear. These stories offer a cautionary warning as well as hope. We may deeply desire a clear voice from heaven providing direction, or giving assurance, but when the Lord speaks, will we actually want to hear? The God who speaks from Mount Sinai and from a cloud in the sky is not a chummy friend who is there to listen to us whenever we want to have a chat, or who seems particularly concerned about the everyday anxieties of our lives.

We do not know very well the landscape of Mount Sinai and the Mount of Transfiguration. We are much more familiar with the geography of Gilead, Iowa, even if we have never been to such a place. It is the place where parents have hopes and dreams for their children, some fulfilled and some dashed. It is the place where the consequences of decisions made in adolescence and young adulthood reverberate for years and years. It is where family members struggle to understand one another and love one another, even as they continue to stumble hesitantly through life and hurt one another in ways intentional or not. It is the place where amidst the placidness of small town life in the 1950’s news from the larger world intrudes: there is talk of strontium 90 and a growing nuclear arms race; of racial strife in Southern cities. In other words, it is home, our home.

The mountaintop experiences of transcendence may seem distant from the Gileads, the Charlestowns, the Somervilles and other communities where we live. But there is glory to behold. For the church confesses that the transcendent glory of the Lord God who reigns over all creation, has been fully revealed to us in one human face. And yes, that face we are told, once shone in radiance. But it was also the face of a human being who lived and loved. Jesus did not stay on the mountain with the disciples. Peter and the others did not build tents there to honor him, Moses and Elijah. They came down from the mountain. And there, in the midst of everyday life with all of its struggles, Jesus continued to embody the very love and light of God. That glory of God was not seen in transcendent light, but rather in everyday speech, in actions, in gestures and signs. With the people he loved, in their homes, on the road, in their most faithful moments, and in their doubts.

They beheld glory when Jesus spoke of a kingdom that was not characterized by greatness, but by humility.

They beheld glory when they saw him welcome and embrace people he had been taught to hate.

They beheld glory when they saw him refuse to return evil for evil.

They beheld glory when they saw him continue to love them even after they abandoned and betrayed him. They beheld glory when he would not abandon his steadfast faithfulness to God, even though it led to his death on a cross.

In the darkness of that hour, I am sure his followers would not have used the word “glory.” There was no dazzling light, and no voice from the heavens. There was only imperial Rome putting one more person to death, and then darkness and silence. All the evidence of that day would suggest that they could dismiss any revelation they might have once had on a mountaintop as a profound delusion. The evidence of our own day often suggests that evil will have the last word, and that the tyrants and the terrorists will have their way

Yet we recall, and confess, that there was more to be seen, and more to behold. In reflection on this gospel lesson, I decided to reread the last words of Matthew’s gospel, for I remembered that there too we find an account of Jesus’ followers going to a mountaintop in Galilee. Coming days after the crucifixion of Jesus and news of his resurrection, it is once again a moment of transcendent awe, as the risen Christ appears to his disciples. Rereading the account, I noticed a sentence, perhaps for the first time. Matthew tells us: “When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.” (Mt. 28:17) In other words, they beheld his glory. And some still doubted.

As do we. We worship. And we doubt.

As did Glory, her brother Jack, and their father the Rev. Boughton. As do all who follow Jesus. We are like them, struggling to be faithful in a world where sometimes even our best intentions cause enormous hurt.

We are like them, living each day with a mixture of faith and doubt, sometimes seeking a profound revelation and at the same time fearing it.

We are like them, praying to a God who at times seems agonizingly silent, and who then surprises us with a profound sense of peace, or a visitation of grace that cannot be explained in human terms.

We are like them, living in a world today where the voices that encourage us to hate, grow stronger and stronger, and where we are asked to base our decisions on fear rather than faith.

We are like them, with blessings and burdens, and yes, crosses to bear if we listen to Jesus Christ and him. But we are invited to behold glory. Here, in the ordinariness of our everyday routines and relationships. To behold, it, and indeed, to become it. For as the church father Irenaeus put it, “The glory of God is the human being fully alive.” Or, as we heard in the words of our opening Collect this morning: “beholding by faith the light of his countenance, we will be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory.”

Today, as you look to the mountaintops, behold glory. Today, as you look at one another, being formed in the likeness of Christ, behold glory. Amen.