Sermon for February 18th 2007

Transfiguration Sunday

Do you remember the moment in time when you realized your parents were remarkable people independent of them being your parents? You discovered that they had interests and hobbies and opinions and skills and all manner of gifts and abilities that set them apart and made them cool, to use the modern term?

Have you ever stood before a beautiful painting and been simultaneously struck by the painting itself as well as the brush strokes, the melding of colour and the use of shading the artist used to create the painting?

Have you ever stood before a flower garden and been struck in the same moment by the beauty of the WHOLE bed and its profusion of flowers, while also noticing a particular flower or plant that strikes you as particularly beautiful?


If you can relate to any of these examples, or if you can think of others that you’ve encountered and lived – then you’ve stepped into the experience of Conjunctive Faith, or Stage Five in Fowler’s stages of faith – the point where you can not only see the dichotomy in life, but where you can embrace it and celebrate it …

As a community we’ve been living such an understanding as we’ve moved through our distress since our fire. We’ve lamented what we’ve lost, but we’ve ALSO embraced the potential of what we can gain in a new building … We’ve looked back and noted what was destroyed, but we’ve also looked forward to what will soon be.

Stage five is the place where we can see defeat and set back and tragic events as moments where the Spirit can break through and guide us, teach us and inspire us to the moments of transformation where we claim the gifts of wholeness, healing and recovery.

It is not small step … It is not an easy place …

Our readings this morning speak of transformation and transfiguration … Jesus on the mountain top, Moses’ face glowing brightly from being in the very presence of God, and even the Psalmist singing the praises of God in a life that is far from simple and easy … These are powerful readings. These are moments when the holiness of God intersects with our lives and we are left forever changed.

Today, we have broken the bread and poured out the cup … on one level we have simply taken a pinch of bread and eaten it, and taken a sip of juice and drank it – but on other levels this is a moment of holiness and stepping into the sacred presence of God … This is understood as the eating of the very Body and Blood of Jesus by many of our sisters and brothers in faith … this is understood as a moment when we step beyond time and in the eternity of the moment join with Christians of EVERY time and place since the beginning of the church as we lift the bread and wine to our lips … this is understood as a moment of standing before God and claiming the gift of grace. Communion is ALL of those thing – but it is also the simple action of taking a pinch of bread and a drop of juice and putting it in our mouths.

It’s like standing in front of a beautiful painting and seeing it in broad brush strokes – seeing it as a beautiful painting, but also seeing the other elements that compose it … In that moment as we see the BIG picture and the fine details, we are beginning to live our faith in a new way …

This stage in faith is being able to say – “I know what I believe …” but then in the same breath also acknowledge that we still have much to learn and experience and that perhaps our faith will change and alter.

It is easy, almost too easy to take a strong stance on something, be it abortion, divorce, justice, poverty, the place of gays and lesbians, the environment – whatever. It is easy to take a stance and say – “This is WHAT I believe” and leave it at that. But stage Five recognizes that life is a complicated journey, and that on that journey are conflicts and diametrically opposed positions, and we MUST be open to the possibility that we could be wrong in our strongly held stance.

This morning on CBC it was noted that this is the time of year when we in the Church celebrate the song – Amazing Grace. Michael Enright spoke of the origins of the hymn and its connection to the slave trade … When we think back in Church history, the slave trade was never condemned by the Church until the late 1700’s … but it took over a hundred years before the Churches in western nations rejected slavery …

Such is the transformation of Stage Five faith … I know what I believe … then another voice says – “oh yeah, what about …” To which we reply – “oh, I hadn’t thought about that …” and our response is to strengthen our views, or to begin to think about the thoughts and opinions and perspectives of others …

Even something as mundane as Fair Trade products have faced an uphill battle in the Church – people couldn’t see the necessity for justice in the food industry (they obviously never met a farmer) – yet, with each passing day the push for fairness in the food industry strengthens, and voices of faith have joined in the fray …

Stage Five – the conjunctive faith is the connectedness of all things … the big and the little … the simple actions we engage in the coffee shop and the movements that WILL change the world – they are all interconnected and the are one and the same.

Stage Five faith is the faith that takes the pinch of bread in hand and as we eat it KNOWS – knows in the depth of our being – that in this simple action we are joined to something far bigger than this church, this town, this province, this country, something that is far bigger than anything we can imagine and as that connectedness is affirmed, we are committed to living our faith and changing the world – one small gesture at a time …

One drop of water can not erode a mountain … but one drop of water at a time, over years of time WILL wear the mountain away … That’s the power of our faith …

The small and the big come together … and the world is forever changed …

The tragic teach us lessons … and the world is changed …

Life is lived in its fullness, with joy and sorrow, with laughter and tears … and with God’s presence with us – the world is forever changed …

Today we stand in the presence of the Holy … may we have the courage to let it shine forth from within us …
May it be so … thanks be to God.