<html><body><div>Here's my draft for tomorrow.</div><div><br></div><div>Bob</div><div><br></div><div>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>THE
EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>THE TRANSFIGURATION OF OUR
LORD JESUS CHRIST</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>EXODUS
34:29-35<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>6<sup>th</sup>
AUGUST, 2017</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>2 PETER
1:13-21 <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>PSALM 99</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>LUKE
9:28-36</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Who, for us and for our salvation,
came to earth.”</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>We say this, in a slightly different
form, every week, if not more frequently.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>There are several, indeed many,
things within our faith that seem to be irrational and are so difficult to
accept, and the human Jesus being recognized as God’s Son is one of them. It
makes little sense. Why on earth would God become present on earth in all its
frail conditions? Why would God take on so much that is, at best, prone to
apparent mediocrity and, at worst, plain ugly? Why would God accept the
possibility of the pain that we bear and that we inflict? Why, if not to
transform it; to transfigure it; just as God in Jesus was transfigured.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It’s an interesting word –
“transfigured”. A couple of sources which I checked agreed on one of the
meanings, a meaning which took me by surprise. These sources both said that to
transfigure means to beautify, so the word, and the action described in this
morning’s Gospel passage, implies a transformation that can be quite radical.
The mundane appearance of Jesus, which barely distinguished Him from anyone
else in the country, if it did at all; Jesus’ mundane appearance was made
incredibly glorious, incredibly beautiful. In fact, Jesus’ appearance, not only
physical, but also spiritual and emotional, took the disciples’ breath away.
Jesus, in the act of being transformed by His unity with God the Father, gave
to the physical flesh and blood that makes up every human a wonderful beauty, a
beauty which signifies the transformation that is working within us at this
very moment, and will continue to work within us until we stand before the
Trinity and share in that beauty. The power of God in Jesus is not only for
Jesus. It’s for each of us, and the transfiguration, the beauty that He
experienced, is ours too, as His followers.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It’s more than likely that we won’t
recognize this beauty in ourselves. Most people, when told of their beauty,
will try to brush off the description as hyperbole or blindness. Jesus didn’t
dwell on it either. He accepted thanks, of course. He was really pleased when
folks were grateful, because that’s how God acts. But He never dwelt on His
looks. For that matter, He never dwelt on other peoples’ looks either … at
least, their physicality. He was far more interested in what the person or the
community thought, or said, as opposed to how these acted. In fact, He had a
few choice words for those whom He called “whited sepulchers”!</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Many
years ago, the British writer and pundit, Malcolm Muggeridge, never known for
his willingness to gloss over something or someone whom he considered dense, or
lazy, or, on occasion, even ordinary; many years ago, Malcolm Muggeridge wrote
a wonderful little book which he entitled “Something Beautiful for God”.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It’s an intriguing sounding title,
catchy enough to make one pick it up, at least. But the fact that it is a
biography of Mother Teresa made it all the more fascinating – and astute.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Taken on today’s standards, Mother
Teresa would never win any beauty pageants. She’d be the first to admit this.
But that’s why the book title is so apt. Beauty doesn’t stop at the external
appearance, and yet this transfigurative power of God <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>DOES</u></b> flow out of the person to give her or him a marvelously
magnetic and radiant personality and visage. The beauty, the transfiguration,
which the disciples observed in Jesus high on the mountain came about first of
all when Jesus engaged in direct and intense conversation with God.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>We don’t have a record of all those
other times when the Father and the Son had such intimate exchanges. Perhaps
Jesus was transformed then, just as Moses had been after his experience of
contact with God on the mountain. The one time we <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>DO</u></b> hear of this happening to Moses was, like Jesus, when he
was away from the distractions of his family, of all the people crowding around
him, asking for this and that. When Moses concentrated on what God wanted to
discuss with him, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>THAT</u></b> was
when Moses’ face became overwhelmingly beautiful, so much so that he had to cover
it for a while so as not to interfere with the work he had to do for and with
the people.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Similarly, Jesus’ appearance took on
that intensity when His attention was focused directly on God. But the second
thing to note about both Moses and Jesus was that this interaction with God
drew from each of them the ineluctable grace that was already within them. The
grace, the joy, the love, the passion brought about by such merging
identification of their wills, such delight in sharing in the Love which is God
the Father; these are not only what Moses and Jesus lived, but they are also
what draws from us the wonder of looking at someone and seeing such intense
beauty.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It’s not that the person’s
appearance or action was, necessarily, a whole lot different than it is at
other times. It’s more that, as in Malcolm Muggeridge’s discovery about Mother
Teresa, God’s longing is to reach people in such a way that they are able to
present themselves, to behave, to speak, to listen as God‘s Son on earth did.
God showed the disciples how Jesus was, who Jesus was, if only they were able
to absorb that on a day-to-day basis. But they too needed to be away from
distractions long enough to see it and to process it. And we know that the
processing took them a long time! The disciples’ breath had been taken away
when they saw Jesus, when God in Christ became apparent.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This makes me wonder just how we
should look as we see the Bread and the Wine of the Altar, the Consecrated Body
and Blood of Jesus. In God’s grace, there <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>ARE</u></b>
times when we too are transformed, transfigured, beautified as we see the
endlessness and the strength of Jesus’ love for us as He comes to meet us when
we walk forward to the Altar.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>There’s a famous sixteenth century icon of the
Transfiguration which shows the three disciples absolutely bowled over by the
beauty of Jesus. <sup>1</sup> The curious thing about that icon, however, is
that one of the disciples has his socks knocked off. Actually, it’s his
slipper, but the meaning is the same. Such was, and is, the beauty of the
situation.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><br></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><br></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><br></p>
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