The last Sunday of Epiphany

The Last Sunday of Epiphany (Matthew 17:1-9)

“This is my Son, The Beloved”.

The transfiguration summarizes Divine revelation.

Human beings often speculate about God. In Jesus Christ God reveals Himself to us. And, in Jesus Christ, reveals us to ourselves.

The key elements of our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation are present at the Transfiguration. As with the Baptism of Jesus, God the Father speaks audibly to reveal the fullness of the Trinity, the reality of the Incarnation, the essence of the Divine nature and the meaning and purpose of human life.

As God the Son leads three very specific individuals (Peter, James and John) up the mountain, God the Holy Spirit manifests Himself as a bright luminescent cloud. In the eternal light of the Holy Spirit Jesus himself reflects the uncreated light of his divinity. As Jesus visibly manifests the glory of his Divinity, God the Father speaks audibly.

The Father’s message at the Transfiguration is the same as His message at Jesus’ baptism. “This is my Son, The Beloved.”

The Father doesn’t just make this amazing proclamation apart from any human or historical context. He provides the context in two other individuals who appear with Jesus. Those two individuals are Moses and Elijah.

Moses represents the Torah, the Law. Elijah represents the prophets. Together they frame the revelation for the benefit of Peter, James and John who represent the leadership of the Church.

Our Heavenly Father crafted the Divine Manifestation of the Trinity and the Incarnation in the context of His prior revelation to Israel through Moses and the Prophets.

Authentic revelation is always contextual. And, it always emerges in the personal relationships and the community God himself initiated.

As the Apostle Peter wrote: we do not follow cleverly designed myths. Cleverly designed by individuals apart from a personal relationship with God in the context of the community of Faith God initiated in Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Revelation is always grounded in human history,

Revelation is personal, community based and contextual. Revelation emerges in the observations and experiences of those who hear the invitation of God and respond to the invitation of God. It is clear from this and all other passages of scripture that human response is never perfect. The desire to respond rather than to react to God is the key to revelation from a human perspective.

Peter displays the limits of his attention and understanding when he attempts to tame the Transfiguration by placing it into the context of a religious ritual. That ritual is the festival of booths. It is a good ritual that most religious Jews still practice today. It is not the appropriate response to the Great Mystery of Divine Love revealed in the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ.

Jesus once warned his apostles not to attempt to place the new wine of the gospel into the old wineskins of the Law. The Law and its rituals have their time and their place. The Transfiguration of Jesus cannot be held in tiny booths designed to remind the people of a past historic event. The Transfiguration of Jesus invites the individual into a new community of Faith, to experience the new life of grace and to enter into the new way of living from the place of divine love.

The key to understanding the way God chose to reveal the fullness of his being and his plan is the real presence of God in Jesus Christ. The revelation is in the relationship. The relationship is grounded in the past, manifesting in the present and leading us forward into the future so that we may enter into the eternal.

Only once in history does God the Father personally write down information for us. He wrote that information on stone to emphasize its importance. All other revelation comes to us in the dynamic interplay of relationships. The primary relationship is the relationship God initiates. The secondary relationship emerges in the community. That is why the apostles teach that no prophecy (revelation) is of any private interpretation. That is why the Anglican theologians under the guidance of Queen Elizabeth  I attempted to avoid the extravagant claims of certain individual  Popes as well as of certain individualistic Protestant reformers.

 God chooses to reveal Himself to individuals in the context of a community through an experience of the Real Presence of the Son.

The Father twice declares Jesus to be His Son. The first declaration is at Jesus baptism when he begins his public ministry. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of witnesses. The context of the declaration is the Prophetic call to repent and prepare.

The second time the Father declares the reality of the Son is at the end of Jesus’ public ministry. The witnesses are Peter, James and John- the inner circle of the leadership for the community of the New Covenant.

The Great Mystery of the Father’s declaration is that Jesus is The Beloved. Jesus is not just one of many sons of God. Jesus is the unique Son of the Father. Jesus is not just one of many who are loved by God. Jesus is The Beloved. Jesus is the co-eternal Beloved of the Eternal Father and Holy Spirit.

Authentic revelation is personal, it is communal and it proceeds from God the Father in the light of God the Holy Spirit to make manifest to all people everywhere God the Son, Jesus Christ.

Salvation is also personal, communal and proceeds from God the Father in the light of God the Holy Spirit to manifest Divine Love to everyone in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ.

God never repeats the specific miracles of revelation. But, the miracles of revelation reveal the pattern of revelation.

Where God now reveals himself to us and to all people is here at the altar of sacrifice in the Real Presence of Jesus in the bread and the wine. The context of Real Presence is as it was at the Transfiguration: Moses (the Law), Elijah ( the prophets) Peter, James and John (the apostles).

The Divine Light that helps us appreciate and appropriate the revelation is the Holy Spirit.

The expression of revelation is personal but not individual. There can be no celebration of the Mass without at least two people present. Revelation is neither private nor individual. Nietehr is salvation. We are saved from separation as individuals then immediately placed into the community of Faith.

The Transfiguration of Jesus Christ reveals the pattern of revelation is the pattern of salvation. That pattern is the eternal pattern of Divine Love as the One God manifests His infinite Being in the three persons of Love. That pattern is the Divine invitation to all people everywhere to make a real choice to reject the pride of individual self-will and enter into the grace of the Real Presence of Divine love in Jesus Christ by a simple act of Faith.

Peter wanted to solidify and limit the relationship through a religious ritual designed to preserve the memory of the experience apart from the reality of the experience. Jesus wanted Peter, as he wants us, to experience the Eternal Reality of the experience continually throughout life and particularly here at the altar of Real Presence.

The ongoing revelation of God the Father in God the Son by the light of God the Holy Spirit is here and now at the altar of Real Presence- the altar of Transfiguration.

Epiphany 7

Epiphany 7 (Matthew 5:38-48)

 “Be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect.”

The command for perfection is the call to completion.

The command is very specific.  Jesus presents it as an imperative. He also defines his terms within the command.

Jesus does not say be a perfectionist. Jesus does say be perfect as (in the same way) your Heavenly Father is perfect.

The understanding of what Jesus commands is in the reality of who God is. God is love. God is one God. God is three co-eternal persons. God is infinite and eternal relationship.

God is at the same time complete within Himself as a co-eternal community of Love AND God is the infinite potential of love expressing Himself  forever and ever world without end.

No human being is capable of being perfect in the categories of knowledge or power or accomplishment. Some of us think we can achieve this state of perfection by an act of will. Many of us demand this level of static perfection from each other.

The perfection Jesus commands is the active participation in the limitless potential and endless journey of universal, unconditional, sacrificial love.

Religion formed by the categories of Law or Enlightenment demand  perfection of accomplishment  and result. That approach to life is based in the belief that God is an impersonal state of static unchanged and unchanging perfection.

The unique and amazing insight Moses and the Prophets offer and that Jesus embodies is that the perfection of God is an everlasting outpouring of limitless love. That love is active, dynamic, transforming, creative, spontaneous and filled with wonder and delight.

The perfection of human demand is a solid state of rigid inflexible unchanging and impersonal limits. The definition of this perfection is: only this and nothing more.

The perfection of our Heavenly Father is the superabundance of love finding completion in a set of relationships that are open, honest and overflowing with infinite potential for self-expression and exploration. The voice of this perfection is the voice of Jesus who declares: Behold, I make all things new. Behold, I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.

The perfection of our Heavenly Father is expressive and expansive. The perfection of human pride and self-will is repressive and oppressive.

The religious elites of Jesus’ day demanded a repressive perfection. They weren’t the first people to use religion in this way. They are not the last.  All forms of religion and philosophy can be subverted by human pride and re formatted  in the categories of repressive static unyielding impersonal demands.

Only Jesus liberates the human soul from the impersonal demand of perfection to explore and delight in the personal process and journey of never ending completion in Divine love.

Since Divine love is infinite, we can never exhaust the possibilities to experience greater levels of completion. Since that Divine love is eternal, we grow from grace into greater grace, from joy into greater joy, from delight into greater delight.

Jesus himself is the pattern for this experience of divine perfection. As we enter into an active and personal participation in the new Way of living Jesus offers us, we begin to fulfill the imperative to enter into the perfection of God the Father.

God never designed us to achieve a static state of perfection in the categories of knowledge, power or accomplishment. God did design us to enter into an endless process of wonder and delight in the Divine Perfection of the One who loves, the one who is loved and the love that forms their being.

The perfection of our Heavenly Father is personal, open, and transforming. That is the perfection God the Father designed us to experience. That is the perfection God the Son offers us as a gift. That is the perfection God the Holy Spirit manifests in all aspect of our lives now and forever. World without end. Love without limits. Amen

Epiphany 6

Epiphany 6 (Matthew 5:21-37) “You have heard that it was said”.

Common knowledge is not necessarily common sense.

God had revealed ten basic common sense laws to Moses. Almost immediately, people looked for the loop holes.

The purpose of the Law is to restrain the power of sin in society and to convict the individual of the need for a savior.

By the time Jesus came to Earth, religious leaders had “tamed” the Law. They had invented the loop holes. They had formed a variety of religious institutions based on common knowledge and designed to preserve and advance the power of the elites. And, they had used their power to debase and exclude everyone else.

The religious elites in Jesus’ day were not of the same mind. They argued amongst themselves constantly. They fragmented the Judaism of their time into competing and conflicting sects. The more extreme among them actively subverted those they disagreed with. The most radical among them practiced assassination to terrorize their rivals for power.

They had tamed the perfect holiness and life giving love of the law. They used the law as a club to threaten each other and especially the masses of the working poor. And, they subverted the two underlying principles of the Law.

They abused the law to magnify their power. And they denied the reality embedded in the Law that all people everywhere are lost and need a savior.

In his preaching, teaching and example Jesus restores the Law to its divInely ordained position. Where the religious elites managed to subvert the commandments to give the illusion of righteousness Jesus raises the standard of the Law so high that the illusion is shattered.

Clearly, what Jesus is teaching is threefold. First: the Law is holy and good. Second: all human beings are lost in separation from God. The evidence of this state is our inability to keep the Law as written. Third: the Good News is that God himself reaches out to us in Jesus Christ to save us from separation, sin and death.

The religious leaders in Jesus’ day were horrified when they heard his teaching on such things as anger and marriage. To their credit they understood very well that if Jesus spoke the truth then their religious system was sterile, stagnant  and counterproductive.

Sadly, most of them could not endure the challenge and the Good News of Jesus’s teaching They simply did not want what he said to be true. Having tamed the extent of the law and subverted its power to convict us of sin, they refused to accept a different way of understanding God.

There are two basic distortions of the Law that human beings create. One is rigid uncompromising inflexible legalism. That way always leads to conflict and hypocrisy. The other distortion is self-indulgent libertinism. Both distortions derive from that place in the human soul that separates from God in order to seize the power to command and control.

Jesus does not give this teaching on the Law to condemn anyone. Neither does he expect any of us by our own will to power to live up to the standard. Jesus reveals the Law to be the Perfect Mirror of God.

As we look into that perfect mirror we see where and how we have separated from God. We see how pride and despair distort our relationships with each other and with God. And, because it is Jesus himself who holds that Mirror up to our souls, we also see the Good News of a new and different Way.

The Way of Jesus is the Way of Truth, the Way of Love and the Way of personal transformation.

No one will ever be righteous according to the standard of the Law alone. In union with Jesus we can and will claim the power of the law. That power is the Way of conversion.

Jesus accepts us as we are. Jesus invites us to be better than we are. The Law as held by Jesus is a guide to keep us moving and growing and transforming in grace.

All of us fall short of the standard of the law. By our own self-will we can attempt to tame the law and pride fully declare ourselves righteous. Or, we can fall into a self-indulgent despair that says: what does it matter?

The third alternative is the Way of Jesus. It is the Way of grace that loves unconditionally and transforms unfailingly. It is the middle way between ego based pride and despair. It is the Good News of the new life in Christ and the new way of living by the Holy Spirit.

 

 

Epiphany 5

Epiphany 5 (Matthew 5:13-20)

 

“Except your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, You will by no means enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.”

 

The Kingdom of Heaven is the abundance of God manifesting in the people of God.

 

The religious leaders, the Scribes and the Pharisees, missed this point. They had come to believe righteousness was right belief plus right action that produced a very specific result. The result was Divine approval for the righteous and Divine wrath for the unrighteous.

 

They majored in the minor aspects of the Law and the Commentaries on the Law. They missed the meaning and the purpose of the Law.

 

They focused on rigid inflexible uncompromising systems and programs. But, because they missed the most important aspect of the Law, they practiced a brittle, suffocating, exclusive form of religion. They obsessed over rules and regulations and then subverted their own systems by creating loopholes to avoid the crushing burden of that system.

 

They missed the joy. They missed the peace. And, above all they missed the love.

 

When Jesus speaks of salt losing its saltiness he is speaking of adulterated and counterfeit religion.

 

Salt was a valuable commodity in the ancient world. It was vital to the preservation of food. It was even used as money. Since it was so valuable, people sometimes mixed it with grains of sand. They diluted it to cheat the markets. It became less valuable as more people diluted it.

 

The Scribes and the Pharisees and the other religious leaders of the day did the same thing with the Law. They diluted it from its original purity of holiness. They adulterated it with their own opinions and demands.

 

Moses and the prophets taught that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a marriage feast. It is a celebration to which all people are invited to share in the abundance of joy and delight that the King, God, offers at the feast. It is personal, enthusiastic and open. It unfolds in the community of the called- and all are called.

 

The Scribes and Pharisees formed an individualistic religion tailored specifically to reflect their social status, interests and abilities. Instead of a Feast to celebrate they formed a religious court to judge. Instead of an open invitation  they created small exclusive homogenous religious institutions. Instead of spiritual abundance they brought minimalist religious cliques.

 

Jesus expects our righteous to exceed the righteousness of law based exclusivity. He invites us to enter into the personal relationship God the Father designed us to enjoy. The only way our righteousness can exceed the law based individualistic righteousness is the Way of Sanctification.

 

The Way of Sanctification means we refuse to cheat God in worship. Jesus has sent the Holy Spirit to stir up in our souls a hunger and thirst for the abundance of the Marriage Feast.

 

From time to time I attend seminars on Church growth. So far, they all have focused on the externals of programs and current cultural norms. The Kingdom of Heaven does not manifest because of programs and individualistic cultural norms. The Kingdom of Heaven manifests as the people of God make a conscious choice to place God first in our lives.

 

Jesus calls us into a process of sanctification by the Holy Spirit. Jesus calls us to be pure spiritual salt unadulterated by individual self-will and pride. Jesus calls us to reflect uncreated spiritual light that makes all things, including our own lives, new.

 

The only way our righteousness can exceed the religious righteousness of law based culturally defined religion is as we surrender self- will to Divine will in the transforming power of universal, sacrificial, unconditional love.

 

The Reality of the Kingdom of Heaven is the inward and spiritual grace of our relationship with Jesus Christ. The reality is the relationship. The relationship is the celebration of the Beloved’s delight in us and in our delight in Him.

 

Do not settle for the outward and visible forms of religion. Ask the Holy Spirit to immerse you in the celebration of infinite and eternal abundance in a forever friendship with Jesus Christ.