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Sermon by the Rev. Canon Charles LaFond
Feast of the Transfiguration (Transferred)
Trinity Church, Claremont, New Hampshire

A sermon based on Luke 9: 28-36
Other Readings: Ex 34:29-35, 2 Peter 1:13-21

Before coming to New Hampshire to work in this beautiful diocese I was a monk. Yup – big stone monastery, long black robes, candles, worship six times each day. When I left the monastery, my first purchase in New Hampshire was a huge, new television. And I mean HUGE. Complete with surround-sound and High Definition. And my first few nights I sat there – in a dark room, staring into that television- click, click, clicking that remote, surfing 150 cable channels and On Demand movies like there was no tomorrow! Blue light flooded my face and I fell under the trance of the big, blue light. I was in awe.

The Loss of Awe:
Just imagine the awe of people in the last few thousand years before science, when the sun disappeared behind the moon in an eclipse! Just imagine the fear and the awe and the wonder of people who depend on the sun for light and warmth, when the sun disappeared – even for a moment and then re-appeared for no apparent reason. We are so sophisticated that we have lost the wonder of the mystery of the creation in which we live and move and have our being. And when we lose awe, we lose wonder and when we lose wonder we loose the valuable ability to see that which is bigger than ourselves. And that is a sad thing. And boring too. Damned boring!

It is no wonder that early civilizations worshiped the Sun. That mass of fire inspires awe in us and has inspired awe in every civilization before ours. It is no accident that our Christian day of resurrection feast is on “Sunday” a word developed in the 6th century meaning “day of the Sun.” Sunday is the celebration of the Light of Christ in a dark world.
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Holy Fear: The Wind in the Willows
For us Christians, this awe, this holy-fear is enveloped in love – making it different from horror-fear. It is hard for our ears to hear "fear" as a wonderful, dynamic thing. Perhaps the best description I have seen - of this particular kind of fear - is to be found in the old children’s book The Wind in the Willows. In this little moment in the story, two characters "Mole" and "Rat" have an encounter with the Divine Piper at the Gates of Dawn. In this story, the character called "Friend and Helper" is a metaphorical Christ figure.

"Suddenly, the mole felt a great awe fall upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his head and rooted his feet to the ground. (This kind of fear) was no panic terror – indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and happy – but it was an awe that smote and held him…(He) raised his humble head; and then, in that utter clearness of the imminent dawn… he looked into the very eyes of the Friend-and Helper … and as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered. "RAT," he found breath to whisper shaking, "Are you afraid?"
"Afraid?" murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love, "Afraid!? Of …Him? Oh never, never! …..And yet – oh, Mole, I am afraid." Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads and did worship!"

The Transfiguration of Luke’s Gospel:
In the Transfiguration story, Luke sets the whole event off in an experience of prayer. They climbed the mountain to pray. They probably climbed the mountain at night and it was probably Mount Hermon, a mountain about 9, 000 feet high. They are exhausted. Jesus is praying and they may have spent the whole trip up the mountain mulling over that their lives may be more filled with gore than glory as Jesus brings into momentary view God’s kingdom.

Dazzling light:
And then comes the moment. Jesus, who is at prayer –changes—physically changes. It is dark and it is cold and it is the black of night. On the verge of sleep they notice Jesus’ face change and his clothes become bright. And not just any bright but “dazzling.” (NRSV) Some translations say “glistening” or “blinding” (The Message”) or “as bright as a flash of lightening” (NIV) – the Greek word (Leukos) could be translated as “bright light.” And there, next to him are Moses and Elijah – the most famous of Jewish saints. It was a time of holy fear – holy awe. Awe and hope mingled like two grape vines.

So that was then and this is now. What’s the Good News for us? What do we do about an event which took place 2,000 years ago?

Stewardship as awareness of awe
I am the Canon for Stewardship in this Diocese. That means that I go around helping the church to have the difficult conversation it needs to have about money. It is easier in our culture to talk about sex than it is to talk about money! When it was announced that I would be coming to the diocese from Cambridge, Massachusetts where I was an Episcopal monk in a monastery, I thought people would not want to talk about money. I thought they would not want to talk about stewardship – not want to talk about giving to God through the church.

But I have found quite the opposite! There seems to be relief that we are finally breaking the silence of shame. In eight weeks I have been invited to speak to 30 churches! That is more than half the whole diocese– in the middle of the summer! I am stunned by the excitement. And the reason is in today’s gospel. The reason is that the people of the church know, deep down inside, that God is an awesome and dazzling God. We know deep down that all that we have comes from God. That this globe in the middle of a lifeless universe is no accident. We know that worshipping ourselves is not quite right.

Television lies to us
We know that spending money on the things television commercials shout at us about every 7 minutes is not light. It is darkness. The Gospel preaches awe but the media preaches fear. And it works.

Television says we are fat – so we buy diet pills and exercise equipment.

Television says we are plain, - so we buy more and more clothes to feel impressive.

Television says terrible things will happen – so we buy more pills and more insurance.

Television says we are boring – so we buy new and bigger toys – cars, houses, gadgets.

But here is the truth: Television is lying to us to get us to spend our money. Three or four lies every seven minutes, all evening long. The light coming out of that box is not the true light, it is just the blue light.

The truth is this: God loves us. God loves you and you and you and me! And not only that, God even likes us. And God likes us JUST AS WE ARE. Warts and all. God does not want our money. God wants our whole selves! Our pledge is just a symbol.

People often ask me: “Why don’t people give a portion of their money to God through their church any more? Why is giving going down year after year?” I make $30,000 a year and I give $3,000 back to God through my church because that is what God has asked of me. But it took years – moving from 1% to 3% to 6% before I got to where I am as a giver today. I give not so much because God says so; I give because I am grateful for life and grateful for all God gives me – from the stuff in my home to the electrical pulse in my body which keeps my heart beating.

God has given us life, and beauty and food and clothing and all God has asked for in return is that we give back ten percent as a symbol of our gratitude. So why don’t we do that? Why don’t we give a chunk of our money to God through this church to help the people of Claremont?

Fear
It is because we are afraid. We hear the lies of television and radio and newspapers and movies that say we are not good enough and that we are alone and that we are not safe and that if something terrible happens we need to care for ourselves – that we are alone. All alone.

Or we come to think we are God.

But there seems to be nothing in between.

Beloved people of God: we are not alone; not at all alone. And we are not the creator – we are the receiver. We are in the presence of the God of glory who shines with blazing light

 shattering the darkness of fear,
 shattering the prison of greed,
 shattering the lies of worthlessness,
 shattering the dull pain of being helpless and alone.

When we finally come to the awareness that all we have comes from God.

When we finally come to the disappointing truth that we, in fact are not God.

When we finally see that God loves us and that God will care for us…

…then and only then will we loosen the death-grip we have on our money and make things right with God by doing what God has asked us to do. And when we do that- when we learn to return to God a real gratitude gift instead of giving God a tip – then, and only then, will we know the beauty and the awe of the glory of God.

Awe
The transfiguration is not about being afraid of an angry God. The transfiguration is about being in awe of a giving God – not the Santa Clause God of our childhoods but the generous, erotic lover of our souls – the God of Glory, who made all we have and gives it to us day after day as gift.

The problem is that we have lost the ability to be in awe of God and so our money now goes to our new god – ourselves. We must go back to our childhood when big, bright things impressed us. If we can regain our awe of God’s Glory we will regain our ability to give God what is God’s.

"RAT," he found breath to whisper shaking, "Are you afraid?" "Afraid?" murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love, "Afraid!? Of …Him? Oh never, never! …..And yet – oh, Mole, I am afraid."

Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads and did worship!"