Transfiguration. Last Epiphany

2 Kings 1-12

2 Corinthians 4:3-6

Mk 9:2-9

The Transfiguration is the promise of hope before we embark on the Lenten Journey to the crucifixion. It is a brilliant light amidst the growing darkness.

Jesus told the apostles that He would suffer and die. The threat hangs thick in the air as they trekked up the mountain. The disciples are portrayed as baffled and faithless. Like us, they just don't get it. 

The Gospel provides many types of relationship to Jesus. While most folks don't care at all, apparently, a large number of people were curious. There was some excitement about new possibilities. Lots of people came to hear Him speak. Others, troubled physically and spiritually, came for healing and deliverance. A small party aligned themselves with Him, and He had an inner circle of three. Meanwhile, those in power--the Elite--plotted His demise. The ancient faith is clear; what happened to Jesus on that mountain height awaits us all. Our destiny is to be transformed into divine light. This Lent, pursue that enthusiastically.

Lepers and Jesus

this Sunday is the last Sunday of Epiphany season so the readings below will not be used, but I want to share the sermon that I will never preach

2 Kings 5:1-14

1 Corinthians 9:24-27

Mark 1:40-45

God reveals to us through patterns, so to hear God's word more deeply, we must ay attention to details. For example, the Greek word lepros occurs only one more time in Mark, at the end of Jesus' ministry. In chapter 14, Jesus eats dinner at the house of Simon the Leper, where a woman anoints His head. Prior to the meal, the  chief priests and scribes are looking for a way to secretly arrest and kill Jesus. Immediately after the meal, Judas works out a deal to betray Jesus. When Jesus says the woman has prepared Him for burial, it is obvious why. 

Does healing this leper at the beginning of His ministry have symbolic meaning as well?  Jesus has just had dinner at the home of another Simon. He declares that He has come to be a herald, so they must go to all the villages. Immediately after healing the leper, Jesus is confronted by scribes for blasphemy in another healing. Seeing some verbal connections now?

Lepers are social outcasts, unwelcome in society. Leviticus describes the physical malady, various scaly skin disorders and what was to be done. It was considered dangerous to breath the same air as them so they had to practice social distance.

Jesus had 'compassion' on this poor man. The other two times He has compassion are because the people are sheep without a shepherd, a code word for Messiah King and because He wants to feed the crowd, a direct verbal tie-in with the Last Supper and crucifixion. 

Jesus ends his social isolation by touching Him. Two things happen, the man is healed and Jesus is made unclean. Jesus, obedient to the Law, sends the man to the priest, to perform the rituals and be officially reintegrated into the community. When the man tells everyone, Jesus can no longer go into the villages. Understand, figuratively and literally, Jesus has switched places with the man. For all practical purposes, Jesus has become a leper.

Jesus follows the Law, but doesn't lose sight of the human tragedy. Jesus does not build a wall to keep Himself safe. Jesus embraces the man and His situation. Jesus does not welcome the man into the community, nor does He reject the Law about lepers. He is no social justice warrior tearing down institutions and structures. Instead, He takes the man's sufferings onto Himself as the cost of healing him.

Mark's consistent story, from beginning to end, is that Jesus, the faithful Jew, is our Messiah and Savior. That the compassionate mercy of Jesus includes healing us at a great cost--the suffering He endured to minister, reaching its climax in His death on the cross

Each of us is that leper. Jesus touches us, makes us clean in baptism. He feeds us bread in Eucharist. He stands with us as social outcasts for our faith. If others view us with indifference or hostility, Jesus looks at us with mercy and compassion.

This is the Kingdom which He came to announce. God's salvation.

Teach us to Pray Prologue to Lord's Prayer

Three questions which go deeper than we are comfortable going...gb  

Who is it? 

* Who am I? What am I? Why do I confuse myself?

The journey to God is multidimensional. It goes through the SS and encountering His revelation. It occurs in a fellowship of believers, shared life together--dependent on those who went before us, those with whom we walk and others around the globe. We cannot be Christian on our own terms and the authority of the church and our duty of obedience are in tension with our desire to trust our own minds and follow our own hearts.

The faith does not magically transform us into perfect beings, nor does it save us from the quirks of our own particular lives. It is this broken man/woman who encounters God. It is this person who remains unknown and in process who seeks God. The more we learn about ourselves the more we see how we are blind and deaf, how we misunderstand and misinterpret. How we hide the truth from others and ourselves. Who am I? A sinner needing redemption, a wounded child needing healing, a lonely soul needing connection, a unclean needing to be cleaned--the list goes on and on. It is all different angles on a creature needing the Creator's loving creation/salvation.

What do you think you're doing?

Much of life is partially lived. We are on auto-pilot or zombie mode. We are familiar with our daily tasks so we can do them while our minds wander. Years of practice make us proficient and being partially conscious and unfocused about everything. We 'say our prayers' but most of the time they are words. Even in fervent intensity we are not always clear exactly what we think is going on. Why do you pray? How do you know when you are actually praying? What is the purpose of prayer?

Have you lost your mind?  

* nous Greek for mind, it is the way we see and interact with the world. In some sense, it is to what Myers Briggs or Enneagram 2 refer. The personality is the "lense" through which I see, experience a  nd understand the world. It determines how I experience events. The Eastern Orthodox say that salvation includes the journey of the mind to the heart. Biblically these words--mind and heart--are not a contrast of intellectual to feeling; rather it is the false self returning to the core where we encounter "the image of God" and are reconciled to ourselves and to the God who reigns in our heart. SO it is a struggle with the Lies/Falsehoods and passions/wrong desires which dominate us (called the flesh, and includes the world and the devil as adversaries). With very, very, very rare exception--humans never get close to this. One theory of the afterlife is the painful process of having that salvation manifest in the reunion of mind to heart, heart to heart with God and others. Why painful? Because we resist the truth and we resist the healing. Fear, doubt, and being comfortable with the deception, even if we hate it, so we resist change. Jesus called it carrying a cross and dying  to your self. Nothing unpleasant sounding about that, huh? Praise the Lord!

here are two sources for more information

** https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/type-descriptions/

** https://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/

Prayer is, at some level, one of ways that we learn to love God and neighbor and to receive love. It is shifting the focus of life unto TRUST. Prayer is vulnerability and self gift. 

I was told to "say my prayers" and I was given numerous prayers to pray as a child. The Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be were foundational. There were many short prayers  which we were also reminded could be prayed multiple times a day. I continue this practice today, especially with verses of psalms. A few examples. Lord, Jesus, have mercy on me! Into your hands I commit my spirit! Save me, Lord! Praise the Lord for He is good! There were also the formal prayers from our worship each Sunday. Yet, no one every explained to meet what prayer was.    

Lord's Prayer 2 Note on "Hallowed" and "Name"

God is Holy

Holy! Holy! Holy! The Lord of Hosts (Isaiah 6:3)

Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come (Apocalypse 4:8

The word "Holy" (verb qadash 203x; adjective qadowsh 169x; noun qodesh 519x) is very frequently used in the Jewish Bible. 

The verb appears first, when God make the Sabbath holy (Gen 2:3; Ex 20:8, 11). The idea of consecrating or making holy occurs numerous times in Exodus: consecrate the first born (13:2), the congregation (19:10, 14), the priests (19:22) and the boundaries of Mount Sinai (19:23). It includes the priest's garments  (28:3), the sacrificial gifts (28:38) and the sacrificial implements. Leviticus is also full of numerous references to making things holy.

As an adjective, Isaiah frequently references God as The Holy One. Of particular importance for the Lord's prayer is Isaiah 5:16 [Jewish Bible "And the Lord of Hosts is exalted by judgment, the Holy God proved holy by retribution//RSV But the LORD of hosts is exalted in justice, and the Holy God shows himself holy in righteousness"], Understood as covenant fidelity--God judges rightly and makes justice by saving the faithful an condemning the oppressors, worldly and unfaithful--God the Judge is true to His word because He is holy. Holiness and justice (as understood as God being faithful to the ones He loves and with whom He makes covenant) are linked in the biblical understanding.

Along these lines Isaiah 43:3 [I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior] and 47:4 ["Our redeemer--the Lord of Hosts is His Name--is the Holy One of Israel"] reinforce this connection of holiness (and even the Name of God) with salvation.

Ezekiel 39 is an extended  prophecy on God's salvation (against Gog and Magog). 39:7 "I will make my holy name known among my people Israel, and never again will I let my holy name be profaned.  And the nations shall know that I the Lord am holy in Israel." Making His name holy is connected to this divine intervention (or judgement) to save.

Pagans profane God's name, and Israel is forbidden to do the same. Nine times in Leviticus God demands that they not profane His Name. Priests "shall be holy to their God and not profane the name of their God"

The Name of God is also a manifestation of His presence. It is one of many ways that the Eternal spiritual God is present in time and space (see also word, angels, glory, through prophets, or through sacramental signs like fire, or wind) In Deuteronomy, God's name dwells in the land (eight times total in Dtn 12, 14, 16). This idea of God's name dwelling among the people is picked up in 2 Samuel 7:13. God tells David "you cannot build a Temple," instead "your offspring...shall build a house for My name." 1 Kings 3:2 says that the people offered sacrifices at shrines "because up to that time no house had been built for the name of the Lord." 5:19 Solomon proposes to build a house for the name of the Lord. After the House of the Lord is complete the peoples are gathered. Some fourteen times the "house for the name of the Lord" is repeated. God's Name abides in the Temple, it mediates His invisible presence and power among the people of God. (It is to be noted, that the name can also refer to one's reputation, and the renown of the name is the glory one receives.)

Jesus makes reference to His body being "the temple." Paul makes a similar claim about disciples. "Do you not know that you are God's Temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? (1 Corinthians 4:1) He repeats the question in 6:19, exhorting the readers, "therefore, glorify God in your body!" Drawing together the desire that God's name be glorified by all, that we must glorify God, that God does works of salvation in and through us to make His Name holy in the world and that we, each and all of us, are the dwelling place of His Name adds increased awareness of the depth of meaning of this little phrase. We ask so much when we say, Abba, Father--make your name Holy!

John 17 is the final of five chapters making up the last discourse of Jesus. It is during the Last Supper, on the night He was betrayed. Jesus begins with the prayer that Father would glorify the Son, so that the Son can glorify the Father. Jesus says, "I have made your name known to those whom you have gave me from the world." (17:6) He continues a bit later with the theme of God's name; "Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given Me, so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given Me." The Name has protective power, a function of Holiness. When pray that His name be holy, we must also embrace it and enter into it. The Name participates in the Reality which is God, it mediates His presence among us. At some level, the Name of God is an aspect of incarnation--that we can even know Him in His name is a result of His Self-emptying (kenosis- Philippians 2:7) to enter time and space.

Lord's Prayer 1 Notes "Our Father"

Supplemental Notes to Teaching on-line

Prayers shape us. 

The practice of prayer is difficult. Most of us are told to pray at an early age. I remember our meal prayer: Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive, from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen. No one ever explained to me what a bounty was (TV shows with bounty hunters only muddied the waters). In honesty, I do not think I was terribly curious about it. I was supposed to thank God for food and I did. I figured God liked hard to decipher wording, lots of adult prayers were confusing. Some were even a little terrifying. For example, Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. I had two take-aways from this nightly practice. One was my absolute dependence on God's mercy. The other was going to sleep was a dangerous thing, there seemed to be a good chance I wasn't waking up. Saying these prayers impacted my understanding of myself, my God, and my world.

"Our Father"

Our

The plural of the Greek ''ego" (I) In the sermon on the Mount Jesus uses the singular "your" in reference to the Father. In prayer we are part of a community. Even when alone, we pray corporately as the one Body of Christ--His church.

In John 20 Jesus tells Mary He must ascend (anabaino-go up) "To My Father and your (plural) Father, to My God and your (plural) God." Most scholars think He is contrasting His relationship with theirs. 

Here are important uses of term "Father" applied to God from Jewish Bible. In addition, I have included several New Testament verses. It is my hope this helps in deepening the 

Psalm 68:5 "Sing to God, chant hymns to His Name; extol Him who rides the clouds; the Lord is His name. Exult in His presence--the father of orphans, the champion of widows, God in His holy habitation. This was the first reference to Divine Fatherhood and it is telling that it is in relationship to the most helpless. If God is Father of all humanity, the revelation here is that it begins with the poorest of the poor.

Psalm 89 a prayer for the restoration of David's dynasty, which reflects God choosing and promising fidelity to David. God says (of David) "He shall say to Me, 'You are my father, my God, the rock of my deliverance.' [we did a reflection on Psalm 95:1-2 recently looking at 'rock']. The connection of YHWH's fatherhood to Messiah is foundational for Jesus' relationship. So the Father of the poorest of the poor is also the Father of the King as well!

Isaiah 9:6 part of the liturgical Christmas readings.

6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called "Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

7 Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David, and over his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and for evermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.

The immediate reference is the birth of a prince and this is the throne name. Therefore, the focus is God, but Christian interpretation applies the reading to Jesus.

Malachi 2:10

One of my favorite prophetic books (not named Isaiah or Jeremiah), Malachi's prophecy is filled with dozens and dozens of questions. It is an invitation to to go deeper with God in conversation. Verse ten begins a reflection on Israel's embrace of idols, foreign gods, and leaving Jewish wives for pagan ones. Malachi (which literally means Messenger) asks, "Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us? why do you break faith with one another, profaning the covennat of our ancestors?"  Here we see the covenant relationship in parent-child terms. Hundreds of times the word "father" is used in the phrase "God of our father/s" and refers to Abraham, or Jacob/Israel, or all three Patriarchs. There are many others attribuited to Solomon who calls to "the God of my father David."

In response to His Jewish adversaries, Jesus says, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now I am here. I did not come on My own, but He sent Me." [He goes on  to tell them that they are from their "father, the devil" and they embrace the devil's desires--murder and lies.] Those who are children of God are children of the truth. They believe Jesus, they trust Jesus and they love Jesus. (John 8:39-47)]

1 John 1:9 "Everyone who does not abide in the teaching of Christ, but goes beyond it, does not have God; whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son." Once again, from a slightly different angle, the reflection on truth, in this case overtly the teaching of Christ, determines one's relationship with God. Here we see the close relationship (Father and Son) is embodies in the word God.