February 27, 2022: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard. Amen.
Welcome to the last Sunday in Epiphany, because this week, on Ash Wednesday, we will enter into the season of Lent. Yet it feels a bit like a turn in the world has brought in a new season already – one of war, of a tyrannical autocrat committing atrocities of violence against a democratic and free people, of a world sensing a familiarity to events that led up to WWII, and the knowledge that when absolute power goes unchecked, the innocent will be sacrificed.
We come to a pivotal moment for followers of Jesus – we pray for peace as the world prepares to fight. We pray for the people of Ukraine – the threatened families of soldiers and leaders, the children who do not understand why everyone is fleeing and the tears of their parents, the ones who stay to fight. We pray for the protesters in Russia being rounded up as they plea for an end to the violence. We pray for all the government leaders worldwide who seek a path to peace. We pray that God will turn the heart of Putin to stop his terrorist behavior and withdraw. [Pause]
And it is in this perilous time that we walk with Jesus, James, Peter, and John up the mountaintop to pray as we close out our time in Epiphany and prepare to move into Lent. What will we find there with them? What hope is there for us, for the world?
The story, as we just heard, is one that provides a bookend to the beginning of Epiphany. Jesus is transfigured – glowing like the sun – and Peter starts thinking that it would be great to just bask in this amazing moment (and one could hardly blame him – we should stay with it, take it deep within us, feel it as much as bear witness to it). Yet, just as he is proposing that they build three places for them to dwell, God interrupts and says similar words to those heard at the baptism of Jesus that started this season of Sundays after the Epiphany, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”
So, let’s take a closer look at this gospel story, because there, in that moment of glory, Jesus was not alone. No, I don’t mean the three amigos he brought up to the mountaintop with him, I am talking about those other two iconic heroes of scripture – Moses and Elijah– the giver of the law and the great prophet. Only the gospel of Luke tells us what these three were discussing, and we don’t get a whole lot. The text says that “They…were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.” In other words, they were talking about the journey to Jerusalem Jesus was about to make and the cross that awaited him. Now, if there was anyone who understood difficult journeys it was Moses.
I remember back in 2020, when we had begun to turn toward the Fall without the hope of in-person worship and programs returning. It was about then that we all started to sense that this pandemic was not something that we would get through quickly – we were in a long journey of grief, uncertainty, and isolation – as we tried to escape the death grip COVID was bringing on the world. And right then, the lectionary began to have several weeks from the book of Exodus – the story of Moses’ call to lead his people, the plagues against Egypt (which seemed so timely in 2020), and the desert crossing to the promised land. There was a sense of a deep connection to the story for us that perhaps we had never really felt before.
The Israelites were not given much time to prepare, nor could they bring a lot with them. They trusted God, and left what was familiar (even if oppressive) to venture into the unknown. And it wasn’t an easy experience – not by a long shot. They had hardship, crises of faith, moments of anguish, and acts of courage. It was a story for our time, and so too now is this transfiguration on a mountaintop.
Moses (and Elijah as well) to be on that mountaintop in glory alongside Jesus is a powerful reminder to us that what awaits Jesus is an Exodus journey, and like anyone who seeks to free a people from oppression, there will be a price to pay. He will deliver his people – not from their current oppressors – the Romans – who have the power to kill in both body and spirit. Jesus will deliver the people from death itself, but at a great cost.
Today, there are many who are hoping to be freed from death in Ukraine. They are having to run from the missiles and tanks of Russia – from that death and destruction – in the hope of staying alive. And yet there are two stories that remind us that some will remain, for that is their calling. They turn their faces to their own proverbial Jerusalem, that others may live.
The first were Ukrainian soldiers on Snake Island, a speck of land south of the port of Odesa. They were given a chilling message by a Russian warship off their coast “This is a Russian warship. I propose you lay down your weapons and surrender to avoid bloodshed and unnecessary victims. Otherwise, you will be bombed.” Their response came quickly: “Russian warship, go f*** yourself.” 13 soldiers lost their lives and will be honored for their heroism in the face of imminent death. Their death has become a symbol of what it means to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
But there is another story, one also of courage, and of living the life of Christ. In an article in the Catholic News Service, the following was reported about a convent of Nuns: “Women religious in Ukraine are facing Russia’s full-scale invasion of that nation with determined faith and a commitment to service.” Despite the danger, Sister Murashko said through “a special grace of God” she “feels very calm.” We understand that this is our new mission, to welcome the refugee,” said Basilian Sister Lucia Murashko, whose convent, the monastery of SS. Peter and Paul […] is located about 125 miles from Donetsk in eastern Ukraine…”. They are staying behind to welcome refugees as Jesus himself – as we are all told by our savior to do.
“When Russian airstrikes began to impact Ukrainian cities, Sister Murashko and her …fellow women religious welcomed two families, with more expected as residents flee the attacks. “We feel peace here,” she said. “We do not want to move from here; we want to help people and stay with them as long and as much as we can.” Area residents are grateful for that support, she said, especially one neighbor who is eight months pregnant and advised by her doctor not to travel.
Sister Andrusiv said she and some two dozen fellow religious — some of whom are up to 90 years old — have their emergency bags packed “in case we are bombed,” with at least three days’ supplies of “food, water, warm clothes and medicine” as well as important documents. At the same time, she and her companions said they were unafraid.”
And then there was this last bit of the story, in which they and other women and men religious processed through the streets holding aloft the cross… Their “…pilgrimage…, which concluded in eastern Ukraine just hours ahead of the invasion, has provided renewed spiritual energy for the days ahead,” said Sister Murashko. “We were walking on the main street (of the town) and the people were crossing themselves … and making bows to the crucifix,” she said. “They came to us and gave us strength to serve and … to continue our mission here, so we cannot want to go anywhere else.”[1]
“So we cannot want to go anywhere else.”
Strength was found looking at the cross, amidst weapons of war that could be heard and felt across Ukraine. These women stayed on the path to Jerusalem with Jesus, for they “cannot want to go anywhere else.” The path to Jerusalem with Jesus is the call of all who follow him. [Pause]
I began this sermon talking about this being a bookend to the season of Epiphany, but this story is also the first of a bookend to the season of Lent. Jesus on the mountaintop will be repeated again at the end of Lent – on Good Friday – when another tyrant, this one of Rome, not Russia or Egypt – will crucify Jesus and he will be seen by his followers on the hilltop of Calvary, not shining like the sun, but hanging on the cross. And in between, we have the journey of Lent, in which each of us are asked to walk with Jesus to that very moment, to Jerusalem, to Calvary.
Jesus knew that this path he was to take would be so difficult for his followers – then, and now us – so he gives us this mountaintop experience today. Jesus brought them up there with him that his followers may truly know that even on a hilltop of cruelty, violence, and death, the mountaintop of the transfiguration is always within our grasp – the mountaintop of God’s presence with us – God’s promise of salvation, God’s voice telling us to listen to Jesus, the crucified one yes, but also the resurrected one – the one who is always with us – and because of that gospel truth – we, like those Ukrainians who gazed upon the crucifix – we will have hope in the face of terror, love in the face of hate, and life in the face of death.
And so I will once again offer to you these words from the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu. I wish they were not needed to be heard again, but it is clear that we may need to repeat them over and over again for some time to come.
He said, “All over this magnificent world God calls us to extend [the] kingdom of shalom-peace and wholeness — of justice, of goodness, of compassion, of caring, of sharing, of laughter, of joy, of reconciliation. God is transfiguring the world right this very moment through us because God believes in us and because God loves us. What can separate us from the love of God? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And as we share God’s love with our brothers and sisters, God’s other children, there is no tyrant who can resist us, no opposition that cannot be ended, no hunger that cannot be fed, no wound that cannot be healed, no hatred that cannot be turned into love, no dream that cannot be fulfilled.”
Archbishop Tutu is right. God is transfiguring – not only Jesus – but us!
We are transfigured in our brokenness to be a vessel of God’s mercy shining through the cracks of our lives.
We are transfigured in our prayer to have courage to be a voice for the voiceless, to stand for the oppressed, and to be a witness for peace, even to our death.
We are transfigured in the Eucharist that our lives may be a symbol of the hope and life found in Jesus Christ and in the cross on which he died for us.
May we, like those sisters in Ukraine, have the courage to not only carry – but by our very lives be – the symbol of Christ in a world in need. May we know, in the shadow of death, as the sisters do now, as Jesus did so long ago, that “we cannot want to go anywhere else” but, where God sends us – even if it is a road to the cross. For then, by our transfiguration into faithful witnesses of Jesus, all of creation will one day shine with the glory of God’s love and grace, from the highest of mountains to the lowest of valleys, and peace shall reign over all the world.
Amen.
For the audio, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here (also available on Audible). Please note that there is a break in the audio to due a technical glitch at approx. 13min 39sec. However, the full text is above:
[1] https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2022/02/25/ukraine-invasian-nuns-242468?fbclid=IwAR0ji6ThfBbK5I2IHDuwVtt4jVviF2eEJPHaMh_Q5LPPOLU6TvS_5QZmjio
The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
February 27, 2022
Last Sunday After The Epiphany – Year C
1st Reading – Exodus 34:29-35
Psalm 99
2nd Reading – 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2
Gospel – Luke 9:28-36, [37-43a]
