Last Sunday after Epiphany Year B

The Rev Melanie D. Lemburg Last Sunday after the Epiphany-Year B February 11, 2024 I have a new song that I’m quasi-obsessed with. It’s my new hype song; I listen to it when I’m driving in the car often on repeat because it makes me happy. It wasn’t a song I had planned to preach on until I woke up with it going through my head on Monday morning. The song is titled Shambala and it’s performed by Three Dog Night. Do y’all know this song? It was released in 1973 and the song is about the mythical kingdom of Shambala which is referred to in Tibetan Buddhism, and it is speculated that the song to this mythical place is actually about the spiritual path or journey. It starts: “Wash away my troubles Wash away my pain With the rain in Shambala Wash away my sorrow Wash away my shame With the rain in Shambala Ah ooh yeah Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah Ah ooh yeah Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah” The narrator goes on to sing about the people he encounters on the road to Shambala—people who are helpful, kind, lucky, and so kind-on the road to Shambala- and then launches into the rousing chorus: “How does your light shine In the halls of Shambala? How does your light shine In the halls of Shambala?” Today is the last Sunday after the Epiphany, the season in the church when we most focus on light—the light shining in the darkness, the ways that God is manifest in this world in the person of Jesus, the ways that God continues to be manifest in this world through the power of the Holy Spirit shining in our lives, weaving people and experiences together. So this question of how does your light shine is an especially appropriate one for us as we close out this season. But I think we can be a bit more specific in looking at how our light shines considering two of our readings for today—the Old Testament and the gospel. In the Old Testament, we see two of the greatest prophets of Israel-Elijah and Elisha; Elijah has served as a mentor to Elisha and Elijah is preparing to complete his time on earth and be taken up to heaven. There’s this strange group of spectator prophets who seem to be trailing after them wanting to see what will happen and kind of heckling Elisha, who just keeps telling them to essentially “shut up!” And in the gospel reading for today-the story of Jesus’s Transfiguration—we have Jesus’s closest disciples on top of the mountain with him when he becomes transfigured, and a voice from heaven proclaims: “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” Another writer says of this gospel account: “The disciples witness the deeds of Jesus, but fail to grasp the core of his character and mission. This is all the more striking, considering that the divine voice, heard in the transfiguration account, commands them to listen to Jesus (9:7). Narratively speaking this imperative suggests more than practices of passive listening. Here, the voice demands that the very disposition of Jesus’s closest followers evolve from spectators to witnesses.” We see this differentiation between witnesses and spectators at work in the Old Testament story as well. The spectators are the gaggle of prophets who are following along to see what’s going to happen to Elijah. But it is Elisha who insists on accompanying Elijah to the very end, and who receives a double portion of Elijah’s spirit as he is able to watch Elijah being taken up to heaven on chariots of fire with horses of fire in a whirlwind. And it is, thus, Elisha who becomes the witness and the next great prophet of Israel. So, what do you think is the difference between a spectator and a witness? Our Wednesday congregation weighed in on this question this week: for them a spectator indicates a certain amount of distance between the watcher and the event. But a witness implies connection, an experiential piece that changes the watcher making them become a part of the ongoing story; someone observed that witness is both a noun and a verb; and being a witness can sometimes mean standing up for what you believe is true or what truly happened. Think about how the disciples change from spectators to witnesses between the transfiguration and after Jesus’s resurrection (well into the Acts of the Apostles). Do you think the transformation from spectator to witness is a sudden development or more of a slow growth in the life of faith? How are you being called in your own life to grow from spectator or passive listener to witness to the manifestation of God through the Holy Spirit in your life or in the world around you? Or to quote my friends Three Dog Night: “How does your light shine in the halls of Shambala?” i. https://genius.com/Three-dog-night-shambala-lyrics ii. Smith, Shively T.J. As represented in Everyday Connections: Reflections and Practices for Year B. Ed Heidi Haverkamp. WJK: Louisville, 2023.