Last Sunday after the Epiphany Year C

The Last Sunday after the Epiphany—Year C February 7, 2016 Once upon a time there was a pastor of a church. This pastor was meeting with a young couple who were newish members of the church, and the pastor was astonished as the couple told him about how important attending worship was to them. The talked to him about how, when one of their children was sick, they would get together on Sunday morning to do a quick spiritual assessment—each discussing the week that they had been through and the week to come, and then together they would decide “who needed church more.” “Church is what helps us make sense of our lives,” they explained, “it’s that pick-me-up that connects us with God and our calling and sends us back into the week.” The pastor went on to wonder what our churches would be like if everyone looked at attending weekly worship in the same spirit. What would our churches look like if at least half of our people had the same outlook? How about even one quarter? It’s an interesting story to think about this week in light of the gospel story of the Transfiguration as well as something to think about as we head into the season of Lent. How might our lives be transformed if we commit ourselves to weekly worship? The story of the Transfiguration is actually a story about worship. In it we see that Jesus’s prayer is what brings about his transfiguration, and we see how the disciples are absorbed into Jesus’s prayer to behold the glory of God in and through Jesus. This is why we worship. It is in the hope of beholding just a glimpse of the glory of God, to be fed and transformed and sent back into our dusty, tired lives just a little bit brighter and shinier. But most of us, the disciples included, become afraid when we see these glimpses of God’s glory, and we try to build structures to explain and contain it rather than giving ourselves over to it. If we are open to allowing ourselves to being transformed, then “worship can be the place where we hear God’s voice, focus on the nature of grace as we experience it in the cross, meet each other in prayer and song, and leave renewed for lives of meaning and purpose that come through service to neighbor.” So today, I want to offer you a challenge. Would you consider to take on as your Lenten discipline this year weekly attendance at worship if you aren’t already doing that? Are you willing to take that risk of showing up every week, of opening yourself to the possibility of being seeing a glimpse of God’s glory in this place and therefore being a little bit transfigured, transformed? And if you are aren’t willing, then ask yourself and answer truthfully, “Why not?” There are five spiritual practices that are the basic practices of Christian discipleship. 1. Pray daily. 2. Worship weekly. 3. Serve joyfully. 4. Learn constantly. And 5. Give generously. Each of these practices helps us to grow and to stretch in our following of Jesus and through practicing each of them, gradually over time we become transformed “like water over a rock.” If weekly worship is something that you are already doing, then perhaps you would consider focusing intentionally on another one of these practices as your Lenten discipline. (Repeat them). Because the point of discipleship, the point of worship, is actually transformation. In our vestry planning retreat this weekend, our vestry watched a video by Mary Parmer from the Diocese of Texas on her program Invite-Welcome-Connect for churches to live more fully into their mission of engaging in the transformative hospitality of the gospel of Jesus Christ. At the end of this video, Mary speaks specifically of transformation saying, “Transformation happens in our lives when we are able to see old things in new ways full of new possibilities. Jesus calls us to live transformed lives, and to see others in a new way, in the way of love. And we are transformed when we can adopt new behaviors, new attitudes. Imagine what our churches would be like if they were filled with people who had the ability to see others, who stop looking at others through the narrow lens of their own world. People who have been transformed by the grace of God….” On this Last Sunday after the Epiphany, as we head into the wilderness of Lent, may God shine God’s light upon you and upon this church, that we may be transformed in and through the glory of God’s love.