The Last Sunday after the Epiphany-Year B

The Last Sunday after the Epiphany-Year B February 14, 2021 This year, after Christmas, I really struggled with taking my Christmas tree down. I left it up several days after Epiphany, and because I had been so diligent in giving it water, it was still somewhat alive (unlike most years, when it is deader than a doornail by the time Epiphany rolls around, so I am very anxious to get the fire hazard out of our house). As I was beginning to make my peace with the fact that the tree had to go, I saw a picture that Lynn Wright had shared on Facebook of a lovely lighted birch tree that she had recently purchased. So I learned where she got it, and I shamelessly copied her. Just a couple of days after our Christmas tree had exited the building, the tree of light arrived to grace the dark empty corner. I had this idea to make it a Mardi Gras tree, so I put a few purple and gold Christmas balls on it with the intent to find some of our Mardi Gras decorations, like beads, to drape it in. But that never happened. So my tree of light sits glowing in the corner of the room with a sparse few colored balls on it. And I love it! It has been such a gift of light to me in this dreary season, and because I had dubbed it our Epiphany tree or our Mardi Gras tree, it has been a constant symbol and reminder to me of the light of the season that is celebrated in the stories of our faith, when God chooses to manifest Godself to us through the person of Jesus Christ. Today, on this last Sunday after the Epiphany, we have one of three ultimate manifestations of God in and through Jesus in Mark’s gospel. The first is through Jesus’s baptism in the Jordan (the story with which we began this season). The second is today’s story, the story of the Transfiguration of our Lord on top of the mountain as revealed to his closest disciples. And the third manifestation of God in and through Jesus in Mark’s gospel is in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. These three stories act as pillars for Mark’s gospel. As we approach the year-mark of this Covid-season, in which I’ve spent more time at home than just about any time in my life, I’m struck by Peter’s inclination to try to make the spot on the top of the mountain more homey, his offer to build dwelling places so the disciples and Jesus, Moses, and Elijah can all hang out together for a while and be comfortable. I wonder if Peter, like so many of us, felt a clear division in his life between the holy places, the places here he was most likely to encounter God—namely his local synagogue, the temple in Jerusalem, or on the top of a mountain—and the more familiar spaces like his home or his fishing boat? I can’t help but wonder if Peter and the other disciples felt a division that we so often feel between ‘ordinary life’ and ‘spiritual life’? “Ordinary life and spiritual life are the same life. Thomas Merton wrote in Thoughts on Solitude, ‘If you want to have a spiritual life you must unify your life. A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. We have the daily, domestic life of the house and the life of the journey. Sometimes the journey has the shining character of pilgrimage, but a lot of the time it manifests the trudging, putting-one-foot-in-front-of-the-other-to-get-on-with-it-aspect. Happily, life also has what we call ‘mountaintop’ experiences, experiences of illumination and piercing joy. And while they are illuminating, they are also often mysterious.”i The Transfiguration is one of those mountaintop experiences in the midst of the journey from Jesus’s home in Galilee to Jerusalem, where Jesus will face his death. And while Jesus’s presence on the mountain offers its own initiative for this divine encounter, the real activity here is done by God. It is God who reveals the glory of God’s son on the top of that mountain. It is God who breaks into the monotony of the journey to offer the light of God’s presence to those gathered there and to allow that radiance to reflect upon Jesus. This past week, I read a blog post by a colleague of mine who shared a Celtic blessing. “Bless us, Lord, this day with vision. May this place be a sacred place, a telling place where heaven and earth meet.” She writes of this, “A telling place…Not a hiding place—not a place to escape——but a grounding place. This, we all long for.” She continues, “These days, many of us are missing familiar physical spaces—religious homes, watering wells, restaurants, libraries and schools, venues for sports, concerts, and theatre. We are learning anew that at the heart of our spirits are relationships, not any one physical space. Yet, too, we are realizing the countless ways our commons spaces elevate our spirits and call forth the best in us. These spaces are homes to us—homes that help make us who we are.” She then elaborates on this notion of “the telling space”: “All the physical spaces we call “home”—be they churches, family homesteads, or even a town or country—are merely pointers to the telling place that exists wherever the human spirit meets divine mystery. In this space within us and among us, we… [meet] God with all our senses. The telling place propels us forward in the deepest watches. You know it in the thoughts that awaken you in the night, in your prayers in the early morning, in your quiet listening to beloved ones in pain, in your solitary walks as you remember those whom you have lost and think on the things they told you. In these times, the telling place grounds you, calls you home, even if you feel you are in exile. The telling place reminds you who you are.” ii I think my tree of light this year was a pointer for me to the telling place, a timely and needed reminder that God shows up and reveals Godself even in the midst of the most ordinary, in the most homey, in the most tiresome, in the most mundane. And on this last Sunday after Epiphany, I give thanks for the reminder of the manifestation of God in Christ and the ways that God is always present, always revealing Godself to us in both the mountaintop experiences as well as in the ordinary drudgery of endless days. As we move into the season of Lent, a season that is normally associated with wilderness, we will be invited to look at wilderness anew and to see the gifts that it offers. We will be invited to use that season to help us remember who we are. Your invitation this week is to offer this Celtic blessing in the different spaces of your life and to look for the ways that earth and heaven meet there. “Bless us, Lord, this day with vision. May this place be a sacred place, a telling place where heaven and earth meet.” i. Thurston, Bonnie B. The Spiritual Landscape of Mark. Liturgical Press: Collegeville, MN, 2008, p 36. ii. From the Rev Canon Ruth Woodliff-Stanley’s blog Paintbox: https://www.ruthws.com/paintbox/2021/year-b/fifth-sunday-after-epiphany?ref=email