Sunday Sermon - 2 March

Have you ever had the chance to be in the presence of greatness? Have you ever had the chance to meet a famous person that you really admired or looked up to?  

I’ve had this chance a couple of times.  

Once, when we were in Florida at Universal Studios we were on the ET ride and sitting right in front of us was perhaps the best linebacker to ever play football, Lawrence Taylor. He was my all time favourite player and I don’t remember a thing about that ride. As soon as it was over, I got off right behind him to introduce myself. He shook my hand and spoke with me briefly and I truly felt that I was in the presence of greatness.  

My next encounter with arguably the most famous person I would ever meet, and who at the time I thought was great, was when I first met His Royal Highness, the Duke of York (as he was referred to then). I had the opportunity to meet and speak with Prince Andrew, one on one, quite a few times. We would often go for little walks. He would ask me how I was doing and challenge me on the nature of my Chaplaincy and the potential conflict it had with my role as an Assistant Head at Lakefield College School.  

You see, Andrew cared about his church, he cared about the Chaplaincy at LCS, and he cared about me and my ministry. It was genuine and, again, I felt like I was in the presence of greatness.

I expect we all know about Prince Andrew’s fall from grace, so I won’t go into that this morning, and I will add that Lawrence Taylor sadly had his own fall from grace for very similar reasons. Now that I think about it, perhaps the reason why these two former heroes of mine came to mind, may be because of Isabella’s talk on Sex Trafficking last week for Freedom Sunday. Both Andrew and Taylor allegedly committed similar sins. Heroes are indeed hard to come by these days.

Or are they?

Today is the last Sunday of Epiphany. The last Sunday before we begin our Lenten journey on Wednesday, best known as the Transfiguration of Our Lord. On this day we read and celebrate the event when Jesus took Peter, James, and John up a mountaintop to pray. While praying he is transformed and transfigured - his face changes, his clothes become dazzling, and the spirits of Moses and Elijah descend down from the heavens to stand beside him. Jesus is glorified and the prophets and Christ talk about the days of torment that lie ahead in Jerusalem. A moment of true greatness, foreshadowing Jesus’ resurrection. 

But our story today doesn’t end there on the mountaintop, does it?  

The divine experience on the mountaintop ends. The heavens close, the prophets vanish, and there’s Jesus, alone with his three disciples. After the big event they walk down the hill where they are greeted by a large crowd and a man yells out to Jesus to exorcise a demon from his son. Jesus does what he is asked, completes the miracle, and challenges his apostles’ faith in the process. He then returns the boy to his father.  

Do you ever wonder why Luke put this account in after the transfiguration? I believe it is because Luke is juxtaposing the greatness of Jesus’ divine nature with the reality of his profane humanity. At one moment, atop the mountain, he is God, in all his great glory talking with two great prophets. The next, at the bottom of the hill, he is but man, doing God’s good work. From glory to service.

It’s easy for us to come to church on Sunday, sing our hymns, say our prayers, take our communion, and be holy children of God. It’s easy for Christians to feel special, to feel chosen by God, sitting atop the mountain above others knowing that we are saved. Knowing that when our day comes, we too will be transfigured into God’s kingdom. It is not that easy, however.

Jesus doesn’t call us to sit up on the mountaintop steeped in divine self-righteousness. Jesus calls us to follow him down the mountain, into the mess of life - into the corners of life that are possessed by sin - and to do our utmost to cast out the evil that exists in the world. We are not to be divine mountain dwellers, we are Christ’s ministers in the lowlands.  

We come to church and we worship here on Sundays and Holy Days to be closer to God. To be forgiven of our own sins and to reload our spiritual energies in order to go into the world to serve others, heal the sick, and follow in the footsteps of our Lord.

After Jesus’ transfiguration and encounter with Elijah and Moses, Peter wanted to build three temples to make the ground upon which this happened sacred and memorialize the event but God and Jesus would have none of it. The clouds opened, God expressed his favour on Jesus and told his disciples to listen to him. Then they went down the hill and got to work.

On Sundays we come into this, our beautiful little temple. We touch God, we celebrate our parish family and then we go out and get to work, loving and uniting this broken world as best we can.  

I think my former heroes, Prince Andrew and Lawrence Taylor, mistakenly chose to stay up on their respective mountains of greatness, seeing themselves as special. Although they may have done good works, leveraging their wealth and privilege, they did not see themselves as humble leaders called to service and love. They did not see themselves as ‘equal to’, but rather, ‘greater than’.  

These are easy traps for us to fall into, I know because it happens to me - for this is the nature of sin and how evil creeps into the vulnerabilities of our human ego. When this does happen to me, I’m blessed to have the love of my honest partner, my adult children, and my friends to set me straight and remind me to walk down the mountain of my arrogance and come back to live and work humbly, serving in this world of profane reality.

I speak of two of my former heroes, but there are many people in power today that sit high up on their mountaintop shrines, lording their self-proclaimed superiority over others, causing derision and pain in order to serve their own selfish and narcissistic purpose. We can get lost in frustration and a sense of helplessness against these perceived great forces, but that’s giving up. We are not helpless and we are obligated to push back against the injustice we see.

For as Paul reminds us today, “When one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Therefore, since it is by God's mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart. 

We do not give up.

Those who are lost in the profane misperception of their own greatness, who choose to hurt others for their own selfish gain, are the evil - the demon - in our world today. The demon that we are called to stand up against, to battle and cast out.

I pray, let us not lose heart, for we are people of the Transfigured Lord. We are people who ourselves are transfigured by our faith in the risen Christ and we are a people called to bring justice and mercy into the world - to cast out the demons with the power of our God-given love.

Heroes are not hard to come by these days. We just need to point our gaze in the right direction. If we stop looking up the mountain for heroes and instead, look beside us, you’ll quickly find a hero.  

The heroes are those young women with the courage to step up and speak out about the injustices perpetrated against them. The heroes are the people who listen to their voices, believe them, shelter and protect them against their abusers. The heroes are the ones who stand up against the selfish, unjust and merciless politicians. The heroes are the ones who vote to support those who seek to truly care for all members of society, and especially those in need. The heroes are the people like those in this congregation who seek, against the odds, to bring Christ’s love into the world.  

On this day of the Transfiguration, we pray that we may all find the strength to become God’s heroes, bearing peace and love in all that we do.

Amen.