Heaven and Earth”
Exodus 34: 29-35
Luke 9:28-47
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 
We live where heaven and earth come together ... all the time ... Usually we don’t realize it.

This day in the church year is called Transfiguration Sunday.  On this day we re-tell and remember the story of Jesus going up the mountain to pray with three of his disciples, Peter and John and James.  While praying there Jesus’ appearance changed, he shone with glorious light.  As he was transfigured before them, the dazed and amazed disciples watched as Moses and Elijah joined Jesus in what one scholar calls “a salvation history summit conference” on top of the mountain.

Transfiguration Sunday is the last Sunday before the season Lent.  After Christmas we enter the season of Epiphany..., which means showing or manifestation – God made manifest in the world.  We ask, “Where and how is Christ known?” “How can we wake up to what God is doing in the world? In us?”

In Transfiguration ... God’s glory shines in Jesus ... as Jesus turns toward his passion and death in Jerusalem. As we turn toward Lent.

Our Gospel lesson tells of not one but two intersections of heaven and earth.  The first is the brilliant mountaintop moment. The second is down the mountainside, when Jesus heals and restores a child possessed and God’s glory shines in community.

As Jesus and the three disciples come down the mountain they are confronted by a man shouting that his son, his only child, had been seized by an evil spirit and that no one, not even Jesus’ disciples, had been able to help.

Hear what the Gospel says: “Jesus rebuked the spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father.  And all were astounded at the greatness of God.”

Heaven and earth come together.  God’s glory shines in healing and restoration. Transfiguration is a glimpse of the glory and the struggle ... of the transforming light and love in which we live.

Last Tuesday I attended a Peace Conference in Oakland, hosted by Mayor Dellums at which clergy of many faiths were honored for their service, and invited to join together to save the lives of inner-city youth.  It was an extraordinary day.  At one point a group of youth peacemakers and street artists took the stage for hip hop performance art that literally rocked us with their own life stories. One young street artist began by repeating: “If God didn’t want me to speak out, He wouldn’t have shown me what he showed me!” “If God didn’t want me to speak out, He wouldn’t have shown me what he showed me!”

These young people began in the East Bay, their community, what will be an international Urban Healing Tour. They posed one question again and again throughout the piece:  “What if the streets could speak?” Then they showed us that the streets are speaking, the question is “Are we listening?”  

The presiding judge of Alameda County Juvenile Court, Judge Gail Brewster Bereola, spoke clearly and passionately of the need for and a vision of systemic restorative justice. Restorative justice rather than just punishment, or retributive justice. Removal and punishment of youth breeds more violence and does not address needs of victims, families, communities and youth perpetrators. It does not promote healing or answer the questions: Who is harmed? Who is obligated to repair the harm? What are the needs to be addressed? How do we promote the restoration of community?

I learned that 37% of the youth who are treated at San Francisco General Hospital for trauma, penetrating injuries, or violence, return!!  Over 70% of youth imprisoned are back within a year.  What can break the cycle of violence?

Hear the Gospel:  “Jesus rebuked the spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father.  And all were astounded at the greatness of God.”

Congregations are partnering with good programs to employ young people released from prison, and to participate in wraparound services and circles of support and accountability. I met one retired businessman who wants to start a “geezers against gangs” program. (I’ll watch for that one!).  Let us let Christ’s light shine in us and through us in and through restorative justice, in and through the lives of the youth of Oakland, Richmond, Berkeley. Circles of support and accountability, by the grace of God, redeem our children, our children. Let us go up the mountain and pray with Jesus, down the mountain and pray, pray, pray.

Sandra Sanders-West, who works with the Oakland Police Department neighborhood services invited me to attend the conference. Sandra wrote these words after the event, “My take-away from the conference was the absolutely thrilling moment when my religious, Christian persona was given license and voice in my work the City of Oakland and the Police Department.  Secular institutions ... inviting God, Christ, Buddha, Mohammed and Jehovah to the table to heal the wounds of our city... The... healing power of God, who through the work of clergy and congregations can move mountains, gives promise to the peace we seek, in our lives and in the lives of our youth.”

Jesus’ disciples followed him up the mountain and saw him in new light with Moses, the law-giver, and Elijah, the prophet, and right away they wanted to build a shrine, stay up there, and capture the moment.  But Jesus led them back down the mountain, into the daily intersections of heaven and earth that awaited them.

When Jesus rebuked the evil spirit that had overtaken one young child ... healed that child ... and returned him to his family and community, everyone was astounded at the greatness of God.

In countless ways we live in the intersection of heaven and earth.  The light of God shines within us, upon us, through us, as we are willing to dwell in God’s love. We are not called on to save the world, but to be awake to, show up for, participate in God’s salvation.  The great theologian Karl Barth wrote, “Christ is the one who makes us radiant. We ourselves cannot put on bright faces.  But neither can we prevent them from shining. Looking to Christ our faces shine.”  

Daring to perceive what is real and to speak the truth in love is not the same thing as putting on a happy face.  It is letting God’s loving light illumine even our most difficult times.  

God created us to shine.