My favorite sermon I ever preached was on the Transfiguration and Elijah. I've preached similar versions of it over time, and it has gotten more poignant with the loss of first my Dad and then my Mom, but the basic idea is this.
Mt Tabor in the middle of a hot dry plain in the Galilee, Bethel in the middle of the Judean Desert and Yuma in the middle of the Arizona desert are not dissimilar places. Most importantly they are not a place you want to leave someone behind on their own.
When my dad met my mom he was 'taking a break' from college, bumming around the country, playing songs in redneck bars and trying to get as far away from his family as possible. He was best friends with my mom's then boyfriend (my "Uncle Jeff") and needed a place to crash for awhile. The timeline, of course, is a bit fuzzy, but my Dad was the third person to propose to my mom and the first she said yes to and part of that is because of a song he wrote called 'Yuma'.
The chorus of the song goes "I'll never leave you in Yuma, I wouldn't do that to my friend, but listen up honey, if you've got some money, I'll marry you in Gila Bend." Now if you've ever been to Yuma this song makes perfect sense. And if you've ever spent time at the Space Age Lodge in Gila Bend, al the more.
Jesus refused to leave Peter on Mt. Tabor. Elisha refused to leave Elijah at Bethel. My Dad refused to leave my Mom in Yuma.
Now I don't quite know how it happened. But somehow my Dad went from a homeless broke hippie with a guitar to a national recognized teacher of the year with two Master's Degrees and an almost finished PhD, a 40+ year teaching career and a big caring loving extended family. He was Transfigured. Became something else entirely - to me and to thousands of other people.
Jesus became someone else entirely on that Mountain. Elijah became someone else entirely when he was raised up out beyond the Jordan and carried up in the whirlwind to Heaven.
But that perhaps is not the surprising part. What is surprising is what happens to the rest of us. Because just as Jesus was transfigured so where Peter and James and John forever changed. Just as Elijah was transfigured so was Elisha forever changed in receiving a double portion of his spirit. Just as my dad was transfigured so were the rest of us, myself included, forever changed.
And the hardest part about being forever changed...is that you want to stay there. Peter wanted to stay on that mountain! to build three houses! When we experience a transfiguration moment, when we find ourselves close to someone or something special or cataclysmic we never want to let it go. We want to celebrate it forever.
Friends, you've got to let it go.
You've got to be willing to go From Mt. Tabor to Jerusalem, From Across the Jordan back to the land of promise, to go from Yuma to Gila Bend . We've got to go tell the story. It is a joy to spend my life and ministry amongst you all. I hope it is a joy for you all to be here with us (even remotely as we are forced to be today). But we've got to go out and tell the story. Invite others to see what is transpiring or transfiguring at Memorial.
To let people know that the Church really does look different in the 21st century, and Memorial Episcopal Church is on the forefront of it. Christ is the same, yesterday today and forever, but we are forever changed by our encounters with Him and with each other.
See you in September, rest well this August. Stay safe, Stay Church.
Rev Grey
