February 19, 2012
Transfiguration
Psalm 50:1-6
Mark 9:2-9
INSULATION
What is insulation?
Ever heard of R-value?
R-value is a measure the thermal resistance. The higher the number the less heat will transfer through.
In Canada, we want home insulation with a high R-value to keep the heat in, in the winter.
In warmer places, like Florida, they want high R-values to keep the heat out of their homes.
Insulation can also be used to hold back sound.
Well built apartments will have sound stopping insulation between suites.
We use insulation when we are interested in isolation - when we want to shut ourselves away from something.
That’s a decent metaphor (an example) about life, eh?
Sometimes, we choose to isulate ourselves – keeping out things we don’t want to deal with.
And sometimes, we find ourselves isolated, even if that’s not what we want.
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When the stories about Jesus first came to places like Scotland and Ireland, the people there lived in a very isolated place. They are on islands separated from the rest of Europe. There were no cars or planes and big boats that travelled the seas were not used by ordinary people. The Celtic people were isolated from how people in other places lived out their spirituality (how they practiced Christianity).
Very prayer and song focused. Trying to feel closer to God. Sometimes they found that easier in some places – like a mountain side or by a river or in a beautiful meadow.
Those places were called “Thin Places” – a place where the insulation (so to speak) between people and God was very thin.
Have you ever been somewhere, where you felt very close to God? Well, for you that was a thin place.
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Peter, James and John has a thin place experience with Jesus when they went with him up on the mountain in the Bible story we read a bit earlier.
It was as if the difference between Jesus, their friend and teacher and Jesus, the Son of God was brought together – they felt they were on Holy Ground.
As the story said, the three of them had a common vision – Jesus, all glowing white like an angel, standing with two of the great prophets of the past: Moses and Elijah.
Peter didn’t want to leave this Thin Place: Let me set up three tents: one for you Jesus, one for Elijah and one for Moses.
And then they felt even closer to God – they thought they heard God speak: “Jesus is my deeply loved child - listen to him!”
As soon as this thin place experience started it was over – Jesus looked normal again and they went back home. For a long time, Peter, James and John, never told anyone about it because it was so special to them.
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In your life, try and remove as much insulation you can between you and God. Let as many places as you can, become thin places for you.
Amen.
RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW
(prayer)
“Let me set up three tents, Jesus: one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”
The moment was so striking, so unique that Peter knew that this was one of those special one-in-a-life-time experiences.
He wanted this moment to last.
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He knew that he was in the company of honoured guest: they shouldn’t have to sleep out in the open air; they should have sleeping booths. James and John and Peter would let the great prophets use their gear.
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How could Peter and the others ever look at Jesus the same way again? How could the valley and the towns and the countryside ever hold their excitement again? Now that they had been on this mountain top, the rest of the world would seem smaller, duller.
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It wouldn’t last, of course.
Their work lie in the valley, not on the mountain top. Jesus’ gospel was a proclamation of the nearness of God that was to be shared not hoarded. They would return to the world below.
The transfiguration of Jesus ended so suddenly (after they felt God talking right through them “This is my belov`ed son; Listen to him”), that they must have wondered if any of it was real. That had to be a topic amongst these three for quite a while afterwards. Was it real? Did you hear the voice too?
It felt real – that they were sure about. It felt real and that would be enough to remember what had happened in the thin air of that thin place.
Maybe that is why Jesus told them to be quiet about it for a while. He knew they needed to sort out what they had been through before they tried to explain it to someone who wasn’t there.
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I think Peter was on to something, perhaps more applicable in our time rather than his. We live is such a rushed world, where rest is not really honoured. Every day, there is time to be filled; there are obligations thrust at us and duties we choose to take on.
I am forever running into people who are so concerned about what they have to do next, that they can’t possibly be fully enjoying the moment they are in (one of the people who does is stares at me in the mirror every morning.
It is not just a less-desirable-situation; I think that there is a danger to moving on too fast.
Firstly, we are not endowed with perpetual energy – if we don’t rejuvenate and rest, our bodies will force us!
Secondly, life should not only be about the next great thing on the horizon. Our culture tries to sell us on the idea that each new thing is obsolete only moments after we get it.
Yes, the might be good and wonderful things to come; but this moment matters too – maybe more so because it is right here, right now. Just because it won’t last doesn’t mean it should be discounted.
An obvious reason to enjoy this moment is of course the future is not guaranteed – you never know.
The next big asteroid could be coming tomorrow.
You could be cowering in your Syrian home, when a military mortar attack kills you and your family.
You could be listening to some of your favourite music and not hear the train whistle’s warning.
You could have holiday plans and a doctor tells you that you should make time for treatments right away.
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‘S#!+’ [stuff] happens. And if there is a consistent message I have heard from people who have had more than their share of ‘stuff’ it is that let yourself appreciate this day for whatever good it can bring into your life.
Even if (as history rolls on) the future comes and goes in a relatively good way, ‘now’ still matters.
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The excellent 1997 Oscar winning movie, Titanic, is coming out in theatres again on April 4th – this time in 3D (April 4th). When Jack and Rose meet, she is given the opportunity to think about the wonder of each moment, not simply how to endure what appears to be an unchangeable path.
He slips her a note at dinner to meet him at the clock by the stairs and “make it count”.
That’s just a movie. But the message has value for real life – just as Peter’s experience did in his life.
Choosing experiences over stuff is counter cultural now a-days. But it might feed us deeper than anything we could place on a shelf or lock in a safe.
Make this moment (with those you love and care for) matter. Open yourself up to learn about the newness that exists in this moment. Seek out the hidden blessing. Find the thin place (that’s around you somewhere right now) where your spirit can be nurtured; where you will not only know, but feel, that you are not alone.
The author of the first letter of John said it best: God is love – knowing love is knowing God. Thin place moments are emotional more than tactile.
I know that our language usually anthropomorphizes God. But try thinking of God as a ‘feeling’ more than a ‘being’; don’t interpret First John as saying that God loves, but simply that God is love.
Feelings are to be experienced, not created or bought, just felt. God is like that.
Peter, James and John got a brief glimpse of this and they appreciated it in the moment: what it meant, how might react to it later, they didn’t know – they just left the feeling of the moment be the focus. And, maybe because of their willingness to just be in the moment, it was still real for them, long after the clouds had cleared and they had returned to the valley.
Right here, right now ... matters.
Make it count.
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Let us pray:
Holy Love;
let us feel and know your presence in our lives right now. Move in us and through us and change us. And we pray for more of the same for the time that is yet to be. Amen.
#156MV “Dance With the Spirit”
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