Sermon from March 2 Rainbow Service

March Rainbow Sermon

Text: Luke 9:28-36

Transfiguration Sunday, March 2 2025
Preached by Rev. James Murray at Trinity-St. Andrew’s United Church, Renfrew.

Today we are commemorating a great mountain top experience.
Jesus is transformed before the disciples high up on hill.
The scriptures say he shines like the sun.
The disciples then have a vision of Jesus being surrounded by Moses and Elijah.
The Law and the Prophets, the two pillars of the faith, stand with him.
Truly God is with Jesus.
And the voice of God is heard once more, saying “This is my son, listen to him.”
The disciples are moved. Shaken.
They fall to the ground, overwhelmed.
When they look up, all they see is Jesus.
They are tempted to linger, to build a memorial to this wondrous event.
But Jesus tells them there is work to do.
They are to leave the mountain top, and return to the valley below.
That valley will lead Jesus to his final destination.
In just a few short days he will enter Jerusalem for the last time.
In this breath taking moment, God’s glory has been revealed in a human being.
God’s wisdom and mercy have been made flesh that we can touch.

Now the disciples aren’t wrong to want to stay on the mountaintop.
They are just like us.
When we see the glory shining like that,
we want such mystical moments to last forever.
In the same way we want to savour falling in love
without having to do the dishes or change diapers.
We want a bigger than life sized encounter with God
without all the complications of a life
devoted to relational and social transformation.

For this reason Jesus does his best to snap us out of this moment of bliss.
Because a truly spirit-filled life leads us from contemplation to action,
from mysticism to dirty hands, as we work together to bring heaven to earth.

Jesus works hard to shift the disciples’ desire
away from building a memorial to God’s glory.
The purpose of a mountain top experience is not to impress people.
Jesus isn’t transfigured in order for us to be in awe of him.
This is not a coronation scene
where we are all to humbly bow down and worship him.

Because it is our understanding of who he is, that is transfigured on this day.
It is us who are to be transformed by this mystical experience.
It is our lives that are to be changed by this mountain top revelation.
If we are merely observers of Jesus’ transformation,
then we are being short changed.
It is our lives which must be renewed by this encounter with God’s glory.

Now I have a question for you: Have you ever stood on holy ground?
When we have a profound spiritual experience,
the place where we experience that divine connection
can become a concrete reminder of this transcendent moment.
It can be an earth moving experience with far reaching consequences.
These consequences can have such a profound impact
that we are drawn to those places where such moments have occurred in the past.

A lot of times we imagine these places
to be grand palaces full of glittering wonder.
Yet by the time we get there, they are plain,
often very simple places by the light of day.

I found this out when I visited the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.
I stood on the same steps where Martin Luther King
gave his famous “I have a dream” speech.
You can tell which step it is
because they have carved an inscription into the marble step to let you know.
That step is worn down because so many people like me
have wanted to stand there,
to connect with the emotion of that day in 1963.
Of course you can’t stand there very long
because all the other tourists are lined up
to snap a photograph of the carved inscription.

Holy moments are fleeting and rare.
Yet their impact ripples out and touches others.
Their significance lingers and even future generations can feel the aftershocks.
The “I have a dream’ speech Martin Luther King gave
on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial
called for equal civil rights for all people.
He called for economic reforms that would give equal opportunity for everyone.
He also called for an end to racism.
It was a life altering call to change our laws and our hearts
that still reverberates 62 years later.
King summed up his dream by saying
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation
where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin
but by the content of their character.”

The transfiguration of Jesus is a moment of revelation
that helps us to see the world in this kind of a new light.
Jesus shines with the light of God’s love when embraces all people as equals.
Saint Paul sums up this message by saying
“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free,
there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

We are to be one people, one family, united in love for each other.
This doesn’t mean we are all the same, but we are all to be treated the same.
This is why Jesus says that he comes to set the captives free.
To bind up the broken hearted.
To let loose the power of forgiveness in the world.
To share the inclusive gift of grace.
To love us the way God loves us.
Jesus does this because he is a liberator. A healer. A teacher.
And the goal of a teacher is to have students
who will learn to do these same things for themselves.
Jesus wants us to be transformed.
Jesus wants you to shine with the glory of God.

Jesus doesn’t want us to be transfigured just so we can be someone special.
He wants us to be transformed so the world around us can be changed.
He wants us to create ripples which will touch other lives.
He wants generations after us
to feel the aftershocks of what we do today in Jesus’ name.

Even though it’s been over 60 years since Martin Luther King
gave his famous speech,
God still has a dream that a better world is possible for us all.
For we live in a world where miracles can happen.
We live in a world where hearts, minds and doors can be opened by new insights.
And we seek to live a world where all the diverse people of this world
are embraced as part of the family of God.
Where everyone gets their chance to shine.

A READING From Marianne Williamson’s A Return to Love
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves,
‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest
the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles (San Francisco:
Harper Collins, 1992