Sermon - Last Sunday after Epiphany-Transfiguration 2012

The Feast of the Transfiguration:

The Discipleship of Recognition

Introduction

For it is the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness,"

who has shone in our hearts

to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God

in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Cor 4:6)

We arrive at this last Sunday of Epiphany, having walked in the light of Christ, to the place of the Transfiguration. Along the way, we witnessed number of "little" transfigurations, all of which included the encounters with Jesus who reveals His Christ in the lives of those around Him. And all of these encounters have lifted the hearts of the people as personal "epiphanies". Truly, the Light of God has shown in our hearts!

We have seen, along the way, Jesus encountered and proclaimed Messiah (even, perhaps by those who had not yet understood what "messiah" could mean) and we have heard of the healings that have transformed those people of faith to a new kind of health:

 the health of coming to oneself (in the case of Simon's mother-in-law),

 the health of presenting oneself to the Holy One as a choice (as in the case of the leper), and, had we carried on reading in Mark,

 in the health of acknowledging the community of faith (as in the case of the healing of the paralytic whose small community of faith received the blessing of Jesus.)

And now, lest we miss the way on which those transformations lead us, we learn today of the Transfiguration on the mount, wherein we see the Son of Man "risen up" and accompanied by the great lawgiver, Moses, and the great prophet, Elija.

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Sermon - 5th Sunday after Epiphany

Discipleship: Free to Proclaim the Gospel

 Introduction

 Have you not known? Have you not heard?

The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.

(Is 40:28)

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Sermon - 4th Sunday after Epiphany

Deeds of Authority:

Daring to Speak What We Know

 Introduction

"I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command. [Deut 18]

In this season of the epiphany we have traveled thus far through a dawning light of recognition starting with a search both profane and holy. The profane part of the search involved the effort to capture the child Messiah by Herod. This is a child identified also by a holy search; the one wherein a king is sought and found by foreign kings; a child whom Isaiah prophesied would be the light of the world (60:1-6). We traveled to a second recognition. This is a recognition by John the Baptist who names the man, Jesus, as one whose sandal John is not fit to untie. And, then, there are the third recognitions – the response of the fisher folk to Jesus' call to discipleship. Nathanael says in John's gospel (Jn 1:43-51), "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel." Now, today, we arrive at a fourth recognition, the recognition by the members of the synagogue at Capernaum of an "amazing" authority that is the beginning of conversion.

From here and in each of the subsequent discoveries and recognitions found in the gospel of Mark, the Spirit of God is made manifest in the ordinary and immediate lives of people. The progress from kingship and Baptism to the work of salvation in the immediate and ordinary lives of people by Jesus shows us, also, the progress of our own discipleship – whose purpose is, likewise, a process of enlightenment. We only come to recognize Christ in the doing of discipleship.

But how do we "do discipleship" – that's the lesson of today's scripture.

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