Transfiguration Sunday
Exodus 2412 The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone with the law and commandments I have written for their instruction.”
13 Then Moses set out with Joshua his aide, and Moses went up on the mountain of God. 14 He said to the elders, “Wait here for us until we come back to you. Aaron and Hur are with you, and anyone involved in a dispute can go to them.”
15 When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it, 16 and the glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai. For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the Lord called to Moses from within the cloud. 17 To the Israelites the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain. 18 Then Moses entered the cloud as he went on up the mountain. And he stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
It has been variously described as a protest, an uprising, or a fight for self-determination.
And like most mass-movements, it wasn’t without conflict. Provisioning was just one example, providing for those engaged in the struggle. Finding the basics—food and water—became a logistical challenge in such a remote location. Creative solutions were found, but not before a rift emerged between the leaders and those being led.
And this tension, between movement members and leadership, found expression in a variety of ways. Complaints, direct action, even protests within the protest were seen. Eventually a form of arbitration was settled on, taking conflict resolution out of the hands of leadership.
And then, of course, there was the question of the overall direction of the movement itself. Within days of the launch of this action, some were arguing for a return to the status quo. It quickly became obvious that the lack of a comprehensive manifesto might be at the heart of the conflict. A set of guidelines, perhaps some goals, or even just a set of group norms to guide the people were needed. And this is where we pick up the story:
12 The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone with the law and commandments I have written for their instruction.”
13 Then Moses set out with Joshua his aide, and Moses went up on the mountain of God. 14 He said to the elders, “Wait here for us until we come back to you. Aaron and Hur are with you, and anyone involved in a dispute can go to them.”
The Exodus is imprinted on the DNA of every protest, uprising, or fight for self-determination. The Exodus takes the existing order and turns it on it’s head. The Exodus says that injustice and oppression and the denial of rights are not in the plan that the Most High has set out. The Exodus is the early light of God’s Kingdom, where the divine will is done on earth as it is in heaven.
I’ve mentioned to you before that when the preacher needs a preacher we frequently turn to Dr. King. And it’s not just for a quote or an idea, or the way he spoke to the struggle he led. It’s also for his ability to leave the constraints of time behind, and lead his people across the arc of history. I’m going to share an example, this one from his final sermon, from the evening of April 3, 1968. He begins by thanking his host, and thanking his audience who came out on a stormy evening, and then he says this:
Something is happening in Memphis; something is happening in our world. And you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of taking a kind of general and panoramic view of the whole of human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, "Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?" I would take my mental flight by Egypt and I would watch God's children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn't stop there.
I would happily set aside my time up here to read the whole sermon, but Carmen would tell you that I’d be a mess in a few short paragraphs. Mostly I want to illustrate my DNA claim, and the extent to which the passage from Egypt to Canaan defines the quest for liberation. And the passage Shauna read for us, the “mountain top experience” that belongs to Transfiguration Sunday, is a critical moment in the story.
After the wandering, the fighting, the disobedience, the peril, after the complaining that tried God to the very edge of God’s patience, the people need something. God invites Moses up the mountain, promises the law and the commandments, and underlines that this is what the people need. Our passage seems somewhat logistical, but hidden in the words, we find the real meaning: the glory of the Lord.
We read it twice in just four verses, a flag if ever there was one. Moses ascents into the clouds, and the glory of the Lord settles on Sinai. To the people at the base, “the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain.” Like Transfiguration, the light of this consuming fire will alter Moses’ appearance—as we learn at the end of this episode that an encounter with Most High will cause his face to shine with reflected light. So bright is this light, that Moses must wear a veil rather than overcome the people with the intensity of this light.
It seems clear, however, that the glory of the Lord is more than just light. It is the light that illuminates the face of the liberator, it is also the light that produces the law and the commandments, providing them with a template for living as God intends us to live. And it is the light of clarity, allowing God’s own light to shine upon the arc of history: long, but always bending toward justice.
And that brings us to today. Justice, according to Walter Brueggemann, is deciding what rightfully belongs to whom, and giving it back to them. From fair wages to basic equality, to the right to self-determination, Dr. Brueggemann’s definition seems to fit them all. From the end of slavery to the struggle for civil rights to the creation of a social safety net, much of the last 150 years has been a struggle for justice. And more often than not, it began with protest. Not long ago, a reminder went viral online, a reminder that the framework of the Holocaust was legal, while hiding Jews was illegal; that slavery was legal, while helping slaves to escape was illegal; and segregation was legal, while protesting segregation was illegal.
Further, it’s helpful to note that when Americans were polled on Dr. King’s activities—the marching, the arrests, the gathering in Washington—60 percent of the population thought he went too far. It’s easy to look backwards at the progress made through protest and imagine that we would march with Dr. King, or at least voice support, but the data tells another story. It’s easy to say something was good and important and righteous when we’re not the ones making the sacrifices needed.
Clearly, the conflict between the government and the Wet’suwet’en people is complex and demands more time and a more appropriate venue than this pulpit. But I will say a couple of things. In a poll released on Wednesday, three-quarters of Canadians said something needs to be done about the plight of Indigenous people—a heartening result. At the same time, 60 percent surveyed disagreed with the protests as they have been carried out—there’s that old 60 percent number again. That’s the first thing. The second is that the commitment that we have made as a nation—the commitment to reconciliation—will always come with a cost. Otherwise our commitment is meaningless, amounting to just words.
The glory of the Lord is more than just light. It is the fire of transformation, it is the light of illumination and new understanding, it is the moral clarity that decides what rightfully belongs to whom, and gives it back to them. The glory of the Lord begins in the wilderness, a light to guide them by night. The glory of the Lord continues at Transfiguration, more light and a divine blessing for those gathered. And the glory of the Lord is our future hope, praying with the One who taught us saying “thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Amen.
posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 5:24 AM
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