“This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.”
We change and grow ever so slightly each day.
In fact, we continue to change all our lifes, just a little bit each day.
There are moments of sudden growth or spurts.
For example when we are kids during the summer
and it was noticeable that we grew up a lot.
Maybe only our grandparents noticed the change.
It is also true for ourselves as we grow older
in ever so subtle and unperceivable ways.
There are moments of radical growth for adults too;
maybe a trauma or sickness for us where we feel like
we have aged a significant number of months in a matter of days.
However, for the most part,
we do not have these big moments of growth
but small imperceptible ones.
It takes something special to notice the subtle changes.
Let me give you an example.
Recently, I had the opportunity to go back and visit a family,
one of the young families at my old parish.
It was for a sad reason as one of the relatives was dying
but it was wonderful to see them.
When I met with them, the youngest she seemed,
even though she is only 7-years old,
she seemed to have grown so much.
I had not seen them in over a year
since the beginning of the pandemic.
And in that year, it seems like she has grown up 6 inches.
She is more the young woman she is going to be,
full of confidence, beautiful and bright-eyed.
The older boy, who is now a teenager,
has blossomed in his own kind of weird and strange way.
Because of those teenage years and his cheeky interactions with me
revealed the personality of who he will be;
wonderfully confident, bright young man that he will be.
I noticed between the the couple,
their tenderness to each other; their gentleness;
their kindness in this moment of difficulty in their family.
I never noticed all those things before.
I know the kids had grown up before.
I had not taken note of how bright-eyed and sort of wonderful they are.
I just wonder how we miss such things;
I wonder if we miss that too in our own life;
that we are surrounded by so many things that change
but that the subtly of the change
sometimes requires of us to take note of it.
Yes, there are these big moments
but I think that we mostly change subtly.
In today’s scriptures, we hear of two momentous events
where transformation takes place.
They have become highlights of the scriptures for some years.
This story of Abraham and his son Isaac seems incomprehensible
that God would ever ask Abraham to give up his son.
But the culture at the time was that is what they did;
they gave up their children to the gods,
to appease the gods.
And this was the God of Abraham;
the God of Isaac;
the God of Israel
as we now have known him was revealing himself
as to not be like the other gods;
that he would not want us to sacrifice our children to him
but what he wants is a sacrifice of the heart;
he wants us to turn back to him.
He wants us to pay attention and listen to him.
The irony of it is that the second set of readings
will reveal that Jesus is in fact is sacrificed for us,
God’s only Son,
is sacrificed for us so that we could come to know him.
And this leads us to this Transfiguration story,
which is one of those, again, monumental moments.
There is no subtly here.
This is a moment that is seared in their memories
because Jesus was transfigured right before them.
They received a glimpse of the divine right in front of them.
In that moment, they were taken back;
the word is that they were “terrified”
but it really means they were floored;
they were in awe of what had happened.
And they were never the same.
But all of Jesus’ life he was present to them
and this divinity was being revealed to his disciples constantly
but they did not see it.
He has this moment of revelation,
this moment of Transfiguration
so that they would see it and then go back
and re-examine their lives to see where,
where he was because he was there all the time.
Lent is an opportunity for us to re-evaluate
and see where our God already is in the world;
that Jesus is right here with us.
I sometimes fear that we look for God in all the wrong places
because he is right among us.
He is right here.
And the beauty of the blue sky this morning
and those beautiful mountains;
beautiful flowers that are blossoming;
maybe it is the cheeky retort of our teenage child;
maybe it is the tender touch of our parents;
maybe it is the caring for a parent who is sick.
No matter what, God and Christ are already breaking through.
He is here all the time revealing himself to us,
transfiguring our every day
if only we would open our eyes and see it.
If only we would open up our ears and hear it.
You see that is what this whole Transfiguration says:
“This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.”
It is in the little things.
This week, as we go forward, I want us to recognize
that God is already here and in all the things
and in all the people around us.
Can we just look and notice it?
I would like to finish with a beautiful poem
from Edwina Gateley from her book “Mystical Heart.”
It is just a beautiful poem that expresses that very thing.
Here is what it says about being present.
I do not need
to see God
God is already here
Wanting to be found
Soaked in my reality
My journey is to be one
of recognizing God
always,
always present.
And surfacing
that presence in my daily life.
(Edwina Gately
A Mystical Heart)
“This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.”
