The Last Sunday after the Epiphany

God's Rudeness
Matthew 17:1-9

This Sunday, finally, is the Last Sunday after the Epiphany. When Easter is late, as it is this year, we have more Sundays between the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6 and Ash Wednesday. But no matter how many Sundays after the Epiphany show up on the calendar, we always celebrate the Last Sunday after the Epiphany. There are propers—a collect and Scripture readings—designated for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, the last Sunday before Lent begins.

The Gospel reading for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany is always one of the tellings of the story of Jesus’ transfiguration. I hope the story is familiar to you. Jesus takes Peter, James and John with him up a high mountain. And there on the mountain top Jesus’ appearance is transfigured. Whether or not his appearance actually changed is less important than the fact that Peter, James and John saw Jesus in a way they had never seen him before. They truly saw the glory of God shining indescribably from and in and through the person of Jesus.

As familiar as this story is, I heard something new in it this year. As Matthew tells it Peter, well-meaning but misguided as usual, offers to build some sort of booths for Jesus and Moses and Elijah, who have appeared with Jesus. While Peter was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, listen to him.” While Peter was still speaking, basically, God interrupted. I was certainly taught that it is bad manners to interrupt someone else. Evidently, God is not always mannerly.

Most of us probably do think it is rude to interrupt someone else; we undoubtedly think it is rude when someone else interrupts us. We don’t like to have our conversations, our plans, or much of anything else interrupted.

Especially as Episcopalians, we don’t like to have our worship interrupted by cell phones or noisy conversations. We don’t like to have the familiar words or structure of worship interrupted by anything new or different. These are all examples of how we dislike interruptions from one another. Sometimes I think we don’t even want our worship interrupted by God.

We prefer control and steady familiarity. Many people have speculated that Peter, at Jesus’ transfiguration, was motivated by a desire to enshrine the experience. To contain it in something controlled and familiar, so that he could revisit the wonder again and again at times and occasions of his choosing.

I enjoy going to the Art Institute. Some of the traveling or temporary exhibitions are spectacular. But I also have a few favorite paintings, a few favorite spots I return to again and again. They are familiar and I know that they will always bring enjoyment. I’m so glad the Chagall windows and the armory are both back! Although neither are as well situated as they used to be. We often approach God the same way. Returning again and again to familiar places. This is OK. Institutional religion is built around the power of these common and familiar experiences. And part of what religion assures us of is that God will be found again and again in the places where we have found God before. Part of the promise of our life together as a faith community is that we will always find God, for example, in the Sacraments.

But the familiar should never be the limit of our expectations of God.

The voice that says, “This is my Son… right here, right now in front of you… THIS IS MY SON... Listen to him…” That voice will always be an interruption.

God is rude. If you remember nothing else, remember that. God is rude. God interrupts our lives, our plans, our conversations. God rudely interrupts. How ready and willing are you to be interrupted?

I think this is one of the messages of the transfiguration. Maybe not the most important message, but a message. God is rude. And if you want to hear the voice that says, “This is my Son,” then you’d better expect to be interrupted. In whatever you are doing, whether you’re at home, or work, or even in church. The voice that says, “This is my Son” always comes as an interruption. The living God always interrupts our lives. But in that interruption we will see things we’ve never seen before, hear things we’ve never heard before, know and understand God in ways more deeply and fully than we ever have before.

Lent, at its best, primes us to be interrupted. We deliberately choose to interrupt what is normal with some sort of special discipline. We open little chinks in our daily lives, where perhaps we will be more tolerant of God’s interruptions. In today’s collect, we pray that, by God’s grace, we may be changed more and more into Jesus’ own likeness, that we may take on more and more of God’s glory in our own lives. It is a remarkable hope and prayer for our own transfiguration. Which can only take place with some pretty significant interruptions from God.