The Last Sunday after the Epiphany

Your Faith is Yours
Mark 9:2-9

Today is the last Sunday after the Epiphany. In a few days, Lent will begin on Ash Wednesday. Today is our last Sunday to say Alleluia, our last Sunday in this Epiphany season.

Every year on this last Sunday after the Epiphany we hear one of the Gospel accounts of the Transfiguration. We call this story Jesus’ Transfiguration because it describes how his appearance appeared to be changed. We call this Jesus’ transfiguration, but this story is really about Peter, James and John. It is about their recognition that they are in the presence of God. It is about their rush of awareness that God’s glory is in Jesus. This story is about their realization without a doubt that Jesus is the living God. God is with them, among them. Close enough to touch. Close enough to talk to. Right there for them to interact with.

I want to remind you that Peter, James and John were laypeople. They were not clergy. Of course, technically, Christian clergy didn’t exist at the time, but the point is still valid. Peter, James and John were lay people. And God was right there with them. And they knew it.

Peter, James and John did not need or depend upon someone else to tell them about God or to bring God to them. They experienced God directly.

Over the centuries after the event of the Transfiguration, the Christian movement grew. As Christianity grew, the institutional church grew with it, and the awareness that people could experience God directly changed. The church and its ordained leadership became the sole purveyor of God. The church and its ordained leadership were the only supplier of God into peoples’ lives.

A big part of what the Protestant reformation was about was hitting the reset button on this issue. The Protestant reformation was about correcting the trend that had taken hold. The reformation proclaimed: you do not need, you should not depend upon, the church alone to bring God to you.

The church is not the only purveyor God’s grace. You do not need… you should not depend upon… the church as the only way God can come into your life. Although we Protestants have been saying that since the 16th century, it’s been more difficult to make it real for people. We’ve affirmed it, but the church hasn’t lived it. A while back I read a pamphlet by the Rev. Frank Wade, for many years Rector of St. Alban’s, the parish church on the grounds of the National Cathedral in Washington. He points out that for centuries the implicit teaching and understanding of the church has been that the people’s job is just to “congregate,” hence the term congregation. The people are just to congregate, to gather. Then the priest “ministers” God to them.

I’ve been thinking about this, not just because of the story of the Transfiguration, but because of the Episcopal Diocese of Quincy. The Episcopal Diocese of Quincy was formed in 1877. It has always been small. It comprises ten rural counties in the area around Peoria. It is also one of the four dioceses within the Episcopal Church that have been wracked in the last few years by conflict and schism as their former bishops have left the Episcopal Church and have tried to take as many people as possible with them. I cannot speak to the issues of conscience or faith that have led those bishops to feel they must leave the Episcopal Church. But their efforts to take others with them have been extremely destructive to the faithful lives of hundreds of Christians.

The group of people in the Diocese of Quincy who very much want to remain in the Episcopal Church have been working to discern their future. They are considering the possibility of reunification with the Diocese of Chicago, and they have asked for the opportunity to discuss that with us. Bishop Lee has asked me to be a part of that still informal conversation. I have heard stories from Quincy, and second hand from the other conflicted dioceses, of bishops willfully manipulating others, of hiding information, of cloaking power plays in secrecy. It is these actions that have been deeply hurtful—in large part because of a system that granted to the bishop too much personal authority and power over the faith lives and Christian identities of people in the pews. The tragic and destructive and hurtful results of these bishop’s actions have happened, in part, because lay people were too dependent upon ordained leadership for their sense of God’s presence in their lives.

I am not blaming the victims. The hurt in Quincy and the other dioceses happened because a very few men abused their power. But it is a power they never should have had, but for the misguided history of the church.

This is definitely not to say that the institutional church is bad. Nor is there anything inherently wrong with ordained leadership (especially not today, the 20th anniversary of my ordination).

I think we need the institutional church. I’ve said before that I don’t think you can be a Christian on your own. Or if you can, it is only a washed out sort of Christian with all the color sucked out. To live vividly and vibrantly as a Christian, you need community. You need to be a part of the Body of Christ. The institutional church is, by far, the best way to nurture and sustain Christian community.

It is within community that we perceive God with us, often active in the lives of others. As the Body of Christ, we are able to make the kingdom of God real, as best we can, in the world around us. And, at least as Episcopalians, we believe that it is within community that we receive the gift of the sacraments. We need community. It is a gift to us, made real by the institutional church.

But your faith is YOURS. Your relationship with your Lord is yours. You are a beloved child of God. God cares for you and is directly present to you. Your faith is yours. Claim it. Live it. Do not let anyone rob you of your direct experience of God. Do not ever fall into dependence upon the church—or the ordained leadership of the church—to provide your only access to God. God is made present through the church, but not only through the church. Do not let anyone else control or limit your life in Christ.

Remember, Peter, James and John were lay people.

But they did have to climb the mountain. With their own two feet.

You have a vivid, vibrant life with Christ, now and ahead of you. God is present in your life. Close enough to touch, to talk with, to interact with.

But you have to claim that faithful life. You have to live it! You have to climb the mountain. Lent is a good opportunity to pick up some or more of that responsibility for your life of faith, your relationship with God. Take on some sort of Lenten discipline this year—something to strengthen your direct relationship with God in your life.

And hang on to that image of Peter, James and John on the mountain. Lay people just like you. In the presence of their Lord.