Readings for Transfiguration of the Lord Sunday | Feb. 27, 2022

• Exodus 34:29-35  
• Psalm 99  
• 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2  
• Luke 9:28-43a)

St Vladimir, (by Rev. Kinsey)
“Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain… to pray.” 
 
If only, throughout the history of the Christian Church, our ancestors would have remembered the, “to pray” part! instead of taking it metaphorically, as if Jesus went up to the top of the mountain to be transfigured into, procurator of the whole world, like a medieval king.  But that is exactly what Constantinople and Rome thought, for centuries, leading to destructive wars and crusades, and brought to our shores, the Doctrine of Discovery and Colonization – and, in the name of Christianity – chattel slavery. 
 
The account of Jesus transfigured on the Mountaintop, on this festival day at the end of this season of Epiphany, is actually told from the perspective of the three closest disciples of Jesus.  I don’t think I noticed before how important that is.  This is the tale, and experience, the three disciples had.  And when Luke points out how Peter, John and James were weighed down with sleep, he’s signaling that in the midst of their praying on the mountain, they had a kind of vision, of Moses and Elijah, with Jesus. 
 
And, you know how when you wake up from a dream, and you try to recall what it was about, how you’re a little foggy, and you may just remember the gist of it?  Well, Peter and John and James recalled that Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus, in glory, a word Luke first uses in the birth story of Jesus, when the glory of the Lord shone around the Shepherds in the fields as Jesus was being born. 
 
And so, amidst this angelic glory, the three disciples recall, that Moses, Elijah and Jesus, were speaking of his departure, his exodus, (the Greek says), in Jerusalem.  Like Moses, Jesus will passover from life to death, to life again, in his passion, from Good Friday to Easter.
 
On the mountaintop, what really happens then, was not his coronation, but it was God revealing the good news about Jesus, that: a) he is God’s chosen son; b) he is in the line of the greatest prophets of Israel, in the prophetic line that warned us to repent, and turn around and go in a new direction, following God’s ways; and c) he’s come to lead all nations toward justice and peace, reaching out to the margins, including even foreigners, in salvation history. 
 
This is the Jesus of the gospels!  This is the message of good news, Jesus, the Son of God, brings.  It is for all, and for the least of these, first.  The mountaintop is not a metaphor for abusing and lording it over others.  It’s the act of intimate prayer with God, about the mission and purpose of God for our lives, which leads us to follow, all the way to the cross, in Jerusalem. 
 
And yet, there is always this perpetually cold wind blowing, fueling a movement trying to overshadow this message – which we ignore it at our own peril. 
 
Diana Butler Bass, who authored, A People’s History of Christianity, wrote this past week about the missing ‘religion-story’ in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, between Moscow and Kyiv.  “While the secular media tries to guess Vladimir Putin’s motives in Ukraine, one important aspect of the current situation has gone largely ignored: Religion,” she said.  “…In effect, the world is witnessing a new version of an old tale — the quest to recreate an imperial Christian state, a neo-medieval “Holy Roman Empire” — uniting political, economic, and spiritual power into an entity to control the earthly and heavenly destiny of European peoples.” 
 
I didn’t know much of this history, but the center of Eastern Orthodox Christianity shifted over time.  Of course, it began in Constantinople, or current day Istanbul, Turkey. And I knew there was a Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow.  But before that, it first arrived in Kyiv in the 10th century.  You can still visit the St. Vladimir Orthodox cathedral there.  Dianna Butler Bass calls Kyiv the Jerusalem of Orthodoxy.  But by the 13th century, and with the help of the Mongols, the Russian people had overtaken Kyiv and found willing patrons in the Russian Czars, to established Moscow as the new center of Orthodoxy, where it basically remained through the Soviet empire days. 
 
It wasn’t until recently, in 2018, that the Orthodox Church of Kyiv, established a new, more open, freedom loving, fact-based, majority, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, turning away from the traditionalism and false hierarchies of the Soviet Orthodox church, and significantly, was recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople!
 
But this loss, has infuriated Vladimir Putin, who is all for, the hierarchical, chauvinistic Russian Orthodox Church, that will not acknowledge women or LGBTQ leaders, and of course, supports authoritarians like Putin, himself. 
 
It may seem as if this is nothing more than a disagreement on principles, and for us, the interpretation of scripture.  But this is where we need to be alert, be as cunning as foxes, that what is happening in Ukraine in the last decade, is not just about politics, but is just as much about religion.  There is a coalition that Putin is a part of we don’t normally see.  Yet, right under our noses, the Evangelical right in our own country has been more than a willing partner.  Not only do their values align up with Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church, around the hierarchical order of white men on top – yes, white supremacy – but they have actively been working to unite Evangelicals with Orthodoxy, and conservative Catholics.  Their own world-wide triumvirate.  Or as Butler-Bass says, “The dream gripping some quarters of the West is for a coalition to unify religious conservatives into a kind of supra-national neo-Christendom.” 
 
Mike Pompeo, for example, the former Secretary of State, and a stalwart Evangelical, has been very public about his support and praise for the Russian leader. 
 
Today’s Transfiguration account, has been described as the middle of the gospel story, bounded by two other mountaintop experiences.  The first was the baptism of Jesus, where the heavens opened up and God’s voice declared Jesus was the beloved son with whom God was well pleased.  Here on the Transfiguration mountain, God says, this is my Son, my chosen; listen to him!  And at the end of the gospel, when Jesus is crucified on mount Calvary, the divine message is put on the lips of the Centurion, the Roman soldier, who as Jesus dies, praised God, and declared, certainly this man was innocent. 
 
On the next day after the Transfiguration, when Jesus and the three disciples had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met them.  Jesus’ work was not done.  He could not stay on the mountaintop, but came to continue his ministry of healing and preaching, as prophet and Son of Man.  And, from the crowd, a man shouted to Jesus, I beg you to look at my son.  A terrible evil spirit keeps taking over, seizing him and convulsing him, it mauls him, and scarcely will leave him alone.  Your disciples could not heal him, so I’m asking you. 
 
Jesus – we can imagine him turning to glance at his disciples – says, You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I bear with you!? before he turns to heal the boy. 
 
No matter how good our intentions, how much we’re able to wall off and compartmentalize our lives, the spirits among us, that work against Jesus, never seem to rest or completely go away.  Like a bad virus, they circle around and look for a new opening, a weak link, an unprotected vulnerable place, or person, or group of people. 
 
The journey with Jesus, from baptism, through our hopefully bright and sunny middle-aged Transfigurations on the mountaintop, to the unavoidable autumn of our impending Calvary days, is never smooth, and always seeking and longing for much greater clarity.  But on our journey, there is no escaping the gift of grace that Christ Jesus offers, which we can find, only on the way, only in the sacrifice of loving our neighbor as we love ourselves, only as we walk through the valley, longing for the mountaintop. 
 
We are a world, more lost in the wilderness, than at any other time, in my short span of life.  The voice of false authoritarianism is ascendant, no longer whispering, but shouting their lies, which are reaching more and more receptive ears.  It is not just politics.  It is not just economics.  It is also religion. 
 
And before the Holy Spirit can lead us out of this morass, we need to be clear on who the Jesus of the gospels truly is.  We need to pray for vision.  And we need to come down from the clouds, and lead others there too. 
 
Let us follow the Transfigured Christ, who rules as Son of all humanity, with healing in his wings, and a fierce heart for love in the face of all enemies, even death.  Let us live in the glory and gathering, of this Body of Christ!  

Readings for Seventh Sunday after Epiphany | Feb. 20, 2022

• Genesis 45:3-11, 15  
• Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40  
• 1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50  
• Luke 6:27-38

"Brothers," Sermon by Rev. Fred Kinsey
Before we take on the impossible sayings of Jesus, in Luke’s Sermon on the Plain, I’m proposing that we divert our attention away, to the story of Jacob’s son Joseph, in our First Reading, that concludes the book of Genesis, (shall we)? 
 
I mean, “…do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return…”?  “Be merciful, just as your (heavenly) Father is merciful,” as Jesus says.  You see what I mean?!  Best to find another way around, to these weighty matters.  Get some context, first.
 
And, nothing like a good Novella to take your mind off your difficulties!  The story of Jacob’s family, and his favorite child, Joseph, takes place at the tale-end of the period of the Patriarchs of Israel: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  So, this is just before Moses and the Exodus from Egypt.  Long before David and Solomon.  
 
Do you remember the Joseph story, the 11th  born, of 12 sons of Jacob?  Joseph was the first born, of Rachel, Jacob’s 2nd wife, and his true love.  Rachel was the one he had to wait 20 years to marry, because of his devious uncle Laban, who tricked him into marrying Leah, his oldest daughter, first?  All this, just to explain why Jacob loved Joseph more than all his other 12 children.  Perhaps, the favorite-child syndrome is created here, for the very first time.  In my family, it’s the youngest, William, an ‘oops’ child, an unexpected blessing, that was the favorite of my parents.
 
So, Jacob treated Joseph, his favorite, differently.  He dressed him in finer clothes, for example, which has made for some very memorable stories to this day, even theatre, like Joseph’s Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat.  All of this to say, that Joseph’s brothers had reason to be jealous of him.  And then, on top of that, Joseph was blessed with the gift of dream interpretation.  And one day he had a dream about his 11 brothers, that, a more discriminating person, may have kept to himself!  A dream about his brothers bowing down to him, as if to worship him.  And so, they hated him all the more. (Robert Alter translation: 37:8) 
 
Do you remember, then, that when Joseph’s brothers were tending their flocks, how they conspired to get rid of him, once and for all, that Dream-Master, as they called him.  ‘Let us kill him and throw him into a deep pit,’ they said.  Reuben, the oldest, tried to dissuade them from it.  So, they held off, killing him.  Instead, they strip him of his beloved beautiful coat, before flinging Joseph into the hole.  Then, they sat down and ate lunch, right there!  Can you imagine?!  Perhaps they wouldn’t kill him directly, they’d just leave him to die on his own, probably by a lion, or jackels. 
 
But then, a caravan of camel traders from the east, came by.  And Judah, the 4th son, suggested they sell him into slavery, instead of killing him.  And they got 20 pieces of silver from the traders, who brought Joseph to Egypt. 
 
But now they had to decide how to tell dear ol’ dad!  And since they still had Joseph’s coveted coat, they conspired to dip the coat in goat’s blood, to make it look like he was attacked, and that they had nothing to do with it.  Then they gave the coat to a messenger, to bring to their father Jacob, so they wouldn’t have to lie to his face. 
 
When he saw the bloody coat, Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth round his waist and mourned for his son many days. (vs. 24)  Convinced that Joseph was killed by a wild beast, Jacob refused to be consoled by his one daughter, and 11 sons, saying, “Rather I will go down to my son in Sheol mourning,” and so Jacob bewailed Joseph. 
 
Many years pass.  And Jacob grows old.  And never, is quite the same. 
 
But down in Egypt, Joseph works his way up the ladder, going “through a roller-coaster of good and bad fortunes as he rises to the highest position among his enslaver’s household, falls to the depths of false imprisonment, rises to be in charge of other prisoners, languishes in prison, and finally experiences a resurgence to new heights as an advisor—even “a father”—to Pharoah (Genesis 39–41, see also Genesis 45:8) (Justin Michael Reed). 
 
And all because of his skill at dream-interpretation, including his last and most famous one!  For while all of Pharoah’s soothsayers fail to understand his dream about the seven fat and lean cows, and the seven goodly ears of grain swallowed up by the meager ears – when Joseph is called up from prison, given a quick shave and haircut, and fresh clothes, he responds immediately! knowing it means that there will be seven years of plentiful harvests, followed by seven years of famine, when nothing will grow.  And Joseph doesn’t hesitate to set out a plan for Pharoah: store up from the plentiful years, all the crops you can, so when the famine years come, you’ll have enough for yourself, and to feed the world. 
 
Then Pharoah said: Hmmm, where can I find someone with the wisdom to carry out this plan?!  And he looked at Joseph, and right there on the spot, gave him the job.  And Joseph was put in charge of everything, being Pharoah’s right hand man for the next 14 years, and to the end of his long life.  ‘And Pharoah took off his ring from his own hand and put it on Joseph’s hand, and had him clothed in fine linen clothes, and placed the golden collar round his neck. And he had him ride in the chariot of his viceroy.’ (41.42-43)  Joseph was thirty years old, and now he was on top of the world.  Not bad! 
 
But the famine that was coming, was not only in Egypt, but stretched all the way into Israel as well.  And Jacob, his one surviving wife Leah, his one daughter, and his other 11 sons, soon had nothing to eat.  So, Jacob sent 10 of his remaining sons down to Egypt, where they had plenty of food to sell, he’d heard, to keep his family from starving. 
 
There were actually three trips down to Egypt, but long story short, our reading today is the Season Finale of our main saga! 
 
Joseph has kept his identity concealed from his brothers, on purpose, up to this point.  Testing them, to make sure that his father is still alive, and pushing them to remember how they sold him into slavery 17 years ago.  Which brings up a lot of guilty feelings.  But he can see, his brothers have grown and changed.  They are no longer proud of what they did.  And still, they have no idea, they have been in the company of their long-lost brother, Joseph.  That he is now this powerful man - their lives in his hands. 
 
And when Joseph puts all the Egyptian servants out of the room, and finally blurts out, “I am Joseph.  Is my father still alive?”  His brothers were dumbfounded, their tongues tied, so dismayed were they, at his presence. 
 
So, Joseph bid them, come closer to me.  And, no longer speaking through an interpreter, he said to them in their native Hebrew, ‘I am Joseph your brother whom you sold into Egypt.  And now, do not be pained and do not be incensed with yourselves that you sold me down here; for God sent me before you’ to preserve life.  There are still five more years of ‘famine in the heart of the land.  And God has sent me before you to make you a remnant on earth and to preserve life, (and) for you to be a great surviving group.’ (ch. 45; Robert Alter, translation)
 
And to reassure them, Joseph tells his brothers, who had betrayed him all those years ago, this theological truth: ‘so it is not you who sent me here - but God!’  ‘Hurry,’ I want you to go to my father, and bring him back here, so that all of you can live here – so that you and your household, and all that you have, will not come to poverty.  And then, Joseph ‘fell upon the neck of his brother Benjamin and he wept…  And he kissed all his brothers and wept over them.’  And finally, his brothers, having taken a breath, and gotten over their initial shock, were able to talk with Joseph, after all those years. 
 
Forgiveness and reconciliation.  Brothers, who were enemies, became, brothers, once again. 
 
It doesn’t always happen like this, does it?  Joseph had all the power, now that he was viceroy to the Pharaoh himself.  Usually, that kind of power, doesn’t lead to forgiveness and reconciliation.  How easy it would have been for Joseph to ruin the lives of his brothers.  Even in our own families and relationships, retaliation often seems, so much sweeter. 
 
Be merciful, says Jesus, just as our God is merciful.  When you lend – whether it’s money or a helping hand – expect nothing in return.  If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again.  But, love your enemies.  Do to others as you would have them do to you. 
 
And Joseph’s father came and lived in Egypt.  He was reunited with his whole family, including his lost and beloved son, Joseph.  And Jacob died a very satisfied old man at 147 years old.  His sons were reunited.  And his favorite son Joseph, loved his brothers, who once had wished him dead.  But God used them for good.  And grace and mercy, had triumphed. 
 
Let us never forget the story of Joseph.