Date: March 6, 2011
Liturgical Sunday: Transfiguration Sunday
RCL Scripture: Psalm 2; Exodus 24:12-18; 2 Peter 1:16-21; Matthew 17:1-9
Sermon Title: Let’s look different!
Knox Presbyterian [audio:https://wordsfromthemiddle.ca/wp-content/uploads/110306_-_Knox.mp3|titles=Let’s look different!]
St. Mark’s Presbyterian [audio:https://wordsfromthemiddle.ca/wp-content/uploads/110306_-_St_Marks.mp3|titles=Let’s look different!]
This Sunday is the last Sunday before Lent begins. We look at the Transfiguration of Jesus as reported in the Gospel according to St. Matthew with the other texts discussing Moses and Peter’s memory of the Transfiguration.
This is another of the high holy days in the Church year that I didn’t grow up with nor was it really discussed in my formal pastoral training. However, I think that is actually an advantage to me in this case. It is all too easy to just fall back on “received wisdom” or the (hopefully) comforting memories of your youth and childhood when you are preaching about things you feel like you have always known; not a option this Sunday.
The sermons, which while superficially similar, have some different ways for us to think of what the Transfiguration could mean for us. I am especially interested in what any of the preachers out there (and you know who you are and there is no hiding because I am going to email you directly in a few minutes) think of this way of treating a, sometimes, problematic text/Sunday.
I know that I mentioned that I would be doing some non-Sunday, non-sermon posting about spirituality or something like that and I am sorry there is nothing of this sort up yet. I am in the middle of writing a post that is more about the mechanics of preaching than anything else and I hope it is up in a day or two and that it is of interest.
Blessings,
Barry
PS If you find yourself thinking that there is something different and perhaps even peculiar about the sound quality in the St. Mark’s sermon I have no explanation other than looking out and seeing several folks who are a bit hard of hearing, especially my Aunt Eloise, and working a bit harder to be heard even with a lapel microphone. I also moved the MP3 player that I use for recording both sermons to a different part of the pulpit and I think that my booming (haha haha haha) voice may have maxed it out. I did what I could to clean the sound up but I am not a sound tech in any sense of the word. If it is problematic, please let me know and I will see what I can do. If you are a sound tech and have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.
I was struck by the statement that the mountain smoked in response to the glory of God. I must admit to thinking that the smoke was a bit of pyrotechnic hoopla to impress the yokels, rather than the very earth suffering in the brokenness of sin shuddering in awe at the holiness of God Almighty.
It made me think how rarely, no wait, never, have I experienced such an encounter with God. Which led me to the realization that my god fits easily into digital devices and small slivers of my attention almost certainly because it is one of my own creation. It certainly doesn’t ever make anything smoke under the intensity of its presence.