A Reflection and Poem for Last Sunday of Epiphany Thomas E Wilson Guest Presider
All Saints Episcopal Church, Southern Shores, NC February 19, 2023
Exodus 24:12-18 2 Peter 1:16-21 Matthew 17:1-9 Psalm 99
Walking In Firelight
The 1st Letter written by Peter was probably not written by Peter but other wise it is well named because it reflects the living Spirit of Peter. It could have written anywhere between 81 to 250 AD. Someone is passing on an event which reportedly happened to Peter. It was written down in the kind of Greek, which is hard to think an illiterate Galilean peasant fisherman would know how to write and understand.
The translation for today's reading contains the words “cleverly devised myths” as the translation from the Greek “sophizo mythos” I would prefer the translations that translate it as “devised fables” or “contrived fictions”. Again we go to the idea of Peter's authorship; “sophizo mythos: would not be in his natural vocabulary – I'd expect him to say something like “damn lies”.
Scripture is never meant to be reduced to literal language, but speaks in poetic truth, understanding that we are not in Kansas anymore.
Myths are important; they are stories about the interactions between humans and the divinity, or within the divinity. C.G. Jung writes “Myth is not a fiction: it consists of facts that are continually repeated and can be observed over and over again.”
In my spare time, I read mysteries. I love trying to figure out who, how and why something happens in these fictions. Myths are mysteries, but we don't know how it happens; there are no nice clean answers in solving the puzzles of why and we have to get used to not having nice clean solutions. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel observed
Reverence is one of man’s (sic) answers to the presence of the mystery. This is why, in contradistinction to other emotions, it does not rush to be spoken. When we stand in awe, our lips do not demand speech; we know that if we spoke, we would deprave ourselves. In such moments talk is an abomination. All we want is to pause, to be still, that the moment may last. It is like listening to great music; how it reaps the yield from the fertile soil of stillness; we are swept by it without being able to appraise it.
In the Hebrew Testament lesson, in the Epistle and in the Gospel Passage there are poetic descriptions of what happens when someone comes into an encounter with the Divine Spirit, usually having to do with symbols of light or fire. During the time of Worship of the Temple in Jerusalem it was commanded that there would always be a fire burning as a sign of God's presence. Later Jewish Rabbis called it a “Shekhinah”, a dwelling of Holy Fire, in and between people in their encounter with the Divine.
After the Temple was destroyed, Rabbis listed ways that the Shekhinah could be experienced:
“While a person (or people) study Torah,”
"Whenever ten are gathered for prayer, there the Shekhinah rests."
"When three sit as judges, the Shekhinah is with them."
Cases of personal need: "The Shekhinah dwells over the headside of the sick man's bed", "Wheresoever they were exiled, the Shekhinah went with them."
A man and woman -” if they merit, the Shekhinah is between them. If not, fire consumes them."According to one interpretation of this source, the Shekhinah is the highest of six types of holy fire. When a married couple is worthy of this manifestation, all other types of fire are consumed by it.”
In the Exodus passage, Moses enters into a “Devouring fire” and later the story will be told that Moses had to wear a “Veil” over his face because he had been transformed by the fiery encounter with God. Earlier in Exodus, Earlier in his calling, Moses has the encounter with the fire that does not consume; the Burning Bush.
The Gospel story continues the image of a transfiguring. What should have been a moment of reverence, Peter undermines when he proposes making a quick buck of fame and fortune by creating a tourist attraction. The proposal was immediately rejected by the voice from the cloud of light telling Peter to just shut up and listen to the silence. Interestingly enough, the Church that Peter was supposed to have founded, was just like Peter and they built churches on top of Mount Tabor, which I have visited, the supposed site where Peter was told to shut up and listen.
This is the last week of Epiphany, the season of the light in the darkness of winter. Some years ago, this church was gracious in allowing Pat and I to take a sabbatical by going in Epiphany season to France to study how artists throughout the years in the South of France dealt with light. Almost every time our initial response to the work of each artist was reverent silence. Dali, Picasso, Braque, Van Gogh, Gaugain, Matisse, Cezanne, Chagall, Cocteau, Toulouse Lautrec, Monet and Renoir kept going back to create in silence an epiphany of vision, and we responded in awe and silence. Later on, almost every day, since there were an bunch of ordained types taking a sabbatical together, we would gather to do an act of worship of prayer or Holy Communion, where we would put our experience in the context of worship. Later on, over dinner we would marvel at the food and then we would share our experiences in the light of creation.
There is a Hillside in Provence that Cezanne painted over and over again, because he kept seeing it in different lights and seasons. The more he looked in reverence, the more depth he saw.
This is the last Sunday of Epiphany and Lent begins on Wednesday; I suggest to you that maybe you take this Lenten Journey by getting up early each day and catch the early morning light and enter into prayer of awe in silence.
If you get a chance. take a moment of awe filled silence at Sunset.
Theoretical Physicist, Brian Greene, who has no use for religious doctrine, observed “I have long thought that anyone who does not regularly gaze up and see the wonder and glory of a dark night sky filled with countless stars loses a sense of their fundamental connectedness to the universe."
Here on the Outer Banks, if you get a chance, walk in your neighborhood and beyond, delight in how the light glimmers through the trees on the sound side, or on the waves on the ocean side, or in your neighbor's face wherever they may be met.
Be in reverence with the person you live with or your neighbor, for the light and fire can dwell with them. Remember the fire of God's love, the Shekhinah, can consume the fires of resentment, the fires of envy, and the fires of hatred; if you allow it to do so.
If you look deep enough in the light, it may be that you might hear God say in your heart: “You are my Child, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased; listen to the light!”
Walking In Firelight
That Fire shines on them walking,
and talking or smiling or crying,
as I'm seeing them when I'm trying
to listen when God's to me talking.
The Holy is constantly urging me
to pay attention and to put aside
all the excuses I've used as guide;
to see them as they're created to be.
Although, I am not all glad to hear it,
the truth is that God's light's shining,
on them, out of their limits climbing
as containers of the one living Spirit.
I need to set all my reservations free
to see 'em as Saints they're free to be.
