Shining with Resplendent Light

by the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2, Exodus 34:29-35, and Luke 9:28-36, [37-43a]. Click here to listen to an audio version of this sermon.

Imagine coming to church some Sunday morning and finding everyone’s face shining. Imagine finding everyone’s eyes bright and alert, everyone’s expression open and engaging, everyone’s energy level way up here, everyone’s enthusiasm evident. Imagine walking into a church where you are greeted warmly and genuinely, not just by people you know but by people you don’t know. Imagine coming to a church where everyone participates in the service, where every reader and every choir member and every chalice bearer and every person sitting in the pew really believes that they have an important part to play in making the worship whole, and they play their parts with energy and liveliness. Imagine coming to a church which is so filled with enthusiasm that it lifts your spirits up and fills you with an energy you just didn’t have when you first walked in the door. Imagine coming to church and finding everyone’s face shining.

Can you picture that? Then listen to this: St Paul writes to the Christian congregation in Corinth in our epistle reading today: “All of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart.”

Paul’s message here is couched in an extended metaphor which is a little complex, maybe even a bit arcane — but I think Paul is basically describing the same quality of church we’ve been imagining together. Paul’s imagery of “unveiled faces” in "glory" is a deliberate echo of two other stories in scripture — and fortunately for us we have those two stories as our First Testament and Gospel readings today. So we can unpack Paul’s symbolism, we can learn more about what he’s trying to say about the church, if we touch base with those other two readings.

The first reading, from Exodus, tells how Moses came down from the mountain after talking with God, and the skin of his face was shining. Moses had been in God’s presence, so he was radiant — literally radiating — with divine energy. Aaron and the other Israelites were a little freaked out by this, so they asked Moses to cover up his face, to wear a veil, so the divine energy in him would not overwhelm them. Being that close to God, they felt, was a little too much for ordinary humans to handle. But Moses would take the veil off every time he went to talk to God, every time he went up the mountain or every time he went in to the tent of meeting, Moses would take the veil off and be fully present to God, so that his face, his whole being, would be filled and radiant with divine energy. The light in Moses’ face was the sign of God with him.

Likewise, in the Gospel story, Jesus goes up on the mountain with Peter and James and John, and while Jesus is praying, while Jesus is talking with God, his appearance is changed, he is transfigured, his face, even his clothing, begin to shine with heavenly light, he reveals to his disciples the divine energy that is in and under and through all his human being. Peter and James and John are a little freaked out by this — but they don’t turn away. They witness Jesus’ manifestation of glory, and Peter says it is good for them to be there, even if he’s not entirely sure what’s going on. In his transfiguration Jesus reveals divine energy. The light in Jesus’ face is the sign of God with him.

Now Paul takes those stories about Moses and about Jesus, and Paul uses them to say something about the church. Paul says that when we Christians gather together, we can shine with the same divine energy that was reflected in Moses, we can shine with the same divine energy that was revealed in Jesus. And that energy is something we don’t have to be afraid of. Unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face, unlike Peter and James and John, who were terrified as they entered the brightness, we don’t have to cover up that light, we don’t have to try to restrain that energy. We, Paul says, can face each other with “unveiled faces,” we can let the light of Christ be reflected in us and shine forth for each other and all the world to see. We can let our energy level rise up to here, because we know that energy, that enthusiasm, is the sign of God with us.

That’s what Paul says about the church. But as moved as I am by what Paul says about the church, I have to pause here for a moment over what Paul says about the synagogue. Paul says that when the people of Israel, when Jews, read the Books of Moses today, a veil lies over their minds and their hearts are hardened. Paul implies that Jews don’t understand their own scriptures unless they see in them the promise of Christ. In Paul’s day and age, when there was a lot of tension between church and synagogue, when Christians had to work hard to explain why they were different from Jews, that may have made some sense. But we today recognize that Christians and Jews have much in common, and we want to work together for biblical ideals of justice and peace in the world. I, for one, would hardly want to go to our friends at Temple House of Israel and tell them they don’t understand their scriptures because they don’t read them the same way we do. If Paul’s words are taken out of context here, they could become an excuse for anti-Judaism, and I don’t think any of us want to interpret them that way. So we need to do our best to move that over to one side, and see what positive thing Paul is saying about Moses and the church.

And I think the positive thing is this: that the divine energy which was reflected in Moses is the same as the divine energy which shone forth from Jesus — and it is that same divine energy that can be revealed now in us. When we come together as church, we can be enthusiastic, because there is divine energy inspiring and encouraging and enthusing us. Paul’s imagery of us meeting with unveiled faces, and our imagination of a church were everyone’s face is shining, where everyone is filled with energy and joy — those images are one and the same, because it is the same light of Christ that radiates from us all.

So how do we catch that energy? How do we generate that enthusiasm? Our scripture readings this morning give us an answer: that energy comes from prayer. Prayer. You know, we usually think of prayer as something very quiet, very private, very inward — we often think of prayer as the opposite of energy. But the scriptures this morning make it very clear: Moses comes alight when he goes in to speak with God — that’s prayer. Jesus comes alight when he goes up on the mountain to pray. We come alight when the Lord, the Spirit, comes into us and transforms us from one degree of glory to the next — and that is what happens in deep and genuine prayer. It is prayer that releases divine energy into our lives, so that we can pour that energy into welcoming hospitality, into compassionate pastoral care, into social transformation of our community, into living joyful lives, into practicing the ways of faith that make us the people of God for the world, into gathering on Sunday morning for the kind of worship that can make everyone’s face shine. All of those things we do to be a vibrant, vital, welcoming, enthusiastic, growing church — all of those things begin with prayer, begin with opening up our spirits so that the Lord, the Spirit, can remove the veil from us and set us free.

So how do you pray? What do you do to open your spirit so the Holy Spirit can energize you? Some of us read the Bible daily, and ponder each day what that scripture passage says directly to us. Some of us use prayers from the Prayer Book, whose poetic language lifts us up out of ourselves and helps us feel the presence of God.  Some of us imagine having conversations with Jesus, just talking about whatever is in our hearts, opening up to Jesus so that Jesus can dwell in us. Some of us pray without words, feeling the Spirit move in our breath, seeing the light of Christ shining in each other and in ourselves. Some of us pray with all of the above. But no matter what style of prayer we use, the point of prayer is this: that in praying we come into the presence of God, so that God can transform our hearts, and God can empower our lives, and God can fill us with divine energy, so that we can radiate God’s love to the world.

Imagine coming to church some Sunday and seeing everyone’s face shining. We can be that church. We can shine with Christ’s light. We can pray. And we can live out our prayers together. Amen.