6 Practices - Week 6: Connecting

Exodus 34:29-35

2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2

We’ll finish our sermon series on 6 Practices to Move You Forward today.  The last practice we’ll consider is the practice of connecting – connecting with others as the primary way we live our lives with God.

Today is Transfiguration Sunday, the final Sunday in the season of Epiphany.  Transfiguration Sunday is the hinge that swings us from Epiphany into the season of Lent.   During Epiphany we dwell on God’s light.  In Jesus Christ, this light shines for all to see.  This light shines when the angels appear to shepherds.  It draws wise men from the East.  When Peter, James, and John went up a mountain with Jesus to pray, Jesus was “transfigured.”  His face and his clothes became radiant, glowing, glorious. 

 

The readings today alert us to the importance of faces and conversations.  There is Moses facing God on Mount Sinai, and Moses facing the Israelites when he comes down the mountain.  There is the radiant, transfigured face of Jesus and the astonished faces of Peter, James, and John.  And now – following Paul’s image – we all live with unveiled faces, facing one another, living in the freedom that comes from God’s Spirit.

What seems to connect the two stories we read is the dynamic interplay of being with God and being with others.  We cannot face God without facing others.  Nor can we face others without facing God.  We find God by connecting with others.  And others will find God by connecting with us.

The reading from Exodus concerns the way Moses would veil his face when he faced the Israelites.  God had delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt.  And leading them through the wilderness, God graciously provided for the people a form for life, a guiding set of expectations, a wise way of living – called the “Law” or the “Ten Commandments.”  Moses broke the first tablet when he came down the mountain and saw the people dancing around a golden calf they’d made.  So up the mountain he goes again.  Luckily God had stored a copy on the hard drive.  And down comes Moses again.

Moses didn’t know it.  But his face was glowing, glorious.  The people were afraid.  And no wonder!  God is holy.  The mountain where God met Moses was holy.  Not a single person and not a single animal was allowed on the mountain when God met Moses.  You don’t play around with this God.  And so here comes Moses with another download of the commandments, and his face is on fire.  When he learns that this frightens others, he cares for them by covering his face.  Yes, God is holy, but Moses does not want the people to live in fear.  And so he veils his face, so they can face the God who loves them.  It is a strange story.  But really a lovely story – a symbol of God’s gracious way of appearing to us in forms that we can handle.

In 2 Corinthians, the apostle Paul is in an argument with the Corinthian congregation.  There are some in the congregation who have accused Paul of being a lightweight.  Why listen to his version of the gospel?  There are rival teachers who worry that Paul has downplayed the importance of Jewish rituals and Jewish stories. 

And so in response, Paul argues that Jesus is better than Moses.  Now let’s keep in mind, Paul was a Jew arguing with other Jews about the significance of Jesus.  So it would be irresponsible for us to use these same arguments to diminish Jewish faith.  In the midst of the argument, Paul offers an interpretation of the Exodus story about Moses’ veil.  Now the interpretation Paul offers isn’t found in the story itself.  Paul argues that Moses used the veil to cover his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing that the radiance of his face was fading.  Paul wasn’t concerned with Moses’ face.  He’s arguing about the old covenant, the Law given to Moses.  That was good for the time.  But only for a time.  And in Jesus, that time is past.  Something new is here, a glory that will not fade.

More interesting yet, Paul shifts the focus from Moses’ face to our faces.  We all, with “unveiled faces,” reflect the glory of God as we are “transformed” into God’s image with ever increasing glory.  There is a radiance in our faces that images the radiance of the transfigured Jesus.  And there is no reason to veil or hide it.  It will not blind others.  It is not overwhelming.  It is instead a radiance that transfigures us slowly and over time, as we face one another.

Your life has the shape it has because of the people with whom you’re connected.  You are the person you are because of the many ways you’re connected to others.

Some of the most important connections happen early in life.  Over these connections we have no control or choice.  The families that give us birth and raise us are built in features of life.  As we grow older, we gain the freedom to form our own friendships.  We are drawn to some people rather than others.  We associate with people who have similar interests.  And eventually, some of us decide to commit ourselves especially to one other person.  These are life-shaping, life-defining connections. 

Of course there need not be anything particularly Christian about connecting with other people.  It’s part of every human life in every culture.  But picking out the practice of “connecting” names a specific and faithful approach to our relationships: we practice faithful connecting when we recognize our ordinary relationships as the primary way we find God, the fundamental way we love and serve God.  Or to put it a little differently, we see the face of God in the face of others.

If you find it profitable to find a silent place alone with God to pray and be still and read Scripture, that is not uncommon.  But remember that you need not be alone and quiet to be with God.  You don’t have to be a desert monk on silent retreat to be close with God.  You can find and love God in the hurly burly zig and zag of life and work and kids and errands and conversation and even social media.  And if you don’t like being quiet and alone, perhaps this is an area of weakness.  You probably do need to learn to be still and listen to your heart.  But you are not a second-class Christian, lagging behind those who like the quiet.  You are just a person who is wired to find God primarily in faces and conversations.  Your challenge will be to remember that your day is filled with God.  God is with you in every other face.  God speaks in every little conversation.

Now why is the practice of connecting with others so important?  Because you are the face of God.  Your face is the radiant, transfigured face of Jesus Christ.  It glows with a light that others can handle.  No one can handle the directness of God’s harsh and holy light.  But everyone can bear the light that shines in your face and life.  Remember, Moses did not know his face was shining.  And neither do most of you.  You imagine your face as dull, as if it had a veil covering it.  But God’s light shines in you in a way that makes the gentle and gracious God available to others.  Your smile can heal.  Your kind words can fix the world.  Your presence can sustain those in trouble.  You do not need to DO anything in particular.  Just be yourself, as the unveiled, radiant presence of the risen Christ.

But it is also true that God will be present for you primarily in the faces of others.  The risen Christ – radiantly glorious – will be near you through the gentle glow of others.   Maybe through parents and siblings.  Maybe through friends.  Maybe through a spouse.  Maybe through someone who was in your life only briefly.  Maybe through someone you worship and work with here in the congregation.  This is hard, but also true, maybe in the face of your enemies. 

Polls show that younger generations are less likely to value institutional religion.  There are many voices predicting that church life will look very different in the next ten or twenty years.  I think they’re right.  Many of the programs and customs of church life that aren’t at the white-hot center of what people hunger for will fade away.  What will remain are communities that find God primarily in one another’s faces.

What will endure are congregations that provide spaces for friendships and conversation.  What will remain will be congregations that foster connections between people who are “bold” enough and “free” enough to tell their stories.  There will always be a need for places where we can be honest and authentic.  Where we can drop the charades and the illusions that trap us.  These will be places of storytelling and testimony.  They will be places that work harder at listening for good questions than they do worrying about providing all the right answers.

It will be a place where we all, with unveiled faces, cheer for one another as we are all transformed, bit by bit, gently over time, into the radiance of God’s love.