Rosedale United Church

‘ All In The Family ‘ February 19, 2012

Rosedale United Church

(2 KIngs 2 : 1-12 , Mark 9: 2-9) Doug Norris

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I am eagerly curious to see what the next church will look like. There is some next version on its way, a next iteration of what a gathered christian community looks like for the citizens of the next generations, some next version of what people will do and say and sing as they gather in the name of God, and in spiritual community. And I am eagerly curious about it.

On a good day I think that maybe I will see it, that it is forming even now, maybe even that I will get to be part of it in some way. On other days I understand that I am, as we all are, very much a product of my own time, and that I belong in this older kind of church. Like Moses in his day on Mt Nebo, looking over the Promised Land, maybe I’ll get to see it off in the distance, but it will be others who cross the Jordan and build the new way.

In our strategic discussions over the past years we have talked about trying to have a foot in both worlds, keeping a solid platform here of all the old ways, while also building some new and experimental ideas about church, alongside. So we are trying things. Peering into the mists.

In one of our advertising flyers from a couple of years ago we said ‘This is not just your Granny’s Church any more !” But really it still is – my grandmother would recognize and understand pretty much everything we’re doing.

So let me put this out there as a starting point today – something is coming, always, as our hymn says, ‘this ancient rolls on’, and takes new forms, and this is magnificent. I can’t wait for our children and grandchildren to see it and be lifted by a spiritual movement that reaches them, gives them hope.

The readings for today have taken a bit of time to sort out.

Here’s what I think we have : it is a lineup of the big hitters – Moses, Elijah, Jesus, Peter, John, James. If we were to have a test (which, being the United Church, we will never have) these names would be on the test. Extra points if you can name their mother or sister.

You may have heard about the trading cards developed by the Roman Catholic Church some years back, HolyTraders. Like baseball cards or hockey cards, though they do not come with bubblegum. Images and stories of the saints of the Church. These six would be the core of the collection. If we know something about them we know about the core of our tradition, our teachings.

As a sidebar, I read of a further ‘trading card’ within the Church – a venture set up by a few moms who are part of a group called ‘Catholic Motherhood’, and who have, among the 4 of them 27 children, including 17 boys, some of whom they are hoping will find a calling to the priesthood. So they have developed a line of trading cards which feature priests as role models.

So we have, in the first reading, Elijah coming to the end of his work and being taken up to the sky in a chariot of fire, and the hope of his disciple Elisha that he will become the successor, that he will have the ‘double share’ of Elijah’s spirit.

And then in the gospel we have the very magical story of the Transfiguration of Jesus, with his disciples Peter James and John going with him up to a high mountain, and in a glowing cloud Moses and Elijah appear, and a heavenly voice says – presumably pointing to Jesus – ‘this is my beloved son, listen to him!’.

I never know quite what to make of these things. These are the spooky supernatural stories that make us easy to lampoon, so people like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins can point to this and say ‘flaming chariots in the sky? glowing clouds and heavenly voices? Gimme a break…‘ So we have to go back over the whole notion of literature as metaphor, myth as a true thing which may not be factual.

But here’s what I find, for today : this is about who inherits what. Which means, not who gets what, but who picks up the torch? Who will be keeping the great dream of God going ?

What we have in these passages is a lineup, a rough chronology, an arc of people – Moses who led the original Arab Spring and brought the Hebrews out of slavery and Elijah who, once they were established and comfortable saw that they had become corrupted by power and called them back, and Jesus who, once his people were again under the heavy foot of another empire offered a way out that came from an inner change, a revolution of love in the heart, and then, in Peter James and John, we have the Church, which would be the vessel for this whole story, and so, the arc ends with us.

Every point in the arc is connected, and each has it’s own thing to do. We are with them, but we are not them. Always a new thing to do.

Elijah would not have been there if not for Moses, but he had other fish to fry. And Jesus would not have been there but for Moses and Elijah, but he had things to do they would not have known about. And Peter James and John, who stand for the Church, would not have been there but for Jesus, but each of them had their own directions to work through.

Peter, the most prominent of the apostles, went on to lead one of the early churches, in Antioch, before ending up leading the Church in Rome, in effect, the first Pope. He is executed there by the Emperor Nero.

John is one of the few apostles to live long and prosper. The oldest traditions suggest that he wrote the gospel that bears his name, three New testament letters, and the Book of Revelation, but scholars now doubt this.

James did not last long – he was killed by Herod in Jerusalem. Jesus had nicknamed these brothers the ‘Sons of Thunder’, because they were hotheaded and loud, and this likely got James noticed, and targeted. After his death, however, he went on to great things, with his relics, his mortal remains, being taken to other lands, and, most notably, ending up as the patron saint of Spain, and the object of what has become the most notable of the pilgrimages, the Santiago de Compostela, the ‘Way of St James’.

These are the people who have left us the heritage, for better or worse. Their barely believable stories, their deep holiness, their flame and their foibles. You don’t always want the things you inherit. Good looks get passed from generation to generation, but so do hairy backs and crooked teeth.

We have inherited a magnificent tradition. And fortunately part of the tradition we have inherited says that we will find our own way into the next version of the Church. At the heart of it there is a holy fire that burns, an ancient love rolling on, but we need to peer now into the corners of our own worlds, over and over, to find what it will look like. Where, now, are the neighbours who will have a claim on our compassion? Where, now, are the evils that will call for our courageous proclamation of another way? Where, now, are the great loves we will recognize in a flash as coming from the heart of the Holy One?

So we take our place in the line, with acts of mercy and courage to face down evils and love to overcome hate, and the Great Voice echoes – You are my Beloved… And we echo back, as we sing : Your hand, O God, has guided…