Sunday’s Thoughts

We are at a transition. Last Sunday, Feb. 4, God’s Garden children completed a banner and hung it on the altar. It is a transition from Epiphany to Lent with a banner first and then a change in the colors on the altar.

So to the trip to the mountain on Feb. 11, the Transfiguration is one too with the individuals involved in the world but at the same time separated. That’s the way it is sometimes going through changes.

Here is a piece that marks the transition- “Transfiguration, Beauty and Biblical Interpretation” by Zoltán Dörnyei

“We come to the Transfiguration at a critical point within salvation history: just a week earlier Peter had declared on behalf of the disciples that Jesus was ―the Messiah, the Son of the living God‖ (Matt 16:16), and from that point onwards Jesus started to talk about his orthcoming suffering, death and resurrection. His teaching also included the warning that if anybody wanted to follow him, they had to ―deny themselves and take up their cross‖ (Matt 16:24) as well as a declaration about his second coming ―in the glory of his Father‖ (Matt 16:27). The preparation stage was now over and the final, climactic phase of Jesus‘ earthly life – involving the last journey to Jerusalem and the Passion – was about to begin. The Transfiguration therefore marks a watershed in Jesus‘ ministry; in Michael Ramsey‘s words, it represents a ―height from which the reader looks down on one side upon the Galilean ministry and on the other side upon the Via Crucis.”

The Sermon from Tom Hughes spoke of a transition and where we should be going. “The whole idea is that in Christ we’re always becoming called to things as they were not before becoming a new person. ” On the Transfiguration, ““…He was transfigured. He became fully the person he was created to be.” Unlike Jesus we are not there.

Moving forward, Forward Movement for Feb. 14 includes this phrase – “Ash Wednesday is my favorite holy day because I am reminded that in the nothingness of dust, in God’s value of the inverse of our earthly values. I am filled with the wonder of creation and the reality of the unfailing and unconditional love of God. ” We are still finding that wonder, filling in the spaces, investigating the possibilities and becoming the people we are meant to be. There’s energy in that!

One of the possibilities is continuing our work supporting the larger community. The congregations responded on Sunday for our two outreach projects- 1. The SouperBowl 2. Supporting the Discretionary fund.

The SouperBowl collected 41 cans of food and 33 cards donated plus $75 in monetary donations. This is above last year’s 25 cans. The Disctionary Fund. A total of $270 was collected Feb 11, 2024. “In January, $850 of our discretionary fund helped 9 families with internet access, rent, and electricity.”

Another possibility is continuing to develop our youngest children in God’s Garden. Last week we spotlighted the creation of the Alleluia Banner. This week they added art work to a box and during the last hymn, took the Banner, placed it in the box and hid it away for Lent. They see this transition in life to the beauty that will eventually blossom at Easter.

There is a lot yet to be done

This week is unique in how it unfolds. The message from the Gospel shows Christ during a typical day as healer to Peter’s mother, casting out demons in the community and creating wholeness during his preaching.

But he found time for renewal – “In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.” In Isaiah, “From Isaiah “but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

This is an important lesson for all of us in our time. The Washington Post reported in April 2022.”Unlike every other industrialized nation, the United States has no mandatory paid vacation or holiday leave. Workers who have paid leave often don’t take it. And even when we take leave, many of us can’t leave work behind. The technology that lets us work anywhere, anytime, makes it hard to disconnect even when we’re supposed to.”

Taken as a whole, last week’s Epiphany 4 prefigures Epiphany’s major themes — healing, restoration, and hope. We continue them this week (Epiphany 5) that will define the heart of Jesus’ mission.

Healing  – The passage pivots around four key verbs:  (“to come near”),  (“to take hold”),  (“to waken, to raise”) and  (“to serve, to minister”). The first two verbs go together: Jesus “comes near” Peter’s mother-in-law, close enough to “take hold” of her hand. Throughout the Gospel, Mark distinctively emphasizes the power of touch, including the idea (as we’ll see in the weeks ahead) that Jesus is unafraid to touch and be touched by the supposedly “unclean.”

Restoration – Having taken her hand, Jesus “raises her up.” The same word (egeiro) is used of Jesus himself at the resurrection — it’s there in the famous line, “He has been raised; he is not here” (Mark 16:6) — and so the term evokes a renewed strength, a reinvigoration, a reawakening, a restoration, a return. She is awakened – restored.

Illness not only debilitates the body but it also can cut a person off from his or her social life and contributions to community — and this can feel like a loss of dignity or purpose.

Hospitality was highly prized in the ancient world, and for early Christians, to be hospitable in a way that advanced the Jesus movement was both an art and an honor. in this way, for Mark, the healing in this story is not only a matter of a fever departing; it’s also a matter of restoration to community, and of participation in the movement. This social dimension of healing is a key theme to which Mark will return again and again.

Hope – And while the episode with the possessed man in Epiphany 4 provides a sense of what this liberation is “freedom from,” this week’s story points toward what it is “freedom for.”

What is she renewed for? For diakonos, “ministry, service,” the same root that gives us the word “deacon” (she is the original deacon!). What’s more, the word diakonos literally means “to kick up dust” — this is an active, practical, on-the-move, change-the-world sort of work. In short, she is lifted up to serve. She is freed for ministry, to kick up some dust and get some things done. She is the pioneer who blazes the trail for the anonymous woman who causes a little dust-up near the end of Mark’s Gospel by anointing Jesus (“what she has done will be told in remembrance of her,” Mark 14:3-9), and also for the group of women at the crucifixion who stay and keep watch and remain with the vandalized body, even as the male disciples panic and flee (see Mark 15:40-41; the Greek word translated as “provided for” is diakoneo).