There are days…

There are days when I’d like to say MLC “listen to me!” 

Or a voice from heaven would say “Listen to  - him.”
There are days when I wish I could give MLC a new building… They say be careful what you wish for.

There are days when I want God to restore my good fortune..

The scriptures today are like a window, which give us a glimpse into another time and place where  prophets could part the waters just by taking off their mantel and striking the water…

A time when the patriarchs of the Bible could come back and have conversations with you.

But these passages also are windows into our time and pace here today; here at MLC in Cape May NJ.

Last year about this time several of us attended a retreat at Harvey Ceadars that was called a Transformational Ministry Event.

The expense of that event was paid for by the NJ Synod and in part by those who attended. .

The purpose of the retreat was a training session,

so those who attended could come back and have all of you go through a similar transformational event…

so that as a congregation we could come up with a mission or purpose statement…

a short concise definition of who we are.

Which then becomes the basis of everything we do.

So –  we went… The Bacons the Joann Ireland, Mary Romano and the Feges..

We came back

We invited the rest of  you… but no one came…

Now Joann Ireland has taken up the cause –

or to us the OT metaphor “ I have handed over my

Mantel” to Elisha..

I can understand why you are so reluctant!  Transformational ministry –

Trans formation..

Transfiguration …

Is  about Changed Lives –

Changed lives produces a changed congregation – Changed congregations

produce changed communities – and so on..

But if the truth be known, we find it hard to imagine a new world a coming….

Imagine by John Lynnan

Made him a million because the tune and the lyrics speak of an idllic time and place… where there is no fear, no war no poverty and a sister and brotherhood of all….

A world that transcends our ordinary every day urban existence..

But the truth is we resist tooth and nail the vision  of a new “Haven and a New Earth..”

Just let us keep things the way they are… the old Hymnal –

if you are RC the Latin pre- Vatican II liturgy and if you are Baptist the KJ version  of the Bible..

Resistance to transformation goes hand in hand with Transfiguration!

The Pulitzer Prize winning writer Anne Dillard captures the poverty of our imaginations and our resistance to change when she describes us church folk as:

            “ Cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour   of the Absolute… the tourists are having coffee   and cookies on Deck “C” presumably someone    is watching the ship… the Wind seems be             picking up…..”

Next Sunday we will vote on whether to borrow $4000.00 from the first Bank of Sea Isle ..

The MIF of the ELCA turned us down because we could not convince them that we have enough growth to keep our ministry going to both build and pay the preacher…

They don’t know us, so we can forgive them for that slight error in judgment..

First Bank of Sea Isle knows us better.

The wind seems to be picking up…

It will be a leap of faith to build in an economy that has rattled Wall St.

Or better put it will be a proclamation of faith to build in an economy that has us all tightening our belts.. Can we pull it off?

Yes…. If we have a transformation.. of ministry.

A transformation where the Easter Gospel of Resurrection –

Where the glory of God is not so much revealed to the people as through the people…

Imagine what would happen if these two little prepositions where reversed and not TO the people but IN the people (meaning in us), where to happen?

If the Glory if God where revealed in our community in us.. and through us? Then we would indeed have a transformational ministry…

Are we a congregation that is ready to move from “We have never done it that way before… or “that is not Lutheran.”

Are we a congregation that has-been too the mountain of transfiguration and there have been transformed by the Power of God …?

Peter was ready to begin a building program right there on the spot.. “let us build three dwellings one for Jesus one for Moses and one for Elijah”

He did not know what to say because he was terrified… when we are terrified we sometimes do dumb things.

God bailed him out because, in the next sentence we are told that a cloud overshadowed them..

Enfolded them like a sudden fog off the ocean and in

a voice out of the mist… told Peter and the others what they needed to do was to listen to Jesus!

That was it… as quickly has it came it went… what ever the it was.. Suddenly  when they looked around they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.

The Jesus told them to keep mum.. to keep quite until

“the AFTER son of man had risen from the dead”

That was then – but it seems as Lutherans we are still pre-resurrection!

We are do a great job at “telling no one what we have seen…”

Of course it could be that we haven’t seen anything and there is nothing to tell!

As I said,  I know that if we have something to tell and we build – they will come! They come not because we have a building…

As Peter, James and John learned rather abruptly – Epiphany moments cannot be encapsulated – but it takes an Epiphany to transform us from a “stay at home home congregation” to a “let’s go out and tell’m congregation..”

From a stagnant people to people a-fire with the love of Jesus..

If we let the power of the Gospel transform us ..

If we let the Transfiguration – reshape us and our imaginations so we are less nonchalant about our message and commission to be the church.

To quote Annie Dillard again:

Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blitly invoke?

Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness when ladies wear straw hats and velvet hats to church. We should all be wearing crash helmets. Usher should be issuing personal flotation devices and signal flares.. they should lash us to the pews.”

Today marks the end of the liturgical Season of  Epiphany.. It started with Christmas when God revealed himself to Shepherds and the Wise Men in the nativity of Bethlehem..

In one week we move from Chapter one in Marks Gospel where the power of Jesus was seen in the healing of Lepers and psychotics to  Chapter 9.

There are only 7 Chapters left..before the end.

The question course is - have you experienced the Glory of God in your life?

That is the question.. that is the question if this or any congregation will continue to exist..

or if indeed you and I will continue to exist..

As we move into the next season of the church called Lent.. I ask that you not so much think about giving up something but rather adding something..

So that the Glory of the Lord may be revealed to others, through you…

I ask that you make weekly worship a priority..

We have two opportunities..

And that you add the Wednesday’s of Lent..

Of course to do that you may have to let go of something…

Before we can build dwellings.. We need to go back down the mountain with Jesus and experience him in our daily conversations with others so that we do build we will have a reason to invite..

                                                Annie Dillard, “Teaching a Stone To Talk” (N.Y.Haper) 58.