single persons, people
of all races and families
of every kind.
Sunday
Service:
Holy Eucharist
at 9:30 am
Child care is available
Church of Our
Saviour
191 Flanagan Way (Rt 153) Secaucus, NJ 07094
Tel: 201-863-1449
Fax: 201-863-1474
Mark A. Lewis,
Vicar
MLewis@secaucus.org
Dorothy Fowlkes
Pastoral Associate
This page revised 6
Aug 00
http://www.secaucus.org/
oursaviour
The Church of
Our Saviour
in the Town of Secaucus, New Jersey
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The
Transfiguration of Moses, of Jesus ...and of you!
Reflections on the
lessons for the Feast of the Transfiguration
By The Rev. Mark A. Lewis, Vicar
Exodus 34:29-35 / Psalm 99:5-9
2 Peter 1:13-21 / Luke
9:28-36
The scene in today's gospel -- where Peter and the others see Jesus in a dramatically new way -- seems particularly real to me since lately I am not only seeing but also hearing the world around me in a whole new way.
For two weeks recently I was on Cape Cod, between salt marsh and bay, on a one lane road of sand, with few visitors, nearly no TV or radio -- or even conversation. Mostly hours of quiet reading.
It's not for everybody, but it was great for me.
But now that I'm back, Hudson County seems transfigured. Every car seems to be tailgating me. People seem to be shouting. It seems that there are sirens blaring all the time. Everywhere I go it seems like the people are more like a mob. I don't ever remember this feeling before. It's like seeing the world in a whole new way: Fast forward and top volume.
And, of course, the good thing about that is the contrast, the shock of it all, makes me pay attention to ordinary things a bit like I might if I were seeing them for the first time. That's one of God's great gifts -- for anyone who'll take it -- chances to see the mundane and the commonplace with new eyes, to hear them with new ears.
Part of my new eyes and ears this week have come from the great deal of reading I did on vacation. So, forgive me if I get kind of bookish. While I was away, I read a section of a biography of Thomas Merton, the author and theologian who lived at Three Rivers Abbey in Kentucky until he died in 1968. The book described an event in Merton's life that has come to be known as "The Vision of Louisville".
Leaving the silence of his monastery, Merton went to the nearby city one day. His seclusion, he realized, had become a preparation for a transfiguration experience.
"In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness . . ."
The people Merton saw were transfigured before his eyes as surely as Jesus was to Peter and James and John. Merton would later describe the lifelong change of outlook connected with his vision by quoting the 17th century English poet Thomas Traherne. "There is no way of telling people that they are walking around shining like the sun."
The Bible has a much more important purpose than just to record history -- or metaphor. The power and vitality of scripture has lasted for many many centuries only because it succeeds in its real mission: Telling the story of the history of God and the people of God in ways that bring everyone who hears or reads its words into the story themselves as active characters. The story of the Transfiguration, of course, is about you and me and Thomas Merton and Thomas Traherne as much as it is about Peter and James and John and Jesus.
There is a promise before us that a vision of the world and everything in it suffused with divine light is possible for everyone. And that the vision -- once you see it -- will change everything about your life. The vision will be fleeting. It may come seldom, or often. It may come when you're looking or take you by surprise. But the message is that even when the world and the people all around us get to be pretty dull looking -- or even when they practically fade out of sight -- there is a dazzling reality just beneath the surface, and if you want to, that's what you can see.
-- Mark Lewis
Links for further reading:
By loan through BCCLS and the Secaucus Public Library
Centuries, by Thomas Traherne
The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton, by Michael Mott
By purchase from Amazon.com
The
Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton, by Michael Mott
Your comments or questions are welcome MLewis@secaucus.org.
Links to additional "Reflections on Lessons" may be found at the bottom of the Sunday web page.
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