LECTIONARY SUNDAY NEXT BEFORE LENT: We Were All Transfigured (Matthew 17:1-9)

WE ALL WERE TRANSFIGURED

We’ve heard it said,

That the voice from above was heard before,

The words that echoed down out of that great cloud,

Had passed through ears before,

Been known before,

We’ve heard it said,

And now we have heard it,

First-hand,

The “man” we knew stood before us,

Resplendent in bright light white,

Face like sun,

Brilliant and hewn from ethereal gold,

Dressed in angelic shimmer,

Colours so rich and intense,

Yet simply white,

Diamonds hovering in the air,

The son lost in the sun’s light,

And the sun renewed in the son’s visage,

We saw and we heard,

We hoped to build tents of remembrance,

For the moment when amidst Moses and Elijah he stood,

We wanted to capture that occurrence,

As a reference point to illustrate who he is,

Who he was,

Who he was before his breathing shallowed,

And the sag in his chest spoke of strangulation and asphyxiation,

When choking and drowning-in-air overtook him,

We wanted a tabernacle to point to,

To point others to,

But only when the stoned was on its side,

Only when hell’s gates had been kicked down,

And kicked through,

And kicked out,

Only then were we to speak of what we’d seen,

Of what we’d heard,

And more importantly, what we felt,

Golden face and clothes tingling with creation’s light,

In that moment we truly saw,

Yet afterwards his voice,

It belonged to him,

There was no room for doubt,

It was him,

We too were changed,

We too truly knew,

We too were taken out of life’s mundane every day,

And brought back into life’s momentous every day,

And his words echoed in our hearts,

And the echo rumbles on still,

“Get up”,

“Do not be afraid”.

LECTIONARY SECOND SUNDAY BEFORE LENT: .....Seek it.... (Matthew 6:25-34)

Luxurious words,

Speak of an elixir,

One that brings to birth,

True understanding,

“Lay down your worries”,

“And seek only the kingdom”,

Time will deal with the other things,

Seek the kingdom,

Mystery worth entering,

Completeness all encompassing,

Perspective shattering,

Seek the kingdom.

LECTIONARY THIRD SUNDAY BEFORE LENT: Telling Lies (Matthew 5:21-37)

Our hates tell lies our hearts fear to hear,

Our eyes tell lies our brains shouldn’t recognise,

Our actions tell lies our souls can barely bear,

Our mouths tell lies our ears are too hurt to hear,

We the crowd of witnesses,

The only hands and eyes and hearts and mouths the heavens have got,

Lay down not our cloaks or our lives,

But our starved hive minds,

Bold lies,

We live elegant and blind before the throne,

Tumbling, prone,

Again and again,

From one false start to another,

One broken heart to each others,

And there are moments,

When the screen cracks,

The facade creaks and we peer through,

Not the veil and not the scanner,

But some altogether other doorway,

Holding Huxley’s hand as we drift,

Through heavens and hells of our own making,

With our minds partaking,

Our eyes feasting,

Our words twisting,

And dreams breaking,

And through it all,

Through it all God persists,

God points towards God’s way,

Holds out a heart,

Pulsing and peaceful,

Calling to the broken,

The sinner,

The damned,

Offering grace,

When our offering is only...

The eyes that stare,

The male gaze,

The words that swear,

The failed ways,

The relationships tattered,

The romances shattered,

The angers flared,

The fists raised,

And this great king,

Longs for us to seek a more hopeful way,

To look differently,

At the words and the actions,

That are strewn across our paths,

Never built to last,

These simple distractions,

Only abstractions of what The Walked Way is supposed to be,

Let us open our fists,

Let us open our eyes and gaze upwards,

Let us sigh heavily in our hearts and exhale,

And let us whisper sweet nothings into the maker’s listening ear,

For,

Our hates tell lies our hearts fear to hear,

Our eyes tell lies our brains shouldn’t recognise,

Our actions tell lies our souls can barely bear,

Our mouths tell lies our ears are too hurt to hear.

LECTIONARY FOURTH SUNDAY BEFORE LENT: Just To Confirm (Matthew 5:13-20)

Hi, yes, hello.

Can I just ask one question.

I heard something and I want to confirm.

To make absolutely positive that I heard correctly.

Because I would hate to have misheard and for this to go down in history,

As one of those moments where things turn out unexpectedly,

Because someone misheard something,

Something someone else said.

So just to confirm.

Did you or did you not just say,

“you are the light of the world.”

“YOU are the light of the world.”

Because if you had said, “I am the light of the world” I would have understood,

A little better at least.

Because I am not the light of the world.

But you said I am.

In fact, you said, “you are the light of the world”

By which you meant me.

Me and the other people gathered on this hill to hear you speak.

I really think you’ve made a mistake.

Maybe there’s been some kind of grammatical, first person, next person,

Third person miss-match and mess-up because I can guarantee,

I am not the light of the world.

“I”, in my fickle sensibilities, my up and down emotions,

“I” and my lack of devotion and anger and prejudice,

And “I” with my hopeless handling of simple situations and emotional expectations,

“I” am not the light of the world.

I’m not even the light of my town,

My street,

My house,

My family,

So Jesus,

I am so sorry to break it to you,

But I think you must be wrong,

But saying that itself feels so wrong,

Because you are never wrong,

You are the light of the world,

And the light shines into darkness,

And the darkness cannot overcome it,

And if all that’s true,

(Maybe someone will write about it in 40 years or so),

But if all that is true,

Then the idea that you might be wrong,

Itself feels wrong,

So how can I be the light of the world?

Or maybe when you said, “you”, you meant “you” in a collective way,

Like, “you are all the light of the world”,

Maybe the point you’re making is that together your people and I,

Can be the light of the world,

That the goodness and completeness of everyone else’s lives,

Will somehow cover over the cracks and breakdowns of my own existence,

Maybe the fact that he and her, she and him, they’re all so good and pure,

That that will make up for the fact that I’m more a faded grey than a bright light,

Or then again,

Maybe by your words,

“You are the light of the world”, you’re setting me and my sisters and brothers a standard,

For all of us on this hill to reach,

Maybe the standard goes beyond this geographic location and this specific time,

Maybe your words cross eternity and back,

Maybe we, you’re people are the “you”, you have been addressing,

Maybe we can as one and as individuals be your light in this world,

And that sounds beautiful like,

Lived poetry,

Enacted cosmic drama,

But I’m failed and I think there may be other failure’s too,

So this master plan,

For I to act like you,

For your audience, when you said, “you”,

Meaning “I”, meaning me,

This plan seems to have flaws to me,

But I do not see what you see,

I don’t read history before it is written on the world’s clocks,

And I didn’t put the world’s clocks in place, like you did,

(Though just to be sure we better wait for some councils to set a date and make that clear),

Either way,

I don’t know what you know,

I don’t see what you see,

But if you say it’s like that then it must be,

I will try to be your light in this world.

I’ll try, but if I’m honest,

I could probably user a helper to help me do this,

I’m not sure I can be your light in my own strength,

Maybe I need a helper,

A helper or,

Maybe I need an advocate.

LECTIONARY PRESENTATION OF CHRIST: Into hands and hearts (Luke 2:22-40)

So,You,This tiny baby,

Barely alive and yet born to bear so much,

So much talk of swords piercing souls,

All these words whispered to you by strangers,

Parent’s stood nearby,

Taking it all in or as much as they can,

Did they really understand the cost your cross would cost as you wore it and bared it on your back and in your future,

What was the walk home like?

Were your parents delighted by your potential or blighted with worry?

Did they dream of getting you out of sight and safe?

Did they wonder to each other on the wander home whether there really would be no hope without this sword in the soul?

And did they see in the eyes of the temple’s strangers fear or delight at the prospect of one who would bring into the world light,

Light that had been forgotten,

Perhaps people were so beyond believing in actual freedom that they ignored and didn’t hear or heed a single world of this story of old, coming to fruition,

Maybe they didn’t know what to believe,

Alternatives to Roman rule too hard to conceive,

Or believe,

Or truly understand,

Yet there you were,

In Anna’s prayer palace, in Simeon’s place of prophecy,

And you, so unaware,“Just” an infant holding on to nothing but being held,

Held by the words of soothsayers of God,

Held by parent’s held in awe and wonder and fear,

And held by a stranger who promises the world at a cost beyond the beyond.