I believe it is our hope, as we enter into this church, Sunday after Sunday, that here we will find something---some truth, some inspiration, some community, some hope—that will sustain us ‘out there’, in what we refer to as the real world, with all of its challenges, that often just seem to keep coming at us.
And, what might that ‘something’, that mysterious something that will sustain us, what might it be? We are given a gigantic clue in today’s Gospel reading.
In the text of the Transfiguration we are invited into an epiphany, an absolute breakthrough into a new reality. When Jesus ascends the ‘high mountain’, Jesus takes with him Peter, James, and John.
“And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.”
Peter, James, and John experience a revelation of Jesus in his undimmed heavenly glory. This experience of the Transfiguration will carry Peter, James, and John through the dark times ahead, as Jesus then heads to Jerusalem.
Peter, whom I find quite endearing, wants to prolong the experience and stay there, building three dwellings. I suspect that Peter, and most probably James and John, now feel certain that Jesus is the transcendent one, the eternal leader who will make all things right from this moment forward. But, no, as Jesus already has warned them, he will be crucified.
It is precisely this experience, first witnessing the transfiguration, and then being assured, by God, speaking out of the cloud, that Jesus is God’s beloved son, that is meant to sustain Peter, James and John through the dark times ahead. Now, they know who Jesus truly is, the beloved son of God, a being who can morph into pure light.
And, then, they are told by Jesus, “Rise and have no fear”.
Now, today, and every Sunday, after our worship together, I hope each of you will “Rise and have no fear”, and that each of you will know yourself to be a beloved son or daughter of God, able to be filled with your own light, which you then can carry forth into our challenging secular world, outside these doors.
Now, I’d like to share with you some recent experiences, which I expect will help sustain me, going forward. Just last Thursday, I returned from an expedition to Antarctica, on a brand new state of the art French ship, with a French crew, a dozen superb naturalists and four top university lecturers, along with some 190 tourists, whom our delightful captain would refer to as “my dear passengers”.
At the start of the trip I remember writing in my journal that I hope to be renewed, refreshed, and recreated by the trip. Notice, I did not ask to be transfigured! My hope was to be open, and able to be surprised by the experiences before me. What might happen that would sustain me, as I go forward into my life?
Incidentally, one of our university lecturers was from Dartmouth’s Department of Psychiatry; one of the tidbits he shared is that people who take vacations are 29% less likely to develop heart disease. Now, I used the word incidentally, but actually this statistic is central to what I am sharing with you this morning; coming to church regularly and taking vacations is superb both for your heart, and for your sense of deep connection to one another, with all of God’s creatures and with God.
My first revelatory insight about Antarctica is about the stewardship of God’s creation. Antarctica is the last environmentally pure place on earth. Three times the size of the US, Antarctica, which is the coldest, windiest, driest, and highest continent, is an internationally protected nature preserve. The Antarctic International Treaty, signed by 47 nations in 1961, protects this vast white world only for science and for ecologically responsible tourism. There is to be no commercial exploitation or military use, although the military can assist in the logistics of getting scientists to remote places. The astronomer who was with us from the University of Chicago is flown in a United States Air Force plane to the South Pole where the South Pole Telescope explores dark energy in the cosmos.
Antarctica is a peaceful place of staggering natural beauty. That the world leaders could agree to protect this pristine ecological system to me feels profoundly hopeful, with an almost revelatory sense of possibility, which will sustain me.
When we went ashore, we traveled by Zodiac rubber rafts, lowered down from the ship into the frigid rolling waves. If you fall in, your life expectancy is 15 minutes. Each Zodiac is accompanied by a naturalist and piloted by a sea cadet from the French Navy.
Now, I’ll quote from my journal entry: “It’s snowing quite heavily, and I’m very comfortable inside my layers and my Expedition parka. We pass by a gigantic iceberg (think a 20-30 story Chicago building), and each one is a unique sculpture of snow and ice. Fur seals sleep on smaller chunks of ice. We land and hike up the trail on the glacier, following the red flags set out for us. I walk by a very large Weddell seal sleeping in the snow; he glances at me and decides ‘no problem’, stretches and resumes his sleep. I climb up past some fur seals playing on the rocks, and two penguins, still as statues. It’s beautiful, it’s peaceful, and I’m content. I sit. Eyes wide open, I take in the entire landscape.”
The phrase that comes to me about this moment is that I was ‘taking a vacation from myself’. Whoever “I” am is gone in this greater sense of spaciousness, of being One with all the expanse of the glacier, the fur seals, and the penguins.
Another evening, at dusk, two Minkie whales, one swimming on either side of the bow, accompanied our ship for about twenty minutes. Very nearby, three humpback whales together were feeding on krill, and as they dove, we’d see their magnificent tails. A single orca, a killer whale, swam along the other side of the ship. This sense of being at one with all that is, I know, will sustain me.
On our last Zodiac ride it was very rough, and the waves were high, so we couldn’t land ashore safely. We motored along the coast where thousands of chinstrap penguins were on the nearby cliffs. A huge, 1000 pound leopard seal, out hunting for penguins, surfaced a few feet away from us, and for a while played around and bit our propeller. Returning to the ship was very tricky, amid the huge swelling waves. Once I was safely on the ship, I watched the last Zodiac, which had some elderly passengers, be unloaded, with four crew members firmly grasping each passenger’s arms and gently, but very rapidly, pulling them safely onto the ship. Watching the complete trust and cooperation of crew and passengers, I witnessed an expression of love and care for all of God’s people at a time of some peril. Once the last passenger safely came aboard, a huge cheer went up from the crew. As an extra grace note, at that very moment, a swimming penguin, thinking the Zodiac to be a rock, leapt into it and walked all about, looking perplexed and curious, until the sea cadet gently lifted him back into the water, so he could swim back to the cliffs.
So, yes, I returned from Antarctica renewed, refreshed, and recreated. Each of the three experiences—knowing Antarctica to be an internationally protected pure environment, feeling at one with all that is, and witnessing the love and care of God’s people for one another at a time of real danger—all these were heart-opening times for me, times that will sustain me as I go forward into my own life.
Like Peter, James and John, each of us will come down from our own mountain top experiences, more filled up and ready to walk into our own lives with new energy and enthusiasm. May each of your own revelatory experiences refresh, renew and recreate you, and may you go out from our worship service each Sunday, ready to bring that love and open heart back into our everyday world.
