Sex and the Seminarian

Let's talk about sex.  Or more appropriately, sexuality.  But "Sex and the Seminarian" was a catchier title for this blog post.  Yeah, it's uncomfortable.  I am hoping it doesn't get me called before my bishop, but I sort of feel compelled to reflect upon this important issue.

I read a post this morning from the Fidelia's Sisters blog called "Holy Sexuality", which was written anonymously, which says something about this whole issue, reflecting on sexuality, shame, and leaders of the church.  So I am not writing mine anonymously.

The author reflects on how entering seminary and the ordination process felt like "going back in time" with regards to standards of morality.  The author does not specify her denomination, but I will compare it with my tradition, the ELCA.

At the beginning of candidacy, candidates are asked to read and sign the document "Visions and Expectations" which outlines standards of conduct for rostered leaders.

With regards to sex, the document says the following (From the ELCA social statement on human sexuality): "It is in marriage that the highest degrees of physical intimacy are matched with and protected by the highest levels of binding commitment, including legal protection. It is in marriage that public promises of lifetime commitment can create the foundation for trust, intimacy, and safety."  

And pertaining to single people, "Single ordained ministers are expected to live a chaste life, holy in body and spirit, honoring the single life, and working for the good of all."

And for places that do not provide for same gender marriage, the ELCA says this: "An ordained minister who is in a publicly accountable lifelong, monogamous same-gender relationship is expected to live in fidelity to his or her partner, giving expression to sexual intimacy within a publicly accountable relationship that is mutual, chaste, and faithful." 

To summarize this document, sexual intimacy belongs within the bounds of marriage or a committed legal relationship.  When I started seminary, a friend told me  (who shall remain nameless for their own protection) that "You can be celibate or you can be smart."  Meaning, don't get caught.

I guess I would like to boldly ask for choices beyond celibacy or secrecy for seminarians and clergy people.  How about we invite a conversation about healthy sexuality? The Christian Church has shamed sexuality (particularly that of women) for far too long.  Sex was seen as merely procreative and otherwise, just plain icky. By cloaking sexuality within a cloud of secrecy, we open ourselves up to all sorts of unhealthy attitudes.

Sexuality was created by God for the mutual intimacy and consolation of both partners, so let's start there as a place of conversation.  It can be a healthy (and holy) expression of what it means to be created beings. By moving sexuality out of the shroud of secrecy, we also can be important participants in the societal conversation regarding sexual consent.  The Church can be an important voice in helping to uphold the dignity and worth of all people by encouraging open and honest communication about sex.  By making sex shameful in the eyes of the church, we further victimize those who have been hurt.

Seminarians have sex.  Clergy people have sex.  Some of them are married.  Some of them are not. We need to acknowledge that sexual intimacy is a healthy expression of what it is to be human and that our desire for closeness with another is a good gift from God.  I do think it is possible to have a healthy, faithful expression of sexuality within a relationship that does not have the bounds of marriage. 

By holding clergypeople to these standards (which I have described as "Puritanical" on some days), we set up a boundary between ourselves and the rest of the world.  Our people, our parishioners, do not wait for marriage to have sex or to live together. I think that it is possible for clergy to take the lead in modeling healthy, mature, faithful, respectful relationships just like we model sabbath and discipleship and being in community with one another. 

And to my detractors who feel like this is just me wanting to do whatever I want, I concede there might be some measure of truth to that argument, but mostly I just want the sexual shaming in our world to stop. Stop the shaming.  Open doors for communication and consent and faithful expressions of desire.  

Stop using the argument of "Biblical Marriage" because that does not mean just one thing in the Bible (One man and his entire harem?  One man, one wife, and the wife's servant?), and it certainly does not mean what we think it means for us now. 

Let's boldly, prophetically, and faithfully create a new narrative around sex.  Not just for clergy and seminarians, but for all people. Let's make it one of respect and openness, not secrecy and sneaking around.  Let's make it one of faithfulness to God and one another, not one of dishonesty. Let's contribute positively to the discussion around consent for sexual intimacy.  Let's contribute positively to the discussion around dismantling heterosexual privilege. 

I was accused of being too optimistic in discussing this on social media this morning. Maybe I am.  But I also know that nothing will change if someone doesn't hold hope for it to be different. 

Seminary graduation

Me with the family

receiving my diploma

being hooded by Dr Mark George, the professor who
taught me how to love the Bible

Amy Hanson, Mdiv

Holding the stories

A. Hanson 2012

One of my absolute favorite parts of my ministry is to visit with people and hear their stories. Sometimes this is a formal setting, often times it is in passing.  Nothing brings me greater joy than sitting with someone and hearing what makes them happy, what makes them sad, and what challenges them.  It is for this reason that I almost always accept invitations for lunch, dinner, or coffee with parishioners and the reason that I have weekly office hours at the local coffee shop.  These stories give a richness to ministry that cannot be found by just leading worship or attending committee meetings.

The town where I live, St Peter, Minnesota, experienced a devastating tornado in 1998.  This natural disaster has formed the landscape of the town, the community of people, and the way that this town approaches life together.  Today I had the opportunity to have lunch with a couple parishioners who told me stories of that day and its immediate aftermath.  My congregation's building was untouched by the tornado, and it was the only church building in town that did not sustain some sort of damage. As a result, the church parking lot was used as the nerve center for relief efforts and the building itself was used as a meeting space for all sorts of community groups.  The Catholic church was destroyed in the tornado, and it was on Maundy Thursday in 1998, just about a week and a half after the tornado, that First Lutheran, along with St Peter Catholic church, hosted an ecumenical service. My parishioners talked about how touching it was to be in worship, celebrating Holy Communion, with all sorts of Christians from the town and this story moved me to tears.  This partnership of two congregations under one roof would continue for two years and is still talked about as a shining example of what churches can do when they set aside their differences.

On New Year's Eve I had the opportunity to hang out with my retired neighbors that live across the street.  They invited me over, saying, "it would be just like you get to hang out with your grandparents!" and I was happy to accept because they have a fireplace and the weather has been brutally cold lately.  I heard stories of childhoods spent speaking Swedish in the impoverished scandinavian Seward neighborhood in Minneapolis.

St Peter is also home to one of the state's behavioral health hospital, as well as the state security hospital (like a prison, except for people who are too ill to be in prison) and many of our members have worked there in various capacities.  It is so interesting to hear how the hospital has changed over the years.  I visited one homebound member who worked in carpentry for the hospital and how he took such pride in his work and how he trained and worked alongside many patients and just how important it was to treat everyone with respect and honor their gifts, even patients confined to a mental institution.

And this is only a small sample of what I have been privileged to hear this year. What an incredible gift it is to hold bits and pieces of these stories.

Internship

I am embarking on a yearlong internship beginning on August 13, 2013.  I will spend an entire year with the good people of First Lutheran Church in St Peter, MN as I learn the ins and outs of being a pastor from my excellent supervisor and the church community.  This past friday I made an initial trip down to see my new home and to meet some of the members of my internship committee.  Below I have posted a few pictures of the house itself.  So far I have had the opportunity to meet six of the ten members of my internship committee, and I think it is going to be a fantastic year!

  I will write many more posts in the year to come, but right now, check out this amazing housing!

Front of house

Backyard

living room

sunroom/the place where I will write all my sermons!

kitchen/laundry room

dining room

bedroom

"What Young People Want In Church..."

...is something that I am not actually sure of.  But I am going to make an effort to identify some of these things.

I am in a preaching intensive class this week at Luther Seminary.  Yesterday one of my classmates (a woman in her late fifties) delivered a sermon in which she used powerpoint slides.  Her reasoning for doing this was that "Young people want this in a church and they are more likely to come to our church if we do multimedia sermons."  Ummm...no.

I felt compelled to speak out on behalf of young people.  The three of us in my lab but also young people everywhere.  By no means do I have all the answers and this is just a starting point.  But I do have some unique qualifications to speak to this:
-I am a young person (I'll be 30 in a month)
-I have spent a lot of time in non-traditional congregations over the last few years
-I am training to become a pastor
-I have a call to speak change into the church

So here are some of my thoughts about this.  Please chime in as you feel so moved.

1. Young people want innovative things in church.
Now, this is going to seem to stand in direct opposition to what I said above, but bear with me.  Far too often faith communities latch onto the word "innovative" and think it means media in worship services, contemporary bands, and so on and so forth.  This is wrong.  This was maybe innovative 20-30 years ago.  Maybe not even then.  When I say innovative, I mean different from ordinary life.  I have a smart phone and a laptop that are with me constantly.  I am constantly connected and surrounded by a multimedia, multi-sensory experience.  In the church that I attend, I want something different.  We actually want to be fully present and have an experience of the divine.  We are not looking for entertainment.  Which leads me to my next point...

2. Young people want church to be part of the world
Congregations have gotten into a nasty habit of trying to appeal to young people, or furthermore any new people, by trying to make their churches as much like the "outside world" as possible.  This rests on at least two problematic assumptions.  First, that the church is separate from the world and, second, that we want to be isolated from it.  This is not true.  Just because your congregation has a coffee cart in the narthex, doesn't make me think you are cool and certainty doesn't make me want to come attend worship.  We want churches that are in touch with their neighborhoods and our country and our world.  This is not limited to once-yearly Habitat for Humanity builds or mission trips (that is another post entirely) to Mexico once every couple years or collecting food for the food pantry.  No, young people want their congregations to share life with their communities.  The good, the bad, and the ugly, which leads to...

3. Young people want church to be a place where they can be real
Coming of age as a young adult right now is a lonely and terrifying proposition.  We are disproportionately unemployed.  We are the first generation who are "worse off" than our parents.  We are drowning in debt.  We are putting off getting married and having children and owning homes.  We will likely never realize the American dream as it has been known in the past.  We are being bombarded with demands to "hold it together" and maintain a certain image because networking is important and we "never know what contact will help us get a job".  There are very few places where we can be truly who we are.  Where we can share our pain and disappointments and joys and fears. Church can be that place.  But most of all, we want to be heard in all of who we are, which brings me to...

4. Young people are tired of having assumptions made about them
"Young people" are often seen as a commodity.  And furthermore, seen as THE commodity that will save the church.  A church is seen as thriving if it has young adults and we sometimes feel only like numbers and a bullet point in the strategic plan.  We are talked about and around and all sorts of people have ideas about what we want and what we need, most of which is wrong.  There is a pretty easy way forward.  People could ASK us what is important to us, which leads to...


5. Young people want to feel valued in the church

We want to have opportunities to serve and learn in faith communities.  But it is not as simple as keeping the existing structure of volunteer positions and leadership structure and plugging in young adults.  How about getting to know us and identifying and nurturing our gifts?  This is an entirely opposite approach than currently exists and it is scary.  If you want us to lead, you might have to step out of the way to make room for us. Which leads me to...

6. Young people aren't interested in maintaining the status quo in church

The Derek Penwell article, What if the kids don't want our church?, has been floating around for awhile  and I have even written about it on this blog before.  This is painful but I am just going to say it, we don't really want your church.  This is not a value judgment.  It just is.  The Baby Boomer generation is perhaps the first in American history that has had such a wide swath of products and experiences targeted especially towards them.  They received this well.  And this huge and gifted generation has assumed that everyone else wants the same thing that they do.  We do not.  We want the same opportunities that you all have received to re-imagine and re-shape what church can be.  Which opens the discussion of...


7. Young people value authenticity
Authenticity gets thrown around as a marketing tool, particularly in churches.  Young adults have a finely tuned ability to smell inauthenticity and nothing is more pathetic than a carefully crafted facade of being "authentic."  We want congregations to recognize their own gifts and identity and live into that. Not every congregation can stand for everything and not every congregation is going to be able to be a place where young adults find a church home.  But that is okay, because we need to leave room for the Holy Spirit to do what she will and form and reform our congregations and our leaders which leads me to my final points...

8. We are open to where the Spirit is leading us and we want our churches to recognize that
Those of us who are a part of faith communities are incredibly faithful.  Our religious practices look different.  We want to discuss theology in bars with our friends.  We want to experience worship, not just attend it.  We want to sing hymns loudly and badly in pubs with our congregations.  When we start becoming engaged in congregations, it might look different than our parents and grandparents, but it is no less valid.  

9. Those of us who sense a call to serve want to be raised up as clergy in the church
We are young.  We are faithful.  We are LGBTQ.  We have tattoos.  We sometimes swear.  We have made mistakes.  We will continue to do so.  We are no different from you, yet we are so different from you. We need to be mentored by you, but we also need for you to allow us to fly and to be moved by the Holy Spirit.  

10. We want to hear when we need to step back and let a new generation lead
We won't be young forever.  Even though we are often the youngest in congregations, we will continue to age.  And if our church communities are doing what they hope we will, we won't be the youngest.  And we need to learn when to get out of the way for something new to happen as well.  At that point, we will need you to help us know how to gracefully step aside.  

This is not an exhaustive list and I would love to have this conversation continue

I need this reminder this week

I am beginning day one of ten days worth of intensive classes (8:00am-4:30 pm).  Lord have mercy.

Ritual

“Ritual”from Foundations in Ritual Studies  by Mark Searle

I found myself intrigued by the discussion of post-modern liturgical experience in the last portion of this article.  Searle writes, “Indeed it may be that anthropological studies could better help us understand how our liturgy used to work than how it works today” (15). I agree with the author that liturgy still fulfills functionalist and symbolic purposes, but that it still bears further examination.   For example, the rituals demarcating various transitions in life (marriage, funerals, etc) serve important functions in our social environment and the ritual actions contained in these reenactments serve to mark the passing of time from one thing to another (11).  However, a need for group solidarity (11) might be less important when the church is no longer the primary social center for a group.  Granted, this is impacted by such demographics as age, social strata, and geographic location as well. 

I believe that a popular thing to argue is that ritual is outdated and in order to “meet people where they are” we must never impose ritual, in particular such things as confession and forgiveness, passing the offering plate, and so on, for fear of alienating them from the church.  This probably stems from bad experiences in churches who idolize ritual itself.  This attitude has lead to an epidemic of blasé pseudo-emergent congregations that attempt to stand for everything and be all things to all people, and in the process, actually stand for nothing.  Neither extreme is helpful. Humans need ritual more than ever in a time of absolute anomie. 

            So by way of a statement worth making: Is there a way to balance the human need for ritual in a time of anomie with the damage done by congregations making an idol out of ritual itself?  What is the role of ritual in the post-modern church?  

Converting

A. Hanson

(Preached at Luther Seminary, April 18, 2013)

Grace, Peace, and Mercy are yours from the Triune God.  Amen

The story that we heard in today’s reading is what is known as the conversion of Saul.  What does it mean to convert?  And who is this Saul character anyway?  We know that he eventually turns into the man Paul and Paul is certainly the most prolific writer of the New Testament, but how did he get to this point?  The Book of Acts was written as a companion to Luke’s Gospel with the overarching theme of belonging for all of God’s people.  Salvation in Jesus Christ is not about coming from the right background or doing the right things.  Or even being a good person.  Because Saul is, to put it mildly, not necessarily a good guy.  We hear him described by the writer of Acts as someone who was “still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” and who has a desire to bring followers of Jesus Christ, those we hear referred to as following “The Way”, bound to Jerusalem, presumably to interrogate them, persecute them, even execute them.  Saul was a religious fanatic.

Yet while on his merry way to continue persecuting followers of Christ, Saul is struck down with a bright white light and in this incandescent theophany he hears, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”  Saul asks, “Who are you, Lord?”  And the response comes, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”  Saul is then told to get up and enter the city and he will be told what to do next.  He is blinded by fierce light at this point and entirely dumbstruck, so he needs to be helped into the city by the men who are with him.  He literally cannot do anything different at this point.  I believe this is what a conversion is. Being so overwhelmed by something outside yourself that you are literally drowned and brought back to life by God.  When you are converted by God you are given a new heart and all of you is claimed.  The good, the bad, and the ugly.  But conversion is kind of scary, we have to give up the illusion that we are in charge.  And Saul is certainly not in charge here.  He is brought into the city, deposited in someone else’s home and is completely blind and unable to eat or drink for three days.  The only instruction that he is given by Jesus is “you will be told what you are to do.”

But Jesus is already at work and has selected the man Ananias to assist Saul.   Ananias is a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ, and this was not an easy life.  Christian worship at this point was practiced in house churches, with a certain level of secrecy, because Christians were at risk of persecution by both the Jewish authorities and by secular authorities.   Ananias would have probably characterized himself as already converted and since he was devoutly following The Way, not in need of any further conversion. 

So too with many of us.  We go to church.  We give money to our favorite causes, we give canned goods to the food pantry every once in awhile.  We pray.  Maybe we do a morning devotion while we drink our coffee.  But do we silently walk past the man or woman who asks us for spare change while we are on our way to church?  Do we refuse to see the humanity in a person of another faith or nationality or political party in our attempts to make our convictions known?  Do we spend so much time curving in on ourselves in self-examination that we miss what we are called to do in the world?

Saul is not the only person who undergoes a conversion in this text.  Ananias does as well.  Ananias is thrust out of what he believes to be true and forced to reexamine what it means to follow Christ.  Ananias has Christ literally speaking to him in real time and can’t exactly ignore him.  Ananias is called out of the relative safety of his home to go lay hands on Saul, a known persecutor of the Christians. Ananias responds, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem, and here he has the authority of the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.”  Jesus responds, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel.” 

 But what if being converted was not an active decision that we make, but actually a letting go?   A relinquishing of control?  Far too often conversion is portrayed as an internal one-time act in which one “turns towards Christ” and makes a decision to follow him.  We have all heard the grand testimonies of how people were on the wrong path, somehow found Jesus, and their lives were miraculously made far better than they ever could have imagined.  The problem with this thinking is that it puts us in charge of making our own conversions happen instead of being converted BY Christ.  This sort of thinking makes Christ entirely superfluous and assumes that if we are right in mind and spirit we will make the right choice.   

But conversion is not a one-time decision.  It is not a destination.  It is a process that goes on in perpetuity in which we are blinded again and again by God and infused with new life by the Holy Spirit.  It happens every single day.  It doesn’t start with any action on our part, but occurred for all time with Christ on the Cross.  It is something that is done to us and for us.  The only thing for us to do is let go and be converted into a new creation by Christ. 

Saul needed to let go of his hatred and contempt towards the followers of Christ.  He needed to suspend disbelief.  And when he was admonished by Christ for persecuting his followers, and by extension, Christ himself, he needed to let go of some pretty devastating shame. 

Ananias needed to relinquish his sense of safety.  To let go of the fear of persecution.  To be called out of himself to be of service to another.  To let go of fierce anger and call another man, “brother,” a man with whom he would choose never to associate. 

Where do we need to relinquish control?  Where do we need to be converted?   Do we need to let go of feelings of inadequacy or fear or shame?  Or do we need to let go of one-sided debates about belief and truly be present to and for our neighbor?  To lay hands on someone who is hurting, call them brother or sister, even though we really don’t want to? 

If this decision to be converted was left up to us, it wouldn’t ever happen.  Human constructions of what is right and good and just, get in the way.  But the promise that we hear in today’s text is that we have a God who is so much bigger than the box of human understanding.  We have a God who transforms contemptuous individuals like Saul into Paul, the man with a unique capacity for preaching and missionary work and addressing pastoral concerns and is responsible for so much of the spread of Christianity.  We have a God who transforms fearful Ananias into a man who boldly lays hands on Saul , who for all intents and purposes is his mortal enemy, and calls him brother and baptizes him.  And we have a God who calls us out of ourselves and uses us to do good even when we are weary or fearful or confused.  We have a God who claims every part of us, even those parts we would rather hide, and transforms us to fulfill our role in the world.  So dare to let go, fall into grace, and be converted.  Amen.

 

Participatory Knowing

It's not all about books...

I had a mild disagreement with a fellow seminarian a couple weeks ago.  This fellow student stated that it was important for pastors to be able to tell parishioners what to think.  I remarked that while it was important to have the theological preparation to be able to respond knowledgeably to questions, it was the pastors role to determine why someone was the asking the question in the first place.  Because anyone can type a question into a search engine, they are asking their pastor a question because of the relational aspect.  This sort of "knowing in the presence of others" that happens when you are in community is a basic human need.  And this need has only been amplified with the tidal wave of information available with one click.  This need is not merely about gathering information, rather it is a desire for connection and shared meaning making.

I do not believe that participatory knowing in faith communities is anything exceptionally new.  This is what lies behind many generations of Sunday School classes, confirmation, and adult forums.  A different kind of learning takes place when you are surrounding by others.  But I do believe that participatory knowing takes on an increased level of importance when we are surrounded by information instantaneously.  We need to participate in knowing along with others to help make sense of our experience.  And in knowing along with others, we are opened up to things we might never have considered if we were sitting alone with a book or in front of a computer screen.

Part of my sense of call is to actively engage people in becoming theologians in their own right and participatory knowing is a huge part of this.  I hope to never lead an adult forum, because that sort of top-down pastoral authority is no longer something that works.  I would much rather engage people in genuine conversation in an informal setting.  This is why I LOVE theology pubs.  Also, I do not believe that text studies should be limited to those with a seminary education.  Sometimes I wish I could go back to seeing the Bible before I started studying it academically, which is why participatory knowing is important for pastors too.

The Digital Body of Christ

Last week at Luther Seminary's convocation, I had a new experience.   I had just had breakfast with a friend of mine from Denver who was visiting for the conference.  As we were walking back to campus, he said that he wanted to introduce me to some of his friends from seminary who would also be attending the conference.  He introduced me to his friends Colin and Jeni, who said to me, "I feel like I already know you.  We follow each other on twitter."  I have definitely connected with other people by way of social media and we are friends in the digital world, but rarely have I had the opportunity to meet these friends in real life.  But now I have new friends near Fargo-Moorhead and a standing invitation to visit, not to mention two new badass pastor colleagues.

My life has been decidedly enriched by social media.  As defined by Keith Anderson and Elizabeth Drescher's book, Click2Save, I am most certainly a digital native.  I have had a blog since 2005, have been on twitter for about three years, and Facebook for seven years. I have set-up a Tumblr account, but find that it is not necessary for me at this point.  I don't even think twice about using any of these platforms.  It intuitively makes sense to me.  I was excited to read Click2Save, because my friendship with Keith also came about through social media.  He was the keynote speaker at my Synod's theological conference last year.  I can't remember who friended who on Facebook now.
When the book that he co-authored was official published I sent him a congratulatory tweet. This is absolutely unprecedented and makes for an exciting digital frontier.  Social media is a place for connection and relationship building and growing in the body of Christ.

Upon reading Click2Save from cover to cover, I wrote Keith on Facebook:

"My initial observation is that as a person just on the cusp of Gen-X/Millenial, I am very surprised at how my native context informs so much of how I view the world, take in information and put forth information. I live the world that you talk about in the the text with little or no extra effort on my part. I never thought about how much I post on various social media platforms, I just do so. I never thought about using or not using social media to connect with community, it is just a given.  I would be curious to get your impressions of how the book has been received by the baby boomer crowd and how it has informed your preaching and ministry."  

He responded (I don't want to quote a personal conversation here without his permission, so I will summarize): 

Because the prevailing demographic of congregations is older, and much of the ministry that we do is to this demographic, this book is useful in navigating generational differences and explaining what you do instinctively to an older set that does not naturally operate in this way.  

However, social media usage can also have a dark side, but that is a post for another day.

Gospel and Global Media Culture

I am taking a class at Luther Seminary this spring called Gospel and Global Media Culture.  So, consequently I am required to make weekly postings on a personal blog.  Since I have already maintained this blog for 7 1/2 years I thought that I would just use this blog for that purpose in addition to my normal writing.

If you are interested, you can follow the pace of the class on the public blog:

http://ic2643.wordpress.com

Sermon on the Transfiguration

The cloud we generated tonight at worship

Grace, Peace, and Mercy are yours from the Triune God.  Amen. 
Today is the last Sunday of the season of Epiphany, and is what is known in the church year as the Feast of the Transfiguration. In just a few days we will begin the season of Lent with Ash Wednesday and it is not a coincidence that we celebrate Transfiguration Sunday prior to the start of this season of darkness.  Transfiguration means to change from one thing to another, and that is exactly what happens to Jesus on the mountain.  Prior to this, he is a worker of miracles, and some pretty incredible miracles at that, but now his real work is beginning.  The Transfiguration is an event marked by brilliant light, but this light ultimately points towards Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and his death on the cross.  The story of the transfiguration that we just heard in the reading is the point in Luke’s story of the life of Jesus in which everything begins to shift.  It comes after a series of incredible miracles like the feeding of the 5,000, but most importantly, it comes after Jesus declares that while he is the Messiah, he is going to suffer and be killed before he will be raised from the dead.  Yes, the transfiguration story points to glory, but it also points to the cross.  This is the point in the gospel where Jesus turns his face towards Jerusalem because he knows what is to come.  He has been changed.

There is a lot going on in this short little story.  In today’s gospel we have Jesus praying on top of a mountain with three of his disciples, Peter, James, and John.  The text says that in the course of Jesus’ praying, the appearance of his face changed and his clothes became dazzling white.  If this incandescent Jesus wasn’t enough, then we are told that two men appear and are talking to Jesus.  Not just any men, but the great prophets Moses and Elijah. Jesus and his prophet friends were talking about his coming death that was to occur in Jerusalem.  The disciples saw and overheard some pretty incredible things, and Peter turns to Jesus and says, “It is GOOD for us to be here.  Let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”  Peter wants to stay up on top of the mountain, bathed in radiant light where things seem so clear and they don’t have to worry about what is going on down the hill and what will happen in the days to come.  He wants to keep everything simple and keep Jesus and the other great Jewish prophets in nice little boxes on top of the mountain.  The disciples are acting out of the Jewish law of building tabernacles as places for the great prophets to dwell.  In their minds, they are doing exactly what they are supposed to do and they have no way to comprehend what lies ahead in Jerusalem.  They are most likely afraid of what they have seen and revert back to what is familiar to them. 

But as Peter was talking about his construction projects, a cloud came and surrounded them.  And from these clouds comes a booming voice, “This is my Son, my Chosen; Listen to him.”  The disciples are getting distracted by all that they have seen, and God wants to make sure that they are actually getting the message, so God surrounds them in a thick cloud.  When some of our senses are obscured, the rest are heightened.  I imagine this cloud as the sort of thick and dense clouds that precede a massive thunderstorm.  The kind of clouds that seem to make time stop.  In order to get the disciples to understand what is to come, God needs to stop the distractions.  The disciples are terrified, yet there is hope in this cloud. 

I’ve heard a lot of sermons about what happens up on the mountain and the importance of being close to God and then taking that “down the mountain” into ordinary life. But what if this whole story is actually about what happens in the cloud?  Yes, we hear that the disciples are terrified.  But what we often miss in this whole story is that the disciples are not alone in this cloud.  They are with one another and with Jesus, but also we hear that the voice of God comes FROM the cloud. 

This got me thinking about clouds in my own life in which I feel alone.  I’ve been here in Minnesota for a little over a month.  I still feel like I am walking around in a fog most days.  It is difficult to start over in new place, knowing exactly two people in a new city, trying to navigate not only a new school but trying not to get lost every time I drive to the grocery store.  Sometimes I think I see someone that I know, but the person that I am missing is actually a thousand miles away.  Sometimes the pain of missing all that is familiar brings tears to my eyes.  It’s really easy to get stuck in this cloud of homesickness and miss what God is saying to me.  The first time I heard what God was up to here in St Paul was through the good people here at Humble Walk at Beer and Hymns in January.  We gathered together in a bar on the coldest night of the year to banish the frigid cold and darkness with our singing.  In that was hope and the first time that I felt at home in this new place.  And I am not alone. 

What clouds might we all be experiencing right now? The heavy darkness of depression? The dread that our kids are sick for the 15^th time since Thanksgiving?  The sense of hopelessness that comes with long-term unemployment or impending student loan debt? The exhaustion of burnout in our work? What clouds weigh heavy upon us? 

In a couple minutes I am going to invite you to take one of the cloud-shaped note cards that you received when you entered and come over here to the table and write down what clouds are obscuring your vision right now.  On the other card, write something that brings you hope.  Then we are going to tape them onto the big cloud (also on the table) and have all of our fears and hopes mixed together as a community.  Because we are not in this cloud alone.

For now, hear this promise.  God is in our clouds with us.  God cannot be obscured.  God loves us so much that God sent Jesus, his son, to be present with us on earth and to take our sins upon him, not because we were good or would understand why, but because we needed it so badly.  When God speaks into the clouds on top of the mountain he doesn’t say, “Watch what Jesus is doing, then trust him.”  God says, “This is my Son. Listen to him.”  The disciples are not asked to do anything.  They are asked only to listen and to trust.  They are given the promise of Christ.  The promise that Jesus is God incarnate and through the gift of faith, they will be saved.  Faith is not something that we choose to have, but rather, it is something that is given to us. 

There is a real temptation to want to allegorize this story of the transfiguration.  To make it represent something else or make it into some nice little statement about what God does for us.  I am going to suggest that instead we just let it wrap around us and strengthen us for what is to come. Because we are all journeying towards Jerusalem with Jesus, and in order to share in a resurrection like his, we must also share in a death like his.  I invite you further into the cloud.  It is disorienting and maybe frightening, but we are not alone.  Thanks be to God.