If “awe is an exercise”
I preached on the story of the Transfiguration today, and I referenced Cole Arthur Riley's beautiful new book This Here Flesh to help make sense of a story of a mountaintop experience in a world that feels (at least to me) mostly like the valley of the shadow of death. Here's an excerpt from my sermon:
I’m going to be honest with all of you, even though I’m a pastor who can tell you stories of the mountaintop moments in my life after spend so much time early in my ministry sharing them in ordination interviews and now using them to define my ministry to new congregations, in the depths of my grief I often resent those mountaintop experiences. What was the point, I ask God, in changing me and inspiring me and calling me if I also feel so stuck now? I wonder if that’s how the disciples felt on Good Friday when Jesus was crucified too. Or how Moses felt coming down the mountain to find everyone bowing to a Gold Calf idol. What is the point of seeing glory this one time, of letting it transform us, only then to see just how wrong life can get?
But if awe is an exercise (32), then it is something we can experience even in the middle of that wrongness, giving us the courage to keep transforming, keep glowing even, in the worst of times. I come back to Cole Arthur Riley yet again, when she says, “Practicing wonder is a powerful tool against despair” (37). I thought this yesterday after a rough night of grieving. But even in the grief, I couldn’t despair because I found myself sitting on my living child's bed, in awe of his perfect sleeping face. Haven’t you ever been awed by the way the sun shines through the windows? Or awed by a pet snuggling in close? Or awed by a song you love playing on the radio urging you to dance after a long day? Haven’t you ever been awed not by hot dogs per se but in the laughter of friends eating junk food together? Sometimes God’s glory sneaks in little by little.
Watch the rest of the sermon here:
