(All our songs this morning are from Singing the Faith (StF), Mission Praise (MP) or Hymns & Psalms (H&P) numbers will be given where available)
Welcome to our Sunday Service, today shared on paper across our circuit and with the congregation at Thackley Methodist Church led by Brian Gamble on of our Circuit Local Preachers.
Click on the blue links to follow them for bible readings and associated links
Next week we move into Lent as we follow, with Jesus, the route from the cradle to the cross. Today we think about a moment of transition when heaven came to earth.
And we join together in the spirit with people around the circuit.
Song – StF 36 – There’s a quiet understanding
Let’s pray together
Living, loving God, in a world of much uncertainty and doubt, we turn to you again today.
Living, loving God, we come to you in worship, and seek to know more of your presence.
Lord, as we listen to readings from the Bible and reflect on those readings, may we hear your word to us.
As we sing and hear the music of the hymns, may we encounter something of your Spirit, dancing amongst us.
Lord, may we respond by faith to what we hear, and share who you are with others.
May we tell of your good deeds and love, and inspire faith in those around us.
Help us to have compassion for those in need, and respond in love with acts of generosity.
Lord we confess that too often we fail to say thank you and appear to take your blessings for granted.
We confess that we are part of a selfish generation, that we know our rights but too often neglect our responsibilities. We have more than we deserve but still want more.
We confess that our greed and indifference are harming the world you gave us and that our lifestyles show our ingratitude.
Come Lord and cleanse our hearts, renew the very centre of our being, transform our attitudes and values.
Come Lord and make us whole.
In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen
Song – StF 673 – Dear Lord and Father of mankind
Reading
Today Luke brings us face to face with a mystery. An event beyond the experience of most people. It may be inconceivable but it is fact. Witnessed and written about by Peter.
Celtic Christians have introduced us to thin places. A place where the space between heaven and earth becomes more open, more permeable. Where we can feel closer to God. Jesus often found such places. When he went off by himself to pray it was often to a mountain top.
The transfiguration was an exceptional example. A point where human nature met God: the meeting place of earth and heaven with Jesus himself as the connecting point, acting as the bridge between humanity and God.
The gospels tell us about the relationship between Jesus and the disciples and their growing understanding of his purpose on earth. Earlier in the chapter Luke tells us about Peter’s recognition of Jesus as the Messiah. “You are the Christ, the son of God.”
This event takes three of them a step further. Jesus must have picked out Peter, James and John because they were ready for this leap forward.
Jesus was seen in his glory. His face shone as he witnessed God’s glory.
Then Jesus had a conversation with Moses and Elijah. Luke reports that they spoke about his departure, which was taken to mean the crucifixion and resurrection.
Finally God spoke through a cloud,” this is my son, whom I love. With him I am well pleased.” The same words he had used just three years earlier at Jesus’s baptism, this time adding the instruction, “Listen to him.”
While James and John watched in awe, Peter, the impetuous one, couldn’t stay quiet and watch, he needed to do something, and when he opened his mouth he put his foot in it. He was trying to be helpful but what he suggested was ridiculous. He was witnessing a profound, mystical situation which should have overawed him but he reduced it in his mind to doing something practical.
In a similar way our corporate worship is really noisy and wordy. We have a liturgy which we faithfully follow because it has been developed to fit everything we need to do to worship God into a one hour slot.
We sing, hymns are meaningful and emotional. It’d been said that we sing our faith.
We are led in prayer, prayer is essential to keep in contact with God.
The bible is read to us, again an essential part of our Christian life.
We listen to teaching, which, hopefully, increases our understanding.
But if we are not carefully aware we could become just like the Israelites who followed the law to the letter but were condemned by the prophets for not carrying their worship outside the temple.
What we really need to do is to find time to be quiet; to spend time to follow God’s instruction to listen.
The Christian faith has a rich tradition of mysticism, seeking a direct encounter with God through contemplative spiritual practices. This was at its height in the Middle Ages. Then followed the Age of Enlightenment, a time when the pursuit of knowledge obtained by reason and the evidence of the senses came to the fore. The french philosopher Descartes coined the phrase,”I think, therefore I am.” This movement caused a change in the way we relate to those Christian stories to which the mystics related so easily.
As we read these stories now we look for logical explanations and miss out on the wonder and awe of God’s inexplicable encounters with the world.
We hear about Jesus, with his disciples Peter, James, and John, climbing a mountain where Jesus’ face suddenly shines like the sun, and his clothes become dazzling white and there with them are Moses and Elijah – alive centuries before the birth of Jesus – talking with them. There, on the mountaintop, time has folded in on itself, and past and present seem to be strangely overlapping, and God’s voice is audible in the clouds. What an extraordinary happening. Is it too much for our scientific brains to accept?
I have heard about the space-time continuum. I don’t understand it but could it be that science is now coming to accept that such things can happen?
One of the most well-known Christian mystics is Julian of Norwich who lived in the fourteenth century. Her cell was small, but sacred – a place where she devoted her life to prayer and sought union with God. In Julian meetings we can try to emulate her experience.
As Christians we know that God can be with us in the ordinary, as well as the extraordinary times of our lives. We can connect with him while doing the washing up, while sitting in a traffic jam, or walking the dog. The transfiguration teaches us that we can also connect with God in a special, supernatural way. So if we long for union with God but find our reasoning minds resisting we must find a special place, a thin place.
It doesn’t have to be a mountain top. It might be a small space in our home or community, it might be a church, or a location outdoors. Perhaps you already know such a place, and have met with God there. Our readings today encourage us to make room in our lives for visiting such a place. As Peter wrote “You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place.” We have to seek out the lamp, find our own sacred space and go there. Go there with expectation, expecting an extraordinary encounter. Go there, with our eyes and hearts and minds open to receive God.
God calls us to be aware of his presence all around us in our everyday lives as well as our sacred places.
God calls us into a life of awe and wonder, to pay attention to the ways he is revealed and speaks to us.
Let us live as mystics, as disciples, as prophets: expecting an encounter with God in every moment and place.
Song – StF 557 – Prayer is the souls sincere desire
Here is a poem by Julian Pursehouse, I came across in the Prayer handbook It’s called A Spacious Silence
Our hearts yearn for a spacious silence,
where there is freedom to roam
and open space for wonder.
It is not ours to seek and grasp,
but always a capacious gift
from just beyond the veil.
In this far country no words are required,
no parade of good intentions
but only the willingness to abide.
We are enfolded by the delicate fronds of love
and your whispering peace
fills the gentle hollowing of our hearts.
This sweet trespass of momentary grace –
so easily fractured by anxious thought
and world-wearying grief.
For this golden speck of eternity
we breathe and pray,
not knowing when we’ll be back this way.
I invite you now to spend time in prayer for the world. Including other countries, our own country, our neighbourhood and our personal needs. Place all the concerns of your heart into God’s hands.
Say the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples and remember his words,
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.
I do not give to you as the world gives.
Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
Song – StF 668 – Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine
Amen
