[Propertalk] Fwd: Sermon Resources for February 10 - Part 1

[Joe Parrish]

February 10, 2012



        
        
    
        
                

    
    
        
        
        
            

        
        
        


Sermons for Transfiguration
 
Luke 9:28-36 - "Experience the Mountaintop But Don't Forget the Valley Below" 
2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2- "Face to Face" by Leonard Sweet
 
Luke 9, the sermon title "Experience the Mountaintop But Don't Forget the Valley Below"  

 
Many of us have had them, those times when we felt like we were on top of the world, really happy, confident that we knew all the answers, could solve any problem that came up. Or we felt that we were really close to God, really in tune with God's plan for us. In those moments we were excited and alive, and everything seemed new.
 
The moment might have come at some exciting event in your life: graduation, baptism, your first kiss, your first day on your first job, your wedding, the birth of a child, even catching your very first fish. It might have been something really spiritual, like a week at church camp or a church retreat. Or it might have been something of a smaller, quieter nature, like a very intimate conversation with your father or mother when you felt that they honestly understood what you were saying and why you felt the way you did.
 
We call these "mountaintop experiences," and oh how we hate to come down off that mountain! We want to hang on to that moment for as long as we can. "Let's just stay right here and let the rest of the world go by for a while." But to freeze that one moment in time shuts off the possibility of the next moment.
 
In the Gospel reading for today we hear the writer of Matthew give his version of the event which we call "The Transfiguration of Jesus"...
 
The rest of this sermon can be obtained by joining http://www.sermons.com/signup 
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The full text of the following sermon is available at www.Sermons.com.
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[Members: 2 Corinthians 3 the sermon titled "Face to Face" by Leonard Sweet] 
 
The 2010 drama film "The Social Network" portrayed many interesting features of Mark Zuckerberg's development of his online creation. But they missed a big one: the name he chose for his baby --"Facebook." 
 
Let's face it: humans are obsessed with the unique, defining nature of our faces. The arrangement of our eyes, nose, mouth, chin, cheeks, forehead, never ceases to amaze and fascinate us.
 
More than 5000 distinguishable facial expressions have been identified, and that is probably just a start on the human face. The 18th century German satirist Georg Lichtenberg called the human face "the most entertaining surface on earth." 
 
How could we possibly resist pursuing and endlessly perusing an online site called "Facebook?" 
 
We recognize friends - and enemies - by their face. Bank robbers wear masks to hide their faces, knowing full well that, no matter how clear the pictures of their bodies might be, without a full view of their face, they cannot be accurately identified. 
 
When the Protestant Reformers came across images of the saints and the Virgin Mary, they defaced them on paintings and had their faces gouged out of carvings and sculptures. 
 
Babies look at faces - learning how to put the pieces together and how to recognize and trust the familiar, and reject and be fearful of the unfamiliar. It is in our human DNA to look into the face of others for critical, life-preserving, information. "We find ourselves in the faces of others" says Siri Hustvedt in her novel The Summer Without Men (2011). We become human through our relationships with others. 
 
In short, long before "virtual life," human beings were walking, talking "Facebooks."
 
Our language reflects this fixation. We speak of taking things at "face value," or of doing an "about face," or of "facing off" against opponents. We "face the music," make "face time," and when dishonored we "lose face." "Face cards" carry the most value and to stand "face-to-face" with another signifies being in the most valued of positions. One of the most advanced new computer identification techniques is the science of "facial recognition" - computer programs that can scan and identify individual faces without any other physical information.
In the "transfiguration" scene described in this week's gospel text (Luke 9:28ff), Jesus' face shines...
 
The rest of this sermon can be obtained by joining http://www.sermons.com/signup 
 
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Even the Darkness Can Dazzle 
 
To lead our exodus, Jesus had to die like we do: alone, with no particular glory. Otherwise he would have been an anomaly instead of a messiah, and it would have been hard for us to see what he had in common with the rest of us.
 
As it was, he died very much like those who died on either side of him, one of them begging to be saved from what was coming, the other asking to be remembered when Jesus got where he was going. Jesus could not do anything for the one who wanted to be spared, but he did a great favor for the other. He told him that the darkness was a dazzling one, with paradise in it for both of them.
 
I think it was something he learned on the mountain, when light burst through all his seams and showed him what he was made of. It was something he never forgot. If we have been allowed to intrude on that moment, it is because someone thought we might need a dose of glory too, to get us through the night. Some people are lucky enough to witness it for themselves, although like Peter, James and John, very few of them will talk about it later.
 
What the rest of us have are stories like this one, and the chance to decide for ourselves whether we will believe what they tell us. It is a lot to believe: that God's lit-up life includes death, that there is no way around it but only through, that even the darkness can dazzle.
 
Barbara Brown Taylor, "Dazzling Darkness," article in the Christian Century, February 4-11, 1998, page 1-5
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You Can't Stay on the Mountain Top
 
A little boy was out in his front yard, throwing a ball up in the air. An elderly passerby asked the boy what he was doing. He replied, "I am playing a game of catch with God. I throw the ball up in the air and he throws it back."
 
I am in no position to comment on God's ability to play ball, but I do know that whatever goes up must come down. There may be exceptions, such as Charlie Brown's kite! But as a rule, whatever goes up must come down. The process is so predictable that you could refer to it as a scientific law. The same process applies to our religious lives. It is a good thing to "go up" to a great experience with God, but we will become greatly disillusioned if we do not remember that eventually we have to "come down" again.
 
John Thomas Randolph, The Best Gift, CSS Publishing Company, Inc. 
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