FAITHBOOK, FACEBOOK, AND FACETIME
Transfiguration – Epiphany 6
Luke 9: 28-36; Exodus 34:29-35; 2 Corinthians 3:12 – 4:2
Pastor Paul Swartz - February 13 and 14, 2010
Welcome to worship on this Valentine’s Day, 2010. That’s just a friendly reminder to the congregation, in case you forgot. According to one source, it is easy to tell you forgot Valentine’s Day. Here are some dead giveaways:
· The kids tell you that Mom “went to bed early” and “locked the door” while you were taking out the trash.
· Hallmark calls, offering discounts on apology cards.
· You wake up with a florist’s ad stapled to your forehead.
Of course, we’re not in this place today to celebrate Valentine’s Day, even though romantic love is one of God’s most profound gifts. We are here to celebrate something far more profound than that: the love God has for us, the love God has for the world. Still, Valentine’s Day can remind us of some basic truths of our faith that drive home our lesson for this Transfiguration Day. Let’s think for a moment about the face of someone who is in love.
Your face tends to reveal what is in your heart. Even though some may have what’s known as a “poker face,” experience tells us that over time what's in your heart steals out to your face. Your face is a communication tool that can transcend language and cultural barriers. You can communicate emotional content in a split second. We’re told even a baby can perceive emotional content—anger, fear, love—from facial expressions long before he or she can understand words.
Last week an amazing event took place. The president of Toyota went on television to apologize publicly for sticking gas pedals and mushy brakes. But he wasn’t just another CEO trying to staunch the bleeding of red ink all over his company’s bottom line. He was also the grandson of Toyota’s founder, and he was desperately trying to “save face”-–for himself and for the past and future generations of his family.
In Asian cultures “face” is everything. “Face” is arguably the most positive social value a person can claim. One’s “face” is the combination of honor, reputation, responsibility, prestige, and worthiness that one must maintain within all social interactions. To “lose face” is to behave in such a way that every aspect of one’s being—-social, emotional, intellectual, spiritual—is diminished, disfigured, disgraced.
This concept of “face” is so critical to Japanese and Chinese cultures, for example, that there are some 98 different words to describe it. All social interactions depend on carefully maintaining these concepts of “face.”
Many singles today are going to online dating sites. They obviously want to put their best “face” forward. They’re not going to advertise their flaws. Anyone ever hear of “Facebook?” Western culture now increasingly defines “social” relationships on a place called “Facebook.” On our Facebook accounts we can create the image of ourselves that we want others to see. We can edit out aspects of our lives that might be embarrassing, uncomplimentary, or just “too much information.” We can post only the most flattering pictures of ourselves. We can fudge facts or write complete fictions! One can even have multiple Facebook accounts.
But we do not have complete control over our Facebook face. Others can leave messages, report gossip, or reveal secrets on our “Wall” for everyone to see. Already there have been too many cases where teenage hazing and cruelty have led to the last, desperate act of the “face-less”—-ending their own lives because without “face” they believe there is no life.
Here is the #1 Rule for a TGIF World (TGIF stands for Twitter/Google/ Internet/Facebook): the more Facebook the more face-time.
Let me put it another way: the more Facebook the more face-to-face, in-your-face. The more we depend on cyberspace face-offs and virtual face-lifts, the more real “in your face” time we need to make in our lives. Making “face-time” with friends, family, colleagues, neighbors, takes away the electronic filters that hide us or protect us. It is face time that makes us vulnerable, that makes us real, that makes us human.
When Moses asks God to “show me your glory,” God agrees. But the Divine adds one limitation, “You cannot see My face, for no one shall see Me and live” (Exodus 33:20). God goes so far as to tuck Moses in a cleft in a rock and covers the prophet’s eyes as he passes by. Only then does God allow Moses a sneak peak at the back of the Divine as He walks away. Moses had only a partial view, a filtered “facebook” experience of God.
In our lesson from the Old Testament, Moses has been on Mount Sinai. The name Sinai comes from a root word meaning “to shine.” Moses has been in the presence of God and God has given him the Ten Commandments—Instructions for living Life. The writer of Exodus tells us that when Moses descended from the mountain “with the two tablets in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the LORD.” How radiant was he? The writer says his face glowed so much that when Aaron, his brother, and all the rest of the Israelites saw Moses they were afraid to come near him. He had to put a veil over his face.
You can’t fool your face. If you have been in the presence of God, it’s going to show. In our Gospel from Luke, the relationship between God and God's people goes from "Facebook" to "face time." As Jesus stands before God in prayer, His heart, mind, and spirit are in full communication with His Father. "The appearance of His face changed" (Luke 9:29). Jesus' true identity was revealed as God's glory came face-to-face with Jesus' humanity.
Jesus is the human face of God.
· Jesus is the human face of God.
· Jesus is how God finally made face time with the world.
· The Bible is our Faithbook that reveals God's face.
Jesus is on a mountain with Peter, John and James. As Jesus is praying, He caught fire from within. The appearance of His face changes, and His clothes become dazzling white. Then in the circle of that white-hot spotlight, two other men appeared--Moses the Lawgiver and Elijah the Prophet—dead heroes of the past alive in glorious splendor talking with Jesus. While the disciples were very sleepy, Luke continues, “ they became fully awake, and saw His glory and the two men standing with Him.”
The topic of their conversation that day was death—Jesus' death. They did not use the word "death" for what was about to happen, however, and they did not speak of it as something that would happen to Him. They used the word "exodus" translated here as "departure," and they spoke of it as something He would accomplish.
With Moses standing right there, the parallel was hard to miss. Jesus, like Moses before Him, was about to set God's people free, only it was not bondage to Pharaoh they needed freeing from this time. It was bondage to their own fear of sin and death, which crippled them far worse than leg chains ever had. So God had planned another "exodus" for them—in Jerusalem this time—where the Red Sea of death would be split with a cross and Jesus would lead His people through death to Life!!!!
Elijah's presence was the divine seal of approval on this plan. He was the one whose reappearance meant the Messiah was due. To see him standing there with Moses and Jesus was like seeing the Mount Rushmore of heaven—the Lawgiver, the Prophet, the Messiah—wrapped in such glory it is a wonder the other three could see them at all. But they did see that epiphany, the manifestation of God's glory.
Like Peter, we could suggest erecting frames to enshrine our mountaintop experiences and end up worshiping those moments or events to the extent that they become a hindrance, a stumbling block or even idolatry. We can choose to reminisce about our experiences, caressing and massaging them as an excuse to disengage from the world, or we can all use them to inspire and energize us for what God calls us to do next.
God's response to Peter is clear: "Jesus is more than a Lawgiver like Moses;
more than a Prophet like Elijah. He is My Son, My chosen instrument, My chosen servant for all the nations! No booth building here! No Facebook or twittering! In Him I have chosen to pitch a tent with my people, to dwell with them, to have facetime, and restore them to Myself. My Son will rescue My people out of slavery by releasing them from all those things that have an unholy hold on them--their work, money, and death--by placing His own blood on the doorposts of their lives. Listen to Him!"
Jesus not only had a glowing face, His whole being radiated with God’s glory. Jesus lived continually in the presence of God. Of course you and I cannot be Jesus, but we can be like Moses. We can spend more time in God’s presence—through worship and prayer and studying the "Instruction Manual" for Life called the "Faith Book" that our faces literally glow with the light of God.
Walter L. Larimore, a medical doctor, wrote a book, 10 Essentials of Highly Healthy People. In it he tells about Fran, a patient who was a decade‑long inspiration to him before she died at the age of ninety‑two. Fran attended church regularly and volunteered to help others in her community whenever she could (she’d been doing both for more than seventy‑five years!). She was a woman of deep personal faith. She rarely visited Dr. Larimore’s office more than once or twice a year, but when she did she always made some reference to her love for God and commitment to her spiritual journey.
During their last visit Fran said to Dr. Larimore, “I know I’m not going to live forever, but who would want to? I feel pretty good right now, but I’ll be jumping for joy when I meet my Maker face‑to‑face!” Then Larimore adds these worlds about this ninety‑two year old woman, “Her face literally glowed.” Nothing is more beautiful than a person whose face glows with their love for God. Here were Fran’s last words to her doctor: “For twice as long as you’ve been alive, I’ve been enjoying God’s companionship and thanking Him for His faithfulness in helping me be who I think He wants me to be. I talk to God all the time, and I’m here to tell you He listens! It’s been a good life, walking hand in hand with Him and other folks who know Him like I do.”
Dr. Larimore proceeds to link a personal and meaningful relationship with God to being emotionally and physically healthy. We say that a person has a healthy glow. When we are young that might be primarily physical. I suggest to you that as we age this same glow is primarily spiritual. If you live in the presence of God, it’s going to show.
Living in the presence of God doesn’t just affect how others see you, it also affects how you see them. It’s interesting that Jesus, who lived continually in the presence of God, was also the most accepting and loving person who ever lived. I’ve noticed that about many of the saints I’ve known through the years. Not only can you see the radiance of God’s love in them, they seem to see the radiance of God in everyone they meet.
Do you know what I am talking about?...people who live in the presence of God? Do you understand when I say that what is in your heart eventually steals out to your face? Do you look for good in all people?
Jesus spent his ministry doing three things: healing, teaching, preaching. As Jesus healed and taught and preached, he gave glimpses of God’s glory that drew people nearer to the Divine. When Philip blurted out his blindness by imploring Jesus to “show us the Father, and we will be satisfied,” Jesus pulled back the curtain even further. “Have I been with you all this time Philip, and you still do not know Me? Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:8-9). At another time, Jesus says, "As the Father has loved Me, so I have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love" (John 15:9-10).
And what are these “Commandments” that will keep us in the Father’s love? Jesus answers, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.’ This is the greatest and first Commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two Commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40)
Jesus, the human face of God, came to reveal the true face of God, the Creator of the cosmos. And the true face of God is the face of love.
So, you tell me you want to find God’s face? You want to see God’s face? Begin your Lenten journey this Ash Wednesday by allowing yourself to be in His presence, face to face, as you re-discover the depth of His sacrificial love for you. Take the opportunity to probe the extent of that love by reading and studying your Faithbook. And not just on this Valentine’s day, but every day find someone to love and you will find God’s face, you will see God’s face. And when you see the face of love, the world is transfigured. And we become changed from “glory into glory.”
John Buchanan, Senior Minister of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago and editor of Christian Century magazine, tells the story of an NPR special that was run last September on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. It featured a retired NYC firefighter, John Vigiano, who lost two sons on 9/11: John Jr., also a firefighter, and his younger brother Joe, a police officer. Both died in the World Trade Center.
John was close to both of his sons. He talked to each of them every day. He recalled how around 3:30 on September 10 he talked to John Jr. They ended the call by saying, “I love you.” The next morning Joe called his dad and told him the earliest details of the attacks. That call also ended with ‘I love you.’ John Vigiano told NPR, ‘We had the boys, John for thirty-four years, Joe for thirty-two. I don’t have any could’ves, should’ves, or would’ves. I wouldn’t change anything. It’s not many people that the last words they said to their son or daughter was ‘I love you.’”
In a Facebook world, the words people most need to hear, face-to-face, in-your-face, are God’s face words to us from the Cross of His Son: “I love you.” Is your face a particular face of that Face? Will you manifest the true face of our Lord this week? It will show on your face! AMEN!
