Last Epiphany Grace

Last Epiphany B February 11, 2018

Some summers we go back to the coast of Maine where my wife Lucy spent many summers at camp. A while go a camp friend from New York in book publishing brought us a new book about an English schoolboy named Harry Potter. Potter’s story was a good fairy tale. Mysterious birth, living with distant relatives who feared and mistreated him, rescued and sent to a school where he learned magic. By magic ordinary things could appear to be extraordinary. A magic gate and track in the midst of an ordinary train station, an invisible school with talking portraits and a water balloon-throwing poltergeist, a lacrosse / soccer game played in the air - at which Harry excelled. A best friend who is a boy and a good friend who is a girl, Harry lives in a dorm, complains about school food, and has homework and teachers - some exciting and some really boring. Harry is really special and marked for great things and growing into his greatness. Harry is a good and moral person, kind and generous, without being stuffy about it, and he is magic. Harry confronts evil with good, and good triumphs. No wonder the Harry Potter books were popular.

          We like the idea of magic; we like the idea that ordinary things can not only appear to be extraordinary, but are extraordinary. We like the idea that people are really special, and marked for great things, and can be good and moral, kind and generous, but not stuffy.  These ideas may be childish, but we give them up slowly and reluctantly. No matter how old we are, we want to confront evil with good, and see good triumph.

          When I was Chaplain at Rosewood State Hospital in Maryland, following my father who also served as Chaplain, we used to teach the children this verse, drawn generally from St. Augustine, “I am a child of God. He wants me to be good. I can be good if I want to be, and by his grace I will.”

          “By his grace I will.” We all know from experience that we can’t be good just because we want to be good. Wanting is a beginning to having, but not the whole thing. Whatever we accomplish, we accomplish by God’s grace, by God’s power working in us. Magic is the attempt to make God do our will for our benefit. Grace is God working in us and through us to accomplish God’s purposes. Magic is in fairy tales; God’s grace is the reality of our lives.

          The Transfiguration of Jesus, like Elijah ascending into heaven in a whirlwind, is God’s gift of grace, the grace of the brightness of God’s presence.

          St. Paul’s Epistle tells us of the light that shone “out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We see something of that light in a bride coming down the aisle on her wedding day, in the joy of a mother with her infant. The grace of God is his gift to us, his gift that we may be fully and completely who God means us to be.

          We are called to be holy people, grace-filled people, good people, godly people. Being godly, and good, and grace-filled takes practice; it takes work. It requires us to be part of a community of people, as regular in prayer and worship as we are in everything worthwhile we do. Elijah and Elisha came together in God’s love and service. Our psalm tells us “Out of Zion, perfect in its beauty, God reveals himself in glory.” Peter, James, and John witnessed Jesus’ transfiguration. They saw Jesus as he really is, as we experience him today. We are with him as they were, though not on a mountain, but in his church, and with his church. Jesus is present to us in spiritual ‘clothes . . . dazzling white” as we receive the Holy Communion. In gratitude for his love for us, and in the power of his grace poured out on us, let us be as we really are, his holy people.

A reporter once asked Mother Teresa what it felt like to be called a “living saint.” She responded, “I’m very happy if you can see Jesus in me, because I can see Jesus in you. Holiness is not just for a few people. It’s for everyone, including you, sir.  My prayer is with each of you – and I pray that each one of you will be holy, and so spread His love wherever you go. Let his light of truth be in every person’s life, so that God can continue loving the world through you and me.”

[From Love: A Fruit Always in Season, San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 1987, p. 233]

It is not magic. It is grace. Thank God. Amen.