(Preached on Sunday, June 27, 2010)
As they continued walking and talking, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah ascended in a whirlwind into heaven. Elisha kept watching and crying out, “Father, father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” -2 Kings 2:11-12
What a magnificent moment this was for Elisha! The glory of God had been revealed! The true prophet of God confirmed as he was taken up into the fullness of God through the powerful whirlwind and chariot of fire. It was a powerful epiphany, a showing forth, a manifestation of divine truth and presence. It was a moment of revelation when God’s word was illumined by God’s divine power. It was a moment which undoubtedly carried Elisha forward in his difficult calling of stepping into Elijah’s footprints now as the prophet of God to Israel. That moment of revelation was his surety, the guarantee of the promise.
We all have these experiences, these moments of revelation. They are the times in our lives when the curtain is pulled back and we see the truth and power of God present in our lives. United Methodist pastor, Paul Sweet, suggests we need to cultivate and train our senses for the task of recognizing these moments. He writes:
Our way of seeing as Christians should be with the eye of the artist. God is in the symphony, where harmony exists amidst the tension of pitch and tone. God is in the beautiful sunset, where contrasting colors hint at the glory of the Creator. God is in the beautiful relationship, where solidarity is born of struggle and disagreement. God is in the beautiful individual, whose wrinkled skin is witness to a life of challenge and hardship lived with the confidence that it all makes sense.
Artists are the one who often open for us the vision to see the presence of God in the world around us. Albert Holtz, a Benedictine monk, illustrates this truth with a realization that dawned upon him when he was touring Italy. Riding a train from Venice to Florence, he was struck by the landscape he was watching flow by in Tuscany. It all seemed so familiar. Yet he had never visited that part of Italy before. Why did he have the distinct feeling that he knew that place? He recognized the odd cypress trees shaped like great green feathers and the little river winding among castle-topped hills. Then he realized what it was: he had been looking at those scenes his whole life in the background of famous paintings! The great Florentine artists so familiar to us all – Michelangelo, Rafael, Leonardo had always placed the subjects of their religious paintings in settings they knew so well. We almost take it for granted that the Angel Gabriel visited Mary in an Italian villa with cypress trees in the background and Mary dressed like a Renaissance lady.
The artists were showing deep theological insight when they placed the great events of God and the Jesus story in familiar landscapes close to home. People looking at the paintings would have had the sense that these great mysteries had happened right in their own territory. The artists wanted people to see what they saw: God’s presence all around them. They wanted to communicate that these stories were not just distant history, but they were still occurring in our daily lives, for God was still present everywhere and still working and yes, still speaking.
The struggle of our day, though, is to recognize God present now. Unfortunately these great paintings sometimes get in the way of our doing that. Instead of making God present for us, these landscapes once so real and immediate for the people of the Renaissance, are now as fanciful and fairy-tale like as the stories in the Bible themselves. Instead of making God’s presence immediate they keep God at arm’s length for us. Holtz continues his reflection with this insight:
Across the aisle, a young mother holds her baby on her lap. At her feet is a diaper bag, and on the bench beside her is the baby’s half-eaten cracker. What would people think of a picture of Mary playing with Jesus not on an Italian hillside (which is somehow quite acceptable) but on the seat of a passenger train? Somehow it doesn’t fit: Mary and Jesus don’t have anything to do with the real mothers and babies of today. God’s love doesn’t walk among us the way it did for Rafael and Michelangelo.
The challenge we face today is to cultivate the sense that God is present in every place. God is not confined to any particular church or, for that matter, to some Renaissance landscape in Tuscany. God’s great works are not limited to “elsewhere” or some far-off time and place. Yes, Jesus healed lepers in Judea and in fifteenth-century Tuscany but can we see him at work also in our own hospitals and sickrooms? Yes, we can marvel with wonder at the insight of the Renaissance artist who could paint Christ suffering and dying in the streets of some Italian village, but can we also recognize him dying with heroin in his veins in our own town? For God is still speaking and it is not somewhere else that God is present and working wonders.
Let me share with you a few stories where people became aware of God’s presence. Perhaps these stories will help you recall some of your own moments of revelation. The first is from a UCC pastor, Kate Huey and relates an experience of hers at General Synod 26 in Hartford, Connecticut in 2007. She tells how she was stirred by the great speeches by amazing personalities – Bill Moyers, Barack Obama, and Lynn Redgrave to name a few of the more famous. But one of the most powerful moments for her took place while she was waiting for Barack Obama to speak. She arrived early to get a seat along with 14,000 other people and while they waited they listened to a children’s orchestra making exquisitely beautiful music together. Their last song – and the gathered people were invited to sing along – was “America the Beautiful.” Listen to her description.
This is the song I’ve always thought should be our national anthem, because it says how beautiful this land is, how beautiful we have been and how beautiful we hope to be. People think that progressive Christians don’t love their country, but as our great United Church of Christ prophet, William Sloane Coffin, the anti-war activist who in his last years took up the cause of justice for gay and lesbian people, once said, “I’m having a lover’s quarrel with my country.” After hearing Bill Moyers speak in the morning, we were all fired up and ready to march out in protest and to change so much of what is going on in our society, just as Jesus spoke out long ago, for which, we note, he was killed.
But in that golden moment, we 14,000 would-be prophets, not sure if we had what it takes but anxious to take up the story, in that bright shining moment, we stopped, and we sang, together. We sang about spacious skies and amber waves of grain, about those purple mountains majesty and about that fruited plain. Our prayer rose up in song, one song sung by all 14,000 of us – it was something to hear – praying for God’s grace to be shed upon this land we love, upon this great and beautiful country, whose birthday we celebrate this week. I remember that song more than I remember Barack Obama’s speech, or any other speech or sermon that week.
The other two stories are from my own life. One took place some years ago when my children, Rebekah and Paul were very young, in preschool & first grade. I was driving my car and they were in the back seat. Rebekah decided she was going to tell Paul some stories and proceeded to tell him some brief, made-up stories. Then she said to him, “I’ll tell you the story of Jesus.” And that’s what she did, in very simple terms. I remember listening in warm amazement and with deep pride. It was one of those rare moments you receive as a parent when you know you have done something right.
The second story took place last month at the death of my father-in-law, Robert Peterson. I have attended several deaths in my career as pastor and more now in my part-time work with VITAS Hospice. They are always sacred moments. But this one was especially so. Dianne and I had been very concerned about that moment for Bob. Though he had weathered several tragedies in his life, our experience of him was that he did not deal very well with pain. In fact, he had expressed concerns about that when he was diagnosed with cancer a year ago. And though his faith was sincere, we also knew he was anxious about the unknown aspects of dying. Never the less, he died a good death. The final hours of his life were lived in his own bed, looking out over the Gulf of Mexico. His daughter and son, his two daughters-in-law, his son-in-law, two of his grandchildren, a dear friend from his condo building, and two very gentle care givers were all present. His pain was being managed, his breathing gentle and regular. Those gathered with him kept telling him of their love. At one point we prayed with him a prayer celebrating his life, thanking God for Bob’s life, for God’s care of him throughout that life, and celebrating God’s immediate care and presence with him right there and then. We commended Bob’s life back to God and affirmed our faith that Bob would continue to know God’s love and presence for all eternity. It was a sacred moment of worship. Shortly after that prayer Bob’s breathing grew more gradual, until it slowly, gentle stopped and God had received him home. It was one of those moments of revelation when the curtain is pulled back and you realize God is present, real, alive, and at work in our lives.
The French mystic Simone Weil said “Absolute attention is prayer. If one looks long enough at almost anything, looks with absolute attention at a flower, a stone, the bark of a tree, grass, snow, a cloud, something like revelation takes place.” Those moments are there. If we watch for them and cultivate our attentiveness to them, we will see them and they will encourage and empower us to live as the children of God in the world today.