Building
Temples
(based
on Luke 9:26-35)
When have you recently experienced
beauty? What are some of your most
beautiful experiences? Before you answer
that, let me explain exactly what I mean.
I am not asking when you saw something you thought was beautiful. I am not asking about physical beauty, the
outward appearance of people or things.
I’m asking about moments and situations in which you experienced and participated
in beauty not so much with your eyes or mind, but with your heart and soul, not
as an object but as a presence greater than ourselves. A moment when we are grasped and enfolded by
the beauty we experience, and it shapes and forms our lives leaving us forever
changed.
The beauty that I am speaking about
can’t really be defined. It can only be
encountered and experienced. It’s more
than what our words can describe but it is often named by our breathless wonder
and tears of complete joy. I’m hoping
that all of you have experienced at least one moment like this when the beauty
of that moment fills your heart and soul with such wonder that it fills that
space within us that we didn’t even know was empty until that precise moment.
I can’t completely explain what I mean
by this or how it happens, so let me give you some examples of my experiences
with it. Perhaps that will prompt or
help you to recognize and recall some of your own.
I remember flying out to Denver,
Colorado and renting a car to drive down through the western part of the state
toward New Mexico. I stopped one
afternoon above a Rocky Mountain town called Ouray. Surrounded by the magnificent mountains,
which framed the little town in glorious splendor, watching people walking
along the sidewalks going in and out of shops, hearing the voices of children
playing in the park, and the sound of water rushing down the stream, I was so
filled with the beauty of God’s creation, both natural and of our own making,
that I could barely breathe for a moment.
It was awesome and beautiful.
I remember one of my trips to Alaska
and the breathless wonder of the expanse of our world. Our mission group had flown from Pittsburgh
to Seattle, then from Seattle to Juneau.
We dropped off our luggage at the ferry station then took taxis to the
pier in Juneau to go on a whale-watching tour.
22 of us on a small boat with the captain. Out on the Gulf of Alaskan in the Pacific
Ocean, giant humpback whales danced around our boat. Overhead, the high-pitched screech of a bald
eagle could be heard, as it glided through the gray skies. In the background were glaciers, that had
formed hundreds of thousands of years ago.
You could hear there deep groaning as the slid over rock and earth,
slowly retreating north from ice melt.
In that moment, I was filled with wonder and awe and again, I could
barely breathe.
I have traveled a lot. One of my passions is to visit churches,
cathedrals, and temples around the world wherever I visit. Sometimes those structures are gothic and
magnificent. Sometimes they are
contemporary and inspiring. Now and
again, there are some that are simple and humble. But, every time I step inside – it doesn’t
matter the construction or the age – there is a breathless moment of pure joy
for me when the spiritual world and the physical world connect and
overlap. A moment when the molecules of
the saints of all ages collide in a remembrance of worship. That is beauty.
There was an elderly couple who were
members of a previous church. For
several years one of them had had some serious medical challenges. The other is always there, in the midst of
whatever was going on; patient, gentle, caring, attentive. I loved the way they spoke to each other, the
way they looked at one another, the way he teased her and the way she corrected
him. When I was with them, I knew each
time that I was standing in the midst of beauty.
At my first church, there was a little
girl about 6 years old who would walk across the street from the church to
attend worship service. She always came
alone. We had no Sunday School, and
other than her, there were no young children in the church. But every Sunday she came. At first, she would sit in the back with some
of the older adults, but as the weeks went on, she became more brave and sat
further and further toward the front.
One Sunday she sat in the front pew.
When we stood to sing, she looked back and listened to the music with a
look of pure joy on her face. Beauty!
A colleague of mine described the moment when
he held his first-born son. He saw his
face, heard his cry, touched his little wrinkled fingers, but there was so much
more than what he was seeing, hearing, and touching. He had been enveloped in beauty.
I describe these moments to you as a means of
hoping that you have also conjured up some moments of your own when you’ve been
in the midst of such wonder, joy, and beauty that it has taken your breath
away. These moments happen all the time
around us. We are always waking up to
the presence of beauty in ourselves, in each other, and in the world. We need to have eyes to see them again. We need to be open to seeing them again.
Having perhaps one or two of those moments in
mind, now I want you to think about our scripture passage this morning. Jesus has taken his closest friends of the
disciples – James, John, and Peter up to the mountain and there is transfigured
before them. He becomes this thing of
beauty that I’ve tried to describe. They
are in awe. They are surrounded by
something they have never felt or seen before.
It has filled them with such joy that they are breathless.
Until Peter says, “Let us build dwellings
here!” He doesn’t want this moment to
go. He doesn’t want it to disappear and
go back to the way it was. This is
another of his Ah Hah moments when he sees Christ for who and what he is and he
doesn’t want to let go.
Scholars and pastors have been trying to
explain the transfiguration for hundreds of years. But here’s what I think it means. We have been created with an eye for beauty. We are to live with an eye for beauty. We are to see ourselves and one another with
an eye for beauty. An eye for beauty
opens us to the transfiguring presence of God in every human being, in our
lives, and in our world. Beauty connects
us to our truest and most authentic selves and it is available to all of us, if
we are willing to have eyes that see, hears that hear, bodies that touch, and
hearts and souls that feel.
So, what are your stories of beauty? When have you known and participated in that
presence that can only be described as a moment of beauty? What happened, where were you, who was
there? When has the beauty of worship, a
piece of music, poetry, conversation, or nature brought tears to your
eyes? Recall a time when beauty wrapped
itself around you and all you could think was, “I never want this moment to end.” That moment will transport you to this
mountain scene with Jesus.
The experience of beauty ranges from the most
profound and intimate experiences to those fits of laughter with family and
friends that leave you with a belly ache and streams of tears.
Whatever your encounters have been, they are an
encounter with the divine. May you have
heart and soul to encounter them more every day.
AMEN.
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