In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today we stand on the cusp of Lent, in only three days’ time we will gather again as we receive our ashing and commit ourselves to living a Holy Lent.
But for some, perhaps even some who are joining us for worship this morning, there will be a question in their heads along the lines of why is lent such a big thing? Why do we bother?
To answer those questions we can turn to our epistle. St Paul, is not pulling his punches this morning, he is being blunt and reminding us that as Christians we have to take time to turn away from the temptations of the world, and keep ourselves fixed on the word, Christ.
Although the temptations in his day would have been very different to the ones we see now, they were still temptations. Now I could give a list of what temptations are here in society today, but I am sure that everyone here could easily compile a rather lengthy list if we gave it perhaps a couple of minutes of thought.
Paul is re-centering the Corinthians view of life, he is reminding them that they chose to follow Christ, and that for them and us, that following him meant that we have to put away our old selfish selves, and give Christ the glory.
This isn’t the first time he has had to do this, and we see it at the very beginning of his first letter to them, where the church was divided amongst itself because they each felt they owed something personally to the ones who baptised them.
They managed to work through these issues before, and now the issues are not the temptation of in-fighting, but rather the temptation of being pulled away from that which they have worked hard to build, by being tempted by the worldly, the things that will pass away. Sadly this still happens in the church today, and I’m sure for some listening today it will feel that it strikes a chord of uncomfortable truth.
Paul is reminding the reader that what we do and what we achieve, is not about us. They are not something for us to take a curtain call for, to use a theatrical term, but more simply put, the achievements that we have within our church, benefice, deanery, diocese and beyond are the work of God and given to us by his grace alone.
But still we may be thinking how can he use me, or perhaps we think about or look at someone else and say, well how can they use him or her! The latter of course is a far more dangerous assumption.
This is where we move onto our Gospel. We know this piece of scripture well, the moment where Christ is transformed in front of Peter, James and John, where they witness Him not only talking with Elijah and Moses, but also the second time God proclaims him as his son, the beloved.
It comes at a time when Peter has realised who he is, and he has just told them what is to happen to him, and how his followers must behave.
So this transfiguration isn’t just about what happened to Christ, but it’s also about our lives, what we must do to be faithful to him as his followers, as Christians.
This is where things get tricky, because if we are to live the Christian life, then we have to strive to live lives worthy of His call.
But what does that mean here and now for us? Well it means we have a choice, and it’s a simple one.
We can follow Christ through transfiguration, transformation, and seek to live to the fullness of his grace and blessing, being the people he calls us to be.
Or we can walk away and continue to be tempted by the trappings of the world, and fail to reach our full potential in Christ.
Some listening may be thinking what does it matter, what does it have to do with the here and now?
Well in one way it doesn’t, this single choice that we make today may not have a lasting effect on what we do, but the danger is that one choice becomes a pattern of negative choices, and then it does matter, because the further we walk away into the world and its temptations, the further we walk away from who we can be in Christ.
None of us know what God has in store for our lives, for some it may be a life devoted to prayer and petition for others, for someone else they may be a great encourager who walks alongside others to help them flourish in their abilities, another could have the gift of hospitality and be a great welcomer who sets people at ease as they enter the church. The list is endless and the possibilities are limitless.
This is why we read about the transfiguration at this time of the year, not to celebrate it as a feast day, that happens in August. It is to remind us that we are a few days away from the time of our transfiguration and the releasing of our potential. The time when we focus more earnestly on what our faith really means to us personally.
If we believe that our faith has value to us, and I would hope that for each of us it does, then it is incumbent on every one of us to do something about it.
That is the beauty of our faith we have free will, we do have that choice, we can leave toady unmoved by God and drop our faith back in its box, ready to pick it up the next time we decide to come.
Or, we can resolve to seek God’s face, we can remove the veil as Paul puts it and ask Him to be our guide, to help us to learn how to proclaim Jesus Christ as our Lord. We can make a commitment on Ash Wednesday to set deliberately set time for God, to spend time reflecting during a Holy Lent, asking for His guidance, His wisdom, and dare to be all that we can be.
This of course is the scary option, because it means we have to actually do something, and as a race we love to procrastinate, to put things off, we use reasons such as I don’t have the time, I’m too busy, I can’t talk in groups, I don’t know how to do that. But in reality, what we are actually saying is I don’t want to, it’s too hard.
Let me put it this way, if there is something we want to do, then this is never an issue, we will always find a way and make it happen. This isn’t always the case with our faith, too often we think that what is being asked is too hard, and because of that we find an excuse, it’s the easier option.
But what if we asked God to help us to be the people he wants us to be, what if we allowed him to encourage us as we begin our journey with Christ in the Wilderness, to give us the strength to let go of the old, and ask him to strengthen us for the road ahead. To try those things which scare us, make us nervous, make us uncomfortable.
I vividly remember my first day of work, I was 16 and had just stepped into a bank, where there were people working away on so many things that I couldn’t even identify, let alone understand, and my first job was to a young lady called Della to tick off the cheques that had arrived that morning, and she deftly and with absolute ease fingered through the cheques at such a speed, I was in awe and struggled to keep up.
This was my first job every morning, for months, and slowly I built up confidence and got faster, and a little while later it was then my job to teach the new junior, and I remember seeing on his face, the look of worry, that I had had on mine months before.
We all have to start somewhere, otherwise we remain scared and static, never growing, never developing. Paul, The Corinthians, Peter, James, John and the rest of the disciples all had to overcome their fears, and although they at times stumbled, and at times failed, it never deterred them from following the path.
They along with the rest of the early church established the faith, a faith which is ours to claim, a faith which is ours to share, and a faith which will lead us to the fullness of life, with our risen saviour Jesus Christ.
Amen.
