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Sermon at The Church of
the Holy Apostles, New York City,
August 6, 2006, The Transfiguration of Our Lord:
Year B
by The Reverend Peter R. Carey
Exodus 34: 29 - 35
Psalm 99
2 Peter 1: 13 - 21
Luke 9: 28 - 36
In
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
The month of August is not my favorite month as far as
the weather is concerned, but it is one of my favorite months as
far as the church calendar goes. Some of the saints who mean the
most to me are commemorated during this month, among them St.
Dominic, the founder of the Dominican Order, of which I was a
member; St. Mary the Virgin, the mother of our Lord; and John
Mason Neale. You know John Mason Neale even if you don’t recognize
his name because you have sung his hymns. He wrote scores of
wonderful hymns, many of which are in our Hymnal.
And then of course, August is the month which contains
today’s feast--the Transfiguration of our Lord, one of the richest
and deepest and most profound commemorations of the entire
liturgical year.
This morning, I’d like to tell you a little bit about
the life and struggles of John Mason Neale and then to connect his
life to the Feast of the Transfiguration and finally to apply that
connection to us.
John Mason Neale was born in London in 1818 and died in
a small village about 20 miles south of London in 1866, at the
comparatively young age of 46. He died exactly 140 years ago
today, on the Feast of the Transfiguration.
Neale was a gentle and scholarly soul, but he had a
deep and burning sense of outrage about the injustices of his day
and he possessed a fierce determination to do something about
them. For that reason he was in trouble with the powers-that-be in
the Church of England pretty much for his entire life. Not only
the bishops but also the powerful evangelicals of his day placed
every obstacle they could think of in his path because he stood
for reform and for a fully inclusive church and we know from our
own struggles today that full inclusion is not a highly prized
value among some bishops and evangelicals.
After Cambridge and ordination Neale managed to get a
job as the warden or head of an almshouse--a poor house, a place
where the most neglected and despised people in society went when
there was nowhere else to go. The place was falling apart and the
first thing Neale did was to fix it up and to try make life better
for the inmates. As he got to know the people who lived there he
began to be particularly aware of the plight of the thousands of
women, who lived in terrible poverty in the surrounding towns and
villages--women who were utterly neglected by the church and he
set about the task of trying to help them.
He did this principally by founding one of the first
orders of religious women in the Anglican Church. It was called
the Society of St. Margaret and Neale’s bold act immediately
aroused the anger of the evangelicals in the Church of England,
who were, and of course still are, an extremely important part of
that Church. They were outraged. Women were meant be subject to
their husbands, to remain at home, and to bear children, not to go
about meddling in the lives of others, nor to wear "Romish rags"
as they called their habits, or to try to do the work of priests.
But Neale and his small group of women persevered and
grew and flourished and helped countless poor women in their
struggle to survive in a society that was stacked against them.
Even today, in our own diocese the Sisters of St. Margaret operate
a home for the aged, Neale House (named after John Mason Neale) in
lower Manhattan. And the sisters also work among the poorest of
the poor in Haiti.
The other abuse that John Mason Neale focused on was
something that makes us laugh today--pew boxes. Pew boxes were
special boxes--like boxes at the opera really--that were on raised
daises, often on the side of the nave. They were fitted with doors
and were reserved for the private use of the upper classes--for
the nobility or the gentry--for those who could afford to pay for
them. The lower classes sat on benches in the nave or stood in the
back, out of sight and out of mind.
Pew boxes first appeared in the 18th century in
Anglican Churches and by Neale’s day they were well established.
Wealthy box holders would fit them out with upostered chairs and
even sofas and lap robes and small heaters for the winter.
Sometimes the local squire and his family would even bring a
little snack with them to eat during the sermon or during the long
prayers of Mattins on Sunday morning. (The Eucharist was rarely
celebrated at that time.)
Neale thought that this practice was outrageous and
absolutely had to go and he preached against it incessantly and
wrote many articles that denounced it. This earned him the enmity
of the rich and powerful as well as the bishops and of the
evangelical-fundamentalists. So Neale remained in his first and
only job as the warden of an almshouse with a salary of 47 pounds
a year.
What is remarkable about the life of John Mason Neale
is that the entire time Neale was working for church reform, the
whole time he was struggling for the rights of the poor and the
rights of women, he was at the very same time giving even more to
the church. He was translating the ancient hymns of the eastern
and western church which had been lost to the English liturgy at
the Reformation, and he was writing marvelous hymns and wonderful
poems that reveal the depth of his commitment to Jesus and to the
church and to the christian life.
How could one person have found the strength to do all
that? How could he have struggled so hard to bring about a fully
inclusive church, a church that has no "us" and "them", a church
where there are no outsiders--and at the same time to continue to
love the church and to work so hard on its behalf?
For the answer to that question, we need to turn to the
life and ministry of our Lord on whom John Mason Neale patterned
his own life and ministry. And we can in particular, this morning,
turn to the story of the Transfiguration.
The Transfiguration is presented in St. Luke’s Gospel
as a kind of watershed moment in our Lord’s life. What we have in
the account of the Transfiguration is a story at the center of
Jesus’ life from which the reader looks backward to his ministry
and forward to his passion and ultimate glory.
For Peter, James, and John, the moment of Jesus’
Transfiguration has a strong element of anticipation and of final
victory about it. It was for them a kind of preview of the future,
a view from the mountain that showed them how the whole story was
going to end. Later, when the terrible days of the passion and
death of their Lord unfolded, they undoubtedly remembered that
moment when Jesus stood in front of them, before their very eyes,
transfigured, his face shining like the sun, his clothes "as white
as light." They surely remembered that moment and it gave them
strength. It is true that until Pentecost they wouldn’t fully
understand its full significance, but the Transfiguration gave
them hope and courage in the meantime.
For Jesus too the Transfiguration probably had a
similar clarifying and strengthening effect. He understood in the
fullness of his human psyche how the glory of God would shine
forth in him once his saving work was completed. And from that
vision he drew strength, strength to endure his coming passion.
I think that taking comfort and strength from the
assurance of a happy ending is a profoundly human thing to do. I
remember some years ago, when I first found out that I had a very
serious heart problem and that I would have to have open heart
surgery, I asked the doctor, "Can you fix it?" And he said, "Yes,
I think we can." That was enough for me. I had faith in my doctors
and I easily found the courage to do what I had to do and to face
what I had to face--because I had faith in a positive and happy
outcome.
So, in a similar but much more profound way, the
Transfiguration was both for Jesus and for the apostles a kind of
preview of heaven while they were still here on earth. And that
anticipation and that assurance was a source of strength for them
all.
And so it has been for christians ever since. And so it
was for John Mason Neale, who faced such trememdous difficulties
with such determination and commitment and generosity. It was his
belief in, as the creeds put it.... it was his belief in "the life
of the world to come" that gave him the strength he needed in this
world.
St. Paul also understood the connection between the
life of the world to come and this life when he compared the two.
"For I consider," Paul wrote in his Letter to the Romans, "that
the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared
with the glory which shall be revealed in us." [Rom 8:18]
It isn’t really very popular these days to talk about
getting to heaven, or about the life of the world to come, or
about sharing in the glory that Christ has made possible for
us--and that’s understandable. I suppose we don’t want people to
think that we are still hanging on to some silly or outdated idea
of heaven where we sit around on clouds playing harps. But the
idea of a life beyond this life is a core doctrine of our faith,
taught by our Lord himself, mentioned explicitly in the creeds,
and woven through all of our prayers.
Our faith in eternal life can and should play a very
practical role in our everyday lives. That belief gives us
courage, it gives us strength and it gives us hope.
I’d like to give John Mason Neale the last word today.
He wrote a wonderful poem about the Transfiguration which
expresses his hope in the life of the world to come. Here it is:
Amongst his Twelve
Apostles
Christ spake the Words of Life,
And shew’d a realm of beauty
Beyond a world of strife.
Upon the Mount of Tabor
The promise was made good;
When, baring all the Godhead,
In light itself He stood.
And they, in awe beholding,
The Apostolic Three,
Sang out to God their Saviour,
For magnified was He!
O holy, wondrous Vision!
And when this life is past,
The beauty of Mount Tabor
Shall end in Heav’n at last.
But what, when all the glory
Of uncreated light
Shall be the promis’d recompense
For them that win the fight?
Amen.
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