Genesis 17.1-7, 15-16; Mark 9.2-9

Pipes … thousands of pipes run beneath our feet … beneath our cities and towns, across the deserts and through the mountains … underground, unseen, beneath our feet.

On the wall in front of me, a giant map - red lines, blue lines, orange lines … converging on Tulsa, OK - a map of the underground pipes and pumps moving tons of product across the nation - from gas and oil wells to the refineries, to the tank farms, to the tank trucks and the local gas station … and to the ships in Houston, taking gas and oil across the seas.

Underground, invisible, unknown … day in and day out, year after year …  underground pipelines … 

And the glory of God, underpinning our lives … 

The glory of God: large enough to hold the universe, 

small enough for Mary’s Womb, 

small enough to snuggle in her arms, 

wrapped in swaddling clothes … 

small enough to find a room in our heart. 

The glory of God:

All around us:

the birds of morning, the crickets at night … 

our laughter, our tears … 

the noise of the day, the quiet of the night … 

when hell appears, when heaven dawns …

When I’m listening to one of my favorite authors, Jacqueline Winspear and her Maisie Dobbs detective stories … she’s a gifted writer, and ever so often, a moment: Oh my Gosh, a splash of insight, a shooting star, a get-my-attention split-second - the glory of God.

It happens all the time … in a million different ways … God shows up, but always in a way suitable to us, mostly quiet and gentle … Isaiah the Prophet says it so beautifully:

God … will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed [God] will not break, and a dimly burning wick [God] will not quench.

Frederick Buechner, Presbyterian minister and novelist, says this about angels: 

An angel spreads its glittering wings over us, and we say things like  "It was one of those days that made you feel good just to be alive,"  or  "I had a hunch everything was going to turn out all right,"  or  "I don't know where I ever found the courage." 

The glory of God … in special places … thin places … where we can more easily encounter the sacred … 

The Church, and it’s Bible … a text, a book, a page and its words.

hymns and prayers, sermons and liturgy.

Baptism and the LORD’s Supper.

stained glass windows, well-worn pews … the sounds of a great organ.

the Holy Spirit blowing where it will!

Who knows where and when the glory of God reveals itself to us … but it will come our way … God is a God of great love … not to overpower us, but to walk beside us … 

The glory of God … beneath us, around us, deep within us … at work - 24/7 365 … 

Someone might ask, How can you talk about the glory of God when all hell is breaking lose, humankind has lost its way …suffering and sorrow at every turn - greed and malice everywhere?

Yes, caution is needed!

Life is no fairy tale …

And neither is the gospel … 

Jesus rightly says to us: take up your cross … faith demands a great deal of us, love requires everything … this is our calling … this is the Word of God that comes to each one of us, here and now, in this place, this moment of time … 

The story of Abram and Sarai begins where there is no hope … they’re old … too old to have a family.

That train left the station long ago, that door is closed …

But it’s never too late to be great …   

This is truth-story, not a true story.

Any more than Moby Dick or Lord of the Rings are true… 

These are truth stories, and it’s terribly important that we know the difference, lest we miss the point. 

We don’t argue about Bilbo Baggins, or the white whale, or whether or not God could reverse the aging process and give this old couple a child. 

This is not about weird miracles; some kind of a crazy “facts of life” for an old couple … but the facts of faith all of us.

It’s never too late to be great!

If one train has left the station, another one is coming … if one door is closed, there will be another door to open!

Centuries later … Jesus goes up to a high place with Peter, James, and John … Jesus is transfigured … his clothing shines … Elijah and Moses are there …  the disciples see the glory of God.

A cloud comes upon them … a voice is heard: This is my son, the beloved … listen to him.

Peter stammers and stutters … Let’s gather some branches, make a few huts, enjoy the mountain … 

In a moment, it’s all gone … the light, the glory, Moses and Elijah … what’s left is Jesus; the glory of God in tunic and sandals … down the mountain they go, to meet the world … 

At the foot of the mountain, sin and sorrow, sickness and poverty, want and hurt, craziness and meanness … it was a mountain-top experience, but life goes on at the foot of the mountain. 

The glory of God … the call to be great … the light of hope … Elijah and Moses … Jesus our LORD.

Our souls need a North Star … a point of reference to guide our footsteps … we need the glory!

If we don’t move toward the light, chances are, we’ll move in the opposite direction. 

God says to Abram and Sarai: I am God Almighty … and I make my covenant between me and you. 

On the Mt. of Transfiguration: this is my beloved son, listen to him!

Can you see the glory?

The glory of God - that all should live, and live in peace … that every child should be fed … the naked clothed, the lost be found, the gospel proclaimed … can you see the glory?

Consider the blue ceiling above the chancel … the color of the heavens … heaven and earth are not so far apart, after all … can you see the glory?

Above you … hundreds of crosses, no longer carried by the saints - their work is finished - the crosses they carried have been laid aside and exchanged for a crown … can you see the glory?

Mine eyes have the glory of the coming of the LORD …

I have seen him in the watchfires 

of a hundred circling camps,

He has sounded forth the trumpet 

that shall never call retreat;

In the beauty of the lilies 

Christ was born across the sea,

He is coming like the glory 

of the morning on the wave, 

he is wisdom to the mighty, 

he is honor to the brave;

Can you see the glory?

Hallelujah and Amen!

1.8.23 "The Adventure" - Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, CA

 Isaiah 42.1-9; Matthew 3.13-17

Off we go into the wild blue yonder,

Climbing high into the sun …

So the Eggebeens would sing at the start of a family vacation … everyone piled into the car, seatbelts fastened, ready to go …

And then we’d play a Willie Nelson song:

On the road again

Just can't wait to get on the road again

The life I love is making music with my friends

Off we go … to see something of God’s grand and glorious world, to see old friends, visit family, take some time off from work and school … a splendid adventure.

I think of the conversation between Gandalf and Bilbo Baggins at the beginning of The Hobbit:

Gandalf: I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone.

Bilbo: I should think so—in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t think what anybody sees in them….

Gandalf: You’ll have a tale or two to tell when you come back. 

Bilbo: You can promise that I’ll come back?

Gandalf: No. And if you do, you will not be the same.

There is much to life that meets the eye … and even more that doesn’t … 

Things hidden … things mysterious and wonderful … things strange and odd and fearful and fascinating, even dangerous … 

The mysteries of life … birth and death … gain and loss … joy and sorrow … laughter and lament … these are the realities of life … the clock ticks and the clock tocks … things come and things go … we live and we love, and we do the best we can, and sometimes, with clear intent, we don’t.

These are the realities …

Part of what it means to follow Christ is to deal with our realities … to live in the reality of world, the world of time and hope, disappointment and grief.

This is the only world in which we can live, and to live in this world, consciously, thoughtfully, is to live with God …

Our consumer culture is on a mission, however.

Our consumer culture prefers us not to think too deeply … but to get out there and buy a few things … and stay in debt.

Frederick Buechner says:

To journey for the sake of saving our own lives is little by little to cease to live in any sense that really matters, even to ourselves, because it is only by journeying for the world's sake - even when the world bores and sickens and scares you half to death - that little by little we start to come alive." 

William Barclay wrote: There are two great days in a person’s life—the day we are born and the day we discover why.

When we think deeply, we’re praying … prayer is nothing less, and nothing more, than thinking deeply: who am I? where am going? what do I value? … and God? God is always woven into the those kinds of questions … probe, push, ponder … sooner or later we end up on the boundary of the infinite.

Prayer is deep thinking … wondering … stepping back for a moment or two to look at the big picture … or at least as big as we can take it in … 

Infants and children take it all in … When a child is born, all the windows are open … everything pours in like an avalanche … but in time, the brain begins to sort things out, and windows begin to close. 

A person couldn’t spend a lifetime with all the windows open; there’d be too much of everything. So we sort things out, close a few windows, most of the windows actually, maybe too many.

When we engage in prayer, when we try to take in the big picture, we have to pry open some of the windows, windows long shut and painted over … the paint has to be chipped away … with a little hammering and some screwdriver work, we soon have an open window.

In the ancient language of faith, it’s called conversion … windows of the soul opened to the love and wonder of God … the mind changes … the soul grows larger, in sense and sensibility … 

This was the experience of the Apostle Paul on the Damascus Road … a bright light blinded him … this man who thought he could see everything, quickly realized that he could see nothing … he was spiritually blind … he believed in God with all his heart, soul, strength, and mind … but he had it all wrong … 

History is full of such stories - zealous and pious people get it wrong … time and again.  

Some of the most dangerous people I’ve ever known have been the fully-convinced … the “true believers,” as Eric Hoffer calls them … 

Dangerous, because they have small minds … the windows of the soul have been slammed shut and painted over by dogma and creed … they become people of small sympathies and harsh judgments. 

As Hoffer notes: Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.

The Damascus Road for Paul - he came face-to-face face with his spiritual blindness … this man, with the keenest of minds, had to learn that he had it wrong … he had to start all over again.  

Amazing grace how sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me

I once was lost, but now I'm found

Was blind but now I see

Jesus comes to be one with us … to heal the wounds and bind up the broken hearted … to recast the vision of life … to help us pray, pray deeply, to live in the deeps rather than the shallows … to be less driven by consumerism, and more devoted to the things of God … less about getting, more about giving.

Jesus comes to us with an adventure: to engage in the great ideas and works of justice and peace … to plunge into the world … to be one with God, in God’s purpose … one with others, in their dreams and their sorrows … to follow Christ where’er he lead.

Gandalf was looking for someone to share an adventure … at first, Bilbo wanted nothing to do with it … he wanted only to stay in his burrow … but in time, the allure of Gandalf won the day, and off went Mr. Baggins on the adventure of a lifetime …

And so it is for us … even now, here, in this place and time, Christ is looking for someone to share an adventure … like Mr. Baggins, we want to stay in our burrow, close the windows, bar the door … 

But our soul cries out and begs us to go … there is so much more to life than meets the eye …  

Here I am LORD … here. I. am!

Hallelujah and Amen!