The Last Sunday after the Epiphany-The Rev Melanie Lemburg
The Rev Melanie D. Lemburg
Last Sunday after the
Epiphany-Year B
February 11, 2024
I have a new song that I’m quasi-obsessed
with. It’s my new hype song; I listen to
it when I’m driving in the car often on repeat because it makes me happy. It wasn’t a song I had planned to preach on
until I woke up with it going through my head on Monday morning. The song is titled Shambala and it’s performed
by Three Dog Night. Do y’all know this
song? It was released in 1973 and the
song is about the mythical kingdom of Shambala which is referred to in Tibetan
Buddhism, and it is speculated that the song to this mythical place is actually
about the spiritual path or journey. It
starts:
“Wash
away my troubles
Wash
away my pain
With
the rain in Shambala
Wash
away my sorrow
Wash
away my shame
With
the rain in Shambala
Ah
ooh yeah
Yeah
yeah yeah yeah yeah
Ah
ooh yeah
Yeah
yeah yeah yeah yeah”
The
narrator goes on to sing about the people he encounters on the road to Shambala—people
who are helpful, kind, lucky, and so kind-on the road to Shambala- and then launches
into the rousing chorus:
“How
does your light shine
In
the halls of Shambala?
How
does your light shine
In
the halls of Shambala?”[i]
Today is the last Sunday after the
Epiphany, the season in the church when we most focus on light—the light shining
in the darkness, the ways that God is manifest in this world in the person of Jesus,
the ways that God continues to be manifest in this world through the power of the
Holy Spirit shining in our lives, weaving people and experiences together. So this question of how does your light shine
is an especially appropriate one for us as we close out this season.
But I think we can be a bit more
specific in looking at how our light shines considering two of our readings for
today—the Old Testament and the gospel. In
the Old Testament, we see two of the greatest prophets of Israel-Elijah and
Elisha; Elijah has served as a mentor to Elisha and Elijah is preparing to complete
his time on earth and be taken up to heaven.
There’s this strange group of spectator prophets who seem to be trailing
after them wanting to see what will happen and kind of heckling Elisha, who
just keeps telling them to essentially “shut up!”
And in the gospel reading for today-the
story of Jesus’s Transfiguration—we have Jesus’s closest disciples on top of
the mountain with him when he becomes transfigured, and a voice from heaven
proclaims: “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”
Another writer says of this gospel
account: “The disciples witness the deeds of Jesus, but fail to grasp the core
of his character and mission. This is all
the more striking, considering that the divine voice, heard in the
transfiguration account, commands them to listen to Jesus (9:7). Narratively speaking this imperative suggests
more than practices of passive listening.
Here, the voice demands that the very disposition of Jesus’s closest
followers evolve from spectators to witnesses.”[ii]
We see this differentiation between witnesses
and spectators at work in the Old Testament story as well. The spectators are the gaggle of prophets who
are following along to see what’s going to happen to Elijah. But it is Elisha who insists on accompanying
Elijah to the very end, and who receives a double portion of Elijah’s spirit as
he is able to watch Elijah being taken up to heaven on chariots of fire with
horses of fire in a whirlwind. And it
is, thus, Elisha who becomes the witness and the next great prophet of Israel.
So, what do you think is the difference
between a spectator and a witness? Our
Wednesday congregation weighed in on this question this week: for them a spectator indicates a certain amount
of distance between the watcher and the event.
But a witness implies connection, an experiential piece that changes the
watcher making them become a part of the ongoing story; someone observed that
witness is both a noun and a verb; and being a witness can sometimes mean
standing up for what you believe is true or what truly happened.
Think about how the disciples change
from spectators to witnesses between the transfiguration and after Jesus’s resurrection
(well into the Acts of the Apostles). Do
you think the transformation from spectator to witness is a sudden development or
more of a slow growth in the life of faith?
How are you being called in your own life to grow from spectator or
passive listener to witness to the manifestation of God through the Holy Spirit
in your life or in the world around you?
Or to quote my friends Three Dog Night:
“How does your light shine in the halls of Shambala?”
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