The Sermon: “Unveiled and Vulnerable to Grace”

Exodus 34: 29-35, Luke 9: 28-36

Feb. 18, 2007 Transfiguration Sunday

“And we with unveiled faces….. are being transformed” 2 Cor. 3:4

I’m trying to tie two rather unrelated strands together today - two themes that might not be not the most natural fit for a sermon - but I think there is a useful message that arises out of this mix. The first theme comes to us out of our scripture lessons, as on this last Sunday before Lent, we keep the custom of reading about Jesus’ mountain top transformation, or his “transfiguration” (if you want to use a bit of theological jargon.) Not too long before making his tragic journey into Jerusalem Jesus ascended a mountain, along with Peter, James and John, his three closest disciples. There he had this otherworldly experience, this mystical encounter with God that was so intense it caused him to shine with a strange brightness. He spoke with two great spiritual leaders from his peoples’ heritage, Moses and Elijah – representing the Law and the Prophets, the two great pillars of Hebrew scripture – and then, as if to validate Jesus’ special place, even surpassing these notable leaders, a heavenly voice declared “This is my Son, whom I have chosen – listen to him”

The Bible doesn’t specifically explain why it was important for Jesus to have this encounter, or why the disciples’ presence was important, but a common understanding is that this transfiguration was a preview of the resurrection, a glimpse of the future, and that it was necessary for the disciples (and perhaps even Jesus?) to have this taste of glory before plunging into the terrible events of what we now call “Holy Week.” The disciples didn’t fully understand what they’d seen – this was actually not so uncommon for them – but they were present with Jesus in glory, and perhaps somehow empowered to endure and keep faith in the midst of the suffering that was soon to follow. I believe this is also the reason for appointing this lesson to be read in worship on the Sunday before Lent – to give us a picture of Christ in glory, as if resurrected, before we move into the story of his humiliation, suffering and death. Thus we can observe those things with the remembrance that this is indeed God’s Son, and remember that these events – terrible though they are – are all a part of God’s saving work.

So Jesus goes up the mountain, and in the presence of God he is changed, transfigured…… There’s a similar theme in the Exodus reading for today, about Moses on the mountain, as you may have noticed. He also has an intense encounter with God, and doesn’t realize that this has caused his face to be glowing with an unnatural brilliance. As he comes back down the mountain his fellow Hebrews are frightened by this glowing – it seems too intense, too much for them to bear – and it takes some urging to get them to listen as Moses shares with them the message of God. Moses puts a veil over his face after speaking – perhaps to shield people from the overwhelming radiance, even if it’s a second hand brilliance, that seems too powerful them to endure. The narrative isn’t absolutely clear about that, about why he puts the veil on. But it is clear in stating this, that whenever Moses went back into the direct rays of God’s presence he would take off that veil. He wanted an unfiltered, undiminished, unveiled exposure to God.

So that’s one theme – this theme of a transforming spiritual encounter with God, as suggested in the physical radiance that came upon Jesus and Moses. Paul writes about Moses’ experience too, in 2^nd Corinthians, and he says that the goal of a Christian life is to be like Moses without the veil. “And we with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord….. are being transformed.” (2 Cor. 3:18)

My second theme may sound like an advertisement for a movie, and perhaps in a way it is. Many Christian groups, from a wide theological spectrum, have asked that churches think of today as “Amazing Grace Sunday,” and that we encourage people to see a movie called “Amazing Grace” that is being released this week, in conjunction with a rather significant moment in history. Whether the movie is any good I can’t say, but the story it is telling is important.

“Amazing Grace” is a hymn that rose out of a remarkable life, and one of the characters whose story is told in the movie is its author, a man named John Newton. I’ll try to be brief with this, because I’ve told his story in greater length on other occasions, but for those of you who don’t know it, here’s the abbreviated version.

John Newton went to sea as a young lad and worked his way up from cabin boy to being master of his own ship – a ship that hauled slaves from West Africa to the Americas. If he had any qualms about this work, and about participating in the horrors that were perpetrated on the slaves, he managed to ignore them, despite having a significant spiritual awakening during one of his voyages. When caught up in a terrible, life-threatening storm John Newton heard himself calling out to God, though he had not been a practicing Christian. The storm eventually ceased and Newton, sure that his life had been spared by God’s providential care, became a fervent believer and Christian. And what about his career as a slave trader? This is a disappointing, though perhaps realistic part of the story. John Newton continued with his life as it had been for another six years, until it became painfully apparent that to him that there was something radically wrong with a Christian who treated other children of God with such cruelty. He gave up the sea, took a job working at the Liverpool harbor, and came under the influence of two Methodist preachers, George Whitfield and our spiritual father John Wesley. He continued on his religious pilgrimage, and eventually became a priest in the Church of England. In his preaching and writing he was strongly critical of slave trading, and rather than hiding his own dubious past he was quite explicit, using his own experiences to illustrate the horrible brutality of this practice. He also wrote numerous hymns – few of which are ever sung anymore – but one of them is, a song that rises up with power, perhaps because it comes so strongly out of his own experience. “Amazing grace – how sweet the sound the saved a wretch like me………” Grace, the unmerited love of God, the forgiving acceptance of God, is not just for good people; or for people who may have sinned in a tiny way by cursing once in a while; or for people who are decent enough but just can’t seem to get interested in going to church. Grace is amazing, says John Newton, if it could be for “a wretch like me” - for a man who willingly loaded slaves into his cargo hold, knowing that many would die in the next two or three months in that filthy prison, and that all would go to a life of brutalizing, sub-human existence…. Grace is amazing if it could be for “a wretch like me” - who could be saved by God in a storm and call himself a Christian, and yet go on with slavery for another six years…..

Newton was amazed, amazed at God’s forgiveness, and also at the transforming power of grace. It didn’t happen all at once, and maybe it didn’t happen as fast as God wanted it to happen, but John Newton was changed. As an older man Newton can look on his sinful past and say “I once was lost but now am found; was blind but now I see.”

The other story in the movie, and I believe it is actually the more central narrative, is that of a man named William Wilberforce – also a Christian, also strongly influenced by the Methodist movement, and a strong leader in the fight against slavery.

Wilberforce was born in 1759 into a family of wealth and privilege and was educated at St. John’s College at Cambridge, though he was not a very serious student. He later reflected, "As much pains were taken to make me idle as were ever taken to make me studious." A neighbor at Cambridge added, "When he [Wilberforce] returned late in the evening to his rooms, he would summon me to join him…. He was so winning and amusing that I often sat up half the night with him, much to the detriment of my attendance at lectures the next day." But Wilberforce did have political ambitions, and with his family connections he managed to get elected to Parliament at age 21, though in his early years he did little to justify his election. He later admitted, "The first years in Parliament I did nothing—nothing to any purpose. My own distinction was my darling object."

In the years that followed, however, Wilberforce had a spiritual renewal. Part of this was related to illness and depression with which he struggled, but by Easter of 1786 he knew himself to have been reborn. He joined a Church of England with a strong evangelical flavor, and began to question whether as a Christian he should continue in politics. Those with whom he counseled urged him to do so, and to use his position for God’s causes, and Wilberforce began to see his life's purpose in that way: "My walk is a public one," he wrote in his diary. "My business is in the world, and I must mix in the assemblies of men or quit the post which Providence seems to have assigned me."

In particular, he became convinced that he should work for the end of the slave trade, and at first he was quite optimistic about this battle, naively so, given the degree to which English prosperity was related to slave trade, and the number of people whose livelihood was dependent upon it. It has been estimated that in the mid-1700’s British ships were hauling between 35,000 and 50,000 African slaves per year, and one publicist for the West Indies trade wrote, "The impossibility of doing without slaves in the West Indies will always prevent this traffic being dropped. The necessity, the absolute necessity, then, of carrying it on, must, since there is no other, be its excuse." Wilberforce began rallying members of Parliament around the cause in the late 1780’s and by 1789 introduced a bill to abolish the lave trade in Great Britain, but it was easily defeated. He introduced another bill in 1791, which was defeated, as were the bills he introduced in 1792, 1793, 1797, 1798, 1799, 1804, and 1805. When it became clear that he was not going to give up on this crusade many influential forces rose against him with libelous accusations, threats of violence, and financial pressure, but he was not swayed. One encouraging voice amidst the threats, though, was that of John Wesley. As matter of fact, the last letter ever written by Mr. Wesley was to William Wilberforce, acknowledging the difficulty of the task he had chosen but encouraging him to keep struggling. “O be not weary of well doing!” He wrote. “Go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it.”

So Wilberforce kept on, and gradually the tide began to turn, until at last, in 1807 – 20 years after he had begun to campaign – Great Britain outlawed the slave trade. The bill became official 200 years ago this week – March 25^th – and the release of the film has been timed to coincide with that historic moment.

The slave trade was now illegal in Great Britain, but merchants found various ways to get around the laws, and many began to realize that only the actual abolition of slavery itself would end this moral wrong. Wilberforce did not support an immediate abolition – he wanted time for the slaves to be educated and prepared for freedom, but he did lend his name and his influence to this cause. Ill health forced him to give up his seat in Parliament, but he continued to write and speak on the issue and at last, in 1833, slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire, a month after the death of William Wilberforce, and almost 50 years after his initial efforts in this moral crusade.

So – there are two very different sermons for today, but here’s my connecting thought. Religion that is real will change us, transform us – as suggested in the physical transformations that came over Moses and Jesus when they had been in the presence of God, and in the moral transformations of John Newton and William Wilberforce after they had experienced the amazing grace of God. Grace changes us, not with commands and laws but from within. It transforms us, if we are willing to let it shine on us, pervade us, and make us new. The question with which I end is this: Are you willing to be unveiled before grace? Do you want to get rid of the attitudes that shield you from a real involvement with God and the life-changing grace you might encounter? To use Paul’s phrase, are you willing to encounter the grace of God with an unveiled face?