For me as a school child, Valentine’s Day was all about the boxes.  I loved the process of decorating a shoe box or old shipping box with construction paper and hearts.  I loved putting my own design on it.  I loved the process of taking it to school.  Making my own box to receive all those little paper valentines was a creative joy.  And it sure was better than the other part of Valentine’s Day.  

I hated deciding what valentine to give to what classmate.  Even at a young age, the subtext of these out of the box cards was complex.  If I gave a card that was too sappy, too mushy to the wrong classmate, would they receive the wrong message and assume that I like liked them?  And what about that person I actually was crushing on--would they receive the message I was conveying from that extra little sticker tacked on, or the selection of the card with my favorite character?  What was the difference between a card that was about friendship and a card that might express something more?

That part of Valentine’s Day was always a bit much for me.  

I suspect Peter would enjoy decorating the boxes more than the social nuances of handing out the cards, too.  Maybe this is me projecting onto Peter, in fact, I know it is.  But I always have such an affinity for the stories of Peter we hear in the gospels.  He tries so hard.  And he wants so badly to make the experience he’s having of Jesus make sense.  He’s the guy who tries to put Jesus in a box, into a way of looking at the world that makes sense. 

Peter is the guy who in the Gospel of Matthew who tries to keep Jesus in the box of, oh staying alive and not predicting his own death, and Jesus responds with that infamous line, “Get behind me Satan!”  Peter is also the one who has a little bit of trouble with the out of the box experience of walking on water.  

Peter seems to have more trouble when things go off script, when there are no clear answers, when the world gets a little fuzzy on the edges.  Who can blame him?  How can we not empathize with this man who always seems to be just a bit startled at who Jesus actually is?

This story of the transfiguration of Christ is, of course, yet another key example.  This mystical experience, this moment where the heroes of faith appear, this dazzling, light-filled glorious moment--and Peter asks about tents.  As would anyone who would like to put a box around the unexplainable, to put boundaries around the messy and uncharted, and tents down to contain an experience that will so quickly drift away.  

Jesus, on the other hand, I am certain would be very good at sending Valentines.  He never seemed to be embarrassed by extravagant declarations of love.  Jesus is an out of the box thinker.  He is surprising and challenging and even today, after how many centuries of us Christians trying to study and understand him, we still can be knocked off balance by his dazzling presence.

Jesus is the one I am simultaneously petrified and excited to follow. 

This story of the transfiguration is beautiful and dazzling, but it also marks an important transitional moment in the ministry of Jesus.  He has been building up his ministry so far, gathering disciples and teaching and healing.  He has journeyed up the mountaintop.  But now he’s got to go back down.  And it’s not a journey into further glory--at least not yet.  It’s into confusion, into upended expectations, and a story that leads right to the cross.  If Peter found the transfiguration confusing, he is certainly not prepared for what comes next.  

There’s not a box or tent that could contain what was going to happen next.

It’s a disorienting experience to encounter this Jesus.  As Christians who get to hear the story of the resurrection alongside the crucifixion, we can get comfortable in the happy ending without fully experiencing the world upending chaos it took to get there.  Knowing the whole story provides its own kind of comfort.  It’s a cozy box.  

We often carry the legacy of Peter more than we do Jesus.  We are drawn to structures and stability.  Just look at the established church in America right now.  Without knowing the content, you can almost always expect a church to follow a formula of a building, a pastor, a secretary.  Toss in a custodian and Christian Education Director and you’ve got a church.  It can be a comforting system, but one that can box us in with bricks, tradition, and the expectation that this is the only place to find Jesus.  

Maybe we should’ve listened to Peter after all and set up some tents.  They’d probably be a little more movable.

What does it mean to stand at the top of the mountaintop with Jesus and imagine what’s coming next?  How do we take a deep breath and get ready to race after the epitome of love unbound, the Jesus who defies expectations even now?

This day of transfiguration and love, I hope you can find the courage to love freely.  I pray for love that doesn’t fit in boxes.  If you hear yourself sounding like Peter, know you are not alone.  And know that Peter’s story doesn’t end here.  His courage and imagination took some coaxing, but he never stopped learning and following Jesus.  Let us do the same.  

And these are but the outer fringe of God’s works;

how faint the whisper we hear of God!

Job 26:14

Honest gratitude is difficult even for the best of us. Routine gratitude can be easier. Like a child’s bedtime prayers, we can rattle off all those things we’re supposed to be grateful for: food, water, shelter, friends, family, etc. If we’re feeling particularly spiritual, we can toss in a “thank you” for Jesus and call it a day.

Perhaps we need routine to carry us through this very not-routine year. A perfunctory “thanks” is better than none at all, right? I’ve been encouraging people all year to lower their expectations, do what they can. We are in, to use a phrase we are all sick of, unprecedented times. If all you can muster this year for a moment of Thanksgiving gratitude is gratefulness that 2020 is almost over, you won’t be alone.

Our spiritual lives have certainly taken a hit this year. The things that can so often sustain us--singing together, sharing in-person communion, hugs, sanctuaries--are not safe options. And so, for many of us, God can seem distant. God becomes just one more item on a list of things we’re supposed to be grateful for.

I’m here to tell you that when things just feel always a little out of reach, when things don’t seem to be quite right, when you keep grasping for what could be--this is a profoundly spiritual place to be. We can so often confuse the heights of spiritual satisfaction with security and absolutism. It’s like assuming God only belongs in established church buildings and sanctuaries at specific times. But there is a long tradition of finding God and knowing God not in the certain and absolute, but in the fleeting and unobtainable. If this year has put you off balance, you might be exactly ready to notice the Spirit’s grace in your life.

Long before the orderly letters of Paul and even the kindly teachings of Jesus, there was the story of Job. Job is an odd book, with little to offer in terms of neat and tidy endings. It’s about suffering and friendship and the completely overwhelming nature of God. The verse I want you to remember today comes from the middle of a speech Job has given about all of these wild and magnificent characteristics of God. Job says to his friends, “And these are but the outer fringes of God’s works; how faint the whisper we hear of God!”

In this, we hear what is at least one of my truest beliefs about God. We can only hear but a whisper, catch an edge of understanding. We recognize this when we size ourselves up against the vastness of the world and the limits of our understanding. As much as we might think we have progressed or learned since the time the story of Job was collected hundreds of years before Christ, we are still small, finite, frail creatures. When we even begin to look at who or what or how God is, we might still find ourselves saying, “And these are but the outer fringes of God’s works; how faint the whisper we hear of God!”

It’s not a dissimilar spiritual posture to what we find in another wisdom book of the bible, Ecclesiastes. This is the book of the bible that says things like, “When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe the labor that is done on earth—people getting no sleep day or night— then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all their efforts to search it out, no one can discover its meaning. Even if the wise claim they know, they cannot really comprehend it.”

We might fool ourselves into thinking this is not so when the world seems orderly and structured and safe. Our thanksgiving can reflect that, when we offer gratitude for the staying put in the way that it should be. It’s a prayer that says, “Thank you God for staying put and being nice and taking care of me.” This isn’t such a bad prayer. But now, in this time of upheaval, our prayers of thanksgiving must adjust to instead praise the God of Job, the God we can barely understand. This is the God we see out of the corner of our eye, that we momentarily sense in a moment of joy. And then like a whisper, it floats off again.

For the God who emerges with power and majesty and mystery out of times of chaos and destabilization--we give thanks.

John Steinbeck describes this spiritual moment in this way in his book East of Eden:

Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning toward dynamite. It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves, of the forearms. The skin tastes the air, and every deep-drawn breath is sweet. Its beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in the brain and the whole world glows outside your eyes.

See if your thanksgiving prayers might expand this year. You might have to clear some space ahead of time to listen to the whispers of God, to catch sight of those things that for just a moment are bright and radiant. If what we hear of God is but a whisper, we’d better lean in to listen closely.

Give thanks for food, water, shelter, friends, family but also:

The warmth of a new pair of socks on a cold November morning.

A text from a friend, a brief moment of remembering one another and being loved, and the magic of instantaneous connection.

Musicians from the Cleveland Orchestra recording straight from their living rooms.

The chance to hit the snooze button and trust in the gentle workings of your own body.

The smell of coffee.

The miracle of toothpaste.

Frozen chicken tenders.

And there are the prayers that go beyond even this, that I don’t have words for. The gratitude for brief moments of glory and light and hopefulness. It’s the miracle of being alive right now, the unlikely circumstances of now, the gift of each breath, each connection, each moment.

What happens when you can’t give thanks for the family seated around your table? What happens when you can’t give thanks for good health? What happens when you can’t give thanks for safety and security.

In those moments, turn toward the wildness of God, a God beyond our comprehension. Give thanks for those moments on the edges, the glimpses of grace. Your prayers might not be routine this year, but I hope they’re honest.

I’ve always been an anxious person.  When I was younger and out to dinner with my family, there would inevitably be a point in the evening where I would dash off to the bathroom.  I was always convinced I was horribly sick.  I’d sit in the stall and try to breathe, even though it seemed all the breath had left my body.  Those slow deep breaths I so often encourage you all to take were nowhere to be found.  As an adult, I can put words to this.  Panic.  Anxiety.  But especially as a child all I knew is that I would have moments where everything just felt bad.  I’d find whatever space I could find to flee, to hide, to try and pull myself together. 

I still experience anxiety, even if I’m better at coping with it all.  Sometimes still at restaurants, when things get too loud, too colorful, too stressful.  But other times too.  Occasionally in front of you all, whether you know it or not.  I’ve learned strategies to slow down, pay attention to what’s in front of me.  How to actually catch my breath.  

But it doesn’t really go away. 

This is something I knew back in those days hiding out in restaurant bathrooms.  Finding a place to hide didn’t make the bad feelings go away.  It didn’t change who I was or my brain chemicals.  I still had to learn how to live through anxiety, even as much as I still sometimes wish I could banish it forever. 

Even though I still experience anxiety, I can find moments of peace.

Even though I can be overwhelmed, I can persevere.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley

    I fear no evil;

for you are with me

Those two words are powerful.  Even though.  As much as we know Psalm 23 as a Psalm of comfort, it’s not a Psalm that just makes everything better.  There are still valleys and enemies and moments of death and dying.  

Yet, even though, even though there is trouble, even though it is hard to get out of bed, even though there seems to be little relief, even though the world is not as it should be, 

God is with us. 

Psalm 23 is not about skirting the difficulties of life.  It’s about finding peace in the midst of them.  

Today is National Coming Out Day.  For me, this is a celebration.  But coming out is complex.  You all have your stories to tell.  Here at South Haven, we celebrate you if you have been able to come out and share the truth of who we are.  We love you and believe deeply that God loves you, too.  My prayer is that all who come out can receive this genuine love and affirmation.  

Unfortunately that is not always the story.  Coming out can be liberating, but it can also place folks in the middle of the darkest valley.  Coming out can unleash an entire series of “even thoughs”.  Even though my family doesn’t accept me, even though I continue to be misgendered, even though my church has kicked me out.

Psalm 23 is pretty clear.  Even though any of these things may have happened with you, God is with you.  

What I cannot promise is that God will take away all difficulties.  That to me is a false gospel and promise.  The gospel instead is God’s affirmation over you and your life.  That God prepares a home and a place for you, not without enemies, but in the midst of them.  God meets us where we are.  

Even though I walk through the darkest valley

    I fear no evil;

for you are with me

Our God is not a God of good times only.  It reminds me of the way I still hear about folks talking about churches being closed.  Church buildings might be closed.  But churches haven’t been closed throughout this pandemic.  What kind of church would we be if we evaporated at the first sign of trouble?  We are adaptable in part because of the God we follow, and this is a God that remains steadfast through all times.  

Even though I walk through the darkest valley

    I fear no evil;

for you are with me

Might God bless you, even though you may still experience anxiety, even though the world does not accept you fully, even though we cannot wish away all evil.  May the Spirit’s presence rest very near to you.

Amen.

You, God, are vast.  More expansive than we know, more creative, more connected.  You are larger than anything we can imagine.  Yet you become present and show your grace through the smallest stories.  

You demonstrate care through the tenderness of a small boat, lovingly made, to protect just one child.  That one child, Moses, represents the hope that these individual lives are worthwhile.  Each person has meaning.  That the effort to protect one life is not wasted.

Help us remember the value of a life.

Forgive us for our callousness, for when we justify any death. 

For preventable deaths, for those killed by our own glorification of violence as a self-protective response, we ask for forgiveness. 

For preventable deaths, for those killed by our own need to continue on with life as usual, we ask for forgiveness.

You show us a way through water to redemption.  

Yet you do not promise us the path through waters will be easy.

So we hold together with you today the grief we carry.  We think of the conversations we miss, the coffee hours and services and concerts and eye contact we have not been able to have.  We grieve those we know who have died.  We grieve those we do not know that have died, icons and ordinary alike.  We carry guilt for adjusting and being able to simply carry on, but ache so desperately for just one normal day.  

These waters are deep, Spirit, but you are with us.

Lighten us and the burdens we carry.  Help us share among one another.  Let us build boats, baskets, little arks, to help us float when the waters rise.  

Hear the prayers we offer today, a collection of stories. 

We trust in your power and your judgment. We trust in your love.  Tell our stories as one, collected and pressed together in You.

Amen.