SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 11 2024 - DAZZLING

Recorded Worship on Youtube

February 11, 2024

Carolyn Smith

Dazzling

For all I’ve been cheering for Mardi Gras today, the closest I’ve come is countless

Pancake Tuesdays. Has anyone been to a Mardi Gras Or Carnival parade? Where? N.O?

Caribbean? Pancake Tuesday wasn’t really a thing when I was growing up, certainly not at

my church. And I only experienced it because the Anglican church was kitty corner

from my house. Contrasted with whatever you know about Mardi Gras: feathers, nearly

naked parades, beads and glitter everywhere, debauchery! Mixed in with Masks, French

fleur de lis and King’s cake... It’s a real mish-mash and a mysterious free-for-all, but

wow... when I started putting sticky syrup and masks and feathers together - seriously -

don’t put feathers and syrup together - faith practices were everywhere.

So here’s the basics from a non-Roman Catholic, curious United Church perspective:

Carne- Vale- latin - Carne = Meat, Vale - without... No Meat.

Mardi-Gras - and some French - Mardi= Tuesday - Gras = Fat = Fat Tuesday.

So: Tuesday, meat and fat and ‘going without’... Certainly on Tuesday evening with

sausages and pancakes, we are not ‘going without‘ on Tuesday. Tuesday has another

name and here’s the link. Shrove Tuesday refers to being “Shriven” - Confessing and

being absolved, forgiven in a Roman Catholic tradition. Fat Tuesday with all the tasty

food turns to Shrove Tuesday and confession, and then into Ash Wednesday “ashes to

ashes, to dust we return.” The partying gives way to confession gives way to penitence in

the Lenten season. And part of the traditional lenten penitence: Carne- val - was to

subsist without meat.

Aha! (an epiphany word!)- So in a way, a lazy and fun way, Mardi Gras is following ancient

Roman Catholic traditions. As everyone hundreds of years ago knew they would be

giving up & going without rich foods for 40 days until Easter, why not share what you had

and savour the flavours and spirit of what had been a bright and joyful season from

Christmas into Epiphany: about a star rising & angel radiance, wise ones bearing gifts,

white doves for baptism and now today, this final Sunday before Lent begins - the

radiance of Transfiguration - all about illumination and light revealing glory. Dazzling

revelation giving way to sackcloth and ashes. Not to mention sensibility: no one had a

freezer to tuck away the good stuff. So from Rome and through Europe in the Roman

Catholic traditions, people came together and made the best of this with their festivals.

Without doubt, as the Roman Catholic Church in those times had a habit of doing, they

appropriated cultural practices, and adapted local preferences from Rome and in the

places they spread to. The mysterious Masquerade balls make us think of Venice and

Italy, or France - And Saturnalia a Roman festival - where the spirits mingled with the

living in the feasts and hazy bonfires and noise and thin spaces, this was a spirited time of

blessing and confession, and everyone - rich or poor was equally at the mercy of God...

the masks disguised everyone, and they could mingle, unknown to each other, shifting in

that thin mysterious time from the Mardi Gras to the Lenten penitence. Fascinating, and

strange.

Of course, as Catholicism marched around the world, so Rio in Brazil blended it’s culture

in and embraced flashy parades and feathered creatures - by the 1800’s New Orleans

was growing, and now of course has taken up the mantle of Mardi Gras Central- all with

the decadence of green gold and purpose feathers, glitter, glorious and dazzling...

Ok - it’s a stretch. Humans love fun, & decompressing & setting aside their worries when

they can. And especially when it’s permitted by the authorities...

(Photo) PANCAKE Races - with a smiling Priest racing with choir boys each carrying cast-iron

pans and flipping pancakes

Let’s try now to salvage this time of worship, beyond debauchery and glitter... While I

love a good time, I love it even more when I can close my eyes and know somehow it

matters. Or I can invite others without restraint, or I can notice someone who isn’t in a

cheery mood and seems to be struggling, and say ‘there is something here more dazzling

than a party!’

Epiphany my favourite church word, maybe... means aha... illumination, revelation. His

birth, the wise ones, his baptism with the dove revealing, healing miracles.. Jesus is being

revealed and discovered - in small ways and big ones, to the people around him, to the

political and religious authorities. Not everyone is excited and Mark’s gospel is

unapologetic , it has been called “the Grumpy Jesus gospel.” While later on, Luke wove

stories to share with gentiles, outsiders, the last and the least; and Matthew hoped to

befriend the religious scholars, Mark as the earliest gospel message complied is laying it

down - ‘it doesn’t matter if the scriptures were hazy, here’s the answer, doesn’t matter if

it upsets the status quo and traditions: that’s the aha - the whole point.’

Have you ever felt Alive? Think back to a time when you felt good, an accomplishment

or an amazing day, or just in the right spot at the right time? We might say your eyes

shone! Or think of someone you love on a day they where shining and radiant... like

the Joyful Noise choir (and the grownup choir too!) or a leader who had captured the

crowd with hope and courage, and you knew they had something worth hearing?

Radiance!

Jesus wants to get out of town and his friends go with him up the mountain. I’m not

sure if it happened all this way or not, but the stories have stuck through 4 retellings and

2000 years... so what’s true in this? They had been facing challenges, run out of their

hometown, but time and again, something about Jesus had people experience something

DIVINE. Something about love over hate, lifting the lowly, and rebalancing community,

something about being precious to God was spine-tingling to people and offered a sense

of hope and reconciliation that they hadn’t dreamed. But it was not one and done.

Doubts are hard to shake, and even Jesus lately had been muttering things about tasting

death.

Hiking high up the hill quietly, minds roaming, as we tend to do when we’re tired, I can

imagine just the right spot to rest and look out and wonder what the future held. And

suddenly Jesus was shining... radiant - the word transfigured says his spiritual radiance

was shining through, his essence revealed to Peter and the others, dazzling. In the gospel

and this season, this is the final epiphany of who Jesus is. And if you still had any question,

the radiant Moses and Elijah appear, dazzling great ancestors of the faith side by side as if

to say: “this messiah is who we were telling you about all those centuries ago.” Moses -

a friend of God, who shone with radiance with the ten commandments in his hand, and

Elijah taken up to heaven in a chariot of fire, they knew who Jesus was and the scholars

need not wonder any longer.

And awe-struck Peter blurts out: ‘let’s stay here, let’s build shelter and keep Moses and

Elijah and now Jesus right here’ - who would want to ever leave?

And if you (the reader, the naysayers, the scholars) seriously still had any questions or

doubts, the Cloud of Presence - The Almighty One itself - overshadows them and says

“This is my beloved, my voice, for you.”

Poof - there they are - the moment vanished and Jesus says ‘dont’ tell anyone, ok?’ Not

until the Promised one - the Son of all - has risen from the dead.

Oh right.... We all know what’s coming.... For all the radiance, this true essence of

justice and peace and beloved community - the evil of the world hasn’t seen it yet, hasn’t

turned yet. Even Peter, even you & I have times when we struggle to see any radiance

anywhere, even a world that has seen and learned and practiced being the light stumbles

on the way ahead. So today, we’re being loaded up with dazzling brilliant radiance - a

story to cling to, like the heavenly host of angels singing, like the star in the east that

guided wandering ones... when you & I fill up, indulge, soak in this blissful KNOWING of

God’s radiance, maybe there’s enough to get us through the valley of the shadows of

death.

Lent begins in a just a few days- and we know that the crucifixion stories lie ahead. For

some, this is a culture story- Black History Month reflects this long road. Medical fears

and declining strength reflect this, the warmest winter on record and our environment

emergency, wars and more beg us to embrace reflection, to voice our lament, and seek

GOD in our way forward. The ashes of Wednesday mean something that we all

understand. But it is not the whole story. The light shines in the darkness and the

darkness has not overcome it.

Today, we are Epiphany people, we know how Radiant is the Way of love, of justice and

equality, of dazzling and beloved community... Peter talked of building shelters: there’s

no need! Now you shelter the light of God, story after story of Jesus dazzling, and you

reflect the peace that brings! We will take it with us. If that means you deck yourselves

in glitter and garlands, and share love and pancakes and laughter with one another, Have

at it! If that means you light a radiant candle and write letters to loved ones and smile

to yourself, you are blessed!! And if that means you have a bit more curiosity than you

did before to lean into Lent, more courage and hope to lean into the shadows, then

together we are the God’s beloved community.

May it be so!

When Glory

A Blessing for Transfiguration Sunday

That when glory comes,

we will open our eyes

to see it.

That when glory shows up,

we will let ourselves

be overcome

not by fear

but by the love

it bears.

That when glory shines,

we will bring it

back with us

all the way,

all the way,

all the way down.

—Jan Richardson

tracy chippendale