Clergy Notes — Sunday, August 6, 2017

Transfiguration: noun

A complete change of form or appearance into a more beautiful or spiritual state.

It’s a funny thing for “The Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ” fall on Vancouver’s Pride Sunday this year.

The whole pride movement, from initial protests following the New York Stonewall Riot, June 28, 1969, to the first Pride parades in Chicago, New York and San Francisco the following year, has grown into a huge civil rights and social justice movement that continues today.

The first parades were not as boisterous as the parade Vancouver will witness this weekend. I once heard Dean Peter Elliot preach one pride Sunday when I had not long been in Vancouver. Speaking about living water, the dean spoke about how when something is suppressed for a long time, when it finally burst up, it is like a spring of water that suddenly bursts high into the air finally free.

I find it to be a beautiful coincidence that the symbol of the rainbow in scripture, reminds us of God’s promise to Noah and to us and all the earth in Genesis 9. Then again the rainbow makes further appearances in Revelation 4:3 and 10:1, as John describes the beauty of the throne and of the angels. The symbol of hope remains, even at the end of the age.

In the transfiguration of Jesus, Jesus is described as shining like the sun; dazzling white. Jesus is the fulfilment of God’s promises to us.

When we teach children about the spectrum of light in school, we take a dazzling white light and direct it through a prism where it splits into a rainbow before them.

The rainbow, coming out of pure dazzling light is now found in the windows of businesses and on bumper stickers indicating a friendly, affirming solidarity with a community which still suffers discrimination, but has come a long way from the Stonewall riots.

I am grateful to be in ministry at St. James’ where people from the LGBTQ community are welcomed and affirmed, and where we can all grow together in Christ. “…seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transfigured into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.” 2 Corinthians 3:18

Mother Lucy