Exodus
33.18-23; Psalm 92.1-2, 11-14; 1 John 1.1-9; Luke 5.1-11
In the name of God, for
the love of God, to the glory of God. Amen.
When I was living in
Minneapolis back in the late 1960s, I had a friend who earned her
bread and butter working as a graphic artist but at heart she was an
abstract oil painter. She was captivted by light and colour and
form. She gave me one of her paintings, a large one about 4 feet
high by 2 feet wide – abstract of course, with a lot of blues and
oranges and dynamic form and movement. I asked her if it had a title
and she called it “The Kansas City Zoo.” Now there was
absolutely nothing about that painting that would make you think it
was depicting a zoo. But that painting graced my living room wall in
three cities I lived in, and it was really important to me. You see,
Jane was a mentor to me. She taught me how to see colour, how to see
light in a new way.
One time when I was still
living in Minneapolis, Jane and I made a car trip to a ski resort in
northern Minnesota called Lutsen, not far south of the Ontario border
and what was then the twin towns of Port Arthur and Fort Henry (now
Thunder Bay). Everything was still deep in snow, and if I hadn’t
been travelling with Jane I would have seen nothing but boring brown
and white the whole trip. But on the way up to Lutsen Jane would say
things like “look at those beautiful red berries on the side of the
road” or “I just love the amazing subtle shades of brown and grey
in the forest” or “the snow is brilliantly blue in the sunlight”
or “see how the light just dances off the snow,” and so on. That
trip was literally an eye-opening experience for me – I felt as if
I had been blind before, and now I could see colours and shades and
hues and textures everywhere. Nature came alive to me in the dead of
late winter.
I expect all of us have
had experiences that we would call eye-opening. Maybe not about
colour and light the way I did with my friend Jane. But we have all
had mentors who have helped us to see in a new way.
And that is what our
Patron St. John has been for me. He has helped me to see the light
and beauty in the face of Jesus, in the face of my sisters and others
that I am privileged to know through this wonderful life that we
live. And I want to reflect on that for a few minutes in connection
with the readings we have just heard.
In the reading from
Exodus, Moses asks to see the glory of God – the light of God. But
he is granted only to see God from the back, because just as on Mount
Sinai, seeing the face of God would have blinded him.
In our gospel reading
today John is given a more direct gift of sight. Because he has met
God in the person of Jesus he can look upon the glory of God, the
light of God, in a way that Moses never could. Jesus, his friend,
showed John the glory of God – and that glory was what must have
called John, along with his brother James and their friends Andrew
and Peter, to leave their fishing and respond to Jesus’ invitation
to “catch people.” They were first drawn into a relationship
with Jesus in fellowship and teaching and prayer. Out of that
relationship came their life mission – to share with others the
beauty, the love and glory of God as they saw it in the face of
Jesus.
In the first letter of
John, we hear these beautiful words: “We declare to you what was
from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our
eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands concerning
the word of life. . . . this is the message we have heard from him
(that is, from Jesus) and proclaim to you, that God is light and in
him there is no darkness at all.”
There is no darkness at
all. Even in the midst of personal pain and grief, even in war
zones, even in the midst of widespread power failures in our city, in
the cold and the dark, the light of God shines through as we share
that light with each other. This past week is a good example – the
beauty and glory and love of God were seen everywhere – in
neighbours helping each other, in churches opening their doors as
warming centers and church members going door to door in their
neighbourhoods checking on the elderly who might be cold and alone,
in people gathered around the fireplace in one room, seeing family in
the light of the fire in a way they never could watching TV or
sitting in their own rooms doing their own thing on their electronic
devices. And we saw it here over Christmas, with those who were
finally able to come for the Christmas retreat, in the faces of those
who joined us for Christmas dinner, in the light and joy on the faces
of those who would otherwise have been alone.
There is a pattern here
that we see wherever the love of God touches people, whether they
are
aware that it comes from God or not – like Moses who was called the
friend of God, and like John the beloved disciple, we are first
called into a relationship of love, and we are then sent out to share
that love.
 |
| Sister Constance Joanna |
The message of the
scripture readings today is that the light and glory and love of God
is so brilliant that we have to share it. We can’t keep it for
ourselves. We can’t focus on our own comfort and safety. The
glory of God spreads when it is shared. That is what friends and
mentors do for each other. That is what neighbours do in a crisis.
That is what John did when he left his fishing and went around with
Jesus, spreading the glory. And that is our own mission as a
Sisterhood.
“This
is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God
is light and in God there is no darkness at all.” May we help to
spread that message, that light, and that glory.
