God, in Your Grace, Transform the World

A sermon delivered by the Rev. Roger Scott Powers at Light Street Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, on Sunday, February 26, 2006

Mark 9:2-9

I just returned yesterday morning from Porto Alegre, Brazil, where I attended the 9th Assembly of the World Council of Churches. The Assembly, which is the WCC's highest governing body, meets once every seven years, and brings together thousands of church leaders and ecumenical representatives from nearly every Christian tradition around the world. It is one of the broadest global gatherings of its kind.

In Porto Alegre, the first Assembly to be held in Latin America, some 4,000 participants came together from 348 national church bodies in 120 countries. WCC member churches represent some 550 million Christians worldwide, including most of the world's Orthodox churches, scores of Protestant denominations, and many uniting and independent churches. While the bulk of the WCC's founding churches were European and North American, today most are in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Middle East, and the Pacific.

Together, we transformed the Porto Alegre campus of the Pontifical Catholic University into a "global village." Prayer services and plenary meetings were conducted in five languages (English, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and German), but informal conversations went on in dozens of different languages, during breaks, over meals, and long into the night. It was not uncommon to sit down with two or three other people and find that each person was from a different continent.

Being part of such an international gathering offers a global view of what it means to be Christian and of what it means to be Church. As Christians, we are part of a diverse community of faith, transcending national boundaries, cutting across lines of culture, ethnicity, language, and denomination. Christians around the world worship in many different ways, follow a variety of theologies, have divergent church histories, and organize church structures in a number of configurations. But whether we are Protestant, Roman Catholic, or Orthodox, Evangelical or Pentecostal, liberal or conservative, we are bound together by our common faith in Jesus Christ and our common calling to work for justice, peace, and the integrity of God's creation. We are one in Christ despite all our other differences. That is what the World Council of Churches seeks to affirm and embody.

With others from the Presbyterian Church (USA), I attended morning and evening prayer services, participated in small group Bible studies, and observed plenary sessions. In addition, I participated in the Mutirão, which surrounded the Assembly. The word Mutirão comes from a Brazilian word meaning a meeting place and an opportunity to work together for a common purpose. The Mutirão offered workshops and seminars, cultural events and exhibits, organized by churches and related organizations from all parts of the world.

Among the highlights of the Assembly, for me, were:

• Participating in a Candlelight March for Peace through the streets of downtown Porto Alegre, led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu from South Africa, to bring attention to the ecumenical Decade to Overcome Violence, now at its midpoint.
• Watching a dramatic, multimedia presentation that used life-size puppets to tell the story of how God is at work in Latin America.
• Listening to addresses by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, and the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
• Seeing a diverse, international assembly of almost 700 delegates begin using a process of consensus decision making instead of the more adversarial model of voting for or against different motions.
• Hearing the spirited voices of the Shalom Choir of Cuba sing "Freedom is Coming," and running into Mairolet Vega Comas, the pastor of our sister church in Cuba, along with her mother.
• Attending an evening concert that showcased musical groups from all over Latin America.
• Praying the Lord's Prayer with Christians from more than 100 countries, each praying in his or her own language -- truly a Pentecost moment!

The theme of the Assembly was "God, in your grace, transform the world." It was a prayer to God to transform the world, to heal the world of its brokenness. In keeping with that theme, the Assembly addressed itself to a number of global issues in desperate need of transformation, including economic globalization, terrorism, and human rights. Among other things, the Assembly called on its member churches:

• to "act together for transformation of economic injustice," recommitting themselves to work "for the eradication of poverty and inequality," "for justice in international trade relations," and "for responsible lending," and "the control and regulation of global financial markets."
• to preserve and protect "water resources against over-consumption and pollution."
• to "reaffirm their commitment to respectful dialogue and cooperation between people of different faiths."
• to recommit themselves to the Decade to Overcome Violence, the overall goal of which is to move the search for reconciliation and peace "from the periphery to the center of the life and witness of the church."
• to support UN Reform so as "to advance the objective of a more effective United Nations dedicated to the pursuit of global peace with justice."
• to urge governments "to pursue the unequivocal elimination of nuclear weapons under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty."

While I stayed in Brazil for the entire ten days of the Assembly, it felt like I had traveled all over the world, visiting Christians in dozens of different countries. It was an awesome experience -- a kind of mountaintop experience -- offering a high vantage point from which to see the wider Christian community in all its diversity.

Our lectionary reading this morning describes another mountaintop experience -- an experience of Jesus and three of his disciples known as "the Transfiguration." In the reading from Mark, Jesus takes his inner circle of disciples -- Peter, James, and John -- up to a high mountain by themselves. There, they are given a glimpse of Jesus' future glory as the risen Christ. They have a vision of Jesus "transfigured before them." "His clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them." Jesus glows with a transcendent glory reserved for heavenly beings. If these disciples had any doubt, they now see that Jesus is no ordinary man. Jesus belongs to the divine world.

Suddenly, Elijah and Moses both appear before them, talking with Jesus. For Peter, this is an awesome moment. It is a peak experience. He says to Jesus: "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here." Apparently, he doesn't want the moment to end. He suggests that they build three dwellings, one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. Then a cloud overshadows them, and a voice from the cloud says: "This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!" The next thing they know, Moses and Elijah have vanished as quickly as they first appeared. And Jesus stands alone before them as the one who will be the fulfillment of God's work as represented by the Hebrew scriptures.

Just prior to this mountaintop experience, Jesus had asked his disciples the question: "Who do you say that I am?" Peter answered, "You are the Messiah." In the story of the Transfiguration, Peter's confession is given divine confirmation: "This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!"

Of course, the thing about mountaintop experiences, as wonderful and uplifting as they can be, is they all must come to an end. Eventually you have to climb back down the mountain to the valley below and return to the mundane world of everyday life. In my case, the WCC Assembly finally came to a close and everyone had to return to their home countries and churches. In the case of Jesus and his disciples, they would resume their journey to Jerusalem, where Jesus would have to undergo great suffering and be killed before being raised on the third day.

We walk that road to Jerusalem, along with Jesus and his disciples, as later this week we enter into the season of Lent, a period of 40 days and 6 Sundays, beginning on Ash Wednesday and culminating in Holy Week. It is a time for personal reflection and prayer, a time for soul-searching and spiritual redirection. It's a time for transformation, a time to turn our lives around and begin living in new ways, a time to renew our faith and recommit ourselves to following the way of Christ.

But before we embark on that Lenten journey, the story of the Transfiguration of the Lord gives us a glimpse of where the journey will eventually end -- not in death, but in new life, in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Transfiguration gives us hope and strength for the journey, a vision of transformation to hold before us as we seek to be transformed ourselves.

So, with the World Council of Churches, we pray: "God, in your grace, transform the world." God, in your grace, transform us into the people you would have us become. Amen.