SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 11 2024 - DAZZLING
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