The Rev. Dylan Turner, the Rev. Dylan Turner, Anglican Relations Officer for the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lambeth Palace | Festal Eucharist

Sunday, February 11, 2024 @ 11:00 am
The Last Sunday After The Epiphany (Quinquagesima)

The Last Sunday After The Epiphany (Quinquagesima)

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O God, who before the passion of thy only-begotten Son didst reveal his glory upon the holy mount: Grant unto us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Sunday, February 11, 2024
The Last Sunday After The Epiphany (Quinquagesima)

Festal Eucharist
11:00 am

Listen to the sermon

Scripture citation(s): 2 Kings 2:1-12; 2 Corinthians 4:3-6; Mark 9:2-9

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A Sermon by
The Rev. Dylan Turner, the Rev. Dylan Turner, Anglican Relations Officer for the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lambeth Palace
on
2 Kings 2:1-12; 2 Corinthians 4:3-6; Mark 9:2-9
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Sermon for the Last Sunday After the Epiphany, 2024

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Can I begin by thanking Rector Carl for inviting me to preach this morning. It is an honour to be here with you on my flying visit to New York.

My name is Dylan Turner and I work at Lambeth Palace as Archbishop Justin’s Anglican Communion Relations Officer. It’s a really varied and busy role. I’m in New York because Archbishop Justin asked me to represent him at Bishop Matthew’s induction yesterday in the Cathedral. And it is a delight to be with you today.

In case you’re wondering, I’m visually impaired, I live with a condition called Congenital Nystagmus which means my eyes oscilate in the eye sockets.

That means that facial recognisiotn is a challenge. This was powerfully demonsrated in my first job, working for the British Railway system I met the singer Cher at King’s Cross – but didn’t recognise her until my colleague told me they’d sold her a rail ticket.

Why have I embarrassed myself with this disclosure?

Well because today’s readings are about recognition.

The liturgical year can be strange. We often find ourselves. In order to remind ourselves of the incarnation, we celebrate the announciation on 21st March, during Lent. In the Church of England, the last Sunday before Advent is the feast of Christ the King which has echoes of Ascension Day.

And every year on the Sunday next before Lent, we have readings that rehearse the story of the transfiguration of our Lord.

Now at first glance this seems odd. After all, there is a feast of the transfiguration on 6th August. Now, assuming that everyone is on vacation on 6th August and will miss out, I could theologically ‘unpack’ the transfiguration in and of its own right. In fact in mentioning vacations at all, I could potentially have just lost all of your attention as you ponder 6 months into the future and think of lying on a beach. 3

But I think there is a specific reason why the church asks us to think about the transfiguration on the Sunday next before Lent.

It’s all about Recognition.

In Lent, we prepare for Easter by examining our own relationship with God before journeying with Christ to Calvary and on to the resurrection.

But there’s a danger that, if we crash into Ash Wednesday (and with Ash Wednesday literally 12 days after Candlemas we could be forgiven for feeling it as a ‘crash’), we risk missing the point of lent. We put the emphasis on us, ‘what am I giving up, what discipline am I following’ . Instead of being a ‘Jesus Centred Lent’, it becomes a ‘Me Centred Lent’.

But if we care to listen afresh to the readings we have just heard, it might help us to refocus our approach the the upcoming season.

In the epistle reading we heard that the Gospel is veiled ‘from those who are perishing’. Interesting that in many churches, the liturgical oranments will be veiled as we enter Lent. Swinging us briefly back to Christmas, in Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Charles Wesley wrote ‘Veiled in Flesh the God head see’. There will be points in our walk with God, where God will feel absent from us.

And our old testament and Gospel readings mirror each other.

In the Gospel Reading, the disciples thought they were somehow mirroring some of what we spoke of in the Old Testament reading.

Like us, so keen were they to understand what was going on that they ventured along the route of misinterpretation.

And yet like all ‘mountain top experiences’, when they realised that they were indeed with God’s messiah, all they wanted to do was to tell everyone about their experience. And frustratingly (for them) at that point, Jesus instructed them to tell no one.

It’s so easy for us to be like St Peter and miss the point as we enter Lent. For us, missing the point might make us approach Lent focussed on our own relationship with God, rather than God’s relationship with us.

But my hope for us this morning as we stand with Jesus on the mountain top, is that we can pause and recognise just who Jesus is.

And in recognising who Jesus is on the mountain top, let us journey with him into the wilderness.

Another danger of Lent is that corporately and individually we observe it as the former Bishop of Stepney (Adrian Newman) said, ‘a 40 day misery fest’.

Instead, perhaps we might think of Lent as a journey, where our deatination – Easter – becomes the focus. Yes, our hymnody and lections will take on a more muted and perhaps somber note during Lent. But if you think about it, doesn’t that just mean the 4 sudden change in liturgical tone to joy and celebration at Easter are all the more amplified?

When the disciples recognised Jesus for who he is on the mountain top, they came back down with a sense of joy and excitement. Maybe the transfiguration readings are set for today to inspire in us a similar sense of wonder as we enter this holy season.

And above all, as today we recognise Jesus in His glory on the mountain, let’s reawaken our own ability to marvel at Jesus, God made human. And as we enter Lent, let’s not observe a ‘Me Centred Lent’. Instead, may Lent for all of us, be a ‘Jesus Centred Lent’.

AMEN.

Sermon Audio