Someone once told me that they don’t come to church during Lent because, “Life was too lent-like already.”

I hear some version of this just about every year. Maybe not a complete absence from church for the season, but some expression that it would be just as well with them if we could skip from Epiphany to Easter.

This morning we remember the Transfiguration, when Jesus ascends the mountain with three of his followers, is transfigured before them, and stands with Moses and Elijah, representing the Law and the Prophets. This morning we remember Peter, whose impulse it is to build places for Jesus and Moses and Elijah to stay. We remember God’s voice again proclaiming Jesus God’s beloved child. And we remember that all of this disappeared as quickly as it arrived, as Jesus and his followers go back down the mountain, toward Jerusalem and all that waits for them there.

This morning, we are invited to consider how we might “practice Transfiguration”[1]in our own lives, today.

Good morning, St. Paul’s. It is a privilege to break open the Word with you this morning. Although to be quite honest, it is also a challenge. I don’t know about you, but all this talk of commandments and ordinances in our readings this morning, of sins and punishments, reminds me of a version of Christianity I thought I had left behind as a teenager. It was a version where God’s love was conditional on “the right” behavior and belief.

Today is a significant feast day in the Christian calendar, though we don’t often celebrate it in church, for the simple reason that it doesn’t often fall on a Sunday. For some reason, the feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the temple hasn’t garnered much of a following, maybe because a much more popular feast has overtaken it in the polls – you know, the high feast of Groundhog Day.

A week ago, when I was on retreat with the Deacons, we videotaped their surroundings and the start of Evening Prayer for a new video to be used at the Ministry Discernment Conference next Saturday. Several people, including members of the COM, were asked to respond to questions about discernment since that was the subject of the video. I have not seen their responses but because I could have been asked to respond to the same questions, I spent some time thinking about how I might answer questions about discernment. Given our readings this morning, the Conference, those traveling with Jeff in the Holy Land, and recent conversations with two Deacons in formation, I feel particularly drawn to the story of Paul, to his response to his experience on the Damascus Road, and to his immediate and complete conversion.

Good morning, St. Paul’s! Once again, it is a joy to break open the Word with you this morning. There’s a lot to cover in today’s Gospel passage, so let’s dive in.

In our reading, John the Evangelist gives his account of Jesus’s baptism by John the Baptist. In this telling, John the Baptist is the first person to get a glimpse of who Jesus truly is.