the two step dance of transfiguration and transformation...

In memory of Hugh Eichelberger...

The small Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration in Saluda was full with some folks standing at the back of the sanctuary. Hugh would have loved knowing he had a standing room only crowd for his funeral... maybe he did know. He had asked three minister friends to officiate ... one the abbot of his spiritual homeplace, Mepkin Abbey, died the year before of leukemia; another, a UCC minister had also died leaving Michael as the Lone Ranger to do the honors for Hugh. It was a simply elegant service, rich in tradition with the Bible passages, comforting words and hymns of faith chosen by Hugh and his family. Michael did his best for his friend using Hugh’s sermons and Hugh stories to help us remember and honor the complex showboat tenderhearted brusque pastoral confrontational bright short tempered patient flawed perfect man we knew and loved. One could never ignore Hugh. He lived large with outstanding successes and equally outstanding regrets. He will be sorely missed.
After the service, we gathered in the fellowship hall for a reception and story telling time. It was a Presbyterian wake... coffee, tea, water, cake and sandwiches... but the stories flowed like new wine. We laughed remembering Hugh’s penchant for tardiness, his ability to talk to anyone who stood still for more than thirty seconds, his motorcycle riding and accidents, his inability to stop smoking permanently and his famous question, "How are you?" followed by another question, "No, how are you really?" But the showstopper story came when a tall man wearing a bow tie stood and introduced himself as one of Hugh’s reclamation projects. The crowd grew quiet as he began to speak, telling his story of coming to Hugh with a broken life and a broken marriage. Hugh helped him and his wife mend the broken places and in the process, became their pastor and later their friend and neighbor in Saluda. We heard his expression of gratitude for Hugh’s presence in their life as a wounded healer and were for a moment, each of us, back in time to a place where Hugh had been our healing presence. Sandra, Hugh’s oldest child, read the Dylan Thomas poem "Do not go gentle into the night... rage, rage..." as a part of her tribute to her daddy. Hugh did rage and wage war against death. Three of the doctors who had predicted his early death from heart disease years ago had died while Hugh still lived. His fierce appetite for living sustained him long beyond the time allotted him by his diagnosis. Hugh’s last years were not easy but remained rich. He did not always bear the losses gracefully but he always faced them straight on and without excuses. His transfiguration, like our own, was painful and funny and honest and true and sad and graceful and awkward.
None of us leave life on this earth without being transfigured, changed in some fundamental ways. Our choice is the direction of these changes. We can choose to shut down, ignore the possibilities of the painful and remain stuck in a closed in stall, safe from the storms of life and slowly shrivel away to a dried up remnant of who we might have been... transfiguration into a mummy, a dry replica of a formerly juicy soul. Or, we can turn our heads into the wind, brace up and get on with the process. Afraid...yes... but willing to risk living large for God’s sake, for our soul’s sake, for the world’s sake.
Jesus, on a high mountain, was transformed into a beacon of shining light with Moses and Elijah talking to him. Peter was so bedazzled by this experience he wanted to build three dwellings for them and keep them there, in place, available for consultation and worship. But that is not the way transfiguration works. It cannot be contained, remain the same, continue to shine without ceasing. There would be no room for the future of the soul, no more growth, no possibilities for other transformations yet to come. God’s work in us is never finished in our lifetime. Our call is to keep climbing mountains, looking for the Light, facing our selves revealed in all our flawed glory, never giving up hope for the final transfiguration that comes when we die.
Hugh’s words from the last sermon he preached at First Scots Presbyterian in Charleston, South Carolina...
And finally, in the midst of change we must live our lives not in the light of the evidence, but in the light of the promises of God. It takes no great creativity or deep searching to gather enough evidence to say that there is no God. It is not hard to find evidence to support the conclusion reached by the poet who wrote, "Men must die and women must weep, and the sooner it’s over the sooner we sleep." On the Isle of Patmos, John, who was a prisoner in exile with no prospects for any good future, had a vision. He recorded it in the twenty first chapter of Revelation when he said, "I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old had passed away." And in that day God will be with us, and he will wipe away every tear, and there will be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain, or cancer, or AIDS, or heart disease, or deadly illnesses that tear our children and loved ones from our arms, and there will be no more parting. The old will have passed away, and in this final, great change, the new will have come because God is a God who makes all things new.
My heart is filled with thanksgiving for a God who transfigures and makes all things new, the God of the seventy times seven chances to get it right. God give us transfiguration here on earth and in times to come. Let us not be afraid of change but of good courage. Let us take heart. Fill our hearts with loving kindness and shine your light on us now and then so that we might find our way to you and all those who have gone on before. May it be so.