Sermon for February 10th, 2013: "Set Apart"

Exodus 34:29-35
Psalm 99
2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2
Luke 9:28-36

All quotations from scripture come from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, with the exception of the Psalms, which come from The Book of Common Prayer, 1979. Not all scripture passages from the lectionary may be quoted or referenced in a given Sunday's sermon. For more information on the lectionary used in The Episcopal Church, please visit http://www.lectionarypage.net/.

“Set Apart”

The Rev. Nicholas S. Szobota

February 10, 2013
Christ Church, West River, Maryland

The Last Sunday after the Epiphany

Forty percent of households in the United States of America do not keep a budget. I heard this statistic quoted at a financial planning conference last weekend. Forty percent of households have no system whereby they take account of what resources they have earned and received and figure out how to set them apart for the needs of today, the needs of the future, and anyone with whom they wish to share their wealth.  While the discipline of keeping a budget may belong to the mundane world of daily life, budgeting is a holy discipline by nature. The word “holy” means “set apart.” Any activity in which one discerns what to “set apart” may take on an aspect of the holy.

Today’s scripture readings involve concepts of being set apart, of holiness. In the reading from Exodus, Moses comes down from the mountain with his face shining, because Moses had been on the mountain talking with God and receiving God’s commandments for Israel. Moses’ time with God made him different, and he set himself further apart from the people by wearing a veil to keep from blinding them like a car coming down a dark road with high beams turned on. Earlier in Exodus, before Moses went up the mountain, the people of Israel received a warning not to approach the mountain at all God said to Moses, “You shall set limits for the people all around, saying, ‘Be careful not to go up the mountain or touch the edge of it. Any who touch the mountain shall be put to death. No hand shall touch them, but they shall be stoned or shot with arrows; whether animal or human being, they shall not live” (Exodus 19:12-13b). While this might seem like extreme punishment to us, this part of the story highlights the degree to which God had set apart the mountain on which he and Moses would meet.

Likewise, in Luke, Jesus goes up a mountain with only three of his twelve disciples for a time of prayer. Just as some of us might need time apart from others in order to connect with God, time spent alone or with a few others who help us focus, Jesus took a small group with him for this time of holy prayer. This group, Peter and John and James, were the only disciples to see Jesus transfigured and glowing white. Only they saw Moses and Elijah, who had been dead for centuries, standing on that mountain top with Jesus. They had an experience that set them apart from the other disciples. Today’s gospel story concludes with an indication that these disciples did not tell the others about this experience until much later, perhaps after Jesus rose from the dead (Luke 9:36). Peter, John, and James, had an experience of being set apart from the rest of the disciples.

Today’s reading from Second Corinthians includes a reminder from St. Paul to the church in Corinth about how they are set apart. He uses the image of Moses wearing the veil to suggest that Jews who have not become Christians remain blinded to the truth. This may sound needlessly exclusivist, especially to those of us who know Jews or people of other religions who have deep relationships with God, live morally, and have great spirituality. One must remember that Paul wrote when the Church, consisting mostly of Jews who had become Christians, struggled to figure out how they differed from Jews who did not follow Jesus. Paul had experienced a removal of the veil from his eyes and kind of setting apart when he, a Jew on his way to Damascus to arrest the Christians there, saw a blinding vision of Jesus (Acts 9:1-19).

Today, we baptize Mary Agnes. This sets her apart as belonging to the Body of Christ, the Church. We acknowledge that she belongs to God, that she is a child of God as much as each of us is a child of God. A danger lies here, in that sometimes setting things apart blinds us to the reality that all things belong to God in the first place. A veil, like the one Moses wore, may allow the person who wears the veil to see out more effectively than others can see the person behind the veil. However, the veil can still obstruct the sight of the one set apart behind the cloth.

During the season of Lent, when we present our offerings we will sing “All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee.”  This comes from an archaic translation of 1 Chronicles 29:14. These words remind us that all things belong to God. Even the money that each of us earns through labor we acquire because God has given us energy to use and talents to apply, because we have learned skills from people God has brought into our lives. We take what God has given to us and return these gifts by using them for God’s purposes in the world.

God calls us to set apart what each of us has received for God’s purposes. When planning a budget, God calls us to discern what to set apart to meet our needs now, what to set apart to meet future needs, what to set apart to give to others, and even what to set apart so that each of us might have some enjoyment in life. When each of us plans a schedule on our calendar, God calls us to do the same with our time. Some time gets set apart for work, some time gets set apart for family and friends, some time gets set apart for ourselves, and so on. The same holds true for how each of us uses our energy, our property, or whatever we have.

May God give us the grace to pull aside the veils on each of our faces, so that we may take what God has given us and return these gifts for God’s purposes in the world. Amen.