Here’s an amusing true story told by Ariel from Portland – it’s about how grace visits us amazingly and by surprise.

When you are five-years-old your heathen, vegetarian mother marries the local Catholic priest and drags you into a world of meat-eating, wine drinking, Jesus fanatics.
On the first day of their marriage your new step-father gets excommunicated, but many of his parishioners have long since had it with the pope and the archbishop and happily abandon the Church to go with him. So your new father is many other people’s “father” as well. You decide you can share. A new father who is many other people’s father is better than no new father at all.
These newly independent Catholics are just as charitable and guilt-ridden as any Catholics in good standing, and they all know your poor, so you get boxes of oranges and strange plastic toys and hand-me-down dresses, and even old cars. The orthodontist down the street sees your new father for marital counseling and pretty soon your mouth is all wired up with hardware you don’t need. The concert cellist across town has confessed some heinous sin in your living room, so now you’ve got cello lessons, and you screech away on that giant instrument, trying to smile with your mouth full of metal.
When your jaw doesn’t ache too much from the fillings and the neck gear and the head gear, and the braces, all applied to baby teeth, there are the dinners. You’ve heard your parents talk about being poor, but you must not be as poor as you were when it was just you and your mom on welfare, because now there are scads of food everywhere. Is Jesus bringing it in the middle of the night?
You have a full table for dinner every evening. Not only that, but you get invited all over town to eat other people’s food. At one such dinner, you look down at an unchipped plate piled with mashed potatoes and the first slice of ham you have ever seen. It smells much better than marinated tofu. Your mouth waters and you grab your fork. But suddenly your host says, “Wait, Father should say grace.
Though your new father would never admit it, you don’t say grace at home, and from the looks on the faces of your host’s kids, you know this family never says grace before they dig in either. But now everyone joins hands and you have to set down your fork and join hands too, Even though you’re so hungry you think you’re going to pass out, you close your eyes and thank God or Jesus ore some Saint for this strange slab of food on your plate that smells like heaven, and you pray that this whole grace thing will be over so you can have a bite.
In this morning’s story from Luke Jesus takes three disciples up to the top of a mountain. It was midpoint in Jesus' journey. The clouds were hanging low over him. The Pharisees and Sadducees were making every day difficult for him now. That wasn’t the worst of it. The crowds around him were growing and were growing more and more demanding as well. His disciples bickered continually.
Instead of cheering the troops Jesus began to talk to them about suffering, Jerusalem, and the cross. He talked about saving one's life by losing it.
And then he took the leaders of his disciple band, Peter, James, and John, away from the others. He led them up the winding hill to the top of a high place where something happened, something notable.

We're not sure what occurred, but it came to be called “the transfiguration,” which means "change" or "metamorphosis." We’re told that two Old Testament heavyweights magically appeared -- Moses and Elijah.

In tune with the holiness of the moment, Jesus' face shone. His friends had never seen the like of it. More, his garments glistened and it hurt their eyes.

Then, topping everything else, God spoke, saying, as God did at Jesus' baptism: "This is my beloved son . . . Do not be afraid." This encounter turned them inside out. It changed them. Simon Peter wanted to stay there forever. He wants to build three booths to memorialize the moment, but Jesus just shook his shining head. You can’t preserve the holy like a taxidermist preserves an elk head.

You can try. Years ago I took our confirmation class kids up to the Toshi Choling Buddhist temple to show them how others worship. I asked the guide if they ever had the Tibetan monks come up there and create sand paintings – beautiful paintings made with colored sand which are to be created in a few days and then are destroyed in a moment to show the transitoriness of the best life offers. “Yes,” our guide said, and anxious to please he showed us two of them that he said someone in authority had given them permission to varnish so they wouldn’t ever be ruined. Which of course destroys completely the whole idea! Hmm?

As quickly as it came the glow on Jesus faded. Moses and Elijah disappeared from sight. Soon Jesus and the three disciples were making their winding way back down the mountain.

There comes a time when we have to disengage. From time to time we “active” types need to stop, look, and listen - quit our doing and just stand there. That's a hard thing for most of us. We think we have to be doing something, building something –like Peter.

I like the goofy bumper sticker that says: "Jesus is coming back - Look Busy” Yes, we can busy ourselves in an effort to shut out the profound purposeful One who created us – but only for so long. The spirit of God eventually has it’s way with us.

Listen to this story told by Doug of Ottawa, Ontario.

A few years ago I had a dream in which an old high-school classmate named Steve was ushering me into my graduation ceremony. I awoke to a flood of shameful memories. I had bullied and terrorized Steve all through school,
mercilessly pouncing on every sign of weakness: his short stature, his figure skating, his effeminate manner.

As an adult, I’d spent years in therapy recalling my own history of abuse at the
hands of my brother and father, and now I felt a sense of horror, recalling how I
had done the same to Steve. I wanted to make amends somehow.

That Christmas, when I was home for the holidays, I looked up Steve’s number
in the phone book and called him. He was very quiet at first. I thought perhaps he didn’t recognize my name, but now I think he was taken aback. I told him how ashamed I was of the way I had treated him and how sorry I felt. He
agreed that I had been a real bastard and told me I had made his life miserable. We spoke for only about fifteen minutes.

The following Christmas Steve sent me a card thanking me for that call and
saying how much it had meant to him. How do such things happen? How is
it possible that Steve has forgiven me? How could I have had such a dream?

As I said, things in humans and in history fester, until they are dealt with.

Two hundred years ago, British politician William Wilberforce and his band of loyal friends took on the most powerful forces of their day to end the slave trade. His mentor was John Newton, the slave-trader-turned-songwriter who wrote the world’s most popular hymn, "Amazing Grace."

Not many people know that Newton continued in the slave trade for many years after his conversion to Christianity. He had converted the morning after a major storm had threatened to sink his ship.

He was no saint. Maybe Newton thought that merely by converting he wouldn’t have to change his life. Give up the slave trade. But he found that the spirit of Jesus would not let go of him.

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade, but the work of justice and mercy continues. Today 27 million men, women, and children are still enslaved around the globe.

In a new book being released this month – “NOT for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade – and How We Can Fight It “ – David Batstone turns a spotlight on one of this great moral scandal. Many of us believe that slavery ended with the Civil War, but a hard look at our own 21st century quickly reveals otherwise.

He begins the book: "Twenty-seven million slaves exist in our world today. Girls and boys, women and men of all ages are forced to toil in the rug looms of Nepal, sell their bodies in the brothels of Rome, break rocks in the quarries of Pakistan, and fight wars in the jungles of Africa. Go behind the façade in any major town or city in the world today and you are likely to find a thriving
commerce in human beings."

There’s a reading from the New Testament epistle of 2 Peter (1:16) that is paired with the gospel story set aside for this day. It reads: "We have been eye-witnesses to the majesty." One translation says: “You do well to pay attention. For when we pay attention, everything may change.”

Carlyle Marney (an old time pulpit luminary when there was such a thing) used to say, tongue in cheek, that God does not come to church every Sunday. Sometimes, he would add, when you're God you don't have to come every single week. But we need to come week after week because, Dr. Marney would say, some Sunday when we least expect it God is going to walk down the church aisle and sit next to you. And if God comes to church that day you are going to be turned inside out.

You don’t show up you may miss something if the Almighty decides to drop by. It’s like Picasso used to say -- he often put in 14 hour days because, he said,
“ If my muse decides to visit I want her to find me working.”

When the disciples reached the bottom of that mountain trail something very mortal happened; a child went into convulsions and the disciples stood by helpless. They had no unearthly idea what to do.

Reality brings us all back to earth. A project comes due and it sucks us into it’s own vortex. We get depressed, maybe wishing we didn’t have to even get out of bed. Maybe we won’t. We all have our own demons to battle after breakfast.

Abigail of Yellow Springs, Ohio writes of such a time in her life and of finding a grace that was amazing.

Last spring, after working full time for nearly two decades, I lost my job abruptly. Unfair accusations were made against me. The strain affected me physically. My stomach hurt, my breathing was tight, and I had trouble sleeping. I’d be awakened by nightmares about monsters; then I’d lie there and worry.

Gradually I began to sleep more deeply, until I didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning and was napping in the middle of the day. I spent several months reviewing every aspect of my case with an attorney before finally deciding against pursuing a lawsuit. I was furious with myself. I was devastated. I was lost.

It’s been five months since my last day at work. I recently landed a very part-time job, but today I am not scheduled to go anywhere. After my husband and son leave for the day I take a long hot bath, get dressed, and go for a walk in the blue-golden September morning. I take off my glasses and strip down to my tank top to let the sun soak into my face and shoulders.

Returning home, I fry eggs and left over mashed potatoes for my breakfast. Standing at the stove, watching the egg whites slowly becoming opaque, I realize that I’ve been thinking about nothing. On this iridescent autumn morning, in my quiet kitchen, my mind has become empty. I’m aware only of the gently bubbling of breakfast in the pan and, outside the window, the changing patterns of sunlight on leaves.

The test of any vision is what we do when we get back down to the bottom of the mountain. This is our lot in life. We are called to make this a better place. We are called to make this a better church. We are called to right the wrongs inside and outside our lives. We are called to let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Remember Doug of Ottawa, facing his demon of abusiveness. Remember little Abigail and the rich new life her new father introduced her to. Remember Abigail in Ohio, who finally found peace. Remember Jesus and his disciples on the mountain. Remember what he told them. It was a warning really. Life is short. It doesn't last long enough. Enjoy the trip.

Amen.