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Last Sunday after the Epiphany Lesson: Exodus 34:29-35
February 14, 2010 Psalm 99
The Rev. Katharine Elberfeld Epistle: 2 Corinthians 3:12—4:2
St. James’ Church, Marietta Holy Gospel: Luke 9:28-43
Come, Holy Spirit, Come. Come as the light and reveal. Amen.
The images in the mirror have taken shape. I could see the silhouetted outline of my brother Mark’s face, my cousin Jimmy’s face, and the faces of old friends from Georgia emerging on it’s surface. Gray figures against the shiny glass background of the mirror, the mirror in my mind, for we know only in part and we prophesy only in part. When the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. For now we see in a mirror dimly.
When my mother died in August 2005, I was still living in Alexandria, Virginia, after having grown up in Gainesville, Georgia. After her death, I began to think about moving back home to North Georgia. My children were grown, my work was portable, and I have for many years focused my ministry on the development of servant leadership in groups and individuals. I could do that work in the Atlanta area just as well as in Virginia.
I also figured this part of the country would be fertile ground for a servant leader center, especially because Bennett Sims has worked in that field when he served as Bishop of the Diocese of Atlanta. The rest of my small family was still in Georgia – my brother Mark in Gainesville, my cousin Jimmy in Marietta, and my mother’s twin sister, Aunt Jane, living with her son Jamie.
The images on my inner mirror had begun to form. So after much prayer, contemplation, consulting with my friends and family, I decided to come home to North Georgia. I moved myself and the Servant Leader Center to Marietta four years ago next March. I chose Marietta rather than Gainesville so that I could be closer to Atlanta for work, for cultural opportunities and for fun.
Such transitions are common in our lives. Such transitions are part of our shared experiences as human beings. You at St. James’ are in the middle of such a transition in your life together now also. Karen has retired and you are beginning the process of putting together a Search Committee, hiring an Interim Rector, and accomplishing the steps of the process that will eventually lead you and your new rector to each other.
The images on your inner mirror may even be beginning to form – the silhouetted outline for your hopes for St. James’ and your community here.
Still, as Pal tells the people of Corinth in today’s passage, now we continue to see in the mirror only dimly. On this side of the River Jordan, we know only in part; we do not know in full. That makes room for frustration, fear, anxiety, second-guessing, and questioning.
The move from Virginia to Georgia turned out to be one of the hardest experiences of my life. Moving not only my household, but also the Servant Leader Center was beyond overwhelming, way too much to take on all at one time. Beyond that as so often happens in our lives, the images on my inner mirror did not in many ways match the reality of my new life in Georgia. I did not reconnect with some of the people I had hoped to on the level I had envisioned, when contemplating their images on my inner mirror.
One of my most painful memories remains with me. An old friend of my parents and, consequently, mine, came from Gainesville to see a play at the Theater in the Square. She told me about the outing after it had happened and it still hurts to realize that she was five minutes away and still did not call me to join them even though she knew I was living in Marietta by then. I cannot know her intentions. I do know that when on occasion I think back to that experience, the feelings of hurt and being perplexed by my friend’s behavior lingers still.
I began to wonder what I had done in moving. Fear and anxiety haunted me. Will I be okay? Will I ever get set back up again? Will I find friends? I turned to Thomas Wolfe’s magnificent novel, You Can’t Go Home Again, looking for comfort, looking for guidance, looking for answers. After all, I had begun to wonder if I was trying to do something that cannot be done, that we cannot go home again for some reason.
You may have similar thoughts and feelings as you go through the interim process. Will we have enough money to do what we have to do? What kind of rector do we need? Will we find the right person? What do we do in the meantime?
Yes, now we do see in the mirror, only dimly, that God, through Paul, does not leave us in that frightening, desolate place. Paul goes on to tell the people of Corinth, “for now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part, then I will know fully.”
In the middle of my desolation I kept thinking about my cousin Sally, Jimmy’s sister. I kept thinking that if I just had Sally everything would be better, more tolerable at least. I would have her to talk to, to be with. I wanted my cousin back.
Sally and I were born two months apart, daughters of twin sisters. We were playpen mates, inseparable, like sisters when we were growing up. But she and I had not seen each other in almost 20 years and I knew only that she lived in the North Georgia mountains somewhere. A few months ago I began to search for Sally. I Googled her and found that she lives in Clayton. I wrote her on Facebook and asked if she wanted to reconnect, not sure what her response would be after so long a time.
She wrote back immediately and accepted me as a friend. We were on our way to finding each other again, to getting to know each other again as adults, as friends, as cousins with a shared family history, common memories that stretched back to the decades of our lives.
Over and over again, Sally and I now say to each other that we are like twins separated at birth, and marvel at the connections between us that we did not even know were there.
So, no, some of the images on my inner mirror that drew me to move to Georgia have not come to life as I had hoped. But they did help draw me to Georgia, to the land where I have found as Paul said at another time to the people of Ephesus, “I have found God accomplishing abundantly far more than all I could have asked or imagined.”
Not only as my long, absent cousin taken shape on the mirror and stepped out from it, back into my life, others have taken shape and stepped into my life as well, other friends and colleagues I never could have dreamed of or asked for or imagined before.
The same will happen for you here at St. James’. In time, a silhouette will form on your inner mirror and become clearer and clearer until it takes shape fully and your new rector steps out of the mirror and into your midst. You will at last know more fully what to expect, what plans to make at St. James’, be able to dream more clearly about how you and your new rector can be together.
Still, of course, I do not know about how my life in Georgia will continue to emerge. Even with your new rector you and she/he will not know about how the community at St. James’ will continue to grow and serve Christ in this place and beyond.
“We will still know,” as Paul said, “only in part.”
So what about that? Is there more? What more can we find when we look even more deeply into Paul’s words? “When the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. Then we will see face to face, then I will know fully.”
What does the complete mean? When is the “then” he writes about? Surely a foretaste of the complete comes when we enter into deeper communion with God and each other at the altar. Surely the complete will come on the other side of the River Jordan, when we enter into the fullness of God’s presence, after our deaths.
What about now? Are there times when we get a glimpse of the complete, a time when God’s grace breaks through the distance between now and then, and we know God is right here with us, right now.
As I was searching for Sally, a client was lining us up to facilitate their annual retreat. We usually work with that client at Camp Mikell, but those accommodations were not available during that particular retreat day. So our client told us that we would be meeting at a retreat center in Tiger, Georgia. Even having grown up in Gainesville, I had never heard of Tiger, Georgia. So I went back to Google, typed in the words “Tiger, Georgia,” hit return, and bingo – there it was. As many, if not all of you probably know, there it is in Rabun County, the same county where Sally lives.
As I sat in my desk chair at home, I looked at that small county in the very most northeastern corner of the Georgia map, the county highlighted in orange, showing me that Tiger and Sally were right up there together. I leaned back and I knew. I knew that God’s hand was in this, that God was helping Sally and me find each other again. God had taken the time between now and then, between the present and the future, and collapsed it – made now and then the same, the present and the future, one time. There it was, even if only for a glimpse.
It turned out that Sally lives about three miles from the center in Tiger, and we were able to meet up after the retreat to see each other for the first time in so many years. So began our reaquaintance and our face to face reconnection.
During your search process at St. James’ you will have opportunities to watch and listen for such moments – moments when God will take your now and your then and make them one – moments when you will be able to see beyond the mirror, glimpse that time when we will fully know as never before. When those moments come, as they most assuredly will, we can rejoice that God makes that happen; that God makes that happen on this side of a move to Georgia, that God makes that happen of searching for a new rector, and that yes, God makes that happen even on this side of the River Jordan. Amen.
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