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Now I See
by the Rev. Rich Smith
February 18, 2007
Luke 9:28-36
Today is the last Sunday of the Epiphany Season, known
in the Christian calendar as “Transfiguration Sunday.” It serves as a
kind of bookend for that season of four to nine weeks between Christmas
and Lent, that always begins with the visit of the Magi, followed by
Jesus’ baptism and then – for those who use the lectionary – several
stories from Jesus’ ministry where he is progressively revealed in a
series of epiphanies – as a teacher, healer, miracle worker, and
movement leader. On the final Sunday before the story turns to his
passion and death in the season of Lent, we read of Jesus taking three
of the disciples -- Peter, James and John – on a hike up to the top of
a mountain, where his identity is revealed once again in a most
dramatic way. His appearance is changed, his clothes become dazzling
white, he speaks with Moses and Elijah, and just as they are about to
leave, in spite of Peter’s protests that they just ought to stay up
there forever, a cloud overshadows them, and a voice comes from the
cloud, “This is my Son, my chosen one; listen to him!”
For me, this story is about seeing Jesus in a new way, in a whole new
light. It is the Gospel writer’s way of saying, He’s not just a teacher
or preacher or healer – he is God’s own chosen one. Transfiguration
actually means “to change the appearance of.” It is about seeing that
which you’ve never seen before. Like when you’re out in nature and the
light changes and you see a mountain or canyon in a new way – or you’re
with a friend and something happens and their face seems to glow – or
you’re in an art museum and come across a painting of a familiar scene
but it’s done in a way that gives you a fresh insight. In each case you
catch your breath and exclaim, “Now, I See!”
The Transfiguration was a “Now I See” moment. Jazz is also a
transfiguring experience! You can hear the same song played a hundred
times in conventional ways and then you hear it again in jazz style and
it opens up a whole new way of hearing it – you hear things in the
music you’ve never heard before; it opens up depths of the song that
were previously locked up. It’s freeing, liberating, even transfiguring!
It has become a kind of tradition at Westmoreland to have Jazz Sunday
on the Feast of the Transfiguration, as it actually is in a number of
churches. For many of them, it is not so much the transfiguring and
transforming power of jazz itself as it is the tie-in with Mardi Gras.
Lent is almost upon us, that season of prayer and fasting, of giving up
and taking up. There will be no more “alleluias” until Easter morning;
worship will be more somber; some folks even renounce their favorite
foods or activities for the duration. But before they do that, they
have one last “blowout” – eat up all the fat before the fasting – and
so there is Shrove Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, and in New Orleans,
the Mardi Gras. And so a lot of churches mark this by having a jazz
service on this Sunday, although the style is usually Dixieland, and
the service always ends with “When the Saints Go Marchin’ In.” Rick
Whitehead plays a different style... but it is still jazz, and I prefer
to connect it to transfiguration, not Mardi Gras, although it is still
festive and does make you feel like dancing. What it really does it
take the familiar and open it up to new ways of hearing, new
understandings, new experiences, so that we can also say, “Now, I See!”
Today, in over four thousand churches, that phrase is being sung as a
part of the hymn “Amazing Grace.” This is “Amazing Grace Sunday,” to
mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in the
British Empire, and of the song that helped inspire it. And incidently,
to lift up the movie that is coming out this week by the same name.
Four thousand churches will sing “Amazing Grace,” as we will, and pray
for the end to slavery in today’s world. I think this is a worthwhile
undertaking. I’ve seen the movie, and I don’t mind promoting it,
because it tells a story that needs telling. It’s about getting a
message out, and inspiring a change in the world, as more and more
people say, “Now, I See!”
While the movie “Amazing Grace” focuses on British Member of Parliament
William Wilberforce, the background story is that of John Newton, slave
ship captain turned clergyman and abolitionist.
During the 18th century, the economy of the British Empire was build on
the backs of slaves. Slave ships moved in a clockwise pattern, from
England to the coast of West Africa, where they traded with tribal
chiefs for Prisoners of War. They would stack as many as 600 in
horizontal compartments for the voyage across the Atlantic, making it
as quickly as possible, but often losing up to 20% of their human cargo
to things like dysentery, and tossing the corpses overboard. Arriving
in the West Indies, the slaves would be traded for the main crop of the
islands – sugar, the very thing they were enslaved to produce. The
sugar was either taken directly to England, or turned into molasses and
taken to New England, where it was distilled into rum, and that was
taken to Britain, and the cycle began all over again. It is said that
this is what kept the economy going, and provided capital for the
Industrial Revolution, and that the Northern colonies of what became
the U.S. actually benefitted from the slave trade even more than the
South.
It was while working on one of these slave ships that John Newton began
to see in a new way. At the time, by his own account, he truly was the
wretch that he would describe in Amazing Grace – “My whole life, when
awake, was a course of most horrid impiety and profaneness." Though
given religious instruction when young by his mother, Newton had long
since lost any religious convictions and strayed far from any state of
grace, drinking heavily, urging crew members into foolish acts and
frequently enraging his superiors with his words and deeds.
In March 1748, Newton’s ship was on its way back to England, when it
was caught in a brutal storm.
As we pick up the story, John Newton is asleep in his bunk as the gale
tosses the Greyhound. Suddenly, a crashing wave sweeps across the deck,
flooding the cabins below. A shower of seawater wakes the dozing
Newton. Staggering to his feet, he moves to the ladder to climb to the
deck. As he is about to ascend, the captain shouts through the hatch,
ordering him to find a knife. While Newton searches for the knife,
another sailor ascends the ladder and is caught by a wave and swept
overboard, a fate that could have been Newton's.
The Greyhound is battered, and although leaking badly, she remains
afloat, perhaps buoyed by the cargo of beeswax and wood filling her
hold. For hours, the crew labors to plug with cloth the many leaks
springing from the gaps in her timbers. In despair, a shipmate cries
out: "No, it is too late now, we cannot save her, or ourselves."
Newton's confidence is shaken. But much to his amazement, he prays for
divine assistance and mercy. "If this will not do, the Lord have mercy
on us." .
Alongside his crew mates, Newton pumps with "almost every passing wave
breaking over my head; but we made ourselves fast with ropes that we
might not be washed away." With each descent into a wave trough, Newton
fears "she would rise no more."
By noon, he is too exhausted to continue and staggers to his bunk to
await the death that is sure to find him. But no sooner does he reach
his bunk when the captain orders Newton to take the helm. For the next
eleven hours, John Newton steers the ship through the gale's fury while
his shipmates bail on.
Then, as Newton would later recall, "There arose a gleam of hope. I
thought I saw the hand of God displayed in our favour; I began to
pray." The wind soon begins to slowly abate, leaving the ship half
derelict but still afloat, rolling in the subsiding seas.
Finally, the breeze picks up and on April 8th, the Greyhound reaches
Donegal, Ireland, just as the last of the food is being cooked and
water barrel drained. They had been saved.
Reflecting on what had transpired and his words in the teeth of the
storm, Newton believed that God had addressed him personally through
the storm. Newton felt called to a higher purpose: "Thus to all
appearance I was a new man....I consider this as the beginning of my
return to God, or rather of his return to me."
For the rest of his life John Newton would observe the anniversary of
March 10, 1748 as the day of his conversion. "On that day the Lord sent
from on high and delivered me out of deep waters." On that day he
received Grace, as he would later write: "Through many dangers, toils
and snares, I have already come; 'tis grace has brought me safe thus
far, and grace will lead me home."
Now this conversion in the midst of the storm was not complete by any
means. Yes, a man who had been the classic example of the reprobate
drunken sailor began to mend his ways, became aware of God’s presence
in his life, was able to see in a new way. Now, he quickly rose through
the ranks and became captain of his own ship – but still in the slave
trade. It simply did not occur to him that there was anything wrong or
immoral about it. After all, it was simply part of the system, playing
its crucial part in the economic engine of the time.
It was only illness, not moral scruples, that forced Newton to give up
the life of a slave ship captain. He went to work as a surveyor, but
his conversion continued when he met John Wesley, the founder of
Methodism. Eventually, he felt the call to be a preacher himself, and
while serving in the village of Olney, began the practice of writing a
hymn each week to go along with his sermon. Amazing Grace, written
sometime between 1770 and 1780, was one of some 300, and it really told
the story of his initial conversion, there on the ship in the midst of
the storm. It was only later, when he encountered abolitionists and saw
the light concerning slavery, that the line “Was blind but now I see”
took on new meaning, and his sermons turned increasingly from personal
conversion to the conversion and transformation of society.
The hymn eventually took on a life of its own – appearing in America in
the 19th century, where it was first sung to the tune we all know and
love. (Bill Moyers speculates that since the composer is unknown, it
may well have originated among the slaves.) It did not really become
popular until a generation or so ago, when folk singers like Judy
Collins discovered it and began singing it, particularly at marches and
protest rallies. It was only in the 1970's that it showed up in
mainline hymnals. Ever since, it has consistently ranked as one of the
most popular hymns, across denominational lines.
Now, Newton himself did not play an especially large part in the
movement to end slavery. He preached against it, repented of his part
in it, was haunted by it his whole life. But it was one William
Wilberforce, who heard his preaching, and to whom he became a spiritual
mentor, who really made the difference. While never as reprobate as
Newton, Wilberforce nevertheless enjoyed a high society life of
partying. While in college he met his lifelong friend and future Prime
Minister, William Pitt, who inspired him to make a life in politics. He
was elected to the House of Commons at the age of 21, and it was
Newton’s preaching that brought about his own conversion, his “Now I
See” moment. Newton told him, “The Lord has raised you up to be a force
for good for the church and for the nation.” He encountered other
abolitionists, and in 1788, he introduced a bill in the House of
Commons outlawing the slave trade in the British Empire. It would be as
if a freshman congressperson came to Washington and introduced a bill
outlawing the internal combustion engine. It was roundly defeated, but
Wilberforce kept at it, and brought it forward nine time over the next
two decades, building a movement towards the “tipping point” until it
finally passed, in 1807. And it only abolished the slave trade, not
slavery itself. That would take many more years – It wasn’t until 1833
that slavery was outlawed throughout the British Empire – three days
before Wilberforce died.
Now, you might say, “Thank God our ancestors saw the error of their
ways, and eliminated that scourge of slavery from the earth. We may be
left with the legacy of racism, but aren’t we working on that? And yet,
slavery has not been eliminated. It may be illegal, but it’s not gone.
In fact, reliable estimates are that there may be some 27 million
slaves in the world today, many times more than were ever traded with
the aid of Newton’s ships. The problem is, they are mostly hidden, or
perhaps hidden in plain sight. As David Batstone says in his newly
published book, Not for Sale–the Return of the Global Slave Trade and
How we Can Fight it, “Girls and boys, women and men of all ages are
forced to toil in the rug loom sheds 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 facade in any major town
or city in the world today and you are likely to find a thriving
commerce in human beings. You may even find slavery in your own
backyard. For several years my wife and I dined regularly at an Indian
restaurant located near our home in the San Francisco Bay area.
Unbeknownst to us, the staff who cooked our curries, delivered them to
our table, and washed our dishes were slaves. The restaurant owner and
several members of his family had used fake visas and false identities
to traffic perhaps hundreds of adults and children into the United
States from India. He forced the laborers to work long hours for
minimal wages, money that they returned to him as rent to live in one
of his apartments. He threatened to turn them into the authorities as
illegal aliens if they tried to escape.”
This is not an anomaly, he says. As many as 800,000 persons are
trafficked across international borders each year, some 17,000 to this
country. And we may not even realize how bound up we all are in this –
slaves in Pakistan may have made our shoes; slaves in the Caribbean may
have produce the sugar on our tables and the toys our children play
with; slaves in India may have sewn the shirts on our backs.
I am not sure just what the ultimate solution is – there are many
heroic people and organizations dedicated to the new abolitionist
movement – go to www.theamazingchange.com – but I do know that the
first step is simply to raise awareness, to open eyes and to realize
that when we are no longer blind but see, when we are part of God’s
amazing grace, we can’t just leave it at that. When the disciples had
their new vision of Jesus, up in the mount of Transfiguration, their
first reaction was to say, “Wow! Let’s stay here permanently and make
this moment last forever!” But Jesus made it clear that they couldn’t
do that – their calling was to go back down the mountain to the valley
below, where real life was waiting, and they were needed to get on with
the business of healing and teaching and transforming the world.
I suppose we all wonder how we would have acted had we been alive
during the epic struggles of human history. What if we had been in the
House of Commons in 1887 and faced with Wilberforce’s bold proposal?
What if we had been in rural Tennessee in 1855 and Harriet Tubman came
to our door, asking us to join in the underground railroad? In
hindsight, we like to think we would have done the right thing. But
now, the issue is foresight. We, like the disciples, have been given
new vision, and we live with God’s amazing grace. If we were blind, now
we see. And like the disciples, we can’t just bask in Jesus’ glory, but
are called to take on Jesus’ work. Now, we see. Now, what are we going
to do about it?
Last updated Wednesday, Februrary 29, 2008
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