Do you listen to podcasts?  I
know some of you do, and I get regular recommendations for great
ones, which means I often feel guilty for never getting to them.  I
download them sometimes, with expectations of listening.  However
between being a person who values the space to think that silence
gives me, loving classical music when I am in the car, and preferring
to learn by reading, I just never get around to podcasts.

This is true with one exception.
After all, I have an exercise bike that I use regularly, and I
prefer to be slightly distracted from the challenges it provides me.

Rather to my own surprise,
ride after ride, I keep on going back to “The Enneagram Journey”
hosted by Suzanne Stabile.  The Enneagram is one of those means of
modeling humanity by breaking people up into different types and
explaining how the types are different.  As with any other model, I
think it is useful until it isn’t, and should be held lightly as
containing truth without being definitive.  So perhaps it is odd I
keep going back to this, but the host is mesmerizing.  She is a
wisdom teacher, who uses the Enneagram as her model, and I like
wisdom.  Maybe more so though, she is unfailingly kind and curious.
While being entirely herself, the only well-known person I can think
of to compare her to is Mr. Rogers, but she does her work for adults.
I find listening to her soothing and inspiring.

While listening to her podcast
this week, she stopped me in my tracks.  I had to get out my phone
and write down this quote, WHILE ON THE BIKE.  In passing, she
mentioned a suggested spiritual practice and then said, “Spiritual
meaning it will make you more human.”

I believe that.  I’ve never said
it quite that way, but I believe that.  Spiritual means it will make
you human.  The goal isn’t to be less human, or less embodied, or
less connected, but rather to be MORE so.  More human, more embodied,
more connected.

At its core, this is what
today’s Gospel lesson is about.  This may not be what you see at a
first glance though.  When Jesus appears in dazzling white clothing
with prophets of old and a voice coming out of a cloud, this may seem
to be about the super natural, the beyond earthly, or perhaps the
“spiritual realm,” I don’t think it is.

I think this is MOSTLY a story
about coming back down the mountain to continue doing ministry, and
that the stuff that happened on the mountain was meant to be
motivation and support for the important stuff happening back where
the people were.  The top of the mountain was an experience of the
Holiness of the Divine, as well as an ah-ha moment about the
connection Jesus had to God’s work.  These experiences are such
wonderful gifts when we have them – connections with God, senses of
the Holy One, ah-has about the wonder of what is.

At its best, worship can be like
a mountaintop experience, rich in sensory experience and openings to
experience the Spirit.  But like the journey of the disciples in the
Gospel, the mountaintop is a temporary destination, and the purpose
of worship is to go back OUT into the world, refreshed and renewed,
filled with God’s love and ready and able to share it.  Worship helps
us be more human!  I think in person gatherings are even better at
this – when we can sing together and breath together, when we can
check in on each other before and after, when our emotions
intermingle, when the children lead us and open our hearts, when we
feel the base notes rumble the pews, when we can smile at each other,
and notice how someone is walking differently.  Put that way, I’m
reminded of how incredibly embodied worship is, and can see clearly
how well it helps us be more human.  But even this online worship,
lacking those elements, is still aimed at our humanity.  The
scriptures are ways that people have made sense of their humanity for
thousands of years.  The music aims to connect us with our emotions.
The lyrics of the hymns along with the words of the prayers remind us
of the universality of our humanity, and the needs and desires we
share with each other.  Sermons, at their best, speak to who we are
and who we want to be, our humanity.  We give, out of a sense of
gratitude for our lives, and out of a desire to bring more full
living to others.  The images that the church offers each other to
intersperse our liturgy itself are visual art, means of connecting
with our humanity and with the sacredness of our earthly life.  Not
to mention, we start with a breath prayer, and the fact that
breathing is proven to be one of the best access points to
spirituality really just proves everything!

I could make the same points
about prayer and spiritual practice, but I suspect that will be
overkill, so you can either trust me on it, or look at it yourself.

Spirituality is about being more
human.

Isn’t it obvious?  Isn’t it
wonderful?  Isn’t it counter to some other narratives we’ve heard
along the way?

The point of the
transfiguration, no matter how wonderful it was, is the going back
DOWN the mountain.  The point of prayer and contemplation is to meet
God in our humanity.  The point of worship is to become more human.

I’ve been slowly reading “The
Body is Not an Apology: The Radical Power of Self Love” by Sonya
Renee Taylor.  (Slowly because it is radical enough to take time to
absorb.)  Taylor spends a whole lot of time talking about body love,
and pointing out that when we hate our bodies – or even just things
about our bodies – we end up doing harm to other bodies.  She is
articulate about the imperative work of becoming more deeply embodied
and more profoundly human as a good in and of itself AND as the only
way we can truly love other people in their humanity and their
bodies.

That seems like the completion
of Stabile’s idea.  Spiritual means it will make you more human.  And
being more human means you are more able to be loving to other humans
– all of whom are God’s beloveds.

So, dear ones, may we become
more spiritual, more human, more loving.  Amen

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

February 14, 2021