Prepare with Awe
Last Sunday after the Epiphany (RCL A), February 19, 2023
A few weeks ago someone I know was telling me about a new book she was enjoying. It is about the science of awe*, and she said ‘it has been very helpful for understanding some of what you are talking about, because I am not sure I really have known lots of awe.’ I was struck by the statement because it was my mother. I know her well enough to not be all that surprised, but what caught me is that I am someone who has had many many experiences of awe all the way back to early childhood. Wonder, awe, and astonishment have always been part of my experience. From walks in the glory of beautiful woodlands in our German neighborhood to that feeling when my team hit that third home run in a row in the championship series, and of course I have felt awe in extraordinary moments in liturgy. I have even been surprised by awe: I went to Stonehenge almost accidentally and didn’t expect anything, but certainly did experience vastness and connectedness and a kind of glow in the center of my chest.
So this difference about this experience with a source of my own nurture and nature has had me wondering more than ever about all the factors that influence the experience of awe. Awe is cognition and emotions regarding things so immense that you can barely comprehend it**. How much is awe rooted in personality and neighborhood? What about trauma, or economics, or biological and neurological differences?
What about generation and culture – the industries and patterns that helped the Allies win WW2 with the emphasis on reason and logic and industrialized patterns society- did that make awe, especially sacred awe, a bit less on the radar? And what about folks in my generation and younger, people who’ve been raised on a nonstop diet of science fiction and fantasy? There are plenty of adults who don’t remember a time without images of deeper space, who have never known a reality without Mars rovers! Does it mean that we are more warmed up to acknowledge awe – or could it mean that we need more and more intense experiences of awe
to even notice them? Is awe similar to how some people taste more flavors or see more colors than others?
And today did the first disciples ancient lifestyle, or their very persons, have heightened receptivity to awe,
or did they need an astonishing experience like this to get their attention?
Awe is cognition and emotion,it is thoughts and it is feelings. There are two kinds of awe – positive awe like a breathtaking vista, and negative awe, like the overwhelming death and devastation in Syria and Turkey. Research shows that both types of awe tend to make time feel infinite – that there is enough time and energy to do what needs to be done. Science also shows that awe leads people to be more compassionate, charitable, and virtuous: all requirements for a thriving community, especially in the context of crisis. It may be that the capacity for awe is an evolutionary advantage – a means of preparation. It is readying us, in both types, to pay attention because something here is what we need to know more about for the days and moments ahead.
These memories and storytelling about Jesus’ transfiguration are prismatic in the meanings they convey. The guests of honor are Moses and Elijah: bringing together the way of life given by God in Torah, and the demanding call of God in the prophets. They are the two epic figures of the Hebrew tradition who did not go from dust to dust – foreshadowing Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. The multiple disciples meet the criteria for witnesses to attest that something is true. And Jesus’ clothes, becoming dazzling white. Is it a vision of preparation for these disciples for the robes of white they will wear? Robes of sainthood and martyrdom?
This lucid moment of brilliant whoa – it will be followed by a path into the heart of human suffering and evil.
There is a reason this lesson always precedes a holy Lent. What lies ahead as we descend with Jesus is to be a life of service in the valleys of hunger and violence and cruelty. A life of wholehearted attention to real needs, right in front of us.
So are you more or less likely to know and name awe? Do you have an early memory like a fist unclenching
of something so astonishing you forgot to breathe? Is there a more recent experience? Were they rooted in something glorious or terribly devastating? Do you desire to attend to more awe in your life, and how could you begin?
Sometimes I think that God created humanity because it would give God plenty to laugh at. And this is one of those scenes where my first reaction is to snarkily hear carnival music, and to poke a bit of fun at the disciples.
‘Oooh something amazing happened! Let’s put it in a box and sell tickets and make the world come to us. Greatest show on earth! But if I’m honest I do the same thing these disciples tried to do. There are moments of extraordinary wonder in my journey of faithful leadership, that if I could recreate for you and live through again and again on demand, I would. There is a song that I play month after month just to connect to a moment of beauty and peace that is far far from here and now. The playlist songs, the cycle of the liturgical year, they are gifts of that lift me up in difficulty. They keep my feet in the call to walk with you as you seek Jesus’ depth, connections, and the way to a better tomorrow. And so I wonder, is the desire to contain the awe and living power of that mountaintop, in its own way is it a kind of preparing us who follow Jesus, for all that comes next?
*Keltner, Dacher. Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder. Penguin Press. 2023. The author was a recent guest for an On Being episode, and there are several videos featuring his work on YouTube.
** The Scishow episode (A Crash Course/Vlogbrothers project) presentation shows up several times in this sermon.