March 2, 2025
By Rev. Nicole M. Lamarche
Welcome again in whatever shape you are in, with whatever you are holding or feeling. May this time be a gift and may you hear whatever it is that you need today. I invite you now as you are moved, to take some deeper breaths, to let yourself arrive and may we all tune in to the gift for whatever the Universe has for us today.
I offer this prayer from Psalm 19. God may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
While Peter was talking to Jesus, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were terrified.
As you heard, Jesus and the gentlemen had gone on a holy hike to have some time to find the quiet center, to pray alone and together, to dip into the Great Mystery. And then as we heard from the text in the Gospel of Luke in our lectionary for today, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were terrified.
And we have this story in Matthew, Mark and in Luke and in all three versions the cloud comes and they were terrified. They were seeking to center themselves in the chaos, seeking to get away from the crowd and whatever they couldn’t control and then the cloud comes.
You might know this story is following the one in Exodus.
And in both of the stories, one with Moses and the other with Jesus, the realm of the ordinary and the realm of the Mysterious seem to overlap and intersect and in both of the stories there is a sense of confusion and fear.
In the book of Exodus Moses comes down from the mountain with blessings from God on a tablet and his face is shining so bright that those around him “were afraid to come near him.”
In the book of Luke, Jesus climbs up the mountain and then his face changes, and his clothes become dazzling white. And all around him become “terrified.”
The Christian story mirrors the Jewish story about God’s glory and presence, symbolizing the Jewish Feast of the Tabernacles which is what the booths/tents are referencing. The Feast of the Tabernacles included a pilgrimage to celebrate Israel’s path to freedom and this year, I when I read this story this week, seeing that the cloud came and overshadowed them and they were terrified and I was like well that sounds about right.
Even though that seems odd. Here is what I mean. What if this sacred story is meant to tell us something about how we get to freedom when a cloud comes and overshadows us and we are all going around worried, wandering around online and in real life doomscrolling and doomsharing, as if even if we wanted to escape the cloud, we now bring the cloud with us. Have you felt that? A clergy colleague told me this week that so many of her meetings now seem to have doom on the agenda.
When a cloud came and overshadowed…at this moment in the history of this country and in our lives together, as a parent of a 13 year old and the partner of a creative and a pastor of a church that includes the whole world,
many of us are afraid.
Because we have people who are hurting already, we have people connected to the Forest Service and the National Parks, to NOAA and to research funded by federal grants, we have many who rely on Medicaid. Did you know Medicaid is the primary payer for nursing home care? We have people whose work is halted, whose plans are changed, whose lives
are on hold, a chainsaw taken to things that needed maybe needed to needles to mend.
When a cloud came and overshadowed… I invite you to say out loud your cloud if you are so moved, in a word or a
phrase, feel free to say it out loud…
But what if this sacred story is meant to tell us something about how we get to freedom when a cloud comes and overshadows us?
Because do you know what I noticed about this old story?
Before the cloud came, they had tried to set up three tents, one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. They had tried to pin down what was… so the meaning I make out of this story right now is that sometimes when we humans are seeking to escape the reality that awaits us in the valley, so instead of going forward, we go back. When we know we are on the
precipice of needing to make a change, especially a great change, one of the very first things we human do is try and live somewhere other than here. Often when we aren’t sure how to go forward, we try to go back. So in this story they try to build houses on history to so to speak, we try to squish things back into something that we thought was good or better or the best. Oh if we could just go back to how it was? IT seems to me that a lot of our politics right now is seeking to do this? Can’t we just go back?
Can’t we just build a house on 1955? Get those women back in the house! Any many of us ask, good for whom? We humans sometimes idolize our own nostalgia, pining for the past, whether or not what we imagined is what really happened. Have you noticed that? And especially when we are afraid? We long for what used to be.
And so I wonder if maybe sometimes the Universe responds by reminding us that this will never work, the only answering is letting go. Surrendering so we can see what is.
And part of how we get where we are called to be is to keep going through this cloud… it says that they go through the cloud. Even though we might want to stop when it’s a fear filled fog and hard to see, even though we are terrified, and we don’t know what to do and we want to go back. We must care for each other in this cloud and we must not forget that love, the name we give for God is here holding us together, leading us along, helping us see clearly what matters.
Over 20 of us gathered last month in Estes Park for our now annual women’s retreat. We explored so many wonderful things together and when I got home, my husband said, “Well tell me the sorts of things you talked
about…”
I confirmed whether he genuinely wanted to know.
We are shifting to a new thing. We are starting a new cycle. We are entering a season of great change on our way to the great rebalancing!
I told him you know, that Pluto last transited through Aquarius from 1778 to 1798. What else happened then? American Revolution April 19, 1775 French Revolution May 5, 1789
The cloud is here and it’s okay if at first we are terrified. And then let us also remember God, Love, Change is singing and shining all around us ways we might not yet perceive, calling us to something we might not yet see. But we cannot go back.
As you heard in the words from the Cloud of Unknowing, I wonder if part of the answer is we need to know is unknowing, unknowing what we thought let go to see where we are called to go forward now. I know that we humans sometimes idolize our own nostalgia, trying to preserve something that was or that we thought was. Or we hold on because of power and
privilege. Or we hold onto old stories because they once served us, once worked for us, but even though they no longer do, we know those stories by heart, but now is a time to tell new stories, to be freed, because when we let go, there is room as we heard from the mystics, “to be filled with the love and presence of God.” And I think also to be filled with the possibilities
that are here in this place.
What if part of how we will get through together is to unknow, to let go, to surrender, to be freed from the past?
When a cloud comes and overshadowed, when a fear filled fog finds us, it’s okay to be terrified but let’s not stay there. Let’s look to each other. I think this ancient story tells us what we need to know. The way through this cloud is through it, not around it. We must get through it together. Instead of denying it’s there or trying to act like there’s another way. It’s really through it and this is something we can only do together as a community.
Communal Reflection
What keeps you going when clouds come and seem to overshadow? How can we support one another differently in this time?
Beloved of God, our whole paradigm is being transfigured, it’s okay to feel terrified but let’s not stay there. Let us hold each other’s hands through this darkness, making our way toward the light. We can become unattached, maybe to know what is next, we need to unknow? In new and ever evolving ways let us let go, not on our own, but together, knowing that the only way to the other side of this, is through. In this together all of us, me and you.
May it be so. Amen.