February 3, 2008

Scripture:         Matthew 17:1-9

Sermon:           “Mountaintop Experiences”

            Well, according to the calendar of the church, today is the final Sunday before the beginning of the season of Lent.  And that is the forty day stretch leading to Good Friday and the remembrance of the crucifixion of Jesus.  For centuries and centuries Christians have observed some form of a fast during this time as a spiritual practice to focus their attention on following Jesus as Lord.

            It’s not an easy thing to do.

            In fact, Lent gave rise to another practice, one that we will acknowledge this coming Tuesday.  As folks centuries ago in Europe saw the approach of Lent, they began to create ways of feasting before the fasting began.  That’s what we’ll do on Tuesday—we’ll eat pancakes to our hearts’ delight.  And hence the name of the day, Fat Tuesday.

            Of course, Fat Tuesday is also known by its French name, Mardi Gras.  And simply saying Mardi Gras brings up all kinds of images of debauchery, doesn’t it?  We think of the wild parties in places like New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama.  We think of scantily clad Brazilians parading through Rio de Janeiro to celebrate Carnival.  And not much of it brings to mind things of the nature of following Jesus.

            It’s the sort of stuff that has led many to say that this is the time to get it all out of your system.

            Now you know, of course, that these traditions have developed quite in spite of what the church would like for folks to do with themselves.  The church keeps marching along to the rhythms of the year, all the while inviting people into relationship with Christ.  The church calendar and its teachings do not include a time for sins, much as we might wish it did.  In fact, the church prescribes a reading from scripture on this Sunday that calls our attention to Christ in an astounding way, and that ought to keep us focused.

            Today’s reading is from the 17^th chapter of Matthew’s gospel.  We’ll read the first 9 verses.  That’s on page   of the New Testament in the pew Bible if you like.  This is the story of the transfiguration, which means something like metamorphosis.  Jesus underwent some kind of a change.  And there is a great deal of mystery here.

            Listen for the Word of the Lord…

            Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves.  And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.  Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.  Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”  While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”  When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear.  But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.”  And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.  As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

            Did you know that Thomas Jefferson once authored his own version of the Gospels?  It’s true.  Some refer to it as The Jefferson Bible.  But, the great forefather of this our United States of America called it The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.  I had a copy at one time, but it seems to have found a new home someplace else.

            It might disturb you to know that Jefferson compiled this work because he didn’t have a great deal of use for the notion that Jesus was in any fashion divine.  In fact he once commented to John Adams that all of the supernatural descriptions of Jesus were really devious concoctions of priests who sought to use Jesus for their own power.

            Jefferson didn’t put any stock in the idea that Jesus was God’s Son, capable of miracles and raised from the dead and such things.  His book was really just a reduction of the gospels into the moral teachings of a man who lived centuries ago.  No miracles.  No divinity.  No resurrection.  Those things were beyond human reason.  And human reason for Jefferson was really a very highly valued thing.

            I don’t want to tarnish anybody’s esteem for Thomas Jefferson.  I do think he overestimated the capacity of the human mind to reason.  But, if you and I are honest, we at least struggle with these miracles, this divine nature of one human being, this story of a dead man resurrected.  It would be easy to look down our religious noses at the deism of Thomas Jefferson.  But, each of us has doubts.  Jefferson was only confessing what many of us are afraid to even confront.  We have doubts.

            A lot of folks were astounded recently when the doubts of a saint were revealed.  We knew her as the “Saint of the Gutters” because she devoted her life to caring for the poor and undernourished and orphaned children and people of Calcutta.  Mother Theresa was even awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.  This is the same woman whose loneliness and frustrations with prayer also caused her to once confess that she doubted the existence of heaven and even of God.

            She had doubts.  I know that all of us do.

            Jefferson’s Bible does not mention the story that we read from scripture a few moments ago.  There’s entirely too much mystery and Divine Intervention and lack of human reason.  Like Thomas Jefferson, most of us probably don’t know what to make of it.

            I could give you some background information.  The scripture speaks of Jesus being transfigured, which means that he somehow changed.  And it goes on to say that his face shone like the sun and his clothes became dazzling white.  When Mark told this story he added this great line:  such as no one on earth could bleach them.

            Now if you read the descriptions of angels in various places in the Bible you’ll find that they often had some kind of dazzling clothes.  And long ago when Moses went to the top of Mount Sinai to receive the Law from God, he returned with this glowing radiance around his head.  Read through Paul’s letters and you’ll find references here and there to what he describes as a glorified body.  All of these things point to this ancient Jewish understanding that being in the presence of God causes some kind of radiance to occur.

            When Jesus was transfigured before those three bewildered disciples, they might as well have been looking at a man who embodied God.

            To further make the point of Jesus shining with God’s own glory, the ancient figures of Elijah and Moses were present.  It was as if all of history with its prophecy and its law were there to proclaim that Jesus was indeed the instrument of God on earth.

            And in case you’re not skilled at interpreting images like this, God’s own voice speaks from the clouds to summarize the whole message:  “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased.”  The three disciples certainly didn’t understand at first.

            But, does knowing all of that make it any more of a story that you can relate to?  It doesn’t really help me that much.  I’d like to tell you that I hear God’s voice clearly speaking to me.  Like Mother Theresa, I don’t.  And like Thomas Jefferson, things like this are so far beyond my experience that I can’t get my head around it.  I’ve never seen somebody just up and start glowing like the sun.

            What I do relate to in this story is the way that the three rather ordinary people react.  They don’t know what to make of it at all.  Peter starts saying something to the effect of pitching tents for Jesus, Elijah, and Moses.  Matthew says that while he was still speaking, a bright cloud suddenly overshadowed them.  It’s like the appearance of the cloud cut Peter off in mid-sentence.  Mark’s version of the story says that Peter didn’t know what to say, for they were terrified.

            But, what I’d give to have the kind of moment when everything was just revealed to me.  You know?  What I’d give to have just a glimpse into the reality of God.  Just a glimpse.  I’d probably want to make a dwelling there, too.  I’d want to make it last forever.  But, if I could just get a glimpse!  God, I’d be forever different.

            I think I had a glimpse into that reality a time or two.  Have you?

            I can’t be sure if this woman I met had a glow around her head or not.  I was wearing goggles and they were all fogged up.  But, I swear there was this radiance about her.  Gosh, it had to be 90 degrees outside and I was with some folks from my church working in New Orleans.  It was hot, boy.

            That hurricane had all but made that old city a heap of ruins.  And I was there with some folks trying to rip out walls from a couple of houses that had flooded.  Mold was growing up all over everything.  I don’t know what we were thinking.  There were just houses as far as the eye could see and there wasn’t much that we could do about it.  Just work on one or two houses for a week.  Maybe we’d be part of thousands of people doing that, and maybe we’d help get that place back together someday.  But, maybe we wouldn’t.

            But, we were working and this woman just showed up at the front door of this house.  And she had in her hand what was unmistakably a casserole dish.  And there in the filth of a ruined city was the most delicious mixture of beans and rice and sausage that I’d ever had the pleasure of eating.

            And you can’t tell me that these middle class white folks from Kentucky ever would have sat down at the same table with this poor black woman from New Orleans.  We were from different worlds.  Somehow, though.  Somehow.  We were having communion.  And there just might have been a glow around her head because I swear that we were in the kingdom of God that day for lunch.  She didn’t have to feed us.  We didn’t have to work on those houses.  But, God kind of brought us together.  And it felt like that’s the way it was supposed to be.

            It’s just a glimpse.

            I read this story in a book called Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller.  You should put it on your reading list.  Blue Like Jazz.

            A Navy SEAL, you know one of those highly trained special operations types, was deployed with his team in a covert operation to free hostages from a building in some dark part of the world.  I wish I had more details, but this is how the story came to me.  But, they flew in by helicopter and stormed into the room where the hostages had been imprisoned for months.  The room was filthy and dark.  The hostages were curled up in a corner, terrified.  When the SEALS entered the room, they heard the gasps of the hostages.  They stood at the door and called to the prisoners, telling them that they were Americans.  The SEALS asked the hostages to follow them, but the hostages wouldn’t.  They sat there on the floor and hid their eyes in fear.  They were not of healthy mind and didn’t believe their rescuers were really Americans.

            The SEALS stood there, not knowing what to do.  They couldn’t possibly carry everybody out.  This one SEAL got an idea.  He put down his weapon, took off his helmet, and curled up tightly next to the other hostages, getting so close his body was touching some of theirs.  He softened the look on his face and put his arms around them.  He was trying to show them that he was one of them.  None of the prison guards would have done this.  He stayed there a little while until some of the hostages started to look at him, finally meeting his eyes.  The Navy SEAL whispered that they were Americans and were there to rescue them.  Will you follow us? he said.  The hero stood to his feet and one of the hostages did the same, then another, until all of them were willing to go.  The story ends with all the hostages safe on an aircraft carrier.

            I’ll leave you with this…these are the author’s thoughts on the story that he told:

            I liked the idea of Jesus becoming man, so that we would be able to trust Him, and I like that he healed people and loved them and cared deeply about how people were feeling.  When I understood that the decision to follow Jesus was very much like the decision the hostages had to make to follow their rescuer, I knew then that I needed to decide whether or not I would follow him.  The decision was simple once I asked myself, Is Jesus the Son of God, are we being held captive in a world run by evil, a world filled with brokenness, and do I believe Jesus can rescue me from this condition?

            Every now and then you and I do get glimpses, you know.  And those glimpses of God’s grace and salvation and presence in our world and in our lives call us to just give ourselves in following.

Rev. David James Brown

Park Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)