6 March 2011

“SonShine Mountain”
Transfiguration of our Lord
Matthew 17:1-9
6 March 2011


Hmn.
Perhaps today’s Gospel reading has you confused.
I mean, wasn’t Jesus up on a mountain last Sunday, and the three or four before that … giving “The Sermon on the Mount,” after all?
Why does he need to climb another mountain today, with his disciples, anyway?
Well, in the sometimes wacky way of things that happens when we follow the liturgical year … in one Sunday we’ve jumped from being with Jesus and his disciples and the crowds on top of the Mountain of the Sermon on the Mount … right to the Mountain of Transfiguration, with Jesus, the disciples, Moses and Elijah.
In between … the 10 chapters we skipped … we missed a lot!
We missed the end of the Sermon on the Mount … Jesus’ practical advice for every time and place … “don’t judge” … “beware of false prophets” … “everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.”
We missed Jesus healing a leper … a centurion’s slave … Peter’s mother in law … a man wandering among the tombs of the Gadarenes, possessed by demons.
We missed Jesus’ sending out the disciples to act and preach and heal in his name.
We missed parables like the sower and the seed, and the weeds among the wheat.
We missed a lot!
But regardless … here we are … today … moved from the Sermon on the Mount to the Mount of the Transfiguration. And in breezing over the ten chapters between where we left off last week (Matthew 6) and where we are today (Matthew 17) … we are now at a bridge to what comes next … a bridge out of this season of Epiphany … this season of light, of “letting the Son shine,” now, we move into the introspective, meditative, self-examining season of Lent. A time to think, to ponder, to go deeper in our faith walk with Jesus as he moves, surely, steadily, toward the Cross.
You may remember that we entered this season of Epiphany way back on Baptism of our Lord Sunday, January 9, in much the same way as we leave it today.
Back then, just as today, Jesus, surrounded by friends … then, John the Baptist; now, his disciples Peter and James and John … both then at his baptism, and now up on the mountain … a heavenly voice gives us an epiphany of Jesus … it makes Jesus known … “This is my Son, the beloved, with him I am well pleased” … now, on the mountaintop, the voice adds, for emphasis, and, perhaps, pointing us in the direction of what is to come … “LISTEN TO HIM!”
Listen to him? Listen to him? Why, that’s all we’ve been doing, during these past few weeks of the Sermon on the Mount.
We’ve heard Jesus describe the Parallax view, the light of and from his Word, showing, telling us that in the way of faith, things are not as they immediately appear to us. “Blessed are the meek … the merciful … the peacemakers … those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.”
We’ve heard Jesus speak of salt and light … encouraging those who follow him to be obvious in their “saltiness,” our faithful acts of service and love toward others as we follow him.
We’ve heard Jesus say some hard words, words about divorce, revenge, loving our enemies … words which often get bent around by the prism of how we would rather hear and receive them, than in the Spirit Jesus truly gives them to us.
And we’ve heard Jesus tell us, in the midst of a time, a season of life, in this nation, in this world, filled with words and images, occurrences, happenings which trouble us … we’ve heard Jesus tell us, “don’t worry.”
We’ve been listening to Jesus, that is for sure.
So why does this voice exhort us to more of the same?
Hear how and why it was first given … up on that mountain …
The voice interrupts Peter while he is still speaking … and what is it that Peter’s saying?
Exactly the opposite of what Jesus has been saying, what he and we have heard him saying, in the Sermon on the Mount.
“I will make three dwellings” … tents, really … Peter says, and in saying this, he shows how little attention he’s really been paying to Jesus this whole time.
Because … if we boil down the message of the Sermon on the Mount we’ve heard these past few weeks, and take it in the context of our theme “Let the Son Shine” – what we get is:
The glow which we see coming from Jesus, he gives off to show us … each other.
Jesus hasn’t just spent all this time giving the Sermon on the Mount as a lesson in self-preservation for his followers. Neither does he come and give and do all that he has done to set himself up as some kind of a new Moses / lawgiver or new Elijah / prophet. He comes, as he himself says, “to fulfill the law” and to exemplify the new, “perfect,” whole life of the Kingdom of Heaven, which is en-fleshed and lived out in him.
And so the voice … the voice interrupts Peter because what Peter is calling for is nothing less than a return, a keeping of the old way of things. Compartmentalized, neat, clean religion … not messy, not involved in human foibles or sins or sufferings … “God in a box” which can be rolled out and put on display for special occasions.
As the voice points out, this isn’t the way of Jesus.
“This is my Son, the Beloved, with him I am well pleased; LISTEN TO HIM!”
Pay attention Peter … pay attention, the rest of you, you who would keep God in a box, controlled, measured and measurable, surveyed, noted and annotated … good for only an hour here or a day or two there … My Son, the Beloved, Will Not Be Like This. LISTEN TO HIM!
And so we shouldn’t be surprised that the first thing that happens in the verses following today’s text, once Jesus gets down off the mountain, is that Jesus runs into the rest of his disciples, left down there below, they who tried to cast a demon out of a boy, to heal him … but they couldn’t do it … so Jesus does. Jesus heals the boy.
Right away … after his mountaintop experience … Jesus is there, engaged, connected, plugged right in with the messiness of human life.
“This is my Son, the Beloved, with him I am well pleased; LISTEN TO HIM!”
And so, down the mountain we go, too, with Jesus, down into the messiness of human existence, down with him into this Lent, this time of sidling up beside our Lord and watching, hearing, observing, learning, being discipled in what life in the Kingdom of Heaven is really like.
And guess what.
We’re going to wade into the messiness right along with him.
The glow of Jesus shows us … not a separate and separated “holiness” … a set apart “otherness” … no, the light of God’s Son shows us … each other.
On our Lenten walk with Jesus this year, we’re going to meet some unforgettable characters … and see, and hear, how they work toward, influence, show forth faith.
Next week, we’ll hear how Jesus receives temptations … temptations common to every person ... and see what he does, in and through them all.
We’ll meet a teacher, scared of being seen publicly with Jesus, who comes to him by night … a woman of bad reputation at a well in Samaria … a man born blind, who suffers the blame and ridicule of his handicap … and Jesus’ friends, Mary and Martha, who along with Jesus, mourn the death of their brother Lazarus.
And we will hear from each other, our brothers and sisters here, as they share with us ways they practice, walking with Jesus, listening to Jesus, as he calls them, calls us, to come out of our dwellings, our booths and tents, separate and separated, and engage … engage faith with life ...
Life, right here, right now … Life which is not at all neat, nor perfect, nor pretty …
But listen to him! We are being given a Word and a Way which is Real …
Real for us who are really, truly Messy as well … sinful, sick, worrying, suffering …
The ones Jesus comes down off the mountain for… are … US … his light, warming and healing us, shining forth so we can see others, and walk with them, in the way of the Cross, in their ways of suffering and death … bringing them the Word of Life even as Jesus has brought us to life …
We … Us … You and I … who may well be the only faces, the only hands and feet, the only caring arms, who ever show them Jesus.
That’s … an awesome thought. A scary thought.
And it is A True Word.
So let us prepare … prepare to Be Like Jesus … together let us take the Lenten path down off Son Shine Mountain.
Take time … spend time with Jesus, as he comes to you in and through your times of Lenten contemplation … through the words of others, calling you, showing you, discipling you, in the Lenten way of going deeper in your faith walk, our shared faith story.
Turn down … for 40 days and 40 nights … turn down the din of a world which drowns out the cry of the poor and suffering, lost in the noise of foolishness and glory, politics and power, denial and lies … turn down, turn off, tune it out … and LISTEN TO HIM! … follow Jesus in the Way of the Cross.
Set aside your Alleluias for a season, and ponder the Who, What and Why which is behind them … the Cross-shaped “gift” which gives us real, true, everlasting life … and allows us to shout them forth in triumph at the Feast of Jesus’ Resurrection.
Let the Son Shine … through you … to and for the world.
Amen.