So… as we’ve been getting to know one another, a number of you may have heard me tell a story about a sermon I once preached that was so terrible, that about five minutes in… Even I was bored… Who wants to guess what that sermon was on… Yep, our gospel lesson for today… The transfiguration… And what is really really cringe-worthy about that is when I preached that sermon… You know… The most boring sermon ever preached that it nearly put the me, the person preaching, to sleep… I had just been to the top of Mt. Tabor otherwise known as the mountain where the transfiguration may have happened… You’d think with that kind of fresh perspective, I would have had a great sermon put together… But… It was bad… It was so so so bad… If you don’t know the rest of the story… I wrapped up the worst transfiguration sermon ever preached as quickly as possible, and I apologized to folks and told them I’d do better the following week…
Alright… So here we are… We get to take another crack at this one… I hope you folks at home have some coffee handy… But I also hope you’re not going to need it… So, for a number of years now, I’ve been racking my brain to try to figure out just how to communicate the holiness, of the transfigured Christ. And, each time, I’ve failed. I’ve tried to all sorts of approaches… I’ve tried to lean into the comparison and contrast of Jesus the Son being dazzlingly white… whiter than any laundry mat could possibly muster, with the suddenness of God speaking out of the darkness of the clouds that suddenly cover Jesus and the rest of the heavenly party… It just seems that no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to conjure the words to describe God in all of his Glory…
However, few days ago I came to a realization; what if that’s not the sermon I need to preach? What if that’s not the sermon you need to hear? What if there is something else, something different going on in the gospel? Couldn’t I preach on something else??? Let’s find out…
Okay, so what do we have in our gospel lesson today? We’ve got Jesus, Moses, and Elijah doing the whole super-duper transcending reality thing which, again, I have had trouble capturing in the past… But! We’ve also got Peter, John and James doing the whole bungling disciples thing… Which is a lot more on my non-transcendent, down-to-earth, and temporal level… Okay… Okay… I can handle that…
Anyway, Jesus takes them to the top of a mountain, and the next thing they know, Jesus is transfigured, illuminated, face shining like the sun! Moses and Elijah then appear and the three see Jesus talking to the holy duo. So, shortly after all of this happens, Peter suggests that they should make three dwellings for Jesus and company, but just then! Peter gets interrupted by the voice of God. (I’m guessing Peter was okay with that…) Once it was all over… Moses and Elijah had disappeared, And Jesus was no longer auditioning for some laundry detergent commercial…
I imagine Peter, John, and James likely had to pick their jaws up from off the floor when looking at their friend and teacher who now obviously was also by the way in no doubt, God’s Son. And then, after being told not to say anything until Jesus had been raised from the dead, they had to come down the mountain. Wait… What… First of all, they couldn’t tell anyone… And secondly… Raised from the dead??? And then… They had to leave the spot of what was probably the most intensely spiritual and Holy moment of their lives… and go do normal life again… If it were me… I’d probably say something like: Absolutely none of this sounds like a good idea, Jesus! Because first of all… I’m telling, EVERYBODY!!! Second… Raised from the dead??? I don’t know what that’s about, but if I’m not mistaken, to be raised from the dead, first you’re going to have to die, so I obviously think this is a bad idea… And third… You want to leave?!?! You want to go back down the mountain??? Are you nuts…
Spiritual mountain top experiences, I think it’s pretty safe to say that we’ve all had them. Maybe it was a retreat, or a particular time something in the bible really made sense to you. Maybe it was a beautiful church service, or a pilgrimage. We may even wish we could stay on the mountain top forever, but we can’t. We have lives to lead, there are people who count on us everyday, not to mention, there is a gospel to preach and there are hurting people in this world desperately in need of us, the church… To show up and embody God’s love to them.
In essence, staying on the mountain would be selfish, and as followers of the one who brought us up the mountain in the first place, we need to take our ques from him and be willing to come down the mountain as well…. But there is so much more… Because, We have to be willing to do more than just pray. We are supposed to partner with God and become kingdom builders!!! You see, we are called to pray for the hungry… But then we are called to feed the hungry… That’s how prayer works… Staying in those warm fuzzy spiritual experiences on the one hand is good… Of course we want to be in places where we feel close to God. But on the other hand… We need to be careful… Because if God becomes nothing more than a spiritual high for us… If church and worship and our beautiful liturgies and musical become nothing but self-serving mediums that cause us to become consumers of God, consumers of God, rather than a gathering of people who catch Jesus’ vision of the kingdom of heaven and join into God’s mission of reconciling the entire world… If that happens to us… Well… Then… We’re doing it wrong… I have met so many people over the years who are only religious consumers Heck… I used to be one… John Pavlovitz writes, “Saying God is in control, while doing little or nothing to alter the planet in any meaningful way, is spiritual rebellion. It is a willing abdication of our calling to be makers of peace here. It expects that God will clean up whatever horrible mess we make—and that our prayers alone will serve as the sole request form.
I don’t believe this is true and it isn’t Biblical. I don’t believe Jesus spent three years imploring people to love their neighbors as themselves, feeding the poor, healing and protecting the vulnerable, teaching us how to love our enemies, and how to bind up the broken hearted… if God had already written the script and we’re all just play-acting the whole thing out in flesh and blood without getting to improvise and change our lines.
And this all matters, because if we are indeed free to choose and are responsible for our choices, and these decisions make tangible ripples in the world that alter the planet in real-time—then we had better get to work, Christians. And that means far more than prayer and platitudes.”1
You see, we’ve got to come down the mountain… and we can’t worship the mountain because, there is holy work to do… It is holy work binding up the broken hearted, it is holy work buying a meal for someone who is hungry, it is holy work when you visit someone who is lonely… It‘s Holy Work when we pick up the phone and call folks who we know would so very much love to talk to someone… in fact, it is holy work every time you let your light shine forth and take the gospel of Jesus Christ into the world.
As we move forward in our Christian journey together, let us remember the holy words of the voice of God concerning Jesus on top of that mountain “This is my Son, the beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him.” Listen to him… This of course begs the question… What did Jesus have to say??? What did Jesus have to say that we are supposed to listen to, what is so important that God spoke out of the darkness… How about, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. And love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments… I think that about sums things up… And now that we’ve heard what Jesus had to say, Just like Peter, John, and James… It’s time to come down the mountain and do our part, It’s time to help build the kingdom of God… It’s time to live into the destiny that God has for each of us… It’s time to imagine God’s new vision for our community here at St. Barnabas… It’s time… To change the world.
Yes, it’s time to take serious Jesus’ Commands to love God and to love each other… Actively… not passively… The way we do this is by the giving of ourselves… Just as Jesus gave himself for us… We are called to use our time, our talents, and our treasures so that we can join together as one body that we call the church, and go forth to make an impact for Jesus… Across the street, across the country… and across the world… And here is the best news of all… I know, that we, can do it… I’ve talked to a bunch of people in this church who are on fire and who are ready to be world changers for Jesus… I’ve talked with a bunch of people who, pandemic or not are ready to find new and exciting ways to love others in God’s name… In fact the pandemic likely is giving us more opportunity to become ministers of the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ… So let’s do it… Let’s organize… Let’s look at the things we do, and the things we want to do and let’s come together and BE the church in the way we are meant to… If you’ve got a ministry idea… Give me a call and talk to me about it… If you want to make a difference in this world, but maybe you don’t know how… Give me a call… talk to me about it… It’s that easy… Because we, are kingdom builders… God has brought each and every one of us together to be his church… God has called each and every one of us to St. Barnabas to be his ministers of the gospel… So let’s do it! Let’s go forth in the victory of Christ and change some lives… Alleluia alleluia alleluia!!!
To God be the glory, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.
Fr. Kenn