One Pastor's Life: February 2009

This is for you, Meredith!
Here's how we got to Lent in our church...

God Shines Forth:
Mark 9:2-13: Transfiguration Sunday, Yr. B
Kristen R. Richardson-Frick
St. Paul’s UMC
February 22, 2009

If Transfiguration Sunday is about anything at all, it just might be about teaching Jesus’ disciples that we have a lot to learn. I’ll tell you the story, and you’ll see what I mean.

Jesus’ first disciples, the ones who got to walk with him, watch him heal, and hear the tone of his voice as he cast out demons and taught his followers, they loved God’s holiness and glory. They did everything right by God’s law. And they knew the Scriptures. They could sing all the Psalms and quote you the Ten Commandments. And they knew what to expect when God down to save them from their enemies. The Psalmist whose song was our greeting this morning says it: “Our God comes and does not keep silence, before him is a devouring fire, and a mighty tempest all around him. He calls to the heavens above and to the earth, that he may judge his people.” When God’s messiah came to deliver the people, that’s how he would come, the disciples knew. He would come in power and great glory, with a devouring fire and a mighty tempest to judge the people and root out all enemies from the land. Yes, the disciples knew what to expect from the Son of God.

They were very confused, then, when, right after Peter shouted “You are the Messiah!” to Jesus, Jesus told him to shut up about it and started talking all over the place to everyone about how “the Son of Man” was to be rejected, and beaten, and shamed, and humiliated, and ultimately strung up naked for the world to mock at while he died a horrible and gruesome death. They had thought he was the one coming with power, glory, fire, and wind to set the world straight! They had thought he was the one coming with weapons to destroy the enemies of God! All this talk about suffering and death and silence couldn’t be right! And now the disciples are confused, even angry at Jesus’ words. I can understand. God knows they at least need some verification, some proof from God that what they think about Jesus is true. They need some little glimpse of his glory to hold on to.

And so six days later, Jesus takes them up the mountain, the realm of God’s glory. God’s promise was revealed to Noah on a mountain as the ark perched atop and a rainbow filled the sky. God’s Law was thundered to Moses on a mountain from the stormy brightness of the cloud of God’s glory. God’s Word was spoken to Elijah on a mountain in a still small voice. Oh, yes, going up on a mountain was always inviting yourself into God’s holy presence, and Peter and James and John all knew it. Phew! Amid all this talk of suffering and silence, finally we get to experience a little glory!

But we should all always be aware that when you get what you pray for, it may scare you half to death, and it almost certainly won’t happen the way you expect, or even maybe want.

So they go up to the mountain, and they do get to see God’s glory all right, and they get to hear God’s voice. And they get to see Moses and Elijah, and they get to see Jesus transformed into his glory right there on the spot. And it was terrifying. But it was unbelievably glorious and awe-inspiring. Can you imagine? What would you do? Have you ever had an experience quite like it, a mountaintop experience, where everything is glorious and you can literally see and feel the holy God with you? Remember when you felt like you were on a high mountain and that your prayers for confirmation of Jesus’ real-ness were answered? Remember? I pray that we all have those mountaintop moments in our lives from time to time, for they are amazing, aren’t they? A moment like that is an answer to prayer, a confirmation of our faith, something to hold onto when the going gets tough.

Most of us who have these kind of experiences want to stay there forever. We see Jesus, feel his glory, know God’s presence, and it’s awe-inspiring. Though it’s scary, it’s the most wonderful kind of scary we’ve ever known, and we’re in the presence of the Lord, for God’s sake, and who wants to leave that? So we sing, and we shout for joy, and we hug and cry. And we feel like real Christians, maybe for the first time ever. And we want to stay right there in that worshipful place forever. And so we, like Peter, ask if we can. We think we’re doing the right thing, making a real and true home for Jesus right where we are. If we want to stay on the mountain forever, surely God does too, right? We blurt out “it’s good for us to be here! We can make dwellings right here!”

And then a cloud descends over us, the glory of God, that like the light and brightness of God hides our eyes from seeing what is too great for us to see, and we hear the Father’s voice thunder from heaven: “Look at Jesus, your Lord, my Son, the Beloved One! Listen to him!” And suddenly the glory is gone and Jesus looks normal again and Moses and Elijah have disappeared, and everything is back to the way it was.

And before we can say “boo,” Jesus is saying: “OK, time to go down the mountain now. Now don’t tell a soul about this! I mean it. No one can know until after I’ve risen from the dead.” And you mutter with your friends “from the dead? He’s holy; he can’t die! We just saw him in glory! What’s going on here?” And you try to figure it out. And so you start to ask Jesus questions about what’s going on here. You ask about the one who was supposed to prepare for the Messiah’s coming, Elijah. And Jesus says: “Yeah, Elijah came, and they did horrible things to him, just like the Scripture says.” Jesus sure seems to be on this suffering kick, but you just saw him in glory, and it’s all so confusing! And you just want to go back to that great place on the mountain top, but you can’t.

See, we think that the mountain is the place to be with God. We think that’s where the true worship is. We think that’s where Christ’s glory is revealed to us most plainly. We think that’s where God’s best work is done. We’re a people who “reach for the stars” and believe “bigger is better.” We believe in great success and wealth as a blessing. We think the high and mighty of this world are also the holy and powerful. At the top is where the glory is, right, or why all this “American Idol” and “Forbes” magazine and “Most likely to succeed” in our yearbooks? Why all this grades-comparing and church attendance comparing and house-square-footage comparing? Yes, we think higher is holier, bigger is better.

And what’s more, we think that worshiping Jesus and building dwellings for him in our holy mountain places and going with him there or staying with him there is what being a Christian is all about. We think we’re most holy when we’re most successful for Jesus, when we can bring lots of people up to the mountain with us and invite them to stay there. But the Transfiguration tells us we’re wrong about all that, and so much more. The Transfiguration tells us that we have a lot to learn about how God works, and what Jesus wants, and where God’s glory really shines forth most powerfully.

The Eternal Father’s voice thunders: “This is my Son, the Beloved One. Listen!!” And Jesus says: “The Son of man must suffer to be glorified. We must go down from the mountain to really do God’s work, to be true as God’s people.” And down the mountain we go, right into the scene of a demon-possessed boy and sheer human helplessness and need…right on the journey to Jerusalem that leads to conflict, and suffering, and beating, and torture, and mocking, and death.

I don’t know why we think being a Christian is about going to the mountain to worship in God’s glory and bringing others up with us to stay there. I don’t know why we forget that, if we’re going to follow Jesus, we have to get down off the mountain and get right into the places where people are helpless and need a hand, where people are hungry and need to be filled, where people are hurting and need to be healed. I don’t know why we think we can stay and worship God through our stained-glass windows and with a dreamy detachment from the world without meeting Jesus in homes and neighborhoods where all the windows and dreams are broken. I don’t know why we’ve forgotten that Jesus revealed his glory and power when he gave up glory and became powerless. I don’t know why we’ve forgotten. But we have, I think.

And so Jesus, after shining in our faces, pushes us down the mountain, because he wants to transform us into what he is, on the mountain and in the streets and on the cross, shining his holy light, so God can continue to shine forth, this time through us.

Shane Claiborne is a twenty-something who saw Jesus’ glory, heard the Father’s thunderous voice, and followed Christ down the mountain so Jesus shine forth God’s holy light into his heart and could transform him, too, into a shining light of holiness. He’s written a book about his life “as an ordinary radical,” as a fool for and lover of Jesus who lives most of the time in community in one of the “worst” neighborhoods in Philadelphia but has also spent time in a leper colony in Calcutta, India. While in Calcutta, he learned a new word: namaste, meaning something like “I honor the Holy One who lives in you.”

One day, Shane was asked to do a doctor’s job in the leper colony, to treat and dress a wound. He’d been watching the doctor do it all day, just assisting. But now he was asked to do it alone. “I had been watching,” Shane writes, “and I did know what to do, but I wasn’t sure I dared. I came forward and sat in the doctor’s seat and began staring in the patient’s eyes, and the decision had already been made. I began carefully dressing the man’s wound. He stared at me with such intensity that it felt like he was looking into my soul. Every once in a while he would slowly close his eyes. When I was finished, he said to me that sacred word I had come to love: ‘Namaste.’ I smiled with tears in my eyes and whispered, ‘Jesus.’ He saw Jesus in me. And I saw Jesus in him. I remember thinking back to the stained-glass window my United Methodist church had bought for over $100,000. I saw a clearer glimpse of Jesus in this leper’s eyes than any stained-glass window could ever give.” (all Shane Claiborne references taken from The Irresistable Revolution, (Zondervan: 2006), 80).

We don’t have to go to Calcutta to follow Jesus down the mountain, to see Jesus in a leper’s eyes. But, as Mother Teresa used to advise, we do have to “find our Calcutta,” whether it’s in our own home with a spouse or parent, or down the street with a neighbor, or in a part of this city you’ve always been scared to go in, or working at CCMO or on a Habitat house, or as part of a Mission team to another state or even country. The disciples thought worshiping Jesus was about staying on the mountain with him in the glorious place, singing praise songs and being shielded there from the pain of the world down below. And the Transfiguration said they were wrong, said we have a lot to learn if we think that way.

For it isn’t until we get down from the mountain and encounter the helplessness of other human beings, until we touch them and offer healing, that we really begin to see Jesus. It isn’t until we suffer with Christ that we can be glorified with him. It isn’t until we get down from the mountain and into the hurting places of the world that we begin to know who our Lord really is, and to truly see and worship his glory. It isn’t until we get down from the mountain and begin to carry the cross with Jesus that we can really be transformed into his presence for the world. And that is what being a Christian is all about. Not the mountain, but the cross. Are we ready to go down into the valley, into the real world? And are we ready to find, if we do, that the cross ends up on a mountain, too, where God shines forth like nowhere else? I pray the answer is “yes.” So may it be. Amen.