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You'll know when
your encounter with God is real
Reflections on the
lessons
for the Last Sunday after The Epiphany
By The Rev. Mark A. Lewis, Vicar
1 Kings 19:9-18
Psalm 27:5-11
2 Peter 1:16-19
Mark
9:2-9
Today we're thinking about Jesus' transfiguration on the mountaintop.
The transfiguration story is very important to the people who made up the lectionary cycle, the plan of scripture readings we use in churches (almost all churches use this cycle more or less). It appears twice, sometimes even three times a year. Every Lutheran, Episcopal, Roman Catholic, Reformed and (even more) church reads this lesson full of symbols from Greek and Jewish mysticism every year on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday.
A little Sunday School: There are two "cycles" in every church year -- referring to the holidays and seasons and the readings that go with the worship on those days. The Christmas cycle, and the Pentecost cycle. The Christmas cycle starts (of course) on Christmas. The readings from then until Pentecost draw from the events in the life of Jesus. They tell of specific, loosely historic events. The Pentecost cycle aims to tell stories from the Bible about how the Holy Spirit works in the world and in people's lives. This Sunday is a turnaround. From Christmas up until the beginning of Lent, we learn about Jesus' life up until he turns toward Jerusalem and the cross. Lent and Easter cover the events leading up too the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the appearances Jesus made after the resurrection.
Throughout centuries and all over the world, the Christmas cycle has tended to culminate in the story of the transfiguration. It's the end of the line in the lessons we're supposed to have learned over the past few months about how God was revealed in the world through Jesus of Nazareth.
We've had the angels,
the shepherds,
the wise men.
We've heard the very few stories preserved about Jesus'
boyhood.
We've gone over his baptism,
the start of his public ministry,
and a series of miracle stories about healing folks
and raising the dead.
And now, it all sums up in this
story.
The story of a mountaintop experience
that says a lot about who Jesus is
and who Peter is.
And Peter -
- the Bible seems to say -
- is a pretty good stunt double
for you or me in any of these stories.
A kind of mirror of everyman, and everywoman.
Peter and Jesus -
- and just two other close friends -
- have a mountaintop experience.
Things get really great.
Who among us would have too little
time to think
and ponder
and figure out
the depths and subtleties of Jesus' call,
his message to the world,
if we saw what Peter saw:
Jesus shining like a kleig light
with Moses and Elijah -
- the lawgiver and the prophet -
- standing on either side of him,
glowing to beat the band themselves.
Here comes a big cloud in the
sky.
A voice booms out,
"THIS IS MY SON, LISTEN TO HIM!"
You would be likely to pay
attention to the Jesus stuff after that.
And Peter was completely blown
away.
He wanted to make a little gated community of townhouses
and just stay there with the big guys forever.
Why not?
Make some booths,
put down roots.
This is the place to be.
Without any justification
whatsoever,
I get a mental picture of the St. Ann's Festival in Hoboken
when I read this.
I see Peter making booths for the big three,
then making booths to sell sausage and peppers and
zeppolle.
Make a party of it.
But it's only because Peter's
confused,
doesn't know quite what to do,
wants to do the right thing.
But what would that be?
The answer,
the story goes,
is exactly not that.
No matter how wonderful it is on
the mountaintop.
No matter how lucky someone might be
to find something persuasive
that makes him or her understand
that Jesus is the real thing,
with something real to say . . .
even people lucky like that
don't get to wallow in the moment.
They have to go back to the real world.
In the story,
the moment fades,
and Jesus gathers up the little group of friends
he has been sleeping on the ground with
and sharing scant food with
and they start out for Jerusalem
where Jesus will end up dead,
the disciples will be scattered,
and the beginnings of the post-resurrection ministry
will start to grow.
Just look at the great moments of
your own life.
No matter how great it is up on the mountaintop,
you can't stay there.
Not just shouldn't,
but can't.
It won't last.
Real people,
real followers of God,
real disciples of Jesus
are not put here to enjoy special experiences.
We're here to move through the real
world
in witness to the glory that Peter happened to see,
in service to the brightness that he saw.
In an older story -- the Greek philosopher Plato's allegory of the cave -- Plato tells of a race of people who live in a cave with their backs to the mouth of it all the time.They think shadows are all there is. When one of them goes outside and sees the whole bright world, he has a choice: Stay there in his moment in the sun -- reveling in it, or go back in and describe it to the rest. But was staying in the moment ever really a choice? He goes back in.
That's the only human choice, we
know in our bones.
Moments can't last.
Human connections offer at least the possibility
of something enduring.
That's what I'm talking about.
God is not a private show for anyone.
It is certain that a singular
vision of the divine is only good
if it helps us take our place better in the world.
The way you can tell if an encounter with God is real
is by seeing whether or not it sends you back into the
world
with more truth to tell,
more risks to take,
more strength to carry the crosses
scattered all over the place,
just waiting to be carried by you.
There is a winding path God calls us to follow.
From the mountaintops it seems to
make more sense
than it does down here on the ground.
But the truth is,
Jesus refused to let Peter build him a nice campsite with a
view.
Real life, finally, is lived out on the ground.
You don't need me to tell you
that the life of godly people
is not about getting somewhere,
or staying somewhere.
It's about going somewhere,
being on the way to somewhere.
The transfiguration story reminds us all the time
that Jesus isn't about to be tied down.
His place -
- and ours -
- is out and about
moving among people
who walk in shadows.
-- Mark Lewis
Your comments or questions are welcome MLewis@secaucus.org.
Links to additional "Reflections on Lessons" may be found at the bottom of the Sunday web page.
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