Sermon 3/2/03
Transfiguration Sunday
After the Transfiguration - 2 Kings 2:1-12, Mark 9:2-9
(view lectionary notes for this text)
When I was younger . . . ok, perhaps just 5 or 6 years younger . . . but when I was younger, I used to say that there were just a two seasons that mapped out the year for me. The Christmas season, and camping season. As soon as Christmas was over, I would begin to wait anxiously for the arrival of the camping brochure, the list of all the camps available at Aldersgate that coming summer. (Yes, back then, the camping brochure would not arrive until late February at best!) Once the brochure arrived, and camps were selected, waiting til summer and camp week was the difficult task at hand. I even used to start packing ridiculously early - making lists of what to bring, what shirt to wear with what shorts, and tucking things away in the back of my closet, all ready for the week of camp to arrive.
And then, in a flash, it would be time - time to take the trip to Aldersgate, a trip that seemed a million hours long at the time, instead of a short hour away. During one short week at camp, it seemed so much could happen. You would meet so many people, experience so many new things, and think about and talk about your faith in a way that rarely happened in other settings, especially as a young person.And then, in another flash, it was all over. The week ended, camp ended, and being in that special place, set apart, was over for another whole year.
At first coming home from a week of camp, it was so hard to get back into things, into the normal routine, and so hard to think about waiting a whole long year to be able to go to camp again. When I was a little older, I got to work on staff at Camp Aldersgate, and I got to prolong that feeling I got from camp for a whole summer. In fact, I enjoyed that special time, that special place, that special connection with other people and with God so much that for some time I confused God's call to ordained ministry for a call to the camping ministry. I didn't want it to end. I wanted it to be camping season all the time. I wanted to hold on to the connection I felt with God, to the wholeness I could feel at camp, to the connectedness to the world around me.
Our Old Testament reading and the gospel lesson this week bring us two stories of people who wanted to hold on to that special feeling, people who were feeling close to God, close to the people they were with. These are stories about people who wanted to stay right where they were, who wanted that mountaintop experience to last on and on. And the stories are two puzzling and unusual stories indeed. We confront two figures, Elijah and Jesus, who behave in ways that leave those around them confused and wondering about what things mean, and how to act in response to the strange things happening.
In the gospel lesson, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John, apart from the group and up onto a mountain. Preaching on this passage this past week, my friend Linda said, you should always be suspicious when God calls you apart for something. When Jesus asks these three disciples to come away, apart, they should know something is about to happen. And indeed, something does happen - Jesus is transfigured before them, and his clothes become dazzling white. Moses and Elijah appear as well, representing the law and the prophets. They, with Jesus, represent the ways in which God has communicated and covenanted with humanity. Peter, James, and John, naturally, are quite frightened. Who wouldn't be - to see these figures, Moses and Elijah, and to see their own Jesus, changed so that they could barely look at him? Peter, we read, does not know what to do or what to say. In his confusion, he says that it is good to be there, and offers to build three dwellings for these three special people. But instead, a cloud overshadows them, and God's voice is heard, saying 'this is my son, the Beloved, listen to him.' In another flash, Moses and Elijah are gone, and they are left alone with Jesus again.
Peter's actions represent our natural human response to situations that are overwhelming, dazzling, so full of God's presence that we don't know how to act, or what to say. Instead of being in the moment on the mountaintop, Peter busies himself with trying to make sure the experience doesn't end. Here he is, in the presence of the Christ, Moses, and Elijah, but he does not talk with them, he does not sit and listen to them. He does not enjoy his time with them, or even stay in the moment there, but is so busy thinking about how to prolong things, how to stay on the mountain, at the same time as he is trying to fill the void of his misunderstanding, trying to cover the fact that he is scared and confused, by doing whatever he can to fill up the short time he is there in the presence of Christ transfigured.
Our Old Testament story shares a story with striking similarities. In our reading from second Kings, Elijah and Elisha are traveling together, and already they know that soon Elijah will be taken up into heaven. Elijah is a great prophet, the greatest, perhaps, of the prophets, and Elisha is his mentee, his student. And it is time, time for Elijah to be taken up to God, time for a change to take place, for a new direction, a new part of God's relationship with the people to unfold. And already, Elisha does not want him to go. "I will not leave you", Elisha insists again and again. Part of him wants to hold on. He too wants to keep things how they are, he wants to stay in this place, and he wants to stay with Elijah, the one who has taught him and guided him, the one who has been a model for him. But something changes - I'm not sure what it is - where is the moment of clarity for Elisha? Something clicks, and he sees things differently. He realizes his mentor is leaving, and he asks to be left with a double portion of the spirit of Elijah. When Elijah is taken up into heaven, Elisha must come down from the mountain - not a literal mountain, maybe, but down from the mountaintop experience, and into the real role of prophet, the role he now has to fill. After Elijah is taken into heaven, Elisha finds his mentor's mantle left behind on the ground. The mantle is the sign of leadership and authority of the prophet. Elisha picks it up, and in doing so, symbolically steps forward into the future, steps into the role that Elijah had left for him. He can come down from the mountain, and step back into the life that God is calling him to lead.
We've all had the experience of wanting to stay put, to stay exactly where we are. We've all found places of rest and recharging, where we feel close to God, where we feel at home, and comforted. Like Elisha, we've all found people in our lives in whose presence we feel the presence of God. Like Peter, we desire to bask in the presence of the living Christ, even as overwhelming as that presence is. Why can't we stay on the mountaintop? Why do we have to leave these place? Why does God always push us somewhere else, and lead us back down the mountain? What can be wrong with staying where we are?
Well, imagine, if Jesus had not come down from the mountain, but stayed, with his closest disciples, with Moses and Elijah, with God, whose voice was so clear on the mountain. After all, what awaited Jesus back on the bottom was a road of suffering and ultimately of death by horrible means. This Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, the beginning of hard journey to the cross for Jesus. But without the cross, there is also no resurrection. If Jesus had stayed on the mountain, Jesus would not be the Christ for us today. If Peter had not come down from the mountain, the church would have no rock on which to build its foundation. If Elisha had not picked up the mantle of his mentor, the people would have been left without a leader, without someone to serve. God gives us the mountaintop to recharge us, to rest us, to replenish us, and to comfort us, to speak to us clearly. But God calls us primarily to work not in the mountains, but in the valleys, the plains, the everyday places of human life. God calls us primarily not to work apart, alone, separated, but in the midst of things, with our neighbors, in the business and weariness of the world.
As I grew closer to God and more understanding of how God was working in my own life, I realized that while I felt close to God at camp, and felt refreshed from time with God at camp, the work I was being called to do was in the community, in the congregation, and in the midst of everyday life. Today we receive the gift of seeing Christ transfigured, dazzling white, with God's clear voice speaking to us from the mountain. This week, we come down from the mountain, into the valley, and begin to walk with Christ to Jerusalem, to the cross, to his death. What happens, then, after the Transfiguration? Let me close with a poem, After the Transfiguration, by Kathy Coffey, an English professor. She writes:
Grinding up the steep incline, our calves throbbing, we talked of problems and slapped at flies. Then you touched my shoulder, said, "turn around." Behind us floated surprise mountains blue on lavender, water-colored ranges: a glimpse from God's eyes. Descending, how could we chat mundanely of the weather, like deejays? We wondered if, returning, James and John had squabbled: whose turn to fetch the water, after the waterfall of grace? After he imagined the shining tents, did Peter's walls seem narrow, smell of rancid fish? Did feet that poised on Tabor cross the cluttered porch? After the bleached light, could eyes adjust to ebbing grey and shifting shade? Cradling the secret in their sleep did they awaken cautiously, wondering if the mountaintop would gild again-bringing that voice, that face?
Let us pray: God of the mountain and of the valley, and of all the places in between, you grace us with your presence in dazzling bright light, in whirlwinds, in our confusion, and in our hope for the future. Be with us always, even as we seek to live in the midst of the busy world, among your people, with your people, for your people. Give us strength to walk this journey to the cross, with you son, in whose name we pray. Amen.