As an Associate Pastor, I preach about once a month. Yesterday was one of those days. Here's my sermon from yesterday.
“The Holy Mountain”
Mark 9:2-9
February 19, 2012 ~ Transfiguration, Year B
I
have a confession to make this morning. I am a huge Little House on the Prairie fan. Huge. I love the books and the TV
show. My sister and I watched that show all the time when we were kids. I still
watch it whenever I can find reruns on TV. I love it. There are so many good
things about that show: the family values, their simple yet honest lifestyle,
their work ethic, and of course their faith. I don’t believe there was a single
episode of that show that didn’t illustrate the importance of the characters’
faith in their everyday lives.
I
confess my love for this show this morning because sometimes while reading
scripture scenes from Little House on the
Prairie will enter my mind. As I was reading the scripture before us today,
a particular scene popped into my head. No matter how hard I tried to shake it,
I kept seeing it over and over again. Now, you might find it a stretch to see
how this scripture relates to that scene, but just go with it this morning as I
try to explain it to you.
In
the middle of the first season of Little
House, there was a two part episode called The Lord is My Shepherd. It begins with Caroline Ingalls telling
Charles that she is going to have a baby. That baby is the long-prayed for son,
Charles Jr. Of course Laura is very jealous of her little brother and the
attention given to him by their father. So, when he becomes deathly ill, she
refuses to pray for him. Shortly thereafter, he dies. Like any young girl,
Laura becomes distraught and internalizes the guilt she feels for her brother’s
death.
At
the end of part one of the episode, we see the family in church and the Rev.
Alden is giving a sermon on how with God all things are possible. After the
sermon, Laura talks with him about what he said. Basically, she wants to know
how to get a miracle from God. In the conversation, Rev. Alden says to her,
“The closer you are to God, the more likely he is to listen.”
Thinking
with the literal mind of a child, Laura takes his advice to heart. She runs
away and climbs a mountain. She thinks if she is physically closer to God,
closer to heaven, then God will hear her prayer. So, she leaves home in the
middle of the night, and finds herself looking up at a glorious mountain. She
hears the voice of Rev. Alden saying, “The closer you are to God, the more
likely he is to listen.”
“The
closer you are to God, the more likely he is to listen.” How often do we find
ourselves in a similar place. We think we want or need something from God. Or
there is something about our lives that we want God to explain to us. And, we
think if we could just do something, just be closer to God, then we could get
the answers to our prayers. We want to do something. Anything to help us
understand, but we don’t know what. We pray as hard as we can. We try saying
all the right words in just the right way. We just want to understand. But,
somehow our efforts are still lacking.
I
think this is how Peter probably felt when he was on the mountain with Jesus
and James and John. The scripture doesn’t tell us why they went up that
mountain. Six days before, Jesus had talked with the disciples about who people
think he is and about his impending death. Peter confesses that Jesus is the
Messiah. But, when Jesus insists he is going to die, Peter tries to talk him
out of it. Jesus rebukes him.
Now,
six days later, Jesus takes Peter up the mountain with him. I think Peter
wanted to make sure that he got the right answer this time for whatever was
going to happen next. So, when they are up on this mountain, Peter sees this
amazing sight. Like the stories about Moses in the Torah, Jesus glows with this
other-worldliness. A bright light emanates from his face. Moses and Elijah
appear beside him and start talking with him. Surely, this amazing site had to
overwhelm all of Peter’s senses. Yet, there he is trying to stay on top of
things and he wants so badly to say the right thing. So, instead, he says
completely the wrong thing. Have you ever done that? I know I have. It usually
happens when I’m too wrapped up in my mind with trying to THINK about what I
should say next or what I’m supposed to say that I totally just miss what is
happening around me. I stop experiencing the world around me. I stop listening
to the other person who is trying to interact with me. And, I completely miss
something spectacular – a God-moment.
There
on that holy mountain, Peter is so absorbed in trying to say the right thing to
Jesus that he is missing this amazing God-moment. There on that holy mountain
something amazing, something beyond words, something beyond even our own
imagination is happening and Peter tries to talk himself through it. Peter has
this amazing mountain-top experience of God and he’s at a loss for what to do
with it. He jabbers away and says something about building a house or monument
for Jesus, Elijah, and Moses. He wants to memorialize this event because he
knows it’s special even if he can’t explain it himself.
But,
then the experience is over just as suddenly as it began. Moses and Elijah are
gone. The voice of God is now silent. The clouds, the glorious light, they are
now gone. It is only Jesus and the disciples. The mountain-top moment is over
and they must head back down to the valley below.
Life
is like that. Just when we are experiencing a wonderful moment, it’s over. We
finish school and experience that moment of graduation. But, then it’s over and
it’s time to find a job. Or, we can spend months if not a year or more,
planning a wedding. Then, just like that, you come home from the honeymoon and
it’s time to adjust to everyday living. Then there’s summer camp. A week that
goes by way too fast. Or that perfect job we’ve always dreamed of, that’s not
that great once we get it.
We
can spend so much time anticipating these glorious events, planning for them
even that when they finally do occur, we’ve run out of energy to enjoy it. Or
we built it up way too much in our heads to appreciate it for what it simply
is. We can also spend too much of our lives simply walking by something
absolutely wonderful without noticing it.
In
2007, the Washington Post did an experiment at a DC Metro station. Joshua Bell,
a talented concert violinist, played for an hour one morning as people were on
their way to work. They wanted to see how many people would stop and notice.
Only 6 people paid attention. One was a small child. Another was a man who
stopped for 3 minutes because he was 3 minutes early to work. Everyone else
just passed him by. [1]
We
can be blind to the goodness that is all around us because we are caught up in
our own desires, our own daydreams that we miss the wonders that God puts right
in front of us. Katherine Huey puts it this way, “We live our lives mostly down
here on the ground, unaware of the wondrous, transformative power of God at
work in the world.”[2]
The
world we live in is a very busy place. We are always going here, doing that,
fixing this, and cleaning that that we often let it pass us by. We rush
headlong into life that we sometimes forget to live it. And, then we read a
scripture like this one and we are puzzled. What does this mean for me? What in
the world is God trying to say to me through this text?
Perhaps
that is what it was meant to do. To stop us in our very tracks. To get our
attention and say notice this, “This is my Son, Jesus, listen to him!”
Did
you know we are only 6 weeks away from Easter? In some ways it feels like we
just finished with Christmas. Yet, this Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, the start
of the church season of Lent. Yes, that’s the time when many Christians give up
something like chocolate as they prepare themselves for Easter. But, it’s more
than that. It’s the perfect time for God to stop us in our tracks so we can
take a look around us to see God’s hands on our world. It’s the perfect time to
reflect on our lives, repent of our sins, and renew our faith in Christ as we
prepare for the glorious resurrection on Easter morning. Lent is the perfect
time to listen for the voice of God as we pause to breathe in Christ’s holy
presence into our very lives.
We
don’t have to go climb a mountain to be closer to God. We don’t have to find
the right words to say to please God. We can just stop and rest and be in God’s
presence.
In
one of her poems, Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote, “Earth’s crammed with
heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees, takes off
his shoes, The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.”[3]
God’s presence is all around us. God is waiting for us to notice, to see God’s
presence in and through others all around us. And, when we do, God wants us to
fully be in that moment. To experience it for all it is. To be quiet and to
listen.
Then,
when that moment is over, just as Jesus and the disciples went down the
mountain returning to their work of healing and teaching others, we too are
called to return to the world. Yet when we return, we return filled with the
presence of God. And, we can share that presence; we can share God’s presence,
God’s love, God’s compassion with the world that is starving to be fed the good
news. Amen.
[1]Gene
Weingarten, “Pearls Before Breakfast,” Washington Post, 8 April 2007 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html
[2]
Katherine Matthews Huey, “Last Sunday after Epiphany Year B Transfiguration”, http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/february-19-2012-last-sunday-after.html
[3]
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “From Aurora Leigh”, http://www.bartleby.com/236/86.html
No comments:
Post a Comment