So- I preached today. Felt good although I will say at 34 weeks pregnant, I might have overstepped my physical boundaries to preach all 4 services. I got a good nap this afternoon- and now I am trying to relax a little before having a good long muddy day tomorrow with Hunter (it has been raining all day!!). For those who would like it- here is a copy of my sermon. : )
Sermon- March 6th
Matthew 17:1-9
The Transfiguration
17Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. 2And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. 3Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. 4Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I* will make three dwellings* here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ 5While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved;* with him I am well pleased; listen to him!’ 6When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. 7But Jesus came and touched them, saying, ‘Get up and do not be afraid.’ 8And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.
9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, ‘Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.’
You know- my family has this expression when we encounter experiences that are different- if something is funny we’ll say “that’s some kind of funny.” The prefix “that’s some kind of..” works for a lot of things. After reading this scripture- I find myself saying: This transfiguration story is some kind of weird. When reading scripture, I try to put myself somewhere in the audience, become a disciple, a samaritan, the woman at the well, and if I’m really daring- I put myself in Jesus’ shoes. This story I tried a few angles. The easiest one is to become the disciples- experience this mountain top transfiguration light up. Imagine you are one of the 3 disciples who saw this happen. What would your reaction be? All I can think of is- what just happened? And the poor disciples get the gag order from Jesus- don’t say anything until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead. Well- if we’re honest with ourselves as disciples in this story- even the gag order is confusing. What is Jesus doing? Who is he talking about when he says Son of Man? Why did he just light up and bring our favorite pop artists of prophecy and ancestry to chat on a mountain? WHAT JUST HAPPENED?
But don’t talk about it. Sit with it. Let it stew in your mind until the time is right, which hopefully will be obvious even though it isn’t right now.
Jesus is really cool and shiny- but if I got the gag order after this amazing and confusing experience, I think I would be a little put-off. How am I supposed to take this experience if I don’t talk to my Mom, sister, friend and dog about it? Can I at least have a little small group discussion with my fellow witnesses on the way down the mountain? How do I process this event if I don’t unpack it, write about it and maybe come up with some lyrics for a song?
Don’t mention it until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead. Wait.
In our church experience- we are about to enter into the season of lent. This is a very meaningful time in the rituals of our church life. We get faced with death- we recognize our ashes on Ash Wednesday and strive with the growing light of day for all things shiny and new. We want spring, we want Jesus alive and well, we want shiny happy people all around. We ache for spring at this point. I personally have a love/hate relationship with lent. To me- it can sometimes be a little overkill. Just when I want to fly up to the sun and lasso it closer to the earth- we get toyed around with crazy weather patterns 20 degree nights followed by 60 degree days followed by a monsoon followed by a potential late in the season snow storm. Gardening folks do the back and forth dance guessing at what point they can plant their crop without threat of another frost. And it always seems that Mother Earth has one last frost in her pocket just when you think you’re in the clear. Winter is a lingering house guest you want to kick out. Then we have our church ritualizing our despair. The church forces us to look at the dead leaves on the ground, the lack of green and the barrenness around us. We smudge ashes on our foreheads or hands and get told not to say hallelujah until the time is right. But this is time when we yearn the most for hallelujah and green! We get a little lucky on years like this when lent falls later in the year and we cheat by looking at the coming buds on our trees. But usually we just stare at darkness and barrenness and the church trains our eyes to keep us focused on that.
Don’t even say hallelujah until the Son of Man Rises from the Dead on Easter Sunday.
Why do we do this as a church? Why do we give ourselves the gag order during lent- sort of wallowing in the ashes until Easter comes? Why does Jesus give these poor disciples an amazingly confusing mountaintop experience, only to tell them- don’t be afraid and wait, shhh?
Maybe there is credit to Jesus’ command to be silent and wait. Maybe there is some wisdom in letting something percolate inside your brain before you talk, write, dance, sing and shout about it. Maybe we miss something in the verbiage that we can only notice in the silence. I don’t know a huge amount about other cultures, but I get the sense that Americans are increasingly awful at waiting and being silent. In my chaplain internship, a woman, Linda, spoke of her experience traveling to other countries and living in Thailand for a couple of years. She said one day she was conversing with a woman from Japan and suddenly was struck by the fact that she had been asking all the questions. Linda fell silent and then asked one more question to her new friend- she asked- why haven’t you asked me any questions? The woman replied: In my culture it is considered rude to ask a lot of questions. Oops. Linda felt silly at first and then reflected on how strange the contrasts of our cultures are. Americans feel it is rude or poor manners if you do not inquire into the lives of others.
I’m not proposing that we stop asking questions of each other or especially of life. Lord knows I’m the queen of questions. I am wondering if we might balance our cultural tendency to ask, speak, label and pick things apart with moments of silence and waiting. Maybe this is why I have a love/hate relationship with lent. It forces us to actively and with awareness, wait. Wait for Easter, wait for Spring, wait for the glory of God revealed. It forces us to reflect in that time of waiting.
Maybe this experience on the mountain was one that Jesus wanted his disciples to think about before they started talking. It was obvious even during the transfiguration event that the disciples were confused and misled on what to do. They automatically went to the mode of- let’s build a dwelling - one for each of you- Moses, Jesus and Elijah. This is an echo of the ancient Hebrew way of understanding God. God was a being that lived in the sacred places that God instructed the Hebrew people to make. God dwelt amongst the Israelites in the tabernacle. God was in the clouds on mount Sinai and Moses only saw God pass and came down the mountain with his face shining as a result. God was a real, physical presence that needed a home. This was good to have a physical closeness to God- but over time our understanding of God has expanded. We now know better than to look for God contained in a box somewhere. We understand God to be omnipresent- everywhere and anywhere. There are times of confusion when I desperately wish I could go to a physical location, knock on the door and have God answer and talk with me. Maybe this transfiguration moment caused Peter, James and John to need to somehow contain the experience. Build a place for it to live. But as soon as they talk about building things, the lights go out on the prophets and center on Jesus. Then God speaks again like the moment of Jesus’ baptism- This is my son! I am pleased with him! It’s almost like God is saying- hey- this is the guy you need to pay the most attention to! He’s even more important than your favorite ancestors! And he cannot be contained or made to dwell in one place. This is so much bigger than you realize! Of course like anyone else would- as soon as the voice of God and a giant gleaming cloud takes over- you get a little scared. All three disciples fall to the ground, speechless, numb with fear and confusion. Jesus bends down and touches them and says- don’t be afraid.
Then he tells them to wait, don’t mention this.
The three disciples are stuck with this vision they don’t fully comprehend. Jesus gives them the space to let it marinate. Think about it. Wait for other things to happen before you think you have the full picture.
Wouldn’t this wisdom of waiting be so helpful in our own lives? This concept of wait and see, think before you speak, look before you leap, let it soak a while, give it time... this concept can help us in so many ways, both practically and spiritually. In the church life we will start lent this week staring at our ashes.... but in a way- how could we appreciate life everlasting if we didn’t recognize the reality of death? How can our joy over spring be best understood but through the lens of a long, hard winter?
In our day to day life the command to be silent and wait can save us a lot of trouble. When we hear something about someone that confuses us- rather than ask the next 20 people we see if they think it is true or not- should we not wait and see what the truth is? Seek it out from the person? Or even more brave- decide that we may not know all there is to know and that it does not benefit us to speculate at the expense of someone else’s reputation? Wait before you assume someone is not who you thought they were. Wait before you assume someone is angry with you or does not like you. You may be surprised what the deeper story is. Mother Theresa said wisely: “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”
Maybe you have had an experience with God- a mountaintop experience- something that meant one thing at the time it happened and continues to unfold as you think about it and gain some distance from it. One of my favorite poets is the Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran. Nestled in one of his poems is this nugget of truth, he says: “The mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.” Distance from these mountaintop experiences- be they joy and laughter with family or a very shiny experience with Jesus- does not make the experience dull, null and void. Sometimes like Kahlil Gibran said- we see things clearer from a distance that we might not have appreciated in the moment.
Scripture is like this, isn’t it? When we hear a verse in one season of our lives it means very poignantly one thing, and then in another season we see the words in a completely different light, or with greater understanding. I asked Jason to help me come up with an example to illustrate this- and he said with a chuckle- how about the scripture we had read at our wedding? When we were married, the scripture from 1 Corinthians chapter 13 was read. This scripture speaks of the attributes of love: love is patient, kind, not irritable, etc. At the wedding ceremony these attributes are often nice, sweet reminders of what love is to be like. We celebrated our 5 year anniversary in January and now there is some meat on the bones of this scripture when we mention patience! Ha. But when I read that love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things... I understand that I am just at the beginning of understanding the miraculous truth in that. I can read those words now and be even more thankful, even more in awe of this gift of love that I have. There is value to the time that separates us from the first experience and reading. There is value to that space we are given for ideas and emotions to grow in our minds. To revisit old truths to see how much more true they are today.
Whether we like it or not, a lot of things take time. Big, important things take a lot of time. The disciples in this story were given the space and even command to take time to process who this person Jesus really was. Some of the most drastic changes in our lives have a built in time frame. The things that happen suddenly or out of time are often the most disturbing and unsettling. Right now I am very familiar with the 9 month process of pregnancy. I have had friends and relatives who just can’t wait for the baby to come, to be here, to see their face. I don’t hesitate to admit that I need the 9 months. I’ll take a few extra days, even. It is something so drastic and so life-altering- I need all 40 weeks to really process what it means to add a human child to my life, my family, the world. I recently received my March of Dimes packet of fundraising letters. March of Dimes funds research to prevent babies from being born too early, or in the case of those who are premature- research for medicine and practices to save their lives. This organization also provides support for the families of these babies. There is a certain physical trauma that happens for babies that are born prematurely- and that looks different in every situation. With that there are emotional traumas that happen to their families. A very close friend of mine was pregnant at the same time I was with Hunter. We were due 4 days apart. Her child was born on June 21st. My son was born September 16th. Her child is the tiniest surviving baby in Tennessee and the 16th tiniest surviving baby in the world. This child is a miracle. There is definite joy in her life. However, my friend Nancy still mourns those measly three months. She mourns all that comes with that time of missed preparation. She wishes she could have complained about weight gain and sore bones and uncomfortable sleeping. Instead she was faced with the reality of a fragile, born-too-soon daughter whose life was on the line indefinitely. We need time for all things. Time is something we need in grief and in joy. Perspective is something we need in chaos and in calm.
In this story of Jesus’ transfiguration, I believe that God is calling us today to take time. Wait. Process. Take this Lenten season and wrestle through the weary winter that refuses to step aside completely. Wait for spring. Prepare for Easter. Look at your life through the lens of time. Allow those things that give you joy and sorrow to have the gift of time and silence. Glance at God not from the mountain top experience only- when everything is shiny, confusing and new, but also from the valley. Allow the distant view to be a view that you value. Give yourself permission to pause. Hear Jesus’ command to wait. Be still. Don’t speak. Then one day the spring sun will rise with no more winter. Then one day Easter will come with its hallelujahs and resurrected assurance. Then one day you will be back on the mountaintop seeing shiny Jesus- and on that day you will understand all the more because you waited, you listened.... and God gave you time. Amen.
