Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then 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.” While 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!” When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. 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.”
Matthew 17:1-9
My sermon from Transfiguration (February 26, 2017) on Matthew 17:1-9.
*****
During my final semester at seminary, I had an evening class that was more of a seminar than a lecture. We would read and discuss sermons preached in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th centuries, uncovering the ancient origins of the different rituals we still use in worship today. After spending two hours digesting these ancient writings – we would develop an appetite – so the entire class, including the professor, would leave campus to digest something a little more edible. We would stroll through Chelsea, stopping at any place that looked good. Over steaming bowls of noodles, plates of seafood, and New York deli sandwiches, we would match the 2 hours we spent in class with 2 hours around the table. We rarely talked about the ancient preachers we had just read but we did talk about the church, and about our faith,…a lot. My classmates and I were mostly seniors. We were about to graduate and, in a few short months, be scattered all over the country. We couldn’t wait to leave seminary behind us but we knew that life, as a pastor, would be different. Everything, in some ways, would change. So our conversations around those restaurant tables would be peppered with anxiety, fears, and hopes. All of us felt called to serve God’s people but none of us, really, knew what that would look like. It was near the end of a semester’s worth of these kinds of conversations when my professor asked me something. He knew why all my classmates wanted to be pastors. But he hadn’t heard my story yet. He wanted to know why: why give up the semi-successful career I once had; why do this faith thing when I knew what it was like to live without it; why do church. So I answered him. I told him it’s because…I met Jesus on my version of a mountaintop, while walking down some stairs into a Canal Street subway station. And…right there…everything changed.
Today’s story from Matthew isn’t, I think, only a story. It’s…an experience. And sometimes these kinds of experiences need music and art because words are not enough. In today’s text, when Peter speaks after Jesus starts to glow, even Peter is interrupted by God and told to just…be quiet. Because the transfiguration, like Jesus, is something that words can never fully explain. There is no phrase or thought or sentence that can truly unpack and reveal everything about it. Sometimes we need other people’s poetry to give a voice to the experiences that we have… or the experiences we wished we had. In the quest to see or feel and notice God and Jesus in our lives, we can find ourselves chasing after mountaintops – chasing after these kinds of experiences – but not always getting what we hope to find.
When Peter, James, and John headed with Jesus up the mountain, I imagine they expected that day to be like every other. Jesus had a habit of taking a break, heading into the mountains to pray and recharge. I bet the disciples thought this was what they were going to see. But today was different. Without any explanation or lead in, once that crew of four got high on the mountain, Jesus suddenly changed. His clothes became white. His face glowed. Moses and Elijah stopped by to say Hello. There is…nothing normal about this. But, by this point in Jesus’ ministry, the disciples were use to non-normal experiences happening when Jesus was around. Every healing, every feeding, every confrontation with the religious and political authorities must have felt like being on another mountaintop with Jesus. The excitement, the exhilaration, the reassurance that they were literally walking with God – that must have been amazing…and maddening…and confusing all at the same time. We know the disciples never really understood exactly what Jesus was doing. But their time with Jesus must have felt awesome. And today, when Jesus is transfigured, all the previous mountaintop moments are one-upped by seeing Jesus lit up like fireworks on the 4th of July. This is Jesus in his glory; this is Jesus as we would like to see him; this is Jesus fully expressing the wonder and hope and love we know he contains and shares. This is mountain top Jesus extraordinaire – and a Jesus moment we would like to chase down and experience over and over again. The life of faith can seem like we’re called to seek and chase after these kinds of mountaintop moments; moments where we see Jesus easily and where God’s voice bellows in ways that everyone else can hear. And if we’re not having these kinds of faith moments – we wonder where God is and we think maybe we’re doing this Jesus thing wrong or maybe Jesus…just doesn’t care about us. We can imagine that a life of good faith is one that is…stuck on that mountaintop, one that sees and hears and fully knows God, and never has questions or doubts or tragic experiences to bring it down. We can make our faith a faith looking for mountaintops rather than getting that Jesus never stays there.
Jesus always comes down the mountain. And the disciples do too because the life of faith isn’t about chasing mountaintops. It’s about noticing and seeing and naming those moments when Jesus shows up – and how those moments change our everyday kind of living. But faith doesn’t begin when we’re on the mountaintop. Jesus, in today’s text, didn’t do anything new. He just gave his disciples a clearer vision of who he is and who they already know him to be. Even when his face doesn’t shine, Jesus is still Jesus. Even when we don’t see him, he’s there, always present, always loving, always helping us see the world, and ourselves, in a new way. We might carry with us two or three mountaintop moments. Or we might wonder when our mountaintop moment will come. But they do come because Jesus brings them. We can’t create or chase them down on our own. And we need others – need the people around us – to hear our story and tell us where God was. Sometimes Jesus shows up with his face shining bright. But other times, he shows up walking with you on a quiet subway staircase, opening you up to know that since you were born, since you were created, since you were baptized, Jesus has been with you, even if you didn’t see him for years. Your mountaintop moments will not be my moments. But they do point to the same story: God has claimed us. Christ was given to us. We are touched by this Son of God who walks with us no matter where we go. And by being with us, Jesus tells us to get up; to look up; to see him here – in our church – in our neighborhoods – and in all the kinds of people and in all the kinds of places God brings us to – because Jesus is there. And, no matter how insecure or worried or terrified we feel, Jesus says Do Not Be Afraid because Jesus changes everything.
Amen.
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