Luke 9:28-43
I wonder what
the life of the church would be like if the Christian story ended with the
story of the Transfiguration. . . Let’s imagine that for a moment: What if we
only had one Gospel – say, the Gospel according to Luke - and what if it ended
with this story of Jesus, his disciples, and Moses and Elijah on the mountaintop?
What if it ended right there, nothing more?
And what if this was the final story about Jesus? What do you think the
life of the church be like?
Perhaps this Sunday would be the high holy day of the Christian
calendar. We would invite our friends and relatives to join us in worship, and
then we would go home for the annual Transfiguration dinner. Grandma would
probably make her cheesy potatoes, and we would dress in our Transfiguration best.
Our churches would likely be filled to the brim with guests - filled people who
come to worship with us twice a year, you know, at Christmas and
Transfiguration.
Pastors and
church leaders would be simultaneously filled with energy and exhausted as they
worked every day of the week to build up to this story of Jesus and the
disciples on the mountaintop. We would all tell the story successively over
several days: On one day, we would celebrate Jesus and his disciples climbing
the mountain. On another day, we would commemorate that moment when they began
to pray. Throughout the course of a week, we would build up to this special Sunday,
the day where we would celebrate Jesus being transformed before our very eyes –
his face changed and his clothes dazzling. If the Gospel of Luke were our only
Gospel, and if it ended here, we would certainly worship Jesus in a triumphant
way. That would make sense.
And if it ended
right here, and if this were the only Jesus we knew, Christian life might be
primarily concerned with personal triumph. Mountains would be depicted in our
stained-glass windows and on our bulletins. We would wear mountain shaped
pennants on necklaces. The mountain would be our primary religious symbol. And we might become concerned with building
ourselves into mountains too as we practiced the triumphant meaning of that
symbol. Maybe we would build our own
churches that way, and like Peter on that mountaintop, we might construct them
into holy, ever-lasting dwellings to hold and commemorate all that is
triumphant.
Triumph could
become our primary aim, in fact, and we could spend all kinds of money, energy,
and resources to ensure that we stay on top of the mountain. Like the mountains on our necklaces, we might
create an institutional church based on that symbol, determined always to be
solid, to stay on the mountaintop, triumphant no matter what. We might be concerned with our image – after
all, we’re mountaintop people -- and we might use all sorts of techniques and
marketing to tell our culture that we, the Church, are indeed a mountain and
that others can also have a mountaintop experience if they would just climb into our pews and join us. Who knows?
Even their money and time and talents might ensure that we stay solid
and on top. We might invite people to
join the church to ensure that we stay safe, secure, and triumphant. We could be a mountaintop church with a
mountaintop Jesus.
Maybe that’s who
we would be if the Christian story ended here, if we had only one Gospel that
ends with chapter 9 verse 36.
But that’s not where it
ends. Jesus is triumphant in this story.
That’s true. Jesus is triumphant
in a story that is strange to us in some ways because it’s filled with symbols
and images that were important to a culture and time period so distant from our
own. Jesus meets with Moses and Elijah,
two men who were prophets in the stories of the Hebrew Scriptures, people who
symbolized the Jewish law and the prophetic writings. To include Jesus in their company was to
convey that Jesus is connected to these figures and to the law and the
prophetic writings themselves. To have Moses and Elijah conversing with him
about his departure – or as the original language puts it, his upcoming exodus
- was to communicate that Jesus was the fulfillment of the law and
prophets. His face shone and his clothes
became dazzling. He was glorified.
And in a moment
of awe and wonder, Peter just doesn’t know what to say or do. Awkward words come pouring from his
mouth. They’re actually kind of funny if
you imagine him fumbling about: “Master, it is good
for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and
one for Elijah.” He doesn’t know what
he’s asking for, really. And in
response, the voice of God declares who Jesus is, “This is my Son, my Chosen;
listen to him!” The disciples are so
awestruck by the entire experience that they don’t say anything to anyone about
it. How could they even put it into
words?
Whatever
it was, they probably wanted to stay longer.
They wanted to build the experience into a structure and dwell in it
until the end of time.
But
that’s not the end of Jesus’ story. And
that’s not the end of our story either.
We
value mountains, and our city is surrounded by them. But we don’t have a
mountain hanging in front of our stained-glass window. Instead, we have a cross. Jesus may be triumphant, but not without
cost. Because in great, unfathomable
love, Jesus shows us over and over again in the Gospel stories that he is
determined to be with us – determined to be with us where we’re vulnerable and
in need, to be with us where life is messy, and to transform us there. Jesus doesn’t stay enshrined on a
mountaintop. He does the opposite. Jesus comes down the mountain and leads his
disciples in doing the same.
In
this story, Jesus leads his disciples down the mountain, and at the foot of it,
they all encounter a man and his son, two people who are suffering greatly.
There was nothing neat and clean about this experience. It involved sickness, pain, injury and
uncertainty, and the disciples had no idea how to heal the boy or this
difficult situation. Jesus enters the
situation and is troubled himself. But
it is from that place that he heals the boy and restores him to his father.
And
the story continues. Jesus will walk
with us, and Jesus will demonstrate such radical love that the powers that be
will feel threatened. Jesus will risk
that love even if it leads to a cross.
And a love like that transforms the world.
Jesus
will be with us, no matter the cost.
Even when it is messy. Especially when it is messy. When the
diagnosis comes. . . when the loved one dies. . . when we can’t seem to put the
bottle down. . . when human beings are reduced to skin color. . . when
depression seems to have taken over. . .and when we don’t know where our next
meal is coming from.
This
is a Jesus who willfully comes down the mountain. He will love us at great risk. His love transforms everything.
And
is church not also called to follow Jesus down the mountain, to go straight into
all those places where life is messy and there is suffering? Is that not our call? To go there and to love there?
Michael Jinkins is a mentor of mine. And he
wrote a book that has a provocative title.
It’s called The Church Faces
Death: Ecclesiology for a Post-Modern Context. In the pages of his book, Michael Jinkins
proclaims that the church is called to love so greatly that it risks its own
death. And in fact, he would say that
the church is only alive when it lets go of its need for safety and
institutional survival, when it loves and serves first -- not to gain or to
grow but to follow Jesus. That is a church alive, one that will follow Jesus
down the mountain and be with others in love.
It changes everything.
Sometimes,
the Church does get caught up with mountains and a desire to stay solid. The church gets caught up in great anxiety to
ensure its own survival. We want to be
around for generations. We want our
legacy to continue. We know it’s easy to
get caught up in that frame of mind, but when we do, and when the anxiety takes
over, we get sidetracked from what really matters.
David Johnson, a
seminary professor of mine, caught my attention last week with a Facebook
status of all things. He writes great
ones. I want to share this one with you:
“In
an increasingly secular age (I suppose, although I suspect it is merely
increasingly idolatrous) the church's task is not to be palatable. The church's
task is to be real. Dressing the body of Christ in clown pants will not save
it. Putting it in work clothes just might.”
It’s true.
We’re about to enter the season of Lent, where we journey to
and through the cross with Jesus, contemplating God’s mission among us and our
call in this city and world. I wonder
what our work clothes ought to be. . . Will they dazzle? Maybe.
But not like clown pants. Perhaps our work clothes will transform us
when we allow ourselves to get messy alongside the needs of this world. I wonder what our work clothes should be. . .
could it involve the immigration conversation that will happen right after
worship? Could it involve renewed energy
into our congregation’s food ministry?
Could it involve caring for that coworker? Could it involve reconciling with that lost
friend? Could it involve mentoring
children?
Whatever our work clothing we be, I hope we will follow
Jesus down the mountain. I hope Pasadena
Presbyterian Church will risk its own institutional survival to do ministry in
this place. After all, we know that the
story of Jesus doesn’t end on a mountaintop.
It continues on to a cross. And
it doesn’t even end there! Even death is
transformed by Christ’s love.
May God’s great risk to us call forth our own risk, and may
God’s great resurrection call forth our own resurrection. May it be. Amen.
-Pastor Renee Roederer and the Community at
Pasadena Presbyterian Church
