Matthew 17:1-9, Exodus 24:12-18
“The Way Down”
February 23, 2020 Transfiguration Sunday
What goes up must come down. It was a gorgeous autumn Monday and after years of living here in Arlington, we finally decided it was time to take what we had been told was the beautiful drive over Kelly Stand so Roger and I set off in my still fairly new to me Subaru. As we started the incline we began hearing a grating noise. We turned off the radio and listened more carefully as Roger continued to drive up the incline.
The noise was getting worse as we went so next to a pond we got out to take pictures and look to see if anything was visibly dragging under the car. Seeing nothing but not wanting to risk it, we decided to head back and switch cars. Unfortunately, we soon realized as we were zipping down at a pretty healthy 40 mile per hour clip that the brakes were not working.
Roger pumped them and tried to keep the car steady. Mercifully no one was coming toward us and we spent a nail-biting anxious 9 minutes (yes, I kept track!) coasting down the road seeking out a place to stop where there was actually cell phone coverage. When we finally reached the intersection at the bottom right on Kansas Road we were able to slide into a parking area and turn off the car and call Bennington Subaru who came very quickly, gave us a ride back to the parsonage and towed our car.
It seems that a bolt that held the brakes in place had disintegrated. I’m not sure that I saw Jesus that day but I definitely was caught up in prayers to our merciful God for the duration. This was not the mountaintop experience we were hoping for.
More than being a part of Newton’s third law of gravity- what goes up, must come down- is the realization that we don’t get to stay in a physical or emotional peak experience and ultimately it is back to the real world and its everyday duties and responsibilities and, yes, the humdrumness of it all.
This season of Epiphany light is coming to an end and we will find ourselves immersed in the quieter, more introspective season of Lent shortly. Perhaps the serenity we may find ourselves in over the coming 40 days might be the opening Jesus is looking for.
Moses managed to stay 40 days and nights atop the mountain. It appears that Jesus’ adventure, along with Peter, James and John, was a day trip. Moses had specific instructions after his mountaintop experience, the knowledge of which is most likely why Peter wanted to build three monuments to hold Moses, Elijah and Jesus. Moses’ very involved instructions from the Lord, which follows today’s reading that Alyson shared, include the erecting of a sacred tent with elaborate furnishings and explicit instructions for ordaining and dressing high priests.
Jesus, in comparison, told his fellow climbers to keep what they experienced to themselves. In our hearing of this story we recognize that they weren’t very good at keeping that secret.
Less than a week earlier, Jesus had told them he was going to suffer, die and rise to new life. They had a tough time hearing that revelation. Maybe their desire to build mountaintop structures to hold Jesus, Moses and Elijah reflected their need to hold onto Jesus, to want to protect him from harm. Instead, they were going to have to internalize their experience on the mountain and use it as their strength.
Jesus was revealed to them in a new light, with God’s blessing. That image was going to have to be solid enough for them to hold it all together when the going got tough. To see the world below, with new eyes, could have been Jesus’ plan for them all along? They were going to need to be agents of the change that Jesus has introduced and that they would be expected to carry on after he’s gone. They have been, as Elphaba and Glinda sing in the musical, “Wicked,” changed for the better.
What has staying power, amid it all, is the image of Jesus – what he was and what he will become. Because we know how the story ends, we get to dwell in the place of before and after that Peter, James and John were not privy to. But they did know Moses and Elijah and just like any change there has to be the recognition of what came before.
The three followers have no idea of what is to come after this point. This is a critical crossroads in Jesus’ ministry and earthly experience. Including Moses and Elijah as well as God’s blessing brings together old and new, history as well as the future.
Most of us resist change that doesn’t bubble up from within ourselves. The change Jesus brings is a new covenant that respects and tries to balance the history and prophecy and traditions of the past while looking toward a better way for God’s people. What the disciples’ experience on the mountain requires time to fully digest.
They will witness dramatic change and the knowledge that God’s light and word will be present within it may make it easier to cope with the loss of dear Jesus. They will need at least the time it will take to walk back down the mountain and probably then some, to integrate what they’ve seen and heard and experienced together but are not supposed to share – at least not in words.
How do we show the people in our lives that we are changed and want to help heal the world because we have experienced the teachings, healings and ministry of Jesus? Do we see Jesus when we venture out into the world? When we are no longer on the mountain but in the trenches, do we see Jesus in the lives and faces of those we encounter?
To use the lens of Jesus to see more deeply into those who are struggling right now with life’s twists and turns is compassion. The Franciscan priest and writer Fr. Richard Rohr shares:
“Christ is the light that allows people to see things in their fullness. The precise and intended effect of such a light is to see Christ everywhere else.”
He goes onto describe we who follow Jesus this way:
“A mature Christian sees Christ in everything and everyone else. That is a definition that will never fail you, always demand more of you, and give you no reasons to fight, exclude, or reject anyone.” (www.cac.org, 2/13/19)
To seek out the Jesus to be found in the lost and forsaken, the angry and troubled, the lovable and the really hard to love – that could keep us busy for a lifetime, couldn’t it? The mountaintop is a great place to spend a bit of time but ultimately it is down in the streets, in our homes, at work, with our neighbors, where we get our hands dirty in caring for God’s children – the place where we will see Jesus over and over again, if we keep looking for him.
Let us be in prayer with these words from Martha Spong:
Holy One,
We have been to the high places,
the extreme edges of bliss,
the far reaches of where-to-find-you,
the mind-bending moments of truth,
the spill of something ineffable,
the fragrance of words-can’t-describe.
We have been there, most of us, once or twice, if that.
Mystics have gone more often, and poets, surely.
Some still wait for a trip to the mountaintop,
or it is a childhood recollection confused with dreams.
When we went there, we felt
scared
delighted
relieved
faint
perplexed
joyful
unnerved.
We said things,
possibly laughable.
And then it was over.
The moment passed.
The brightness dimmed.
Clothes, faces, sounds
returned to normal.
You know we need you more
when we come down again.
Be with us, here on the ground.
Help us to find the words and the actions
to make you real to ourselves,
to those who need you most. Amen.
(“A Prayer for Transfiguration Sunday,” www.wordpress.com)