RVCC Pastor's Sermon

Sermon - February 22, 2009

“Halftime”

By Rev. Nancy Foran
Mark 9:2-9

Our narrative of the Transfiguration – that moment in time when Jesus’ chosen ones, Peter, James, and John, had a vision of their rabbi dressed in brilliant white robes and flanked by two of the greatest Jewish figures of all time – was first recorded in the Gospel of Mark. Presumably the writers of Matthew and Luke drew from this source years later when they narrated their own versions of this extraordinary tale.

It begins when Jesus invites the three disciples to leave the others behind and follow him to a mountaintop to pray. Perhaps Peter, James, and John should have had an inkling that something dramatic was bound to happen. Such was the thing with mountaintops. Look at Moses and the burning bush – or even Abraham offering his son, Isaac, as a human sacrifice high in the hills.

And it certainly should be no surprise to us that when a Biblical story is set a few thousand feet above sea level, something revelatory is going to occur. The story of the transfiguration is no exception, and Mark tells it in a typically Markan way – brief, terse, no details, just the facts, ma’am, just the facts. We do not even know whether Jesus himself expected the unusual to happen, or whether deep down inside he was as surprised by the outcome of the hike as his friends were.

But the long and short of it is that Jesus was transfigured before them. He was morphed, changed in a way that our rational minds can not possibly understand. According to Mark, his clothes lost their dusty brown tones and dirty gray hues to swirl and transform into brilliant white, white enough to dazzle the disciples, like the sun glittering off the trees after an ice storm when you have forgotten your sunglasses.

But that was not all - far from it. Suddenly there was not one of Jesus before them, but three. No, not three of Jesus, but Jesus in the middle, flanked and protected on either side by two other figures.

Could it be? Moses, the great lawgiver, and Elijah, the timeless prophet? How the disciples recognized them – well, that will always be a mystery. After all, it was not like Moses’ face was imprinted on a dollar bill or Elijah’s countenance was instantly recognizable, like Abraham Lincoln or the Beetles might be to us.

The disciples were afraid and discombobulated – and certainly with good reason. Of the three, Peter caught on the quickest and realized that they were smack in the middle of something extraordinary and surely sacred.

And so Peter does what he does best. He shoots off at the mouth – this time about memorializing the event. “How good it is, how lucky we are to be here!” he exclaims to Jesus, just in case the rabbi can hear him. And then he babbles on about building booths, little houses, miniature temples to bottle up not only Moses, Elijah, and Jesus if that is possible but, at the least, contain the sanctity and excitement of the moment.

And in the midst of his filling this deep and holy time with words, words, words, there appeared a fog bank or cloud or whatever it was and from deep within the gray a voice – “This is my beloved, my own dear son. Listen to him.”

And then it was over, and Peter, James, and John did a double take – closed their eyes tightly and opened them again – several times – to see that only Jesus was there – and no longer in dazzling white. And he was bending down over them, his finger to his lips. “Shh! Don’t tell anyone.”

This story of the transfiguration is surely one of the most difficult of all the Gospel stories – whether you take these Biblical events literally or whether you understand them as metaphorical and so look for a deeper truth that winds itself over, under, and around the words on the page. Either way, it takes very good eyes of faith to wrap some meaning into this rather astounding narrative.

On the mountaintop that afternoon, Peter, James, and John literally saw Jesus in a new light, one that demanded a good amount of irrational belief. Not that such a demand was new. After all, the journey so far had challenged them in various ways to walk ever more deeply into the waters of faith.

First there had been the call to follow, to leave behind everything and strike out to who knows where. And then there were the healings – from demon exorcism to curing leprosy – that pushed them beyond the medical conventions of the day into a completely new arena.

And most recently, occurring just before they retired to the mountaintop with Jesus, there was his speech predicting that the journey would end with suffering, betrayal, denial, and death. And now perhaps they had just experienced the ultimate faith challenge – in spite of all that doom and gloom to see Jesus as the Christ and the Anointed One.

And so on this last gasp of the Epiphany season, this time in the church year for us to see the presence of God revealed in the man, Jesus, we are given this one final climactic revelation – and it is one to take with us on our journey through Lent and Holy Week to the cross itself.

Today we are called to see beyond what we appear to see to what we really see. We are challenged to remember that the man dressed in dusty brown tones and dirty gray hues is also the one in dazzling white. The human and the divine are merged in one bright shining moment of time long, long ago.

So what are we today – two thousand years later – supposed to do with this story that seems more like fantasy than anything else? I suggest that we look to Peter for answers. Given his very human foibles and quirks, he is usually someone who can offer us an “aha” moment.

Remember that Peter’s first reaction was to build little commemorative houses, booths as they were known in the Jewish tradition. And as he speaks those words, his heart is beating a mile a minute. Why?

Because, as William Williamson writes, “Peter thinks this is the end of time. The appearance of Moses and Elijah—doesn’t that make it the end? The Jewish festival of Booths was an anticipation of the end of time, the time when God would tabernacle, dwell with God’s people. “So it’s time, Lord,” Peter is saying. “Let’s make some booths.” But Peter is wrong…For this is not the arrival of the end of time. Mark’s gospel is only half over. The Transfiguration comes, not at the end of the gospel, but in the middle.” And that is important because from Peter’s impulsive reaction, we can learn two things these many years later.

The first is that because the glorious ending is not now, presumably there is more work to be done. In fact, if we read the next periscope, or segment, of Mark’s gospel, we find that Jesus frowns upon any privatized religion hidden on a mountaintop and memorialized in some ecstatic one-time experience.

You see, the Gospel continues with Jesus, Peter, James, and John returning to the other nine waiting patiently at the base of the mountain, along with the crowds that had gathered in the meantime – and Jesus healing a little boy.

As Joan Chittister eloquently writes, “Real religion is not about building temples and keeping shrines. Real religion is about healing hurts…Real religion, the scripture insists, is not about transcending life; real religion is about our transforming life. The gospel of the transfiguration calls us to…become enlightened; calls us to change our attitudes about the role of religion; calls us to understand the nature of religion itself; because the so-called rational has failed.

Religion, you see, does not call us to the rational. Religion calls us to the Beatitudes, to the works of mercy, to the casting out of demons, to the doing of miracles for those in need, to the being and act of irrational love and burning justice of God. That is what the Transfiguration is about, that is what religion is really about, changing ourselves so we can change the world.

The role of religion is to bring us to an awareness of life. The role of religion is to transform the world, to come to see the world as God sees the world and to bring it as close to the vision of God as we possibly can (because) what God changes, God changes through us.”

Joan Chittister seems to be saying that even though we may know the ending that comes with Easter, even though we may believe that we are on the right path that leads only to one place, our work is no where near done – and we better remember that. We are not off the hook.

Now the second thing we can learn from Peter’s impulsiveness derives from the first. And that is no matter how climactic this transfiguration event is, no matter that the season of Epiphany has reached a heady and marvelous crescendo, there still lies ahead a journey for us.

It will be a journey patterned after the one Mark will narrate soon enough, the one that leads Jesus rapidly to Jerusalem, a monkey trial, a horrifying and untimely death to one who preached such good – and finally an empty tomb.

On Ash Wednesday this week and throughout the next six weeks of Lent, we will be reminded of the need to look deep inside our hearts at who we really are and what motivations really drive our lives. We will also be reminded time and time again that we have so little time to do all that needs to be done. This journey will take us through dark and troubling places – but only if we do not retreat into ourselves and instead look at everything around us on the way. Our journey will take strength and courage.

If we do it right, we will instinctively play over and over again in our heads and hearts those holy words spoken to Peter, James, and John on the mountaintop – Listen to him, for he is my beloved son.

And we will ask ourselves: what do you hear him say? And since, "actions speak louder than words," what do we "hear" him do every time he encounters another human being? Do we hear anything other than compassion, forgiveness, and justice?

The story is not over, though today in the tale of the transfiguration we have been given a blessed glimpse of the dazzling radiance that is to come on Easter morning. And between now and then? Well, it is only half time – so go forward into Lent with commitment, courage, and great high hope.

Sermon - February 22, 2009

“Halftime”

By Rev. Nancy Foran Mark 9:2-9

By Rev. Nancy Foran
Mark 9:2-9