Exodus 24: 12-18 Psalm 99
2 Peter 1: 16-21 Matthew 17: 1-9
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
Those who study the human spirit believe that people are naturally drawn to one of two places…either to water or to mountains. It is believed that people feel most at home either at the edge of or on the water, or on the mountaintops. If this is so, I’m not sure where I would place myself. I’m not a big fan of heights, but there’s no sight quite as spectacular as Mt. Rainier on a clear day. Then again, I can’t resist putting my toes into the water when I’m walking on the beach. Which feels most like home to me is hard to say.
Any of you like to fish? Water people.
Mountain climbers? Mountain folks.
What feels like home to you? The author Lemony Snicket says that “One’s home is like a delicious piece of pie you order in a restaurant on a country road one cozy evening – the best piece of pie you have ever eaten in your life – and can never find again.”
Ancient religions, including the earliest people of God we read about in the Hebrew Bible revered mountains, not for their natural beauty, but as the earthly place closest to the divine and thus a likely spot to experience a God sighting.
It’s why we have the phrase mountaintop experience to describe what is often, quite literally, a religious experience. And that is what our readings on this Transfiguration Sunday are about…experiences…God sightings…on the mountaintop.
In the Exodus reading the LORD has invited Moses to the mountain where God intends to give Moses the law and commandment, written on stone tablets. And here’s the first thing that God says to Moses…get up here and wait. Wait. And so for six days Moses waited. Six days. And on the seventh day, God called Moses in from his time in the mountain top waiting room, in from the clouds, into the very presence of God…for a God sighting.
I don’t know about you, but waiting is not my strong suit. If I’m called somewhere I’d like for whatever is going to happen to just…happen already. I don’t do well waiting in line at the grocery store or for the light to turn green, much less waiting for six days to be handed a set of rules written in stone.
And not only did Moses have to wait, once he actually found himself in the presence of God, the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire. Not a shepherd or a guide or a benevolent parent but a devouring fire. It’s remarkable that Moses stayed at all, much less that he stayed for 40 days and 40 nights.
Similarly, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John with him to the top of the mountain. We have to look back a few verses to see why they were going on this little hike. At the end of Chapter 16 of Matthew we are told that Jesus is trying to help his disciples understand what is ahead. That he will go to Jerusalem, where he will suffer and die. And that if they want to follow him, they are going to have to put aside their own stuff to do so.
Basically, Jesus is taking them up the mountain for an object lesson. They see Jesus transfigured before them, shining face, dazzling white clothes. They see Moses and Elijah, who, hello, are long since dead, talking with Jesus. And all of this is happening to show Peter, James, and John who Jesus really is…and instead of grasping this truth, Peter completely misses the point…again. He had missed it in those earlier verses when he told Jesus he should NEVER have to suffer and die. Jesus called him a name that time…Satan.
And this time Peter just starts GOING ON about how amazing it is that they are all together on the mountain, with glowing Jesus and the ghosts of leaders past, and in order to interrupt his ranting…in order to get his attention…in order to finally make the point…God speaks up. It’s a God sighting…or a God hearing. “This is my beloved son” God points out “with him I am well pleased”. Maybe less pleased with Peter’s inability to get the point.
While we most often think of God sightings as comfortable, affirming incidents, these two God sighting from our readings today are anything but.
In the reading from Exodus, we are reminded that when God calls us God usually does not lay out the entire game plan with the invitation. God did not say to Luther Memorial “if you will use your land for community gardens, you will reap abundantly in food and goodwill.” God just told us to be good stewards of what we are given, to care for creation, and to feed the hungry. And so, the Giving Gardens were birthed, and are about to be planted for the third time. We could not have known that school children would traverse through them every day, marveling at each new sign of growth. We could not have known that older people would find a place to sit and rest there. And it has not always been comfortable. Usually calls from God are not for our comfort. The call to this place to feed the hungry people among us, those with no homes has not always been comfortable. It has stretched us into places we might not have ventured had God not been the one inviting us. But without that call, we would not have had a recent visit from George. George used to come to us for lunch, but this past week he brought us a donation of food for the lunches. He’d gotten back on his feet and wanted to pay it forward.
God’s call to us is a call into relationship. It is a relationship with a God whose appearance can be like that of a devouring fire. It is a relationship with a God who might wait six days or even longer to reveal even the tiniest portion of the plan to us.
Jesus was calling Peter, James, and John into such a relationship. But Jesus knew how hard it would be. He knew that Peter, James, and John would think that it was going to be something exciting and fulfilling. That they would think that it was about them and Jesus knew that in order to follow him they would need to set their own lives aside. Jesus knew that it would be a hard road, harder than the one going up the mountain, that led to Jerusalem, and eventually, to the cross.
Jesus knows that the same is true for us. For us to follow Jesus as disciples we must be keenly aware that it is not about us. It is not about us. It is about Jesus. It’s about what Jesus said and what he did. It’s about what he says to us even today…through the words of Scripture, spoken by men and women moved by the Holy Spirit. It is through the water of baptism. It is through bread and wine that is body and blood that forms and transforms and transfigures us into the Body of Christ in the world.
The hope that we have in Jesus is that he is with us, with us on the mountaintop, and in the valley. As the song says, everybody hurts sometimes, and we know that Jesus is with us in that hurt. Jesus is with us to lift us up, just as he lifted Peter up on that mountain, and to take us by the hand and to say to us also “Get up and do not be afraid.”
We called today’s invitation to worship with us “Homecoming.” Not homecoming in the way we know it on campus, with a dance and a king and a queen. But homecoming in the way that it is at its very best. In joyous ways. In ways that remind us where we have been. In ways that remind us, in the most basic of ways, who and whose we are. The hymn writer Isaac Watts, in his hymn “My Shepherd Will Supply My Need,” describes homecoming this way: There would I find a settled rest, while others go and come. No more a stranger or a guest, but like a child at home.”
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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