Mark 9:2-9 February 15,
Exodus 24:12-18 II Peter 1:16-21 Matthew 17:1-9
February 7, 2016 J. Mark Davidson
“The View from the Mountain” Every year right before Ash Wednesday, comes the story of Transfiguration. The story gives us a preview of Light and Glory before the somber mood of Lent. We see Jesus exalted before we see him crucified. We see him in his glory before we see him broken. The story is full of dazzling garments, voices speaking from the clouds, prophets from ancient times suddenly re-appearing and talking with Jesus. These all show us that Jesus was not simply a gifted human being with fascinating ideas about God; he was not merely a fabulous storyteller and healer. He was none other than the Son of God, the Messiah, the Anointed One. In his own time, Jesus was dismissed as a charlatan, a messianic pretender, a blasphemer, a troublemaker, a subversive, even demon-possessed. In every age, including our own, he is discredited and cast off. He dies also the death of faint praise, as when he is lauded as a wise sage, or a religious genius, or an extraordinary person. He was clearly all of those things… a spell-binding preacher, an amazing storyteller, someone who exuded the healing power of God. Yet the Gospels are unequivocal: Jesus is God’s Chosen One, the Anointed One, the Messiah, the Christ. God in the flesh, the Transcendent One in human form, dwelling among us full of grace and truth. The disciples – those closest to him – resisted this. Those with a front row seat to his life were almost completely blind to it. It took several shell-cracking experiences to break through their resistance. Transfiguration was one of those. What they witnessed on the mountaintop left them speechless and filled with awe. “They kept silence and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen.” When the cloud, a symbol for the Presence of God, came over them, they heard a heavenly voice, “This is my Beloved, Listen to Him!” The cloud lifted and they were left alone with Jesus. The point is unmistakable: Jesus is the new focus of faith. We are to listen to his words most of all, his message of love and justice first and foremost. He is the lens through which we are to interpret and understand life’s events. He is our guide for living. This was such a powerful experience that Peter tried to capture it, build shelters for Moses and Elijah and Jesus, stay on the mountain, never leave this moment of revelation and stunning beauty. But we can’t stay there. Bolton Anthony reminded me that when Franciscan priest Richard Rohr climbed Mt. Tabor recently, he noticed signs that said, “No Camping!” Exactly. The Light sends us down the mountain, back out into the world to serve.
Peter didn’t talk about building a booth for himself; and for James and John, but you know he wanted to. Because it was on the mountaintop, in that dazzling Light, that he caught not only a glimpse of Jesus’ true nature as the Son of God, but also a glimpse of his own true nature as a child of Light. Transfiguration reminds us of something this bustling, careening world rarely, if ever, thinks to tell us: that we ourselves, you and I, are children of Light. This is our most basic identity. Born from Light, Born into Light, Sustained by Light, Redeemed by Light, Gifted to a Broken World as Bearers of Light, finally Dying into Light. However much the Light is obscured, Light is our most basic essence. Light at our beginning, Light at our ending, Light all along the way. Glimpsing their true nature there on the mountaintop, they must have wanted to stay there. But they had to go back down the mountain and return to their ordinary lives. This is one of the great challenges of the spiritual life. A friend of mine put it this way: “The Spirit takes me to places I could never have imagined, and then returns me to the ordinary with a sustaining remembrance.” II Peter captures how vivid this spiritual experience was, and how it had stayed with them: “We were not following cleverly devised myths… we were eyewitnesses to his majesty. We ourselves heard a voice from heaven… while we were with him on the holy mountain, we heard the Voice: ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him!’” They told their fellow Christians: “This is a lamp lighting a way through the dark. You do well to pay attention to it until the dawn comes and the morning start rises in your hearts.” Those words were written 75 years after the mountaintop experience. The view from the mountain had stayed with them and sustained them throughout their lives. This story is about Jesus’ transfiguration, but it’s about our transfiguration, too. Growing up in Austin, Texas, one of my vivid memories was leaving the blistering heat of Texas and heading for the cool, refreshing mountains of Colorado and New Mexico. Every summer, we’d make the pilgrimage. Except for the Mojave and parts of Arizona, there’s no heat in America quite like Texas heat – shimmering off the highway, lawns baked brown by the sun. Every summer, like a whole family of Moses, we’d answer the call, “Come up to me on the mountains.” Our hearts always beat a little faster when we’d first see that jagged purple line on the horizon. It meant we were leaving the ordinary terrain of our lives and opening ourselves to extraordinary experiences. Mountains have always exerted a mysterious attraction for the human psyche. Mt. Sinai, Mt. Olympus in Greece, Mt. Fuji in Japan, Mt. Everest, Kilimanjaro, Denali, Mt. Ranier is “Tahoma” which means “the mountain that was God.” Thoreau wrote with joy about Mt. Katahdin in Maine. But Thoreau said the grandest mountain he’d ever climbed was the one just east of Concord. Now, travelers to Walden Pond know that no peak lies on the low, flat terrain just east of Concord. This unnamed mountain was the one Thoreau climbed in his dreams. Over twenty times in a recurring dream, he
made the same ascent – through the thick, dark woods at the foot of the mountain to the grand and awful summit, revealing every detail of Concord far below. This was the mountain of his life, the mountain of his undiscovered self, the terra incognito, the unknown land within. Thoreau’s dream mountain reminds us all of our task to climb the mountain of our lives – to discover the Presence of God in our daily comings and goings and to learn how to consciously carry this sustaining gift with us. The landscape of the sacred is not some distant, exotic place. It is wherever we are. In one of Robert Frost’s poems, he is speaking to himself about his beloved New Hampshire and the verdant hills and streams surrounding his home: “These are your waters, and this is your watering place… drink and be whole beyond all confusion.” The challenge is to receive, create, and sustain meaning in the here and now, which are the only coordinates in which it can ever be done. This was a hard lesson for us returning to the stifling, spirit-sapping Texas heat after weeks in the cool mountains… how can we take the mountain with us? It was tempting to believe that we needed a geographical fix, as though we were more human, more alive, closer to God, somewhere else. How could we live fully where we were living? It comes down to learning how to keep climbing the mountain of our lives, sustained by all the transfiguring experiences that have shaped us and brought us to this moment, and being open to all the new transfigurations the Spirit of God has in store for us now and in the future. I learned you can’t stay on the mountain, but you can take the mountain with you… you can take with you the ever-present possibility of transfiguration. As we begin our Lenten journeys, let us take the mountain with us. If it is your practice to give something up during Lent, do that. It will deepen your capacity for sacrifice, and there is no deep and beautiful faith without sacrifice, no powerful witness to Christ’s love and justice without sacrifice. If it is your practice to take something on during Lent, do that. It will train you in self-giving and in leaning on God to help you with your new load. There is no beloved community without deep self-giving and loadbearers who know how to lean on the Everlasting Arms. If it is your practice to repent during Lent, and it should be all of us who have this practice, to turn away from all the inward and outward attitudes and habits and tendencies that hide the Light within us and to turn toward the glory of God which is a human being fully alive, a society justly ordered. Giving something up, taking something on, repenting, – let us take the mountain with us. Transfiguration is too deep a story to ignore. It reveals the true nature of Jesus -fully human, fully divine, – and it reveals our true nature as well – children of Light. So then, let us walk in the Light with Jesus as the focus of our faith, his words the ones we
listen to most of all, his message of love and justice first and foremost in our lives, Jesus Christ our guide for living. “We heard the voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. And we have the prophetic word made more sure. You will do well to pay attention to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.” J. Mark Davidson February 7, 2016
February 7, 2016 J. Mark Davidson
“The View from the Mountain” Every year right before Ash Wednesday, comes the story of Transfiguration. The story gives us a preview of Light and Glory before the somber mood of Lent. We see Jesus exalted before we see him crucified. We see him in his glory before we see him broken. The story is full of dazzling garments, voices speaking from the clouds, prophets from ancient times suddenly re-appearing and talking with Jesus. These all show us that Jesus was not simply a gifted human being with fascinating ideas about God; he was not merely a fabulous storyteller and healer. He was none other than the Son of God, the Messiah, the Anointed One. In his own time, Jesus was dismissed as a charlatan, a messianic pretender, a blasphemer, a troublemaker, a subversive, even demon-possessed. In every age, including our own, he is discredited and cast off. He dies also the death of faint praise, as when he is lauded as a wise sage, or a religious genius, or an extraordinary person. He was clearly all of those things… a spell-binding preacher, an amazing storyteller, someone who exuded the healing power of God. Yet the Gospels are unequivocal: Jesus is God’s Chosen One, the Anointed One, the Messiah, the Christ. God in the flesh, the Transcendent One in human form, dwelling among us full of grace and truth. The disciples – those closest to him – resisted this. Those with a front row seat to his life were almost completely blind to it. It took several shell-cracking experiences to break through their resistance. Transfiguration was one of those. What they witnessed on the mountaintop left them speechless and filled with awe. “They kept silence and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen.” When the cloud, a symbol for the Presence of God, came over them, they heard a heavenly voice, “This is my Beloved, Listen to Him!” The cloud lifted and they were left alone with Jesus. The point is unmistakable: Jesus is the new focus of faith. We are to listen to his words most of all, his message of love and justice first and foremost. He is the lens through which we are to interpret and understand life’s events. He is our guide for living. This was such a powerful experience that Peter tried to capture it, build shelters for Moses and Elijah and Jesus, stay on the mountain, never leave this moment of revelation and stunning beauty. But we can’t stay there. Bolton Anthony reminded me that when Franciscan priest Richard Rohr climbed Mt. Tabor recently, he noticed signs that said, “No Camping!” Exactly. The Light sends us down the mountain, back out into the world to serve.
Peter didn’t talk about building a booth for himself; and for James and John, but you know he wanted to. Because it was on the mountaintop, in that dazzling Light, that he caught not only a glimpse of Jesus’ true nature as the Son of God, but also a glimpse of his own true nature as a child of Light. Transfiguration reminds us of something this bustling, careening world rarely, if ever, thinks to tell us: that we ourselves, you and I, are children of Light. This is our most basic identity. Born from Light, Born into Light, Sustained by Light, Redeemed by Light, Gifted to a Broken World as Bearers of Light, finally Dying into Light. However much the Light is obscured, Light is our most basic essence. Light at our beginning, Light at our ending, Light all along the way. Glimpsing their true nature there on the mountaintop, they must have wanted to stay there. But they had to go back down the mountain and return to their ordinary lives. This is one of the great challenges of the spiritual life. A friend of mine put it this way: “The Spirit takes me to places I could never have imagined, and then returns me to the ordinary with a sustaining remembrance.” II Peter captures how vivid this spiritual experience was, and how it had stayed with them: “We were not following cleverly devised myths… we were eyewitnesses to his majesty. We ourselves heard a voice from heaven… while we were with him on the holy mountain, we heard the Voice: ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him!’” They told their fellow Christians: “This is a lamp lighting a way through the dark. You do well to pay attention to it until the dawn comes and the morning start rises in your hearts.” Those words were written 75 years after the mountaintop experience. The view from the mountain had stayed with them and sustained them throughout their lives. This story is about Jesus’ transfiguration, but it’s about our transfiguration, too. Growing up in Austin, Texas, one of my vivid memories was leaving the blistering heat of Texas and heading for the cool, refreshing mountains of Colorado and New Mexico. Every summer, we’d make the pilgrimage. Except for the Mojave and parts of Arizona, there’s no heat in America quite like Texas heat – shimmering off the highway, lawns baked brown by the sun. Every summer, like a whole family of Moses, we’d answer the call, “Come up to me on the mountains.” Our hearts always beat a little faster when we’d first see that jagged purple line on the horizon. It meant we were leaving the ordinary terrain of our lives and opening ourselves to extraordinary experiences. Mountains have always exerted a mysterious attraction for the human psyche. Mt. Sinai, Mt. Olympus in Greece, Mt. Fuji in Japan, Mt. Everest, Kilimanjaro, Denali, Mt. Ranier is “Tahoma” which means “the mountain that was God.” Thoreau wrote with joy about Mt. Katahdin in Maine. But Thoreau said the grandest mountain he’d ever climbed was the one just east of Concord. Now, travelers to Walden Pond know that no peak lies on the low, flat terrain just east of Concord. This unnamed mountain was the one Thoreau climbed in his dreams. Over twenty times in a recurring dream, he
made the same ascent – through the thick, dark woods at the foot of the mountain to the grand and awful summit, revealing every detail of Concord far below. This was the mountain of his life, the mountain of his undiscovered self, the terra incognito, the unknown land within. Thoreau’s dream mountain reminds us all of our task to climb the mountain of our lives – to discover the Presence of God in our daily comings and goings and to learn how to consciously carry this sustaining gift with us. The landscape of the sacred is not some distant, exotic place. It is wherever we are. In one of Robert Frost’s poems, he is speaking to himself about his beloved New Hampshire and the verdant hills and streams surrounding his home: “These are your waters, and this is your watering place… drink and be whole beyond all confusion.” The challenge is to receive, create, and sustain meaning in the here and now, which are the only coordinates in which it can ever be done. This was a hard lesson for us returning to the stifling, spirit-sapping Texas heat after weeks in the cool mountains… how can we take the mountain with us? It was tempting to believe that we needed a geographical fix, as though we were more human, more alive, closer to God, somewhere else. How could we live fully where we were living? It comes down to learning how to keep climbing the mountain of our lives, sustained by all the transfiguring experiences that have shaped us and brought us to this moment, and being open to all the new transfigurations the Spirit of God has in store for us now and in the future. I learned you can’t stay on the mountain, but you can take the mountain with you… you can take with you the ever-present possibility of transfiguration. As we begin our Lenten journeys, let us take the mountain with us. If it is your practice to give something up during Lent, do that. It will deepen your capacity for sacrifice, and there is no deep and beautiful faith without sacrifice, no powerful witness to Christ’s love and justice without sacrifice. If it is your practice to take something on during Lent, do that. It will train you in self-giving and in leaning on God to help you with your new load. There is no beloved community without deep self-giving and loadbearers who know how to lean on the Everlasting Arms. If it is your practice to repent during Lent, and it should be all of us who have this practice, to turn away from all the inward and outward attitudes and habits and tendencies that hide the Light within us and to turn toward the glory of God which is a human being fully alive, a society justly ordered. Giving something up, taking something on, repenting, – let us take the mountain with us. Transfiguration is too deep a story to ignore. It reveals the true nature of Jesus -fully human, fully divine, – and it reveals our true nature as well – children of Light. So then, let us walk in the Light with Jesus as the focus of our faith, his words the ones we
listen to most of all, his message of love and justice first and foremost in our lives, Jesus Christ our guide for living. “We heard the voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. And we have the prophetic word made more sure. You will do well to pay attention to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.” J. Mark Davidson February 7, 2016
