“So, What Do We Do About It?”
Luke 9:28-43
Have you ever been in a group of people where someone told a joke and everyone laughed except you?
And you’re thinking: “I don’t get it. I missed the point.”
Or perhaps you are in a group of people where someone makes a point and everyone else nods in agreement—except you?
And you are left thinking: “I don’t have any idea what they are talking about.”
Today’s Gospel Lesson can be like that.
And not just for us, I think it was like that for Peter, James and John as well.
There can be no doubt that this is a mysterious story.
And just to prove the point, scholars and theologians have all kinds of differing opinions or guesses or interpretations as to why this situation occurred in the first place.
Why did Jesus go through some sort of a meta-morphosis as He prayed on that mountain?
Why did Elijah and Moses appear and start talking to Jesus about “His upcoming departure”?
If you are wondering these things, you are not alone.
Perhaps Jesus, preparing for His crucifixion, is getting a pep-talk from these two giants in the faith.
Maybe it happened in order for Peter, James and John to see that Jesus is, indeed, both human and divine…
…and to hear God Himself proclaim to them: “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.”
I mean, think about it.
There are going to be some really tough times ahead for these guys.
They are going to watch Jesus die.
Their faith is going to be tested in ways they never imagined possible.
They are going to see evil at its worst.
They are going to be scared to death.
They are going to scatter.
They are going to hide.
They are going to deny ever knowing this Jesus they have come to love and devote their lives too.
Things aren’t going to be all rosy.
There is a real world out there.
Times are about to get horribly tough.
But through following Christ, even though it will eventually cost them their lives, God will use them as instruments to change the course of history.
“So come to the Mountaintop,” says God.
“I’m going to show you something that is going to take your breath away.”
“I am going to give you a glimpse of the divine.”
“I am going to show you—first hand—Who Jesus is.”
Now, in order to get just a small taste of what a big deal this transfiguration thing is we have to try and put ourselves in Peter, James and John’s shoes.
Moses and Elijah were heroes of the Jewish faith.
They had grown up hearing about them all the time.
Think of it this way: “How would you react, or what would go through your head if your third-grade elementary school teacher took you to the top of a mountain where he or she was then joined by George Washington and Abraham Lincoln?
Or what if we all took a hike to the top of Lookout Mountain.
And all of a sudden, John the Baptist, Peter, Paul and Jesus started talking to our Sunday school teacher?
What would that do to your faith?
Would you be transfixed?
Would you be scared to death?
Would it be such an amazing experience that you would want to build a big church up there and never leave?
Would you really feel like coming back down the mountain to Red Bank, Downtown Chattanooga, or Ringgold after something like that?
Would you want to go back to the heartache, brokenness, misery, violence, poverty stricken, drug infested, ugly reality of much of our world after something like that?
Peter, James and John were on the Mountaintop with Jesus.
Nothing could hurt them up there.
The pain of the world was suddenly in the distant past.
All worries were forgotten for the moment.
“Peter said, “Master, it is good for us to be here.
Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”
Have you ever felt that way?
Have you ever wanted to just go to your comfortable place, build a shrine and never leave?
Have you ever wanted to just get away and stay away from the problems of this world—ignore them, perhaps.
Ever wanted to put your hands over your ears and drown out all the noise?
Or, have you ever had such a mountaintop experience with God that you thought nothing could ever bring you down again?
It’s an important experience to have, but it’s not where we are going to stay if we are going to follow Jesus—if we are going to listen to the voice of God saying: “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.”
Because when we listen to the voice of Jesus, we hear Him calling us to become involved in the muck, messiness and misery of our world.
We hear Him calling us to “preach good news to the poor, proclaim release to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to liberate the oppressed.”
We don’t hear Him telling us to build shrines and sit on our duffs while people go hungry, children turn to drugs, teenagers pick up guns to shoot one another or themselves, and adults neglect their duties as parents.
We aren’t supposed to stay inside our buildings and argue over the length of the candlesticks on the altar while the city burns around us.
But do we do this sometimes?
Do we sometimes build these fortresses for ourselves; these fortresses that cut us off from the outside world—from those who are suffering?
Do we get caught up in the small things while people go on living without Jesus, without hope, without love—without a witness?
I was having a conversation with someone on the outside of the Church earlier this week.
He said to me: “There are so many churches in Chattanooga and yet there are so many young people on the streets involved in gangs and violence.
There are so many homeless people.
There are so many hungry people.
There are so many hopeless people.
I don’t understand it.
Why do we have all these problems with so many churches?”
Jesus’ ministry was hands-on, and it remains hands-on today.
Jesus got involved in the craziness of people’s lives.
Jesus went to the synagogue every Sabbath, but He was with the prostitutes, the tax collectors, the criminals, the sick, the insane, the smelly, the dirty, the poor, the lepers, the outcastes, the ordinary everyday people the rest of the time.
Jesus chose to get involved in the lives of hurting people.
Jesus chose to get His hands dirty.
Have you?
Have I?
The Mountaintop is a great place to visit, but we are not supposed to live there.
After their mountaintop experience with Jesus, we are told that they “came down the mountain.”
And that’s where Jesus leads us, is it not?
And if we follow, Jesus brings us to the places where our faith matters.
He takes us to the places where our lives will make a difference.
He brings us to people who need us.
And that is because the glory of God’s Presence and the pain of a broken world cannot be separated.
Real faith cannot be separated from loving action.
As it says in 1st John 3:16-18: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.
And we ought to lay down our lives…
If anyone has material possessions and sees someone in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person.
Dear children, let’s not just love with words or tongue but with actions and truth.”
The word “transfiguration” means metamorphosis.
It means that a big change takes place.
And if we are following Jesus, if we are listening to Jesus we will not only see Jesus for Who Jesus truly is—the Son of God—but we will be transformed, changed, made new in the process.
Peter, James and John came down from the mountain, they found a father and a child gasping for life.
But Jesus rebuked the evil spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father.
And they found transfiguration happen within themselves—not so much on the mountaintop—but in the valley.
And so it is.
When we unlock the doors of our private shelters and step out into the neighborhood, we meet the distress of a community convulsed and mauled by the horrors of this world.
And we become transfigured as a congregation and as individuals when we reach out to those in need—when we rebuke the evil spirits of hunger, poverty, loneliness, isolation, darkness, and sin by offering food to the hungry, a drink to the thirsty, companionship for the lonely, clothes for those who need them, healing and love for the sick and the gift of our loving presence for those in prison.
In Mark’s telling of this same story, the father of the boy at the bottom of the mountain pleads with Jesus, “If you can do anything, help us!
Show us compassion!”
And isn’t this what the world is crying out to us—the Church—today and every day?
“If you can do anything, help us! Show us compassion!”
Jesus said to the man, “All things are possible for the one who beleives.”
“At that the boy’s father cried out, ‘I believe; help my unbelief.’”
And isn’t that what our community is crying out to us as well?
Prove to us that there is hope?
Show us compassion.
Show us love.
We want to believe.
And people come to believe when we put our faith into loving action, when we start a food pantry, deliver meals to those who are sick, reach out to those who are lost and sad, give without expecting to be repaid, love without expecting people to join our church as a result.
Christianity isn’t a spectator sport.
It isn’t something to stamp on a resume.
It is a life.
And as we live it, we are to be light in a dark world.
We are to be transfigured more and more into the image of Christ—through serving those in need…
…we are to proclaim Christ crucified and risen—by how we love.
