Up a High Mountain-2-19-12

The Reading: 2 Peter 1:16-21
We weren't, you know, just wishing on a star when we laid the facts out before you regarding the powerful return of our Lord, Jesus Christ. We were there for the preview! We saw it with our own eyes: Jesus resplendent with light from God the [Creator] as the voice of Majestic Glory spoke: "This is my Son, marked by my love, focus of all my delight." We were there on the holy mountain with him. We heard the voice out of heaven with our very own ears.
We couldn't be more sure of what we saw and heard—God's glory, God's voice. The prophetic Word was confirmed to us. You'll do well to keep focusing on it. It's the one light you have in a dark time as you wait for daybreak and the rising of the Morning Star in your hearts. The main thing to keep in mind here is that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of private opinion. And why? Because it's not something concocted in the human heart. Prophecy resulted when the Holy Spirit prompted men and women to speak God's Word.

THE GOSPEL: Mark 9:2-9
Six days later, three of them did see it. Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain. His appearance changed from the inside out, right before their eyes. His clothes shimmered, glistening white, whiter than any bleach could make them. Elijah, along with Moses, came into view, in deep conversation with Jesus. Peter interrupted, "Rabbi, this is a great moment! Let's build three memorials— one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah." He blurted this out without thinking, stunned as they all were by what they were seeing.
Just then a light-radiant cloud enveloped them, and from deep in the cloud, a voice: "This is my Son, marked by my love. Listen to him." The next minute the disciples were looking around, rubbing their eyes, seeing nothing but Jesus, only Jesus. Coming down the mountain, Jesus swore them to secrecy. "Don't tell a soul what you saw. After the Son of Man rises from the dead, you're free to talk." They puzzled over that, wondering what on earth "rising from the dead" meant.

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Up a High Mountain—2-19-12
God, you call us to live in the valleys and the mountains. Teach us what we have to learn from the mountains and call us to remember your ways in the valleys. May the words I speak and the meditations of all our hearts be pleasing unto you. Amen

This is Transfiguration Sunday or as some of you may have called it in the past—the Feast or Festival of the Transfiguration of the Lord. Some, maybe many of you, may know nothing of this transfiguration story and as one of my dearest friends in Orlando—who just happens to be an incredibly talented performer says in his best drag voice—“Honey, it’s the Sunday of the great heavenly costume change”.
So what is this story all about? And what makes this story important for us today. Transfigure is not a word we use much. In its simplest sense, it means “to change, to transform, to alter—in outward, visible form. Most dictionaries agree that this change is usually for the good. People are transformed, of course, like when the Beast is transformed by the Beauty Belle’s love and kiss into the prince he truly is. But this is no ordinary transfiguration that we witness today.
In this story, the transfiguration of Jesus is at once complicated and simple. Unfortunately, those of us who prefer “simple” really do need to traverse the complicated part in order to understand the significance of this story in our lives. We, throughout the winter weeks, have been studying what it means to “walk in the spirit”. This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday and is the beginning of the Season of the church called “Lent”. We enter the long weeks of preparation for our remembrance of Jesus’ agony and death and then our celebration of his resurrection on Easter Sunday morning. This story is the perfect bridge from our winter studies into our Lenten reflections.
We’re not sure why Jesus chose Peter, James, and John. Most scholars agree that these three achieved some leadership status among the larger group of disciples and that Jesus may have been giving them some extra privilege at this point or it may be as simple as Jesus took his best friends with him. Whatever the case, this brief story comes immediately after a particularly difficult passage. Jesus has been talking with his disciples and a crowd of people about the conditions of discipleship. In the preceding passages, he is talking of suffering and the great cost of following him. He ends this passage by predicting that some standing with him on that day will not die until they see the Kingdom of God come in power. We have no way of knowing to what Jesus is referring, though some translations see great significance in the fact that the transfiguration of Jesus comes immediately after this prediction.
Having looked at the setting and time frame of the event, let’s look at what actually happened. Jesus, taking his friends, goes up high on a mountain so that they can be completely alone. While they are there, Jesus is transfigured in front of them. His clothes become dazzling white, whiter than white—so white that they actually shimmered. All of a sudden, two great figures from the Old Testament—Moses and Elijah, are seen talking with Jesus. They are deep in conversation—the kind of conversation that you can tell is important just by watching—you don’t have to hear a word. Peter, however, is impulsive as he almost always is—and he shouts, “Rabbi, teacher, this is so awesome—let’s stop right now and build three dwellings to commemorate this moment—we’ll build one for you, one for Elijah and one for Moses”. At almost the same moment, a great cloud of light came over the whole scene and enveloped them all. God’s voice—from deep inside the cloud—rings out: “This is my Son, marked by my love. Listen to Him!” And, in the very next minute, the whole thing was over, the cloud lifted and the only one they saw was Jesus who told them in no uncertain terms to keep what they saw and heard to themselves until after he has risen from the dead. These scared and disoriented disciples were so confused, they didn’t even know what he meant.
The only other time we hear God make this proclamation is at the baptism of Jesus. But because it is unlikely that these disciples were present at the baptism of Jesus, this is new for them. It must have been un-nerving and more than a little frightening for them—but it must have also served as a divine confirmation that Jesus was who he said he was. However, we are left with more questions than answers regarding this dramatic occurrence so powerful in the telling, yet somewhat confusing in the hearing. Mere drama? Perhaps, or is there something to bring to our journeys this very day?
First, look at the selection of the characters—Jesus, obviously, was there as well as Peter, James and John. Then, we have the appearance of Moses and Elijah. Moses, representing the law and the great history of the Hebrew people and Elijah, the great Old Testament prophet, speaking to Jesus perhaps of prophesy fulfilled and prophesy still left to be revealed. I believe that the appearance of these two men are far more than symbolic—Jesus, as he begins to reveal his truest identity to his disciples is visited by two men—perhaps the only two men—who could serve as mentors or teachers to this, the Son of God. Is it not comforting to contemplate that Jesus, so alone in his journey, was given the great gift from God of the visitation and perhaps advice and support of these two historically important men?
And then, God’s voice is heard using the same words as those used when Jesus was baptized by John. Just as we ready ourselves for Lent, God reminds us of exactly who Jesus is—my son, marked by my love. Lest we forget where the journey leads and who leads us at every turn, God appears and reminds us of who is in control. “Listen to my son, I love him and he is set apart by my love.” And we, turn and look, just as Peter, James, and John to catch a glimpse of glory before it is gone as quickly as it came.
This story, which demonstrates the identity of Jesus so dramatically ends the season that began with Christmas and moved us through the many weeks of Epiphany. We studied the spiritual walk during those weeks and came to a deeper understanding of ourselves as a people of God walking together as the Body of Christ. What were the moments for you which filled you with some spiritual insight or lead you to some deeper commitment? Did you, like Peter, miss some of what we were wrestling with in our journey together? Once again, in story after story, and passage after passage, we see that God calls and calls and calls until we may finally understand. Peter, so impulsive and limited in his understanding of the nature of the glory in front of him was nevertheless present as God’s voice permeated the cloud of light. Peter, James, and John, like the other disciples never seemed to get it, and yet, Jesus shared his most precious moments with them anyway. Do we need any clearer proof than this that God claims us as divine children whether we are leaders such as Moses, prophets such as Elijah, or plain, common, not-so-astute folk like impetuous Peter?
Our call here in the midst of a somewhat complicated story is actually quite simple—“listen to the one who is marked by the love of the Creator God”. Do not be distracted as Peter was, wanting to stop and mark the event—pay attention to the glory right before you—be on the lookout for the glory of God in the beauty of a sunset or sunrise, or in a tree suddenly ablaze in reds and oranges from the reflection of the sun. Be on the lookout for God’s voice—and, just as important, be ready to listen. Prepare your hearts for the revelation of the glory of the Lord.
Lent is a strange time—some see it as a time of deprivation—a time to “give something up”. But God calls us to take something on during this time—a willingness to stand ready to hear and to listen and to follow. We give up our hallelujahs so that we can listen for deeper truths, center ourselves and long for holy ground. We hear the last hallelujahs in the choir’s anthem today and we put aside the ‘easy truth’ of celebration for the hard truth of learning to live as mature children of God. Here, just before Lent, in a completely unexpected place in the story of Jesus, we suddenly are led to the mountain. And, we are challenged as Peter was challenged, to stay with the glory, to see it through to the end. And, we are challenged as Peter was challenged to see beyond the moment, to resist the limiting of God to the here and now. And we are challenged, as Peter was challenged, to stay focused on God, this God of living cloud and living voice who speaks to us of vision and glory, of power and love. And we are challenged….Amen and amen.

A Winter Walk-Rest Unto Our Souls--2-12-12

The Reading: Genesis 2:1-3

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended the divine work which God had made; and God rested on the seventh day from all the work which God had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it God had rested from all the work which God created and made.

The Gospel Lesson: Matthew 11: 28-30

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

A WINTER WALK--REST UNTO OUR SOULS2-12-52
God, we sometimes hear your Word and don’t know what to do with it. Today may be one of those times, let us listen closely to what You are saying behind the words, to what You are saying to our spirits. May the listening and the speaking bring You honor and glory. In Jesus’ Name, Amen

I think we are in for a special journey today as we look at these two scripture passages as we end our study on the Spiritual Walk. Jesus promises “rest unto our souls”—whatever does that mean? We will return to the specific Gospel lesson in a moment. Before that, I want to look briefly at why it seems so difficult for us to seek, much less, find, such rest, even though we talk about it quite a bit.
Why are we unable to trust in the divine invitation to rest? Our answer leads us to four truths. Here is the first truth—we take ourselves too seriously. God, must laugh compassionately sometimes at the lengths to which we will go only to prove to ourselves and to others just how important and indispensible we are.
There’s a story I love. You gotta go “back in the day” to understand this—remember when they let the “mature” kids be crossing guards at the schools? Well, it seems that Edward, who lived just two blocks from the school, was late from school. His mother was getting a little worried. In Edward comes, sputtering and muttering and his mother asked, “Why are you late? I was getting worried.” “Oh, Mom, they let Jeremy be the crossing guard today and he made us all wait 10 minutes until a car came along, so he could stop it.” Mmmm, there’s a little of Jeremy in all of us. So perhaps we take ourselves so seriously that we come to believe that our jobs, or those things which define our very selves, are too important to take a few moments away to commune with God.

The second truth is that we don’t take God seriously enough.
The reading today is from Genesis 2, the first three verses. Listen again in RC’s version, The heavens and earth were done—all of them. On Day 7, God ended the divine work. And God rested on the seventh day. God blessed the seventh day and even sanctified it for the purpose of rest. This is what God did about rest—later, in the Ten Commandments, God will command us to rest, but here God finishes the creation and creates a space and a time, blesses it, yea, sanctifies it for nothing more than rest.
Regardless of how we describe creation, there comes a time after the chaos subsides, and the world is filled with wonder, God rested. Declaring the day sanctified, a word rich in meaning such as 1. To set apart for sacred use; consecrate. 2. To make holy; purify. 3. To make productive of holiness or spiritual blessing. There are other meanings, but they all suggest the same—the setting aside of a time or place, the making holy of such a time or place. Those of us whose tradition talk a lot about “sanctification” may think we know all there is to know—I think we don’t. I think that in our earnest attempts to live holy and pure lives, we may have missed one of the most ‘sanctified’ aspects of live itself—rest unto our souls.
The third truth that we fail to admit is that we, most of us, are afraid to slow down for fear our lives will overtake us. There is a familiar scene from Indiana Jones and the Tale of something or another, where he steals some powerful statue and runs into numerous problems getting away. You can tell I’m not a big fan of Indiana Jones. However, this familiar scene is a great metaphor for our lives as pretty soon a giant boulder is rolling after Indiana down the tunnel and is gaining on him with every roll. You may be familiar with the quite frightening scene. I sometimes picture my life and the activities I schedule myself for in it in a similar fashion—don’t stop, don’t turn around, and whatever you do, don’t acknowledge the boulder. Sometime, several years ago, I had back stage passes to what was then MGM studios. That used to happen a lot for those of us who knew people in “high places” at Disney. Anyway, I was touring the Indiana Jones Adventure and I saw the big boulder. I asked for a demonstration of how they did it. I was allowed to stay on the attraction and as the boulder threatened to take over the “Indiana for the day”, the floor opened up (unbeknownst to the audience) just as the boulder appeared to crush him and he landed 4 feet below on a cloud of memory foam and was able to walk up the secret pathway to where he would suddenly miraculously appear. Ever since then I have thought a similar escape hatch would be the coolest thing ever. Wouldn’t it be amazing if just as the boulder of life threatens to overtake us, the floor drops out and lands us in a pile of foam, safe again.
We come to our fourth truth—we miss the fulness of Jesus’ call to each of us in Matthew. Why is this?—see Truths 1-3. In reality, I believe that we may confuse Jesus’ call to find rest, here in Matthew, with Psalm 23. Will you think with me now about Jesus’ specific call? “Come to me, all of you who are tired and don’t know where to turn. I am the source of the rest you are seeking. Walk beside me, be yoked to me as an equal—this way you can learn from me. You will learn what it feels like to be meek and lowly of heart and as you do, beautiful rest will begin to flood your souls. Walking beside me, yoked to me is the easiest thing in the world. You’ll be amazed at how light your burden will become.”
Sometimes it’s hard for us to hear these words of Jesus as comforting—we look at oxen, yoked together, straining together, sometimes in harmony, sometimes not. But Jesus is calling us to be in perfect union with him. He wants us to walk beside him as he walks beside us—is this not the perfect description of the spiritual walk. Today, in our last sermon of this series, we end our many week discussion with a glimpse of what we almost all crave—pure, free, graceful, rest. I think I had always envisioned spiritual rest as a kind of hammock made of angels’ wings, where I could swing back and forth in the breeze of the Holy Spirit. Nothing to do but just sigh deeply and breathe in the wholeness of God’s unmerited grace. This is not what Jesus says—no “come over here and lie down and take a little rest and everything will seem better in the morning”. Jesus said, come, place yourself so closely beside me that we are yoked—that everywhere I go you go—in all my compassion work, you are there. In all my caring for the poor, you are beside me, in all my tears for the world, you are there. In all my outrages against injustice, you are there. Suddenly, this doesn’t sound so restful at all. But, this is what Jesus says.
And so I dig deeper to understand. Many of you know that in New York, I did a little showing of dogs, enough at least that I learned the lingo. There is one competition that I didn’t get into to, but I loved to watch and this was showing dogs in a brace. This is where two dogs are shown together on one show lead. The dogs are in no way ‘forced’, and the point of the competition is to get these two dogs to go through the steps of being shown together. Now, even two dogs who love each other with throw a fit or two about being leashed together, so it does require training. But what it mostly requires, is the perfect matching of the two dogs before you ever even try to get them to walk together. There are some obvious rules, you don’t show a big dog with a little—dogs must be nearly carbon copies of each other to be winners. And you don’t usually show a hyper dog with a lazy one unless you, yourself, are a glutton for punishment. Bloodlines are compared, physical traits, character traits—all go into the choosing.
If we assume that Jesus takes as much time, choosing to whom He will be yoked, we can assume that He really, really wants us. “Come to me”, He says. Come, walk beside me, be yoked to me”. Our invitation, then, is that, when we tarry from the busy-ness in our lives long enough to hear Jesus softly call, we learn that the whole of our spiritual walk is described in the words of this invitation. And as the hardened spaces of protection in our heart begin to slip away, we walk closer and closer to Jesus, our feet in perfect harmony, beside the feet of Jesus, not behind, not in front, beside, doing the work of our Lord, finding rest unto our souls. Amen and Amen.

A Winter Walk --A Very Simple Prayer 2-5-12

The Reading: Philippians 1: 3-8

Every time you cross my mind, I break out in exclamations of thanks to God. Each exclamation is a trigger to prayer. I find myself praying for you with a glad heart. I am so pleased that you have continued on in this with us, believing and proclaiming God's Message, from the day you heard it right up to the present. There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears.
It's not at all fanciful for me to think this way about you. My prayers and hopes have deep roots in reality. You have, after all, stuck with me all the way from the time I was thrown in jail, put on trial, and came out of it in one piece. All along you have experienced with me the most generous help from God. [God] knows how much I love and miss you these days. Sometimes I think I feel as strongly about you as Christ does!

The Gospel Matthew 6: 5-15

"And when you come before God, don't turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat?
"Here's what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won't be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense [divine] grace.
"The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They're full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don't fall for that nonsense. This is your Creator you are dealing with, and God knows better than you what you need. With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply. Like this:
Our Creator in heaven, reveal who you are. Set the world right;
Do what's best— as above, so below. Keep us alive with three
square meals. Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.
Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil. You're in charge!
You can do anything you want! You're ablaze in beauty!
Yes. Yes. Yes.
"In prayer there is a connection between what God does and what you do. You can't get forgiveness from God, for instance, without also forgiving others. If you refuse to do your part, you cut yourself off from God's part.
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A Winter Walk-A Very Simple Prayer 2-5-12


When we first moved into our house, there was a rather large bush in the center of our yard. I took one look at it and knew there was a tree waiting to be born. Over the two-plus years we have lived there I have kept at it and now we have a quite attractive tree in the center of our yard. It occurred to me one morning this week, when I was out in the front yard with the dogs and the sun was rising, that God must see a lot of bushes when looking at us—knowing that we are really trees waiting to be uncovered. For me, the sunrise is always a symbol of God’s faithfulness so as I stood in the yard for a few minutes waiting for the dogs to do, well, what dogs do in the morning, looking at the bush-now-tree in my yard, I couldn’t help but reflect on the absolute faithfulness of God as the master pruner and creator of trees-from-bushes. It’s like Paul says, “There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears.”
Now we know that the early Christians, including Paul, expected Jesus to return in their own life-time. We’re not sure how that misunderstanding came about, and it doesn’t really matter; because it makes the scripture as alive for us today as it was for the early Christians. According to Paul, if you will allow me to continue my pruning metaphor, there has never been any doubt that the God who started pruning you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish in the shape of a wonderful, beautiful tree. What does all of this pruning have to do with prayer—for me, God works with me, prunes me, if you will, most when I am alone in prayer. My heart is most open, and my ears most attuned to God when I find the time that God expects, really demands of me, to spend alone in the presence of my Creator. Jesus, while on earth, did a lot of praying—always alone, many times in the desert, or garden, where He sought special alone-time with God. Strangely, there are not a lot of His teachings recorded about prayer, but the one that is, is enough for us. And so as we continue our Spiritual Walk, we turn to Jesus to hear what He has to say about prayer:
“When you come before God, do it simply. God does not think more of you if you make your prayers into a theatrical production.” This should be great consolation to all of you who tell me that you don’t know how to pray. There is no “how to” and the great pray-ers of the world are not heard any more than you in your talking to God. In fact, Jesus tells us to get away from other people to pray so that we are not tempted to pray in a manner that is insincere, more for the benefit of the listeners than for true communication with God. When we are alone, quietly praying to God, Jesus promises us that our focus will shift from us to God, and we will begin to sense divine grace. I want to challenge all of you to find just such a time to be alone with God, to allow God’s divinely graceful pruning shears to prune away some of what is holding you back in your spiritual walk. For you cannot do it for yourself. We spoke of that last week. It is God who perfects us and continually renews and revives us. Just a quick gardening question: Why do we prune trees or plants? That’s right so they will grow. When they are weighted down with branches they don’t need, with branches that suck the nutrition out of the tree, they cannot grow. Take off those useless branches and they will flourish and reach into the sky.
Sometimes the Bible records the words of Jesus in such a way as to make us think Jesus is walking on the earth today. This is one of those times: Jesus says, the world is full of people who call themselves, ‘prayer warriors’ but they do not engage in this simple kind of prayer Jesus calls us to. Some of you may have run into some of them along the way. Jesus says they have ‘formulas and programs and advice’ which somehow are supposed to get you what you want from God. “Don’t fall for that nonsense” says Jesus. Because God created you, God already knows what you need and because God loves you, you can pray a very simple prayer. I hope you will allow me to give you my translation of Jesus’ prayer:
God, who created the world and all that is in it,
Allow me to know your presence in nature and
in my sister and fellow travelers on this earth.
Make the world into what you intended it to be.
Keep the earth on which we live in tune with heavenly beauty and
peace.
Bless us with just enough to eat.
Forgive us in the same manner we forgive others.
Keep the forces of evil out of our lives.
I worship you in your glory and honor you in all I do.
You are God, now and forever. Amen.
It’s a very simple prayer. However you pray it, it pretty much covers it all. What is Jesus saying to us when we pray like this? “God, who created the world and all that is in it”—we come into God’s presence and first acknowledge that we know this to be the God who created all that we have and all that we are. We sometimes falter here, especially those of us who are made just a little different from what some of the world wants us to be. But this is what we say when we say, “Our Creator”—God created us, all of us, with our talents, with our shortcomings which teach us to trust, with our passions and our needs. God did this and so we pray, “Allow me to know Your presence in nature and in my sister and fellow travelers on this earth”. This is a powerful line in the prayer—if we truly know God’s presence in nature, we will treat this earth and work to get others to treat this earth far differently than most of us do. We will use whatever influence we have to encourage the responsible uses of resources. We will save some for our children and grandchildren and great, great, great grandchildren. And when we recognize our creator in each and everyone we meet along the way, we will treat those in our presence with just a little more honor and respect, for when we greet each other, we are greeting the presence of God in each other. I have great respect for nuns and monks of both the East and West who bow to each other every time they meet or pass each other in the hall. They are bowing to the presence of God in fellow monks and sister nuns. What a beautiful sign of respect for each other and for God.
“Make the world what you intended it to be.” You’ve got to know that what we’ve done with the world and the world’s resources brings great pain to God’s heart. What would happen if the major corporations thought about the pain they are bringing to God the next time they had a decision to make? It’s a sobering thought.
“Keep the world in which we live in tune with heavenly beauty and peace.” With one line of a prayer, all the men and women in the world, all of them—no matter what country, could return to their homes and gardens and children and jobs. “Bless us with just enough to eat”. It doesn’t take much information to know that if we all changed the way we eat, there would be plenty of food to go around. Perhaps, if all of us pray this prayer enough, we will live long enough to see all the children of the world full and not hungry. We can pray, folks, we can pray!
“Keep the forces of evil out of our lives.” As we grow spiritually, there will be those who try to limit our growth, who tell us that God is not present in our lives. And so we pray for protection and the courage to trust God through it all.
“I worship you in your glory and honor you in all I do.” What if we made this the focus of our lives—worshiping God in all we say and do—what if that was our first thought in the morning and our last thought at night--:Great God, Creator and Sustainer of us all”—I worship you in all that I do today, tomorrow, and into eternity. “You are God, now and forever.” A very simple prayer for very simple folk. As we pray and sing this prayer today, may it reach as high as the heavens and as deep as our hearts. Amen and amen.