Mountain-top Moments - Redeemer Episcopal Church

The Transfiguration

Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”—not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.

 

You can hear this sermon at this link, or read it below. 

God of transformation, God of transfiguration— be with us as we encounter you in the eucharist, in the face of our neighbors, in all of creation. Transform us into what we consume, the body of Christ. Amen. 

I have preached about the transfiguration of Jesus a couple of times now in my short tenure as a priest. It is often the last Sunday a rector might have for vacation before the chaos of Lent, so I have filled in quite often. And in each sermon, I have talked about the importance of these mountain-top moments that the disciples are experiencing in this story. 

Mountain-top moments are these moments where we encounter God— where God seems so close we can almost reach out and touch the divine. Or moments when God has so clearly given us instructions in a booming voice, helping us understand something profound, with the intimate knowledge that our lives will never be the same. 

These are the experiences of Moses, Peter, John, and James. These are the times these men can point back to in their lives and say, “there— that is when everything changed.” And of course, they would be talking about a literal mountain-top, when God quite literally spoke to them. 

For Moses, it was a time of conflict and need for God’s people. He found himself upon a mountain, encountering God, and bringing back for his people the laws that would define an entire culture of people for thousands of years to come. 

For Peter, James, and John— this mountaintop experience would mean that they could no longer deny what Jesus had been hinting at for a long time now— he was the son of God. He was the promised messiah. Everything changes when God’s people encounter the divine on the mountaintop. 

But the more I thought about these mountain-top moments this week, the more I thought about how… privileged they are. How.. rare. I had a friend who told me that God had spoken to her in a dream. And I thought about how lucky she must be that God chose her to speak to directly. Especially when I had been praying for answers from God for… well, my entire life. 

When people ask about God’s call in my life, when my students ask me when I have experienced God or how I know that God is real… I list off what sound more like a series of strange coincidences throughout my life instead of one big moment when I heard God’s booming voice telling me to become a priest. 

What about you? What does your experience of God look like? A booming voice or a special dream? Have you seen God face to face? Or can you trace God’s work in your life more like a ribbon being pulled along, quiet but sure? Or maybe you haven’t felt that tug of the divine in your life yet… 

I think many people’s experience of God are like that. Perhaps we shouldn’t be measuring ourselves in terms of whether we have or haven’t had a face to face encounter with God. After all, until this moment up on the mountain that we read about this morning, Peter, James and John had also never seen God quite so clearly or heard God’s voice quake from on high. 

But they HAD seen glimpses. 

They had been following Jesus around for quite some time, witnessing his healing, hearing his teaching, and beginning to understand who he was. They had seen him do miracles from the very beginning of him ministry, and they saw what happened when his teaching didn’t align with the powerful folks around them. All this time, they had been glimpses of the glory of God in Jesus. 

And then, up on this mountain, they saw the full glory of Jesus being transfigured and heard God claim Jesus as beloved son. But none of this was because James, John, and Peter were somehow better than any of the other disciples. It wasn’t because they had done something special or because they were more worthy. In fact, right after Peter sees Jesus transfigured, he fumbles around— insisting ridiculously that they should make shelters for the three men that he sees on the mountain. No, these three disciples are not more special or worthy than anyone else. They were fishermen and sailors and tax collectors, and other regular people that Jesus called to be his disciples. 

Seeing God face to face is not determined by who we are. Seeing God face to face is about who God is. God in all of God’s glory was so full of a never-ending love that God couldn’t help but come to earth and walk among us. So that we might see a glimpse of God. So that we might experience the healing and teaching and richness that is God in Christ Jesus. A glimpse of the glory that they witnessed on the mountain top. 

In the same way, Jesus’ never-ending love led him to the cross— not because of who we are nor because of our own worthiness, but because of who God is. Next week will begin that journey in the church year— Lent, when we come to understand exactly who our God is in Jesus— exactly how far God will go to be with us and love us. 

In a couple of minutes, we will come to this table to feast upon this holy meal, a meal in which Christ Jesus is present and enduring. A table that Jesus has set before all of us. And we will consume the body and blood of our Lord, understanding that in this act we are more than just God’s children, but bearers of God’s image. We are transformed into the body of Christ in the act of receiving it. All of us. And we recognize the divine in everyone we meet. Not because of who we are and our own worthiness, but because of who God is— the one who comes in glory to be here among us in Jesus, and here within us in this meal. 

And just as the disciples were able to see glimpses of God in Jesus as they traveled with him and followed him, we too are able to see glimpses of God when we turn to our neighbors and see the image of God in each other. 

This is what the glory of God in the transfiguration means for us today. That our worthiness or even our own understanding does not determine when God will reveal Godself. Because God already has— in mountain-top moments like the transfiguration, on Golgotha, and in the valleys and plains like in the healing stories, in the teaching and in the conversations with friend and neighbor. 

If we only experience God in the person of Jesus Christ, if we only see God face to face when we turn to our neighbors, if we only hear whispers and nudges, it is enough to transform us. It is enough to transfigure us if we allow it to. Those are our mountain-top moments. That is how encounter the divine. If we pay attention. If we recognize it. If we understand that it’s not about who we are, but about who God is, and who Jesus is— and we hear God’s command and we listen to him. Amen. 

Gospel Imagination - Redeemer Episcopal Church

He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. 19 And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

Then he looked up at his disciples and said:

“Blessed are you who are poor,
    for yours is the kingdom of God.

“Blessed are you who are hungry now,
    for you will be filled.
“Blessed are you who weep now,
    for you will laugh.

“Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.

“But woe to you who are rich,
    for you have received your consolation.

“Woe to you who are full now,
    for you will be hungry.
“Woe to you who are laughing now,
    for you will mourn and weep.

“Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

Read the sermon below or listen to it here. 

Let us pray. God of impossible things, be with us in this place as we imagine something new, as we imagine something better. As we imagine your kingdom. Amen.

An exercise or spiritual practice I like to do with my college students and on retreats is to encourage Gospel imagination. 

It is a pretty broad spiritual practice and can be used in many different ways, but the main idea is that we suspend what we know about the world today and we imagine a different way. We imagine what the world might look like according to the Gospel, when the Kingdom of God is fully present. 

It’s not always an easy spiritual practice. Oftentimes we are so bogged down in what is happening in the world, the suffering, the pain, the anger— that it is difficult to imagine a different way. But if we are able to sit in our imagination long enough, we might find reason to hope. 

That is a spiritual practice I am going to encourage in us this morning. Because this story is a difficult one to understand without gospel imagination.  

By the time Jesus comes down the mountain to the great group of people and begins teaching them, he has already had quite the adventure in Luke’s gospel. He has preached in his home, was run out of town; he had begun healing people and word got around that he might even be able to fix your business. Just last week we heard that he commanded some fishermen to put out their nets on the other side of their boat and they caught so many fish that their nets had started breaking. 

Apparently word was getting around about Jesus, because after he prayed on the mountaintop for some time, he comes down to the plain to be surrounded by people from all over the place— from Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. 

People had come to hear what he had to say— maybe he could teach them something important— and so that he might heal them of their diseases or cast out the unclean spirits that have been troubling them. And he did. It says that all in the crowd were trying to touch him, and instead of hiring a couple of bodyguards to keep people from pressing in on him, he allowed the power to come out from him and he healed all of them. 

That feels important. Jesus didn’t select a couple of people to be examples of healing like it seems he does in other stories. No, this time he heals everyone. Everyone in the crowd had something that needed healing and Jesus healed all of them. 

And then he began to teach. 

Most of us have heard the beatitudes enough that they don’t feel as shocking anymore. And perhaps where we heard and understood ourselves within these beatitudes is different today than it would have been last week or last year or ten years ago. Perhaps we are feeling more like the rich these days. Or maybe because of a recent diagnosis, we join the crowd pressing in on Jesus, asking for healing, weeping and waiting for laughter. 

Or perhaps we have always kind of felt situated in the “woe” category. After all, most of us were able to have breakfast this morning, we have probably laughed sometime this week, and by most measurements compares to the rest of the world— we would be called rich. So maybe hearing Jesus’ teaching gives us a tinge of guilt, like some of his other teachings always seem to. 

Or maybe we ignore this passage— we put it in the same file with all of the other stuff Jesus says about rich and poor and hungry and full people. You know, all that good Christian advice that no one we know personally has ever followed. 

A dear pastor Barbara Brown Taylor points out, though, that none of this is advice. When Jesus is giving commands, it is pretty hard to mistake it for anything else. “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you”— that is advice. Those are commands. 

That is not what Jesus is saying here. There is no advice, there are no commands in Jesus’ teaching here. 

What Jesus is doing as he stands on the flat ground among all of these people he has just healed, is using his gospel imagination. He stands among healed and whole people and proclaims that the Kingdom of God will be different than what they have experienced in this world. 

The beatitudes don’t tell us what to do. They tell us who we are, and more importantly, they tell us who Jesus is. 

Jesus is the one who will bring about these reversals of expectation as the Kingdom of God breaks into all of creation. Can we imagine that? 

Jesus is the one who will finally bring all people to a level plain— where none will be too rich at the expense of those who are poor. Where none will be clothed at the expense of those who are naked. Where none will be in power at the expense of those imprisoned. Can we imagine that? 

Can we imagine a world in which we shut down our food pantry because there are no more hungry people? Where we stop our grief-share programs because there is no more sorrow? A world where Rethreaded has to change their mission because human trafficking is a thing of the past? Can we imagine a world where there is no more wage gap? No more food deserts? No more homelessness? 

Perhaps all of this feels impossible to imagine. Maybe our gospel imagination can’t stretch that far just yet.

But Paul reminds us that we proclaim an impossible thing every single day. We worship a God who came to earth as a baby from a virgin mother, walked among us for 30 years and healed, fed, and clothed people from all over the land. We worship a God who was crucified by the authorities who couldn’t comprehend the amount of love he was bringing into the world. 

And after three days, he was raised from the dead. And if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead— an impossible thing— can we imagine more impossible things? If we truly believe that Christ has been raised from the dead and lives among us as the Holy Spirit in and around each one of us— can we believe more impossible things? Can we imagine a different way? Can our imagination then influence our actions as we participate in and hope for the Kingdom of God? 

Amen. 

Boy Jesus in the Temple - Redeemer Episcopal Church

 Luke 2:41-52

The Boy Jesus in the Temple

Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. 

When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he said to them. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart.

And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.

You can read my sermon below, or listen to it at this link. 

Let us pray. God of grace and wisdom, help us to search for you in all of the unexpected places of our hearts and your creation. Amen. 

I remember seeing for the first time what looked like a leash on a child. I think I was in high school, walking in a crowded shopping mall during the holiday season. I kind of scoffed and was amazed that a parent couldn’t keep a good enough eye on their child that they would need a leash. 

And then I had a child. And my child started walking. And running. And realized that it only takes about a half a second of not paying close attention before a child can just disappear. And then I totally understood those child leashes. 

We moved across town right before Christmas and our new neighborhood is full of wonderful children who are all what you might call “free range children.” They go out to play in the morning and wander home when they get hungry or the sun goes down. As our kids get older, I hope I will have enough confidence to let them wander and play as they wish. But until then, I go to bed every night thinking “maybe I should buy one of those tracking watches… just in case…” 

We hear in the story this morning every parent’s nightmare. A lost child. Not only that, but a lost child in the midst of a road trip. Among strangers in a big city. It takes them three days to find Jesus. Three days of searching the caravans and the city, frantic with worry. And finally they find him. He’s not looking for them or trying to catch up with their group of travelers. He’s not remorseful about dawdling behind. He’s causally sitting in the temple, listening to the teachers and asking questions. He doesn’t seem to have a care in the world. 

I cannot even imagine what Mary was feeling. I think I probably would have exploded with rage. At twelve years old, he should know better than to wander off like that. Perhaps I would have even tied a rope around his waist so he didn’t wander off as we left Jerusalem again. 

But it does beg the question why it took so long to find him. In the era of communal living, when folks sort of all lived and traveled together all the time, why did it take three days for them to finally find Jesus? Did they not know him well enough to know that he would be in the temple listening and teaching? Had they ignored that he was theologically inclined and was constantly talking about God? I’d like to think that if my child went missing, I would know where to find him— probably in a pile of snacks in the kitchen or perhaps along San Jose Boulevard on his way to grandma’s house. 

But when Mary finds him, she says “why have you treated us like this?” 

Jesus replies with a sort snide comment to his mother— didn’t you know that I would be here? Why are you surprised that I would be in my father’s house? 

Why was she searching in the wrong places? Didn’t she remember what she had pondered in her heart all those years ago after his miraculous birth? 

Twelve years is a long time. I doubt she would have forgotten what the angels had told her about Jesus long ago, but perhaps things had been so normal for so long that it was pushed to the back of her mind. Maybe she was in denial of Jesus growing up and beginning to live into who he was supposed to be? Or maybe, like we often do when we are too close to a subject, she had failed to see the growth in her own son. 

We, too, must come to grips with the reality that Jesus is growing up and growing beyond our own expectations of what he might be. As we move from the big celebrations of Advent and Christmas, perhaps we are in the same place as Mary and Joseph— unable or unwilling to see how much Jesus has grown, unable to see his true identity. 

It’s difficult when Christmas has been so commercialized and watered down for so long. Much of the world sees Christmas as simply the birth of a special baby. And perhaps our sight has been clouded by that same commercialization— we have been too close to it for too long to really understand what Christmas, the birth of this king, means for the world. 

If we stop with the birth story and go no further, we miss the significance of Jesus’ presence in the world. Similarly, if we skip straight from Christmas to Easter, as we are so often tempted to do, we will miss what God can teach us through the incarnation as not only a man teaching and prophesying throughout the countryside, but as a boy in the temple, curious and asking questions of his elders. 

Perhaps it would be easier for Mary and Joseph if Jesus were a simple child. If he were not the son of God and just a regular 12 year old boy getting into regular 12 year old mischief. Maybe they would feel less like they have their hands full. But the reality is that Jesus is destined for something much more, something much larger and more significant than simply being the son of Mary and Joseph. Indeed, the tension is palpable when Jesus denies his fatherhood in Joseph and claims for the first time to be the son of God. He knows that there is more to his identity than his mother is giving him credit for.  

We see in this story that somewhere around this time, Jesus’ priorities have changed. He is no longer a child and not yet ready for his public ministry. But he has set his face toward the will of God and Jerusalem, preparing for the teaching that will eventually lead him to death on the cross outside of that very town. 

As Jesus grows “in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor,” we must, like Mary, level our own expectations. Despite the pictures and nativities, despite the serene movie depictions and the quiet hymns, Jesus is more than just a babe in a manger. Indeed, he is even more than a young boy asking questions in the temple. Jesus is God himself who came into the world to be with us in all of our searching. Jesus is the one who begins and continues the salvation of this world. 

And the good news is that as Jesus grows in wisdom and in years, we are gifted with the wisdom of his public teaching. And as we move through our own growth and discipleship in our Father’s house, we also grow in divine and human favor. And, like Jesus, our purpose as children of God is so much more than we could have ever expected or imagined. Amen.