Transcript

Would you remain standing for the gospel? Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them and his clothes became dazzling white such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. He didn't know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them and from the cloud there came a voice, this is my son, the beloved, listen to him. Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them anymore but only Jesus. And as they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. This is the gospel of Christ. This text is well placed in the Christian year, our last gospel reading before Lent. The season of Epiphany beginning January 6th comes to a close. It is the season in which the church declares publicly to the world who Jesus of Nazareth really is. And this reading is one of the three anchor texts for that proclamation. The whisper of Bethlehem has now become the shout in Jerusalem. The coming of the Magi, that is to say the nation's worship Christ. The baptism of Jesus, this is my son, my beloved in whom I delight, said the voice from heaven. And now the transfiguration, this is my son, my chosen, listen to him. This text is well placed in the gospel story as well, as all the epiphany texts are. Just when the infant Jesus was coming under the threat of a wicked tyrant, the world came to worship him with gifts. In the second text, just as Jesus is joining the others who come to the Jordan to be baptized of John, seemingly no different from all of those confessing their sins and being baptized for forgiveness, still wet from his baptism, the voice from heaven says, this is who he really is. And now, following Jesus' first statement to his disciples about his approaching death, the voice from heaven says, but this is who he really is. The curtain lifted, the dazzling splendor of the transfiguration. But for all the timeliness of this text, it comes too soon for Peter, James, and John. They're not ready. They're afraid. They're full of thoughtless chatter. They make senseless statements. They are awkward. There are some commentators who criticize them a bit for not being prepared for this. After all, they had the antecedents in their own Hebrew scriptures. Exodus 14, Exodus 24, and Exodus 34, the six days of waiting. Moses going up into the mountain, the cloud, the voice, the shining face, the revelation, the making of a tent. Why weren't they ready? They had continuity with their own scriptures. They should have been ready, say, others by their own experiences. Look what they've already experienced with Jesus. Exorcisms, healings, walking on water, feeding multitudes, even the raising of a 12-year-old girl from the dead. Why aren't they ready? Well, they're not. They're terrified. Absolutely terrified. I'm sure if they had known what awaited them on the mountain, they would have done what Israel did. Moses, we'll wait here. You go on up. When you come back, tell us what you heard and what you saw. We'll be interested. Luke helps us a bit by softening the whole account. You remember Luke says to them, let's go up on the mountain to pray, and while Jesus was praying, he was transfigured. They were protected from the conversation among the three, Jesus, Elijah and Moses, by a deep sleep. The three of them were talking about Jesus approaching death in Jerusalem, and they were asleep. In other words, Luke tells it not so much like an Easter story as a Gethsemane story. But Jesus knows they're not ready, and he says to them, don't worry about it. In fact, don't say anything about this until after Easter. After all, someone running around telling a lot of dazzling, miracle stories who has never been to the cross can grossly misrepresent what Jesus is all about. And I'm glad Jesus understands that because it comes too soon for me too. You see, I'm up there because I'm the reader of the text. Some people never stop to think about what the Bible does to the reader. The reader is immediately present. And if you don't mind, if you won't tell anybody, I said it, I will confess to you, sometimes I resent the Bible just rushing me in when all I intended to read was a few verses of Bible, and you're there. You don't get a summary statement, and the disciples had an unusual experience with the dazzling Jesus when they were on the map. No, no, no, no, no. You're up there. You hear them talk. The Bible does it all the time. Did you know as, well, of course you do. As a reader of the Bible, you're on Mount Moriah when Abraham is offering Isaac. You don't just get a summary statement. Abraham was willing to offer his son, but God made a substitute sheep at the last minute. No, no. You are up there, the gathering of the sticks, the tying of the child. You even hear the father and son talk, Daddy. We don't have an animal for a sacrifice. You're up there. You see the glint of the morning sun on the blade of the knife. It happens all the time. You're at the party of Herodantus, his stepdaughter dances, and he makes a vow in wine, foolish vow, daughter, whatever you want. She runs to her mother, the head of John the Baptist. You're at the party. You're present when Paul meets with the elders at Ephesus? Such a tender moment. He pulls into my leaders. The elders from Ephesus come. He meets with them, tells them, it's up to you now. I'm going. You'll never see me again. They fall on his neck and they kiss him. We hear it. We see it. We're there. What right do we have to be there? We're just readers, for goodness' sake. The reader of the Bible is in Gethsemane. Nobody else is there but Jesus. All the three are there, say some of the writers, but they're asleep. But we're there. We hear him. If it be possible, we're there just because we're readers. We're at the cross. Everybody else has abandoned him and fled. There are some women at a distance from Galilee. But you and I just because we're readers, we're there. We hear him talk to the other two being crucified. We hear him scream. We even hear him say, at least I thought I heard him say to his beloved disciple, take my mother home. It's a frightening thing to read the Bible. I sometimes just want to say, let me out of here. But I've said that all my life. I said it when I was in parish. First parish had been there less than two weeks. The phone rang. One of the grand old men of the church, a hemorrhaging ulcer. I rushed to the hospital. Wife is there, daughter, son there, grandchildren there. And I'm there when I hear the flap of the condor wing. I'm there when they slip the silent sheet. I'm there. 26 years old. What right do I have to be there? I preach non-sermons. Just because I went to seminary, I am to be in that circle when every eye upon his death turned toward me. Let me out of here. I've had that experience in this room, in this very room. Just thought I'd go to chapel. If I had known I would be overwhelmed. I would have gotten up an hour earlier to try to get ready. But what happened? It happens. You know what I mean? I know I must be kind of weird. It happens to me at movies sometimes. I went to see Shadowlands. C.S. Lewis and his beloved Joy. Only three years. She dies. And her son up in that attic room, in that man in his early sixties, sitting there together, sobbing. And I'm in the attic with him. Why? Because I paid a price of a ticket? It happens all the time. Others have this experience too. I remember Thomas de Quincy said of William Shakespeare. Not Shakespeare. It was Wordsworth. William Wordsworth. He said Wordsworth had such a love affair with nature that sometimes he would go out and on a beach when he would see the evening sun sizzle into the sea. Or sometimes the thundering cataract. And he would be so overwhelmed he would distract himself by counting rocks or counting trees or estimating distances. What was he doing? Protecting himself. It was too much. When Toscanini, at least Marsha Davenport says, when Toscanini had finished 60 rehearsals at La Scala, of Fellini's Norma, at the dress rehearsal, he put down the baton and said, the concert is cancelled. Why? He said the music is too great. It's beyond human powers. I can't do it. Do you know what I'm talking about? I recall once in Kansas at a men's retreat somewhere. It was on a little lake. They had pushed all the water of Kansas together and made a little lake. And the instructor, leading the retreat, said, we want you before breakfast in the morning to go out in teams of two for morning prayers. There was there a little man from Wales. He had ridden a bus 200 miles because he heard someone named Craddock was going to speak. And he said, I have in Wales so many neighbors named Craddock. I thought, ah, someone I know. He said, I don't know you. I said, no, no, I'm sorry. He said, let's go together. We went out and we sat on a rock by the lake and I had the New Testament and I said, do you want to read? He said, I never learned to read or write. You'll have to read. Do you have a preference? No. I opened to Philippians. I started at verse three. I thank my God for all my remembrance of you, making mention of you and my prayers. And so I read and I was just getting started. He said, whoa, whoa, whoa, stop, stop, stop. I said, what's the matter? How much have you read? And I said, well, ah, I've just read five verses, five verses. I said, yes. He said, I've just been a Christian about a year. I started out. I could barely handle one verse, five verses. I said, yeah. He walked away and said, wow, five verses. Some things are too much. I think I'm with Emily Dickinson. We want the truth, but we want it on a slant. I want to look, but I want a piece of smoked glass through which to look. Clement of Alexandria promised me a piece of smoked glass. He said, it's in the nature of scripture that it's written in brilliant obscurity so that it is not available to every casual passerby. It's concealed and I've always believed Clement, but it's still too much. John Calvin promised that it wouldn't be too much. He said, you know, his theory of God's accommodation to our frailty and God's revelation comes to us according to our capacity to receive it. And so Calvin said, God's revelation is in, you know, veiled in flesh and human words and bread and wine so you can handle it, but it's still too much. Maybe, maybe if I had more time. With more time, maybe get ready. I recall years ago starting college. I was in a little mountain college on the banks of the French Broad River on the rolling hills of eastern Tennessee. Almost monastic like school in those days. Just a few hundred of us all headed one direction toward the ministry. We were 18 years old when we started. High school the previous year. First semester, freshman year, and a fellow named Bill Loft sat back there on the back on that side and asked Professor Lambert a question. A profound question, apparently. I didn't quite get the question, but it was an extraordinary question, apparently. Professor Lambert paused and I thought, he doesn't even know the answer. And then his us welled up with tears and I thought there's something else here. And then he said, Mr. Loft, I think it would be better for all of us if I delayed my answer. I didn't think anything about it when we were seniors. In the last semester of our senior year in an advanced class, we were trying to read the Greek and all that. And Professor Lambert stopped and said, Mr. Loft, about your question. It just takes time. If I just had more time, I didn't ask for this. I asked no prophets dream, no ecstasy, no rending of the veil of clay. I have learned through all these years to piece together a little bit of faith to live by. But I just make it out of snippets of things. A question of a child, a burst of laughter, a walk to the mailbox, struggling with the text, a little prayer in the morning, conversation with a friend, an evening meal, coming by the chapel when someone is rehearsing at the organ, listening to the corollaries practice down the hall as I try to think. I just kind of pieced it together, really. A whisper here, an aroma there, an intimation there, enough to live by. But what do you do with this? You can't just come down the mountain and say, guess what we saw today. Can't do that. Though I must acknowledge, I must acknowledge that of all the sermons I have preached, I think by far the majority of them I preach too soon. And Jesus said, don't worry about it. I'll lead you into Lent, into Holy Week, to Good Friday, and Easter morning. And I think then you'll find your tongue and be able to tell of what you've seen and heard. Thank you.