Sermons

SCRIPTURE: Mark 9:2-9

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 did not 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. 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.

SERMON: “A Needed Lift and Change of Perspective”

You can’t really blame us preachers. It’s just part of human nature. You can’t blame that we fall in love with certain ideas in the Bible, that there are certain pieces of it that rise closer to our heart and mind. You can’t blame us that sometimes when we read a passage, we see something in there because our hearts are so desperately looking for it.

I remember in one of our churches I got accused of saying “Jesus” too often. I got accused of being just a little too Jesus-loving. Guilty as charged. I know that sometimes I can seek to reach out and console. Perhaps that’s because my conversations over the course of the last week are often with people who need consolation. And so, forgive me if sometimes I don’t challenge enough.

Often, I know that I preach “Let go and let God.” In other words, that sometimes we need to forget about our own agency and let God come in. And that’s so true, isn’t it? And quite frankly, that whole letting go and let God thing is heart and soul and center of this transfiguration story. The story where those disciples – you gotta love ‘em – are so eager to do something, just something to contribute to the moment. Let’s build something, let us do something. Finally, God had to come out of the clouds and say, “People! Stop! Just listen. Just listen.”

But this week, that’s not what’s on my heart and mind. This week I’m not going to go with one of my tendencies. This week I may even actually argue with this story and this text, and with the way I would normally preach it. Normally I would be preaching about “Folks, yeah, soak in the mountain, but let’s get down off that mountain. We’ve got to get down to where the work is.” Jesus swept those disciples down and sent them down off the mountaintop. “I hope you got what you needed,” Jesus said, “because we’ve got work to do. I hope you got what you needed, because there’s life and love to share.”

In the Hebrew Scriptures, there’s that great story of deliverance in the Exodus. People’s bread hadn’t even risen. They had to be ready to go. “Get ready and go.” In the calling of the disciples in all the gospels, there is that constant refrain: “They dropped their nets and everything and followed.” Even people who were dedicated to figuring out this thing called faith, and so desperately wanting to follow Jesus, often fell short because they had to think about it.

So, forgive me if today on this Sunday before Lent begins, if I say “No, stay there.” Stay there on the mountaintop and get ready. Stay there on the mountaintop and prepare, for we have a great journey that is laying out for us starting next week, in fact starting Wednesday for Ash Wednesday.

So many stories of the Bible are about these journeys of faith where people had to simply respond and go. And yet, we as people of faith have known Lent is coming for a long time, in fact since last Easter. This is a journey, not to get swept off our feet and be unprepared for. No, I think this year of all years, it is a year to sit on this mountaintop. Stay up there and look.

We are blessed, aren’t we, to live in this place. Whether it’s something as high and mighty as Mount Greylock, or whether it’s at Bartholomew’s Cobble, or at Tyringham Cobble. Or at Olivia’s Overlook, or at Tanglewood. We are blessed with the reality that we are presented with vistas all the time in these Berkshire hills that can inspire us, that can plant dreams in our minds.

Today, here in the middle of February, I invite you to linger on this mountaintop. Linger with Moses and Elijah. Linger with Jesus, and Peter and James and John. Linger with all of them and stay there and get ready. Because the journey is about to start.

In Mark’s gospel, compared to the other three, this story, this transfiguration, is literally the fulcrum on which the whole thing turns. Mark is 16 chapters long, and this story straddles right in the middle beginning in chapter 9. It would be the journey to Jerusalem and the cross that will take up fully half of Mark’s gospel, everything that has come before, and now this journey. Luke would be so inspired by that that he would make his journey even a bigger part of his gospel.

This journey that we’re about to take is not for the faint-hearted. It is a journey where we will see great miracles pour forth. It will be a place where Jesus becomes intimate with many people in healing, in listening, in noticing and in finding. And it will be this journey that will eventually take him to the cross and all that lays beyond.

Here’s what I want you to do. Starting tomorrow, I will make available a list of things that I might suggest for you to do in preparation for Lent – books you can read, prayer practices you can engage in. We will provide that list for you. But more importantly, I want you to think about what are those things that are important to you in your faith, what are those things that move you, and ground yourself in them. Make plans for this Lent, whether it’s taking something on or giving something up. Don’t let this Lent sneak up on you, because it shouldn’t. Every year we go to a mountaintop, and every year, unlike those poor disciples swept down the other side, we have a whole week to get ready. And I don’t know about you, but often on Ash Wednesday I come to the service thinking “What am I going to do for Lent again this year?”.

Don’t let that happen this year. And don’t just rely on my list. This is an amazing congregation full of wise people. Talk to each other. Enter into partnership with each other for Lent. For after all, those three disciples were going to go down and tell the other nine what was coming and what they saw.

So, friends, I know my tendencies. Today I’m going to argue with even the commandments of this very story. Linger. Stay on the mountain. Take it all in. But for God’s sake, listen to Jesus as God commands. And for God’s sake, get ready for Lent, because it is literally almost here. Amen.