Wednesday, February 25, 2009

07 Epiphany B 09
Transfiguration of Our Lord
February 22, 2009

2 Kings 2:1-12
1 Now when the LORD was about to take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. 2 Elijah said to Elisha, "Stay here; for the LORD has sent me as far as Bethel." But Elisha said, "As the LORD lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you." So they went down to Bethel. 3 The company of prophets who were in Bethel came out to Elisha, and said to him, "Do you know that today the LORD will take your master away from you?" And he said, "Yes, I know; keep silent."

4 Elijah said to him, "Elisha, stay here; for the LORD has sent me to Jericho." But he said, "As the LORD lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you." So they came to Jericho. 5 The company of prophets who were at Jericho drew near to Elisha, and said to him, "Do you know that today the LORD will take your master away from you?" And he answered, "Yes, I know; be silent."

6 Then Elijah said to him, "Stay here; for the LORD has sent me to the Jordan." But he said, "As the LORD lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you." So the two of them went on. 7 Fifty men of the company of prophets also went, and stood at some distance from them, as they both were standing by the Jordan. 8 Then Elijah took his mantle and rolled it up, and struck the water; the water was parted to the one side and to the other, until the two of them crossed on dry ground.

9 When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, "Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you." Elisha said, "Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit." 10 He responded, "You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it will be granted you; if not, it will not." 11 As they continued walking and talking, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah ascended in a whirlwind into heaven. 12 Elisha kept watching and crying out, "Father, father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!" But when he could no longer see him, he grasped his own clothes and tore them in two pieces.

Psalm 50:1-6
1 The mighty one, God the LORD,
speaks and summons the earth
from the rising of the sun to its setting.
2 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,
God shines forth.
3 Our God comes and does not keep silence,
before him is a devouring fire,
and a mighty tempest all around him.
4 He calls to the heavens above
and to the earth, that he may judge his people:
5 "Gather to me my faithful ones,
who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!"
6 The heavens declare his righteousness,
for God himself is judge.

2 Corinthians 4:3-6
3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus' sake. 6 For it is the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Mark 9:2-9
2 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, 3 and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. 4 And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. 5 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." 6 He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. 7 Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, "This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!" 8 Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.
9 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.

Walking the Whole Way

There’s a picture downstairs at the home of a certain widow I know. She’s in her sixties now, and she’s a very beautiful woman. The picture was taken in the fifties. It’s black and white. It shows a very handsome young man with a delicious young babe of a thing. Somehow that picture captures the essence of young love, the endless passion, the heat.

The delicious young babe in the picture is of course the widow I’m talking about, and the man was her husband.

I had the privilege and honor to walk with them in his last days. I have had that honor with many a couple and it’s one of the joys and certainly one of the heartbreaks of being a minister. What amazes and humbles me whenever I have to take that walk with my brothers and sisters is the devotion of the care-giving spouse.

In this case, the husband had a long and very painful illness, with multiple surgeries and torturous treatments. He was a very good man, but the pain and misery he was experiencing sometimes made him angry and combative. I wonder too, as I often have in these situations, if he lashed out at his wife because he wanted her to distance herself, as if he were saying, “Turn back. I don’t want you to suffer with me. I don’t want you to have your heart torn out watching me die.”

Of course, for his wife it was a no-brainer. There was no thought of turning back. She walked right through his ranting and kept on loving him. “I will never leave you.”

And she never did. She had plenty of time to see the cost of that decision looming on the horizon, but it never stopped her. And she didn’t do it because it was her duty. She did it because she loved him. And love, real love, walks the whole way.

Elijah had been like a father to Elisha. A mentor, a guide, who introduced him to the joy of knowing and serving God. For most Jews even today, Elijah is the very essence of the spirit of every man or woman of God, every prophet who dares to say, “Thus says the Lord.”

It’s not dissimilar from the way I feel about Lewis McPherren. He came into my life at a time when I sorely needed him, and he was abundant in his loving care toward me. I love him as my friend and my mentor and my colleague. Of course, he’s 82. He’s told me many times with a chuckle, as the latest diagnosis has come in, “Well, you know, I have to die of something.” I don’t like to hear that. I don’t want to hear that. I want our wonderful talks and adventures together to go on forever. I want the shining light and the exaltation and the joy of God’s glory. I don’t want to walk with him to the cross.

“Be silent,” Elisha tells the sons of the prophets who keep reminding him that it’s Elijah’s time to leave. Even Elijah, wanting to spare his child in faith the terrible loss, urges him to turn back. “No,” says Elisha, “I will never leave you.”

When the disciples climbed that mountain with Jesus, they had an amazing, life-changing experience. The shining light, the vision of glory, the return of Moses and Elijah. This story is what the cliché of the mountaintop experience is based on, that ecstasy of fulfillment and joy. It’s the pure hot passion of newlyweds, the joy of your firstborn child, the thrill of victory. Peter wants to stop the train right there, build the nice church buildings and call it a day. But the author of the gospel, Mark, seems almost apologetic about Peter: “He did not know what to say, for they were terrified.”

There are many churches today that trade on our craving for that mountaintop experience.

Most people want worship to be a rally for the blessed, a rock’n’roll anthem to being in and not out. They want that rush.

Theologian James Alison has called it “Nuremberg Worship.” The Nazis knew very well how to manipulate a crowd. Loud, rhythmic music, lots of symbolic behavior, stirring hymns to sing. Emotion, emotion, emotion. We’ve been wronged, but we’ll have the last word! We’re the chosen! And all the outsiders want to take that away from us! We are superior, and here are the reasons why! Can’t you feel it? Sing with me now!

But craving worship like that is like paying for dinner to get the doorstep kiss. We want the mountaintop experience, and we want it in a box with fries. We want that pleasantly full feeling.

But the walk to the light is not that simple, and we know it.

God spoke to the disciples, echoing his word to Jesus when Jesus was baptized by John, “This is my Son! Listen to him!” And as they were coming down the mountain, they listened to Jesus telling them not to say anything about what they had seen until after he had risen from the dead.

Just FYI, as soon as they got to the bottom of the mountain, they encountered a boy possessed by a spirit that convulsed him and threw him to the ground gnashing his teeth and foaming at the mouth. Quite a contrast, don’t you think, between the shining white robes and the dirty twisted child?

Paul talks about a veil lying over the minds of those who don’t or can’t believe. I think the veil he is talking about is our revulsion at the messy and sometimes heartbreaking work of the ministry to which Jesus leads us.

We are a culture addicted to the mountaintop experience. We crave the heat and joy and passion of young love, but we find it more difficult to deal with the mess and pain that will always eventually come with it. We like the idea of helping poor people at Christmas and we forget them for the rest of the year. We pour out our help for the victims of a natural disaster and we forget them as soon as the headlines disappear. We like the feel-good experience of going to church, but we don’t want the sometimes heartbreaking work of loving the unlovable and remembering the forgotten.

God’s love is like the love of that widow for her angry, suffering husband, and it’s a love he extends not just to those we know but to those we don’t, not just to our friends, but to our enemies, not just to the lovable but to the unlovable. It was Moses’ mission, and Elijah’s mission, and Elisha’s mission, and Jesus’ mission, to help us see as God sees, to challenge us to walk the whole way with God.

We like to walk with God when he is comforting us and loving us and helping us with our difficulties. But do we want to walk with God to the dark places, to the jail cells on death row, to the dens of terrorists, to the dark streets of the slums, to the mental institutions, to the halls of oppressive power, to the people God loves with a love that doesn’t turn back, that goes the whole way.

If you see this, Elijah says, your desire for God’s Spirit will be granted. If you see this, the veil is lifted from your heart and God’s power will fill you.

So I ask myself this morning as I hear these words, “When do I stop walking with God? When am I unwilling to go the whole way?” I come up with all kinds of reasons. But the real reason is that I don’t want the heartbreak. I don’t want to see the twisted child foaming at the mouth. I don’t want to stand in the execution room when they lethally inject someone. I don’t want to walk out into the battlefield and see people ruthlessly killing each other, and know every soldier who dies the way I know my wife and child. I don’t want to risk my friendships and my reputation for people no one cares about. “Turn back,” the god of this world tells me. “Let me lay this comforting veil over your heart. You don’t have to see this. You can just have the nice part, the part that feels good.”

But God sees them. God goes to all those places. God loves them and grieves for them and desperately wants them back. It’s a no-brainer for God. He wants to walk right through their hatred and their contempt, with his arms spread wide.

I am willing to go the whole way with my beautiful Liz, if that is the way it happens. I am willing to go the whole way with my daughter, if I must. But am I willing to go the whole way with God, to the cross? Am I willing to allow the love God has for all the world to flood my soul? Can I say to Jesus, “I will never leave you”?

For this is the way to resurrection. This is the way to enter into the kingdom of God. This is the way to overcome death. This is the way to receive all the power of God.

Amen.

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