Sermon preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on Transfiguration Sunday, February 11, 2024. Based on Mark 9:2-9.
Let’s start today by talking about the characters in the story. Jesus, obviously. We’ll get to him in a little while. James and John were the sons of Zebedee, sometimes called the Sons of Thunder. They were the ones who, in the next chapter, will ask to sit at Jesus’s right and left hands when he comes to reign. Bold, brazen even, full of fiery zeal.
Simon Peter is often seen as the chief disciple. Simon was his birth name, but Jesus said that he would be known as Peter, for on this rock will his church be founded. I sometimes call him Rocky, which is a more literal translation. And sometimes he acts like Rocky, a little obtuse. In the previous chapter, Peter first declares that Jesus is the Messiah, and then immediately demonstrates that he has NO IDEA what that means. And on it goes throughout the Gospels.
Moses we probably all know well. He led the Israelites out of Egypt. He was the one to make a covenant with God that turned this group of loosely-organized clans into a mighty nation. Four of the first five books of the Bible are basically about Moses’s life, which ended shortly before the Israelites entered the Promised Land.
Elijah is someone that we don’t talk about too much. He was a great prophet in the northern kingdom of Israel after it split off from Judah, in the time of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. He is a major character in the book of 1 Kings. Although he was one of the greatest prophets, he didn’t leave a book of teachings behind like Isaiah or Jeremiah or even the minor prophets like Obadiah. Instead, he taught with his actions: he challenged the cult of Baal and proclaimed that Israel should worship only God. He proclaimed that Baal was in fact not a god at all and vanquished Baal’s prophets. Unfortunately, that put him at odds with Ahab and, especially, Jezebel, who sought to kill him.
Elijah fled from Israel and sat down beside a broom tree to die. Fortunately, God sent an angel, and after a nap and a snack, he was revived and moved on to Mount Horeb, another name for Mount Sinai where Moses received the Law. On Mount Horeb, Elijah had a vivid encounter with God. In 1 Kings 19, we read:
‘God said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind, and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake, and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”’
1 Kings 19:11-18
God went on to give Elijah instructions for how he was to carry on the work he had begun, and how he should recruit his successor, Elisha. We heard in the first reading this morning that Elisha accompanied Elijah to the very end, until Elijah was swept up into heaven.
But remember, Elijah heard all of the craziness of a world coming apart, like we do every day. We hear of wars and storms and earthquakes and volcanoes and all sorts of violence and strife in the world. But God is not in the noise and terror. God is in the silence. God is a still, small voice speaking to us when we can shut out all the noise in our lives.
I receive a daily email from the Center for Action and Contemplation, which was founded by Father Richard Rohr. The basic premise of the CAC is that our action emerges from our contemplation. We can best hear God speaking to us when we are contemplative, engaged in prayer as a dialogue with God instead of just telling God what’s on our mind. Like Elijah, we need to shut out the noise of a world gone mad so that we can hear God whispering to us, calling to us, telling us how to live and how to build God’s kingdom.
Let me return now to Moses. Where Elijah was pretty much a solitary figure through most of his ministry, Moses was a part of a community. In fact, he led a nation of supposedly 600,000 Israelites who escaped from the Egyptians and wandered in the desert for 40 years. One problem was that the people refused to encounter God directly. They said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” So Moses went up on Mount Sinai and entered a cloud full of fire and lightning and thunder and smoke. Moses encountered God face to face, and then brought God’s word back down to the people.
This event is best known for the Ten Commandments, the fundamental rules of the covenant between God and the Israelites that would make them a priestly people. Moses went on to dictate hundreds of other laws that governed their worship, their family lives, their business practices, and a host of other day-to-day activities. He told them what to do. But then in Deuteronomy, he promised that one day another prophet would come to tell the people more.
Well, that happened. Throughout Israel’s history, God sent prophets with messages for God’s people in Judah and Israel, or in exile in Babylon, or as subjugated people in a province of the Persian Empire. God kept sending prophets that the people would mostly ignore, imprison, or kill. Finally, God sent His Son.
So here we are back on a mountain, and Peter, John, and James have a vivid encounter with God. This is a sign of the inbreaking of God’s kingdom. Elijah had been taken up to heaven without dying; Moses had died on the border of ancient Canaan. Yet here they were alive and well and talking with Jesus. Suddenly, the glory of the Lord shone all around them. This was the same cloud that alighted on Mount Sinai and made Moses’s face glow so brightly that he had to wear a veil to talk to the people. This was the same cloud that filled the Tabernacle that first housed the Ark of the Covenant, and the same cloud that filled the Temple when it was consecrated. This is the tangible presence of God shining all around the three disciples.
And then a voice: “LISTEN TO HIM!” Now, this wasn’t a suggestion like, Hey, please be quiet because that guy is going to read a story to you. No, this was a command like a parent gives a child or a boss gives an employee. When your boss says, “LISTEN UP!” you know that means you need to listen to what they say, and then do it. Pay attention! I’m telling you something important, so listen to what I say, then get to work doing it! That was the force of the language God used with the disciples. Jesus is in charge here, so listen to what he has to say, and then act on it.
So, what did Jesus have to say to the disciples? Well, first he tells them to keep this all a secret until after he is raised from the dead. Kinda strange. But I think Jesus wanted to make sure that when they started telling people about Jesus’s message, it had some strength behind it, the strength that comes with conquering sin and death.
But the rest of Jesus’s message was something like this: The kingdom of God is at hand! That is, heaven is breaking through. It’s close to us in time and in space. It’s right here among us, ready to embrace our open hearts. And God’s kingdom is marked first and foremost by love. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love one another with a self-sacrificing love like Jesus demonstrated. Let your love be more than an emotion, but an action, a commitment of your whole self to actively care for your neighbor. Just as you do to the least of these, so you do to Jesus.
Jesus asked for our devotion. He asked us to follow him. The words “belief” and “faith” have shifted meaning over the years, but if you go back to the original language of the Bible, Jesus did not ask us to intellectually agree with some orthodoxy or accept something unprovable as fact. No, he asked us to commit to walking the path that he walked, doing what he did, loving as he loved. Jesus demonstrated that his way of love is the way of the servant and the way of the cross.
The Brief Statement of Faith that I’m sure you have all been seriously studying starts out with, “In life and in death we belong to God.” That’s the first principle: belonging. Jesus asked us to belong to Him and his community. We should identify not as Missourians or Americans or Presbyterians, but as members of Jesus’s family that transcends all labels. Then each section starts with, “We trust”: We trust in Jesus Christ, we trust in God whom Jesus called Abba, Father, and we trust in God the Holy Spirit. Faith is an action, a reliance on our triune God who we can trust every day with our eternal lives.
So I asked you last week to internalize perhaps three or four main ideas within the Brief Statement of Faith. There’s a lot in it, and whatever resonates with you is right for you. One thing that is right for me is this: “The Spirit … sets us free to accept ourselves and to love God and neighbor, and binds us together with all believers in the one body of Christ, the Church.” We are one in the Spirit, yet we cannot see that oneness because of our brokenness. Our task is to seek each day to see that unity among the diversity of God’s people.
Here’s another one, near the end and lifted from Romans: “With believers in every time and place, we rejoice that nothing in life or in death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Nothing can separate us. Nothing. God’s love is right here among us. God is close at hand, ready to give us that love if we will only be willing to receive it.
And yet, God is also transcendent. In Jesus’s transfiguration, the disciples got a glimpse of his transcendent divine nature. Jesus was a man who looked like any other man, and yet he was also fully divine and glorious. We can experience Christ’s presence in each person we meet. We get closer to God as we get closer to one another. Jesus chose to reveal his divine transcendence only to those who knew him best. Similarly, it is the people we are closest to who reveal God to us. We all have a hidden self that we only share with certain people. In sharing ourselves, we reveal God as well. And in forging these close, loving relationships with one another, with God at the center, we encounter God’s transcendent love that permeates the cosmos.
So listen up! Jesus taught his disciples that the kingdom of God is at hand! God’s reign is close to us in time and in space, just waiting for us. Jesus taught that the way into his kingdom is a sacrificial love that values each person for the divine spark dwelling within them. Let’s get to work now doing what Jesus commands us: committing ourselves to a life of service to God’s people through whom we encounter the glory of God. Amen.
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