Transfiguration Sunday B February 11, 2018
Luther Memorial Church Seattle, WA
The Rev. Julie Hutson
2 Kings 2: 1-12 + Psalm 50: 1-6 + 2 Cor. 4: 3-6
Mark 9: 2-9
Grace and peace to you from God, who journeys with us into transformation. Amen.
Earlier this week I was asked by some seminary students if I was willing to sit with them to be interviewed for a ministry class. I was glad to do that, plus they bought lunch. These particular students attend the School of Theology and Ministry at Seattle University, so they know Michael Trice as professor and assistant dean. As we settled into our lunch, I asked after Michael, and they said “Oh, he’s still on a high after his ordination.” That made me smile because I remember that time well….ordination is certainly a mountain top experience.
Today is transfiguration Sunday in the life of the church and the gospel reading is a mountain top story. Jesus, Peter, James, and John go up a high mountain, where Jesus is transfigured before them into a dazzling being and Elijah and Moses, long dead, join him.
When I was a newly ordained pastor I decided to use a transformer toy in a children’s message to make the point about transfiguration. I got one of the children in the congregation to loan me a transformer and give me a quick tutorial in how it worked. “You move this and that and this…and bam! Transformer!” I was pretty confident I could do it, after all he was six, and I was 46. Turns out, it’s a lot harder than it looks. So, as I fumbled with it in front of the whole congregation, he snatched it out of my hands and told me that it was a transformer, not a transfigurer, so of course it wasn’t going to work.
This day is about something we too often merely catch a glimpse of….sheer glory. The Psalm for today sings it, out of Zion, the perfection of beauty….God shines forth.
Peter, James, and John were sure that on top of that mountain was the only place they were going to catch a glimpse of the glory of God. After all, up until now, they had not seen anything like what was before them. Peter says, “It is good for us to be here. Let’s just build 3 dwellings and stay.
Of course Peter wants to stay. Because what he is experiencing on that mountain top….well, it must be as good as it’s going to be in his lifetime. He must think that this will be the pinnacle of his time following Jesus.
The Church (big C) has a mountain top problem. We are remembering a time in the life of the Church that seemed so bright that all we want to do is get there again. Every pastor I know and every congregation I’ve ever been a part of can tell their version of the mountaintop story. The pews were full every Sunday. Our Sunday School classrooms were running over. We had so many people here then. The parking lot was full. Oh, glory. And we think that it was that mountaintop that was the pinnacle of the life of the Church. So our gaze stays looking behind us….up the mountain….instead of what’s right in front of us.
Dear Ones, I am right there with you. I grew up in a congregation that was bursting at the seams. I keep a photo of the Sunday School students in my office to remind me of the people who taught me the stories of Jesus. Those students fill a gym!
The Church has not changed. And maybe, probably, that is a part of the problem. The real change happened around us. Peter Steinke put it this way: “There once was a world where the church functioned according to what some have called the “attractional” model. People come to a place, consume the spiritual goods, and serve as patrons to meet the budget. But a shift has happened. North American culture took new turns. Much of what is being faced and experienced by many mainline Protestant churches is not about them. It is about the end of an era, a sea change in the religious ecology of North America and the role of congregations in our society.”
That’s really the question, isn’t it? What is the role of congregations in North America today? Or better yet, what is the role of congregations in Seattle today? Or maybe even better…what is the role of this congregation in Broadview today?
I am certain that our role is not to stay on the mountain top.
I am not certain about many things. And that uncertainty varies from day to day and year to year. Today I’m not certain about the state of the economy. And I’m not certain about the safety of the people I love. And that uncertainty will pass and become something different.
But I am certain about this….I am certain, beyond all measure that it is the love of God in Jesus Christ that has brought us here this morning. I am certain that God, who called Jesus Beloved there on the mountaintop, calls us beloved as well….in the waters of baptism and in a holy meal. I am certain that no matter what we experience in life: job loss, illness, death, broken relationship, fear, a sense of no longer being needed…no matter what we experience, God never leaves us or forsakes us. God doesn’t walk away when the difficulties we experience are of our own making.
And I am certain that the call and the task of this congregation and of the whole Church (big C) is to share the love of God in Jesus Christ. That call never changes. In 1965 that might have been an easier task because the culture around us supported and elevated the Church as an institution. The society embraced the traditions, symbols, and rituals of the Church and gave them precedence over everything else. But I am not convinced, when I glance back up that mountain, that the society that embraced the Church actually embraced Jesus. The Church, as an institution, had power. The Church held authority. But this isn’t what Jesus was about. Throughout the Gospels Jesus calls us to serve others….love them….care for the broken hearted and the broken. I wonder if Jesus would have looked at the Church in America in the mid twentieth century and wept?
What if, rather than imagine that the Church has somehow failed to be enough, what if Jesus has sent us back down the mountain to do the real work of the Gospel?
Beloved community, let’s borrow Paul’s words to the church in Corinth from our second reading today: “Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart….For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. 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.”
We are called to the mountaintop only briefly. We are never invited to stay there. What we have seen so far….those full churches….our babies being born….our babies growing up…love…..it’s nothing compared to what’s ahead. And the challenges and changes and catastrophies and chaos are nothing in light of the glory of God that persists in its love and mercy and grace. Every hard thing we face. Every difficulty we endure. Every time we look out and say “well things aren’t how they used to be” may we be engulfed in the love of the God who has promised us that things will be better than we could ever imagine.
If the Transfiguration is to mean anything for our lives, it simply has to be that which intrudes on our present, changes our present, and contends that we imagine our future in a different kind of way. [1] It’s a way that means we do more than insist on staying right where we are, no matter how glorious that may seem. It means that we allow the God who is capable of impossible things to enter into our ordinariness and shine with glory. It mean that we allow God to turn our world and our expectations upside down and transfigure us into believers who know that the way of the cross lies before us, but an empty tomb waits at the end.
Thanks be to God, and let the Church say…Amen.
[1] Lewis, Karoline