The Feast of the Transfiguration

Feb. 3, 2008
The Rev. Jim Lewis

I am told that if you were to check the license plates in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, in the summertime, you would find a huge number of West Virginia tags.

Myrtle Beach becomes, in effect, a de facto colony of West Virginia invaders, as Mountaineers migrate to sea level and salt water taffy.

By the way, I have that fact confirmed every year when I see a newspaper announcement in the Gazette advertising an off-season Myrtle Beach reunion.

Perhaps West Virginians, when pushed to define themselves, balk at being labeled either beach people or mountain people.

Perhaps we are both.

Perhaps we are amphibian creatures who crawl back and forth between the mountains and the sea.

Well, if we are, then we can liken ourselves to Jesus who clearly had a love affair with both mountains and the sea.

In last week’s Gospel lesson, we encountered Jesus calling Peter, James and John as disciples at the Sea of Galilee.

This week we encounter him with the same cast of characters, Peter, James and John, and this time he is no longer at the seaside with them. They are up on a high mountain.

In the course of his journey to Jerusalem, he will go to the mountain on more than one occasion, once to be being tempted by the devil on a mountaintop, another time to preach what has been called, The Sermon on the Mount. And, lest we forget, just prior to his death on a hill, he agonized over his fate on the Mount of Olives.

Like a restless traveler along the West Virginia Turnpike, bouncing back and forth between West Virginia mountains and South Carolina seashore, Jesus moves back-and-forth between the sea and the mountains of Palestine.

Today in the church calendar it’s mountaineer day.

All three of today’s lessons are about mountains and men who climbed them And those mountaineers are not John Beilein, Rich Rodriguez or even Randy Moss.

The Exodus reading tells the story of Moses taking Joshua up on the mountain to receive the stone tablets given by God which contain the law and the commandments.

I still carry in my mind’s eye Charlton Heston, before he was the president of the National Rifle Association, carrying those tablets down from the mountain in the 1956 movie, The Ten Commandments.

The epistle from the Second Letter of Peter makes reference to the time when he, along with James and John, went up on that high mountain where they could be alone with Jesus and be privileged to see Jesus transfigured—his face shining like the sun and, long before Kroger sold Tide, Cheer and Woolite, his clothes as white and as bright as light.

And, for our Gospel reading today, we hear Matthew’s account of that trip up the mountain, remembered, this, the Feast Day of The Transfiguration.

In biblical times, mountains, covered in cloud and battered by wind, were seen as special places of revelation, special places of vision, and special places of mystical awareness.

Mountains were also places of special temptation, like when Jesus was away for 40 days and 40 nights and was tempted by Satan who offered him the world in exchange for his soul.

Here in West Virginia we know that mountains are a God-given gift to each and every one of us. They heal and restore us.

But mountains, as much as we love them, don’t stand alone. They always give way to a valley.

The eight verses we heard read from Matthew about Jesus being transfigured on a mountain are quickly followed by the ninth verse, a verse not read this morning. In that verse, we are told that Jesus, Peter, James and John came down off the mountain, back into the valley.

There is a bit of humor in today’s Gospel, if we have ears to hear. The laugh is found in the fact that Peter was so mystified by the glory of God—so overwhelmed by God’s blessing on Jesus—that he wanted to build a shrine to the transfigured Jesus. You know, like, let’s build a temple up here and stay warm and secure and away from all the troubles that exist in the valley below. Let’s turn Jesus into an icon.

You know—a nice little personal relationship between me and God. Wouldn’t it be lovely, safe, warm and secure? Life would be so happy, so peaceful in such a setting far away from the valley of the shadow of death below. One big retreat—a 24 hour-a-day retreat away from the hustle and bustle of work and worry, away from the killing fields of war, away from family turmoil, away from the valley of the dolls—broken dolls in a broken world.

Nelson Mandela, imprisoned in South Africa for 27 years, stands out as a witness to the rhythm that must exist between a mountaintop high and the valley below. He says: “There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.”

Only two weeks ago, David preached about a mountaintop man—the prophet—Dr. Martin Luther King.

And you remember King’s words?

They were spoken on April 3, 1968, the night before he died. Some 2,000 people had crammed into the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. The rain was beating down outside and the wind was shaking the windows of the building—the shutters were flapping.

Michael K. Honey, in his marvelous book, Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther Kings Last Campaign, writes this: “Drained from the massive demands upon his time, depressed by violence and threats of death, ill due to his constant travel and lack of sleep, King had looked both backward and forward, and out of a mountain of despair had hewed one more stone of hope…he had, (as one person put it) ‘preached the fear out’ of himself and his audience.”

Listen to King’s own words—his final words before meeting his death the next day.

"Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountain top. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

What would it mean today to come down off the mountain and bring God’s prophetic sky-message down to earth?

What would it mean if the transfigured church would come down off the safety and security of the mountain—off its own spiritual piety and dogmatic pontification and get engaged with the folks in the valley of the shadow of death?

What would it mean for the transfigured Jesus to be morphed into the body of Christ working for justice and peace right in the midst of the valley of the shadow of death—right here in this dank and dirty world where human beings are looking for relief from the death that has a hold on us.

Let me share with you what I think it would look like in flesh and blood terms.

If we Christians were to come down off the mountain and were to become the transfigured body of Christ, it would mean translating our lofty words about the peace of God into down-to-earth antiwar activity.

If we Christians were to come down off the mountain and were to become the transfigured body of Christ, we would have to call people to face up to and acknowledge the lies that took us to war in Iraq—the now close to 4,000 American deaths, over 30,000 American wounded, as many as half-a-million Iraqi dead, the three million Iraqis made refugees and homeless by this war.

If we Christians were to come down off the mountain and were to become the transfigured body of Christ, it would mean churches teaching young people about the power of nonviolence as a way of life. We would teach them about the politics of resistance.

We would be teaching our young, and reminding their parents and grandparents, what Dr. King taught us in the sermon he preached the night before he was assassinated. He said, “It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world: it’s nonviolence or nonexistence.’

If we Christians were to come down off the mountain and were to become the transfigured body of Christ, it would mean working prayerfully and legislatively to beat missiles, bombs and bullets into health care, affordable housing, and schools.

Do you realize that since the start of the Iraq war West Virginia has kicked in $1.2 billion for this half a trillion dollar war? That each tax-paying West Virginian has paid $3,400 worth of tax for this war? That means Kanawha County residents have spent $156 million on the war—Charleston folks $42 million?

Think what that could have bought us here.

* Health care for 45,000 people in Kanawha County—3,700 people right here in Charleston.
* Fourteen new schools here in the county—one here in Charleston.
* Some 2,100 affordable housing units here in Kanawha County—180 here in Charleston.
* College scholarships for 37,000 students in the county—180 right here in Charleston.

Charles Sumner, 19th century anti-slavery prophet in Congress, spoke the truth when he said: “Give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of which kings and queens will be proud. I will build a schoolhouse in every valley over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to peace.”

If we Christians were to come down off the mountain and were to become the transfigured body of Christ, it would mean churches would go to work in an organized way at the legislature up the street and in the congress in Washington to eradicate poverty, and provide access to health care for every American.

If we Christians were to come down off the mountain and were to become the transfigured body of Christ, it would mean that churches would stop playing church and be the church with a down-to-earth Christianity, in the midst of the valley of the shadow of death.

Dr. King had it right when he said: “It’s alright to talk about ‘long white robes over yonder,’ in all of its symbolism. But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and coats to wear down here,”

If we Christians were to come down off the mountain and were to become the transfigured body of Christ, we Christians would be outraged at the way mountaintop removal is destroying our mountains. We would work to stop the destruction of our mountains and our streams.

If we Christians were to come down off the mountain and were to become the transfigured body of Christ, we would have our eyes wide open to see the transfigured image of God in everyone around us, male and female, rich and poor, the perfumed and the unwashed, immigrants—no matter how they got here—gays and lesbians, Muslims, Jews, atheists and agnostics.

Listen to these words from a man who had just walked through a mall in Kentucky.

“It was in Louisville, Kentucky, in the shopping mall, when I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people around me, even though they were complete strangers. It felt like waking from a dream. It was as if I could see the secret beauty in their hearts, the deep self where sin and ego can’t reach, the core of their reality, the person that each is in God’s eyes. I couldn’t explain it. How can you go up to people and tell them they’re walking around shining like the sun? If only they could see themselves as they truly are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. I suppose the problem would be that we’d fall down and worship each other.”

Those words came from a Kentucky monk, whose image of God was growing into a worldwide vision of inclusiveness when he died. Those words came from Thomas Merton, prayerful peace activist who wrote the book, Seven Storey Mountain.

If we Christians were to come down off the mountain and were to become the transfigured body of Christ, all of our Bible studies, youth groups, EFM groups, prayer groups, vestry meetings, church suppers, Equipping the Saints programs, church missionary trips, evensongs and high teas, study programs, sermons, worship services, Cathedral Days in Washington, church conventions, and any gatherings where two or three come together in the name of Jesus would be focused and directed on one simple question: How do we as individuals and we gathered as a church live a transfigured lives in the valley of the shadow of death.

Edmund Hillary, the first man to reach the top of Mount Everest, said this before his recent death: “You don’t have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things…You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated.”

That’s what we all are—ordinary human beings with extraordinary power to be unleashed when we realize that being transfigured in this world is to live out what Jesus taught us.

As Dr. King put it: we are called to “develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness,” anyone can be great, he promised us, because anyone can serve others. He called it a “dangerous unselfishness” a life of “dangerous altruism.”

Moses saw the promised land, but he never entered it.

Jesus was crucified, died and was buried.

Peter, James and John, disciples of Jesus, embraced the Kingdom of God but did not see it fully realized in their lifetime.

Dr. King, like so many other believers in the peace of God, did his work and passed on.

But their lives were resurrected and passed on through their message and mission. That message searches for embodiment today.

What was found in Dr. King’s coat pocket after his assassination was a handwritten note. It was “The Ten Commandments on Vietnam,” refuting the false reasons given for the war in Vietnam. Coretta Scott King would read it at a mass antiwar rally in May 1968. As Michael Honey says in his book about the Memphis garbage strike, “Even without the aid of its most visionary and accomplished leader, the movement would go on. James Lawson (United Methodist pastor) said they had witnessed ‘a crucifixion event’ in Memphis. That night he prayed for the resurrection of hope and the will to go on.”

Today’s message:

God’s transfiguration of Jesus has been passed on down from Peter, James, John, Martin, and a whole company of prophet—angels and archangels.

That message has been passed on to us, to be passed on to our children and grandchildren.

That message is one of resurrection and hope for all who walk in the valley of the shadow of death.

And the only hope for today’s body of Christ—the church—is that it—we—that’s us—I mean us—will embody it.