Sunday, February 19, 2023

The Last Sunday after the Epiphany

Matthew 17:1-9

The Rev. Canon Joanne Saylors

As many times as I have heard the story of the Transfiguration, I am never sure what to do with it.

Is the experience for Jesus’ benefit?

Some sort of strengthening for what is to come?

Or is it for Peter, James, and John?

So that they can better understand what Peter meant when he acknowledged Jesus as the Christ six days before?

For their strength?

What about the other disciples? Why can’t they know about it?

I get that Jesus may not want the rest of his followers to know, but does it have to be a secret from Andrew? Philip? Thomas?

What we do know is that Jesus is given a special experience in meeting God on that day.

Of course, we don’t know exactly what it was like when Jesus talked to his Father all the time,

but we know that this experience was different and special, both for him and for the others. 

Something about Jesus’ communion with God that day was so profound that his very appearance changed.  

This hearkens back to the Old Testament reading where Moses takes Joshua and goes up the on the mountain to receive the ten commandments, and the glory of God settles there.

And sure enough, who appears to talk to Jesus, but Moses himself, along with Elijah, who had also had a mountaintop experience. 

Elijah experienced the natural drama of wind, earthquake, and fire up on the same mountain as Moses,

but then heard God in a still, small voice.

So perhaps it’s no surprise to those gathered when the voice comes, just as it did at Jesus’ baptism:

“This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”

God is speaking to the disciples, not Jesus, and it is a reminder of Jesus’ identity and relationship to God,

an invitation for them to look inward to their own.

And we, in turn, study this story just before Lent – for the same reason. 

We are entering the time in the Church year especially appointed for self-examination and attention to our relationship with God and with Christ. 

Given our human failings, that inevitably means repentance and, ideally, amendment of life. 

We focus on our own need for salvation, and the part each of us plays in the Passion story that comes before Easter.

That’s hard. 

We can find encouragement in this story. 

We should know that at times when we need a special encounter to give us strength, God will provide it to us. 

Maybe our self-reflection and prayer show us we have a particularly difficult path to tread or maybe we are being strengthened for new ministries. 

Maybe God knows we are ready to be transformed in order to enter a deeper, more profound relationship with our Creator.

Whatever the reason, if we truly need it, God will provide.

But while this kind of special moment of God’s presence is essential to the person who receives it directly,

I think such moments are meant to be shared. 

I have been lucky to hear such stories from a few people along my own journey,

and I have found strength, encouragement, and wisdom in hearing them. 

Our faith is built and strengthened in the Christian community,

and we all need the encouragement that comes from such an experience,

whether it happens to us or to one of our brothers or sisters. 

Because not all of us will necessarily receive a mountaintop experience of our own. 

Again, still nine disciples down on the ground somewhere.  Perhaps not everyone needed this kind of direct experience, or maybe the others were simply not ready, for whatever reason. 

Perhaps there was a lesson there that they needed to learn

about the discipline of faith while staying on level ground, instead of going to the mountain. 

Only God knows – for each of us – how best to reach us.

The whole thing is amazing enough that Peter wants to camp out and keep it going. 

After hearing the voice of God, he suggests that they build three dwellings, for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, so that they can all stay up on the mountain. 

I imagine his self-reflection made him think he needed more time on the mountain, whether in preparation for his ministry or simply to be with God and his spiritual companions.

So he suggests a way, within the scope of his human understanding, that the experience can go on.

Is that so different from the way we are? 

When we are caught up in our own mountaintop times, we want them to go on and on. 

As I have traveled on my path, there have been a few times in my spiritual journey when I felt so absolutely filled with the presence of God,

so bursting with the Spirit, that it was almost overwhelming, and I did want that to last forever. 

If God does grant us a special communion with him, an intense experience of grace, of course we wouldn’t want that to end.

But that’s not how it works.

Jesus and the disciples don’t stay on the mountain. 

They come down the next day. 

They have work to do. 

Peter, James, and John have a secret to keep.

Jesus didn’t come among us just to have people see his glory on a mountain. 

He spent a lot more time among the people: 

with his disciples, with the poor and the outcast, with those who listened to his teachings and followed him. 

And no matter how it transformed them, no matter how their ministry was shaped by the experience,

we never do hear Peter, James, and John talk about the mountaintop in their ministry. 

They do continue to follow Jesus, to teach and spread his message, and to heal the sick. 

They continue the ministry to which God had called them.

So maybe their experience is the thing that kept them on that path, even when things got hard.

Maybe they held it, treasured it, drew upon it.

But I don’t think that was the true source of their strength.

Most of their ministry was on the plains, not the mountain. 

And the flatlands can be disappointing. 

We stumble, we fall, things don’t work out the way we expect them to,

God doesn’t answer our prayers in the way we think He will.  Sometimes we take paths on our faith journeys thinking we’re following God’s plan and they don’t work. 

We need strength to carry on.

And, as I said, not everyone has this intense kind of encounter with God. 

The grounded nine continued in their ministry along with the mountain three.

So mountaintop experiences alone aren’t what strengthen us. 

While they can reinforce our faith and deepen our relationship with God, or even transform it, mountaintop experiences alone cannot be what build our faith from day to day. 

What does?

More important than a one-time experience in our spiritual lives is ongoing relationship. 

It’s the love of God and the love of our faithful sisters and brothers and the love of our neighbors.

Faith is grown in our day-to-day lives, through regular conversation with God in prayer, in corporate worship, in service to others, and in the fellowship of a Christian community.   

While some of us might get a mountaintop experience once in a while,

and while there is certainly much in them for ourselves and for those with whom we share them,

it’s the ordinary experiences of faith every day that really build up our strength. 

Truly transforming, transfiguring experiences don’t so much change the way we look, but the way we look at the world. 

They change how we approach situations. 

They give us the strength to pick ourselves up after disappointments and keep going,

and give us something to draw on at those times we feel God’s absence more than God’s presence. 

Sometimes they signal a change in the direction our journey is taking,

and it may be that the road ahead will be difficult, so we will need extra strength, as the disciples did. 

Here’s the thing, though: You don’t have to be on a mountaintop to have transforming experiences. 

My own journey has shown that sometimes I just have to look back at what seemed ordinary to find the transformation in it. 

Maybe it’s less about going to the mountain and more about building the mountain,

by accumulating the smaller stones of everyday grace and love.

We finish the season of Epiphany this week and begin the season of Lent,

knowing that in forty days we will reach the pinnacle of the highest mountain there is in our Christian faith:  the resurrection of Jesus.  All of us were transformed by that and will continue to be. 

But this season let us also look for the daily experiences that transform us,

those unexpected instances of grace, those special moments of relationship, those opportunities to serve one another. 

With God’s help, let us build our own mountains.  Amen.