“Six Days Later…” A Sermon preached by The Rev. Canon Dr. C. Denise Yarbrough on Sunday, March 6, 2011 at Church of the Ascension, Rochester, New York
Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. 2And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. (Matt. 17:1-2)
15Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. 16The glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the cloud. (Exodus 24:15-16)
Well, we’ve finally made it. Today is the last Sunday in an unusually long season of Epiphany and we hear Matthew’s version of the transfiguration story. Notice the way the transfiguration story in Matthew’s gospel begins. “Six days later” Matthew writes, “Jesus went up the mountain, taking with him Peter, James and John.” In a gospel narrative full of activity, full of teaching, preaching, healing and miracles, full of important deep discussions between Jesus and his disciples, we have this gap – those mysterious six days about which we know nothing. The transfiguration story occurs mid-way through Matthew’s gospel. By the time we hear this story, Jesus has already established himself as a teacher, preacher, healer and miracle worker. He has become the subject of much discussion and controversy. He has been ignored in his own hometown, has fed the five thousand, walked on water, fed the four thousand, healed lepers, restored sight to the blind, preached the beatitudes, taught his disciples the Lord’s Prayer and much more.
Six days before the transfiguration event, Jesus had a serious talk with his disciples. He asked them what people were saying about him, who the people thought he was. They told him, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” “But who do you say that I am”, he then asks them. Peter replies, “You are the Messiah, the son of the Living God.” After Peter makes this declaration Jesus then predicts his own passion, which causes Peter, at least, to cry out in protest. Then comes that mysterious six days. We know nothing of what happened then. Six quiet, uneventful, unknown days.
Perhaps those six days were a quiet time of reflection and gestation for Jesus and his friends. They’d been busy up till now, and the enormity of Jesus’ mission in the world was beginning to become obvious to them. When Peter spoke those fateful words, it was an up-short moment. Especially as Jesus then explained what would be involved in his destiny – the cross and death. They needed those six days to absorb all this information, to give it time to sink into their consciousness, to begin to orient themselves to this new and unsettling knowledge about how Jesus’ ministry would play out. Then Jesus took three of them and went apart, away from the hustle bustle of regular life, up to a mountain, presumably to pray. And of course, how does one get to the top of a mountain? By climbing, naturally, and that is not easy going. It’s hard work. It causes sore muscles and blisters on your feet and sweating and hard breathing. It’s not a mere stroll. And lo and behold, God rewarded all that effort, both the reflection during the six days and the climb up the mountain with a rather spectacular theophany.
In the midst of what seems like endless winter nature reminds us that it is natural to have times of inactivity and non-productivity, times when things seem to be in a holding pattern, nothing much going on. During the cold of winter, nature sleeps, resting before the awakening of spring. In our culture we are so conditioned to be productive and to accomplish, to make efficient use of our time, that we have a hard time allowing things to gestate and bloom in their own good time. When things get quiet and nothing much seems to be going on, we fear that we are letting things slide. In the spiritual life, however, those times of apparent inactivity are vitally important for real spiritual growth. Without them, the seeds God plants within us might never have time to produce fruit. Church of the Ascension is in one of those waiting times, as your Search Committee works diligently to vet potential priests and the rest of the congregation hangs in the balance, waiting, wondering, undoubtedly at times thinking nothing is going on and this limbo state will last forever. None of us feel comfortable in the waiting times. Hospital waiting rooms, airport departure lounges, the last weeks of pregnancy, the vigil at a deathbed - waiting for a hiring process to play itself out – all these waiting times try our patience and sometimes our faith. Transfiguration moments are what we all want – a spectacular theophany with God’s voice giving us direction. Yet what we often get are long periods of waiting and wondering, in a silence that feels deafening when we are eager for a divine word.
Six days after the serious and sobering conversation about Jesus’ identity as Messiah and his destiny of death on a cross, the disciples see him transfigured – “his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. …While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!””
For a brief moment they were privileged to see and understand the complexity of Jesus and his mission in the world. They saw not only the human being who walked with them, and ate with them, and taught and preached and healed, but also the divine within him. They knew Jesus the man, they knew his mother and his brothers, they had been to parties with him and had walked many a dusty mile with him. But now they saw the other side of him. It was a heady moment, and one they would sorely need after they came down off that mountain and proceeded on to Jerusalem and the gruesome events that they would witness there. This moment of divine insight and revelation followed the quiet six days of ordinariness and the mundane, of nothing much of importance happening. I suspect that God was working through those disciples during that week of downtime, so that they were open and receptive to the vision that they received on that mountaintop. During six days of relatively uneventful, ordinary life, the souls of the disciples were being readied for the in-breaking of God on that mountaintop.
It is in the course of our ordinary moments that God works on our souls so that we might be open to a transfiguration moment. This story also tells us that we already have within us what we need to do God’s work and answer God’s call to us. When Jesus was transfigured on that mountaintop, the disciples didn’t see a new Jesus, they simply had a moment to see very clearly all that Jesus was called to be, all that God had placed within him. Those deep truths about him that were often concealed from daily sight were momentarily revealed in all their glory. When we have moments of transfiguration, all the glorious godly potential that lies in us is also revealed, even if only briefly, providing us the opportunity to grab that holy potential and run with it into the future.
For Ascension, this season of transition, this time of waiting for new leadership to be called and to arrive is like those six unknown days. God is working on this community and through each and every one of you as you pray, and wait, and reflect upon your call as a faith community and your life together and as you seek the right person to lead you into the future that God has prepared for you. Your Search Committee is climbing a holy mountain as they do the difficult spiritual work of discernment. They await a vision of Ascension’s hidden potential and of the gifts and hidden potential in the candidates that they will interview and get to know in the next months. This is tough spiritual work - hints of inspiration followed by hours of just waiting and wondering. And the rest of you are like the nine disciples that were left behind when Jesus and the other three went up the mountain. You’ve got to wait for the others to come down the mountain and then follow them on the road to Jerusalem.
In Celtic Christianity these transfiguration moments are often referred to as “thin places.” Thin places are times and moments when the ever present reality of the sacred and divine, so often hidden and inscrutable momentarily becomes manifest – the veil seems to lift and God is revealed to the mortal eye. Thomas Merton describes this reality:
Life is this simple. We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent, and God is shining through it all the time. This is not just a fable or a nice story. It is true. If we abandon ourselves to God and forget ourselves, we see it sometimes, and we see it maybe frequently. God shows Himself everywhere, in everything- in people and in things and in nature and in events. It becomes very obvious that God is everywhere and in everything and we cannot be without Him. It’s impossible. The only thing is that we don’t see it. (Quoted in Marcus Borg’s Heart of Christianity, p.155)
God told Peter, James and John on that mountaintop, “listen to him.” Transfiguration has much to do with listening. Listening to each other, to the tugs and yearnings in our hearts, and most of all to the whispering of the Holy Spirit. Listening with the whole of our lives, so that, when we are ready to receive what God is offering, we are able to embrace that gift in all its complex fullness. Those moments on the mountaintop, those moments of intense clarity and vision don’t happen often and can’t be summoned. They are the fruit of long periods of quiet reflection and prayer followed by the courage to climb the mountain and encounter God in whatever way God chooses to become manifest. And transfiguration moments sometimes happen to some members of a community for the benefit of all. As your Search Committee continues its very hard work, I commend them to your prayers and encourage all of you to listen to them when they come down from the mountain to tell you what they have seen. Then you’ll all be called to walk together into the future that a new leader will help you to realize. That too is transfigurative work. One writer put it well - “Transfiguration is living by vision…The beyond shines in our midst-on the way to the cross.”
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