"Down from the Mountain" Sermon for Feb 19, 2012
- Details
- Written by Everett J. Bassett
Down from the Mountain - Exodus 34: 29-35; Mark 9: 2-9 - February 19, 2012 - Cicero United Methodist Church - Everett J. Bassett
A man who was driving through rural New England stopped in a small town to get some gas.Wanting to make some conversation and get some local flavor, he asked the attendant what the town was like. The attendant replied, "Well, that depends. Do you mean what is it like to people like you who drive through to enjoy its "quaint and picturesque rustic charms?" Or do you mean what's it like to people like me who have to live in this dad-blamed, moth-eaten, dust-covered one-light dump?"
So much beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And quite often, the eye that beholds the same thing again and again ends up where that attendant is -- loses its sense of beauty over time. And the eye that sees something new for the first time has a novel and fresh appreciation. I've thought that many times when I have spent a few days away, exploring someplace new. This is especially true when I am down South. Because as I drive up 81 to home, there is that moment when I reach the crest of the Onondaga Escarpment, and come around a little turn, and there is Syracuse - with its dome, its State Tower Building, its University Hill, Onondaga Lake in the background. And it suddenly occurs to me that this is just as lovely as any place I've seen. I've been off thinking someplace else was special, and Central New York was plain; but this is a beautiful place. I just don't appreciate that the same way when I'm driving into that city five or six times a week.
Part of that is just human nature - to see the grass as greener someplace else. But it also has to do with the grind of daily life. Your home turf is where you experience the nitty gritty of reality. It is where you have to get up and go to work; it is where you rub elbows with people, and don't get along with some of them. It is the place where aches and pains are most pronounced, and little irritations rub at you, and nagging problems occur day after day. As one man in old England wrote in his suicide note- "Too much buttoning and unbuttoning." That gas station attendant had had too much of that daily grind stuff, so that town he lived in had no special rural charm to him whatsoever.
And so we plan vacations, and other diversions. Things that lift us out of the daily grind. You go someplace else - maybe someplace with "quaint and picturesque rustic charm" -- and it looks so great. Life would be better if I lived in a place like this. Would it? Wouldn't you be the same person there? To be sure, there are some spots in this world that are exceptionally beautiful. I mentioned Yosemite National Park in last week's sermon, and that is amazingly beautiful. But if I lived there, would it offer me anything more spiritual than listening to the spring peepers at Beaver Lake? Would I be any happier there than I can be pulling a trout out of Chittenango Creek?
I think about all this when I read this morning's scripture lesson about Jesus leading his three closest disciples up for a mountaintop experience. There on the top of the mountain, Jesus was transfigured before them into a beautiful shining image. And Moses and Elijah appeared, and it was a glorious moment for those three disciples. And one of them, Peter, reacted just the way many of us think when we see an especially beautiful place - "Let's build a cabin!" He actually said, "Let us make three booths ...” He wanted to mark the place, make it permanent, stay there. It didn't quite work that way. Next thing Peter knows, a voice from heaven says about Jesus, "This is my beloved Son; listen to him." And then they are going back down the mountain. There are some famous paintings of this event, and most of the show a sharp contrast - up on the mountain it is shining and gorgeous; down in the valley it is dark and filled with struggle and sorrow. And those disciples must have wondered why in the world Jesus would go back there. Why do we have to go back down the mountain?
I think there are at least three very good answers to that question. The first is the one I've implied already - and that is that the grass is not really greener someplace else. It's just that you have grown numb to the beauty in where you are standing. There was a movie out this past year called Young Adult, written by one of the best young screenwriters today, Diablo Cody. It's about a young woman who has left her small town, and gone to the city, and then after a few years decides to go back and "rescue" her high school boyfriend from that terrible place. And he is married now, and has a job and a baby, and he doesn't want to be rescued. And it takes her a while to realize, if she ever does; that they feel sorry for her, because they are home and she is not. I suppose you could ask that discouraged gas station attendant, "Why don't you just move out of here?" And I suspect part of the answer would be, "This is home." And yes it's irritating, and if I have to look at this street one more time I'll go crazy. But this is where my stuff is. This is where my people are. This is where home is. And in reality, it's rich and it's beautiful, and it's the greenest grass on earth. Mountaintop experiences are great; but they are not home. And so vacations end, and we drive home.
We come down the mountain for a second reason - because we have work to do. The fact is, as people of faith, we are not called to a life of escape from the world's problems. It's just the opposite: our faith calls us into the world, not away from it. Jesus didn't say to his disciples, "Follow me, and you'll escape all your problems." It was more like, "Follow me, and we'll tackle the problems of the world, and it will be hard like a cross on our backs, but with God, all things will be possible." His last words to his disciples, by one account, (and, by the way, they were standing on the mountaintop when he said it) was, "Go and make disciples of all nations." In other words, go down from the mountain, roll up your sleeves, and get to work. There are people to feed, there are ghettoes to save, there are battles to be fought, and battles to be ended, there are lost sheep to bring back into the fold.
At the heart of our traditional faith is the belief in a Savior who could have stayed in heaven, and opted instead to come down and die for the sins of the world. That is not an invitation for you and me to go off on permanent retreat. It is a call to bring the Good News of that self-giving, redeeming love to this hungry and hurting world. To feed the hungry, to welcome the refugee, to teach the child. Thank God there are mountaintops where we can retreat and recharge our batteries and renew our passion for God's people. But Jesus leads us back down the mountain to tackle the problems that hurt so many people. That's where we are led to practice our faith.
There was a woman whose husband had been very difficult; but then one night he was convicted and saved at an evangelistic service. For the next few weeks he went back again and again, worshipping and praying, praising the Lord. And someone asked if she was happy about this change. And she replied, "I don't care how high he jumps when he's praising the Lord. What I care about is what he does when his feet hit the ground again." And that's what God is looking at too. How do we do the Lord's work in this place, this neighborhood, these relationships, this world?
And all of that leads us to affirm one more answer to the question, "Why come down from the mountain." I don't have to say much about this one, because I think I've said it already. We come down from the mountain because that's where Jesus will be - right in the thick of life's struggles. I got a couple great comments about last week's sermon, where I said that I am not as likely to find God in some beautiful natural spot like Yosemite as I am in the daily routine of life's journey, travelling with other people of faith. People defended nature and its spiritual beauty. And I love it, too. I love to travel to places like Yosemite, and I am spiritually blessed, and I pray there, and thank God. But it's not the same as travelling through daily life with God's Spirit, and seeing God at work in the journey of life. And I think that's what Jesus taught. He didn't say;. "If you want to find me, find a beautiful natural place and meditate." He said, "Go into the world, and I will be with you." He said, "Wherever two or more are gathered, I will be there." He said to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and visit the sick and imprisoned and welcome the stranger, and He will be there. Up there on the mountaintop, where Peter wanted to settle in and build, God said, "There's my Son; listen to him." And where Jesus speaks is in
the middle of the trials and irritations and questions and needy cries of life.
And that's why the central location of grace is not on a mountain or in a church or off the path. It's on a cross, and that cross was carried through the busiest street in the city. And if you go there today and walk through that street you'll walk through a marketplace teeming with commerce, bustling with people. And as you stand at the place where the cross stood, you'll hear the loud commotion from the bus station below. You smell the fumes, and see the pollution. And more than one traveler has been disappointed. They thought when they stood where Jesus was crucified, they would be coming to a quiet place where they could meditate. But instead here is this noisy bus station. And if there had been buses 2000 years ago, I think Jesus would have led his disciples right into the heart of that station and said, "Be with my people here, where they struggle and strive and stumble along."
So the question for us isn't, "Will we come down from the mountain?" We have to come down if we want to find home; if we want to do our appointed work; if we want to be where Jesus is. Perhaps the real question is comes from our Old Testament lesson: "When we come down from the mountain, will our face shine with the glory of God?" That's what happened to Moses, and he carried such light into the world from his encounter with God that he kept his face covered for the sake of not blinding others. And perhaps we are not in danger of blinding others by our brightness; but when we come back from retreat, when we come out of church, when we drive back from vacation, are we renewed and refreshed to shine a light of hope into other lives as we share the love of Jesus?
There's a story of a little boy who looked with longing into the window of a shoe store. His own shoes were worn out, and his family very poor, and he prayed to ask Jesus for a pair of comfortable shoes. A woman saw him there, and approached him to ask what he was doing. He was shy and didn't say anything, but she put two and two together. She asked if they could go together into the store. She talked with the clerk, and they took the boy off to the side. The clerk brought a basin of water, and the woman knelt and washed the boy's feet. She purchased new socks and placed them on him, and then they went together and fitted him for new shoes. She paid for it all. He still had not spoken a word, until she walked back outside with him and turned to walk away, and he softly said, "Ma'am?" and she turned and saw the beginning of tears in his eyes, and he asked her: “Is your name Jesus?"
The answer to his question might be No -- but she shines the light of Jesus through her kindness and her love. I'd like to shine that kind of light. What about you?
This week we will begin the season of Lent. There's an old tradition that we give something up for Lent. Not a bad idea - many people have found that giving up a meal a week, or giving up something else that is part of your daily routine is a deep and rich discipline that can focus your spiritual life.
But here is another approach -what if you began every day of Lent with this question - how can Jesus shine through me today? And then intentionally created those shining opportunities - sometimes in direct and face-to-face encounters like that woman; and other times through learning about the root causes of despair and hopelessness in the world, and doing something about it?
I believe this is what Jesus us asking us to do. And by teaming up with God everyone of us can make our corner of the world - our beautiful earthly home -- shine a little brighter.