Sermon on February 14, 2010
Sermon for the Episcopal Church of St John the Baptist, Capitola,
given by Rev. Stuart Schlegel
The Episcopal Church of Saint John the Baptist welcomes all to worship God and to share Christ's love in the world. We are a parish family committed to provide liturgy, Bible study, music, counseling, and Christian education for children, youth, and adults, and to equip all our members for life and for service to others.
Sermon: The Vision on the Mountain
One of the most familiar themes of Christian teaching – at least for us in a sacramental Church – is that we are called to see Christ as present in our daily lives. Most of us can sense his presence in the Eucharist, where we feel it as somehow there in the bread and wine of Holy Communion. We are told by the gospel that Christ is also to be found in our neighbors, in our friends, deep within our own hearts, and, perhaps above all, in the stranger in need. And yet, even though it sometime touches us, we all know how elusive that sense of his presence can be. Theologians speak of the deus incognito, the hidden God, and I know that you and I know only too well how difficult it is to penetrate that incognito and see Christ in the world around us, in the world of everyday, in the world of our daily and normal life. Sometimes it happens, almost in spite of ourselves, in a moment of unexpected beauty or pain, in some sudden turning in our life, or in some moment of deep compassion. We are surprised and dazzled as we catch a glimpse of Christ’s true presence and glory, right there in our lives, in our world. But, for most of us, this is occasional and fleeting. The mundane world is usually just that for us: mundane, earthy, all too this-worldly.
This, I think, is where we find the meaning of that haunting story of the Transfiguration, which we heard in our gospel lesson this morning. Jesus and three of his closest disciples, Peter, John, and James, had gone up on a mountain to pray. While Jesus was praying, his three companions slept. When they awoke, they suddenly saw him not as their earthly teacher and master, but as the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, his robes white and glistening, his face transfigured with glory, just as Moses’ face was said to be shining when he was on Mt. Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments. Now, Jesus was talking with Moses and Elijah, the supreme representatives to Jews of their scriptures, of what we Christians call the Old Testament. Moses represented to them the Law and Elijah the Prophets. Then the disciples heard the voice of God from above saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved.” Peter’s well known response was to offer to build dwellings, tabernacles, shrines, for Jesus, Moses and Elijah. But this was not appropriate, and soon the vision faded, and our Lord and his three followers went down from the mountain to continue their work of teaching and healing.
This story comes at the climax of our Epiphany season, because that is what it is – a wonderful, climactic epiphany. An “epiphany,” as you know, is a showing forth, a manifestation, and this was a manifestation of Jesus as the Christ for Peter, James, and John. These three disciples would go on to become pillars of the faith and stalwart leaders of the new Christian Church following our Lord’s resurrection. But at this stage of their life with him, they knew and understood him as an ordinary man. A wonderful man, to be sure, a rabbi and their friend and master, but very much just another human being. Only with the Easter vision, the resurrection, would they slowly and fitfully come to recognize that he was the Christ, the Messiah, the Chosen One of God. The experience of his Transfiguration on the mountain was a gleaming moment of spiritual insight for them. But they would lose this vision as Jesus’ passion came upon them. They, like the others of the Twelve, would deny and abandon their leader. It was only at the resurrection that they would really know that he was the Christ, and that they would set off to tell the world and change it forever. Then, and only then, would they fully understand the Transfiguration epiphany that they had experienced on that holy mountain.
And so it is for most of us. We now and again may catch fleeting glimpses of the glory of God and of the shimmering presence of Christ, but so often he is hidden, the deus incognito. It is our task to find him in our lives and to recognize him.
Let me tell you a familiar story, the wonderful story of St. Christopher. It is a myth, of course. A myth is a story which may or may not ever have happened in history but which, like all long-lasting and beloved stories, contains a very real truth for those who can hear it. Long ago and far away – so many good myths start out that way – there was a strikingly big and strong man named Offero, who wanted to serve only the very greatest king in the world. He went far and wide, serving one king after another, but something would always show each one up as not the greatest and strongest. So Offero would move on in his quest. One day, one of the kings he served made the sign of the cross, and Offero asked why. The king said it kept away the power of the devil. So our hero went off to find the devil to serve, for he was clearly an even greater king. He did find the devil, but he soon learned that the devil feared a king named Christ, who had died on a cross. So Offero went on with his quest, now looking for Christ. He couldn’t find him, but he did find an old hermit who told him that he might find Christ if he went to a certain river nearby. The river was deep and wide and many drowned trying to cross. Offero was advised to help people make the crossing, using his strength and height to carry people across. This would please Christ, the hermit told him, and perhaps Christ would come and show himself. So Offero built a hut by the river, and when anyone came along who needed help crossing, he would take that person on his shoulders and carry him or her safely across. Once, after some time of this, he heard a small voice calling his name, and he found a child who needed to cross the river. Offero lifted the child to his shoulders and started the crossing. But, as he went along, the weight on his shoulders became heavier and heavier. Finally across, he put the child down, and told him that he had felt terrible danger because the child’s weight had grown so great that he had nearly fallen and drowned. He said that he had felt as though he had been carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Then, the child replied that indeed he had, that he had even carried the Creator of the world. The child said that he was Jesus Christ, the king whom Offero sought to serve. And he said that henceforth his name would not be Offero but Christopher, the Christ-bearer, For when he helped and carried any needy person, he helped and carried Christ himself.
It is a wonderful old story, and I think it helps us understand the Transfiguration story. On that holy mountain Peter, James and John came – like Offero – to see that they served not just Jesus the man but Christ the King. And so, Peter wanted to build a tent, a kind of shrine, so that he could preserve the experience forever. Peter’s was a wrong-headed response, because it would be to make an idol of Christ, Just as Christopher had to keep carrying needy people, so Peter had to let Jesus lead him back down off the mountain, back to the world of daily life. There, in our everyday world, is where Jesus is to be worshipped, adored, and served. In the world. That is where we are usually going to find God. Not in church only, or in liturgies only, but in the many events and people of daily life. There is a beautiful line in the climax of the musical Les Miserables, which speaks of this truth. The line is so simple but so profound: “To love another person,” it goes, “is to see the face of God.”
You see, friends, two things are simply true. One is that none of us gets to live always in the blinding light of an epiphany, always on the mountain-tops of life. The scriptures tell us that we are to flourish like a palm tree, but we must remember that palm trees grow in deserts and not in gardens. We are asked to bear great fruit, but fruit trees grow in valleys and not on mountaintops. Some of us will have our moments of wonderful epiphany, of witnessing some glistening transfiguration, but most of our lives are probably going to be in our everyday deserts and gardens.
The second great truth is that our religion cannot be just in church. A great Christian writer once said, “Religion begins in mysticism and ends in politics.” As Robert Frost said of poetry, so too of religion: “it begins with a lump in your throat.” It begins there, but it must not end there. To keep our religion in church is to imprison Christ in a tabernacle. It is only by taking him out into the world, into our lives, that Christ can live out there through us. And it is only if he is with us, out there in our daily lives, that we will be wise enough and strong enough to truly love other people. And that is terribly important, because loving other people is how you and I get to behold the transfigured face of God.
Amen.