challenge – Salvaged Faith

Text: Exodus 24:12-18, Matthew 17:1-9

There are a number of places in scripture where the divine is revealed in those thin places where heaven and earth meet.

I think about Elijah hiding on the side of the mountain.

Or when Moses heads up the mountain and receives the word of God for the people.

Or our reading from the gospel today when Peter, James, and John travel up to the mountain top with Jesus.

You know… I was thinking about Moses’ time up on the mountain and this renewal leave that I just finished.

Moses took this time to head up the mountain and spend some time with God.

This is actually a story that we’ve looked at this past fall with our Bible study groups on Wednesday’s and one of the things we discover if we read ahead a few chapters is that the people started to get worried that maybe he wasn’t coming back!

Forty days and nights go by and for all they knew, Moses had been engulfed by the cloud and the darkness on the top of the mountain and they were on their own!

In fact, Moses only comes back in chapter 32 after they discover that the people down below have begun to rebel – forming a golden calf and offering sacrifices.

Well, good news friends… I’m not back because I’ve heard you were misbehaving!

But these mountain top experiences were all surrounded by something really hard.

They came in the midst of stressful and difficult times of ministry.

Persecution.

Exodus.

The first prediction of Jesus death and suffering.

They are transition moments that remind each of these people who God is… and who they are.

They remind them that God is there.

They remind them they still have a job to do.

And in many ways, that is what my renewal leave has been about.

In the midst of the mounting pressure and stress of our denominational life…

In the midst of staffing transitions…

In the midst of some personal relationship struggles that I needed to focus on…

This set-apart time to breathe, and sleep, and focus on God and finding a new balance and rhythm in my life has been so important.

So many of you have been asking already, and so that I don’t repeat myself a hundred more times… my work on renewal leave was pretty simple.

I completely disconnected from email and the constant call of social media.

I spent time every morning reading – scripture, books, resources to help ground myself in God.

I spent hours talking and cuddling with my spouse.

I hiked in the snow.

I didn’t set an alarm for an entire month.

I laughed a lot with friends.

I listened to the birds.

I made some really good homemade bread.

I had the opportunity to really drink deep from the living water and to fill my cup back up for the season ahead.

And I am so grateful that you have been supportive of this time away.

But in some ways, I also have a new insight into how Peter, James, and John felt at the top of that mountain.

They had been following their teacher for quite some time now and they had witnessed some pretty amazing things.

But they also had just learned how difficult the journey was going to be.

They were starting to experience push-back.

And Jesus had just shared with him for the first time that he expected to be executed.

He was calling them to lose their lives, too.

This trip up the mountain must have seemed like a welcome respite from the stress and strain of this work.

As they get to the top of the mountain, Jesus changes before their eyes!

His whole body radiates with glory and even his clothes shine… brighter than the sun!

And as their eyes adjust to this brilliance, two others appear… Moses and Elijah.

Our text says that Peter reacted in this moment.

He reacted by wanting to bottle it up and capture it right there, just like that forever.

He interrupts Jesus and Moses and Elijah and offers to build some shrines where they can sit down and get comfortable and just stay right there.

None of this talk about losing your life.

None of the persecution that was happening back down in the valley.

None of the stress.

Just this perfect presence of the divine.

Light. Life. Glory.

If you encountered it… you wouldn’t want to leave either.

When you have a chance to catch your breath and rest in God’s presence it’s awfully hard to not want to just stay right there forever.

Trust me… I’ve just had four weeks to dwell in this beautiful space.

And while I’m excited to be back, it was also really, really hard to let go of that precious time away.

I’d be fibbing if I didn’t admit that a part of me imagined what it would be like to just leave it all behind and stay in that place forever.

During Lent this year, as a church, I’m challenging you to participate in one of our small groups focused around the book, “Unbinding Your Heart.”

I think this particular study is so important right now, because in some ways, I think we have got a little comfortable.

We’ve taken rest in the familiar and the holy and everything we know about God and the church.

We get into our patterns and routines and sit in the same seats on Sunday mornings and like Peter and James and John have built a little beautiful shrine around everything we believe about God and church.

This holy place is amazing and we want to stay right here in our comfort zones.

But on the mountain top, the voice of God quickly sets things straight. Out of the clouds, the glory of God rumbles: This is my Son, This is my Beloved! Listen to him!!!!!!

Just as quickly as it appeared, the clouds and fog dissipated and three bewildered and terrified disciples opened their eyes to find their teacher Jesus, standing before them alone.

It was time to head back down the mountain.

It was time to get back to work.

You see, the mountain top is not a destination.

It is more like a rest stop.

It is a place to fill up your tank, to pick up some snacks for the road, to take a nap if you need to…

But it is not the be all and end all of the journey.

This mountaintop transfiguration comes at a key transitional moment in the gospel.

It is framed in Matthew’s gospel by these two predictions of his suffering, death, and resurrection.

Jesus has set his face towards Jerusalem.

The disciples were being called to leave behind the healing and teaching and instead to head straight for the seat of power.

They were being called not to violence or revolution, but a display of righteous love that would “refuse to play the world’s power game of domination, exploitation, greed, and deception.”[1]

In the church year, it is also a moment of transition.

We, too, are setting our faces towards Jerusalem as we enter the season of Lent.

This Wednesday, we will remember our mortality when a cross of ashes is placed on our foreheads.

We, too, will live together the last week of Christ’s life.

We, too, are called to live out God’s righteous love in a world that doesn’t always accept or understand it.

As people of faith, we were never called to build tents and tabernacles to enshrine these moments forever.

We can’t say – oh, well, we accomplished that, look how great we were, and be done.

We can’t neatly wrap up our faith with a bow and put it on a shelf.

We have to set it free.

We have to keep working.

We have to keep seeing what changes need to be made.

We have to keep following the guidance of the spirit.

And that means getting off of the mountain top, rolling up our sleeves, and getting to work.

We do it all, because Christ has already gone before us.

He is the one we are following down the mountainside.

Jesus showed us you can take a moment for affirmation and to rest in the glory of God, but then we have to be on the move.

We have to let the good news out.

That light that overcame Jesus on the mountaintop – the glory that transformed him into a dazzling visage – wasn’t meant for him alone.

Christ is the light of the world and he knew that in order for that light to dwell within each of us, he was going to have to shine even in the darkest places of the world.

He was going to have to confront evil powers.

He was going to have to withstand betrayal and abuse.

He was going to have to carry his cross and enter the grave of death.

And we can’t stay on the mountaintop either.

We can’t rest for a moment longer.

We have to come down and let that light of Christ shine through our hearts.

If you haven’t already signed up for one of our Lenten groups, I urge you to do so today.

They will be starting this week and next and the discussions we will have as part of them will help us learn what it means to get out of church… to get out of these shrines and tabernacles we have built… and go out there to where people are waiting and hungry for the good news of God.

It is a chance to spend some time listening to God, listening to Christ, listening to the cries of our neighbors.

It is a chance to push ourselves out of complacency and into the harder and more beautiful realm of real ministry.

It is a chance to unbind the gospel… to set it free from those quiet mountaintop moments so that every moment can be filled with the good news of God.

Friends, it’s time to listen to Jesus.

It’s time to let God’s light shine through us.

It’s time to plant the seeds of the Kingdom of God everywhere we go.

It’s time to get off the mountain.

[1] Rodney Hunter, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol 1, page 454.

There are places in this world that are “thin.”
It is a label given to places, in the Celtic understanding, where the barrier between the human and the divine, heaven and earth, is nearly imperceptible.
A place where we experience the divine more readily.

In biblical history, we see a number of these “thin places” or holy locations: like Mount Sinai or the temple in Jerusalem, or that mountain where Jesus was transfigured. Sometimes, it is the location itself that is key… sometimes it is the hearts of the people gathered who seem to transform it.

Perhaps you have known a “thin place.”
Experiences that have filled you with a sense of awe and purpose.
Sometimes people call these “mountain top moments”… even if they didn’t actually take place on a mountain because they are the peaks of our spiritual journey.
“Thin places” are where you have felt God’s presence more than any other.

As I think back in my own spiritual journey, I’ve had these kinds of experiences in large gatherings of faithful folks at retreats, and I’ve had them in silent moments at the top of mountains. I’ve also had them right here, in this sanctuary, in this building, as we have gathered to worship and praise God.

And what I have noticed is that it is always hard to leave those places.
You want to linger.
You can’t imagine normal life in the same way again.
The pull to stay is almost irresistible.
But eventually you have to return.
Return to your life.
Return to solid ground.
Return to the mundane and the thick and the muck and mess.

In our gospel this morning, we find Jesus returning from one of those “thin places.”
The Jordan River was a place of healing and transformation.
John the Baptist called people out to the river to repent and be baptized.
And when Jesus visited, that barrier between the heavens and earth grew so thin that the skies burst open and the Holy Spirit descended upon him.

But like us, Jesus can’t stay there.
He can’t set up shop there on the banks and wait for the world to come to him, any more than we can’t live here in the church for our whole lives… waiting for flocks of people to come into our doors.
No, he has to return to the rest of the world.
There is work to be done.

So, full of the Holy Spirit, like we often are after these holy moments, Jesus returns from the Jordan.

And there is something that happens in this returning, in this transition.
In between verse 1 where he returns from the Jordan and verse 14, where he returns to Galilee, there is a gap.

The wilderness.
A liminal space.
40 days of discomfort, of waiting, of transformation.
40 days of fasting and wrestling.
40 days of trial and temptation.
40 days.

Biblically, this 40 days reminds us of the great flood in Genesis, or the Israelites wandering for 40 years in the wilderness. Moses fasted for 40 days… so did Elijah.
This number 40 doesn’t have to mean a literal forty days… but it signifies the right amount of time it takes to get you ready for whatever comes next.

As Jesus returns from the Jordan, he needs to prepare himself for his ministry in the world. And the devil shows up to tempt him. As Jesus is shown all of the possibilities for what that ministry might look like, he has to figure out what kind of savior he will be. He wrestles with his calling. He takes time to focus fully on the presence and power of God that will sustain him in his work.
And in that time, Jesus is preparing himself to go and BE a thin space in the world.
To be the very presence of God, Immanuel, with the people.
And if Jesus, the very Son of God, needs this liminal time to get him ready to return to the world… don’t you think we do, too?

Every week, we gather in this church to worship and experience the divine. It has become for us a sort of thin place… [And soon, some of us will be worshipping in a new thin place].
And what we experience here… the friendships we make, the prayers, the support and accountability, the life-giving spirit… is good and awesome and holy.
But we can’t stay here forever.
Every Sunday, when the worship has finished and we take leave of the building, we have to return to the world.
We have to go out into Galilee, into Des Moines, into our mission field.
There is work to be done for the sake of the gospel.

But I’m afraid that too often, we come to a holy and thin place like this, we get filled up with the Holy Spirit, and then as soon as we step outside of the doors, the devil is waiting for us.
And the devil prays on all of our insecurities and temptations.
I fear, that most days, instead of holding on to the spirit of God… we instantly fill ourselves back up with worries and concerns, with politics and ideology, with work and school and family troubles.
We walk out the door and forget about what we have just experienced.
Back to the normal, mundane, ordinary world, as ordinary, normal, mundane people.

What if, before we left the building, we took a moment to get ourselves ready?

Sometimes I give you big challenges, but this morning, I want us to think small.
I want to challenge all of us to carve out not 40 days, not 40 minutes, but 40 seconds of space…
40 seconds of wilderness time… to help us return back to the world.
I want to challenge you, before you walk out the doors today, to spend just 40 seconds putting your trust in God.
40 seconds to remember who we are and whose we are.
40 seconds to lift up the temptations we know we will face and place them in God’s hands.

Our churches have work to do. We have a kingdom to help build. There are lives that are lost that need the love and grace and mercy of God.
And we cannot do it by ourselves.
We can’t do it without being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Here’s the thing… YOU are the temple of God. God’s Spirit lives within YOU.
And God wants you to be the hands and feet of Jesus out there in the world.
God needs your ministry and your work out in the world.

So let us get filled up with the Spirit.
And let us go out, to live as “thin places,” to be people who bring the love of God to every person we meet.
Amen.

Posts Tagged with challenge

Getting Off the Mountain

Returning from Thin Places