St. Andrew’s Pictou; February 6^th 2005 TRANSFIGURATION SUNDAY

 

Accept the Invitation

 

Exodus 24:12- 18

2 Peter 1:16-21

Matthew 17:1-9

 

Are you one of those rare individuals who have had “a mountain top experience?” There was a moment when you climbed the mountain and saw the world’s vista in a new way that transformed your life. Spiritually, the experience is one of God.

 

We heard The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King tell of his mountain top experience in his “I Have a Dream,” speech. “I have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!” he said. Every time we hear this speech recorded, in our guts, we know that he saw a magnificent vision that was beyond what human eyes can see: “the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

 

It needs to be said that to have a mountain top experience, you have to climb the mountain. The mountain can be steep. The mountain can be painful. The mountain can be dangerous, and scary, and you can even die trying to climb that mountain. But, as Dr. King pointed out, when you’ve seen the view from the top of the mountain, even death doesn’t matter anymore.

 

The mountain can be anything. You don’t have to go to the Rockies, you might have a mountain to climb right here in Pictou. The mountain could be sickness, a difficult marriage situation, or debilitating betrayal. We all have our mountains to climb.

 

For those who are willing to go, to make the climb, overcome the obstacles, and persevere, the event is one of transfiguration.

 

To be changed on the inside, in attitude, and vision, and the resulting change in your appearance at the top of the mountain, is to be transfigured. You yourself will be exalted and glorified from the experience.

 

Victor Hugo (1802-1885) said, “Great grief is a divine and terrible radiance which transfigures the wretched.”

 

Not only grief, but love and faithfulness can also transfigure us and call us to the mountain top.

 

Moses was a great man of faith. In partnership with God, he had led the people out of slavery in Egypt, across the Read Sea and into the wilderness, on their way to the Promised Land.

 

We meet them at the base of Mount Sinai, which at that time was as far as we know an active volcano.

 

At this point in the story, God issued Moses and invitation: “Come up to me on the mountain, and wait there; and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.”

 

God invited Moses to climb the Mountain. God promised to give Moses a gift in return for his climb; God’s law would be inscribed on stone tablets for the people’s use.

 

There are two immediate lessons here for us:

-Moses accepted the invitation,

-and Moses didn’t go it alone. He took his #2 man, Joshua with him.

 

“Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered it for six days; on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the cloud.

Now the appearance of the Glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel.

Moses went up on the mountain and entered the cloud.

Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.”

 

(Mount Sinai was not a Tim Horton’s Drive through, it took time: 40 days and nights.)

 

Not only was Moses transfigured by this event, but humanity was transfigured by receiving this encoded law on the tablets from God: The Ten Commandments.

 

We turn to another mountain top experience in Matthew and this time (instead of God) Jesus is issuing the invitation to a larger group: Peter, James and his brother John to go to the top of the mountain.

 

They get to the top of the mountain and again like “the Moses experience,” we have this powerful blinding light:

“And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.

Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah talking with him.”

 

You could imagine that this was a scary experience and that they had never seen anything like it. In his people pleasing way, Peter suggested that they should build three shrines; one each for Jesus, Elijah and Moses.

 

While Peter was talking, a big bright cloud appeared and enveloped them and a voice spoke out of the cloud saying: “This is my son, the beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” God added another commandment to the Ten he gave Moses: listen to God’s Son, Jesus.

 

“The Word of the Lord” has invitations issued from God and Jesus to Moses, Peter, James and John to come up to the mountain top:

Just think of what is happening here: the Divine is inviting humanity to come to the mountain top!

 

We are not told that this will be one of those warm fuzzy experiences, in fact these experiences are scary and paralyzing as much as they are also life-giving.

 

We are not told that the journey will be easy, short, or even safe, but God still calls us to the mountain top.

 

In the tug of war between God and humanity, in which direction are we each of us being pulled?

 

If God is calling us upward, is humanity pulling us down?

 

The other day I handed two newspapers to a young woman in a store. I had a two dollar coin in my hand as I though it would be about that amount. She said, “$1.97.”

After handed her the coin I then found two cents more and handed them to her. She looked alarmed as she had her hand in the till getting the three pennies. I said, “Didn’t you say it was $1.97?” (Because of the look of shock on her face, I thought that maybe I had misheard her.)

She said, “Yes.” And still looked alarmed and I said. “I give you two cents, and you give me a nickel back.” She still looked alarmed and quickly checked out the math on her calculator, and then gave me a nickel.

 

Three + two = five. She assured me that she had her grade 12, but she can’t add two and three? Are we teaching young people… not to think?

 

I am asking those of you here today to think; to think about how God is calling you up the mountain to experience a mind expanding encounter with God that will shake you to the core, knock you shoes off, and change your life.

 

A robot can push buttons on a cash register or a calculator, but only a woman or a man, can experience ecstasy, glory, love and God.

 

You were created for glory and for glory you are called; you are invited to experience the glory of God.

 

God in Christ invites you and I to the mountain top: we must accept the invitation!

 

To go in the other direction is easy at first. There are times when our energy is not enough, and time pressures only allow us to choose the path of least resistance. But as a policy it comes with a great cost: the loss of our humanity, the loss of our creativity, the loss of peak experience, the loss of ourselves and who we might become, the loss of experiencing the glory of God.

 

We are created for glory, we are called to glory.

 

Every times a child says that they are bored, challenge them!

-go to the library,

-read a book; discover what you don’t know,

-discover your passion,

-go for a walk,

-call a friend, write a letter, do something!

 

Think! God gave you a day to live, use it. Use your God given brain!

 

The invitation to life is offered. Accept the invitation!

 

AMEN                       Rev. Alan Stewart