FROM THE HEART OF GOD
A sermon preached by
Rev. Dr. Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Text: Luke 9:28-36
So we continue our consideration of how we build our church with hope and spirit. Last week we looked at the first of four pillars on which we establish this church – a church whose mission is “to worship God.” We acknowledged that the God we worship is both vast, beyond our imagining, the eternal More, and, at the same time, approaches us with grace, desiring that we live in communion, even taking on human form to show us the way home. How we worship such a God is both a challenge and a rich opportunity. Whatever form our worship takes, it needs to bring us into closer relationship with God, healing us where we are broken, strengthening us in righteousness or right-living, and empowering us to carry good news to the ends of the earth. Though we may indeed worship in solitude – and sometimes need to – worship is more importantly a corporate activity, building up relationships within a community that helps that community become a church with hope and spirit, a church that is ultimately shaped by the hand of God, that exists primarily for God’s purposes. This is the kind of church we say we want to be.
Today we make a transition to the second pillar on which we found our church - a church whose mission is “to explore together faith and commitment to Christ.” How are we as individuals, and how is our life as a faith community, shaped by our openness, our willingness to explore what it means to be Christian disciples? And how does our commitment to worshiping God link to our dedication to exploring our relationship to the Christ?
The pillars on which we build the church need to be sunk deeply into solid rock, providing a strong foundation on which to raise the edifice. Last week, as we thought about how we had said that ours is, and will be, a church whose mission is to worship God, we also saw what a challenge it is to worship One so far beyond our human understanding. We acknowledged how, when we take the risk to come close, we are always vulnerable to being blown away by the experience. So, like sheer wall in the basement of our building, the pillar of “worshiping God” must be linked to the pillar of “exploring together faith and commitment to Christ” in order to help bear the weight and strengthen the structure.
When Moses goes up on the mountain to face God, he goes alone. Apparently no one else in the whole assembly is prepared to go. In his encounter with the Holy, Moses is only allowed to see the back side of God as God disappears behind the crest of the mountain. Yet Exodus tells us that when Moses comes down from the mountain, his face shines so intensely that the people cannot tolerate his countenance and he has to wear a veil when he appears before them. I do not think Barbara Brown Taylor is far from the truth when she says that these people did not want a direct encounter with God. If dealing with the reflected light of God in the face of Moses was so overwhelming, then there was no hope that they themselves could handle a direct encounter. “Give us a mediator, a container, a religion, a set of rules and regulations, so that we do not have to deal directly with the living God.”
Do we ever feel like this? Do we want to keep our relationship with God comfortably at a distance so we do not need to be touched by the glory, the light, the fire that might radically change our lives? The writer of John, in his gospel, says that, even when light came into the world, “people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19.) My guess is that for most of us, as it was for Moses’s crowd, evil is not the primary concern. For us, fear of both the intensity of the light and what it might expose of our very human limitations causes to us to move toward the shadows and stay out of God’s spotlight. We don’t want to be exposed as comfortably apathetic or steeped in fear or sleeping on the job. We want to be good but do we want to be passionately committed? We want mountaintop experiences, but how much are we willingly to give in order to live like that?
In John’s great prologue to his gospel, he acknowledges the majesty and the mystery of God as he also makes the crucial link between God and the Christ, the Word made flesh. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people” (John 1:1-4.) After God had reached out to humankind through the law and the prophets, with no lasting success, God sent God’s only child. The Spirit of God took on human form and lived among human beings as one of us, showing us how we might be solidly linked to the God who made us and desires to be in communion with us.
Christ comes, into the heart of darkness, straight from the heart of God. When God sees that humanity cannot or will not come close enough, cannot or will not sustain a lifetime covenant, cannot or will not enter into the ongoing, eternal communion that God desires, God sends Jesus from God’s own overflowing heart to show us the way home. There is no promise that the way is level, the road is straight or the journey is easy, but there is the promise that we need not go it alone, for this Christ will go with us all the way.
When Jesus goes up on the mountain to face God, he invites Peter, James and John to go with him. Ready or not, they are invited to come along for a close encounter of a new kind, a different experience of God, one that will, in the moment, blow them away, but, in time, will transform their lives. The adventure starts off tame enough. He wants them to join him for a little prayer meeting. We can say with certainty that Jesus spent time in prayer. It was an essential element of his relationship to God and something we surely need to attend to in our own faith practice. Kate Huey says that “In the midst of teaching and healing, Jesus has called his followers to stop and pray, to be open to and strengthened by God's unexpected and indescribable grace, instructed by the voice of…God, and empowered to continue on the path of Jesus, no matter where it leads” (Kate Huey, “Astounding Glory” at i.ucc.org.) It is in the consistent practice of prayer that Jesus makes a way for God to come close, to speak to him, to guide him, to sustain him, to love him. It is in prayer that Jesus finds the quiet center of his life and moves near to the heart of God. This can be so for us as well.
Before today’s text, Jesus has just spent time with the disciples talking about his impending death and the cost to them of their own discipleship. We don’t know how Peter, James and John felt about what they had heard, but they seem to go willingly with him to the mountain, as they eventually will go with him into the garden to pray. And, as they will there, they have trouble staying awake. They want to be with him, they want to learn from him, they want to feel the warmth of his presence, but it is a struggle for them to keep up. Their eyes are heavy with sleep when the glory of God suddenly breaks over them. They’re dumbfounded, though Peter, as is his habit, quickly finds something to say. This something, of course, shows his difficulty in grasping the situation. He has recognized Jesus as the Christ, the promised One of God, but he is not at all clear about what that really means.
As soon as Peter moves to hold on to the mountaintop experience, God’s shining darkness envelopes the light and they are left in terror, unable to see or understand what is happening. But before we are too hard on Peter, we might ask ourselves how ready we are for such encounters? How willing are we to go to the mountain with Jesus not only to pray, but to run the risk that God will respond to our prayers by showing up in person, confronting us in blinding light and enveloping darkness? And, if we were to take the chance, what would we do and what would we say in response? When was the last time your face shone like the sun with the reflected light of God? When was the last time any of us glowed from being so near to the heart of God?
Then the voice from the cloud, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” Listen to him. What does such a message say to us, who have said we want to build our church by exploring together faith and commitment to Christ? “Wake up, friends. Pay attention! Listen to him!” Huey observes that “While I love the idea of healing and forgiveness, and I wish I could have heard him preach and watched him hold the little children and multiply loaves and fishes, I'm pretty sure, being the anxious type, I could have passed on the thing up on the mountain with the bright light, Moses and Elijah appearing, and then a voice from heaven booming down that we should ‘Listen to him’” (Kate Huey, “Astounding Glory” at i.ucc.org.) But this is God come close. This is God so loving the world, yes, including you and me, that God sends God’s own child to redeem us. This is the light penetrating every shadow of our lives with warmth and grace, with healing and the power to transform. “So, listen up, get with the program.” It’s all here and now, available for you and me and all the world.
Lifting up this story about Christ as an example of commitment is not to say that we are or want to be a church in which questions are discouraged. The Christ story and Jesus Movement challenge us with teachings, stories, mandates and a way of life with many possible manifestations. This second pillar is a mixture of scripture, tradition, experience and how we share these things with one another. I am sure that the use of the expression exploring faith and how it is played out in Christian discipleship is no accident for this congregation. Though we are not a people averse to answers, we are surely open to the consideration of questions. Who is Jesus? How is he the Christ? What do these claims mean for the ways we live our lives as people who continue to use the name Christian?
I do think that the ways we pray, that is, the ways in which we open ourselves to God, seeking understanding, guidance, wisdom, and then the ways we listen to God’s responses, especially as they come through the life and ministry of Jesus, will shape us for right living and bring us near to the heart of God. Our willingness to engage in such exploration of faith and commitment to Christ is a worthy pillar for building a church with hope and spirit. It may lead us to mountaintops where we come face to face with the living God whom we worship, and it may lead us into valleys where our sisters and brothers are pleading for healing and wholeness, for peace and justice, for a word of hope and a cup of water. In the end, it will take us from the heart of God to the heart of God. In Christ Jesus, may we find joy and fulfillment in that journey.
28Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. 29And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. 30Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. 31They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. 32Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. 33Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” —not knowing what he said. 34While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. 35Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” 36When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.