Up a High Mountain

There they stand, hundreds of them, in southern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras: massive limestone pyramids, flat on top, with stone staircases up one side. They were built by the ancient Maya people, mostly between 250 and 900 AD. Many of them reach almost 200 feet in height. They stand in complex cities that once contained as many as 3,000 buildings. The people who built these massive structures were literate – they had a hieroglyphic writing system, similar to that of the ancient Egyptians, although using different characters. They also had a complex calendar, an astrological system, and a unique mythology. Their writings tell us that their massive buildings were temples, used for many different religious ceremonies. The people considered these temples to be mountains that would allow their priests who conducted the many ceremonies on top of them to draw near to the gods.

Were the Mayas right? Do we need to climb mountains to draw near to God? Certainly our own Scriptures are full of stories of people having mountain-top encounters with God. Strange things seem to happen on mountains. Almost every time Scripture mentions a mountain, we know that there will be an encounter with the Divine, a terrifying, mysterious, cloud-shrouded, ultimately inexplicable experience of nearness to the Holy One.

In our reading from the book of Exodus, Moses is summoned by the Holy One, the God whose name is only a form of the verb “to be.” As Moses ascends the mountain, he enters into a “cloud of unknowing,” a mysterious space where all is shrouded in mystery. It is from this space, this space of encounter with God, that Moses receives the tablets of the Law, the Law that will define Israel as a nation, the Law for which Moses will forever be named transmitter and interpreter.

At the end of his life, Moses has another, a different kind of mountain-top experience. As we hear at the end of the book of Deuteronomy, Moses knows that he is close to death. He has blessed the people whom he led through the wilderness and prepared Joshua to succeed him. Again God leads Moses up a mountain. As Deuteronomy tells us, “Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho, and the Lord showed him the whole land: Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea, the Negeb, and the Plain – that is, the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees – as far as Zoar. The Lord said to him, ‘This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, “I will give it to your descendants;”’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.” Then Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, at the Lord’s command.”

In our gospel reading for today, we hear of yet another kind of mountain-top experience. In the passage before today’s reading, Jesus has heard Peter declare him to be the Messiah, God’s Anointed. Perhaps to clarify for Peter and his other friends just what “messiah” means, Jesus then warns his friends that he is heading to Jerusalem, and that he will die there.

“Six days later,” we are told, Jesus leads three of his closest friends up an unnamed mountain. On this mountain the three also have an encounter with the Divine, a mysterious, inexplicable, even terrifying experience. They see Jesus in all his glory, they understand that Jesus is the fulfillment of both the Law of Moses and the promises of the prophets, and they hear that Jesus is the one on whom they are to model their own lives.

Throughout the centuries, in our own tradition, and in the traditions of other faith communities, saints and others close to God have had similar experiences, similar encounters with the Divine. Some encounters have been on mountains, some in other “thin places,” as Celtic spirituality calls those places where the veil separating heaven and earth becomes “thin” enough for us to get a glimpse of the divine reality that grounds our lives.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a man of deep prayer. Throughout his life he struggled to discern God’s will. As he endured attack dogs, fire hoses, and angry, rock-throwing mobs, he often sought reassurance in prayer that he was on the right path. One night he was sitting alone in prayer at his kitchen table. He heard what he called an “inner voice” telling him to do what he knew was right. From then on, he felt sure that God was leading him, and he was able to courageously lead his people to face what lay ahead.

King’s trust in God’s leading led him eventually to Memphis, to participate in a strike by city sanitation workers. In his speech on April 3, 1968, he encouraged the workers to persevere in their struggle and to remain united. Then, echoing Moses, he said, “Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live - a long life; longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” Twenty-four hours later, King was cut down by an assassin’s bullet.

Do these mountain-top encounters mean anything to us? Often such experiences are mysterious, even indescribable. Yet those who encounter God this way, who have this kind of epiphany, come down from the mountain transformed. They are not the same people! After his experience of receiving God’s Law, Moses had a deeper relationship with God and was a stronger, more effective leader as the Israelites journeyed to the Promised Land. Jesus’ friends caught a glimpse of Jesus’ true nature, an inkling of his glory. As they descended the mountain they were able to follow Jesus to Jerusalem, perhaps reassured that they had made the right decision in staying with him. Like Jesus, Martin Luther King continued to work with the sanitation workers, despite his premonition of his approaching martyrdom.

And we ourselves? Yes, strange, even terrifying, things may happen on mountain tops and other thin places. But we need these mountain-top experiences. We need these times when God comes near, to reassure us and to challenge us. With the old spiritual we may sometimes sing, “Sometimes I feel discouraged, and think my work’s in vain….” Then we need God to reassure us that we are on the right path in committing our lives to Jesus’ way – just as his friends did. We also need God to challenge us, and even to transform us. We need God to help us change the way we see the world. Trust me, once you have had an encounter with the Holy One, once you’ve glimpsed God’s future as it is revealed in Jesus, it cannot be business as usual. You are not the same person. Having glimpsed his reality and seen his glory, you have to come down the mountain wanting to follow him more closely and wanting to share with others the love and compassion that he embodies.

And so where do we encounter God? Do we need to climb to the top of a Mayan temple to encounter God? Do we need to go up Mt. Nebo with Moses? Do we need Jesus to lead us up the unnamed mountain of his transfiguration? Where are the “thin places” in our lives?

The truth is that there are “thin places” everywhere if we could but see them. Mountains – or Mayan temples – certainly give us a sense of God’s infinite grandeur. But we can also encounter God in more mundane places – at the kitchen table as did Martin Luther King, in the woods, or our own backyard, or in our own room. Wherever and whenever you can pull apart from our noisy, 24/7 world, wherever and whenever we can quiet down, wherever and whenever we can engage in silent, contemplative prayer, then and there there’s a chance that God might show Godself to us, that God might speak to us in the silence of our own hearts, that God might move us to deeper compassion and service. For, when we let God get a word in edgewise, there’s no telling what can happen. Is that why most of us shy away from prayer and silence?

We are on the cusp of Lent. Ash Wednesday is this Wednesday. The church gives us the gift of forty days in which to examine our spiritual lives more closely. During Lent this year, I invite you to ask yourself: where are your “thin places,” your mountain tops, the places where you get a glimpse of Divine life? And then, what is more important, how is God inviting you to change?

So here is my prayer for you, for all of us. God be with you and grant you to stand in “thin places,” where the Presence is deeply known and Mercy abounds and Wisdom flourishes. Amen.

The Slow Work of God

“O God, who before the passion of your only begotten Son revealed his glory on the holy mountain: grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory….” Does the collect ask us to do something impossible? How can we be “changed into his likeness?” As we come to the end of Epiphany tide and look towards the beginning of Lent, what is the Book of Common Prayer really talking about here?

Certainly, we cannot be changed into Jesus’ physical likeness. To begin with, does anyone know what Jesus looked like? Artists have probably been trying to capture his “likeness” since the day after the first Easter. We have wonderful art to show for it – frescoes, sculpture, icons, paintings from every century and culture – but most artistic renderings are at best symbolic suggestions of who Jesus was. Even if Mathew Brady had been alive during Jesus’ time and had photographed Jesus, most of us could not be changed into his physical likeness: try as we might we will never become short, black-haired, dark-skinned Jewish males.

Then can we hope to be changed into Jesus’ “likeness” by doing what he did? I don’t think any of us will be executed on a cross by Roman authorities. And unless you all are hiding something from me, none of you will be receiving the death penalty any time soon. And aren’t all of us absolutely sure that there’s no way we can be changed into Jesus’ divine likeness? The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell us that three of the disciples got a glimpse of Jesus’ true glorified nature – and they were terrified! “I will never be glorified as Jesus was, and no one will ever be terrified of me in that way,” we would all say.

So how can we be “changed into his likeness?” What would that look like? If Jesus is our model, perhaps we can answer that question by looking at how he lived out his human life. To begin with, the first thing that we notice about Jesus, especially if we read the gospel of Luke closely, is that Jesus knew that he had a deep and abiding relationship with God. Perhaps Jesus knew his deep relationship with God from the moment of his conception. He surely received another affirmation of his unbreakable bond with God when he was baptized. From then on, Jesus’ connection with God clearly permeated his entire adult life. Jesus’ close connection with God is especially reflected in the depth of his prayer and in how often he took time away from his ministry to go off and pray. If you read the gospel of Luke carefully, you will notice all the times Luke mentions that Jesus withdrew for prayer. It’s not a coincidence that the disciples received such an overwhelming experience of Jesus’ divine nature as today’s reading suggests while they and Jesus were praying.

That’s what happens in prayer! That’s what happens when we open ourselves up to God and let God work within us! The beginning of our transformation into Jesus’ likeness, call it conversion if you will, always comes from a deep and ongoing relationship with God. For some of us, conversion begins with one shattering moment when we sense God’s reality, presence, and demands on us – and after that our lives are never the same. For others of us, conversion begins with a gentle nudge, a feeling that we need to come back to church, to faith, to spiritual growth. And for yet others of us, conversion begins with a “dark night of the soul,” when we feel that all is lost, and that God has completely abandoned us.

After such an experience, are we then immediately “changed into his likeness?” Usually not. Transformation comes through God’s grace at work in us – and it is usually “the slow work of God.” God works in us day by day, week by week, year by year, molding, shaping, and forming us – like a great artist – into God’s desired creation, a human being as fully alive, as filled with the Holy Spirit, as Jesus was. And God works in us as we spend time in prayer with God, as we let God know us, heal us, and change us. Yet transformation is rarely a solo experience. We may pray as individuals, and God may grace our prayer with God’s presence. But if we want to continue to grow as Jesus’ followers, we must do it in community. Notice that Jesus took three people up the mountain with him. Most important, our transformation is never our own doing, and it seldom happens overnight. But the good news is that when we keep “listening to Jesus,” in prayer and worship, when we take time to be present to God, God will transform us.

What happened after the transcendent “mountain-top” experience? They all came down the mountain! The gospel account does not say whether the disciples understood what they had experienced with Jesus on the mountain. Jesus didn’t stop to explain it to them. Rather, Jesus returned to ministry. For Jesus, ministry followed mystery. After prayer time, Jesus always came back to heal, feed, and teach, and the transcendent sense of connection with God deepened his call. He continued to care for those in need, even as he set his face for Jerusalem and what awaited him there.

And so it is for us, as we move from the glories of Epiphany tide to the hard work of Lent. After we have had a deep experience of God’s reality, of God’s deep love of us, and of God’s desire to transform us, we might possibly look different. Moses’ face was radiant after his encounter with God, so radiant that people were afraid to come near him. More often the change is in the way we live our lives. “After Zen, the laundry.” Or as Jesuit spiritual teacher Anthony de Mello tells us,

“When the Zen master attained enlightenment
he wrote the following lines to celebrate it:
Oh wondrous marvel:
I chop wood!
I draw water from the well!”1


The truth is that we and others are more likely to see God’s transforming power at work within us not in how we look, but in the quality of our relationships with loved ones and friends, in our ability to respond to the needs of others, and in our zeal for pursuing justice and peace. Indeed, we are called as Christians to come down from the mountain strengthened to serve others. Scottish Bible commentator William Barclay reminds us that we need solitude but not complete withdrawal. Just like Jesus, we need solitude to stay connected with God. But, Barclay says, “if we, in our search for solitude, shut ourselves off from one another, if we shut our ears to the appeal of brothers and sisters for help, if we shut our hearts to the cries and tears of things, then that is not religion. The solitude is … meant to make us better able to meet and cope with the demands of everyday life.”2

Will we be “changed into his likeness?” As followers of Jesus, we trust that when we live a life of prayer, when we join with others in Christian community, and when we live into our respective ministries to others, God will continue the transformation God began in us. Is such a life easy? If it were, these pews would be filled to overflowing. No, it takes courage, grit, and determination to admit that we need God’s transformative power and to let God into our self-centered lives.

John Smylie tells the story of a teen whose parents had divorced.3 Like many children of divorced parents he had shuffled back and forth between their respective houses, angry at both of them and secretly wishing they would get back together. When his mother remarried, he was even angrier, and especially at his stepfather. Two years after his mother remarried, when he was fifteen, some friends invited him to come to a Happening, a special weekend for teens that helps them go deeper in their relationship with God. When he came home from the weekend, he was tired, but excited, and he bubbled over telling his mother and stepfather about all the wonderful experiences he had had. Then he said to his stepfather, “There’s something I’ve got to tell you, but I’m not ready to tell you right at this moment.” His stepfather replied, “Whenever you are ready I’m here to listen to you.” Three days later, when the stepfather was beginning to wonder when he might hear the rest of the story, the boy declared he was ready to speak. They went where they could be alone. The boy held his head down and struggled to speak. Finally, close to tears, he said, “You know, when you married my mom, that was really hard for me. I want my mom to be happy, but it was really hard to have you come into my life and my family. What I realized over the weekend was that God has brought you to my life.” Stunned and unable himself to speak, the stepfather received the boy’s gracious words and embraced him.

This is the good news: when we look at Jesus, when we listen to him, God’s grace transforms us. God’s grace enables us to live a cross-shaped life, connected both to God and to our neighbors. My brothers and sisters, as we look towards Ash Wednesday, Lent, and Good Friday, we can trust that by God’s grace we will share Christ’s life and be truly transformed into his likeness.

1. The Song of the Bird (New York: Doubleday, 1982), 16.
2. William Barclay, The Gospel of Mark (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1956), 220, quoted in David E. Leininger, Tales for the Pulpit (Lima, OH: CSS, 2009), 80.
3. "Transforming Light,” Lectionary Stories for Preaching and Teaching Cycle C (Lima, OH: CSS, 2012), 45-47

Turning Points

We are at a turning point. We are certainly at a turning point in the liturgical year. We are completing the first great cycle of the Christian year, the Advent-Christmas-Epiphany cycle, which begins in December as we contemplate Jesus’ second coming, continues through the twelve days of Christmas tide, and culminates in the glimpses we get of Jesus’ true identity during the weeks of Epiphany tide. This coming week we will enter the second great cycle of the Christian year, the Lent-Easter-Pentecost cycle, during which we will walk with Jesus to Jerusalem, experience both his death and rising to life again, and give thanks to God for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Finally, during the long season of Pentecost, which stretches from early June through early December, we will grow and mature in our faith.

We’re also at a turning point in our contemplation of Jesus’ story. Although we’ve heard the story somewhat out of sequence, we celebrated the events surrounding Jesus’ birth, and we were with him and his family as old Simeon and Anna recognized him as God’s anointed one. When he emerged from his years of obscurity we were with him at his baptism. We heard him call Peter, Andrew, James, and John out of their lives as fishermen into new lives as his apprentices. We’ve heard portions of his sermons and teachings as the evangelist wove them together. When Jesus asked Peter, “But who do you say that I am?” perhaps we weren’t shocked when Peter blurted out, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” But then, when Peter tried to dissuade Jesus from mentioning the Cross, perhaps we were stunned as Jesus rebuked Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block ….”

Now the story changes direction. After today, Jesus will turn his face toward Jerusalem. He has already mentioned the Cross and rebuked Peter for trying to dissuade him from going to Jerusalem. From here he will set his face toward the holy city, toward his triumphal entrance into the city, his last meal with his friends, his agony in the garden of Gethsemane, his trial before the Jewish and Roman leaders, and his execution as a criminal.

At this turning point in the story, three of Jesus’ apprentices follow him up a mountain. There they have a great vision, and they see him as he truly is. Once they knew him as a man just like themselves. Now they see him in all his glory. Now the disciples know that they were right to leave all they most loved to follow Jesus. Now they understand that Jesus is the fulfillment of all the old prophecies, and that to be like him is the goal of all the myriad laws that make up God’s covenant with the Jews. Now they hear that he is both God’s beloved and their own guiding star. Did they also have a foretaste of the true end of the story? Did they sense in their vision of Jesus that the story would not end with Jesus’ death on the Cross? Did they get an inkling of the possibility that in his second coming Jesus would look as he did then? Whatever they sensed, they tried to capture the moment of their great vision. But Jesus was way ahead of them. “Can’t be done,” he said. “Get up. We need to go back down. We need to face what awaits us down there. Just don’t tell anyone what you experienced up here until the whole story has played out, and you truly understand what you saw today.”

The gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke all relate Peter, James, and John’s great vision at the turning point of the story. Yet no one knows for sure what really happened. We only know that somehow the vision confirmed Peter’s confession. Perhaps Peter, James, and John told the rest of Jesus’ closest friends. Perhaps knowledge of that vision, even if they had no clue what really happened, sustained them through the walk to Jerusalem and the dark days of Jesus’ execution.

Ultimately, though, no one can really talk about a vision like the one the disciples had. No one can really understand them or fix them in stone. There are truly experiences of God’s presence, whether in visions or in worship, that elude our understanding, and that we simply cannot express in words, or even pictures. Barbara Brown Taylor relates a story told by the physicist Niels Bohr.1 It seems that a young rabbinical student heard three lectures by a famous rabbi. He related to his friends that, “The first talk was brilliant, clear and simple. I understood every word. The second was even better, deep and subtle. I didn’t understand much, but the rabbi understood it all. The third was by far the finest, a great and unforgettable experience. I understood nothing, and the rabbi didn’t understand much either.” God’s presence is inexpressible; God literally takes our words away.

Jesus’ first followers were certainly not the only ones who had great visions. The Desert Fathers and Mothers had visions after they left Alexandria and the other cities behind for the solitude of monastic communities. Francis of Assisi had a vision of Jesus in the Church of San Damiano, in which Jesus commanded him to rebuild his church. As Julian of Norwich lay mortally ill she had visions of Jesus’ Passion, of the Trinity, and of God as our great lover. She spent the next twenty years of her life reflecting on her visions and attempting to express their depth and meaning for her. Martin Luther King, Jr., had his own mountain top vision, foreseeing, ahead of his time, the possibility of racial equality and justice in this country.

Many of us have also had such numinous experiences. Perhaps you felt God’s presence as you walked deep into a forest, or as you stood on a cliff looking out at the miles and miles of rocks and boulders below you. Perhaps you had a vision of Jesus as you sat in a quiet church, meditating on the stained glass windows or humming a familiar hymn. Perhaps you felt yourself drawn into the mystery of the Eucharist and knew yourself sitting at that long-ago table with Jesus and his friends. Perhaps you heard God speaking to you in the silence of your own prayer. Perhaps a psalm phrase leapt out at you as you read one of the daily offices. Perhaps a reading from Scripture caught you off guard, and you knew yourself directly addressed by God. All of sudden, you found yourself in a “thin place,” where the veil that separates us from the divine was suddenly lifted, where the cloud that conceals God’s reality was momentarily parted.

When we have such experiences, we too try to capture the moment. We may want to photograph the wonderful natural scene. We may want to journal about what we experienced in the church, in worship, or in prayer. We may want to use the psalm as a talisman, repeating it whenever we need assurance of God’s reality. Ultimately, Jesus says the same thing to us that he said to his friends. “Can’t be done,” he reminds us. “Get up. We need to go back down. We need to face what awaits us down there.”

And the reason is this: God gives us mountain-top experiences – or quiet pew experiences – so that we can be transformed. After we have had a vision of God’s reality we see the world and ourselves differently. You cannot go along doing the same old same old once you have glimpsed the nearness of God’s kingdom. When you have glimpsed Jesus’ true identity, your faith and confidence are deeper, and you have deeper trust in your ability to face whatever it is you must face.

Scottish writer Tom Gordon tells the story of a performance of Handel’s “Messiah” that almost didn’t happen. Everything that could go wrong did. Coming home after rehearsals that seemed to go nowhere, with choir members at odds with each other, Morag felt as if she were on a mountain climb with no end in sight. She needn’t have worried. On the night of the performance, the choir scaled the mountain. The performance was glorious. No one knew quite why. Was it the quality of the paid soloists? Was it the beaming smile of the former director sitting in the very first row? Was it somehow the work of God’s Holy Spirit? After the performance was over, and most of the musicians and singers had left, Morag sat in the dressing room, staring into space. “Not going home?” one of the tenors asked. “I don’t want to go home,” she replied. “I’d like to stay here, to hold on to this feeling for as long as possible. This is too good to let go.” The tenor smiled. “Aye, lass, it was good right enough. But you can’t stay here forever – none of us can. We’ll remember tonight for sure, and we’ll get a buzz out of our memories when we think back. But it’s time to go now. And there’ll always be another year.”2

We are at a turning point, a turning point from life as we knew it to life as Jesus’ friends. What visions of divine reality come to you in this place? When you have felt the nearness of God’s kingdom, will you go back down the mountain to be a healing presence to those around you?

1. From The Luminous Web (Boston: Cowley Publications, 2000), 79, quoted in Synthesis, 27, 3, March 2, 2014.

2. “I Want to Stay,” Welcoming Each Wonder (Glasgow, Wild Goose Publications, 2010), 87-89.

Changed into His Likeness

“O God, who before the passion of your only begotten Son revealed his glory on the holy mountain: grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory….” Does the prayer book ask the impossible of us? How can we be “changed into his likeness?” What is the Book of Common Prayer really talking about here?

Certainly, we cannot be changed into Jesus’ physical likeness. For starters, does anyone know what Jesus looked like? Artists have been trying to capture his “likeness” since probably the day after the first Easter. We have wonderful art to show for it – frescoes, sculpture, icons, paintings from every century and culture – but most artistic renderings are at best symbolic suggestions of who Jesus was. Even if Mathew Brady had been alive during Jesus’ time and had photographed Jesus, most of us could not be changed into his physical likeness: try as we might we will never become short, black-haired, dark-skinned Jewish males. Then can we hope to what Jesus did? Probably none of us will be executed on a cross by Roman authorities. And unless you all are hiding something from me, probably none of you will be receiving the death penalty any time soon. And aren’t all of us absolutely sure that we cannot be changed into Jesus’ divine likeness? The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell us that three of the disciples got a glimpse of Jesus’ true glorified nature – and they were terrified! “I will never be like Jesus, no one will ever be terrified of me that way,” we would all say.

So how can we be “changed into his likeness?” What would that look like? If Jesus is our model, what can we learn from looking at the way he lived out his human life? To begin with, the first thing that we notice about Jesus, especially if we read closely the gospel of Luke, is that Jesus had a deep and abiding relationship with God. Perhaps Jesus’ deep relationship with God began at his conception. He received again God’s affirmation of his unbreakable bond with God when he was baptized. Thereafter Jesus’ connection with God permeated all of his adult life. Jesus’ close connection with God is especially reflected in the depth of his prayer and in how often he took time away from his ministry for prayer. If you read the gospel of Luke carefully, you will notice all the times Luke mentions that Jesus withdrew for prayer. It’s not a coincidence that the disciples received such an overwhelming experience of Jesus’ divine nature as today’s reading suggests while they and Jesus were at prayer.

That’s what happens in prayer! That’s what happens when we open ourselves up to God and let God work within us! Our transformation into Jesus’ likeness, call it conversion if you will, is the result of a deep and ongoing relationship with God. For some of us, conversion begins with one shattering experience of God’s reality, presence, and demands on us, an experience that profoundly alters our lives. For others of us, conversion may begin with a gentle nudge, a feeling that we need to find our way back to church, to faith, to spiritual growth. And for yet others of us, conversion begins with a “dark night of the soul,” when we may feel that all is lost, and that God has completely abandoned us.

And are we then immediately “changed into his likeness?” Usually not. Transformation is God’s work in us, and it is usually “the slow work of God.” God works in us day by day, week by week, year by year, molding, shaping, and forming us – like a great artist – into God’s desired creation, a human being as fully alive as Jesus was. And God does God’s work in us as we spend time in prayer with God, as we let God know us, heal us, and change us. Moreover, transformation is rarely a solo experience. We may pray as individuals, and God may grace our prayer with God’s presence. But continued growth in the Christian life must be done in community. Our growth as disciples takes place in a shared community of commitment to the Christian Way. Notice that Jesus took three people up the mountain with him. Most important, our transformation is never our own doing, and it seldom happens overnight. But the good news is that when we keep “listening to Jesus,” in prayer, when we all take time to be in solitude with God, God will transform us.

What happened after the transcendent “mountain-top” experience? They came down the mountain! What is more important, Jesus returned to ministry. For Jesus, ministry follows mystery. After prayer time, Jesus always came back to heal, feed, and teach. The gospel account does not say whether the disciples had any clue as to what they had experienced with Jesus on the mountain. But we can infer that they had not yet been changed enough into Jesus’ likeness to replicate the work of his ministry. Even so, for Jesus, the transcendent sense of connection with God deepened his call. He continued to care for those in need, and he set his face for Jerusalem and what would await him there.

And so it is for us also. After we have had a deep experience of God’s reality, of God’s love, and of God’s desire to transform us, there may possibly be something outwardly visible in our appearance. Moses’ face was radiant after his encounter with God, so radiant that people were afraid to come near him. More often the change is in the way we live our lives. “After Zen, the laundry.” Or as Jesuit spiritual teacher Anthony de Mello tells us,

“When the Zen master attained enlightenment
he wrote the following lines to celebrate it:
Oh wondrous marvel:
I chop wood!
I draw water from the well!”1

Though the world – and we ourselves – may look and feel different, perhaps even fresh and new after an encounter with God, we and others may also see God’s transformative power at work within us in the quality of our relationships with loved ones friends, in our concern for the needs of others, or in our zeal for pursuing justice and peace. Indeed, it is the essence of Christian life that we must come down from the mountain strengthened to serve others. Scottish Bible commentator William Barclay reminds us that we need solitude but not solitariness. Just like Jesus, we need solitude to stay connected with God. But “if we, in our search for solitude, shut ourselves off from one another, if we shut our ears to the appeal of brothers and sisters for help, if we shut our hearts to the cries and tears of things, then that is not religion. The solitude is … meant to make us better able to meet and cope with the demands of everyday life.”2

Will we be “changed into his likeness?” As followers of Jesus, we trust that when we live a life a prayer, when we join with others in Christian community, and when we live into our respective ministries to others, God will continue the transformation God began in us. Is such a life easy? If it were, these pews would be filled to overflowing. No, it takes courage, grit, and determination to admit that we need God’s transformative power and to let God into our self-centered lives.

John Smylie tells the story of a teen whose parents had divorced.3 Like many children of divorced parents he had shuffled back and forth between their respective houses, angry at both of them and secretly wishing they would get back together. When his mother remarried, he was even angrier, and especially at his stepfather. Two years after his mother remarried, when he was fifteen, some friends invited him to come to a Happening, a special weekend for teens that helps them go deeper in their relationship with God. When he came home from the weekend, he was tired, but excited, and he bubbled over telling his mother and stepfather about all the wonderful experiences he had had. Then he said to his stepfather, “There’s something I’ve got to tell you, but I’m not ready to tell you right at this moment.” His stepfather replied, “Whenever you are ready I’m here to listen to you.” Three days later, when the stepfather was beginning to wonder when he might hear the rest of the story, the boy declared he was ready to speak. They went where they could be alone. The boy held his head down and struggled to speak. Finally, close to tears, he said, “You know, when you married my mom, that was really hard for me. I want my mom to be happy but it was really hard to have you come into my life and my family. What I realized over the weekend was that God has brought you to my life.” Himself unable to speak, the stepfather received the boy’s gracious words and embraced him.

This is the good news: when we look at Jesus, when we listen to him, God’s grace transforms us. God’s grace enables us to live a cross-shaped life, connected both to God and to our brothers and sisters. By God’s grace we will be truly transformed into Christ’s likeness.

1. The Song of the Bird (New York: Doubleday, 1982), 16.

2. William Barclay, The Gospel of Mark: Daily Study Bible Series (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1956), 220, quoted in David E. Leininger, Tales for the Pulpit (Lima, OH: CSS, 2009), 80.

3. “Transforming Light,” Lectionary Stories for Preaching and Teaching Cycle C (Lima, OH:CSS, 2012),

Listen to Him!

“This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” Argile Smith tells the story of Raymond and Sylvia.1 Their marriage of almost thirty years was in trouble. Lately they seemed to do nothing but argue! In a last-ditch effort to avoid divorce court, they consulted their pastor, who quickly referred them to a marriage counselor. In their first meeting with Dr. Alexander, the counselor quickly put them at ease with her warm smile and calm demeanor. During the session, Dr. Alexander asked Raymond to describe Sylvia’s personal longings. Raymond launched into a long catalogue of Sylvia’s insecurities and of all that he had done to boost her confidence. He offered his diagnosis that Sylvia’s troubles stemmed from her relationships with her dysfunctional family. Dr. Alexander abruptly stopped Raymond. “Raymond, please repeat my question,” she said. “Certainly,” he answered. “You wanted to hear about Sylvia’s insecurities, and I’m filling in the background for you.” Dr. Alexander then turned to Sylvia and asked, “Sylvia, what are Raymond’s longings?” “Frankly,” Sylvia replied, “Raymond longs to make sure I know what’s wrong with me and what I need to do to fix myself.” Raymond quickly defended himself. “No,” he said, “it’s just that I know her better than anyone else, and I want to give her advice that will help her be a better person.” “Raymond!” Dr. Alexander snapped. “I see one issue in your marriage already. You don’t know how to listen to Sylvia. You don’t listen to what she is trying to tell you. I bet you don’t listen to anyone else either! You certainly didn’t listen to me. I had to almost shout at you to get you to be quiet.” During succeeding sessions, Dr. Alexander explained that she had snapped at Raymond to get his attention and to show him that his listening skills were not what they should be. Then Dr. Alexander taught both Raymond and Sylvia how to truly and deeply listen to each other. Their marriage was saved!

When Dr. Alexander emphasized the importance of listening, perhaps she had the end of today’s Gospel lesson in mind. It’s no coincidence that Sundays in Epiphany tide begin and end with God’s voice. Do you remember Jesus’ baptism, in our Gospel reading for the first Sunday after Epiphany? As Jesus came up from the water, he was anointed with the Holy Spirit and, in Mark’s Gospel account, he alone heard God declaring, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” With that affirmation of his identity, Jesus set out proclaiming the beginning of the Reign of God. Before the events of today’s Gospel reading, Jesus had predicted his crucifixion and resurrection. He had reminded his friends that they too will face persecution if they follow him. Six days later, God led Jesus and his friends into an almost indescribable experience away from the crowds. The disciples were dazzled by a miraculous vision of Jesus. Before they could make sense of it, God spoke again, this time addressing them all. “This is my Son, the Beloved,” God told them. And then God commanded them, “Listen to him!” During the descent from the mountain, perhaps Jesus felt reassured that he had chosen the right path in setting his face towards Jerusalem and what awaited him there. However, his friends might well have been wondering, “How do we listen to him? When? And what else might he say?”

Do we have those same questions? More to the point, are we akin to Raymond, the husband in our story? Do we need Dr. Alexander’s help in learning how to follow in the disciples’ footsteps, how to truly and deeply listen to Jesus? There is so much in our world that makes it difficult for us to listen to him, isn’t there? You know how we live in a 24/7 world. Some of you are in professions where you have to be on call. Even the rest of us can surround ourselves nonstop with the TV, the radio, magazines, newspapers, e-mails, smart phones, ipods, and all the rest of our “silent noisemakers.” Remember national holidays? Nowadays, the only way I know it’s a national holiday is that there’s no mail service! And, of course, we have no Sabbath, no time to rest and just be quiet, either on Saturday or Sunday. Now I’m not advocating a return to the Sunday closings of my girlhood. When my car battery died here in Gallipolis a couple of months ago on a Sunday, I was grateful that the auto department of Walmart was open and able to replace it. And even if we do find that quiet space, if we read the daily office – even the short form – or try to study the Bible, we often have a hard time concentrating, and we find all our worries and concerns crowding out God’s voice. Or worse yet, we might even be afraid to open ourselves to Jesus, fearing what we might hear!

What might help us to listen to Jesus? There are many Dr. Alexanders in the spiritual realm, many holy ones who can school us in our spiritual listening skills. Here’s what some of them might tell us. First, we should find and use our off-switches! Second – and here’s my favorite word again – we should be intentional about our spiritual lives. Do you have a rule of life? A rule of life doesn’t have to be complicated: it involves committing yourself typically to some form of daily prayer – even very briefly – periodic Bible study, regular corporate worship, stewardship of your resources, and some form of ministry. For the more adventurous, our guides might point us to some of the contemplative prayer forms: breath prayer, lectio divina, the Anglican rosary, praying with icons, or keeping a spiritual journal. You can even find God in the movies, through creating an art object, or doing handwork. There’s no shortage of ways to listen to Jesus. What is needed is willingness to draw apart for a time and open yourself to his presence.

And when we do take the time to listen to Jesus, what indeed might we hear? We might hear a reply to our prayers. Jesus might offer us “blessed assurance.” But, on the other side of the Transfiguration experience, Jesus was headed to Jerusalem. And so Jesus might also remind us, as he had reminded his friends, that, “If any want to be my disciples, let them deny themselves, and take up their cross and follow me.”

Those are words we probably don’t want to hear! Even if we are willing to hear them, we might wonder how we do bear our own cross. Although many Americans still accept capital punishment, we no longer live in a society where crucifixion is an acceptable form of execution. So let’s starting by clarifying what bearing your cross does not mean.2 Obviously it does not mean literally being crucified. It does not mean regarding suffering as spiritually good in itself. This notion has been a pillar of centuries of Christian piety, but the truth is that Jesus did not accept death believing that his suffering as such could rid the world of evil and sin. Rather, his death showed us that the transformative power of divine love can overcome the worst evil of the world. Bearing out cross also does not mean privately bearing our own difficulties for Jesus’ sake. Jesus’ death was a very public affair, and he was executed by the prevailing authorities because he did and said things that challenged systemic greed, domination, and exploitation. Bearing our cross does mean doing what Jesus did, i.e., doing the things that got him into trouble. It means living out our baptismal vows, especially our promise to “persevere in resisting evil.” It means speaking out against injustice and violence. It means publicly and energetically pursuing personal and social righteousness. Bearing our cross means engaging with the poor and suffering. It means living out our promises to proclaim and act out the good news. As Brother James Koester SSJE reminds us, “The life which you, and we and Jesus chose at our baptisms is a life where day by day we must choose to love, and not to hate, to be friends and not enemies, to forgive and not to hold grudges, to heal and help and hold and not to injure, wound and scar. It is the choice to live such a life that eventually cost Jesus his own.”

We’ve seen the signs this Epiphany tide. We’ve gone up that mountain with Jesus. We know with greater certainty that Jesus was and is the Word made flesh. We’ve heard God’s command to “listen to him.” Now we’re coming down the mountain. On Wednesday, we too will set our faces towards Jerusalem. Are we ready to commit ourselves to the way of the Cross? Are we ready to commit ourselves to truly and deeply listening to Jesus? Are we ready to hear what Jesus might say to us about ourselves and about this parish?

If we are, then perhaps we might truly pray, O God, who before the passion of your only-begotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness …. Amen.

1. In Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit (Lima, OH: CSS Publishing, 2011), 55-57.

2. Following Rodney J. Hunter, in Feasting on the Word (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008), 452.

Your Young People Shall See Visions

Have any of you had a vision of God? Have you ever had a deep sense of God’s presence with you? Have you ever felt, more deeply than words can express, that Jesus truly is Emanuel, God with us? Have you ever felt that you could see, if only for a moment, through the veil of your ordinary life, into the world as it truly is? In the poem “Snow Geese,” the poet Mary Oliver shares with us one of those moments of extraordinary insight.

Oh, to love what is lovely, and will not last!
What a task
to ask

of anything, or anyone,

yet it is ours,
and not by the century or the year, but by the hours.

One fall day I heard
above me, and above the sting of the wind, a sound
I did not know, and my look shot upward; it was

A flock of snow geese, winging it
faster than the ones we usually see,
and, being the color of snow, catching the sun

so they were, in part at least, golden. I

held my breath
as we do
sometimes
to stop time
when something wonderful
has touched us

as with a match
which is lit, and bright,
but does not hurt
in the common way,
but delightfully,
as if delight
were the most serious thing
you ever felt.

The geese
flew on.
I have never
seen them again.

Maybe I will, someday, somewhere.
Maybe I won’t.
It doesn’t matter.
What matters
is that, when I saw them,
I saw them
As through the veil, secretly, joyfully, clearly.1

Well sure, you might say, poets have such visions, especially in natural “thin places.” People in the Bible have had such visions, especially the prophets. St. Paul had a profound sense of Jesus’ reality on the road to Damascus. Saints have had visions. Hildegard of Bingen had wonderful visions of God and Jesus. Francis of Assisi founded his order after Jesus came to him in a vision. Julian of Norwich spent twenty years meditating on the visions she had had during a nearly fatal illness. Even Kent Annan, the founder of Haiti Partners, had a vision of building a house in Port au Prince and helping to make life better for today’s Haitians. But we, we ordinary people, we rational, modern, scientifically educated, dull people, we don’t have visions, we don’t sense God’s presence with us that deeply. No? I wonder. Maybe some of us do.

Certainly Peter, James, and John were as ordinary as we are, just as rational, perhaps not as well educated, but just as dull as we are. And yet, led by Jesus, they had a most extraordinary vision on that mountain, a most extraordinary vision of Jesus as he is, a most extraordinary sense of God’s presence. Since Matthew’s Gospel was written more than forty years after the events that it recounts, it’s hard to know exactly what happened to the disciples that day. We do know that the week before this event, Peter had avowed that he believed Jesus to be God’s anointed, the Messiah. When Jesus then began preparing the disciples for what lay ahead of him in Jerusalem, condemnation, death, and resurrection, Peter refused to believe Jesus’ words. Perhaps to confirm Peter’s confession, perhaps to allay Peter’s and the other disciples’ fears, Jesus led the three of them up a mountain where they had an experience that must have defied words – defied words at least until Jesus was raised from the dead. As the story of that event has come down to us, we hear clear echoes of similar events in the Hebrew Bible: the six days, the three witnesses, the white clothes, the cloud, and the mention of tents or tabernacles are all part of Hebrew Bible stories. What is most important, the presence of Moses and Elijah, remind us that, for his disciples, Jesus was the new lawgiver, the new Moses, and the fulfillment of all the visions of the Hebrew prophets.

More than a deeper understanding of Jesus as the new Moses and fulfillment of the old prophecies, the disciples also glimpsed for a moment Jesus’ divine nature. They had a vision! Impulsive Peter, trying to hold onto this vision, began to babble about building dwellings. Then the disciples had an even deeper sense of God’s presence. They felt as if God had surrounded them, interrupted Peter, repeated what had been said at Jesus’ baptism, and commanded them to listen to Jesus. And what was their reaction to this intense experience of God’s presence? What would your experience be? They fell down in terror! But then something truly extraordinary happened. Jesus had compassion on them and touched them. Putting his hand on their shoulders, he told them to stand up and to not be afraid. Then he graciously led them back down the mountain, to Jerusalem, to witness to his death and resurrection, and to create a new community bonded to him.

I believe that for many of us Jesus does leap off the pages of Scripture as God gives us brief glimpses of Jesus’ true nature. I believe that many of us do have intense experiences of God’s presence with us. We may disbelieve such experiences, just as Ebenezer Scrooge did when Marley’s ghost visited him. Do you remember his reaction to Marley? When the ghost asks, "Why do you doubt your senses?" Scrooge scoffs that "...a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheat. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!" Or we too may be terrified at the prospect of truly encountering God and so stay as far away from God as possible. Martin Luther, the initiator of the Protestant Reformation in Germany, endured profound spiritual anguish in his younger years. The story is told that in the midst of this crisis, he celebrated his first mass as a priest. When he lifted up the bread and wine towards God, now become Christ’s Body and Blood, he was so terrified that he nearly fainted.2 To help him overcome his fear, his mentor removed him from the parish and let him return to study of the Scriptures.

We may disbelieve our senses and discount our visions or our intimations of God’s presence. We may be so terrified of truly encountering God that we too keep as far from God as we can. But we too may also be gifted by God with deeper understanding of who Jesus is, we too may be offered a deeper experience of God’s presence in our lives. And God offers us these gifts for the same reason that God graciously offered them to Peter, James, and John. Visions of Jesus and experiences of God’s presence transform us. When we truly know Jesus as Emanuel, God with us, then we begin to get a deeper sense of how much God loves us. I recently discovered a book called Living Loved by Peter Wallace. It’s a series of meditations on God’s love based on the Gospel of John in Eugene Peterson’s version, The Message. I was going to start working through the meditations as a Lenten discipline, but I decided to start sooner. As meditations like these make God’s deep love for us more and more real, we can hope to be better able to share God’s love with others. And that’s the second reason for God’s gift of visions to us. As we appreciate God’s reality and God’s love for all humanity, we are strengthened for God’s service to others, and we will be better able to appreciate that God’s love extends to all humanity. Most important, our deepened understanding of Jesus as God with us, our deeper sense of God’s nearness and presence in our lives strengthens our trust in God and our hope for the future. The glimpse of Jesus’ true reality that God gives us in the vision of his transfiguration is also a glimpse of what we ourselves might become. This is the core of our hope as Christians: that God in Jesus became what we are, so that we might become what God is.

Any such vision we might have of Jesus, any deeper sense of God’s presence with us, are always gifts of God. Although we can allow ourselves to be open to God in silence and prayer, we cannot compel such deeper experiences of God. God must lead us into them, just as Jesus led the disciples up the mountain. Nor are these experiences ends in themselves. They are always given to us to deepen our faith, uphold us during difficult times, and enable us to draw others into the circle of God’s love. And so we pray for continued vision of Jesus as God with us and continued transformation into Jesus’ likeness. “Lord, change us and we shall be changed, transform us by your love, redeem us by your grace, strengthen us by your presence, that we may move from glory to glory; through Christ our Lord, who with the Holy Spirit reigns with you, O Father, in glory everlasting, Amen.”3

1. Mary Oliver, “Snow Geese,” New and Selected Poems, Vol. 2 (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005), 82-3.
2. Recounted by Diana Butler Bass, A People’s History of Christianity (New York: Harper Collins, 2009), 163-4.
3. David Adam, Clouds and Glory (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse, 2001), 43.