Face to Face With God, Like a Friend

Sermon for Transfiguration, transferred, Aug. 7, 2022

Luke 9:28-36

As some of you know, I was gone last Sunday.  My son, Dan, and I went to San Francisco, continuing a tradition of summer travels that we’d shared with my father before he died.  Among the highlights of this trip was a drive north of San Francisco to Muir Woods National Monument, a preserved stand of coastal redwoods.  The trees are stunning, of course, especially the aptly named Cathedral Grove, home to the oldest and tallest trees in the park. 

We had decided to take the long version of the nice, flat trail through the redwood valley; and I was doing fine with it, old man that I am.  But about a half-mile in, we came to a turnoff for a different path, one that headed up the bluff – the Canopy View Trail.  The short option was 2.7 miles, and the sign described it as “climbing steadily” and with “steep sections.”  But I was not about to tell my son that I wasn’t up to this, so off we went.

Huffing and puffing up the trail, I was hoping for the payoff of a breakthrough view, some grand vista of eternity where we could take in the towering trees and the ocean all at once.  No such luck.  Instead, the higher we went, the more obvious it became that there was just more mountain to hike.  Even the one “breakthrough” view offered trees and … fog.  Not that the trees weren’t gorgeous, because they were.  In fact, they were absolutely astounding all on their own, symbols of encounter with a reality so grand and so vast that I could never hope to take it in all at once, regardless of how high I’d climbed.  So, I found myself simply grateful for being immersed in it, finally letting the experience be what the experience would be.  Plus, thankfully, the journey from there was down the mountain.

I wonder what the disciples were expecting on their hike up the mountain with Jesus.  He was heading up there to spend some quiet time with his heavenly parent, but what about Peter, John, and James?  Were they looking for down time?  Or prayer time?  Or face time?  The reading today doesn’t tell us whether they were hoping for a mountaintop experience or just figuring they’d experience the mountain.  

Either way, what they get is far more than anything they could have planned.  Jesus’ face and clothing change to a “dazzling white” (Luke 9:29).  And suddenly they’re joined by the Jewish Law and the Prophets in the flesh: Moses, through whom God had overcome Pharoah and led the people to freedom; and Elijah, through whom God had deposed unrighteous kings and defeated competing deities.  And Jesus is standing alongside them, taking his place at the top of Israel’s pantheon of heroes. 

Then, as if this isn’t stunning enough, God thunders onto the scene, descending in a storm cloud, enveloping them all in darkness and lightning.  Maybe Peter, John, and James remembered the stories of Moses on the mountain with God.  Scripture says God spoke to Moses “face to face, as one speaks to a friend” (Exodus 33:11).  Well, if this is a friendly conversation with the deity, they’re thinking, I don’t want to see the angry version.

I don’t know how it works for you, but when I go looking for experiences of the holy, for encounters with the divine, that’s when I can pretty much be guaranteed that I won’t find one.  Like my hike up the mountain, I can look too hard for what I think I’m supposed to get, trying to manage the experience instead of experiencing it.  So, when is it that those rare moments of encounter with God do come?  It’s when God takes hold of my reality … and usually when I least expect it.

But to help bring that about, I do have to make space for the holy to happen.  It can happen in all kinds of settings – certainly in this beautiful space, as we offer ourselves to receive God’s Word and Christ’s Body, grateful for the sustenance God always provides.  It can happen in a conversation with someone you love as you let the Spirit connect your hearts.  It can happen in a walk in the woods, as you drink in the majesty of God’s creative genius and give thanks simply to share in it.  It can happen in an opportunity to serve, as you offer yourself as an instrument of Love and a vessel of blessing even for someone you don’t know.

As it happens, there are three very different opportunities for us to bring ourselves into God’s presence here in just the next couple of weeks.  In the Jewell Room today, you’ll find information about how you can make a difference for a student at Gordon Parks Elementary School.  You can start by giving $25 to provide a student’s uniform for the new school year.  But you could also consider making a difference face to face by volunteering at the school, mentoring a student or helping in a classroom.  Or here’s another chance for connection: Next Saturday, we’ll serve alongside members of St. James United Methodist Church in another Connecting Community event.  Families at our partner schools, Gordon Parks and Benjamin Banneker Elementary, as well as families at St. James’ partner schools, have been invited to come for school supplies, as well as food, diapers, lunch, and laundry.  Look in the bulletin or Messenger to volunteer for a shift.

Offering ourselves in service is a great way to ask God to come down from the mountain and meet us face to face.  Of course, so is offering ourselves in prayer.  And on Saturday, Aug. 20, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., you’re invited to learn more about that in a contemplative mini-retreat in the Jewell Room.  Mtr. Rita Kendagor will teach about centering prayer, a form of Christian meditation; as well as the practice of lectio divina, or sacred reading – a way to engage Scripture at a deep and intuitive level. 

For God to “speak to us face to face, like a friend,” we have to set aside our lives and ourselves long enough to hear that still, small voice and see God where we least expect.  That act of giving our time and attention is a sacrament, a sign of the larger pattern of self-giving Jesus calls us to embrace.  I think that’s what God’s talking about in this morning’s Gospel story, with the one line the sovereign of the universe gets.  God says, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him” (Luke 9:35).  OK, what are we supposed to hear?  Jesus has had nothing to say through the whole story – so what message are his followers supposed to take away?

Well, the last thing Jesus had to say before today’s story came when Peter named him as the Messiah, the anointed king.  Peter was saying that Jesus is the one they’ve been waiting for, the one who’ll deliver God’s people from the oppression of Rome and bring them fullness of life under God’s own reign and rule.  Jesus heard Peter proclaim that, and he said, “Yes, but….”  The path to glory isn’t the path you’d imagine.  The path to glory is a path up the mountain all right, but it’s the mountain of Calvary, the way of the cross.  “If any want to become my followers,” Jesus had said, “let them deny themselves, and take up their cross, and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”

So – what have you got to lose?  Well, how about a few hours in service or in prayer, to make space for God to show up and lead you just a little higher up the mountain.