Sermon for Feb. 19, 2023
Exodus
24:12-18; 2 Peter 1:16-21; Matthew 17:1-9
As I’ve been thinking about my sabbatical
to come, I’ve found myself remembering a place I visited on my sabbatical eight
years ago. That may be because there are
four pictures of this place hanging on the walls of our house; I guess I wanted
to take it home with me once the trips were done. It’s Tewkesbury Abbey, a glorious church in a
Tudor village in the Cotswolds of England.
I went there because their approach to mission at Tewkesbury was a great
example of what I was studying – congregations doing both traditional and fresh
expressions of ministry side by side.
So, Tewkesbury Abbey is this monumental
structure from the 1100s, looking as much like a castle as a church. You
walk in, and you’re struck by both the tremendous height of the roof and the massive
thickness of the pillars holding it over you.
The place manages to be both airy and fortresslike, all at the
same time. It’s a study in transcendence
– a place to worship a God who is so much more, and so far beyond, our poor
powers to understand.
At the same time, Tewkesbury Abbey had
begun an effort called “Celebrate,” a mission into the equivalent of a public-housing
project, just on the other side of the wall marking out the abbey’s grounds.
The missioner was creating Christian community from the bottom up, gathering people
who were dealing with generational poverty, domestic violence, poor education, and
economic dead ends. The missioner wanted the people of the housing project to
know that God was walking right alongside them through it all – and she knew
that the massive, ancient Abbey was a stumbling block to approaching God that
way. She told the story of one public-housing
resident who had tried to worship at the abbey but ran out in “fear” – a fascinating
choice of words – “fear” of the God whom the resident encountered there. So, as part of a larger effort to serve the
community she was building, the missioner put together worship in an elementary-school
cafeteria, including kids and parents making biblical scenes out of fruit and
vegetables, and then all of them sharing a hot, free dinner at the same tables
afterward. It was a study in immanence –
worship of a God who walks beside us and offers us a warm hug on a cold, wet
day.
Keep that contrast in mind, that contrast
between immanence and transcendence, as we go back to the readings for this
last Sunday after Pentecost, the final stop of our multi-week tour of Jesus
revealing God’s light to the world.
First, from Exodus, we hear about Moses going up on Mt. Sinai. More accurately, we hear about God calling
Moses to come up Mt. Sinai once again, at this point the fifth time Moses has
made the trip. God tells Moses simply to “come up … and wait there” (Exodus
24:12) so that God could give him stone tablets bearing instructions for how
the Israelites should live as God’s people in the world. Actually, what God tells Moses to do is to
come up and “be” there, be ready to receive these instructions in God’s good
time.1 A great cloud, “the
glory of the Lord” (24:16), comes and dwells on the mountaintop above Moses,
and he spends six days simply being near God’s presence and being sanctified
for the encounter he’s about to have. Finally,
God calls, and Moses treks higher up the mountain, entering the cloud of God’s glory,
which has become “like a devouring fire” (24:17). He remains there 40 days, receiving the Law for
setting up God’s earthly dwelling place, the ark of the covenant and the elaborate
tent where it would be housed as the people traveled – in other words, God’s
instructions for bringing the transcendent divine presence into the people’s day-to-day
experience.
Then
we have the Gospel reading, Matthew’s telling of Jesus’ transfiguration. Just as Moses spent six days in God’s presence
before being called into the cloud, so it’s six days after Peter proclaimed
Jesus to be messiah that Jesus takes three of his deputies with him up the
mountain. The disciples have begun to
understand that Jesus
is God’s anointed king, but now they’re about to see he’s also so much more
than that – that, in fact, he’s God in the flesh. No longer will the people experience God’s presence
on earth by keeping the Law and worshiping in the temple; instead, Jesus himself
brings God’s presence into their lives. So,
there on the mountaintop, he’s transfigured before them, transformed to reveal
the glory he always embodies, just usually veiled. Moses and Elijah are there, too, showing Jesus
to be the next step in God’s self-revelation to the world, completing the Law
and the prophets.
And then, Peter has something to say. Now, it’s standard preaching procedure to make
fun of Peter here for thinking the disciples could capture this moment by setting
up three tents, sort of like posting a quick photo of God’s glory. But Peter also echoes the Exodus story when
he offers to build three tents there on the mountain – an updated version of
the tent of meeting that God commanded Moses to take with the people on their
travels. So maybe Peter isn’t as much of
a goof as we usually make him out to be; at least he knew his Scriptures.
Anyway, suddenly God shows up, the cloud
of divine glory descending on this mountain just as it had on Mt. Sinai. But instead of giving Peter, James, and John
a set of written laws, God gives them the Word in the flesh – “Listen to him!”
God proclaims about Jesus. And the
disciples get the message – that Jesus is more than Moses or Elijah, more than
the Law, even more than just God’s anointed king. He is the Law and the prophets and God’s royal
authority embodied – God among them. So, quite reasonably, the disciples “fall to
the ground … overcome by fear” (Matt 17:6).
And in that moment, when his blinding glory
is shining through, what does God incarnate do? Does Jesus issue divine directives? Does he rebuke the disciples for being dimwitted?
No, none of that. Instead, he reminds them that he dwells with
them, that he has chosen them.
God incarnate touches them, and takes them by the hand, and says, “Get
up, and don’t be afraid” (17:7).
What must that have felt like? Maybe literally we can’t imagine. I think we’re probably more comfortable with a
God we encounter at either end of the spectrum of immanence and
transcendence. I could get it if God is
a consuming firestorm on a mountaintop that miraculously allowed Moses to come
out of an encounter unscathed. That’s a
God that makes sense – one so powerful and so distant that, if I just keep my own
distance, I might come out unscathed, too.
Or, I could get it if God is a friend, someone who wants to pull up a
chair and have a beer me, someone who actually wants to hear my story, and walk
with me through it, no matter how hard things get. That’s a God that makes sense – one so loving
and so close at hand that I only need to offer my own hand for God to lead me through
whatever life brings.
But this Gospel story today tells us something
harder to understand – and something far more glorious. God is a consuming fire, ready to purge
us of the “sin that clings so closely” (Hebrews 12:1), especially here on the
brink of Lent. And God is our friend,
who reaches out to us as we lie cowering on the ground, afraid of all we can’t manage
on our own – a friend who touches us, and pulls us to our feet, and says, “Get
up, and do not be afraid.”
So, how do we connect with a God who is
both immanent and transcendent? The
key isn’t figuring out how to do it ourselves.
The key is being willing to connect in whatever way you find God coming
to you – calling from the whirlwind or knocking on your door. And that’s what might be the deepest mystery
of all: that God is waiting for you, hoping you’ll take the hike up the
mountain, hoping you’ll reach out your hand when you’re down, hoping you’ll listen
for the still, small voice coming to you on the winds of the Spirit.
What stands between us and the presence of the divine is simply our willingness to have the encounter. Absurdly enough, the Lord God is waiting for us to say, “Yes, I am willing for you to do … what you will do with these things that baffle me, or break me, or beat me down.” The sovereign of the universe, the flaming fire of Love, the creator of all that was and is and ever will be – God is waiting for you to look up, or look in, or look to someone you love and say, “Come, Lord. I am willing.”
1.
HarperCollins Study Bible, 124 (note).
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