A A PLACE TO COME DOWN FROM

 I love going up to the Continental Divide(CD).  There is just something about it.  It is such an awesome place where the great North American Continent is divided in two.  My favorite place is Cottonwood Pass about 15 miles west of Buena Vista.  At 12,000 feet the air is always cool and crisp, the sky so blue and so vast, the wind always blows, and the view is nothing short of breath-taking. I never tire of it.  Everything seems so clean and clear and unspoiled on the continental divide.   

I believe what draws me to it is that I can disengage from the world below.  There are no demands made of me on the continental divide; no expectations to fulfill; no conflicts to resolve; no problems to encounter; no complications to wade through. But, the reality of it is that the continental divide is not a place to live.  The continental divide is ultimately a place to come down from.

 It wasn’t the CD, but Jesus did go up on a mountain, taking a few disciples with him.  Something miraculous, mysterious and mystical happened to Jesus on the mountain.  It is called the Transfiguration.  His clothes became dazzling white, Moses and Elijah appeared and they were talking to Jesus.  Whatever was happening, there were two very distinct responses:  Peter’s response and Jesus’ response.   

 Peter’s response the disciples’ response; the human response; the response of us all.  Peter wanted to cling to the experience and make it permanent by starting a construction project.    “Let’s build three dwellings, one for you (Lord), one for Moses and one for Elijah.”    

 I have always felt that what Peter thought was happening was that Jesus was fulfilling the popular messianic expectation that he would be a military and political messiah who would lead a rebellion against the Roman oppressors and all the enemies of God's people. Through Jesus, God's messiah, the enemies of God would be crushed and annihilated. Peter thought that moment of truth had arrived; the moment that Jesus would begin his campaign, and from this mountain, along with Moses and Elijah, representing the law and the prophets of Israel, they would coordinate the campaign.    

 Peter’s big plans were stopped dead by a blinding cloud of light and a booming voice, scaring the daylights out of them that more or less said, "Peter, you've got it all wrong. Shut up and listen!”

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ; this is such an important passage for us to assimilate into our faith journeys and ongoing faith formation, and I’m here this morning to tell you why.   I believe there are two kinds of faith represented in this story and the come so close they conflict: the faith of Jesus and the faith of the Peter, which is often our faith.

I have twice stood on top of the mountain in Israel that supposedly is the mountain upon which this mysterious event took place.  It's located along at the northeastern edge of the great Valley of Jezreel which stretches east to west across northern Israel. Down through history this valley has seen more conflict, fighting, armies clashing and the spilling of blood than any other single piece of real estate on this earth! But yet, standing on top of that mountain, looking over what is an agricultural oasis today, everything seemed so serene and peaceful, and it was impossible to imagine that countless lives had been lost on that patch of real estate.

Like the CD is a place for me to disengage, Peter saw an opportunity to use messianic faith as a way to disengage – permanently!  But for Jesus the experience was something altogether different.  For Jesus the mountain was not a place to stay and take up residence, but a place to come down from.

Before they knew it the disciples were stumbling down the mountain behind Jesus headed for the valley below; where people were sick; where people were hungry; where hatred of a million different colors ruled people's hearts; where the presence and power of God can be terribly obscured by so much pain, confusion, disorder and tension; where even the Son of God was finally hung up to die like a slab of so much meat; the valley below where, to quote the first line of M. Scott Peck's book , The Road Less Traveled, "Life is difficult."

Like the CD separates east and west, this passage separates two kinds of faith: the disengaging faith of the disciples; and the engaging faith of Jesus. One is authentic and one is a sham, and we would do well to take an inventory to see which kind of faith our faith resembles. 

- Disengaging Faith often takes the shape of easy or clichéd answers and quick judgments. It's a faith that spouts off simplistic Christian platitudes from the CD. I can come to all sorts of conclusions about people and their troubles while sitting on the CD. It's easy because I don't have to look a real person in the eye. I can put them in a category. From the CD I don't have to sit with someone and hear their story, their struggle, their pain, their pathos. I don't have to touch their sores or wipe away their tears. Disengaging Faith doesn't dare get too close to people, especially those who are different because if it did, disengaging faith fears it might have to change its mind.

- Disengaging Faith often takes the shape of leaving no room for doubt. Philip Yancey, Christian author who writes for the periodical Christianity Today, was asked by the magazine to sign their statement of faith which included the words "without doubt or equivocation." Yancey replied, "I cannot even sign my own name with doubt or equivocation." Disengaging Faith leaves no room for doubt.

- Disengaging Faith avoids taking any kind of risk, and the value of staying safe is one of the highest values of this kind of faith. 

You see it's no wonder God scared the living' daylights out of those disciples which enabled Jesus to drag them off the mountain. Jesus knew that the thin air up there would soon go to their heads and they would fall into the subtle snares of Disengaging Faith.

But Engaging Faith is something altogether different. Jesus wasn't in the business of giving easy answers. In fact, much of the time his answers were perplexing and difficult. Often his answers came wrapped in the package of paradox and mystery.

"The first shall be last."   "You find your life by losing it."  "Love your enemies."  "He who serves is the greatest."  "Sell all you have and give it to the poor, then come follow me." "If you are going to follow me, then take up your cross."

Jesus came off the mountain like an avalanche and entered the lives of real people in a broken world.  He enjoyed the company of sinners; touched the untouchables and included outcasts at his table. He hardly seemed like someone who invested in easy answers and clichéd responses. Behind each set of eyes into which he looked he saw a unique child of God, even and especially those that the religious community of his day had discounted and kissed off. He didn't comfort people with cheap, shallow answers. One day the disciples became so exasperated with them they blurted out, "This is a hard teaching! Who can accept it?"

Engaging Faith isn't threatened at all by doubt. In fact Engaging Faith sees doubt as potentially its greatest ally. We live in a broken and fallen world. We live in a world when babies are born with diseases and defects; a world where poverty, ignorance and injustice do not go away; where marriage problems don't get solved; where kids in affluent suburbs shoot their classmates; where parents kill their own children; where racism and religious persecution abound, and where people commit unthinkable acts of terror. Doubt! Of course we are going to doubt!

Engaging Faith leaves room for doubt.  Emily Dickinson said, "We both believe, and disbelieve a hundred times an hour, which keeps believing nimble."

According to Mark, one of the first people Jesus encountered after leading the disciples off that mountaintop was the father of an epileptic child. He brought his sick child to Jesus. Jesus said to him, "All things can be done for one who believes" "I believe. Help my unbelief!" cried out the father.

Engaging Faith  knows about the value and importance of risking for Christ.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer talked about Costly Grace and Cheap Grace.  And he knew the difference as he was hung by the Nazis in 1944 for his Christian-faith-based-resistance to the Nazi movement.  His point was that any faith that does not risk for the sake of Jesus Christ is a faith based on cheap grace, not on the costly grace of Jesus’ cross.

Engaging Faith is very hesitant to condemn and judge. Jesus said, in the Sermon on the Mount, "Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?" The person of Engaging Faith looks inside self first and sees two things: a child of God created for relationship with God; and he also sees the beast that lives within all of us.

One pastor put it this way. A person should carry two stones in their pocket. On one should be inscribed, "I am but dust and ashes." On the other it should read, "I am a child of God."   Martin Luther taught that a Christian is "simil eustis et peccator" saint and sinner simultaneously.  A person of Engaging Faith lives within that paradox, within that dynamic tension.

Don't get me wrong, we need to spend some time on our personal, spiritual Continental Divides, whatever and wherever those experiences might be.  They are necessary and important. We need those moments where we are sure, almost without doubt; those moments when everything makes sense and life seems to be working out the way it should; those moments when God feels close and we can almost feel the Lord's arm around our shoulder. But we must never forget that Jesus didn't go up there to stay, he went up there to pray! He went up there to refocus on his mission and his purpose.  But he went up there, not to stay, but to come down. Whatever happened up there, it must have done the trick because he came down with the resolve and courage he needed to get on with his mission - a mission that finally took him to a cross to die for you sins and mine.

It almost seems ironic that when Jesus finally was crucified, it was on a “mountain”; for Jerusalem sits on top of a mountain - a large hill by Colorado standards, but a mountain nevertheless. We could say that when Jesus died, so did disengaging faith die as a viable expression of faith. The words he spoke to the crowd while dying his agonizing and painful death even contained a question that sprang from a deep place in His soul: "My God, my God why have you forsaken me?" He must have received an answer even while dying on the cross because what he said next was anything but a simplistic cliché and harsh judgmentalism: "Father, forgive them!"

It's Transfiguration Sunday and here we are again with Jesus on the CD of two faith expressions.  What are you going to do?  What kind of faith will be manifested in your life?  Are you going to attempt to stay up there and cling to a disengaging faith?  Or are you going to risk it and follow Jesus down with an engaging faith.  May God give us the courage and the strength!  Amen.