josephholubsermons


 

March 6, 2011   -   Last Sunday After the Epiphany - Transfiguration
Matthew 17:1-9

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Engaging Faith

I love jeeping or hiking up to the Continental Divide.  The first time I ever experienced it was at 16 years old when I came to Colorado to youth camp from the flatlands of Illinois.  I remember how deeply impressed I was when I stood on Cottonwood Pass west of Buena Vista – and it is still a favorite place I visit often.  At 12,000 feet the air is always cool and crisp, the sky so blue and so vast, the mountains so stunning and majestic. 

I have been drawn to it ever since, and I believe a part of what draws me to it is that I can disengage from the world below and momentarily leave my troubles behind.  There are no demands made of me on the Continental Divide; no expectations to fulfill; no conflicts to resolve; no problems to solve; no complications to wade through. Life seems so simple up there.  But, the reality of it is  the Continental Divide is not a place to live or reside for very long, but is ultimately a place from which to come down.

It wasn’t the Continental Divide, but Jesus went up on a mountain taking a few disciples with him.  This was obviously an important story for the early Christian communities that formed around Jesus.  The important question for us to ask is  what did this story mean for them?   Why did Mark, Matthew and Luke include it in their gospels?  Why did Peter mention it in his epistle?  Why did early Jesus’ communities preserve and pass this story on in their tradition when I am sure there were many other stories they did not?  What is so significant about it?

The story goes that something mysterious and mystical happened to Jesus on the mountain.  It’s called the Transfiguration.  My take is that in whatever was happening, there were two very distinct responses to which we need to pay attention:  The first was Peter’s response.   

What Peter likely thought was happening was that Jesus was fulfilling a popular messianic expectation that the messiah would lead an armed rebellion against the Roman oppressors and all the enemies of Israel.  Peter must have thought that moment had arrived, and he was about to set up field headquarters and from that mountain, with the blessing of Moses and Elijah representing the law and the prophets of Israel, would help coordinate the messiah’s victorious campaign over Israel’s enemies.    

But, Peter’s grandiose plans were smothered to silence by a blinding cloud of light and a booming voice, that more or less said, "Peter, you've got it all wrong. Shut up and listen!”

This is such an important passage for us to assimilate into our faith journey.  There are two faith paradigms represented in this story, and they come so close, and are in such contrast, we can almost feel the heat generated from the friction between the two.  There is the faith paradigm of Peter which we might call a disengaging faith; and the faith paradigm of Jesus which we might call a engaging faith. 

I have twice stood on top of the mountain that supposedly is the mountain upon which this mysterious event took place.  It's located along at the northeastern edge of the Valley of Jezreel which stretches east to west across northern Israel. Down through history this valley has seen  conflict, violence, fighting, armies clashing and the prolific spilling of blood, perhaps more than any other singular piece of real estate on earth – much of it in religious based conflicts!   

Like the Continental Divide is a place for me to disengage, Peter saw an opportunity to use faith and religion to disengage.   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 get refocused and gain resolve and then come down and re-engage real life in the valley below.

Before they knew it the disciples were stumbling down the mountain behind Jesus headed for the valley below; where people were sick, hungry, in pain and dying; where hatred of a million different varieties ruled people's hearts; where the powerful had created political, economic and religious  domination systems that oppressed and exploited the poor masses; where the presence and power of the divine can be terribly obscured by so much confusion, chaos and conflict; where Jesus was crucified by political and religious powers that he had challenged at every turn.   

Like the Continental Divide separates North America, this passage separates two paradigms of faith and religious expression: the disengaging faith of Peter on the mountain; and the engaging faith of Jesus who returned to the valley.  That is why the early Christian community remembered this story and kept it alive in their tradition.  It was a powerful reminder of the faith paradigm into which Jesus lead them and called them .  We would do well to keep it alive in our tradition and take inventory to see which faith paradigm we most resemble. 

Disengaging Faith, like that of Peter on the mountain, often takes the defensive posture of staying safe at all costs.  It’s a faith that hides in easy or clichéd answers and quick judgments; a faith that divides everyone into the saved and the lost; a faith spouts off simplistic Christian platitudes from the mountaintop.  I can arrive at all sorts of conclusions about people while sitting on the Continental Divide.  It's easy because I don't have to look a real person in the eye. I can put them in a category or stick a label upon them. From the Continental Divide 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 is defensive and self-insulates in that it doesn't dare get too close to people, especially those who are different or considered profane, because if it did, disengaging faith fears most of all, it might have to change its mind; it might be transformed – so it keeps a defensive, insulated distance, and it specializes in over-simplistic answers.

Disengaging Faith often takes the shape of leaving no room for doubt. It advances dogmas and doctrines that the true believer must accept as absolute with little or no questioning or critical thinking applied.  Philip Yancey, Christian author, was asked by the periodical he wrote for at the time 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 or critical thinking.

You see it's no wonder Peter was reduced to silence on the mountaintop.  I think Jesus knew that the thin air up there would go to their heads and affect their minds, 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 or wearing some sort of armor of self-protection.  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." “Turn the other cheek.”   "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.  His only “weapons,” if you will,  were grace, inclusive love, compassion, and a call for social justice.  He enjoyed the company of sinners; touched the untouchables and included outcasts at his table of fellowship.   Behind each set of eyes into which he looked he saw a unique human being and divine presence, even and especially those that the religious community had discounted and kissed off.  He didn't comfort people with cheap, shallow answers.  One day the disciples became so exasperated with him 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 world.  We live in a world where 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 once said, "We both believe and disbelieve a hundred times an hour, which keeps believing nimble."

According to Mark’s gospel, the first person Jesus encountered after leading the disciples off that mountaintop was the father of an epileptic child.  He brought his beloved sick child to Jesus with this cry, "I believe. Help my unbelief!"

Engaging Faith  also knows about the value and importance of risking for Jesus’ sake.  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 faith-based-resistance to the Nazi movement.  His point was that any faith that does not risk for the sake of Jesus is a phony faith based on cheap grace, not on the costly grace that was embodied in the life of Jesus.

You see, Jesus went upon the mountain to pray - not stay.  He went up there to be grounded and refocused.  Immediately before he took the disciples up there, he had made the stupendous declaration, “If any want to become my followers let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”  If that doesn’t require some prayer and deep reflection, then I don’t know what does! 

We need our times on our personal, spiritual mountaintops in order to be grounded, refocused and energized with the resolve to come down and follow in the way of the cross: the way of grace in the face of hatred; the way giving in selfish world; the way of inclusion in world that segregates and labels; the way of servant-hood in world that thirsts for self-glorification.

It is Transfiguration Sunday and here we are again with Jesus on the Continental Divide of two faith expressions.  What are you going to do?  Who are you going to be?  What kind of faith will be manifested in your life?  Are you going to attempt to stay up there on the mountaintop 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.