Matthew 17:1-9

Every once in awhile, I like to climb the Bunker Hill Monument. I know it’s not a mountain, but it’s is as close as we can get to a mountaintop here in our neighborhood. And as many of you know, the view from the top is pretty spectacular. I like to climb it especially at those times when I am feeling anxious, or concerned, or when the problems I am facing seem more than I want to manage. It’s then when the view from the top offers some perspective.

From there I see the whole of Charlestown beneath me, and Chelsea, and Somerville, and Cambridge and Boston – all those places from which we come. And when I look out over that vast array of neighborhoods and buildings – when I imagine the lives that are being lived out there – my problems suddenly do not seem so great. I feel smaller, and in one sense, freer than I did when I first climbed the steps. When I come down the steps of the monument, I try to keep that enlarged perspective with me.

Mountain top experiences – the phrase itself is something of a cliché. But clichés, those overused phrases, become clichés because they are originally rooted in a truth:  the view from a mountaintop can be transcendent.

In today’s gospel lesson, Matthew tells us that there came a time in Jesus’ ministry when he took three of his disciples up to a mountaintop to be by themselves. But for them, the transcendent moment comes not from looking out over the landscape below and around them, but rather from what they see before them.  As Matthew tells us:

…Jesus was transfigured before them and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.

They see the sight of their teacher, their rabbi, and their friend, clothed in splendor.  They see him for who he is as they hear the words that come from the clouds:

“This is my Son, the Beloved. With Him I am well pleased.”

When I come down from the Bunker Hill Monument, I try to take my mountaintop experience with me to hold on to it in the hopes that it will sustain and shape me in the more mundane moments of my life.

The glorious vision for these disciples was momentary. They could not stay there. But they were told to take that moment with them. For they heard three more words from the voice in the clouds. And those words were these:

“Listen to him.”

See him in his glory. But do more than that: listen to him.  Let this vision, let this person, guide you; here on the mountain, and even more, as you make your descent. Here was an indication that the true meaning of Jesus was not confined to that mountaintop, but was revealed in everything he said and did.

On that mountaintop, the perspective offered to the disciples is not so much about how insignificant they are in the greater scheme of things, but rather about just how significant this itinerant teacher and healer is in the plans and promises of God. They are invited to see this truth, and to take that perspective with them.

A few years ago, I attended a fundraiser that was held in the apartment of a couple who collected modern art. The art on the walls was remarkable; every table and flat surface had a provocative or exquisite sculpture on it. It was one of those parties where I felt a little bit like a bull in a china shop. I had visions of myself accidentally backing up to far and ripping the fabric of a priceless piece of art.

In the middle of the room there was an intriguing small glass sphere sitting on an attractive tall stand, so that it was about eye level. Across from it, on a wall, was what appeared to be an abstract work of art – an assemblage of colors and lines that seemed to be arranged in a random manner. But something happened when you approached the small sphere and looked through it. Gazing at the wall, a focused picture suddenly came into view, a representation of an object that was clearly recognizable. Seeing through that particular lens, one had an entirely different view. It was startling, surprising, and the random lines and colors suddenly seemed to cohere and make perfect sense. We can look at a picture and perhaps see little, or no sense of design or purpose. And then, given a particular lens or way to focus, we can see something radically different.

Now we can convince ourselves that our lives make perfect sense to us: many of us may have our dreams, and our plans, and our goals all established. But life does not always make sense. Some things we can control. Some things we cannot. For we all know that the world has a way of surprising us, confusing, us, hurting us deeply, and leaving us unsure of what to do or what to say. And we cannot always retreat to a mountaintop for refuge. But we have the invitation that Peter, James and John had: Listen to him.

Look at Christ, Listen to Christ. Let the vision of this transcendent One, fully human, fully divine, be that glass sphere, that vision through which you look, so the random patterns and colors of your life begin to cohere into something that’s beautiful to behold.

To say, “Look at Christ” doesn’t suggest an easy fix, a papering over of life’s complexity. The disciples were confused before they went up to the mountain. And they were confused when they came down. They would continue to misunderstand who Jesus was and how he fulfilled his destiny right up until the time of his death. Seeing the cross, they could see no purpose, no picture of God’s messiah being victorious.
But somehow, even in their grief, they listened. They listened as a stranger walking on the road with them to Emmaus, taught them about the scriptures; how they were fulfilled in the events of the cross and the tomb.

They listened to a stranger calling them from the seashore, asking them what they had in their nets, and inviting them ashore for breakfast.

In other moments and other places, they listened to the voice of the risen Christ present in their midst overcoming every fear and anxiety that they had. The incoherence of their own lives was slowly but sure transfigured, given meaning, given glory.

And that invitation is there for us. A profound grief overcomes us, and we ponder the meaninglessness of an unexpected death, the end of a marriage, or the countless innocent who suffer.

Listen to Christ. Listen, look, and see all those events through the lens of the One who overcame death, and who will bring us back to life.

We grow discouraged over every new outbreak of war and strife, whether in Ukraine or in South Sudan, and wonder despairingly at the fate of humankind.

Listen to Christ. Listen to him whose voice called together a remarkable community after his death, one not defined by race, by class, by income, or by gender, but by an inexplicable power that enabled them to love one another and give themselves to the world, despite their differences.

Or we simply sense no purpose or particular guidance in the kind of life we are leading. Our problems are not great. But neither is the sense of promise or excitement about what our lives could be like.

Listen to Christ. Look and see your very self through the eyes of him who called out to a man hiding up in a tree and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” Listen to Christ, who proclaimed the great and expansive love of God – that woman who would sweep every corner of her house to find what was lost, that father who was watching, always watching, to welcome his wayward son home with a feast.

Peter wanted to stop and build a tent to commemorate this moment of glory when he beheld the face of God in Jesus Christ. What he failed to understand was that Jesus was intent on building that tent, creating that place of meaning and holiness, in another place. And that place was in the hearts and lives of those who believed in him.

I don’t know all of the particular colors and lines, the shapes and spaces that currently make up the pattern of your life. I do not know how many of them make sense, and how many of them seem random or meaningless. But I do know that we are always invited to see our lives through the splendor of the transfigured Christ on the mountaintop – the lens and love of God’s beloved. We are invited to listen, to learn, to love. And when we do that, we might just behold another kind of splendor – as we are changed into Christ’s likeness, from glory to glory, the splendor each of us being formed into those who are fully alive as beloved children of God.

Amen

A Sermon for St. John’s Episcopal Church
Charlestown, Massachusetts

Preached on March 2, 2014
The Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany
by the Rev. Thomas N. Mousin