It is Good for Us to be Here!

Matthew 17:1-9 Transfiguration of Our Lord.

It is good for us to be here.

Peter’s words, spoken on the top of the mountain that day; they are our words today as well. It is good for us to be here.

            To be honest, however, I’m not sure what Peter meant when he spoke those words. Was it good – for the church - that they be there because they had witnessed this transfiguration of Jesus – and three witnesses are better than one?

Was it good – for them - that they be there because it set the three of them, Peter, James and John apart from the other disciples and gave them special insight, even authority in the church? After all, aren’t these the same disciples who argued over which one was greater?

Or, was it good that they be there because now, Peter’s confession of Jesus’ divinity had been divinely, mystically affirmed?

The truth is, the disciples’ witness of the Transfiguration of Jesus wasn’t for their own benefit, or even for their “now,” rather, it was for what was to come. Jesus is preparing them for the time when he will no longer with them, following events that will confound, frighten and even paralyze them. They need to know, believe and trust, as do we, who Jesus is, and Jesus is preparing them to lead the church confidently, knowing exactly who he is.

It was not long before this, as the disciples and Jesus were hanging out in Caesarea Philippi, where they were surrounded by pagan temples and idols, that Jesus asked his disciples the question, “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter had made the bold confession, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

            That had been a watershed moment; An exciting moment; an exhilarating moment. And Peter had been rewarded by Jesus’ confirmation that this was not only true but that God himself had blessed Simon Peter, with this knowledge. This simple fisherman-turned-disciple, who would now be simply called, ‘Peter.’

            And yet, in the days that had followed, Peter’s confession, the high exhilaration of knowing that they were in the presence of the Messiah, had given way to frustration and devastation, confusion and darkness as Jesus began making predictions of his coming passion and death. Peter had been so disturbed by Jesus’ predictions that he had tried to shush Jesus, earning himself a harsh rebuke from Our Lord.

            And now, six days later, six being the number considered necessary to prepare for a holy event in Israel, when Jesus leads these three disciples up the mountain. And there they witness just such a holy event when Jesus is transfigured before them. The divine confirmation and full knowledge of Jesus’ deity is made complete.

            What happened on that mountain was not a simple visual transformation, where Jesus’ appearance was altered or morphed into something else. We are very familiar with that kind of transformation thanks to the assistance of computer-generated imaging so popular in the entertainment world these days. And Jesus didn’t turn into something or someone else and then turn back to himself.

Rather, Jesus himself took on a brilliant luminescence unlike anything we might imagine. Transfiguration is defined as a complete change in form or appearance into a more beautiful or spiritual state. When Jesus was transfigured before Peter, James and John that day, his appearance changed in such a way that they recognized their Lord, and in that moment fully comprehended his heavenly glory. It is the only time in his earthly career the Jesus’ dignity and deity were made gloriously – even spectacularly clear. They could not doubt for a moment exactly who Jesus was.

            And then he was joined by Moses and Elijah – the two historic and religious figures of Judaism who represented the law and the prophets. Jesus already said he did not come to abolish the importance of their witness of God’s majesty, but whose message and work he has come to fulfill. As the Son of God, his Word has authority to interpret what Moses and Elijah have brought and done for the people of Israel.

            Lord, it is good for us to be here.

            What follows is what makes it especially good for us to be here today, to hear the divine words that were spoken on that mountain that day.

The disciples were overwhelmed at what was happening and what they were hearing on the mountain. And in our world and in our lives today, so often, we, too, are overwhelmed.

            But as Jesus literally shines and glows before them, God’s voice is heard, declaring God’s verdict on Jesus’ identity. “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased.” And finally, the first of three instructions coming to us from this gospel text today: Listen to him. Listen to Jesus, who is God’s Word incarnate. And God has much to say.

You see, despite what some might say, God is not silent in our world. God is not silent in our pain. God is not silent in the face of injustice. God is not silent in the face of our confusion, our doubt, our questioning. God is not silent in the face of evil. God is not silent in the face of sin.

The fact is, God talks quite a lot! If only we have ears to listen. God invites us to listen now, to the Word of God present, speaking, teaching and living in Jesus Christ. Listen to Him God commands. This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased. Now, listen to him!

God speaks to us first and foremost in Jesus. God has given Jesus the authority to speak and to teach, to heal and forgive. As God once communicated and worked through Moses, ultimately blessing the people with life-giving law, and then spoke and worked through Elijah and the prophets, both warning of judgment and passing along God’s promises, God now speaks through His incarnated Word, making it possible for us to know God’s grace and mercy.

Lord, it is good to be here.

We gather today to hear God’s Word and to learn from and with one another how God is active in our lives. We gather to discern what God is calling us to as a community of Christ, dedicated to listening to, hearing and then following God’s will. Jesus comes to us through the Holy Spirit and helps us as we listen to the scriptures, as we observe what Jesus says and does, as we notice those to whom Jesus reaches out, pays attention, and gives a healing, helping hand. Lord, it is good to be here.

Next thing in today’s text, when the disciples were overcome with fear from the luminescent experience of the divine, what did Jesus do? He touched them. He said to them, “get up.” Only, the word used here is not just “get up,” but instead is the same word the angels use at the empty tomb on Easter morning: “He is not here; he has been raised!” (28:6)

Jesus touches his quaking disciples and tells them to “be raised up.” To be resurrected, even. And God has given Jesus the authority to make this happen. The good news for us is that even when we feel overwhelmed by the chaos in the world, and the challenge of the task before us, Jesus touches us; Jesus tells us, “be raised up.” Listen to him.

Today we might hear Jesus’ words as a call to action that energizes us, gives us the will to act and to make a difference in the lives of those we are called to serve. Listening to Jesus gives us the ability to be about the works of mercy and kindness, compassion and love to which God always calls us. Lord, it is good for us to be here.

Finally, Jesus delivers a promise when he says to the disciples, “Do not be afraid.” How often have we heard those words in the stories from the bible, usually at times when only an insane person would not be afraid? And yet here is Jesus, shown in his glory upon that mountain, yet already having presented a picture of his future passion, death, and resurrection, and he says to his disciples, to us, “do not be afraid”.

We haven’t seen this heavenly, overwhelming, confusing vision, but there are many things of which we are afraid. The things that frighten us might be things like terrorism, the threat of nuclear attack, the threat or reality of illness and disease, the potentially diminishing future for our children, the devastating effects of global warming, and unexpected death – the list seems inexhaustible. You can make up your own list. And yet, into this, Jesus says, “do not be afraid.”

The gospel good news for us today is that God is God of the past, the present and the future. For this reason alone we need not be afraid. Despite the problems, hardship and suffering that are part of human life, despite our own brokenness and the tension in our world, Jesus invites us to trust God to be God, always present and always speaking into our world for our individual and communal good. And God says, Listen to him.

We gather here this morning to remember and rejoice that God is always with us. We come to hear God’s Word. God did not create us for fear and death but for life in his name, sending Jesus and granting him full authority over our lives so that we might learn to move forward with courage and confidence, even in uncertain times.

Listen. Be raised up. Do not be afraid. Jesus delivers these words then starts down the mountain. The brilliance of Jesus’ Transfiguration glory balances the suffering and devastation of the Cross to come, as he sets his face toward Jerusalem.

The reflected light and Epiphany revelation are over. The work of Lent begins this week as we, too, set our faces toward Jerusalem. Glory be to God for this Transfiguration and the promise inherent in God’s definitive declaration, This is my Son, the Beloved, Listen to Him!

Let us Listen, may we be raised up, and may we not be afraid, for the glorious Word of God is with us.

Mulberry Trees and Mountains

Luke 17:5-10

       What a perfect way for this text to begin. O Lord, increase our faith.

How often do we make this cry? O Lord, increase our faith.

There are so many fearful things happening in our world today, as structures around us threaten and do crumble and fall. “O Lord, increase our faith.”

We are immersed in what is perhaps the most bitter and frightening presidential election in our time, with what many fear will have the costliest of results, and we cry, “O Lord, increase our faith.”

We absorb the news of this week alone: a train barreling into a train station in New Jersey, a shooting at an elementary school, and we have doubt. There are children shooting children, the aftermath of yet another police shooting and we have doubt. There are typhoons in one hemisphere and hurricanes in the other and flooding in our region and fires consuming parts of the west, and we feel fear. “O Lord, increase our faith.”

We watch an African American child bravely and tearfully struggle to put into words the pain and the sadness and fear she feels living community in a country pathologically weighed down by its racism and bigotry, and we feel hope leaking away and our hearts are heavy with despair at injustice, pain and suffering of so many in the world, and we doubt. “O Lord, increase our faith,”

We face sadness in our own lives: personal failures, lost relationships, a devastating diagnosis, and we doubt. We bear the heavy marks of sin, and while we want to believe in God’s mercy and grace at the same time, we plead, “Lord, increase our faith.”

It seems like this is a plea that Jesus would want to hear from his disciples. After all, as he is traveling on this road that will lead him to the cross, Jesus has been teaching and preparing his apostles and other disciples for the kind of work they will be doing. Jesus knows he will be leaving them. You know, if I were Jesus, it would seem a good thing for my disciples to know they need faith for this difficult, challenging, critical ministry ahead – for how could we ever do this work, live these lives, without faith?

They’ve already had a taste of challenge – for as they have traveled together, Jesus has asked difficult things of his disciples. He’s told them to give away their possessions, to leave behind anything that might claim a higher allegiance in their lives than their relationship with God, including family and friends.

       Jesus has instructed them to look out for the countless poor, to love the outcast, to let go of the old ways in order to make way for new life. Jesus has instructed those who wish to follow him to give away money, comfort, even their very lives. Jesus has sent them out into hostile territory to preach and teach and heal with nothing but the sandals on their feet and the coats on their backs.

       Throughout this time Jesus has constantly contrasted the pointless pursuit of greatness (even the greatness of faith and discipleship) with the vain efforts that characterize our worldly attempts to save ourselves, with the humility, love, grace and mercy with which God responds to the needs of all people.

       Jesus says only those willing to lose will ever really win. “Pick up your cross, and follow me.”

       It’s no wonder that the disciples cry out what we might see as the perfect demand for discipleship: “Increase our faith!”

Then we hear the words of Jesus, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea’ and it would obey you.” You might even remember the words from another gospel, “you could move mountains.” Mountains – mulberry trees -either way, we know that what Jesus is saying is impossible. So what does Jesus mean?

It is here that I recall the words of Martin Luther:

“Faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times.”

       Our problem is the same as the disciples’, - we frame things as the world frames them: anything worth having is worth having in large, larger, and largest quantity.

Forget about believing and trusting confidently that God’s grace is sufficient for all our needs. Money is good, and useful, and can do wonders, we think – well then, more is better. Anything worth having, is worth having more of.

       Like so many things in life says Jesus, it isn’t how much you have, but what you do with what you have been given that counts. Trusting in the sufficiency of what God had given is essential for the life of the disciple.

Faith is not quantifiable. There is no “more” or “less.” Even our faith is a gift from God, and what God has given us is “enough”. But what we do with our faith is directly related to the quality of our discipleship.

In baptism, God consecrated our lives as hands were laid on us and the Holy Spirit blessed us and claimed us. God accomplished all this in bountiful love, and God continues to equip and defend us each and every day by grace through faith.

While God has done this for every one of us, the faith God gives us is not for us alone, but for the sake of the kingdom of God.

You are God’s beloved child, and not only have you received the gift of faith, you already have all the faith you need to follow Christ.

That faith, freely given to you, is for everyday living. It was given so that as we live out our lives as disciples of Christ, we can trust that we truly have all we need to serve, to share, and to follow Christ; it is sufficient for our needs.         

How we use our faith, what we do with this gift, is the truest measure of our relationship with God.

I give you the story of Jerry. I knew Jerry and his family, as members of our home church, for many years.

Jerry was of particularly small stature but strong and generous heart. For over a decade he worked hard and had built a good career in finance and as an actuary at a large insurance company in Wilmington. I had lost track of Jerry and his family for the last decade or so as we moved in different directions, but I met up with them a couple of months ago when they visited here during worship, ironically. Jerry told me that in his mid-thirties, he had made a career change.

After the events of 9-11, Jerry decided that his life needed to mean something, he said. He needed to give back. His career had given him and his family a good life, but had come to have little meaning, he told me. Chasing the corporate dream wasn’t what he was meant to do. He wanted to make a difference. Jerry decided that his whole life needed to be lived in service to others.

So, Jerry followed another dream, and became a fire fighter, and for 13 years, despite his small stature, he was known as a powerhouse. He served with integrity. He was often the first in and the last out on a fire call, and his sisters and brothers in the fire company forever kidded him about being the dirtiest – because Jerry always placed himself right in the thick of things, and coming away from a fire his clothing, hair and skin bore the results – soot, dirt, water, tar.

Last weekend, right there in the thick of things, serving others with his life, Jerry was killed, in the line of duty.

Jerry lived his faith, and in the ordinary give and take of his days, he lived a life shaped by his faith: shaped by the cross of Jesus. He wasn’t a big man; he didn’t need to be. God gave him all the strength he needed. He didn’t have a lot of faith; he didn’t need to have. God gave him all the faith he needed -  just enough faith – to serve humbly and with dedication in the calling to which he was called.

People call Jerry a hero. And what he did truly was heroic. But the truth is, he lived an ordinary life and through it gave extraordinary testimony to the love of God and the mercy and grace of Jesus Christ. 

Luther said, “I know not the way God leads me, but well do I know my Guide.” Through Jesus, we too know our God.

Through the faith given to us in Baptism, through the Scriptures and through the communion of saints, our lives are transformed to live out our faith in the many ordinary things we do each day -

·         Getting the kids off to school.

·         Sitting and compassionately listening to someone struggling with their life.

·         Delivering meals to low-income seniors and the disabled.

·         Writing a thank you note to someone who has shown you a kindness.

·         Greeting a stranger and thereby unknowingly serving as an angel in their lives that day.

·         Reaching out to someone you haven’t seen lately, just to see how they are doing.

·         Praying for a friend or for someone whose name is unknown to you.

Our days are filled with the examples of the ordinary things of life - and a testimony to the grace of God in the faith you have been given.

Whether you are a doctor or nurse, teacher or administrator, student or musician, clerk or beautician, business owner or secretary, janitor or bus driver, spouse or child, homebound or on-the-road, your faith, blessed by God and lived out in acts both large and small, changes the world.

Faith in action points to God’s power, not our own. It points to how God has called us according to God’s purpose and grace, not our own.

Let’s leave it up to God to move the trees. Let us, through these simple acts, tell the story.