Intelligence Assisting and The Meaning of Life

Luke 9:28-36

I don’t own an iPhone, - a smartphone, yes – but not the Apple iPhone. But I know many people who do have iPhones, and a favorite pass-time among them seems to be to pull out their phones and ask ‘Siri’ all kinds of questions.

In case you’re wondering, “What or who the heck is “Siri?”, ‘Siri’ is a software application or app, which the Apple company, makers of the iPhone, refers to as a “built-in “intelligent assistant.”

This “app,” ‘Siri,’ enables users of the devices on which it is installed, to use voice commands to ask for information and carry out certain tasks.  You can ask ‘Siri’ questions practical, profound, or mundane, and you will receive an answer.

For instance, you can ask ‘Siri’ “will I need an umbrella tomorrow?” And she might say, “There is a 40 percent probability of rain in your area tomorrow,” or, she might answer, “You can forget the umbrella tomorrow. All sun, all day long is forecast for Easton, Maryland.”

Some people I know (you know who you are) like to ask Siri existential, tough, or silly questions, just for the fun of it. For this reason, I know that if you ask Siri a question like, “When will the world end?” one of the responses she might give is, “I don’t know, but maybe we should put bags over our heads or something.” Siri has a sense of humor.

I was reading the blog of a pastor recently, who she wrote that she had inquired several times of Siri, “What is the meaning of life?” and received different answers each time.

“As you can imagine,” she writes, “[Siri’s] answers ranged from the ridiculous to the humorous to the surprisingly profoundly practical. For instance, these are some of the responses Siri gave her to this question:

“Life: a principle or force that is considered to underlie the quality of animate beings. I guess that includes me.”

“And then, contradicting 'herself' [Siri answered]: ‘I find it odd that you would ask this of an inanimate object.’

This was my favorite answer to the meaning of life question: ‘All evidence to date suggests it's chocolate.’

She has also advised: ‘I don't know, but I think there's an app for that.’

“Finally, in an entirely practical vein, [Siri] seems to offer advice to give content or texture to life's 'meaning:” ‘Try and be nice to people. Avoid eating fat. Read a good book every now and then. Get some walking in. And try to live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.’

“Perhaps if you ask, you'll get different answers,” the pastor continues. “Either way, it is a universal quest, this trying to make sense of it all.”

Trying to make sense of it all may be a little of what the disciples did on that mountaintop so long ago, as it is what we try to do when we read this beautiful, wonderful, complex, mysterious, and puzzling story. Existential questions like this underlie much of our searching, seeking, and questioning.

What the disciples witnessed at the transfiguration was no doubt surprising, confusing and alarming to them. There had been and would continue to be so many questions for them about how God was answering their own search for meaning. How could they make sense of this wondrous vision they beheld, when Jesus was transfigured – transformed before them, entirely changed, from the clothing he wore to the appearance of his face?

While they were still digesting the sight of the transformed Jesus and what it meant, two men appeared with Jesus, and they talked to him, and then a mysterious cloud descended on them all as the whole vision is swallowed up by the cloud. The disciples clearly heard a voice then, God’s voice, speaking clearly to them out of the cloud, instructing them, “This is my Son, my chosen. Listen to him.” What does this mean?

What are they to make of this whole event? I am not even sure Siri would have an answer to that question.

The text tells us the disciples were sleepy, and it is no wonder that they were exhausted. Consider what has come before this passage, in the 9^th chapter of Luke’s writings. Imagine that you were one of those disciples who, within a short bit of time have been commissioned by Jesus and sent out to proclaim the kingdom of God, which you have done all over the Galilean countryside in fact, traveling from village to village and healing people everywhere.

Tired yet exhilarated from your travels, you returned to report to Jesus all that happened on your mission trip. Together you took off for Bethsaida, a quiet little place where you can get some R & R and where you might unpack all that you have experienced and explore what it means for the ministry you are engaged in, but in the end, there is no time for that – because crowds follow you there.

It is the demands and questions and needs of the crowds that Jesus then addressed and where more healing took place until finally, you and your fellow disciples had to prevail on Jesus to send the crowd away, for it is too large, and you are in too remote a place to be able to feed and care for all these people. “C’mon Jesus, give us a break!” Jesus, of course, had other ideas, and with just five loaves and two fish, at Jesus’ command you fed that great crowd, with plenty left over.

After that, as Peter spoke up on behalf of all the disciples and confessed that Jesus is God’s Messiah, Jesus made the prediction that soon he would be rejected, killed, and would rise again; to be his disciple, he said, would mean picking up his cross and following him.

Peter, James and John, along with the other disciples, must not only be exhausted, they must be reeling. How could Jesus die? God can’t die. The messiah is to come to bring victory and vindication – the messiah can’t die!

Then, just a week later, this.

The transfiguration bears witness to the identity of Jesus Christ. The disciples heard the declaration, “Listen to him!” God’s voice pronounces the definitive word about Jesus’ identity in the account of the transfiguration: “This is my Son, my Chosen.” This is God making sense of it all. This journey of Jesus’, this mountaintop experience, the healings and teaching the disciples have been witness to, and what is to come.

This transfiguration episode marks a transition point in the life of Jesus and in the lives of his disciples – including us. This mystical moment, when the curtain of the divine is pulled back and we get a glimpse of something holy, can change the way we see and experience the world around us.

Moses’ presence makes the connection unavoidable; he led the People of Israel on the first exodus. Now Jesus will accomplish a second exodus, leading people safely through the waters of death, even as his own flesh is parted in waves of pain on the cross.

While this talk of exodus and death in the midst of transfiguration may be lost on the disciples, it is not lost on us. Today as we make ready to put aside our alleluias, we acknowledge that the remarkable epiphany of Jesus, the revelation of God with us as the light that marks our way takes a different form.

As Jesus is praying, something remarkable happens to his divine face. As the face of Moses was transfigured on Mount Sinai, Jesus’ own face takes on a luminescence. It shines with the light of glory.

As we mark the end of epiphany, we remember that as Jesus’ authority and divinity have been revealed in varying ways at his birth, in the temple, at the waters of the Jordan, and now on the mountaintop, the revelation is for us. It is for our sake. It is a sign of God’s love that extends itself into a world of hunger, and pain, of searching for meaning, and for existential wandering.

The journey Jesus leads us on is the one true answer for any of our seeking or questioning, hungering and thirsting, struggling and doubting. This is my Son. This is my Son. This is my Son. My chosen. Listen to him!

It is as we listen to him, as we follow his teachings, his example, his life – it is as we take our learning from Jesus and make it a way of life; loving, caring, healing, forgiving, and wrapping all of this in prayer as did Jesus himself (note that in the gospel of Luke Jesus prays a lot – and that this transfiguration occurred as he was praying) – that we ourselves are transformed as children of God and recipients of God’s grace and mercy, into disciples of Christ, whose entire lives have shifted, altered, and been transformed in remarkable ways.

 “Two men” appear miraculously three times in Luke’s gospel accounts: to these disciples at the transfiguration, to the women at the tomb on Easter morning, and again to the men in Galilee on the day of the Ascension of Jesus.

In the words spoken during these three encounters, we discover valuable lessons, for our mountaintop experiences and for the day-to-day lives which can be so exhausting. May the words of Jesus' teachings and the modeling of Jesus’ actions be the ultimate guide for our decision making and our interactions with other people. Listen to him, for in his words lie the secrets to justice among peoples and the peace that passes understanding.

At the resurrection, the two men ask the women, "Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here; he is risen." The message for us is, be prepared to be surprised by God. Do not dwell on the things that make for death, but seek the way of Jesus Christ among the hustle and bustle of daily life, and the opportunities for discovering new meaning in life through discipleship.

And on the Day of Ascension, they asked the men of Galilee, "Why do you stand here, looking up?" The same may be asked of us as Jesus bids us to look forward. It does us no good to stand rooted to the ground gazing into the skies. Rather, we need to look one another in the eye and move forward together, across lines of difference, so that the world can be a better place. And in so doing, experience the eternal in the present, the transcendent in the mundane, the mountaintop at the intersection. May it be so for you this day and every day.

Illustrations used by permission, www.freebibleimages.org.

 

 

iPhone image courtesy of Wikipedia.

Whose Transfiguration is It, Anyway?

Matthew 17:1-9 Transfiguration Sunday

I love mountains. If I had the opportunity to build my dream home and had to choose between a site on the top of a mountain or a place at the beach, the choice would be tough. However, although I find the beauty and power displayed in the ocean to be supremely alluring, I think I would go with the top of a mountain. There is just something so beautiful, so mysterious and so awe-inspiring about mountains. Being so high up, able to look down upon a panorama of God’s beautiful creation, full of diversity and life and light is simply amazing. And so, as I read this text, my first reaction to this story is, “I want to be there. It must have been spectacular.”

Whether you are a mountain-lover like me or would in fact prefer the beach home, I wonder how the setting for this scene strikes you. I mean, wouldn’t you have just loved to have been on the mountaintop that day with Peter, James and John, as they accompanied Jesus, and then to have witnessed this wonderful event? What must it have been like for the disciples, to have this spectacular sight unfold before them on the top of that high mountain that day? To see Jesus joined by Moses and Elijah, those two cornerstones of the story of the faith of Israel and her relationship with God; then, to witness the glorious transfiguration of Jesus; to see his face, shining like the sun; to witness the brilliance of his clothes, now dazzling white.

Only, I don’t think that these three disciples would have described the scene as “spectacular.” At least, not at first, and especially not right after they heard “the voice”. The text tells us their first reaction upon hearing God’s voice was to do a simultaneous face-plant. That’s right, in this holy moment, upon this glorious mountaintop, we are told that they fell to the ground, face first. They were not just afraid, they were terrified. While that is actually not an unusual first reaction to the presence of the divine in the bible, I wonder - would we, with our 20-20 hindsight have reacted any differently?

Here at the end of the Epiphany season, on the last Sunday before Ash Wednesday each year, in order to participate in this mountaintop experience and to remind ourselves that this experience is part of our experience too. Here in the church we pull out the white paraments; we sing songs evoking the glorious transfiguration of our Lord. We share in the blessed meal of our Lord’s bidding. We might remember that it wasn’t all that long ago that we heard echoes of the same voice as it spoke the nearly the same words at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, because the truth is that Epiphany both begins and ends with God’s voice making Jesus known to the world.

Do you remember it? Where have we heard these words before?

As Jesus was being baptized in the River Jordan, the clouds parted and a voice declared, “This is my Son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” In today’s gospel text, we have yet another sacred scene. Once again from the cloud comes the voice. It actually interrupts Peter saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased;” but this time, the voice adds these words: “listen to him!”

The repetition of these words declaring the true identity of Jesus, confirm what was revealed at his baptism and has also been confessed by Peter and the disciples. Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah. But in the verses just before these, when Jesus reveals a new word to the disciples - that their journey to Jerusalem would end in his passion, death and resurrection, they had vehemently protested. These poor disciples, who constantly swing between faith and doubt, understanding and misunderstanding, cannot grasp this truth that confuses their worldview.

The Son of God, the Messiah, is supposed to be the victorious Lord of all, who rescues God’s beloved people of Israel, who vanquishes the foe. If Jesus is truly the Messiah, how can what Jesus said be true – that he would suffer and die? I doubt that they even heard the part about his being raised from the dead. They were afraid. They were confused. So by nature, they had begun to doubt. God then adds these words to the declaration on the mountain as an exhortation that they should listen to what Jesus has to say, and obey him. God’s words affirm that what Jesus has revealed has been ordained by God. In obedience to the will of God, Jesus will go to Jerusalem, submit to suffering and die. And there, God will have the last word, from the cross. There, the love of God and Jesus Christ’s solidarity with all those who suffer will be revealed - and with this Transfiguration on the mountain, there should be no doubt of the source of this revelation.

Throughout the story of the bible, mountaintop events are transformational. They are pivotal. On the top of mountains, perspective is changed. Relationship with God is clarified and even changed.

Back a few years ago, there was a series of TV commercials for a financial holding company, EF Hutton. Do you remember them? There would be a gathering of people at a party, or a large group of people working together in an office, or perhaps a couple of people having dinner in a crowded restaurant, when one person says to another, “EF Hutton said,…..” and immediately, the scene freezes; all chatter ceases; even the music and everyday sounds in each of the settings are silenced, and suddenly everyone is focused on listening to what it is that EF Hutton has to say. The tag line then was, “When EF Hutton talks, people listen.” And not only were these people listening, they were listening with intent. They want to know what EF Hutton, the voice of authority, reveals about what they should do with their money.

I think of those scenes when I read this text, because I think that while God wants to reiterate that indeed Jesus is God’s beloved, and is supremely pleasing to God, there is something important about the additional words of God here, and they draw us into the scene as well. The tense of these words in the Greek is more like, “keep on listening to him”. These words are for Jesus’ disciples of every time and place. These are words meant to carry the disciples all the way to Jerusalem with Jesus and beyond.

Many translations render God’s command here as “listen to him” but I think that it could just as easily and perhaps even more accurately be translated as “hear him.” In fact, it could be argued that whichever way the Greek word is translated, both listening and hearing are important to the life of the disciple.

Our world is filled with words, sounds, music, conversation, myths, monologues, dialogues, instructions, announcements, and these days, weather reports – words, words, words. There are conflicting sounds, words and voices. Like the disciples of Jesus’ time, some of what we hear confuses our worldview and we struggle with doubt. While many of the everyday words and sounds of our lives go in one ear and out the other, here in this biblical text, God commands us, “listen to Jesus….hear him, and keep on hearing him.”

Yet hearing and understanding are not automatic. Listening that does not lead to action has severe consequences in the life of faith and discipleship.

On that mountaintop, Jesus encountered God and was transformed. The scene harkens back to another mountaintop scene when Moses encountered God and was likewise transformed – his face shone like the sun. While we might not physically travel to the mountaintop, while we may be afraid of heights, would rather be at the beach, prefer our feet to be planted firmly on the ground, and are filled at times with doubt or fear, God’s word comes to all who follow Jesus – to all who follow the one whom God declares is God’s Beloved, the one in whom God is well-pleased. God calls disciples to listen to – to hear and to follow in Jesus’ ways. God’s word comes to us – listen to Jesus. Keep on listening to him.

While the disciples were still lying down, on their faces, filled with fear, Jesus came to them. Jesus touched them. What tender action, filled with love. Despite the failure of the disciples to understand, even to believe, first, Jesus loved them. Then he said to them, “Be raised up, and do not be afraid.” In that moment the disciples were pulled from their fear and failure and blessed with new life and courage.

God meets us in Jesus the same way. What is it in your life that instills falling-down-on-your-face fear? Jesus’ response is, “be raised up.” What is it that keeps you from hearing God’s word and plan for you? Jesus’ answer is “I love you – be raised up.” The cross of Christ and the resurrection are the antidotes to all that stands in the way between you and discipleship.

The good news for us this day, is that God doesn’t leave us on our own to figure these things out. God doesn’t leave us on our own to believe, to act or to pray. The Spirit draws us to the written word and there we meet God. God’s grace is poured out upon us in the holy meal, where we share in the Word made flesh. There, Jesus feeds us with his own body and reminds us, “this is for you.” Jesus meets us in the wine, and reminds us once again, “this is the new covenant in my blood, shed for you.” And even if we have fallen on our faces in failure, fear or doubt in the moment we receive this precious means of grace, are fed and forgiven, we are transfigured too. Each and every time.

As we enter the season of Lent this week, my prayer for each of us, is that we might commit to listening to and hearing God’s voice; that wherever our Lenten disciplines take us, as we encounter God’s voice in the scriptures, we might witness to the transfigured Lord of all; as we contemplate God’s transformational activity in our lives, in and through the world, that we might learn to love as Christ loves.

Let us pray; Lord God, as we journey toward the cross, grant that we may learn to listen and to hear well the transforming word of grace and love and might be so inspired in our discipleship, that in the new life of Christ is evident in our engagement in the world. Grant that we might become the instruments of your mercy and grace Jesus showed us to be. And unite us in spirit and love. In the name of Jesus we pray.

Amen.

Trickles to Gushes to Joy

Isaiah 35:1-10 ~ Advent III, December 15, 2013

I pray that your Advent journey this year has been blessed thus far, and that despite the busy-ness of the season you have found some time to sit a while and catch your breath, appreciating an oasis of calm amidst the frenetic activity of your days. I hope that you’ve found time away from all that shopping, decorating, cooking, or planning of menus and cleaning, interspersed among the normal everyday activities, work, schedules and appointments of our lives, which can make us all just a little bit crazy come mid-December. Throw in a snow day here or a nasty virus there, and this season of joy can quickly turn into one we just wish were over already.

I hope as you prepared to come to church this morning, that you felt a stirring of anticipation at what God’s Word would have to say to you today.

This Advent season, we have been looking at the Isaiah texts that this year’s lectionary cycle of readings has brought us. In the past couple of weeks, Isaiah has led us to imagine what transformed lives and a transformed world might look like, if peace and hope were to reign. We were invited into these texts to see what Isaiah saw in the visions God gave him of the creation that will one day be restored through divine love. And we were invited to imagine with him, what our transformed lives and world might look like, when God’s promises are fulfilled and God’s creation is brought to its fullness as the glory of the Lord breaks upon us. And we were surprised to see that there are signs of God’s in-breaking transformation all around us already – signs of God-like love spun as a silky web in the most unlikely of places.

Today our turn to Isaiah’s texts continues, in this truly beautiful passage that we heard just a short while ago, when (our lector) read these words, “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing.” Words like these just make me want to dance. The sense of joy that leaps off the page is just that vibrant. Isaiah is describing bursting-at-the-seams joy in this passage. He is describing not just a reversal, but a transformation that will come when God comes to reign, and with God’s coming the health and wholeness of the creation will be restored. It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it?

This passage seems to flow naturally, following the texts that we have contemplated the past two weeks which lifted up peace and hope. But if you pick up your bible and read through Isaiah you’ll find that quite a lot has transpired between chapter 11, where we left off last week, and chapter 35, where we find ourselves this morning. And if you were to have read through those chapters, you will have found that in these words before us this morning, Isaiah speaks what Barbara Lundblad refers to as “a word out of place,” because they follow an indictment against the nations that have brought devastation to Israel and have taken her people off into exile and destroyed the temple and caused the people of God such despair and heartache and desolation. Now, in these verses, the text moves, without any real transition, from describing the judgment against Edom and the ecological disaster that follows, to these verses, where the wilderness and dry land are filled with gladness and rejoicing and rejuvenation.

Lundblad writes, “Isaiah speaks a word out of place. Amid chaos and destruction, against despair and apathy, Isaiah speaks a word of restoration. Against a deep, dark, soul-grating thirst, Isaiah describes water – not a trickle appearing in the midst of a lush forest, either, but water appearing as if a dam had burst, sending water gushing into a parched, dry, cracked, desolate landscape of our souls. Perhaps it was, at first, a trickle. Then a stream. Then a full-on gushing flood of life-changing water.”

I wonder if you can think of a time when you were really, truly thirsty. For most of us I imagine that we can conjure up a time when we really wanted a drink – maybe we had been sick, running a fever; maybe you found yourself on an outing and no one and thought to pack enough beverages to take along; maybe you went for an unexpected hike and realized too late that you hadn’t thought of that little necessity.  A few of us might have experienced serious thirst or been caught in situations a little more dangerous, without sufficient water.

I know that in times when I have been really truly thirsty, finding water became an obsession. Our physical need for water is so great and constant. Imagine that you were in the middle of the desert or in the wilderness and you had no access to clean water-it wouldn’t take long for thirst to overwhelm.

I read a book, Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand earlier this year. It’s is the true story of Louis Zamperini, a WWII bombardier whose plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean in 1943. The three survivors of the crash spent weeks on a raft in the middle of the ocean. Thirst was indescribable and brutal and even the slightest, briefest relief of it brought unimaginable joy. Parched, at times delirious, the men longed for, ached for and even dreamed of refreshing life-giving water to replace the death-dealing water that surrounded them day after day.

Imagine being in that raft in the middle of the ocean or on your hike or in your sickbed in a state of real, dire thirst and suddenly, receiving that first trickle of relief – that first trickle of water. And then the water flows more freely and you go from sipping to slurping to gulping it down, great torrents of cool refreshment and relief from the agony of thirst. What does it feel like to go from suffering real thirst to sudden refreshment and relief of cool, fresh, flowing water?

When our kids were little, they loved getting a quarter from us to use in vending machines – like old fashioned bubblegum machines, but when you cranked the handle on these machines, a prize would fall out below. I don’t even know if they make them anymore, but I remember that one of the prizes that might be delivered would be a tiny compressed piece of material, so small that it fit into a vitamin-sized capsule.

You would put this capsule in water and instantly the plastic covering would melt away, and the piece of material inside would begin to swell. It would absorb more and more water until it would double and then triple and quadruple in size until it became I don’t know how many times the size of the original piece. It was often the shape of a dinosaur or some other animal. This little blob of – whatever – was totally transformed by the water into something the kids could then enjoy.

I think of God’s promised restoration and transformation in this way.

God’s coming transforms that which is dried and shriveled and shrunken in on itself in utter lifelessness, and suddenly it comes to life, it will swells and grows and takes on shape and form.

Isaiah provides assurance that God’s coming will result not in the people’s destruction but in their salvation and renewal, health and wholeness – in their swelling and taking on the shape and form of the creator. What’s more, like the parched and dry land, like the burning sand, the weakest and most vulnerable will be not only restored but utterly transformed; “eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy”. They will go from being nearly invisible, shapeless, worthless scraps of material to being completely refreshed, rejuvenated, and transformed into the beautiful, ransomed people of God’s redeeming love.

God’s work among humanity is nothing short of radical, transformative, and restorative. When the LORD appears, strange and marvelous things happen, and like a word out of place, it instantly changes the world into which it h as come. The wilderness becomes a flourishing path with streams of water flowing abundantly. Dangerous highways become holy paths upon which the redeemed can walk with assurance. The blind see, the deaf hear, and the lame not only walk but leap for joy. The exiles return home. And there is unbridled rejoicing from the ransomed people of God.

This word is good news today for all those who languish in exile in this in-between time of waiting and watching. It is good news for those who wait in cancer wards and prisons; good news for the homeless and the voiceless. God’s bubbling, streaming, flowing word is good news for those who truly thirst in our world, for those who hunger in ways that we cannot even fathom, for those who find themselves with feeble knees and weak hands and fearful hearts. God’s refreshing word is good news for the depressed, for those who long for love and acceptance, those who hear voices that set them apart, those who, in their isolation hear no voices at all; for those who suffer addictions that control and destroy their lives, and for anyone who feels disillusioned and disenfranchised.

When the fullness of God comes among us, all of us, all of creation, and all of humanity will be transformed. In the meantime, God is already at work, and God’s word out of place is a balm for those who hear this word and seek to follow God’s mission, faithful to God’s command to love, and to build faith along the Way of peace and joy and hope.

God’s word out of place comes in the form of the outpouring of generosity from individuals, churches and organizations who come together to provide Christmas joy for families who would otherwise “have no” Christmas. God’s word out of place comes when we give to organizations that help provide clean sustainable water supply for a village in Columbia or Central America. God’s word out of place comes from food drives and blood drives and strangers helping strangers in their hour of need.

As we continue our Advent journey, may we be blessed by the images that God sends all around us to guide our way, to speak a word out of place and to prepare our hearts to receive the Lord Jesus Christ on Christmas. May we find trickles of God’s life-giving water turning to streams, washing and refreshing the people of God, reminding us of the great cleansing and new birth of our baptism. And may we be reminded of the words of the prophet, “And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” May such joy accompany you on your journey to Bethlehem.

Amen.