Although I'm not preaching this weekend, the Gospel story of the little boy offering up his five loaves and two fishes to feed the crowd of 5,000 has been very much on my mind lately. Let's take a moment to talk about that.
When I was a child at church camp, our pastor read this story and asked us, "What did this actually look like? Imagine this with me: did the bread and fish magically pop up out of nowhere? Where did it come from?" Then he admitted that he kept some of his favorite snack mix in his shirt pocket, where most folks wouldn't know that he had it, but it was something to tide him over if he ended up working late. He imagined that most folks in Jesus' day might not head out to the edge of town, a long walk, without also packing a little extra food along, "just in case." What if that miracle was sharing? Perhaps folks didn't want to admit they also had extra food along, since they were surrounded by a crowd that also might be hungry, and no one person could possibly have enough to go around. However, perhaps as they saw the example of this little boy, as that basket came around, perhaps many people there were inspired to share some of their extra food as well--and what little extra each person had, was really more than enough to meet the needs.
Do you ever look at the world, especially in these past few weeks, and feel overwhelmed at the needs? Topping the news has been the tens of thousands of children fleeing the violence and crushing poverty of Central America. Meanwhile, I've been learning so much about our local homeless and hungry population, and the numbers there are daunting as well: long waiting lists at each of our existing shelters, thirty families with children in just one of the elementary schools who are living in their cars, sixty or more people living under the bridge. Long lines at the food pantry, and too little food to go around.
It would be quite easy for us, either as individuals or as one congregation, to look at it all and say, "we just can't make a difference, we don't have enough in the face of all this need."
Yet I think it is so important to notice what Jesus *didn't* ask, either of the boy or of the disciples. Jesus did not ask anyone to bake all the bread and catch all the fish by themselves. Jesus did not ask anyone to go buy all of the food from the nearby village, which would have cost far too much and been too cumbersome to transport by any one person, or even all twelve disciples--who realized this as well. Jesus didn't even ask the little boy to give up all his meals forever, so that others may be fed. Instead, Jesus simply took that little bit of a snack, and blessed it. Even had there been nothing left over, the boy would have been slightly inconvenienced for a few hours at worst.
Instead of becoming overwhelmed by the sheer amount of need around us, let's just start by asking ourselves: what are our five loaves and two fish? What is something that may actually seem like a little something to us, that could be blessed by Jesus and become something so much more? What can we share in such a way that it does not diminish us, but instead inspires others around us to share as well? On our own, we can only do so much. But working together, each of us sharing our little somethings, and combining those gifts with the whole body of Christ, we may even find ourselves in the midst of miracles.
Peace,
Le Anne
Showing posts with label doubt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label doubt. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Keep Calm and Carry On
Isaiah 65:17-25; Isaiah 12; 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13; Luke 21:5-19
Friends, do you ever worry? Do you ever let your worries get the best of you?
Have you ever stayed up all night before a conversation you were dreading? Were you up all night preparing your brilliant defense, so to speak, your witty, sure-fire presentation? Did you find that when you finally got to that moment, after being up all night, that you were so tired and overwhelmed when you opened your mouth you could only say, “uhhhhhhhhhhh?” Yep, I’ve been there too. It would’ve been better to have gotten my sleep and not stressed so much over it.
Let’s take this up a notch: Have you ever heard of “preppers?” They were in the Cap Times a few weeks ago, I think, folks that are prepared for nuclear apocalypse, or zombies, or whatever, complete with their own bunkers full of weapons and non-perishable foods, and they draw great security from this, that they feel prepared for any eventuality.
Ah, bless them. I do keep a little canned food and a flashlight on hand, but I’m not ready to build a bunker just yet. I don’t even do extreme couponing, even though it’s quite popular with my friends!
Perhaps while I’m a little prepared, like maybe for a big snowstorm or a power outage, I’m not as prepared as I could be, and maybe that’s because I haven’t been that worried about it so far.
++
Each of the Scriptures today addresses people who are worried. Whether in the time of Isaiah, or the time of Jesus, or the time of Paul, these folks were worried their whole world was about to cave in on them. And they had good reason to be worried--whether it was war, or famine, or persecution, losing the people they loved, their homes, everything they knew. And sure, we know situations like that can happen today--how often have they happened, just even this week in the Philippines, or last year in Superstorm Sandy? We know life is precious, and fragile.
But you know what I love? I love that these passages today are some of the best passages of comfort and strength out of the whole Bible. The Bible knows how to talk to worried people!
We can find so much comfort in these verses. My favorite is in Isaiah 65, “They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord”--that gives me great comfort. And Chris in the choir has talked about how much she loves the verse in Isaiah 12: Surely God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid, for the Lord God is my strength and my might; and will be my savior. --And indeed, what a beautiful mantra we could hold onto throughout any difficulty in our lives! And it’ll definitely stick with you today, with the choir anthem and the hymn we’re going to learn later. It’s been in my head for weeks.
Jesus tells his audience, and us, when you hear of these things, to not be terrified! Granted, Jesus doesn’t want us to be naive either, because bad things may indeed happen, then and now, but we shouldn’t become petrified, unable to function or enjoy our lives in the meantime. When these times come, we can also trust in the Lord and find we are given words and wisdom sufficient to the task, no matter what might happen.
All of the Scriptures tell us today, don’t sit around and do nothing, but also, don’t get obsessed over what may happen. That’s a great paraphrase of the popular saying, “Keep calm and carry on.” We can make reasonable preparations, but you can only be and do and respond as best you can in any given moment with what you’ve got. Since we simply cannot predict the future, neither can we fully prepare for it. Sometimes we just have to pray, and trust, that we will have what we need when we can’t possibly predict the outcomes. And in the meantime, don’t get too riled up by all the doomsday prophets and the like, otherwise, we will miss out on the real joy in our lives! God gave us a good world and we are to care for it and enjoy it with one another!
So I got wondering the other day, do you ever picture Jesus stressing out over something like the feeding of the five thousand the night before? Do you think he was up all night thinking, “oh, gee, we’ll be so far from town, and which disciple should I put in charge of dinner, and do you think people will know to bring potluck…?” I don’t know if he did that. But I will tell you we do have a Bible story of Jesus staying up all night, in the Garden of Gethsemane, when his life was truly at stake, and he was worried. He was fully human, after all! At the end, he released control to God and went forth from the garden to the crucifixion. And God responded by raising Jesus from the dead three days later. Now really, who else saw that one coming?
Truly, there will be difficult times in our lives, enormously difficult times, when we wish we didn’t have to go through things the way they might play out, when we wish we didn’t even have to get up and face the day. Sometimes no matter what we do, those trials are inescapable. But even in such times, remember, that God wants good for us. God wants healing for us, and wants us to know and be comforted by God’s own presence surrounding us and in us. Our world isn’t perfect, isn’t always easy, and isn’t always loving, but our God loves us. Let’s give thanks always for this, that God loves us even when we aren’t always perfect, easy to live with, or all that loving. We are God’s beloved children; let’s rejoice and be glad! Thanks be to God!
Prayers This Week:
For all affected by the typhoon, especially in the Philippines
For all who are seeking affordable healthcare
For all who are coping with the aftermath of disasters or violence
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Of Mosquito Bites and Bridging Boundaries
The following is an expanded/narrative version of the children's message about healing, both from physical ailments, and from our own prejudices.
There's been lots more mosquitoes recently after all the rain, and I am covered in bites. The trouble is, I'm kind of extra allergic to these bites, and the itch doesn't go away for a long time, no matter what I do. (This seems like it gets worse every year, and I have a whole shelf full of remedies to try and make them less itchy, but nothing works really all that well. Seriously, they itch for days, sometimes weeks. I'd give just about anything for a really good mosquito bite treatment).
Still, there's so many worse things you could have than mosquito bites. Leprosy, for example, is a horrible disease where your skin basically falls off and you have all these open sores on your body. It's also really contagious. We have antibiotics that treat it now, but back in Biblical times, they didn't have any good medicines for it, so people really suffered. Learn more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leprosy
This is the background of the story of Naaman. Naaman was a wealthy and powerful man, but he suffered from leprosy. No amount of money could cure him from his suffering. His wife's servant girl, an Israelite, told her to send Naaman to the prophet Elisha in Israel in order to be healed. So the king sent Naaman to be healed, along with lots of expensive gifts to buy his way to being healed. (In fact, the king of Israel was terrified that Naaman was coming, because he thought the king was playing a trick on him and setting a trap to attack him). However, the prophet Elisha calmed his king's fears, and when Naaman came to the prophet's house, Elisha told him to simply wash in the Jordan and he would be healed.
Now, Naaman was angry, because he expected a more impressive treatment, something that would be worthy of his might and status. However, his own servants finally convinced him to follow the simple instructions, and trust that they would work. He washed in the Jordan and was indeed healed!
There were a couple kinds of healings that took place that day. First, Naaman was healed of his leprosy. Second, he learned that a simple man with a simple answer could be more powerful than all of Naaman's might and wealth. Third, the king learned that a foreign ruler and his general could need his help, rather than only be ready to destroy him and his kingdom. Not only physical ailments, but also prejudices, were healed that day.
Sometimes we are asked to help people we'd rather not, and we have all sorts of reasons for not wanting to. It's important to be safe, but also, it's important to examine our own prejudices and ask ourselves whether God is calling us to something greater than what we knew possible before. It is just as much a miracle to heal human divisions as it is to heal any other kind of human suffering. Thanks be to God!
There's been lots more mosquitoes recently after all the rain, and I am covered in bites. The trouble is, I'm kind of extra allergic to these bites, and the itch doesn't go away for a long time, no matter what I do. (This seems like it gets worse every year, and I have a whole shelf full of remedies to try and make them less itchy, but nothing works really all that well. Seriously, they itch for days, sometimes weeks. I'd give just about anything for a really good mosquito bite treatment).
Still, there's so many worse things you could have than mosquito bites. Leprosy, for example, is a horrible disease where your skin basically falls off and you have all these open sores on your body. It's also really contagious. We have antibiotics that treat it now, but back in Biblical times, they didn't have any good medicines for it, so people really suffered. Learn more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leprosy
This is the background of the story of Naaman. Naaman was a wealthy and powerful man, but he suffered from leprosy. No amount of money could cure him from his suffering. His wife's servant girl, an Israelite, told her to send Naaman to the prophet Elisha in Israel in order to be healed. So the king sent Naaman to be healed, along with lots of expensive gifts to buy his way to being healed. (In fact, the king of Israel was terrified that Naaman was coming, because he thought the king was playing a trick on him and setting a trap to attack him). However, the prophet Elisha calmed his king's fears, and when Naaman came to the prophet's house, Elisha told him to simply wash in the Jordan and he would be healed.
Now, Naaman was angry, because he expected a more impressive treatment, something that would be worthy of his might and status. However, his own servants finally convinced him to follow the simple instructions, and trust that they would work. He washed in the Jordan and was indeed healed!
There were a couple kinds of healings that took place that day. First, Naaman was healed of his leprosy. Second, he learned that a simple man with a simple answer could be more powerful than all of Naaman's might and wealth. Third, the king learned that a foreign ruler and his general could need his help, rather than only be ready to destroy him and his kingdom. Not only physical ailments, but also prejudices, were healed that day.
Sometimes we are asked to help people we'd rather not, and we have all sorts of reasons for not wanting to. It's important to be safe, but also, it's important to examine our own prejudices and ask ourselves whether God is calling us to something greater than what we knew possible before. It is just as much a miracle to heal human divisions as it is to heal any other kind of human suffering. Thanks be to God!
Sunday, March 31, 2013
An Empty Tomb (Easter 2013)
Christ has risen. Christ has risen indeed, Alleluia!
Christ has risen. Christ has risen indeed, Alleluia!
Christ has risen. Christ has risen indeed, Alleluia!
The story goes, early, on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary came and saw the stone had been removed from the tomb, so she ran and told Peter and John, that they have taken the Lord and we do not know where they have laid him.
So they begin to run, and they get there, and they see what they see, yep, he’s gone, and they go home. End of story, right? He went somewhere, or someone took him at least; nice of them to fold the linens before going. The end. Or so it seems to the disciples.
But Mary stays behind. She’s weeping. It’s not enough. She looks inside the tomb, still weeping, and sees the angels. And they ask her, ‘why are you weeping?’ And she says again, “they’ve taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”
And then suddenly, Jesus himself is standing there, and asks, “woman, why are you weeping?” And she says, as if to a total stranger, “if you have taken him away, tell me where, and I’ll take him away.”
And Jesus looks at her and says, “Maaary!”
And the lightbulb goes on: that’s the aha moment!
And then Jesus tells her to go. He has a job for her to do--to tell the disciples that he is risen, and will ascend to their father and their God.
Do you know why church services are ordered the way they are? We gather in this place, on the first day of the week, praising God, yet maybe the weight of the week before us is still bothering us. Maybe it seems that everything is still dark. And we confess our sins--maybe that God seems far away after everything that’s gone on, and we just don’t know how to be reunited. And then we hear a proclamation that our sins are forgiven--and we rejoice, right? There’s that “gloria” thing we do....But maybe we don’t get it, or don’t quite understand, or it just doesn’t seem to be enough. We still feel in the dark. So we hear the scripture lessons and the message. We lift up our hearts with hymns and recite our creeds--even if they might feel more strange to us than familiar. We offer our lives and our resources in hopes that they’ll do some good. We pray, and maybe then we can hear that familiar, personal, comforting voice of God. But even if we have that ‘AHA!’ moment--there’s a surprise. We can’t stay here. We have work to do. Just when we’ve settled in, it’s time to go back out there into that world, the one that so often weighs us down, and proclaim the good news--that Christ is risen, and my God is your God, and our Father is the loving Father of those other folks as well.
Every Sunday is a little Easter, a little Resurrection. Good news! Right?
It’s alright though, if we don’t get that, whether every Sunday, or any Sunday, or even on Easter Sunday. After all--even Jesus’ closest friends and best students did not get it.
They didn’t expect the Resurrection. If anything, they expected grave robbers or Roman soldiers to have taken the body.
And afterwards--well, things weren’t perfect, even among the disciples; we heard right here in the story about the famous competition between Peter and John--or, as you might have heard: the guy that would become the head of the church--and the disciple whom Jesus loved. That conflict kept on, even to their own students, who finally wrote down these gospels of Mark and John.
And then Mary, who by tradition we say washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and dried them with her hair--she doesn’t even recognize Jesus, and thinks he’s just the gardener. And yet the one who weeps, becomes the first one to spread the proclamation of joy.
The thing is though, questions and not- understanding, doubts and skepticism, even cynicism are essential to faith; faith is not unquestioning belief. Grant the disciples their due for being human. After all, God became human to reach humans.
Paul writes, “If for this life only we have hoped for Christ, we are most of all to be pitied.” Instead, Christ is raised, and not just him, but us also, that death is not the end, but eternal life. Reunification. A healing of wounds and grief.
Miracles will happen, and we won’t necessarily get it. We’ll be weeping even in the midst of joy. We will be transformed in some ways and still entirely too human in other ways. And God is forgiving. After all, God knows us, and our limitations.
So even though the disciples were not perfect, and even though we are not perfect--even if we don’t understand any of this stuff that happened that we celebrate today, or celebrate every Sunday--remember: Jesus Christ is still risen from the dead. Jesus Christ still calls us by name--knows us even when we don’t recognize Him, even if we mistake Jesus for a total stranger. And Resurrection happens, even when we least expect it. And that is reason for real joy, in spite of ourselves even, on this day, and always.
Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Alleluia!
The peace of Christ be with you! Amen.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
February 10, 2013--Transfiguration Sunday
February 10, 2013--Transfiguration Sunday
Luke 9:28-43a; Exodus 34:29-35; Psalm 99; 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2
So, have you been to the mountaintop?
Have you been to the mountaintop?
It’s a question reminiscent of Martin Luther King, Jr., and relevant to our Scriptures today, stories of both Jesus and Moses having mountaintop encounters with the holy. But, as you look back at your own lives, whether physically or spiritually, have you been to the mountaintop?
Some of us have. This past summer, and many summers before, our youth group went up to the mountaintop at Montreat, and they still have photos on facebook of the beautiful and awe-inspiring views. Others of us I know have been mountain-climbing either in this country or other places around the world. I’ve been lucky enough to be on mountaintops from El Salvador to Greece to Germany to Lebanon to the Holy Land. It’s difficult work, getting up a mountain, but it does do something good for your soul, I think. You come back down having had an experience that not everybody can.
There’s a funny thing in the name Montreat, if we can go back there for a second, and maybe several folks in this room already know that it’s shortened for ‘Mountain Retreat,’ where some retired Presbyterian pastors thought it might make a nice resort community. Or maybe they read their Bibles and thought of these Bible stories today and this came to mind. Both points are true, and mountains are a pretty good place to get a retreat.
Whether on a mountain or not, times of retreat are helpful for us to re-connect with God--not because we believe that God lives on the mountain, but because it’s a place that is set apart, away from the rest of the world, where we can gain perspective, and maybe hear or see God a bit more clearly than we do in everyday life.
+We need times of retreat to help us come face to face in our relationship with God. Time away from the routine gives us fresh perspective on which to view our other relationships and our work.
Recently I read that being in the presence of God is where everybody wants to be, and where everybody doesn’t want to be. It’s both amazing to feel as though you’ve been in the presence of God, and a little uncomfortable. One of the most intense retreat experiences I’ve had is being up at the monastery in Middleton, with my seminary classmates, for a 24 hour silent retreat. Even though we were with each other physically, we were each left alone with our own thoughts. It was clarifying for many of us, taking that break from term papers and internships and also social media; but it took us each a while to calm down and hand ourselves over to the experience and what it had to teach us.
(Most of us cannot go up a mountain too quickly; you’ll bash in the side of your van going up switchbacks, or run into problems with oxygen, or find out how out of shape you are, etc. Likewise, it takes time to adjust your pace to God's way of doing things).
Now, Moses had an incredibly intense experience up on that mountaintop; he was bringing down the tablets with the Ten Commandments. Now, this was not Moses’ first time in the presence of the holy; you might remember that he also took off his shoes in front of the burning bush because God told him he was standing on holy ground. That one came as a bit more of a shock to Moses. But while he was reverent, he wasn’t scared away. Then Moses was on the mountain to get the tablets more than once, since he’d been away maybe too long the first time, the people had a heck of a party while he was gone, and he smashed the first copy of the commandments out of anger and frustration.
But now Moses has some experience of how to handle himself in the presence of the Lord, as well as in the presence of the people. He is gaining in understanding of both relationships. And for some reason, this time when he comes down off the mountain, he is “positively glowing.”
And perhaps we can understand why the people are afraid. The people have been in trouble before with Moses; they have also had some experience of the holy, through the angel of death which passed through Egypt during that first Passover, then the pillar of fire by night and cloud by day; the crossing through the Red Sea, and now this. This really had added up to much more than the desert pilgrimage they’d bargained for. Maybe they just didn’t know what else was going to happen next. And maybe that encounter with the holy was simply too frightening and overwhelming for the average person. But Moses had learned how to handle them by this point, and to calm their fears, and really had calmed his own, and he put the veil over his face, so that they could have some experience of the holy, without being totally overwhelmed. And, as the story goes, this became an ongoing reality, by which the people had regular instruction from God through Moses’ encounters with the holy. The people who were once slaves in Egypt, were now being formed into a renewed people, and eventually to return to the promised land.
The Gospel story that ties into this story of Moses’ transfiguration is Jesus with his disciples on the mountaintop. And I often wonder, why did the disciples keep silent about what they had seen? They had seen Jesus perhaps as God sees Jesus; they had been with this teacher for a little while, and now were learning something about him that was completely new and wonderful. Did they think that nobody would believe them? Did they think that they would never see something better in their entire lives? Did they maybe just want to keep this experience to themselves? We don’t really know. But we do know that the moment of transfiguration ends; that Elijah and Moses depart, that the voice from the cloud tells the disciples to listen to Jesus, and Jesus takes them back down, off the mountain.
I do want to take a moment to talk about the demons in this story. We have all sorts of ideas about what the demons Jesus heals might be in our world today. Whether they truly are evil spirits, as was believed in the day, or if they are conditions such as schizophrenia, or epilepsy, or things we understand a little bit better today. Although, often, the people with these conditions are treated little better by the rest of society than they were back then.
But why is Jesus angry before healing the boy? The boy’s father says the disciples had already tried but couldn’t heal him. Or perhaps because the crowd had gathered, gawking at the boy; perhaps because they were afraid of what “evil” the boy might represent; perhaps because the veils over their own eyes and understanding caused them to treat the boy as a freak, rather than regard him with compassion. Jesus has some harsh words for the people gathered, but he turns and heals the boy. The boy is restored to a place of dignity in the community. Jesus moves on.
We shouldn’t give in to the temptation either to stay up on the mountaintop forever, retreating from the realities of the world, or to stay down in the valley, too heavily steeped in difficult realities, that we become hardened and lose touch with the holy. (It happens all too often in the healing, helping professions--where people become burnt out, where they can no longer see the good in people, or in the system, because those blinders, those veils, have come down too thickly.)
And finally we have that letter from Paul to the Corinthians, where he is writing about the veils over Moses’ face, and how we too have veils over ours--ones that have been there from the time of Moses up until the present. Paul is explaining why it’s difficult for faithful people to believe this experience of Jesus that the Corinthian community has had and how they have become a church congregation following Christ. You may even hear in this second letter to the Corinthians a passage similar to the first, where we see in a mirror dimly and will then see face to face; now Paul is telling them they are seeing, and in the seeing, are being transformed in their own lives as well. And even with everything going on in their lives, in their congregation, and their world--they have hope, hope which enables them to keep going.
We all have veils over our eyes with which we view other people, and with which we read the Scriptures. We each bring the sum of our own prejudices and human brokenness to these encounters. What veils do we carry today?
And yet, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there also is freedom. God sees with eyes of grace-- whether God is looking at us and those uncomfortable places in our lives we’d rather have no one see; or whether God is looking at the people who make us uncomfortable and whom we would rather not see. God’s eyes of grace are what give us the hope that we may be transformed in our own lives, to see others with eyes of love, and to practice that love as Christ’s disciples in the world. It is not always easy work. We will need times of rest and retreat, to re-connect with the holy in our lives. We might be afraid to get back out there, but Jesus calls us down the mountain as much as he coaxes us up. And we go--we get up tomorrow morning and go to that job, or that job interview, or that volunteer commitment or that tough family situation, or whatever it is, because we have hope, and hope gives us that boldness that we may not lose heart.
Thanks be to God!
Luke 9:28-43a; Exodus 34:29-35; Psalm 99; 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2
So, have you been to the mountaintop?
Have you been to the mountaintop?
It’s a question reminiscent of Martin Luther King, Jr., and relevant to our Scriptures today, stories of both Jesus and Moses having mountaintop encounters with the holy. But, as you look back at your own lives, whether physically or spiritually, have you been to the mountaintop?
Some of us have. This past summer, and many summers before, our youth group went up to the mountaintop at Montreat, and they still have photos on facebook of the beautiful and awe-inspiring views. Others of us I know have been mountain-climbing either in this country or other places around the world. I’ve been lucky enough to be on mountaintops from El Salvador to Greece to Germany to Lebanon to the Holy Land. It’s difficult work, getting up a mountain, but it does do something good for your soul, I think. You come back down having had an experience that not everybody can.
There’s a funny thing in the name Montreat, if we can go back there for a second, and maybe several folks in this room already know that it’s shortened for ‘Mountain Retreat,’ where some retired Presbyterian pastors thought it might make a nice resort community. Or maybe they read their Bibles and thought of these Bible stories today and this came to mind. Both points are true, and mountains are a pretty good place to get a retreat.
Whether on a mountain or not, times of retreat are helpful for us to re-connect with God--not because we believe that God lives on the mountain, but because it’s a place that is set apart, away from the rest of the world, where we can gain perspective, and maybe hear or see God a bit more clearly than we do in everyday life.
+We need times of retreat to help us come face to face in our relationship with God. Time away from the routine gives us fresh perspective on which to view our other relationships and our work.
Recently I read that being in the presence of God is where everybody wants to be, and where everybody doesn’t want to be. It’s both amazing to feel as though you’ve been in the presence of God, and a little uncomfortable. One of the most intense retreat experiences I’ve had is being up at the monastery in Middleton, with my seminary classmates, for a 24 hour silent retreat. Even though we were with each other physically, we were each left alone with our own thoughts. It was clarifying for many of us, taking that break from term papers and internships and also social media; but it took us each a while to calm down and hand ourselves over to the experience and what it had to teach us.
(Most of us cannot go up a mountain too quickly; you’ll bash in the side of your van going up switchbacks, or run into problems with oxygen, or find out how out of shape you are, etc. Likewise, it takes time to adjust your pace to God's way of doing things).
Now, Moses had an incredibly intense experience up on that mountaintop; he was bringing down the tablets with the Ten Commandments. Now, this was not Moses’ first time in the presence of the holy; you might remember that he also took off his shoes in front of the burning bush because God told him he was standing on holy ground. That one came as a bit more of a shock to Moses. But while he was reverent, he wasn’t scared away. Then Moses was on the mountain to get the tablets more than once, since he’d been away maybe too long the first time, the people had a heck of a party while he was gone, and he smashed the first copy of the commandments out of anger and frustration.
But now Moses has some experience of how to handle himself in the presence of the Lord, as well as in the presence of the people. He is gaining in understanding of both relationships. And for some reason, this time when he comes down off the mountain, he is “positively glowing.”
And perhaps we can understand why the people are afraid. The people have been in trouble before with Moses; they have also had some experience of the holy, through the angel of death which passed through Egypt during that first Passover, then the pillar of fire by night and cloud by day; the crossing through the Red Sea, and now this. This really had added up to much more than the desert pilgrimage they’d bargained for. Maybe they just didn’t know what else was going to happen next. And maybe that encounter with the holy was simply too frightening and overwhelming for the average person. But Moses had learned how to handle them by this point, and to calm their fears, and really had calmed his own, and he put the veil over his face, so that they could have some experience of the holy, without being totally overwhelmed. And, as the story goes, this became an ongoing reality, by which the people had regular instruction from God through Moses’ encounters with the holy. The people who were once slaves in Egypt, were now being formed into a renewed people, and eventually to return to the promised land.
The Gospel story that ties into this story of Moses’ transfiguration is Jesus with his disciples on the mountaintop. And I often wonder, why did the disciples keep silent about what they had seen? They had seen Jesus perhaps as God sees Jesus; they had been with this teacher for a little while, and now were learning something about him that was completely new and wonderful. Did they think that nobody would believe them? Did they think that they would never see something better in their entire lives? Did they maybe just want to keep this experience to themselves? We don’t really know. But we do know that the moment of transfiguration ends; that Elijah and Moses depart, that the voice from the cloud tells the disciples to listen to Jesus, and Jesus takes them back down, off the mountain.
I do want to take a moment to talk about the demons in this story. We have all sorts of ideas about what the demons Jesus heals might be in our world today. Whether they truly are evil spirits, as was believed in the day, or if they are conditions such as schizophrenia, or epilepsy, or things we understand a little bit better today. Although, often, the people with these conditions are treated little better by the rest of society than they were back then.
But why is Jesus angry before healing the boy? The boy’s father says the disciples had already tried but couldn’t heal him. Or perhaps because the crowd had gathered, gawking at the boy; perhaps because they were afraid of what “evil” the boy might represent; perhaps because the veils over their own eyes and understanding caused them to treat the boy as a freak, rather than regard him with compassion. Jesus has some harsh words for the people gathered, but he turns and heals the boy. The boy is restored to a place of dignity in the community. Jesus moves on.
We shouldn’t give in to the temptation either to stay up on the mountaintop forever, retreating from the realities of the world, or to stay down in the valley, too heavily steeped in difficult realities, that we become hardened and lose touch with the holy. (It happens all too often in the healing, helping professions--where people become burnt out, where they can no longer see the good in people, or in the system, because those blinders, those veils, have come down too thickly.)
And finally we have that letter from Paul to the Corinthians, where he is writing about the veils over Moses’ face, and how we too have veils over ours--ones that have been there from the time of Moses up until the present. Paul is explaining why it’s difficult for faithful people to believe this experience of Jesus that the Corinthian community has had and how they have become a church congregation following Christ. You may even hear in this second letter to the Corinthians a passage similar to the first, where we see in a mirror dimly and will then see face to face; now Paul is telling them they are seeing, and in the seeing, are being transformed in their own lives as well. And even with everything going on in their lives, in their congregation, and their world--they have hope, hope which enables them to keep going.
We all have veils over our eyes with which we view other people, and with which we read the Scriptures. We each bring the sum of our own prejudices and human brokenness to these encounters. What veils do we carry today?
And yet, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there also is freedom. God sees with eyes of grace-- whether God is looking at us and those uncomfortable places in our lives we’d rather have no one see; or whether God is looking at the people who make us uncomfortable and whom we would rather not see. God’s eyes of grace are what give us the hope that we may be transformed in our own lives, to see others with eyes of love, and to practice that love as Christ’s disciples in the world. It is not always easy work. We will need times of rest and retreat, to re-connect with the holy in our lives. We might be afraid to get back out there, but Jesus calls us down the mountain as much as he coaxes us up. And we go--we get up tomorrow morning and go to that job, or that job interview, or that volunteer commitment or that tough family situation, or whatever it is, because we have hope, and hope gives us that boldness that we may not lose heart.
Thanks be to God!
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