Mission between the mountaintops

May I speak in the name of the transfiguring Christ, Light from Light, who challenges us to change and grow through co-missioning.

This final Sunday before Lent begins is known as Transfiguration Sunday… and, in the Episcopal Church, also as World Mission Sunday. 

Over the last six Sundays of Epiphany, we’ve been remembering the manifestation of God’s love incarnate among us – recalling our Lord’s baptism and some of his initial actions in his adult ministry.  Today, as we prepare for our transition into the season of Lent (which begins this Wednesday with the imposition of ashes) our Gospel reading (Mark 9:2-9) takes us to the finals days of Jesus’s initial earthly ministry – an important pinnacle experience before his final days in Jerusalem.  After a couple of very full weeks of traveling, teaching, preaching, feeding, and healing Jesus now invites Peter, James, and John up to a mountaintop experience before leading them back down into mission work in the valleys below.

Mountaintops

In the story of Christ, five pinnacle moment are his birth (incarnation), baptism, transfiguration, resurrection, and his final ascension.  Today we’re hearing about one of these pinnacle moments, literally a mountaintop experience.

Our lectionary readings last year on this occasion were from Exodus (24:12-18), in which we were told of Moses’s mountain top experience with the fiery radiance of God’s presence as he received the law and commandments.  For Moses, this pinnacle experience is a pivotal moment in his understanding of what must be done in order to help his people be fully liberated. His mission now would become to record, convey and interpret divine commands and laws that he believed, if adhered to properly with faithful obedience, would keep his people in healthier covenant with God and out of trouble.  His return from this mountaintop ushers in an age of law.

One of today’s lectionary readings (2 Kings 2:1-12) tells us about Elisha’s dogged determination to follow his master, the great prophet Elijah, in mission and the eventual passing of the prophetic torch from teacher to student.  Elisha aspires to inherit double the share of the prophetic and missionary spirit (a la entitlement of firstborn – Deut 21:17). It’s only when Elijah is finally swooped up by a chariot of fire and horses of fire into the heavens (a pinnacle moment) that his younger disciple inherits the power of spirit and his own mission of prophecy and healing begins. And, Jewish tradition says that when the great prophet Elijah returns (another pinnacle moment), his coming will foreshadow the coming of the awaited Messiah to restore and redeem the people of God in a new age.

Jesus often appeals to the laws of Moses and the wisdom of the prophets in his preaching (E.g., Matthew 5:17, 7:12, 22:40). The appearance of both Moses and Elijah with Jesus on the mountaintop in today’s reading is symbolic of a culmination of the intent of the Law and the teaching of the prophets into a new reign.  And, this pinnacle moment of symbolic revelation is placed importantly, in Mark’s telling, midway between our Lord’s baptism and his resurrection – in the middle of his earthly ministry at a point when the disciples are waking up to the meaning and implications of Christ with them. The sequence hymn (Hymn 129) we just sang sums it up, “…Moses and Elijah speaking. All the prophets and the Law shout through them their joyful greeting.  Alleluia!”  In this mountaintop transfiguration story, Jewish ears would have perceived the symbolism of the Law coming together with the Prophets and remembered that this foreshadows the coming of the awaited Messiah and the redemption of God’s people.  According to Malachi (4:4-5): “Remember the teaching of my servant Moses…. Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.” 

How does this mountaintop experience affect the disciples?  Peter's initial instinct is to want to dwell here with these three prophetic elders in this glorious moment and construct booths/tabernacles for them, perhaps imagining that this is the ‘Day of the Lord’ during the Feast of Booths foretold in Zechariah (14:16-21). 

But dwelling in this pinnacle moment - remaining on the mountaintop - is not the point of this experience.  God’s presence overcomes them, Moses and Elijah vanish into the cloud, and they hear God’s voice repeating what was said at Jesus’ baptism (Mark 1:11) – “this is my Son, the Beloved…” with the added emphasis this time, “listen to him!”  We might hear: don’t get too distracted by what has just happened or dwell on this pinnacle event, focus on what Jesus is showing you, there’s more work to do down below.  Then they are lead back down to mission in the valleys below, trying to make sense of what has just happened, with Jesus nudging them toward new understandings of the call they are living into with him.

The Greek verb form that has been translated as ‘transfiguration’ is a word that you’re probably familiar with in its Latin form: metamorphosis.  It means ‘beyond-form’ or to change form, to re-form, to re-model, to fundamentally change shape or state; a paradigm shift.  In this pinnacle mountaintop moment, the disciples undergo an apostolic initiation of fundamental changes in their form and function as living members of the new body of Christ.

We could see this mountaintop experience as less about Jesus needing to go up the mountain to re-connect with Moses and Elijah in order his figure to be transformed and prepared for the rest of his mission and ministry… and more about initiating the changes – the metamorphosis – that must take place among the disciples to prepare them to re-form as a body (that we now call the church) to carry on Christ’s interpersonal mission.

And, as we remember pinnacle moments with Jesus Christ, we’re reminded of how we’re being transformed and prepared for mission and ministry between these mountaintop experiences.  E.g., encounter with the Spirit at our Holy Baptism or the sublime pinnacle moment every Sunday - the metamorphosis of the elements on the altar and the transformation in our own lives as we inwardly digest this spiritual food.

Mission in the valley between mountaintops:

As important as mountaintop / pinnacle experiences are (they do mark seminal moments in our ongoing transformation), it’s our work in the valleys between them that really defines and demonstrates God’s love incarnate in action, compelling our mission.   

Interestingly, the pinnacle moments are spaced apart on our liturgical memory by periods of approximately 40 days – between the remembrance of the baptism of our Lord and his transfiguration, and between the transfiguration and the passion of Holy Week culminating in our Lord’s resurrection. Time periods marked by ‘40’ are important times of transition, testing, and transformation.

For instance:

40 days that Jesus, after baptism, led by the Spirit, was tempted in the desert (Mark 1:12-13)

40 days and nights of the great flood (Gen 7:4)

40 days Noah waits before exiting the Ark (Gen 8:3-8)

40 days that David was taunted by Goliath (1 Sam 17:16)

And, tying in two of the characters with us today on the mountaintop with Jesus…

40 days, twice, of Moses fasting on Mt. Sinai while re-affirming covenant with God (Exod 24:18,28)

40 years in the desert wilderness as the followers of Moses leave captivity and traveled to a promised land (Num 14: 33; Deut 29: 4)

40 days that Elijah fasted in the wilderness when all seemed against him (1 Kings 19:8)

And, after the next pinnacle moment (the resurrection), it will be 40 days that the resurrected Jesus helped prepare his followers from the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 1:3)

What do all of these periods of 40 have in common?  Whether forty is numbering days or years, whether the journeys are literal or metaphorical, they’re all periods marked by: being in between; waiting; trials of trust; tests of will and spiritual mettle; and precursors foreshadowing some form of liberating deliverance or salvation.  Forty represents periods when the faithful are pushed, often the brink… by God… to further develop and demonstrate the depths of their faith, hope, and love.  We might even say that they are extended periods during which we are to be transfigured (during which we should experience metamorphosis).

As we come down off the mountaintop today with Jesus, Peter, James, and John, we’ll be preparing to enter a special period 40 – our journey through the 40 days of Lent; it’s beginning marked by the imposition of ashes on our foreheads this coming Wednesday. 

Christ calls us to leave the luminance of our mountaintop experiences, return to the valleys of life, and tend to the needs of our brothers and sisters, particular those in the lowest of places.  Christ calls each of us to re-form and re-model our notions of scarcity and abundance in order to better serve the entire family of God.  Christ confronts each of us with opportunities for metamorphosis through interpersonal encounters which stoke the godly light within each other.

Mission

For the last fifteen years, the Episcopal Church* has observed World Mission Sunday on this Sunday before Lent begins (*note: Roman Catholics observe World Mission Sunday in October).  The stated purpose of this observance is to “hold up and celebrate our shared commitment and call to mission.”  We’re asked to celebrate and pray for the work and witness of missionaries we have serving in 25 countries around the world… and to remain mindful that the Episcopal Church's official name is The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Episcopal Church.  All members of the Episcopal Church are also members of the Society and, therefore, we are all missionaries.

Our Presiding Bishop calls us this year to focus our Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting, alms-giving and study on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) as a way of cultivating our conviction as a church in mission throughout the entire world, particular toward the needs of our neighbors most in need.  If you’re not familiar with the eight MDG’s, you’re encouraged to visit the United Nations website to learn about them and discern what part you can play in this world-wide mission to relieve poverty, prevent and treat disease, and promote education through new global partnerships (http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/).

More locally, as we follow Jesus down from today’s mountaintop experience, let us enter the season of Lent this week re-considering and re-forming ourselves as disciples, apostles, ministers, evangelists in Christ’s name.  Consider anew the opportunities right here in Manhattan to serve the interests of those in greatest need – perhaps gather in groups of three to discern what you’d like to study and address in our community for the 40 day journey of Lent.

Paul reminds us in today’s reading from his second letter to believers in Corinth (2 Cor 4:3-6): “…we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus' sake. For it is the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

As we come down from pinnacle moments, prepare us, Lord, to do your work in the valleys all around us.  As we enter Lenten season, compel us toward new mission in your name -  take our lips and speak through them; take our minds and think through them; take our hearts and set them on fire with love for you and our neighbor.

AMEN.