Sermon for Transfiguration Sunday, Year B

OK, here is the sermon for tomorrow, 22 February, my St.-Mary-of-the-bathtubs sermon. I knew that sermon illustration would grab you.

If you find the comments about the vision of the disciples interesting and want to read more, I recommend Bruce J. Malina, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, 2nd edition (Fortress Press, 2003) for starters. Malina talks about what he calls "Altered States of Consciousness," and this really goes a long way in explaining a lot of things in the Gospels and the Book of Acts. His commentary on Mark 9:2-9 is on pages 183-184 of that book, and his discussioon of altered states of consciousness is on pages 327-329.

Also, if you want to begin to learn more about traditional Jewish prayer and how this comes into play in the Gospel stories I recommend for starters Bruce Chilton's book, Rabbi Jesus (Doubleday, 2000). I sat in a number of Dr. Chilton's seminars at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson in New York while I was at the St. John's-St. Thomas Parish and they were absolutely fascinating, even though I may disagree with a few of his consclusions. Overall, his work is very worth reading. Best of all, Rabbi Jesus is written like a novel and is easily read and you can get it pretty cheap at Amazon.com.


Peace be with you,

Pr. J


2-22-2009, Transfiguration Year B
Salem - Luther Memorial Parish - Parrottsville, TN
Mark 9:2-9
Transfiguration

Reading today’s Gospel reading I was reminded of something that I saw many times back around Syracuse, New York. I don’t know if you see this kind of thing in this area, but it’s what I call St. Mary of the Bath Tubs. If you have not yet seen St. Mary of the Bath Tubs then you need to get out and take a long drive to New York and look at people’s yards. It won’t be long before you’ll see St. Mary of the Bath Tubs, or something similar, like St. Joseph of the Inner Tubes.

Now this is about people taking statues of saints, usually Mary and Joseph, sometimes St. Francis, or an angel with wings, or even Jesus himself, and erecting a little shrine in their yard or their garden. Back when I lived in North Syracuse it seemed there were a lot of people taking old bath tubs and setting them into the ground in such a way as to form a little shelter, painted white, or turquoise, surrounded with white stones and flowers and, of course, housing the saint’s statue. One day I saw Mary’s statue standing in what was obviously an old bath tub in someone’s front yard and I pointed it out to Leslie and said, “Look, its St. Mary of the Bath Tubs,” and the name stuck. That’s not to put down someone’s spirituality, it just means I make these unusual associations, or perhaps the person who thought of turning a bath tub into a shrine makes unusual associations.

Somehow the Gospel reading reminds me of that kind of thing. And at first glance it might appear that Peter wants to build little shrines to Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, but something more is happening.

In the Gospel story we find that Jesus has gone hiking with his disciples Peter, James, and John, but this is not just a casual hike. There is some reason to believe that the time frame for the Gospel reading is sometime in early to mid-October, eight days after the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It was a time of year for many people to go on a pilgrimage because after Yom Kippur another Jewish holy time began, the Festival of Sukkot, called the Feast of Booths. By tradition, those who kept this festival would not work for the first two days of the feast, but on the 3rd day, eight days after Yom Kippur, work would be allowed for those keeping the festival, & that meant pilgrims could travel. And many did. It appears that among the many who were traveling at that time were Jesus, Peter, James, & John.

They came to a mountain, identified by tradition today as Mt. Hermon in northern Israel. You have to picture this. This is a truly high mountain. The summit is usually snowcapped year-round. From high enough up the slope you can see the Mediterranean Sea. And – even in the time of Jesus, Peter, James, and John, - it was - you might say - special. Even then it was considered holy ground, a sacred place for Jew and Gentile alike. Gentiles built shrines and even temples to the gods of Greece and Rome on the slopes of this mountain; Jewish tradition said that servants of God came and went from heaven on this mountain; and everyone, Jew and Gentile alike claimed that strange things were to be seen on this mountain: the Pharisees taught that angels of God encountered people on and near the mountain, and the Gentiles claimed that, no, it was their gods instead that people saw: Apollo, Mercury, Minerva and others. Either way, if you journeyed up this mountain you expected something unusual; you expected to enter the presence of God.

Jesus took Peter, James, and John up the slopes of Mt. Hermon. Common sense alone says they all expected something. They had to. But what?

Treading the path up the slope they would pass the occasional shrine or memorial to a Greek or Roman deity; it must have looked a little like St. Mary of the Bath Tubs to them. They passed several large temples, all dedicated to gods foreign to them, gods of cold dead stone that they could not serve and honor. On up the slope they went, higher and higher, until they passed the tree line and there was nothing but scrub brush on the slopes. Perhaps they went even further up, the slope now almost barren, the ground rocky and rough, their breath now frozen in the air, the blue Mediterranean Sea now plainly visible in the west, the snow covered peak clear and very close. I have a hunch Jesus took them pretty far up the slope, perhaps close to the top, a barren and deserted place that only the most dauntless - or stubborn - pilgrims would seek out in their desire to get close to God.

There he stopped and said, “This is the place,” a place for them to spend some time in quiet solitude to pray, not as we pray in church today, but in the old way of the Jewish teachers, more like the meditation you might associate with a Buddhist monk rather than the petitions of a pastor leading prayers in the congregation. It was a very ancient, very traditional way for the Jewish teachers to wait for the presence of God to come to them. The same thing is done today in Christianity where the practice is called contemplative prayer. I’ve done that - its really neat, especially when you develop the discipline to do it on a regular basis. You ought to try it sometime; it’s different. That is what Jesus and his disciples were doing on the mountain. We can see them sitting around a camp fire at the end of a long day hiking up the mountain, sun going down on the Mediterranean horizon, frozen breath hanging in the air, and all is quiet. They are focused now, deep in the old traditional form of prayer, waiting for the presence of God. And you know what they say: you always get what you ask for.

This is when the unusual happened.

Sometime during their prayer session, while they were meditating, waiting for the presence of God, it was as if a window into God’s presence was opened up for them. The wording of this story in Matthew, Mark, and Luke together tells us they had a spiritual vision, not to be taken literally because it wasn’t a physical vision seen with physical eyes, but in the Gospel a spiritual reality is still something that is very real.

In this vision the disciples saw Jesus in another way, with a new appearance, one that shouted out loud and clear that Jesus has a connection to God. As the vision unfolded who else did they see but Moses and Elijah talking to Jesus; the two greatest authorities of the Hebrew tradition! Moses who by tradition represented all of the Law, and Elijah, who by tradition represented all of the prophets of the past. In this vision Moses, Elijah, and Jesus are talking about his mission and what he is going to accomplish at Jerusalem.

Now, following in the footsteps of many before him who built nearly two dozen temples on the side of the mountain, Peter decided that this vision was enough for him and perhaps he wanted to build some shrines of his own, what our reading calls dwellings. The Hebrew word was sukkot, and it was time for the festival of Sukkot. In this festival pilgrims would build small huts called sukkot in which to live for up to seven days, a way of remembering the wanderings of the Hebrew people in the wilderness. But here Peter seems to have something else in mind. He seems to want to enshrine Moses, Elijah, and even Jesus! Perhaps. Maybe, as some suggest, it was his way of trying to hold on to the presence of God as long as he could. Or maybe there something more going on, some connection to the festival at hand. (Leviticus 23:40-43) Anyway, this is where I am reminded of St. Mary of the Bath Tubs – I know, an unusual association, but whenever I see one of those Mary shrines in someone’s front yard it makes me think of this Gospel reading.

What if Peter had had a few bath tubs or inner tubes handy? He might have set up his three dwellings right then and there, three homemade shrines to Moses, Elijah, and Jesus – a testimony to the presence of God. But that was not to happen.

Peter and the other disciples are still in the midst of this vision which is still unfolding. As the vision continued as they heard a voice coming from the cloud, and this voice said to them that Jesus is God’s son, God’s chosen; “listen to him!” the voice commanded.

Then as suddenly as the vision began it was over with and they were back in what we would call the “real world.” There was no shining cloud, no Moses, no Elijah. Jesus looked as he always had, and so did the world around Peter, James, and John, but the world has been changed forever. God had acted. God had done a new thing. God was going to redeem this fallen world.

There was the Good News. God’s presence is made known in Jesus. Jesus has a mission to fulfill in Jerusalem. As the Gospel story plays out we will see Jesus fulfill his mission as he is crucified at Jerusalem and in that way he will accomplish the salvation of a fallen humanity.

In the church we are about to change seasons and enter Lent. We are now going to spend a whole season walking with Jesus as he leaves that mountain and journeys to Jerusalem where his mission will be completed. The important thing for us is to remember that what Jesus did when he reached Jerusalem was done for all of us, for all people of all times and all places. It was an act of compassion for all the fallen, broken down, imperfect, rejected, sinful people of the world; in some way or another, it was for every single human being who has ever lived or ever will live. God’s grace and compassion span all time past and present without boundaries, radiating outward from the cross across all eternity and throughout all space because God is a God of all places and all times.

God’s grace and compassion are here today for one and all, you and me and everyone you can possibly think of and more. Let that compassion work for you today. Let your troubles, your failings, your anxieties, your imperfections, yours ills, your sins be taken up into the hands of Jesus, the son of God shining brightly on a mountain top. Let him take you by the hand to transfigure your life as he makes you into a new person with an eternal home in God’s new creation.

Peace be with you.