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‘A’ // Transfiguration of Jesus // 2-3-08 // Celebration of Worship, Northside
Scriptures Exodus 24:12-18 Psalm 2 (sung) Matthew 17:1-9
It’s All Downhill from Here
Prayer: On this Transfiguration Sunday, gracious God, as we gather again in this upper room and with the disciples on that ancient mountaintop, let us be quick to claim, per the Australian hymn of old:
How good, O Lord, to be here!
Yet, we may not remain;
But, since you bid us leave the mount,
Come with us to the plain.1
And now, let the words of my mouth,
and the meditations of all our hearts,
be acceptable unto you –
O God, our rock, and our redeemer. Amen.
As I witness the continuing idolatry in our country of security being promoted through fear, rather than freedom being offered from fear, I’m reminded of the legendary story told about Mahatma Gandhi when he visited England in 1931.
Gandhi had hardly stepped off the boat on his first trip to the heart of the imperial beast that had ruled over his people and plundered his land for three centuries when he was asked by a reporter, "What do you think of Western civilization?" The Mahatma pondered this for a moment, then replied, "I think it would be a good idea."
Likewise: What do we think of Jesus' journey to Jerusalem? I think it would be a good idea. If, that is, we were to allow ourselves to follow him on it.
Today, we stand at the starting point of that Lenten journey. A journey that’s all downhill from here.
That’s an interesting phrase, isn’t it? “It’s all downhill from here”: Is that a good thing, or a bad thing? Really: It can cut either way.
Is it a good thing? Jesus has just been revealed as the true heir to God’s kingdom glory – transfigured in the most radiant of Epiphany light, before emerging solo from the cloud that buffets his disciples. What a miracle! Indeed, Peter and James and John should be telling themselves, we’re backing the winning horse. Indeed: It’s all downhill from here!
Or is it a bad thing? For then, Jesus and the three disciples leave the mountain – back to the workaday world where Jesus has already told them he must undergo great suffering at the hands of their leaders, and be murdered. Add to this bracing thought: As they are coming down the mountain, Jesus orders them – not suggests, not proposes, but orders them – ‘Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.’ Well … I guess it really must be all downhill from here!
And so – on this descending trajectory, whatever meaning we may invest in it – we enter, this Wednesday, this time of Lent. A time for reminding ourselves that our mission as a congregation is not always about working with God to shed more light on matters.
In order to experience and share the light of God’s Word, first we must willingly enter what a classic medieval book of mystical experience calls a cloud of unknowing. First, we are called to humbly and willingly enter and embrace, aided and abetted by this long Michigan winter and its gray clutches, a period of darkness in our lives. Whether it be the cloud Moses enters today on Mt. Sinai or the cloud that envelops the three disciples in the gospel today, there is power in entering and embracing the dimness and confusion of life. There is power in letting go, and letting God.
And so, onward and downward we go. Onward and downward – for it’s all downhill from here.
Yet, again: Is that a good thing? Or, is that a bad thing?
I wonder.
First, though: We must let go of Epiphany – the season of light – to find out for ourselves.
And we can only let go when we realize that either following the light of the world – the Gospel of John’s metaphor for Jesus – or being the light of the world – Mark and Matthew’s metaphor for our discipleship – may not serve us well in the forty days ahead.
Let’s let pastoral theologian Brad Binau shed some light on this subject of light for us.
"Since the dawn of the 'Enlightenment' nearly three centuries ago,” he writes, “the notion that darkness is in any way friendly or salutary has come under steady attack. All of us who are part of Western civilization" – 'the good idea', the lit bulb over our secular realities – "are, in the words of Matthew Fox, 'citizens of the light'. The technological achievements of the Enlightenment made possible the harnessing of electricity and the invention of the light bulb. Darkness could now be overcome with the flip of a switch.”
One Midwestern farmer Binau knows of tells of the rich dark nights on the fields of his boyhood. And how once rural electrification came, every farmer felt compelled to illuminate the barnyard at night. The deep, nourishing darkness the farmer had felt was obliterated.
Binau continues:
Once the lights could be turned on, and the darkness turned off, we were relieved of the burden of spending time with ourselves. Now we could be 'on the lookout' 24 hours a day. Radio followed; if electric lights made it possible for us to look away from ourselves, radio now made it possible to hear voices other than our own. And then television, another product of the 'enlightened' era – a combination of light and sound, drawing us still further away from what goes on inside us.
Deep inside us. Where no light can, or needs to, exist.
"What price have we paid for 'enlightenment'?" our theologian friend asks. "We have created a civilization" – and, again, let us use that term loosely – "that is afraid of the dark. We crave distractions; more means better. With so much light burning our eyes, and so little darkness to soften the glare, is it any wonder so many of us know the sensation of being 'burned out'?"2
Now, I am not anti-Enlightenment – though oftentimes I find myself sympathizing with modern-day Luddites in our midst. And I am certainly not anti-science or -research. And I do not want to go back to anything like the Dark Ages. We need the light. Particularly, the light that only education can bring.
And yet: We need the darkness, too. We need it, for our Lenten discipleship, to move onward, and downward. The ancient spiritual notion of via negativa, the way of negation, the downward path, awaits, to be observed … embraced … dare we say it: celebrated. What the medieval mystic Meister Eckhart once called the spirituality of subtraction. What meditation and contemplation and trudging the way of our crosses with Jesus can only seek to accomplish – nay, fulfill.
We need the darkness, too. And – come Lent – it’s darkness we get. For you see: It’s all downhill from here.
Is that a good thing? Or, is that a bad thing?
I wonder … still.
I suppose it all comes down to one simple thing: Whether we trust this extraordinary rabbi named Jesus. Little ol’ us, lying on the ground over there with Peter, James, and John – trembling with fright from the cloud of unknowing before us. Do we – can we – trust Jesus, as he reaches out to us, and touches us, and says to us, “Get up, and do not be afraid”?
A newfound friend of mine, Harold Hollis, shares on his blog his remembrance of a time
probably 20 years ago when the Dean of the Episcopal Cathedral in Houston laid low the pretense that causes anyone to shun those who are different. The Cathedral then and now was the home to lots of well-heeled Houstonians, some who traveled many miles to the heart of downtown for Sunday worship, and it was (also) a beacon for the homeless of downtown Houston. I certainly didn’t know much about the seeming outcasts who gathered outside the iron fence of this historic church, or were brave enough to come inside the fence, or scarier yet, the front door of this impressive, Victorian masterpiece of architecture, Tiffany window, regal trappings, antiphons and all.
For a very short time in the mid 80s, after I had been laid off from my oil company job, I volunteered in a church program that served the people of the streets. (And I remember) a middle-aged woman, probably schizophrenic, who often wandered up the aisle after worship had begun.
That day 20 years ago, she had walked to the front pew on the right and almost immediately became restless while the Dean held forth on the Gospel. I don’t remember all that she did, but I know people were aware, and many, including me, were uncomfortable. The Dean stopped his sermon and said, “Annie, you’re safe here.” And miraculously, she sensed the truth of his words.3
“Annie: You’re safe here.”
And so: We are!
And that's a good thing! Because – come Lent – it’s all downhill from here.
Now, tell me: Is that a good thing, or not?
Benediction …
Let us let the poet T.S. Eliot have the final say, today:
I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,
The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,
And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama
And the bold imposing façade are all being rolled away—4
The transfiguration has come – and, the transfiguration has gone. And now, we stand at the doorstep of Lent.
The dark is coming upon us … which shall be the darkness of God.
The darkness of God. Which means: We’re safe. Because: It’s all downhill from here.
Thanks be to God!
1From “How Good, Lord, to Be Here!” by Joseph Armitage Robinson, as quoted in Robert McAfee Brown, Unexpected News: Reading the Bible with Third World Eyes (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1984), p. 126.
2Brad A. Binau, "We Need the Darkness, Too", sermon on Luke 9:28-36 at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Gloria Dei Worship Center, February 21, 2001.
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