They Came Down from the Mountain

Luke 9: 28-45, page 733
About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray. As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus.
They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem. Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, “Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters – one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (He did not know what he was saying.)
While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. A voice came from the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.” When the voice had spoken, they found that Jesus was alone.
The disciples kept this to themselves, and told no one at that time what they had seen.
The next day, when they came down from the mountain, a large crowd met him. A man in the crowd called out, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child. A spirit seizes him and he suddenly screams; it throws him into convulsions so that he foams at the mouth. It scarcely ever leaves him and is destroying him. I begged your disciples to drive it out, but they could not.”
“O unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you and put up with you? Bring your son here.”
Even while the boy was coming, the demon threw him to the ground in a convulsion. But Jesus rebuked the evil spirit, healed the boy and gave him back to his father. And they were all amazed at the greatness of God.
While everyone was marveling at all that Jesus did, he said to his disciples, “Listen carefully to what I am about to tell you: the son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men.” But they did not understand what this meant. It was hidden from them, so that they did not grasp it, and they were afraid to ask him about it.
Sermon
As you may know already, there is a Thursday morning, Wednesday evening study going on right now, that about 50 people are participating in called Experiencing God.
Last Wednesday evening our group was watching the video for the week, and each week’s segment ends with someone’s testimony. This past week the testimony began with a woman who said she had never heard God speak directly to her. She was worried about that so she called her father who told her not to worry, as only ministers and important people get to talk to God.
I think that idea is important for my daughter Lily and my wife Sara to think about, as it’s easy to trust God’s word to ministers and important people if you don’t know one personally, but if you share a bathroom with a minister it’s easy to get worried about who it is that’s entrusted with hearing God’s voice.
The truth is that we all are given equal access to God, that we all have the same honor of listening and hearing God’s voice, opening our eyes and seeing God’s plan unfold, reaching out our hands and doing God’s work, but most of the time we like to leave all that up to those whom we believe to be more holy and more worthy.
I am every bit the same way, and find it easy to relate to the disciples who, though given the power to cast out demons at the beginning of our chapter, found themselves unable to do so after coming down from the mountain where they had seen Jesus standing with Moses and Elijah, clothes so bright they appeared like lightening.
Like the disciples, so aware of their humanity at the sight of Jesus’ divinity, so convinced of their inability compared to the height of Jesus’ nobility, I grew up with a pastor so wise, kind, and good that I knew I would never be able to be like him, and though I felt the call to ministry, if ministry was being like Dr. Jim Speed I knew I would never be able to cut it.
I had it in my mind that if this pastor of my childhood were to walk up to a lake and spread his arms as Moses did to the sea than surely the waters would part and he would be able to walk through on dry ground.
And so I decided that I would just do something else with my life, though I dreamed of preaching.
I imagine that is what the disciples were feeling – that though they had been called by God, given the authority and power to drive out demons, cure diseases and to preach the kingdom of God and heal the sick, that considering Christ’s transfiguration they began to say among themselves, “he’s a whole lot more holy than we are, he was just standing there with Moses and Elijah. If we can’t heal this father’s son than we can just wait for him, he should be down from the mountain any minute now.”
Though they tried, as the child’s father tells us they tried, they apparently tried reluctantly, “I begged your disciples to drive it out, but they could not.”
What happens next is a little surprising – you would think that Jesus would do what we all imagine Jesus would – he’d come down from the mountain, maybe not with a big grin on his face, but certainly with the look of peace about him. Then he’d talk with the disciples who weren’t able to heal this boy, say something that your Mom would say after you just missed the shot that would have won the game, “I know you gave it your all and that makes you a winner in my eyes,” then he’d first give this father a firm hand on the shoulder that would communicate how Jesus understands the severity of the situation, but also that he’s here now and everything is going to be alright.
Then and only then Jesus would kneel down next to the boy, look at him with love in his eyes, and cast out the evil spirit.
If I weren’t actually reading this story, that’s what I’d expect to happen.
But instead Christ, seemingly un-Christ like, addresses not only the father, his disciples, and the crowd, but the entire generation of which they are apart – “O unbelieving and perverse generation, how long shall I stay with you and put up with you?”
This is the kind of instance that we just have to sit with and ponder over, the kind of thing that really makes you wonder who this Jesus is; it’s the kind of revelation that almost makes you wish Martin Luther had just left the Bible in Latin so we didn’t have to read the real thing and understand it, and our understanding of who Jesus is and what Jesus does could be based on something more comfortable like those pictures of Jesus as a sweet little baby you see in children’s books.
This picture here of Jesus is disarming, and maybe even a little scary.
And it takes something to weather this kind of shock.
I mentioned before one of the ministers who influenced me growing up, but there was another. This other minister took over just after Dr. Speed retired, and I don’t know if he ever wrote a sermon himself, but at some point or another it came to light that most of his sermons came straight off the internet.
By the time I found out I knew plagiarism was bad, but this was a lot worse.
And it shook my faith. I thought ministers were better than that, more holy and more important than the rest of us, that they lived by a higher standard, a code of conduct worthy of their calling.
All these years I thought ministers were so much more holy than I was, and then one day here’s one’s imperfection made public for everyone to see.
It wasn’t long after all this happened that I applied to seminary, and now it’s hard for me to say which pastor of my childhood was more influential – the one who was so good he convinced me that I could never measure up, or the one who was so bad, so human, I knew I could do better.
What I am sure of is that Jesus intends for us to do the work he came to earth to do, but so often we are reluctant thinking that the work of God is better left to the holy, the important.
When the disciples were tempted to believe the same thing Jesus came down from the mountain of transfiguration to accost not only a crowd, but a whole generation, and in losing his temper he showed the disciples that doing the work of God does not require an audience with Moses and Elijah up on a mountain top, as the work of God is to be done by people – the kind who lose their temper, the kind of fail, the kind who worry that they aren’t holy or important enough.
Ministry is too often left to the ministers, and too many ministers would lead you to believe that it truly does take a dash of holiness to do the work of God – but Jesus who knew he would be leaving soon, making his way to Jerusalem and the cross, entrusted his work to you.
Hear this call, and trust that by the grace of God all things are possible, through you.
Amen.