Up a high mountain

Matthew 17: 1-9, NT pages 18-19 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” Sermon A date you should all have on your calendar is April 12th, which will be the second annual dinner to raise money for the high school youth mission trip. The first dinner was an incredible success, not only because your contributions went so far to support this mission trip financially, but because this dinner raised so much awareness in our congregation, making the youth mission trip not only important to the high school students who participated, but to all of us. I’m thankful that our Associate Pastor, Jennie Barber, and the Youth Committee has been so deliberate about getting our youth involved in mission, because I know from personal experience just how much a mission trip can shape a young adult. As a high school student, every summer I went with my youth group on a mission trip to Mexico, and then as a college student, I was invited to go back as a leader. My assignment was to oversee the building of a four room cinderblock house that would become home to a young mother and her two sons, so I stood by with a level and a plumb line as a crew of high school students mixed cement, stacked block, applied stucco, and lifted on huge roof tiles – all the while amazed by what teenagers chose to do with their summer vacation. With a couple hours of free time they even managed to piece together a pair of flower boxes for the front two windows. One of the greatest honors of my life was handing that young mother the keys to her new house; and for the rest of the year, back at Presbyterian College, while I struggled through English Literature and Spanish 201 I imagined that young mother raising her family in the home that I had helped construct. The following summer when the youth group returned to Mexico I was invited to go with them. While I aided in the construction of another home in that same neighborhood in Mexico, I snuck off to visit the home I had been a part of the previous summer. I knew it was the same one because the window boxes were still there, broken and thrown aside. The windows were shuddered, trash was everywhere, and the home was not at all what I had hoped it would be. I felt as though I had been a part of giving a gift that had not been valued, and I was disappointed, because this gift given had in my mind been misused. I wanted the home to be treasured, and instead it seemed to have fallen into disrepair. I wanted the home to be a bright place where the sun shone in on a young family, and instead the windows were shuttered and the house was dark. And in my mind those flower boxes overflowed with blooms that made this home a bright spot on a poor and dangerous street, but those flower boxes were cast aside along with my expectations. That’s often how it is when you build something. You go through the trouble of building your children a tree house, and you expect them to play in it. If you go through all the trouble of building a dam and you expect to get a lake out of the deal; and if you don’t get it you wind up resenting the snail darter for a generation or two. And in that same way Peter’s offer to Jesus to build “three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah,” is a project with strings attached. What does he want out of the deal? Probably the same things that we would all want if we were in his situation: Peter wants to build a shelter to be kind and to honor the three greatest men he has ever known of. And are there strings attached? If there were, you probably wouldn’t blame him. After all, if you thought a new home might give a young mother some shelter and stability, if you thought a tree house might keep your children young and innocent for a little while longer, if you thought a dam might spur tourism and economic development you would build it – and if Peter thinks that building a shelter might keep Jesus up on that mountain top and away from the danger and persecution that awaits him in Jerusalem you might be ready to pitch in on that building project right alongside Peter. I imagine there are strings attached, because there always are. Our agendas may be only subconscious, but they are there, embodying what we think is best as though we really knew, and should these plans of ours fall apart or come to nothing there is frustration, disappointment, resentment, and even fear. This home I was a part of in Mexico – it did not become what I thought it should, which frustrated me – but it was not my home. The tree houses, play houses, trampolines, and ponies – you provide them for your children and when they go ignored and unused it is a disappointment – but your children have minds of their own that you cannot control and, so I hear, the sooner you come to this realization the better it is for you and for them. The Columbia dam is not so different – and the snail darter will bear our resentment – but let it be known that sometimes our plans fall apart to make way for God’s plans which are always better than our best laid agendas. Peter has a plan to keep Jesus from certain death. Realizing that Jesus truly is set on facing trial, rejection, and crucifixion in Jerusalem, Peter suggests that they stay there in the presence of Moses and Elijah on the mountain top – but what Peter doesn’t realize is that death is not only inevitable, it is necessary for the salvation of humankind. Still, because they are tied to their own plans, their own expectations, they are not relieved by the voice of the Almighty which brings their feeble plans to nothing, they are terrified. “They fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” Do not be afraid when your best laid plans fall apart. Do not be afraid when what you expected to happen doesn’t. Do not be afraid when you are forced to move forward when you would rather stay right where you are, for heaven lies before us, not behind us nor has it come to fulfillment today. But how many are stuck right here? Like Miss Havisham of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, crushed by the disappointment of a wedding that never happened, will you wallow in your wedding dress as months and then years pass, stuck in one place, your dwelling place no longer a home but a prison, victim of nothing so much as your own expectations. You cannot stay there if you are determined to follow him. You cannot give up, paralyzed by disappointment and frustrated by your inability to control what was never yours to control. So the disciples follow him down from that mountain top, because so much of this Christian life is about accepting what you cannot change. He goes, not where you think he should, but where he must. He walks towards his death, not because he is foolish, but because so many of the realities of life are to be faced rather than avoided. And you must follow him, because you have not yet reached the Promised Land, but you will if you cling more tightly to the will of God than you do to your own expectations. “Get up and do not be afraid,” he said to them and he says it to you. Get up, if you are imprisoned by disappointment and failed expectations. Get up and learn the resilience of trusting his will and not your own. Get up, if you are lost and confused, feeling as though the world has left you behind. Get up, and do not be afraid, for he is leading you onward, and he will lead you beyond death and to eternal life. Thanks be to God. Amen.