From the Mountain to the Valley

Scripture Lessons: Exodus 24: 12-18 and Matthew 17: 1-9 Sermon Title: From the Mountain to the Valley Preached on February 23, 2020 Last week I had the great opportunity to spend some time in Montreat, North Carolina. Montreat was once the headquarters of the Presbyterian Church in the South. It’s a special place for a lot of people for several reasons, but it’s special for this church because a lot of us went to either family camp, a youth conference, or some other conference there. Kelly Dewar, Janice Wolfe, and I were in Montreat last week to attend a small conference on Stewardship, but because it was Montreat it was also kind of a Presbyterian reunion. Janice and I were attending the second year of this conference so we were reuniting with the friends we had made last year. Kelly and I both went to Presbyterian College so we were catching up with other graduates of that same school. There were others we knew, and it seemed like even those we didn’t know, we at least knew someone whom they knew. I met Bill Sibley of Greenville, South Carolina, who I didn’t think I knew but then I learned he was married to our former pastor, Dr. Holland’s daughter, so there were all kinds of connections. That kind of connectional, reunion type environment is fun to be in because it feels like a family. And that kind of connectional environment is also a little dangerous, because some people remember things, I’d rather they forget. We were sitting at the dinner table with the Rev. Morgan Hay, pastor in Peachtree City, and her husband Robert. Kelly Dewar and I have known both of them since High School. Robert Hay Jr. now works for the Presbyterian Foundation, a financial institution which serves Presbyterian Churches, but more relevant to us, he is a child of this church. His father, Robert Hay Sr., was the Associate Pastor for Youth here, and if I were to name the top five people who shaped and changed me to become the person I am today, Rev. Robert Hay Sr. would be in that top five. That’s what I was telling the man sitting next to me as a way of explaining how Robert Hay Jr. and I knew each other. Then Robert said, “And if we were to look back on that time and name the top five kids from that youth group who we thought were least likely to become a Presbyterian minister, I’m not saying that Joe would be at the top of that list, but he would certainly be in it.” Like I said, the environment at Montreat kind of feels like family. There are people there who remember what I was like growing up and what I was like in college. In some ways since then I have changed, and it’s wonderful to remember those people who have helped me change. It’s a wonderful thing to have friendships that have lasted through those changes, so I’m thankful that Robert and I, who have known each other since we were teenagers, now can see and respect each other as adults, and the adults we knew then who nurtured us and helped us to grow up, see us now as peers and partners in ministry. That’s a big deal. It’s a gift, because not everyone who knows your past will ever let you live it down and not everyone loves you enough to help you change and really become who God created you to be. Our Scripture Lessons for this morning are all about that kind of change. The kind of change that is infused with profound love. From the beginning of his life, Moses was being shaped and changed by such love. You know the story. I once saw a bumper sticker that read, “Even Moses started out as a basket case.” That’s true. He did. Born into a family of enslaved Hebrew people, Moses was placed in a basket by the mother who loved him so much that she made every effort that he be spared from an early death by the hand of his people’s oppressors. He floated down the river in that basket and was saved by Pharaoh’s daughter. Through a series of other changes, twists and turns, he became a leader of his people. In today’s first Scripture Lesson he was up on a mountain with God for forty days and forty nights. Maybe you remember that he came down from the mountain changed by this experience as anyone would be. His skin was glowing because of his proximity to the God of love. Only then he had to interact with his people who had not changed for the better but had reverted back to the kind of idol worship they’d learned back in Egypt and wanted Moses to revert along with them. Do you have any friends like that? Friends who love you, only they won’t let you change. Their love drags you down with them. Thinking of Jesus, there was definitely something about him and his destiny that required him to grow and change, which sometimes made the people who loved him nervous in that same way. His family took a trip to the Temple in Jerusalem, but Jesus went missing because he had left his family to spend time with the learned teachers in their court. He needed to be with those teachers because of his love of God, but his biological family wanted him to come with them. All the time that’s how it was. He was coming into his own, changing every day, which sometimes required disappointing or worrying the people who cared about him. That’s life, however. Love changes us. Our journeys require change in us. When we change, sometimes the people who love us have to change along with us, and today is all about that kind of love. Today is Transfiguration Sunday. It’s the last Sunday of the Church Year before Lent begins on Wednesday. It’s a Sunday when everything changes for Jesus. He begins to look toward Jerusalem and his death. Before he does his disciples can see that something has changed. That God has changed him, and our bulletin cover illustrates it, but what does transfiguration mean? That prefix, “trans,” is a loaded one. Transfiguration, transformation, transubstantiation, there are all kinds of things that change right before our eyes in miraculous ways. The guidance from Scripture regarding change is this: love changes us, and if it’s love that changes us then go with it. Let me tell you what I mean. The Second Scripture Lesson we just read from the Gospel of Matthew tells of how Jesus walked up that mountain seeming to his disciples as fully human. Then at the top he proved himself fully divine. He was transfigured before them. In the case of Jesus this was so dramatic a change that it terrified the disciples who saw it. That’s understandable because every time someone changes before our eyes we treat it with awe and wonder, but also fear for what that change is going to mean. It’s Peter who I focus on in this Second Scripture Lesson. I love Peter. I’m sure you do too. It’s clear that he loves Jesus, but he also is very human, which makes him endearing. You remember how he walked out on the water but started to sink. Later he promised that he would never betray Jesus, but he denied him three times. Peter must have loved Jesus, because once he put it all together: that his friend Jesus really would go from that mountain top down into the valley where he would meet his death, he offered to build three dwellings, one for Jesus, one of Moses, one for Elijah. Why? Because Peter wanted to keep Jesus there. In seeing Jesus standing there with Moses and Elijah Peter realized that this friend of his was far more than a normal prophet or teacher. In fact, he had been walking around with the very Son of God who had been one thing but now would become another. He would not just be preaching sermons and healing the sick. He would also be crushed under the harsh fist of Rome that he might rise again concurring sin and death. If that was his destiny you can understand why Peter wouldn’t want him to go through with it. Because Jesus was his friend you can understand why Peter wanted to keep Jesus in one of those dwellings where he could try and slow down some of the changes that were taking place. I imagine he was feeling like the mother who watches her son go off to college, knowing that when he comes back, he’s going to talk different, he’ll have new ideas in his head, and maybe he’ll even be embarrassed of the Appalachian home he was raised in. “Maybe you should just stay here,” she says. Or like the girl who hears that a boy wants to ask her twin sister to the dance but doesn’t yet have a date herself and fears her twin will move on without her. “Maybe we should just stay home and watch a movie instead of going to the dance,” she says. No one wants to lose their son, their sister, or their friend when change comes to them. That’s why we used to write in each other’s yearbooks, “don’t ever change.” We wrote that because sometimes love means wanting everything to stay the same. “Can’t we just stay here Jesus? I’ll build three dwellings. One for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” That’s the feeling parents feel when they want kids to stay where they are and as they are, close by, little, and safe. No one wants their kids getting too big for their britches. Do they? Or better yet, no parent wants their kids getting hurt. That sounds a lot like love. I saw a scene on a TV show on Netflix about teenagers that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. One of the teenagers realized that he’s not like his friends at school. He’s never felt exactly like the other boys he knew. In fact, he’s not sure exactly who he is. Still, he wants to go to the school dance and he wants to wear a head dress like the one his West African mother wears to church, along with eye liner and lip stick. Walking out the door dressed this way his father clearly doesn’t want him to go to the dance. Still his son rushed out. His father rushes toward him and says, “I don’t want you to go like this because I love you and I don’t want you to get hurt.” His son says, “But dad, this is who I am.” The father must decide what to do. What would love have him do in this world full of change and transformation, hatred and fear? After a pregnant pause the father finally says, “How is it that my son could be so brave?” Was Jesus brave? Yes. Was he loving? Yes. Was it love for God and his people that caused him to change up on that mountain top and to come down from it ready to face his death? Absolutely. “Why can’t we just stay here Jesus? I’ll build three dwelling places, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Peter asked. Why can’t we stay here? We all ask. It’s because sometimes love demands that we change, and if it’s love that’s calling us to be transformed than we must be bold to listen. I enjoyed so much an article that came from Dr. Nelson Price this morning in the paper. Dr. Price was quoting all the statistical data on demographic changes in our county. We are more diverse than ever, but less religious. Why? 1.4% of our county is Presbyterian. And I bet most of them only come to church on Christmas and Easter. Why is that? Is it because God has called us down from the mountain and into the valley that we might make his love for all people plain, but we still busy ourselves building dwelling places? Could it be that God calls us to be shaped and changed by love, but we resist it? Could it be that love is transforming us, but we want to stay the same? If so, we have a friend in Peter, but like him, we must listen to the voice of God. According to Dr. Price, “change is the only constant in life,” and according to my father-in-law, it was love which transfigured Jesus, and it is love which must transfigure us. Even if it’s in the valley that he will be beaten and nailed to a cross. Still Christ went and we must go. Why? Because “Love is being committed to the growth of another.” That’s how a man named Bob, who led our conference defined it, and I think he’s right. While sometimes love looks like being committed to making sure that nothing ever changes, no one ever gets hurt, and the one we love stays right by our side that’s not always love. Sometimes that’s control. Today is Transfiguration Sunday. I’ve seen transfiguring love. I saw it in my mother on the day she dropped me off at college. She left all of a sudden saying, “If I stay another moment I’m going to start crying and I don’t know when I’ll stop, so I’m leaving.” I’ve seen it in a husband whose heart was breaking as he told his suffering wife it was OK for her to go. I’ve seen it in Jesus who went down from the mountain to the valley that you and I might live. Amen.

Choose Life

Scripture Lessons: Deuteronomy 30: 15-20 and Matthew 5: 21-37 Sermon Title: Choose Life Preached on February 16, 2020 Scripture is easy to misunderstand. I don’t understand a lot of the Bible, but there are parts that I do understand, other parts that I’m trying to understand, but there are many who misunderstand most of it and that’s probably because misunderstanding is easy to do. It might be easier to misunderstand than it is to understand. That’s how it is with people, so why not with Scripture? When we encounter strong moral admonitions like that of the two Scripture Lessons we’ve just read, it’s possible to misunderstand the intention of our Father in Heaven just as children misunderstand the intentions of their parents on earth. Parents, has it ever been the case for you, that when attempting to save your children from harm, self-inflicted or otherwise, they’ve reacted as though you were not trying to save them at all, but instead, as though you were trying to ruin their lives? Last Sunday afternoon we were on the way to the Cub Scout Troop 252 Blue and Gold Banquet. That’s an annual event for our Scout troop which celebrates the birth of scouting. Because our Scout Troop, like many others, has gone co-ed, our 8-year-old daughter Cece has joined the troop that both my brother and I were in, and which our father, Cece’s grandfather served as a leader. While Sara went to the grocery store, I took both girls to the Blue and Gold Banquet along with our covered dish, but coming out of the house they beat me to the car. Locking the door to the house then walking towards the car I could see that Lily, who is now old enough to sit in the front seat, was there in the front seat, already buckled, and when I opened the door, I found Cece, though only 8-years-old, in the driver’s seat. I couldn’t see her until I opened the door because she was lying down so that her feet could reach the pedals. From that position she said, “Daddy, I’m tall enough to reach the peddles. Why don’t you let me drive us to the church?” That’s a fair question. I responded with a couple fair answers: 1. Because you don’t know how to drive 2. Because if you’re laying down in the driver’s seat to touch the pedals you can’t see over the steering wheel 3. Because you don’t have a driver’s license and so it’s illegal for you to drive the car These are only three of the logical reasons why I couldn’t allow Cece to drive us to the Blue and Gold Banquet. A more emotional one: Because I love you and don’t want you to wreak this car and get hurt. Regardless, my logic was met with complete and utter indignation by both of them. Our children reacted to me as though I had suddenly mandated that no children in the Evans household would ever be allowed to eat, smile, or drink water again. Though I was standing on the moral high ground they lashed out at me, saying: “Gosh Dad! You never let us do anything!” Consider that experience and reflect for a moment on your relationship with God. Or think for a moment about someone else’s relationship with God. It is a common thing to begin our prayers, “Our Father,” and so also, it is a common thing for us and many others to encounter God’s law with the same indignation as children to their parents. “Why should I let God tell me what to do,” some say, as though the Father’s intention were to keep us from happiness or fun rather than ensure that we enjoy the benefits of an abundant life. Too many have rejected the Church because they believe that a life of fulfilment will be found outside of it, and too many inside the Church validate such an assumption by living miserable lives that no sane person would ever want to imitate. Last Sunday Jesi Allers preached a beautiful and vulnerable sermon on Jesus’ command that we be salt and light. I remember talking with my barber about the passage as few years ago. He told me that salt is good so we need to be salt. “Without it, food tastes boring, and I sure have been to some boring churches.” Why would Jesus tell us to be salt? Why would Moses tell us that in God’s law is life? Then considering today’s Second Scripture Lesson from the Gospel of Matthew: why would Jesus call us to watch, not just our actions but our thoughts? Some say it’s because God doesn’t want us to have any fun, but I say it’s because God wants us to choose life and not death. The Choir just sang so beautifully: “If you love him, keep his commandments,” but don’t forget, it’s because He loves us that He gave them. God’s intention in giving us rules to live by is not to rain on our parade but is simply to ensure that we avoid hurting ourselves and the people around us. God gives commands for the same reason that loving parents stop their 8-year-olds from driving the car. It is for love that God does it. Still, so many, when reading a list of moral admonitions like the ones we’ve just read from the Gospel of Matthew, would say, “Why follow those rules? I’d rather live a little!” Live a little? As though a life of sin were a life of freedom. As though a life indulging the flesh led to fulfillment. As though breaking the rules insured happiness, when in fact, to quote the worst hymn to sing but my favorite one to quote: We are not free when we’re confined to every wish that sweeps the mind, but free when freely we accept the sacred bounds that must be kept. And what are those sacred bounds? We just read them. These moral admonitions from the very mouth of our Lord do not abolish the law but fulfil it. His word for us today is one that requires self-examination, change, and repentance, for Christ does not just call us to refrain from murder, but even the thought of it! It’s true. He does. Is there forgiveness in our Lord? Of course. Is there love? Absolutely. In him is all compassion and goodness, for he is one who loves us too much to allow us to stay as we are. As he opens the car door of our inner thoughts to see us trying to drive without seeing over the steering wheel of our lives he says simply, “Get out of the front seat and listen to what I have to say.” “Your thoughts are dangerous,” he says. That’s the point of this entire Second Scripture Lesson, and when we really think about it, we know he’s right. They are. Our thoughts are dangerous. I’ve been using an app on my phone to meditate every morning. In addition to reading a short devotional, then praying through my personal list and the list that Rev. Joe Brice provides, I use this guided meditation app to spend time in the presence of God in quiet for too often my prayers are too much talking and not enough listening. The guided meditation suggested to me last week that I notice my thoughts, then label them. That I think about what I’m thinking about. That’s a strange concept, but it’s helped me. If I’m at home and my mind has wandered, just noticing what that thought was about tells me something. So, I ask myself, was that thought about my children, my wife, my parents, or much more likely, my church? In labeling my thoughts I begin to notice where my mind is, for my mind is not always in the same place as my body, nor are my thoughts always bringing me closer to the people right beside me. I was thinking about changing the title to this sermon to more accurately reflect what I’m trying to say this morning, and so I came up with the alternative title: “your phone is from the devil.” I don’t really think that. Not exactly anyway. Because your phone, like so many other things: money, guns, anger, sex – can be used for good or for evil, depending on how you use it. The intention of course is to provide connection, and indeed it does. Because of technology and the power of the internet our worship service reaches all the way to our friend Kay and her family in Australia, but sitting next to my wife on the couch, my phone can also take me right back to my study at the church, it can distract me from my family with Facebook where bridges are burnt between me and all my Facebook friends once I learn how they really think, it can threaten my most important relationships because my phone can take me anywhere and it can show me anything. Be careful with that thing. Why? Because if you’re mad at someone you need to go and tell them why your mad, you don’t need to vent on Facebook. God created us to love and put us in relationships. God gave us feelings of attraction, sexual and otherwise, and if you get used to watching other people through pornography you won’t be able to do it right with the person who you’re supposed to be doing it with. What did Jesus say? He quoted Moses and the Law. Moses said, “You shall not murder.” Good. Don’t. But don’t think about murdering people all day either because hate will rot you out from the inside. Moses said, “Don’t commit adultery,” and he was right. Don’t. But thinking about adultery all day is going to mess you up too. Then, “it was also said, ‘whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’” OK, but if you think you can end a relationship with a piece of paper then you’re crazy, because the hate you feel towards him or the resentment you feel towards her will still hurt your kids even after the separation. They can feel it. Watch your thoughts. But have you ever been afraid that God was watching them? I have. And whether you think of God as a loving father or a judgmental one matters tremendously in this way, for whether God wants to help us change that we’d have joy or wants to see our thoughts so that He can judge us and reject us makes all the difference in the world. Know this then: Jesus isn’t talking about thoughts because he’s a member of the thought police. Jesus isn’t calling us to look inside our heads so we’ll be consumed by guilt or shame. Jesus doesn’t call us to monitor what we’re thinking so we’ll know whether we are among the righteous or the unrighteous. Instead, he gives us these instructions because the choice is always ours: abundant life or death and like Moses, he calls us to choose life. Stop worrying about what other people are doing and recognize where your thoughts are leading you. Just stop. That’s what this is about. Just stop hating, lusting, gossiping, coveting, and being jealous, and live. So often our society points fingers at the ones who dance during the Super Bowl. Don’t worry about how they dance or what they wear. They can’t hurt you. Worry about the thoughts in your head, because they can. It’s time to stop worrying about who can go in which bathroom and what happens in other people’s bedrooms, because Christ calls us to consider what happens in our own bathrooms, our own bedrooms, and in between our own ears. Everyone knows that the grown-ups in Washington can’t get along, but don’t worry so much about it that you fail to worry about how what you say about them is affecting your relationship with your friends and your family. What matters so much to Jesus here is how we get along with the people we actually know, not how we view the people we see on TV. “I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgement… So, when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift and go; be reconciled [!]” And if you do, you will live. Choose life. Amen.