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.