How Long Should We Stay?
Sermon
And Then Came the Angel
Gospel Sermons For Advent/Christmas/Epiphany
Mountains were very important to Matthew. When Jesus was tempted to worship the devil in exchange for all the kingdoms of the world, it happened on a mountain. It was good enough for Luke to have Jesus preaching on a nice level place, but when Jesus preaches essentially the same sermon in Matthew he does so on a mountain. That's why we call it the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus went to the mountain to pray. And today we have this story of the transfiguration, which happened on a mountain.
What is it about something happening on a mountain that adds such special significance? For Matthew, whose roots were in the Jewish tradition and who was writing to Jewish Christians, mountains were holy dwellings of God, places where God's presence was known and God's laws were given. Mountains became symbols of the way things would be when God's rule finally would extend over the earth. "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths" (Isaiah 2:3).
Whatever we make of this story of the transfiguration, it is no accident that it happened on a mountain. On a mountain the glory of Jesus is revealed and the voice from heaven says, "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!" Who knows what to make of Jesus' face shining like the sun and his clothes becoming dazzling white? And who knows what to make of Moses and Elijah standing there? Who knows what Matthew was trying to tell us with this story? We aren't sure, but we like this idea of mountains.
When we are out driving and approach a great stretch of mountains, it is breathtaking and terribly humbling. A drive through the mountains gives us a different perspective on things. Some people invest a lot of time and money in mountain-climbing. That's not for the exercise. They could get the exercise doing a hundred other things. Mountain-climbing is about mastering the mystery and standing where few have stood. We rarely hear of stories about the treacherous descent down a mountain, even though that is great exercise as well. The stories are always about climbing the mountain, risking it all to get to the top, and spending time on some high peak that causes people to see things, and maybe even themselves, differently.
We like the mountains. We even describe some of our greatest moments as mountain-top experiences, but we can't stay on the mountain forever. The emotional level is too intense. However, we can take with us what we experienced on the mountain. A young woman made an announcement one morning to her co-workers, "My honeymoon is over and I am so relieved. Now we can get on with our marriage." That's the way it is with our mountaintop experiences. We can't live there forever. The light is too bright, the pace too frantic, and the demands too great. It is a relief to return to normal lives where we can be ourselves and let others be themselves, but that doesn't mean the honeymoon is forgotten. Just because we don't live on the mountain all the time doesn't mean we forget what happened on the mountain.
One of the most important verses in this reading is verse nine. It begins, "As they were coming down the mountain ..." The mountain- climbing is great, but on Monday people have to go back to work. The honeymoon is great, but then we start to notice the dirty dishes, and the clothes left lying around, and all those annoying habits. We realize we are being led down the mountain and back into other areas of life.
Worship ought to be the closest thing we know on a regular basis to the kind of mountain that was so important to Matthew. Some of these things happen at other times, but worship is that occasion in which the unseen and unknown God is experienced. Here we anticipate some revelation, even if sometimes it is less than earth-shattering. Here we expect some word from the Lord, even if it is a word we have heard many times before. Here some ray of hope ought to lift our spirits and challenge our minds and encourage our best actions.
Maybe it happens in a line of a hymn that we have sung a thousand times, but for some reason it speaks to us this time in fresh ways. It may happen as the words of scripture are read and we hear something that we have never heard before. It may happen when we gather around the Lord's Table and the power of these simple symbols deepens our appreciation for what it means to be followers of Jesus. However it happens, worship ought to be the one place we can count on to experience something of the Sacred.
Now, that's not to say worship services are going to be or are even meant to be what we have come to think of as mountaintop experiences. In fact, some of the things churches are doing to create artificial enthusiasm are disgraceful. Their worship is nothing more than pure entertainment. It is a performance and the congregation is merely invited to sit back and enjoy. Some churches pride themselves on having people in and out of a worship service in 35 minutes. So much effort is given to keeping people interested that little attention is paid to how faithful we are being to the God whom we worship. So many churches are willing to do and be anything in order to attract people that the worship no longer places the demands of God on their lives. Most of these productions lead people into a privatized religion in which worship is geared for each individual. There is no sense of a community of faith and no calling to go out and love the world into a better place.
This is where that critical verse nine comes in. People are drawn to the mountaintop highs. We want things to be interesting. We want to be entertained. In short, we want to stay on the mountain. We fail to see the difference between being entertained and being on the mountain in the biblical sense. In scripture, being on the mountain was about experiencing some revelation, some word from the Lord, some assurance that God was with the people. The mountain had nothing to do with entertainment and everything to do with focusing on what God was doing and on what God was calling the people to do. People who come to worship to be entertained for an hour will surely leave disappointed. People who believe that church ought to be kept interesting regardless of what it takes, surely will leave empty.
Our worship is a matter of our publicly giving thanks to God. The unseen and mysterious God is the focus. In this act of giving thanks, we are shaped into God's people. Something happens here that leads us away from being a collection of individuals and into the formation of a church, a community of faith that lives by certain guiding thoughts and principles. Here we are compelled by the voice from heaven, "This is my Son, listen to him!" Here the truly important things about life and living are revealed to us in ways that we will not hear anywhere else in our culture. Here we come to know the mind of Jesus Christ and begin to appropriate it for our own lives. Here on this mountain we are given a different vantage point, a new perspective from which we can see things that we have missed to this point.
That new vantage point is a must because just when we are about to get comfortable on the mountain, just when we begin to understand some of what is going on, Jesus says, "It's time," and we start back down the mountain. The danger is missing the connection between the time spent on the mountain and the time spent away from the mountain. The temptation is never to associate the sanctuary with the homeless shelter or fellowship hall with the community food pantry. The sin is never to realize that what happens on Sunday is directly related to what happens the rest of the week. And if nothing happens the rest of the week, if there is no tending to the needs of the hurting, no care for the poor, no service done in Jesus' name, then we have made a mockery of what we do on Sunday morning.
In search of any excuse they can find people say, "I can be an equally good Christian outside the church as I can by coming to church." Well, that just isn't so. For one thing, being a Christian assumes being a part of a community. For another, something happens when we worship God together that doesn't happen anywhere else. Here we are molded into the people of God. That's the best reason not to miss church. It's not a matter of "Nice people go to church," or "God is going to get you if you don't go to church." No, it is the matter of being left behind as the people at worship are formed into a community that lives and believes and acts in the spirit of Jesus Christ. None of us is so far along in the process that we can afford to miss opportunities to grow in our understanding and experience of the faith.
Let's be clear about what we is talking about here. This is not a matter of coming to church for a few moralistic instructions about what to do and not do. Worship is much deeper than that, much more compelling. In worship we express our love for God, and in turn we experience that same love and it shapes us into new people. As we yearn to be heard by God in worship, we are drawn to those in our community who yearn to be heard by us. When we dare to say that our worship is done in the presence of God, we begin to recognize that all of life is lived in that holy presence. Sunday after Sunday, in word, song, and act, we rehearse the story of God's saving grace, and every time we are drawn into it more fully. When we leave it is only natural to see the world and its people through the lens of this grand old story which calls people together in love and peace. We worship in a place full of symbols that point to profound mysteries. When we leave we do so with the reminder that in all of life there is always more going on than we can see with our eyes. In worship we are confronted with a grand vision for the world, and our puny, little horizons are exposed. Something happens when we worship that evokes a response, and that response is lived out daily as we share life in our homes and move about in the community and serve this world that God loves so much.1
The key is spending the right amount of time on the mountain. We know we need to be in worship regularly, but if we only worship and never move into the parts of the world that need loving then we have stayed too long. On the other hand, if we don't stay in worship long enough, or fail to immerse ourselves fully in it while we are here, then we will encounter challenges and problems for which we will have inadequate amounts of hope and energy.
The call of Jesus is to go up to the mountain, to experience the Holy One, and to see the world as God wills for it to be. The call of Jesus is also to come down the mountain and into the lives of those who are lonely and oppressed. How long should we stay on the mountain? As long as Jesus tells us to stay. And when should we come back? When Jesus tells us to come back. This is God's son calling, from the mountain and the street corner, from the sanctuary and the soup kitchen; listen to him!
____________
1. William H. Willimon, The Service of God: How Worship and Ethics Are Related (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1983)
What is it about something happening on a mountain that adds such special significance? For Matthew, whose roots were in the Jewish tradition and who was writing to Jewish Christians, mountains were holy dwellings of God, places where God's presence was known and God's laws were given. Mountains became symbols of the way things would be when God's rule finally would extend over the earth. "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths" (Isaiah 2:3).
Whatever we make of this story of the transfiguration, it is no accident that it happened on a mountain. On a mountain the glory of Jesus is revealed and the voice from heaven says, "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!" Who knows what to make of Jesus' face shining like the sun and his clothes becoming dazzling white? And who knows what to make of Moses and Elijah standing there? Who knows what Matthew was trying to tell us with this story? We aren't sure, but we like this idea of mountains.
When we are out driving and approach a great stretch of mountains, it is breathtaking and terribly humbling. A drive through the mountains gives us a different perspective on things. Some people invest a lot of time and money in mountain-climbing. That's not for the exercise. They could get the exercise doing a hundred other things. Mountain-climbing is about mastering the mystery and standing where few have stood. We rarely hear of stories about the treacherous descent down a mountain, even though that is great exercise as well. The stories are always about climbing the mountain, risking it all to get to the top, and spending time on some high peak that causes people to see things, and maybe even themselves, differently.
We like the mountains. We even describe some of our greatest moments as mountain-top experiences, but we can't stay on the mountain forever. The emotional level is too intense. However, we can take with us what we experienced on the mountain. A young woman made an announcement one morning to her co-workers, "My honeymoon is over and I am so relieved. Now we can get on with our marriage." That's the way it is with our mountaintop experiences. We can't live there forever. The light is too bright, the pace too frantic, and the demands too great. It is a relief to return to normal lives where we can be ourselves and let others be themselves, but that doesn't mean the honeymoon is forgotten. Just because we don't live on the mountain all the time doesn't mean we forget what happened on the mountain.
One of the most important verses in this reading is verse nine. It begins, "As they were coming down the mountain ..." The mountain- climbing is great, but on Monday people have to go back to work. The honeymoon is great, but then we start to notice the dirty dishes, and the clothes left lying around, and all those annoying habits. We realize we are being led down the mountain and back into other areas of life.
Worship ought to be the closest thing we know on a regular basis to the kind of mountain that was so important to Matthew. Some of these things happen at other times, but worship is that occasion in which the unseen and unknown God is experienced. Here we anticipate some revelation, even if sometimes it is less than earth-shattering. Here we expect some word from the Lord, even if it is a word we have heard many times before. Here some ray of hope ought to lift our spirits and challenge our minds and encourage our best actions.
Maybe it happens in a line of a hymn that we have sung a thousand times, but for some reason it speaks to us this time in fresh ways. It may happen as the words of scripture are read and we hear something that we have never heard before. It may happen when we gather around the Lord's Table and the power of these simple symbols deepens our appreciation for what it means to be followers of Jesus. However it happens, worship ought to be the one place we can count on to experience something of the Sacred.
Now, that's not to say worship services are going to be or are even meant to be what we have come to think of as mountaintop experiences. In fact, some of the things churches are doing to create artificial enthusiasm are disgraceful. Their worship is nothing more than pure entertainment. It is a performance and the congregation is merely invited to sit back and enjoy. Some churches pride themselves on having people in and out of a worship service in 35 minutes. So much effort is given to keeping people interested that little attention is paid to how faithful we are being to the God whom we worship. So many churches are willing to do and be anything in order to attract people that the worship no longer places the demands of God on their lives. Most of these productions lead people into a privatized religion in which worship is geared for each individual. There is no sense of a community of faith and no calling to go out and love the world into a better place.
This is where that critical verse nine comes in. People are drawn to the mountaintop highs. We want things to be interesting. We want to be entertained. In short, we want to stay on the mountain. We fail to see the difference between being entertained and being on the mountain in the biblical sense. In scripture, being on the mountain was about experiencing some revelation, some word from the Lord, some assurance that God was with the people. The mountain had nothing to do with entertainment and everything to do with focusing on what God was doing and on what God was calling the people to do. People who come to worship to be entertained for an hour will surely leave disappointed. People who believe that church ought to be kept interesting regardless of what it takes, surely will leave empty.
Our worship is a matter of our publicly giving thanks to God. The unseen and mysterious God is the focus. In this act of giving thanks, we are shaped into God's people. Something happens here that leads us away from being a collection of individuals and into the formation of a church, a community of faith that lives by certain guiding thoughts and principles. Here we are compelled by the voice from heaven, "This is my Son, listen to him!" Here the truly important things about life and living are revealed to us in ways that we will not hear anywhere else in our culture. Here we come to know the mind of Jesus Christ and begin to appropriate it for our own lives. Here on this mountain we are given a different vantage point, a new perspective from which we can see things that we have missed to this point.
That new vantage point is a must because just when we are about to get comfortable on the mountain, just when we begin to understand some of what is going on, Jesus says, "It's time," and we start back down the mountain. The danger is missing the connection between the time spent on the mountain and the time spent away from the mountain. The temptation is never to associate the sanctuary with the homeless shelter or fellowship hall with the community food pantry. The sin is never to realize that what happens on Sunday is directly related to what happens the rest of the week. And if nothing happens the rest of the week, if there is no tending to the needs of the hurting, no care for the poor, no service done in Jesus' name, then we have made a mockery of what we do on Sunday morning.
In search of any excuse they can find people say, "I can be an equally good Christian outside the church as I can by coming to church." Well, that just isn't so. For one thing, being a Christian assumes being a part of a community. For another, something happens when we worship God together that doesn't happen anywhere else. Here we are molded into the people of God. That's the best reason not to miss church. It's not a matter of "Nice people go to church," or "God is going to get you if you don't go to church." No, it is the matter of being left behind as the people at worship are formed into a community that lives and believes and acts in the spirit of Jesus Christ. None of us is so far along in the process that we can afford to miss opportunities to grow in our understanding and experience of the faith.
Let's be clear about what we is talking about here. This is not a matter of coming to church for a few moralistic instructions about what to do and not do. Worship is much deeper than that, much more compelling. In worship we express our love for God, and in turn we experience that same love and it shapes us into new people. As we yearn to be heard by God in worship, we are drawn to those in our community who yearn to be heard by us. When we dare to say that our worship is done in the presence of God, we begin to recognize that all of life is lived in that holy presence. Sunday after Sunday, in word, song, and act, we rehearse the story of God's saving grace, and every time we are drawn into it more fully. When we leave it is only natural to see the world and its people through the lens of this grand old story which calls people together in love and peace. We worship in a place full of symbols that point to profound mysteries. When we leave we do so with the reminder that in all of life there is always more going on than we can see with our eyes. In worship we are confronted with a grand vision for the world, and our puny, little horizons are exposed. Something happens when we worship that evokes a response, and that response is lived out daily as we share life in our homes and move about in the community and serve this world that God loves so much.1
The key is spending the right amount of time on the mountain. We know we need to be in worship regularly, but if we only worship and never move into the parts of the world that need loving then we have stayed too long. On the other hand, if we don't stay in worship long enough, or fail to immerse ourselves fully in it while we are here, then we will encounter challenges and problems for which we will have inadequate amounts of hope and energy.
The call of Jesus is to go up to the mountain, to experience the Holy One, and to see the world as God wills for it to be. The call of Jesus is also to come down the mountain and into the lives of those who are lonely and oppressed. How long should we stay on the mountain? As long as Jesus tells us to stay. And when should we come back? When Jesus tells us to come back. This is God's son calling, from the mountain and the street corner, from the sanctuary and the soup kitchen; listen to him!
____________
1. William H. Willimon, The Service of God: How Worship and Ethics Are Related (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1983)
