Sermons

Feb 26 - Judith Jenkins, The Tunnel at the End of the Light!

Listen to audio version of this sermon.

There is an old African proverb that says this:
There once was a lion who knew that in order to survive he had to run as fast as the slowest gazelle.
There once was a gazelle who knew that in order to survive she had to run as fast as the fastest lion.
Both the lion and the gazelle knew that as soon as the sun arose in the sky each morning, they each had to begin running.
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I guess you could say that this proverb could be an analogy of our present life and how fast we run every day to accomplish what we think we need to survive. Our Old Testament reading this morning alludes to a man who was running fast! Elijah is on the run. After challenging 450 prophets of the Canaanite god, Baal, to a contest of divine power and then winning the contest, the prophets of Baal are executed. When Ahab, King of northern Israel, gives this report to Queen Jezebel, Jezebel then sends a message to Elijah that she would do to him the same as had befallen her prophets – and so Elijah flees!

Elijah travels forty days and forty nights in the wilderness until he comes to the mountain. Yahweh tells Elijah to exit his cave and stand on the mountain as Yahweh passes by. Elijah hears but remains in his hiding place. There is a great wind (strong enough to split mountains and break rocks into pieces) but Yahweh is not in the wind--nor in the earthquake -- nor in the fire. Finally, in the “sound of sheer silence” only then does Elijah wrap his face in his mantel and come to the mouth of the cave.

This was a VOCAL SILENCE! And the reason that Elijah wrapped his face in his mantel suggests an encounter with the numinous – the mystical – the otherness – the Holiness of God. Let’s face it! Tolerating silence is hard. Many of us are noise addicts. We really don’t know how to listen and that brings us to our Gospel lesson today.

There can be few more extraordinary moments in the Gospels than the Transfiguration-- one of the key moments as far as witnessing the divine in Jesus -- Jesus in his humanity opening up to his inner dimension. The disciples clearly saw Jesus as coming out from an immeasurable depth – a sense of infinity opening up. In the Old Testament, God dwelled among His people in the Holy of Holies. And a veil was constructed to separate the people from viewing the glory of God -- designed to protect them from being consumed by God’s brightness. But here on the mountain, the disciples saw for a moment Jesus’ internal glory exposed. Jesus - SEEN AS HE REALLY IS!

In Mark’s gospel, the Transfiguration story comes at the end of the Galilean ministry of Jesus and leads us immediately on the journey to Jerusalem and the cross. WE STAND AT THE CUSP BETWEEN EPIPHANY AND LENT. Jesus was about to face the long hard journey to another mountain – a long walk to the cross. A time of personal preparation and…..

Jesus took Peter, James and John with him. The disciples had been shattered by Jesus’ statement that he was going to Jerusalem to die and now the three disciples were beside themselves. Not only had they seen the Lord “in a new light” but they had also observed Moses and Elijah. Peter’s reaction was typical -- He wanted to land the bid for the building permit of the century!

Three Dwellings (booths): Peter saw the fulfillment of the Jewish feast of tabernacles – the feast anticipated Israel’s final regathering as a nation out of the desert into the land of promise under the rule of the Messiah. So of course it seemed fitting to him that they should have the Feast of Tabernacles! And besides that - here was Moses representing the law and Elijah representing the prophets. Seemed logical to Peter!!!! AND – Peter wanted to freeze time! How long can we prolong this camp-out on the mountain? But seeking to know God in the present isn’t stopping time – it’s moving outside of time. Experiencing the Divine for the disciples was meant for confirmation not possession.

L. William Countrymen says: “The presence of the Holy – of God does not mean that we can make of the Holy an object that we can control—something to which we can have access at will – turning the Holy, the Presence, the moment of Glory to our own particular use! We wish to tie the Divine to some particular place or time, so that knowing its precise location, we can avoid it when we wish, or summon it on our own terms by our own choice.”

But the words that Peter hears after his brilliant suggestion are these: “This is my beloved Son – hear Him!” The words are few but the sum of the whole gospel.
So, what is so special about these players in this story. It’s certainly not because they lacked all of the human imperfections that we all have.

Moses didn’t even get to set foot in the Promised Land: Elijah wouldn’t come out of the cave at first when God called him: Peter, James and John all had their faults, too. Peter denied Jesus, and James and John woefully misunderstood the Kingdom when they asked to be Jesus’ right and left hand men – rather ego-centered all of them! Just like us. Which brings us to a key question.

How can we be transfigured? How can my life and yours radiate the life of God? This has become a culture of make-over shows, but what we really hunger for, as people of faith, is a transformation at our very core.

There is an ancient Greek legend that when the gods made the human species, they fell to arguing where to put the answers to life so that humans would have to search for them. One by one the gods suggested various places to put these answers: on top of a mountain, at the center of the earth, at the bottom of the sea. Finally one god spoke. We can put the answers to life within them--humans will never look for them there!

What those authors of Greek legend did not know is that wherever else the God of Elijah or the God of Christ Jesus dwells, God is in the depths of the human soul. But to reach those depths requires disciplined listening. THE NOISES OF THE WORLD AND THE CLAMORS OF THE SELF MUST BE STILLED.

Life is full of ups and downs. Sometimes we have experiences that lift us up and others that cast us down – down to the depths. We experience trials and tribulations that test our faith and shake our confidence, but this is when we remember that God is present on the mountain, but also equally present in the valleys. In the words of Eckhart Tolle, “Always say yes to the present moment. Make the Now the primary focus of your life. Forget about your life situation for a while and pay attention to your life!”

Sometimes we are like caterpillars stuck in our own backyards – not knowing there is a beautiful butterfly sleeping within. How often is it that we, when we are blessed with a moment of clarity, when the light dawns, or we experience a special sense of God’s presence, we want to just stay there – rather than INCORPORATING THE MOMENT INTO OUR HEARTS FOR NECESSARY STRENGTH TO CONTINUE OUR JOURNEY. That’s what the transfiguration was for – strength to continue a journey -- even one that leads for a time into a dark tunnel!

Having celebrated the growth of the light from Christmas thru Epiphany and now grown brilliant in the transfiguration, we anticipate that it will be extinguished in a mere three days. We will put the joy of the resurrection on hold while the gravity of the tunnel in which we find ourselves may be well considered.

How dark are our own hearts where we have mismanaged and even abused God’s creation and God’s created ones! The tunnel that comes at the end of the light is not intended as a burden, but rather a moment to hear God in the Sheer Silence. Our lesson today reminds us that the church is not so much called to invite people out of darkness into the light, as it is to bring light into the darkness.

We leave here - to live for forty days in the valley, in the tunnel, but do we carry the light from the mountain top with us? We are asked to stop and listen to what God wants to illuminate in our own lives and AND to what’s going on in the world around us – the terrible injustices and inequalities in our own community. We come down from the mountain -- to go back into the world. Perhaps we, like Peter, can stop jumping in so quickly, with our own opinions, ideologies, even our beliefs -- and really try listening – listening in a whole new way! LISTEN TO HIM.

When you see the sunrise tomorrow, like the lion and the gazelle, it isn’t the time to start running once more! It’s time to stop and listen! Listen to HIM and look for the hidden Holy, the transcendent, in the ordinary moments of the day. Forget about your life situation during this time of Lent and look rather at your life! So that you can see Jesus and Him Only!!!!! Amen