First Presbyterian Church

First Presbyterian Church

Rev. Sam Pendergrast

February 3, 2008

Matthew 17:1-9

 

 

“With Jesus on the Mountain”

 

Most of my life I have been subject to what I call the “Zacchaeus syndrome.” Being 5” 5’ and a half, the only thing I’m going to look down on is the ground and some small animals. So I like to climb things. It helps me see over the crowds. I like getting a different perspective, to see what the world looks like from a higher vantage point. Maybe that’s one reason I have never had a fear of heights. When I was a young adult I would climb anything around – a wall, a pile of boulders, a cliff, a tree or a mountain.

 

One of my favorite mountain-top memories is from a hiking trip on the Appalachian Trail during my freshman year of college. I went with my friend, Craig, and his friend, Chico, for a weekend hike in November in North Georgia. We arrived at the shelter near Tray Mountain and found it occupied by a group of people we decided we did not want to spend the night with. So we fixed and ate supper and then walked on until we came to the very top of Tray Mountain. We tied a tarp across the top of a laurel thicket and found some soft spots in the leaves for our sleeping bags. In the morning we awoke to a sight that I can still recall more than thirty-four years later. No more than a hundred feet below us, clouds filled the valley, leaving the top of the mountain and two or three other peaks sticking up above the clouds. Above us the sky was clear. The impression was of being on a small hill above a vast sheet of ice or field of snow. As the sun rose above the clouds, the three of us were silent and filled with awe in the face of such glory.

 

That’s the closest I have come to what I imagine when I hear the story of Jesus on the mountain with Moses and Elijah and the three disciples. Part of the reason Mark, Matthew and Luke tell this story is to reveal the glory of God that was present in the life of Jesus, and to remind us that one day we will share that glory in all its fullness. Now we know it only in part; one day we will see and know and experience as clearly and completely as God sees and knows us. We catch a glimpse of glory in a newborn baby, in the holiness and mystery of death, in the eyes and embrace of the one we love, in clouds of fireflies on a summer evening and in a sunrise over the clouds. Jesus, in his life, death and resurrection, reveals the face of God, the glory of God, more clearly than anything. In this encounter on the mountain top, the light of God shines so brilliantly and the voice of God thunders from the bright clouds with such power that the disciples fall down on their faces in fear.

 

Our world is full of fear. Since the events of September 11, 2001, fear has become one of the dominant political watchwords of our time. Color-coded alert levels remind us to be afraid. Regular announcements in airports and other public spaces remind us to be vigilant of suspicious activity and to guard our luggage. It didn’t take that long for me. I started being afraid when I had children. Those of you who are parents probably know what I mean. When I was young I could stand on the edge of a cliff and look down without a second thought. One summer when James was a baby we stopped to walk through Rock City on the way to visit my parents in Atlanta. At the overlook where you are supposed to be able to see seven states I approached the wall at the edge of the cliff and felt a momentary panic. James was in a child carrier on my back. I grabbed his legs and stepped back. My world had changed.

 

That’s not the kind of fear that grabbed hold of Peter, James and John on the mountain with Jesus. They were not afraid of the random destruction of terrorist attacks or harm coming to their children. Their fear was not the normal kind of anxiety you and I have about the dangers of living in this world. Their fear had to do with being in the presence of God and of what they were realizing about what it meant to be disciples of Jesus.

 

Over and over, throughout the Bible, we hear about what an awesome thing it is to come into the presence of the living God. Moses entered a shining cloud on the mountain when he met God to receive the commandments. The people below were sure that he would be consumed by the fire of God’s presence. Both Moses and Elijah met God on a mountaintop and were told that they could not see God’s face, only his back. The Hebrew people believed that no one could actually see God and live. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” say the scriptures. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” This fear, though, is not a being afraid of something, as though God were hostile or out to get us. Certainly, the awe of God’s glory and power are part of it. But what is going on here, why the disciples were afraid, has to do with what they realize about the implications of God’s holiness and what it means to come into a relationship with Jesus – what a living relationship with Jesus will demand of them. The same kind of glory shone from Jesus that shone on the mountain when Moses received the commandments. It is the glory of the God who calls us to be holy, just as God is holy.

 

What gives me a clue to why the disciples fell down in fear is what the gospel-writers tell us happened just before this scene on the mountain top. Jesus and his disciples were walking down the road. He asked them who they thought he was. Peter said he was the Messiah. He told them that meant that he would be killed. Even worse, he told them that anyone who wanted to follow him had to take up their own cross, and anyone who would save their life would lose it, and anyone who gave up their life for his sake would find it. I’d be afraid, too. In fact, I am afraid on many days. I don’t want to give up my life. I like it the way it is just fine, thank you.

 

I believe that the reason Peter, James and John were afraid is that they realized the implications of following Jesus. It is the fear that occurs when we come face to face with God in Jesus Christ, the God who made us, knows us through and through and calls us out of our own self-centered preoccupations. It’s that business about dying to self and living for God that scares us. When we sense the narrow way to which Jesus beckons us, then we are afraid.

 

False gods are comforting. Idols are things we use to get our own way or baptize our own wishes. If the thing that we call “god” is only a projection of our own selfish aspirations or a means to manipulate circumstances for our own benefit – where is the fear in that? But the God who comes to us in Jesus is a God whose power is the power of self-sacrificial love. When we, like the disciples on the mountain, sense the perilous journey that lies ahead, we are afraid. Following Jesus is not easy.

 

A pastor tells of an encounter he had that brought this home for him vividly. During the first Gulf War he was on a university campus for an appointment. While he was waiting, he struck up a conversation with the secretary.

 

She asked, “Got any yard work that needs to be done? Any chores around the house?” She then told him about how she had befriended an Iraqi graduate student. Then the war started and he was cut off, without money, unable to go home. He couldn’t continue as a student. She and her husband had taken this young man into their home and she was trying to find him odd jobs so that he could get a little money.

 

“What does he think about the war?” the pastor asked.

 

“Oh, he thinks we’re terrible and that Saddam is great,” she replied.

 

“Well, if that’s the case, I find it strange that you took this Iraqi into your home and wanted to care for him.”

 

With some indignation she replied, “I decided? I wanted?”

 

“Well, why did you do it,” he asked.

 

She slammed her fist down on her desk and said, “Because I’m a Christian, darn it! You think it’s easy?”

 

It’s not easy. And often we are afraid. No wonder the disciples fell to the ground. But then Jesus came to them and touched them. He did not condemn them or criticize them. He came to them and said, “Don’t be afraid.” Later on he said, “I’m always with you.”

 

At this time in the life of your church you are asking where all the people have gone. Why aren’t there more people in church? You’re not alone. A lot of churches are asking the same question. There are lots of standard responses. People say they don’t like the music – the hymns are too old, too new, too hard to sing, too simplistic. They claim that people in churches are hypocrites. Why go to church when people are so imperfect? The church uses a lot of strange words – doxology, eucharist – and don’t start talking about sin. It’s so negative. And the life of being a disciple is a lifetime commitment of learning and spiritual formation. Some people just want an answer today.

 

But I think the real reason a lot of people avoid church is not because they don’t understand what we are about, but because they do understand. Church is about God – about the possibility of a threatening, life-changing encounter with the living God in Jesus Christ. Knowing that scares a lot of people to death. If we’re honest, it scares us. But Jesus comes to us, lifts us up and says to us, “Don’t be afraid. I’m with you always.” He has promised to be with us every step of the way, no matter what the journey holds.

 

Albert Schweitzer wrote eloquently of the mystery of a life-changing relationship with Jesus:

 

He comes to us as one unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeshore, he came to those men who knew him not. He speaks to us the same word, “Follow thou me!” and sets us to the tasks which he has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey him, whether they be simple or wise, he will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in his fellowship, and as an ineffable mystery, they shall experience in their lives who he is.

 

That is the promise, that we shall know Jesus and share his glory, and in following him we will find true life. The story of the disciples on the mountain with Jesus is really a story about you and me. We are afraid. But Jesus comes to us, over and over, and says, “Get up. Do not be afraid. I am with you always.” Amen.