Exodus 34:29-35
Psalm 99
2 Cor 3:12-4:2
Luke 9:28-36
Valley to mountaintop and back to the valley – that is the rhythm posited in the account of the Transfiguration. It is a cycle in the life of discipleship. It is a natural and supernatural process that moves us forward. I want to look at the experience imaginatively through two persons involved – Peter and Jesus.
Jesus grew up in the tradition of Judaism, celebrated the feasts and kept the Sabbath, but he often ran into opposition with Jewish leaders on interpretations of the law. When Jesus healed a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath, the Pharisees criticized him. Jesus was a man of prayer – how frequently in Luke’s Gospel we see Jesus going away from the crowd, from his small class of disciples to pray. After a full schedule of teaching, preaching and healing, Jesus invited Peter, James and John to go aside, up the mountain to pray. I imagine that Jesus and the disciples are tired. To renew and recenter they go away from work to pray – they take retreat – a quiet day so to speak. On the mountaintop, Jesus is praying and the others seem sleepy…maybe theirs is a form of closed eye meditation. But then something spectacular happened: Jesus is seen and heard speaking with two other men – Moses and Elijah.
It is not Aaron the priest who was the interpreter of the law but Moses the leader of the slaves from Egypt into a new covenant of promise and new land of inheritance. Moses objected to the call of God to lead these people because he could not talk eloquently. Moses was a wanted criminal. He was the man who killed the Egyptian slave master who was beating one of the Israelite slaves. Moses was the one that got them across the Reed Sea and saw the Egyptian army defeated at that site. Moses is the one who listened to their rebellion and complaints for 40 years – talk about a long-term commitment! Moses the liberator died outside of the Promised Land, handing his responsibilities over to Joshua. Moses is the archetype of the Law. God gave the Decalogue – the Ten Commandments to Moses to establish a social order that gave God priority over all other rulers and systems of power and authority (first 3 commandments) and a social justice set of guidelines to establish a just society. Jesus is talking with Moses. I imagine that part of that discussion is about how the rules have overtaken the spirit of worship and service. There are a lot of hungry, underemployed, harassed and hurting Israelites in the Land of Promise under the harsh rule of Rome. Jesus can see the way the law has become another instrument of power and oppression rather than the liberating justice paradigm of God’s justice and righteousness. Jesus can see the hypocrisy of hardened rules about who is worthy to enter the temple, who has authority to interpret scripture, who can teach or preach or serve….sound familiar?
It is hard to miss the parallel between Moses and Jesus: two agents of God sent to free people from the bondage of sin and death. Jesus came to free them and us from sin and death by way of the cross. The cross is the exodus story for our freedom in God. Jesus will die a painful and horrific death to set the people free. Moses died outside the camp once he had lead the people to freedom. Jesus will lay down his life in order to take it up again in a transformed way – at the right hand of the Father. Jesus will call the cross the hour of his glory and few will see or know what that means in the present. His friends will run away, his liberation will not be realized in ways that the world can know or see. It takes a transfigured faith to see the cross as a faithful work of love instead of an instrument of torture. It takes a transformed life filled with God’s liberating spirit to lay down your possessions, your retirement account, your high paying job and follow Jesus into the valley where people are hungry and dying.
Watching from the sidelines is Peter, who gets it wrong as often as he gets it right. But it is Peter who makes the confession of faith – who sees through spiritual eyes the truth that Jesus is the Messiah, not the forerunner but the one. Peter is the disciple who got out of the boat to walk to Jesus on the water but when he took his focus off Jesus began to sink and had to be rescued. Peter is the one who speaks when others are smart enough to stay silent. Peter is the extravert in the group – he thinks on the table – has to verbalize in order to process information. In an earlier section of Luke 9 (vv 18ff) we have the account of Peter’s confession. “Once when Jesus was praying alone, with only the disciples near him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” They answered, “John the Baptist, but others, Elijah; and still others, that one of the ancient prophets has arisen.” Jesus said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “The Messiah of God.” Jesus sternly ordered and commanded them not to tell anyone, saying “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” Then Jesus instructed the disciples about the cost of discipleship. When he finished he took them away to pray and it is here that the transfiguration occurs.
The other person present in the transfiguration talking with Jesus is Elijah. It is not the great King David, defender of the state. It is Elijah and this presence is the very testimony needed to seal the truth that Jesus is the Messiah. Elijah in the tradition of Hebrew scripture is the one who will return to announce the Messiah. The extra cup of wine at the Sedar is for Elijah. The hope for the fulfillment of the promise of God is anticipated through Elijah and here we have Elijah talking with Jesus.
I imagine that Elijah is comforting Jesus because the work of ministry is draining, the limited vision and understanding of even close companions misunderstand when God is doing a new thing. If Jesus is the one, why aren’t the Roman soldiers put out of God’s land? If Jesus is the Messiah, why is poverty and oppression still among us? How can this be good when there is so much bad?
Elijah was an Israelite prophet in the time of kings, Ahab and Ahaziah, during the first half of the ninth century BCE. Elijah is the protagonist of four stories in the book of Kings. Elijah declared a drought to punish the nation for its idolatry that ended in a contest between Elijah and the Baal prophets. The second story involves Elijah in a judgment against a man who murdered in order to take a large vineyard. The third is Elijah’s prophecy of doom to the king that condemned injustice in the kingdom. The fourth story deals with the transition of power from Elijah to Elisha. The stories reflect a real historical time when the leaders of Israel were syncretistic with the Baal gods. The whole thesis of Elijah tradition is monotheism: allegiance to one God – the God of the covenant – the God who led us out of Egypt – the God who is the author of life and death…this is the one and only God. The outcome of the contest on Mt. Carmel between the prophet of Baal and the prophet of YHWH is a monotheistic creed: The Lord is God (1 Kings 18:39).
Peter sees but does not understand and wanting to do something, offers to build three monuments to memorialize the place where Jesus talked with Moses and Elijah. Jesus did not have to intervene or correct Peter, because a cloud overshadowed them and a voice from heaven said: THIS IS MY SON, MY CHOSEN, LISTEN TO HIM. LISTEN Peter, just be quiet and LISTEN. The scripture tells us that “They kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.”
Listen to what? What are we to hear? The rest of the story in Luke 9 – the part we don’t read often in the lection, tells us how Jesus responded to the transfiguration experience. Jesus takes the apostles away from the visions, away from privatized religion, to meet the ones who needed them most. Back down the mountainside, back into the valley where the demon possessed cried out for release. Back to the hurting, the poor, the helpless, the victims of unjust systems embraced by church and state. Back to the forgotten, the oppressed, the demons below. Back to work!
There are people at the bottom of our mountains too, the poor waiting for jobs, the homeless waiting for shelter, children waiting for food, young people wanting an education, elderly waiting for care, the uninsured waiting for health care, HIV-AIDS persons waiting for treatment, people on the Gulf Coast waiting for their homes to be rebuilt, a parent or grandparent waiting for a child to come home, a husband or wife waiting for their partner to come home from the war. The transfiguration is about changing us so we can change our world. Listen to him!
I hope Peter and James and John remembered this vision later when the once radiant face was streaked with blood from the crown of thorns, the dazzling clothes torn into souvenir rags, and the blessed one hanging on that cross dying an undignified painful death. To lead us through our exodus from fear, from illness, through death into the eternal embrace of God, we needed a savior who died like we do, alone, to show us that this journey has another vista that is not yet clear but will become visible on the other side. Maybe that moment of transfiguration on the mountaintop was important for the long walk to Jerusalem and the valley of death. Listen – the call of Jesus is a costly discipleship – it is self-denying, cross carrying, losing life stuff.
Back in the valley at work in the world, a parent of an only child confronts Jesus. It is the third time in Luke that a parent of an only child confronts Jesus. First it was the son of the widow of Nain (7:12), then Jairus’ only daughter (8:42) and now the boy oppressed by demons. The boy is brought to Jesus and is healed. The demon is cast out. The wonder of revelation, the benefit of faith, the experience of the mountaintop has a purpose – to work for the kingdom of God now, here, where we are.
We all need a moment on the mountain, when light breaks through the darkness, with a few friends and we see the reality of our faith – a moment when we can almost feel and see and hear God with us. We need that moment and dose of glory too to get us through the night. Like James and John and Peter, we may not talk about it much, but that vision of God’s very nearness is the energy needed to fuel our faith, inspire our hope, and renew our compassion. The journey is long, the work God has entrusted to us is heavy, and we too will spend more time in the valley than on the mountain. So take another great gulp of clean fresh mountain top air because the poor and oppressed are waiting. To follow Jesus as disciples, we too must go back to the valley to release the captives. . . in pursuit of social justice and gospel love.
None of us are Jesus. All of us must strive to live according to his life example. Many of us are able to readily identify with Peter, especially in the misunderstandings and the imperfect discipleship full of good intentions and profound embarrassments. The life of faith is a long period of service in the valley, getting it right and getting it wrong, and mountain top experiences that renew us and focus us on God’s love and purpose that we are enabled to be steady in our journey of discipleship.