Exodus 34: 29-35; Luke 9: 28-36 Transformed by the Light E/DC Feb.18/ 07 - Have you noticed everything is “lite” these days? It seems we have an obsession with easy ways to control our weight these days, without the discipline. ‘Lite fries’, ‘lite’ sour cream, ‘lite’ cheesecake. We’d like everything, ‘lite’, or easy. I wonder if we also want ‘lite’ faith as well? “God, could you just be there? Don’t ask a lot of me, please. Really I’d like to do everything the same as before. What do you mean, am I growing in faith? The trouble is, ‘lite’ faith doesn’t do it when the storms crash around our heads. We need a strong, deep faith to deal with the inevitable hurts, and decisions of life.
- Exodus tells the story of Moses going up the mountain to spend time with God. He came down with the Ten Commandments, rules for life to help the people of Israel get along with each other and survive in the desert. Luke shows Jesus, in the Moses tradition, going up the mountain. Taking time to be with God, and the light transformed him and confirmed him as a beloved child. It forged a faith that would get him through the most difficult of times, in his short life as teacher, preacher and healer, and brave facer of the inevitable when the power of love stands up against the love of power.
- It’s not easy to climb a mountain, as you who have done so, will attest to! Much training, discipline, and determination are required to go on with skinned knees, aching heads, broken equipment and battered and bruised bodies, day after day. We too are called to go up the mountain to meet God. Getting up the mountain of our faith journey could well be just as difficult.
- Some writers describe “the cloud of unknowing”, as one of those difficulties. Sometimes it seems a great grey cloud enveloping us. We can’t see or feel or experience God as we used to. I talked with a man who had had a close relationship to God. I can’t pray anymore he said. “What’s blocking you?” he was asked. It was like a wall made of glass. No way to get around it. God could see him, but there was no way he could get to God. After some weeks, he was asked, “Can God get to you?” Apparently, God was not trying, but was always watching, judging, and finding him wanting. Then came the realization. He only ever thought of God as father. And how he had described God was exactly how his own father had been. Abusive, and he could never please him. He was always judged and found wanting. What cleared the glass barrier for him was using other Biblical images of God – rock, light, breath of life. Then he could talk to God again. But he had to be willing to fully experience and explore that darkness, to be transformed.
- But if God is all around us, why does it sometimes take so much work to experience God? Sometimes we need to get away from the distractions. It takes discipline. We need to want to meet God. Maybe its like the curious 3 year old who disappeared while mom was visiting with a friend over coffee after church. It happens that church had a very high pulpit. She found him perched on it quite in awe of what it looked like from that perspective. Mom, scared and somewhat annoyed demanded that he get down. “Mom, mom! Come up here, I wanta to show you something.” Our transformation may be one of those unruly and unplanned moments when God calls us: “Come up here, I wanta show you something!”
- God wants to show us how to be renewed, re-created, transformed. To receive our call from God and be strengthened to do it. One of the disciplines people find helpful is encountering God in nature. An actual mountain is one of the “thin places” where it can be easier to sense God’s presence. A woman was going through a rough time. She was learning things about herself that made her wonder if God could love her. She was skiing down a mountain when she stopped and looked back. The sun had come out and was shining brilliantly on the mountaintop. It was as though she could hear, “You are my beloved daughter.” She was transformed, and could go on again with confidence, loving and loved by God.
- Other disciplines could be Bible study or book club, or the day long retreat coming up on April 21, where our faith is renewed, strengthened, our perspective broadened, our awareness heightened. Or if we prefer individual spiritual disciplines, it may be meditation, journaling, praying the scriptures or worship are ways you find best to encounter God, and be transformed. Whatever way we choose we don’t want to build tents like Peter and stay stuck where we are. God cannot be contained.
- Did you hear how the disciples reacted as the cloud overshadowed them? They were terrified. Fear is a common feeling for us too. If I let myself really enter into relationship with God, what will it mean? What would I need to give up? Jesus says, “Do not be afraid.” Courage is the antidote of fear. Courage born of love. When we have regular contact with that love, we have the courage, the trust to know that whatever God asks, it will be for good.
- When we go up the mountain top we need to be prepared to be surprised. It is a gift, grace. A sudden opening of our senses of God present, at work. Moses went up the mountain even though he felt horribly inadequate. He didn’t feel confident to speak in public, and his brother was the spokesperson to the people. We may think we’re not good enough. That we need to be perfect. I’m not a very good person. Perhaps it’s our very humanity that God can use. There’s no need to be perfect. In our broken state God can use us. Maybe that makes it easier for others to believe God can use them. Light shines through us. Others may see it when we can’t.
- Of course we need to go down the mountain at some point. That may be even more dangerous, as those who’ve climbed even hills will tell us. Once when I was just climbing small hills with our daughter, in spite of thinking I was in not bad shape, I found my lungs bursting, my head throbbing - as we went down the hills. The disciples knew the danger politically, and told no one. If they’d shared, it would have been a red flag in the face of the charging bull of Rome and her puppet government in Jerusalem. It’s not that dangerous to share our faith experiences. We know we don’t want to put people off, or ram things down their throat. It’s tempting to stop there, but doing that we miss something very important for ourselves and others. Of course we need to win the right to share about what excites us in our faith. To listen to the other first before we tell our story. Hopefully our energized work, our passion and zest for living, our compassion for others will tell the story convincingly. We may be asked why, and it becomes an opportunity to witness about our ongoing transformation.
- Then of course we need to learn to live with the changes. Will we be more willing to speak up for what we believe is right? Will we value different things? We will make mistakes, go back to old behaviours, because we’re continually growing, as are others. In fact it’s often most difficult, to let others change, or probably to acknowledge they have changed. We are so used to what they used to be like, that the small steps they make, we may miss, when our affirming the changes is really important to the person working so hard to change.
- We are called into relationship with God. We build that relationship exactly how we build other relationships. By choosing to spend time, as Jesus did, because we too know it’s what gives us life. The light of God transforms our perspective, our energy, our thoughts, our love, our very lives. Come enter into the very presence of God, and be transformed.
|
Sermons 
