Brett’s Sermon: Mathew 17:1-9. 2014 03 02 Transfiguration Sunday.
The story.
A Scottish Chieftain invites the King to see his castle, and takes the king to a high grassy hill
where the stars at night provide the roof and the mountains the walls. The King had boasted
that his Palace was the greatest in the Land.
The King is left speechless with the wonder and glory of the Chieftains “castle”
The Kings response is the bit I like about the story, he didn’t have anything to say.
His response is similar to that of the disciples up the mountain that day. They really didn’t know
how to respond. Their words are nonsense really, any attempt to fill out some meaning to
them, is similar to any effort we might have to describing mystery, or glory, or wonder.
In fact I think that sometimes the only response to mystery is silence.
We don’t have that luxury today!
What is this story about?
First and foremost, it is a story about continuity. A linking of what in the first century was
something new, with something very old.
The new bit was Jesus. In religious terms he was the new boy on the block. Christianity was
new. It was untried, untested, how would any person know this was the real thing.
Any one hearing this story, reading this story in Matthew, who was a Jew, would recognise this
story, and link this story with a very old story, the story we read today about Moses, how he
climbed the mountain and communed with God.
Matthew wants to link Jesus with Moses. Moses was the great law giver, the great saviour, the
great prophet of the Jewish people. He wanted to show in a clear a way as possible that Jesus
was his true heir, and more than that, that Jesus was greater than Moses.
The story does this well, the disciples stand in for the Israelites who in the original story watch
in awe as Moses goes into the cloud – they knew that to see God was certain death. No wonder
the disciples were afraid, they too though death was close.
Just as they possibly thought they were going to die, Moses himself and Elijah turn up. Again
Matthew wants us to make links – especially with Elijah, one of the greatest prophets from
Israel’s past – he was known for his fiery preaching, calling the people to obedience and
towards God.
Jesus was the new Moses, the new Elijah and he was the son of God. We should listen to him.
The creators of the lectionary are also making a symbolic statement here. Next Sunday is the
first Sunday in Lent. The church traditionally enters a dark, contemplative phase – reflections on
the passion, on the events leading to the Death of Jesus, these days can offer a sense of despair
and hopelessness, yet here in this Sunday, is a glimpse of a distant future, a Jesus glorified, a
Jesus transformed from the broken Man carrying the cross, to the truly reveled son of God.
For me the reading poses an issue that I referred to in my opening story – how do we respond
to that which is literally beyond us?
Page 1 of 3
Brett’s Sermon: Mathew 17:1-9. 2014 03 02 Transfiguration Sunday.
The disciples on the mountain had a striking and powerful experience, and they struggled to
reflect on it or respond to it at the time – much of what I have told you so far in the sermon is
calm reflection after the fact, the links with Moses and so on, what gives this story authenticity
is the struggle that the disciples had for words.
I can understand that. I struggle with language to describe what mystery or spirituality is. Let
me have a go at this.
Spirituality is something behind the thing. This of course doesn’t make any sense.
The sacraments may help. The water in the font is a physical thing; the bread and wine are
physical elements of communion, but neither the water or the bread or wine is baptism or
communion. Baptism and communion is what lies behind the water and the bread and wine.
This church is a physical thing, concrete wood and steel, but try as it may through a certain style
of architecture or furnishings or design quirks, it does not describe “Church’
Baptism, communion, church, are difficult to describe, to point to concretely so inevitably when
we are asked to say some words about our church or our baptism, because we struggle to
describe the thing behind the thing, we end up using the physical objects to try and give
meaning to those words.
Tell me about your church. Oh – it’s the big white concrete building on Greenlane east corner,
three stories, looks like a large dairy factory, can’t miss it.
These words are totally inadequate to describe “the church” The relationships, the faith stories,
the caring, the grace, the thinking, the questing to serve, to make a difference, to express faith,
to care for children, nurture our youth and so on the makeup this place, and many more words
many more words…
Baptism – about beginnings and hopes, and thanks and relief that baby has arrived and is alive,
about family and memory and love and God and cleansing and promises and dreams and
blessing and more much more summed up in water and a few ancient words, how can any
mesh of words describe baptism, and should we, should it not be all those things and also just
silence.
On the mountain the disciples tried to understand the deep longing of God for the future of the
world, his love of Jesus, God’s pride in his son, his pain at what the future holds God’s
gentleness and majesty. How did they respond – with all the wasted words that we use.
One writer talks about the mountain behind the mountain.
That the physical mountain, the one we can see and experience in a physical sense, is a way to
experience the mountain behind. But least we think that the other mountain is some sort of
ideal, no it is not, the other mountain is also physical and flawed and ordinary.
To use the church again: we belong to church, we come, we worship, we get to know others,
we serve on this and that group or programme, but what is deeper and beyond that, the other
mountain, is the true church, the place where love, forgiveness, grace, laughter, joy, prayer
exist and build the strong bonds that make up the church, more than its parts. This second
Page 2 of 3
Brett’s Sermon: Mathew 17:1-9. 2014 03 02 Transfiguration Sunday.
mountain, flawed and imperfect as it is, cannot be easily described, but I hope it can be
experienced, because this is the true church, more than the walls of this place.
Spirituality then is about appreciating the mountain behind the mountain. Or the thing behind
the thing.
The disciples in the end returned to the world with Jesus. Spirituality that doesn’t return us to
the world, fresh, wiser, more able to be in the world, is not spirituality. Some spiritual
disciplines or spiritual journeys to my mind are ego trips, shellfish self seeking, unbelievable
exercises in self importance and self delusion. Spirituality taken over by a hedonistic culture.
Jesus may have been transformed into a shining being, and that may have been a vision of his
future, but his reality was a grim journey that took him by stages to Golgotha and death.
We need to explore for our own health the mountain behind the mountain in our own lives, to
experience and contribute to the deep fellowship of the church, but this deep fellowship I
always contend should take us outside into the world again.
Karen Armstrong:
It is not enough to experience the divine or the transcendent; the experience must then
be incarnated in our behavior to others. All the great religions insist that the test of true
spirituality is practical compassion. The Buddha once said that after experiencing
enlightenment [one] must leave the mountain top and return to the market place and
there practice compassion for all living beings. This also applies to the spirituality of a
holy place. Crucial to the cult of Jerusalem from the very first was the importance of
practical charity and social justice. The city cannot be holy unless it is also just and
compassionate to the weak and vulnerable.
We should explore the mountain behind the mountain, but the journey should take us down
again to the city on the plain, the messy worlds of Golgotha and Calvary.
Amen.
Page 3 of 3