Rev. Michael Phillips’ Sermon – February 22, 2004

Sing a song of the three mountaineers

Yodel -ay, yodel-ay, yodel-ay hee hoo

There’s Moses and Jesus and Elijah too,

Yodel-ay, yodel-ay hee hoo.

There they are, all three of them, on the top of an unnamed mountain. Moses, you remember when we left him on the top of Mt. Sinai, tablets of stone in each hand, ready to descend and deliver the Law to a wilderness people. Elijah you recall, in pitched battle with the prophets of Baal on the top of Mt. Carmel – may the better God win, and win he did. Yahweh sent down fire to consume not just the slaughtered bull and not just the sacrificial wood, but the stone altar and the moat of water formed by pouring bucket after bucket on the whole affair.

And now here, this morning, Jesus – mountaineer extraordinaire – climbing with his closest friends to the heights, the top, the pinnacle, and there he is transformed, ablaze with light, a dazzling brightness, illumined in glory, the ultimate epiphany. Why the top of a mountain? Why there for delivering the law? Why there for a test of the true divine power? Why there for a transfiguration? The answer is quite simple really: in the beginning, God created heaven and earth. Heaven is up here…. And earth is down here. The two planes come closest at the tops of mountains. God can hand over stone tablets easily to an expectant Moses when the two planes get close on a mountain top. It’s a quick trip for the consuming fire when the sacrificial bull is laid out on the top of a mountain.

Jesus follows suit for his own glorification, bringing along his inner circle of disciples to witness and later to testify. He draws near to God, and his face shines like the sun. He is in the company of holiness, faithfulness, and righteousness – Yahweh, Moses, and Elijah. Peter, straightforward Peter, recognizes what’s going on, and in his enthusiasm blurts out – “Lord, let us build three dwellings, one for each of you…. And bask in this glory forever. Let’s leave behind the hunger and work, let’s leave behind the sick and the lost, the downtrodden and exploited. Let’s stay here, on this mountain, with the cool breezes and beautiful views, and closeness to God. Let’s make it home and remain forever.

And in that moment, the spell is broken. Gone are Moses and Elijah. Gone is the dazzling brightness. And Jesus turns, and starts down with a terse, “Let’s go.”

“What happened?” Peter must have thought. It was all so lovely, so perfect, so holy. Where did it all go? Was it something I said?

Most of us can feel Peter’s bewilderment at one time or another. For those of us who long to be close to God, we certainly expect to find that holy presence in such pure and inspiring places as the tops of mountains. Where the air is clean, and views are glorious, where the heroes of human history are honored, it is there that we come closest to God. Isn’t it? So why does Jesus cut it off so abruptly. Why does he turn and march down, down to the disease, down to the pain, down to the injustices, down to the mistreated and the undervalued? Peter is confused, and so are we. Where can we draw close to God, and once there, why can’t we just stay there forever?

Before I went to seminary I worked in a hospital in Colorado Springs. One evening, a young woman was admitted to the medical floor. She had come in through the emergency room. At report, in between shifts, I learned that she had no fever, no high blood pressure, and was on no medications. Her doctors were running tests, but so far, no decisive diagnosis had been made. Thus far she had had no visitors. We learned that she was married and had three young children. She told her nurses that she worked an office job downtown that paid poorly, but was nevertheless fairly stressful. She had a good appetite, and did not appear to be sick in any way whatsoever.

I began to hear the nurses on the floor whisper about her. What was she doing here? What doctor had admitted her? She didn’t seem to be sick. She just needs a vacation and is using the hospital as a means to get a little R and R. It is a waste of hospital resources. It is not what health insurance is for.

I noticed that the nurses who were doing most of the whispering were all married, and had young children at home. In other words, they were peers of this young woman in room 361, except of course, they were working. They weren’t lounging around on a trumped up diagnosis of general malaise, in order to spend a few carefree days in the hospital with three meals a day, and a whole nursing staff to take care of them. The nurses were on slow burn, and by the fourth day, could hardly be civil to the young woman. By the fifth day she was discharged, having never received a diagnosis, and without any substantive medical procedures. Two minutes out the door of the hospital, and the whispers turned to vehement and boisterous talk. The nurse’s station was alive with accusation and speculation that lasted for hours, and lingered here and there on the floor for days.

I had my own speculation about the woman. She probably wasn’t sick. She may have been sick and tired….or as the saying goes, ”Sick and tired of being sick and tired,” but I don’t think she needed medical attention. I wonder if maybe she suffered from feeling distant from God. Let me explain. She had married 8, or maybe 10 years before. Marriage is usually a joyous event, a thrilling and exciting time, a “mountaintop” experience for the couple, and for those who know and love them. I suspect that most people, at least I hope that most people feel close to God at the time of their wedding. That’s one of the reasons we do weddings in churches.

Soon afterward, she and her husband began having children. One, two, three in short order. No one can dispute the miracle of life, and the wonder of a whole new life being born into this world. It is a spectacular moment, gracious and holy. It is a peak experience for everyone involved. Parents often tell us they feel God’s presence at the birth of their children. But children, in addition to being adorable are also expensive. So she had to go back to work to help make ends meet. Her life had turned into a lot of hard work. Diapers and feeding and clothes buying and books to read at bedtime and baths and runny noses and doctor’s visits, all in between work and commuting and paying bills. Not much time for your spouse or romance. Most nights ended in total collapse onto the mattress and what seemed like a moment or two of sleep before the alarm sounded and another day began.

She had lost the feeling of being close to God, and it was replaced with work and worry and chores and schedules. Does wiping a runny nose conjure up images of the glorious presence of the Almighty? Or does heating up a can of condensed soup lift one’s spirit to the realms of holiness? Why didn’t she and her husband just build three dwellings after they returned from the honeymoon, and live out their lives in the joyful ecstasy of God’s loving arms? If we were followers of Peter that’s exactly what would have happened. But we follow the Christ, who turns from the mountaintop and says, “Let’s go.”

Then down to work, and schedules and runny noses and racism and violence and fussy children, and fatigue and responsibility, and a needy, needy world. Eventually, his hike down the mountain ends on a cross. Is that close to God, we ask? Jesus himself cries out, “Eloi, eloi, my God, I never thought it would come to this?” It seems far, far away from God, but its not. In fact, God is closer than ever on that hill of Calvary, than he ever was on Sinai, or Carmel, or the unnamed mountain of transfiguration. What we need is a plan. When the world delivers a cross to us, and suddenly pain and confusion and fear grip us, when God seems to have left us to our own devices, we need to be ready for that moment, we need a plan. I believe that young woman wound up in the hospital because she did not have a plan.

We need to have a plan to discover God, the closeness of God, when we feel most abandoned by God. Jesus demonstrates that God is closer to us when we are on our crosses than when we are standing on mountaintops. The trouble is that when the nail is driven through our flesh, we forget that. So we need a plan, we need to be prepared, and not surprised. We need to make plans for finding the closeness of God when God feels the most distant.

People involved in Alcoholics Anonymous know about this. A lot of what goes on in12 Step meetings is nothing more than making plans, being prepared. Is a recovering alcoholic going to want to take a drink at some point in his or her life? Of course. Will an alcoholic’s body “call out” for alcohol at some point? Of course. Should that come as some big surprise to the person in recovery? Of course not. So be ready. Make your plans. Have your emergency preparations packed away. It’s coming. You will feel abandoned by God. You will have nails driven into your flesh. You will experience your friends turning their backs on you, and claiming not to know you. That is precisely when God is closest – but you’ll miss him if you’re not prepared.

In a few days we will begin our Lenten journey. The heights of the mountaintops will drop behind us for now. Down we must go, to face hunger, and emptiness, and pain…maybe even cross – hopefully even cross. The forty days of Lent give us time to prepare, to make plans, to be ready. We get to practice what life is like carrying a cross. We get to feel the nails being driven. We get to rest in the darkness of a three-day tomb. And at each step, know that God is at hand. Dwellings will not be built. But from cross to tomb to the dawn of Easter morning, God’s closeness will be proclaimed, and our lives will be fulfilled. It’s time to get ready. “Let’s go.”

Amen.

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