 Rev. Lisa McIlvenna |
When
Even Time Stands Still
Sermon:
Scripture: |
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The
story is told of a Sunday school teacher who had asked her
class of young children to draw a picture illustrating their
favorite Bible story. After a time, one of her little boys
handed her a piece of paper on which he had drawn a big red
convertible. In it there was an old man with long white
whiskers flying in the breeze, and in the back seat was a
young woman and a young man sitting next to each other. The
teacher looked at the picture, somewhat puzzled and asked the
boy about it. His response to her was, “Why that is God. He
is driving Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden.” It
is a cute picture that is fun to imagine. Such a literal
translation or understanding of the story of Adam and Eve can
result in the inability to understanding what is really being
communicated in the story. I have a hunch that if we try to do
the same thing with today’s Gospel reading, we, too, will
miss what it has to communicate to each of us. For
if we take the story literally, we have a story in which Jesus
and the disciples go up on a mountain. While they are at the
top of the mountain, all of a sudden Jesus’ face becomes as
bright as the sun and his clothes turn dazzling white. And
then, as if out of nowhere, there appear two men who have been
dead for many years, Moses and Elijah. While they are talking
to Jesus, and the disciples are trying to decide what to do
about it, a bright cloud comes over and covers them. And from
the cloud comes a booming voice that says, “This is my son
the beloved. With him I am well pleased. Listen to him.” The
disciples are stunned. They fall to the ground with their
mouths wide open, hardly daring to breathe. But Jesus walks
over to them, touches them and tells them not be afraid. And
suddenly everything is back to normal and they walk back down
the mountain, being instructed to tell no one. The
story is pretty incredible. It is a wonderful story. But if
you are anything like me, sitting in the pew this morning, it
seems almost impossible to relate to. Let’s face it, the
transformation story doesn’t fit into our modern scientific
view of the universe. Our modern world is often intolerant of
mystery. Ours is an age in which we have been led to believe
that we have the capacity to know, understand, grasp and
explain anything that we put our minds to. The story is told to us of a little boy whose father expressed the usual dinner command before he headed upstairs. His dad said to him, “Hurry up. Wash your hands and come to the prayers.” The boy went upstairs to the bathroom, as he was doing so was heard to mutter, “Germs and Jesus, germs and Jesus. That is all I hear around here, and I can’t see either one of them.” One
of the promises of modernity is that we could come up with a
methodology that would enable anyone, regardless of their
training, experience or background, to think and see things
clearly. And yet all across our country it is interesting to
note that there are a growing number of the brightest and best
young college students who are hungry for stories like
today’s Gospel lesson. They are students who have mastered
the logic of calculus, know the advances of biology, and have
come to the realization that if there is not the possibility
of mystery and power greater than what they already
know, we of all humankind are the most to be pitied. So
perhaps the first thing to be communicated to us today about
this story is that while none of us will most likely
experience it in this way, there are wonderful, mystical,
sometimes baffling and even frightening moments when God gives
us a gift of sight and we experience God’s presence or care
in a way that can take our breath away. There are moments when
we are so challenged and pushed beyond the boundaries of our
definitions of what is real, moments in which even time stands
still, when we are able to realize that what we experience
cannot be fully understood or explained but begs us to
experience and allow it to transform us. I
remember two such experiences in my life that I would like to
share with you this morning. The first was when I was in the
eleventh grade. Most of you know that I was raised in the
rural area of Michigan, up in the thumb. And I, as a child,
had limited experience of a city. The year before my eleventh
grade year, my brother had traveled to Detroit to visit the
Renaissance Center. And he came back and told me what a
wonderful experience he had visiting the Renaissance Center
and going into the glass elevator, taking it all the way to
the top where he could look over the city. When
he learned that I, too, was going to visit the Renaissance
Center, he told me to be sure to go up in the elevator and
that this would be the highlight of my trip. There was just
one little problem. In addition to my limited experience in
the city, I also had limited experience with elevators and
heights. As the elevator got to the top and I walked over to
the rail to look down onto the city, I quickly discovered that
I was scared to death of heights. So there I stood at the top
of the Renaissance Center, in an elevator all by myself,
unable to move back to the button to push it to make it go
back down. My
second experience was when my son, Derek (who was about 2-1/2
years of age), and the rest of the family were getting ready
to leave a shopping mall. As we exited Sears, we noticed that
it was raining outside. My husband, Pat, left Derek and I
along, with Kirsten (my daughter who was also a baby at that
time), waiting in the entryway to Sears. As we were standing
there, a gruff, large woman came out with a man and a
teenager. She was snarling at them. In her hand she had a
lighted cigarette. The man and the teenager went out the door
to get the car and left her standing while she was groaning
under her breath. She began to puff the cigarette. While
I risk offending someone who smokes by saying this, I found
myself thinking less-than-kind things about this woman who was
puffing smoke in my face. In fact, I was totally annoyed with
her. As she stood there puffing her smoke, I started to cough.
Unfortunately, she didn’t get the hint, so I moved over
towards another part of the building. She moved towards me
while puffing on her cigarette. Then,
as only two year olds can do, Derek went over to her and said,
“You shouldn’t be smoking.” She glared at him, went on
looking out the window and kept on smoking. Then my little two
year old said to her, “You really shouldn’t be smoking.”
She ignored him again. At that moment, I was uncomfortable
because I couldn’t imagine what this woman was going to say
and do to my son. Just before I could get a hold of him and
yank him over to where I was, once again he goes over to her,
pulls at her coat, looks up at her and says, “Do you want to
die?” Now
perhaps some of you are sitting there and thinking, “Wait a
minute, Lisa, how can you begin to equate these experiences
with what happened on the mountain in today’s Gospel
story?” After
all, there is no booming voice from the cloud, there is no
miraculous appearance of a bright shining light other than the
glowing of my red embarrassed face, there isn’t even a hint
or a mention of God in these stories. That is precisely the
point. Transfiguration experiences are not something to be
measured by what specific events take place, nor whether God
can be seen clearly, identified or explained in these
experiences. Rather,
I would suggest to you that transfiguration experiences are
identified by the effect that they have on us. They are
experiences whereby we discover the greatness and the truth of
God and God’s care in experiences that might otherwise
paralyze us. They result in new perspectives, widened vision,
more focused direction, and our lives being transformed or
changed. This means that while indeed there may be times (and
have been times) when we, like the disciples and Jesus in this
story, intentionally prepare ourselves to experience
transfiguration, that God does choose to act in dramatic ways
and settings. But
there are many more times when transfigurations can be
experienced in a less dramatic, more ordinary way and setting.
Whether it be through the simple faith of a small child, in
the midst of a family or a community crisis, in the face of
the death of a loved one, witnessing the birth of a baby,
observing a sunset or a sunrise, witnessing a homeless man on
the street, or visiting an elderly person in a nursing home,
it is how we approach these experiences, both dramatic and
ordinary, that has a great deal to do with whether or not we
experience the greatness and the truth of God that transforms
our lives. Both
my experience in the elevator and in the entryway to Sears
were moments when my initial reactions were like that of the
disciples in the story. Like the disciples when they first
experienced the unexpected dumbfoundedness of what was
happening, I became paralyzed. It says that they fell to the
ground with their mouths open and afraid. I held on to the
rail for dear life, unable to move in the elevator. I stood in
the entryway of Sears turning three shades of red, with my
mouth open, not knowing what to say or do, waiting for the
woman to pounce. Then, like Peter who moved from being
paralyzed in the Gospel story to wanting to build three
booths, I too tried to control, bury or escape my discomfort
and anxiousness by acting impulsively and irrationally. In
the elevator, I decided to close my eyes, thinking to myself
that if I didn’t open my eyes, I wouldn’t realize where I
was and I wouldn’t be afraid. Eventually someone would want
to use the elevator, push the button from another floor, and I
would be down. At Sears, I grabbed a hold of Derek and rushed
out the door into the pouring rain, to stand there with my
baby crying. If
we look at the Gospel story again, we see that there is a
third way to approach these experiences that God offers us. In
the story, God calls the disciples and us to let go, to open
ourselves to the experience and what it has to offer and teach
us. He says to the disciples, “Get up, don’t be afraid,
listen to Jesus, and step back.” In this approach, I hear
God inviting us and the disciples, in both the extraordinary
and the ordinary moments and experiences of life that threaten
to paralyze us, leave us puzzled, fearful or otherwise
uncomfortable, to do just that—take a few moments and step
back from the experience. Give ourselves an opportunity to see
and experience things differently. Allow and open ourselves
for the opportunity for God’s light to shine on our new
understanding, insight and power in the midst of it. It
was that approach when I made it my own experience in the
elevator and with Derek that helped me to experience those
ordinary moments of discomfort
as transfiguration experiences. For in the elevator that
afternoon, I found myself, after a time, taking several deep
breaths and once again opening my eyes. And as I did so, I
looked out beyond the ground below me and I began to see
little tiny people walking in the street. I was so fascinated
by how tiny they were and how fast they were moving that
before I knew it, I let go of the rail and was wandering
around the elevator to see who else I could see. And as I was
doing that, I suddenly got caught up in a world that was much
bigger than my own little problem on the elevator. As I
wondered about
where these people were going, whose lives they intersected
with, and what kinds of experiences they were experiencing,
and the troubles that they faced, somewhere in the midst of
experiencing that bigger world, I also had the realization
that God was bigger, too, and that I didn’t have anything to
be afraid of. With new hope and direction and without fear,
after a time, I simply moved over to the door of the elevator,
pushed the button and went back down. In
my experience with Derek and the woman who was smoking, it
wasn’t until I was safely in the car and heading down the
highway that I was able to let go, step back and give myself
the opportunity for God’s light to shine new understanding.
But what I did when I began to reflect on it and relax and to
think about it and open myself up to what it might teach me, I
found myself transformed by the reality of a two year old’s
loving innocence. You see, I had only been annoyed by the
discomfort that the woman was creating in me. There not
concern for her on my part, and I really didn’t care whether
or not she was hurting herself in order for her to be so
irritable and upset. Yet driving down the highway, I was
awakened to the greatness and the truth of God’s care as I
reflected on my son’s comment, “Do you want to die?” The
kind of love and innocence that allowed him to boldly proclaim
the truth without fear, out of genuine love and concern, for
the one who is affected by it. It
made me ashamed, it made me think twice, how often it is that
I intersect into people’s lives, only worrying about my own
concerns, when I ought to be wondering and concerned about
what makes them upset, worried and uncomfortable. And I ought
to be willing to risk offering the truth of God’s love with
boldness and without concern of how it might affect me. As
we enter the season of Lent this week, I invite us to consider
and to ask ourselves and to seek God’s help in those places
or ways in which our lives are threatened by the invitation to
climb the mountain. To ask ourselves where it is in our life
that makes it difficult for us to step back, to let go of
control of what is safe and comfortable, to move beyond our
fears, to embrace experiences that we don’t always
understand as opportunities to experience the light of God’s
love. I invite us to approach Lent open to the holy moments
when even time seems to stand still and we experience God’s
care in ways that will take our breath away. It is in those
experiences, when we embrace them, that greater light is given
to us, wider vision is received, more focused direction is
given to our lives, and we are transformed in ways that help
us to see God and
others that God has created more clearly, love them more
dearly, and follow them more nearly. In the name of Christ,
may we experience transfiguration experiences in our lives,
each and every day, as we open ourselves to climbing the
mountain of that experience. Amen.
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