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It Helps to Be a Poet |
Matthew 17: 1-9
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© John Ewing Roberts |
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A THOUGHT FOR THE DAY (VALENTINE'S, THAT IS) "Life is one crazy thing after another, and love is two crazy things after each other. So Happy Valentine's Day!" Sean Riley has shared for this morning these two Beanie Babies from his world class collection. Lest I incur the wrath of a certain Baptist pastor from Virginia, let me quickly point out that one is male and the other female. Valentina in red is a girl and Valentino in white, a boy; both celebrate February 14 as their birthdays. Another suggestion for the day came from a person who encouraged me to offer at the conclusion of the service today an opportunity for married couples to renew their vows. At first I was excited - visions of Sun Myung Moon and thousands of couples at Yankee Stadium! Terri and Bill Forand have renewed their vows here in a lovely ceremony and can endorse the experience. But on reflection I realized that not every couple would want to renew their vows and many would not appreciate pressure to do so. And what if one half of the couple wants to renew and the others half is a bit bashful about the whole thing? No, there will be not mass ceremony, but if you and your spouse would like to speak with me privately about arranging to renew your vows, I will be delighted to meet with you. Let me offer you this Valentine thought: Love as active good will is no solitary deed, but the joy of reliving the rush of victory in every initiative of kindness. This kind of continually revived and reviving love is like the music of Browning's wise thrush who... "...sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture!"[1] A THOUGHT FOR NEXT SUNDAY Next Sunday is the first Sunday in Lent, a time for personal reflection on such themes as sin, repentance, salvation, the cross, the resurrection, heaven and hell. These topics are the stuff of gospel songs. We will devote the entire service - no sermon! - to this music. I realize the subject of gospel songs calls for some definition and some "comfortable words of assurance." It helps to compare different types of church music to different kinds of food: Anthems - formal banquet Hymns - meat and potatoes Gospel songs - comfort food Choruses - snacks Praise choruses - fast food and whichever you don't like is junk food. In a discussion in our home some years ago with a teen ager on the comparative merits of different music styles, perhaps it was Shaun Cassidy or Kiss versus Shubert Lieder or Beethoven's late quartets, he brought to my attention a quote which demanded my tolerance for all kinds of music even if I felt my preferences were better. "...remember that the responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision."[2] Whatever your preferences in church music, I will assume that you know that you personally have the wider vision, will give the other fellow the benefit of the doubt, and will be more than merely tolerant. Come next Sunday and enjoy the experience which should prove enriching and worshipful in its own way. AN IMPOSSIBLE SERMON Now on to the text of the day, the Transfiguration. The usual interpretation goes like this: "mountaintop experiences" must be followed by coming down into the valley of service, the rhythm of inspiration and duty. Such teaching is true, but one must ask if our lives have suitable parallels to what this moment meant for Jesus and the disciples. Can we apply this to our lives without trivializing? An outstanding teacher of preachers, Fred Craddock, suggests that it is better to hold this text "before the listeners in (its) full extraordinariness rather than reduce (it) to fit the contour of our experiences." It is better to be led to the foot of the Mount of Transfiguration, to be helped to sense its significance on Jesus and three apostles, and to be left there for a while in awe of its mystery and power." Such an experience "might finally influence life in more ways and in more depth than interpretations that reduce the text to lessons that assume `this is the way life is for us today.'"[3] His caution makes this an almost impossible sermon - he seems to be saying, "Tell the story, but avoid applications; Jesus is Jesus, and we are, well, just us." Let's see if Craddock's advice and warnings hold up by looking at the text. MOUNTAIN TOP EXPERIENCES Two quick examples of the sort of thing that almost or sometimes works A. King Remember what Martin Luther King, Jr., said in his last sermon, April 3, 1968. He combined the experience of Moses looking from Mt. Nebo toward the promised land with the vision of glory on the Mount of Transfiguration: "I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountain top. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."[4] B. Carlton Another Baptist preacher was a man named John Carlton, a splendid gentleman, a preaching professor at Southeastern Seminary, a man whose life was ended by cancer when he still had much to give.[5] In his last letter to our mutual friend John Durham, John Carlton wrote: "I seem to stand today on a kind of strange new plateau of life, perhaps a new vision conferred by my experience of what Wordsworth called `the burden and the mystery, the weary weight of this unintelligible world" on the one hand and the promise of our Lord, `My little children, it is the Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom,' on the other...No one of us ever knows what time is yet available to us, but we can greet every dawn as another day of radiant promise and hope. I am learning anew what it is to live by faith, for where life matters most and runs deepest our vaunted self-sufficiency matters least. Believe me, faith is not a solo performance."[6] But we are neither Jesus, nor King, nor Carlton. So we are back to Craddock's challenge to simply go to the mountain, and let the facts speak for themselves to transfigure us. HERMON Hermon is a mountain range on the northern border of Palestine, marking the limit of the conquests of Moses and Joshua on the east of the Jordan river and of the Israelite expansion. The highest peak rises to about 8,500 feet above sea level. The mountain range is 18 miles long. Its Arabic name means "mountain of snow" because it is covered with snow for most of the year.[7] TABOR This mountain was at the southern limit of lower Galilee, 1,700 feet above sea level. "Its inverted, bowl-like shape attracted attention in ancient times and it was therefore linked with Mount Hermon and Mount Carmel (Jer. 46: 18; Ps. 89: 12). It was a place of worship from very ancient time (Hos. 5: 1)...In the time of Deborah the tribes gathered there to give battle to the Canaanites (Judg. 4: 6, 12, 14)...Early Christian tradition placed the scene of the Transfiguration on the mountain, and churches to commemorate the event were built there from an early period."[8] WHICH MOUNTAIN? In one sense it is very important to be able to visualize Jesus and the three disciples on a particular mountain. It matters that we know that this event really happened in a real place. This is not "once upon a time" "long ago in a galaxy far, far away." This is no fairy tale. I offer you such pictures from time to time not to teach geography or archaeology or art history or to offer "high brow culture." If you think that something of that nature is going on, either I have failed to communicate or you have misperceived. I am trying to drive home that the Bible is about real people in real places. But in all candor it does not matter much whether we picture Hermon or Tabor but that it does matter that the Transfiguration happened on a real mountain. Psalm 89: 2b nicely affirms both mountains where it says, "Tabor and Hermon joyously praise thy name." Recent scholarship leans toward Mt. Hermon as the site of the Transfiguration.[9] It is only 16 miles from Caesarea Philippi, and its snow-covered top works well with the glistening light imagery of the account. Besides, there was an armed fortress and a castle on top of Mt. Tabor, an unlikely setting for the Transfiguration.[10] William Barclay thinks the transfiguration happened somewhere on the slopes of the mountain in the night. Luke tells us that the disciples were weighted down with sleep.[11] And that it was the next day when Jesus and his disciples came back to the plain to find the father of the epileptic boy.[12] Therefore, "it must have been some time in the sunset, or the late evening, or the night, that the amazing vision took place."[13] THE FACTS Here are some background facts to help us in Craddock's words to be "led to the foot of the mountain." Moses and Elijah represent the law and the prophets. Their presence is a signal from Matthew to his contemporaries that Jesus is every bit their equal and more. The heavenly voice, referring to Jesus, says, "Listen to him." (v. 5, emphasis added) There are other reasons for Moses and Elijah to be present: - both received revelations on a mountain (Ex. 24; I Kings 19), and now Jesus is giving his teaching on a mount; - no grave was ever found for Moses, and a sweet chariot for Elijah (Deut. 34: 6; II Kings 2: 11) - like Jesus they are considered to be beyond death and the grave; - both Moses and Elijah were expected to "return" and usher in the Messianic age (Deut. 18: 15; Mal. 4: 5-6) Moses and Elijah as well as Peter, James and John represent continuity and discontinuity, past, present and future. Our backward look would also take us back to the baptism of Jesus and the reference to the beloved son in Matthew 3: 17; back to the son in Psalm 2: 7; and all the way back to Isaac in Genesis 22: 2. The future is anticipated when we realize that in time to come the same three disciples, Peter, James and John will be with Jesus, not on a mountain but in a garden, a garden where pilgrims would have their booths or tents pitched for the Passover festival, another time and place charged with meaning, and they would again be asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26: 36-46). A MOMENT OF RADIANCE Can we make sense of the Transfiguration, and begin cautiously to appropriate its meaning? A scholar named F. Dale Bruner helps us: "What Jesus was within was once made visible without...a preview of the heavenly transfiguration awaiting believers in the person of their Head. The rabbis taught that Adam lost the radiance of his face by his sin and that the Messiah would give this radiance back; the Gospels' transfiguration stories show us the beginning of this restoration of radiance."[14] The reference to Christ as our Head suggests this thought. On Easter Sunday we will sing these words from Christ the Lord Is Risen Today: "Soar we now where Christ has led, Alleluia! Foll'wing our exalted Head, Alleluia! Made like Him, like Him we rise, Alleluia! Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!"[15] THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY With Christ as our Head, with us as his followers, we can work past Craddock's warnings and begin to take the Transfiguration into our experience. Through thinking poetically and taking seriously transforming experiences we can follow our exalted Head even to and beyond the Mount of the Transfiguration. The great contemporary poet, W. H. Auden, once wrote that it helps to be a poet if you want to be a Christian. By that he did not mean that we need to understand meter, rhythm and rhyme, or have a large vocabulary to develop metaphors and similes. I think he simply meant that a Christian needs a sense of wonder.[16] William H. Willimon, the chaplain at Duke University (and I hope you appreciate what it takes for me today to quote the Duke chaplain[17] ) speaks of church as a place where we have the courage to explore the wonder and mystery of God. He noticed a woman back in church after a long absence. She explained that a feeling drew her back, a feeling she was not really aware of until the previous Sunday when toward the end of the service while the choir was singing God Be In My Head, she was "taken up...Like taken away. Like I lost consciousness, or maybe gained consciousness. It was as if I were alone, standing in the chapel. Just me, bathed in this soft, warm, wonderful light. When I came to, the choir was finishing their singing, and I was genuinely surprised to see people standing there with me, in church. And I had to sit down to regain my composure. And I smiled because I knew. I believed."[18] If it can happen in Duke Chapel, it can happen at Woodbrook - maybe today, maybe next Sunday. Peter, James and John, trudging down the mountain would understand, and so do many of you. It helps to be a poet. A poet looks for transforming moments, the radiance in the routine, the exceptional in the everyday, the mystery in the mundane. One windy autumn day the leaves were swirling in from the courtyard every time the door was opened. I saw those leaves as an irritation, an extra task for Toney Gillenwater to deal with, but Palmer, whose name begins with "p" as does the word "poet," delighted in watching the wind blow the leaves. "Look at them," he said, "they're golden in the sunlight and the wind makes them dance in circles around the courtyard." It helps to be a poet. WHY WE NEED THE MOUNTAIN AND THE VALLEY We need the place to be still and know that the Lord is God.[19] We also need the place to be light and salt, to give a cup of cold water in Jesus' name, to do unto the least of these. Both are needed, worship and work. The great pioneer psychologist of religion, William James, used a German word to describe the fragmentation and pressure we often feel when worship and work are out of balance. Zerrissenheit means "torn-to-pieces-hood," the experience of being pulled in a dozen different directions all at once. An explorer "was making a hurried trip up the Amazon River. One morning he awoke, intending to push on urgently, and discovered his native laborers still resting. "When the explorer pressed the native chieftain for an explanation, the chief answered: `They are waiting. They cannot move farther until their souls catch up with their bodies."[20] Souls catching up with bodies, Zerrissenheit, pain, the cross, Transfiguration - we begin to see the linkages. The answer to Craddock's challenge - can we really apply Jesus' remarkable mountaintop experience to everyday life is. "Yes!" Listen to a story about a man who was on a vacation trip, and,...I'm getting ahead of myself. A TRANSFORMING MOMENT In James E. Loder's book, The Transforming Moment,[21] he defines "transfiguration" in terms of illumination and perception of the divine in an otherwise unenlightened or mundane event.[22] One of Loder's students, Sonya Park, is here today from Princeton. I want you to hear Jim Loder's story of a transforming moment, but first you need to know that he is not the sort of person given to weird, religious fantasies. His Ph. D. is from Harvard; he took his clinical training at the Massachusetts Mental Health Clinic; he has been a research fellow in theology and psychiatric theory at the Menninger Foundation; and he has done postdoctoral work at the Piaget Institut in Geneva. Here is his story: "On Saturday, September 3, 1970, my wife, two daughters and I set forth on a brief trip from our home in Princeton, New Jersey to Quebec, Canada. The day was lifted from a travel poster...About 4:30 P.M. ...on the throughway near Kinston, New York,...we saw a middle-aged woman standing near a disabled car...we pulled off the road to offer assistance. "I parked our camper about fifteen feet in front of her car and emerged to discover nothing more demanding than a flat tire on the left front wheel. While I tried to make a wobbly jack work on the rusting Oldsmobile, my wife, Arlene, went to speak with the woman... "...The jack wouldn't lock into the chassis on the left front side, so I moved to the right wheel, hoping for clues. Just as I knelt in front of the right front fender, there was an ear-splitting screech of brakes. A sixty-four-year-old man who had `never had an accident in his life,' had gone to sleep...Braking only for an instant, he rammed the Olds from behind and shoved it over on top of me. I had heard, seen, and felt it coming; I kept my legs pushing from under the car to keep my head and shoulders ahead of the bumper as the body of the car ground me forward through the gravel. The next impact was the Olds smashing into the rear of our camper... "I later learned that my right thumb had been torn off at the first joint, five ribs were broken, the left lung was bleeding, and my skin was gouged and scraped from heard to foot. In spite of these injuries, I never lost consciousness... "...my wife...Arlene is a slight woman, barely over five feet tall. With her hands under the bumper, she prayed, `In the name of Jesus Christ, in the name of Jesus Christ...' Recounting this event later, she said that when her strength in the heaving effort began to give way, she partially lost consciousness for a few seconds; when she was able to refocus her attention, she was surprised to see that the car had been lifted. As the medical record shows, she broke a vertebra in this effort, but she did not notice it at the time... "As I roused myself from under the car, a steady surge of life was rushing through me carrying with it two solid assurances. First, I knew how deeply I felt love for those around me...The second assurance was that this disaster had a purpose. There were the words with which I repeatedly tried to reassure my wife and children: `Don't worry; this has a purpose.' "...By far, the most significant memorable effect was not the pain, not the anger (toward the driver who had caused the accident), but life was pouring into me from a gracious source beyond the power of that accident to damage or destroy me."[23] CONCLUSION - JUST JESUS The subject of our poetry and the content of our transforming moments is in the final analysis Jesus, the transfigured one, the transforming one, the gracious source of power. When the disciples come to the end of their "mountain top experience" and look up, they see only Jesus, just Jesus - no dazzling light, no Moses, no Elijah, not biblical celebrities, no bright cloud; they hear no heavenly thunder. This divine Jesus is simply and directly and humanly present to them, and that is all they or we will ever need. Language from our hymns underscores the point: "Shadows around me, shadows above me, Never conceal my Savior and Guide; He is in the light, in Him is no darkness; Ever I'm walking close to His side."[24] Glimpsed and gone the revelation; They shall gain and keep its truth, Not by building on the mountain any shrine or sacred booth, But by following the Savior through the valley to the cross And by testing faith's resilience through betrayal, pain and loss.[25] [This sermon is for circulation within the Woodbrook congregation and may not be reproduced without permission.] Notes: [1] Robert Browning, "Home Thoughts, From Abroad," Selections from Browning's Poems, edited by J. Charles Hazzard [New York: Allyn and Bacon] 1921, p. 15 [2] George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, 1860, p. 437 [3] Fred B. Craddock, Luke [Atlanta: John Knox Press] 1990, pp. 132-133 [4] cited by C. Jack Richards, Lectionary Homiletics, February 1999, Volume X, Number 3, pp. 12-13 [5] Jack VandenHengle and Ron Brown both studied with John Carlton. [6] Worship Beyond the Usual - An Echo of the Voice of John W. Carlton, assembled and edited by John I Durham [Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press] 1993, p.105 [7] The Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land, third edition, edited by Avraham Negev [New York: Prentice Hall] 1990, p. 172 [8] Negev, op. cit., p. 364 [9] Charles R. Page II, Jesus and the Land [Nashville: Abingdon Press] 1955, p. 104 [10] William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, rev. ed., Vol. 2, [Philadelphia: Westminster Press] 1975, p.157 [11] Luke 9: 32 [12] Luke 9: 37 [13] Barclay, op. cit., p. 157 [14] Frederick Dale Bruner, The Churchbook - A Historical/Theological Commentary, Matthew 3-28 [Waco, Texas: WORD Books] 1990, p. 603 [15] Baptist Hymnal, edited by Wesley L. Forbis [Nashville: Convention Press] 1991, Charles Wesley, Christ the Lord Is Risen Today, No. 159 [16] William H. Willimon, "A Wider Rationality," Pulpit Resource, Vol. 27, No. 1, January, February, March 1999, p. 28 [17] Duke clobbered my alma mater, Wake Forest, yesterday in basketball. [18] Op. cit., p. 29 [19] Psalm 46: 10 [20] Illustrative the Gospel of Matthew, James E. Hightower, Jr., compiler [Nashville: Broadman Press] 1982, pp. 72-73 [21] James E. Loder, The Transforming Moment: Understanding Convictional Experiences [New York: Harper and Row, Publishers] 1981, 229 pp. [22] Op. cit., p. 38 [23] Op. cit., pp. 1-4; after the service Palmer Gillenwater reported a similar experience. He and his brother were cutting down a tree which fell on his brother. Palmer, calling out "God help me!" was able to lift the tree off of his brother. Afterwards the two of them together were unable to budge the tree. [24] H. J. Zelley, "Heavenly Sunlight," No. 424, Baptist Hymnal, Wesley Forbis, editor [Nashville: Convention Press] 1991, [25] Thomas H. Troeger, "Swiftly Pass the Clouds of Glory," No. 73, The Presbyterian Hymnal, LindaJo McKim, editor [Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press] 1990 |