Peak Experience

Poolesville Presbyterian Church

03.02.14; Rev. David Williams

Scripture Lesson:  Matthew 17:1-9

Most of the time, life just sort of bumbles along.

It's the reality of the life of this part-time pastor, at least.  I realize that you might imagine something different about the lives of most pastors.  When we are not here, pitching out our remarkable erudition and insight into the deep and secret meanings of sacred texts, you might think we are deep in arcane study.  Perhaps you imagine that we get lost in bowels of some ancient catacombs, poring over the fragments of browning, ancient scrolls as we carefully translate from the Syriac.  Or we are sitting on our rooftops, deep in meditation and prayer, ascending through the mystic realms as we move further and further into realms of glory.

That vision, though, isn't us.  That's Dumbledore.  If you want a better sense of my week, a better analogy from the world of Harry Potter isn’t a wizard.  But we are magical creatures, no doubt.  We’re house-elves.  

Because most of my life is the life of Dobby, most of the time.  It's not adventure or excitement.  It's not the moments that soar.  It's shuffling around the house in cobbled together clothes, old jeans and flannel and vests, the sort of outfits that make me glad I’m unlikely to run into any of y’all in Annandale.

It’s doing laundry, and then walking the dog, and then errands, and then taking the dog out again.  It's sitting in traffic with one kid or another, on our way to drums or drama or chorus.  It's puttering around the bright aisles of some supermarket, and realizing that the bland background music that they're piping in is now the music of my youth.

Karmakarmakarmakarmakarmachamelee-uuun, we hum along, as we drift through the toiletries aisle, trying not to let ourselves think how it came to this.

That doesn't play well with how we like to think of ourselves, not generally.  We want to be filled with stories, filled with tales of adventure and excitement, those peak experiences that sparkle and shimmer in the telling.  And as satisfying as it is figuring out just how to get your recalcitrant overdesigned new clotheswasher to stop aborting every other wash midway through the spin cycle, that's not exactly the stuff of legend.

The simple, basic, humble stuff of life doesn't tend to play well into our stories.  It is forgotten, day by day, as our dreams sift it out of our souls.  What we remember are the high and bright instants.  We remember that first kiss, but not the drive to her house seventeen days later.  We remember the moment we said "I do," but not cleaning the kitchen after dinner four months later.  

We prefer those peak moments, those soaring, glorious mountaintop moments, because we remember them.  As we knit our lives together into a patchwork quilt of stories, those come to be the defining moments.  It feels like we are them.

Take, for instance, the peculiar scene that occurs in today’s scripture from the Gospel of Matthew.  This passage finds us following along with Jesus, Peter, James and John as they go off seeking something big.  They remove themselves to a place described only as a “high mountain,” where things suddenly get a little bit intense. 

This story within the scriptures is called “The Transfiguration,” because that’s precisely what happens to Jesus.  He suddenly appears to be completely different.  We hear, in Matthew 17:2, and in the mirror passages in Mark 9:3 and Luke 9:29, that Jesus is suddenly too bright to look at.   This “brightness,” both of clothing and of his face, is a consistent marker throughout the Bible of holiness.  Where the divine is present, be it God or an angelic figure, it is consistently described as being suffused in light.

This is followed by the arrival of two individuals, who are described as Moses and Elijah.    The disciples see Jesus speaking with both of them.  Why Moses?  Why Elijah?  Those two figures are absolutely central to Judaism.  Moses was the one who led the people to the promised land, the liberator from slavery, the receiver of the Commandments and the Law.  Elijah, was the most potent of the prophets, who stories told had never died, but would return to proclaim the coming of the Messiah.  One is linked with the covenant, the other with the final fulfillment of covenant.

Peter starts suggesting that they might build something, in this case, “booths,” or “sukkot,” which are ritual shelters used during Jewish festivals.  But before he can set to building, there is more brightness, this time from a radiant cloud, and the words “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” are spoken for the second time in Matthew’s Gospel.

The first time is during Christ’s baptism in the Jordan, in Matthew 3:17.   There, it seems more personal, more about the connection between Jesus and God, and less about others hearing.  Here in Matthew 17, it’s something directed to the disciples, and reinforced with the admonition:  “Listen to him!”  The appearance of a cloud is not random, either, not just an indication of fog at higher altitudes.  It’s an event which is mirrored in Exodus 24, when Moses went up the mountain to receive the Law.  The bright consuming cloud is a sign and mark of the presence of the Creator.

If you are Peter and James and John, this is without question all really good stuff.    All of these things couldn’t possibly be any more intense.  First, they get a clear and unmistakable sign that Jesus is holy.  Then, they see a vision of Jesus with the two most significant historical figures for first century Jews.  Finally, they hear a voice from a cloud, affirming Jesus as being something...well...extraordinarily good.  This is the peakiest of the peak experiences.

That moment of transfiguration acts serves a real purpose in Matthew’s Gospel.  It’s the stamp and official seal of approval on who Jesus is.  The marks of Holiness, fulfillment of Torah and the Covenant, and the voice and presence of God, these are all powerful affirmations of Christ’s identity and his Kingdom proclamations.

It couldn’t get any better than that.  That’s the soaring experience of  So are they excited?  Are they all pumped up?  Hardly.  It’s such a big deal that they’re terrified.  Their knees buckle, and they fall flat on their faces.  It’s huge.

And then, as it all wraps up, Jesus does what he so often does when things get intense.  He tells them not to talk about it.  This seems kind of bizarre.  Why wouldn’t you do talk about it.  This is a big deal, a huge thing, the kind of thing you share with everyone, because it’s a game changer.  It’s like taking a selfie with Jennifer Lawrence, and not posting it to Facebook.  You just gotta tell people about that.  You just gotta.

But it’s a common refrain.  Keeping quiet about miracles and the most intense moments in the Gospels are apparently the first two rules of Disciple Club.  Meaning, you shall not talk about Disciple Club, and you shall not talk about Disciple Club.

That seems odd, and paradoxical.  Here Jesus is trying to get the word out, trying spread a message, and he consistently seems to silence conversation when something amazing or miraculous happens.  

Part of that, I think, has to do with the way that Jesus wanted everyone who heard his teachings to respond to what he taught.  Those bright and powerful moments in our lives are all well and good, but if they are all we see and all we think about, if they are the only places where our faith has any purchase, then we lose track of how completely Jesus wants our hearing of his message to change our lives.

And that message, which we’ve heard challenge us over the last several weeks in the Sermon on the Mount, is one that folds its way neatly into every single moment of our lives.  It is not a message limited to those soaring moments of transforming power.  It is not a message that only has meaning when we stand atop the world, peering down at our lives from those places.

It speaks into our every moment, and informs our every instant.  It speaks into the humblest moments of our lives, into the doing of dishes and the wrangling of children.  If we’re really engaging with the heart of what Jesus taught.

Let that be so, for you and for me, AMEN.