Learning to Live in the Level Places
As a preacher, I always hear some interesting things as people leave church services on Sunday mornings. The other week a group of folks were coming out of the sanctuary and I noticed one person in the crowd that I hadn’t seen in a while. As I shook his hand, one of his friends said jokingly, “be careful John, pastor Mona will recruit you to join the Army of the Lord!” To which another friend replied, “no problem there, John is only here at Christmas and Easter.” Without missing a beat John turned to his friends and said “that’s because I am in the secret service.”
Well today is Transfiguration Sunday—a time in the life of the church that is midpoint between Christmas and Easter. Growing up Baptist, I didn’t know what a transfiguration was. Christmas and Easter were the only special times in the life of the church. One of the things I value about my experience in MCC is this denomination’s appreciation for the rhythm of the liturgical cycles of the church year. Now, I think some of that may have to do with all that liturgical drag we get to wear throughout the seasons and the festiveness with which we adorn our houses of worship. I think there ought to be show called “Queer Eye for the Straight Church.”
Transfiguration Sunday. This Sunday actually ends the liturgical season of Epiphany—a season of light and revelation. It is a season that began with a voice and ends with a voice—God’s voice. At Jesus’ baptism, and at his transfiguration God says, “This is my Beloved in whom I am well pleased.” This story of the Transfiguration is usually read the Sunday before Lent begins. Somehow it is to be a road map for us as we find ourselves halfway between Christmas and Easter.
We could get into all kinds of discussions about what it meant that Jesus was transfigured, or that he told Peter and the others not to tell anyone about it. And we might be smarter after having all those conversations, but probably not that much further down the road on our journey. At its core, I think this story describes the geography of the spiritual life.
Many of you know we have just finished the 3rd annual MCC Women in Ministry Conference here at Church of the Trinity. Our keynote speaker, Iyanla Van Zandt, has written a book about spiritual geography—in particular the spiritual landscape of the valley. In her book, Value in the Valley, she goes into great detail about the anatomy of the valley.
Well I think what we have in this transfiguration story is the anatomy of the mountains, and the valleys. How many of you have been on the mountain? How many of you have had what we would call mountaintop experiences? The mountain is important spiritual terrain. There are those times in our lives when God comes to us in powerful, and sometimes overwhelming ways. The geography of the mountain gives us a Godview of our lives. It is out of these experiences that we often gain perspective, empowerment, healing, encouragement.
The Transfiguration story tells us what that looks like and feels like. In those mountaintop moments we literally encounter the glory of God made manifest in our lives. Sometimes we may hear a voice. I don’t know about you, but I have had transfiguration moments in my sleep. I have awakened in the middle of the night to hear God’s voice clearly in my head with a promise or a reassurance. Sometimes those transfiguration moments come when we are overwhelmed with the glory of God in nature, or a worship experience, or a verse of scripture.
The story also gives us some hints about the geography of the valley. The valleys of our lives are also places of revelation and transformation. Just like the mountain, we can experience God there in the valley. Often we experience God in our sorrow, pain, or loss—not as the source of these, but as one who is with us in the difficult times of our lives. It is in the valley that we most need to hear God’s voice: you are my Beloved in whom I am well pleased.
Mountains and Valleys. Is that all there is? We often get stuck thinking that the geography of the spiritual life is either the mountain or the valley. That if we are not on the mountaintop, then we must be in the valley. We also get stuck thinking that if we are not on the mountain all the time, then something must be wrong with us spiritually. This kind of thinking keeps us on a spiritual roller coaster. If we were to chart it, the graph would be a series ups and downs.
I believe the goal of the spiritual life is to live in the level places. It is easy to get addicted to the mountain tops. As wonderful as they are, they are not the goal of the spiritual life. The goal is to take that experience down off the mountain out into the world, out into your life! Just think what would have happened if Moses never came down off the mountain! Well we wouldn’t have the Ten Commandments. And just think if Jesus had never come down off that mountain. We wouldn’t have Easter.
The temptation is to stay on the mountain. Peter, I just love Peter, he is so transparent, and so real, and so much like us. Peter wants to set up house on that mountain. “This is great Jesus, lets set up three tents. Let’s just build a mountaintop subdivision up here!”
One spiritual pilgrim has said:
You cannot stay on the summit forever. You have to come down again. One climbs and one sees; one descends and one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an act of conducting oneself by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one no longer sees, one can at least still know.
There is an art of conducting oneself once you’re off the mountain. My tendency is to get irritable. When I come off the mountain I don’t want anybody tarnishing my glow! I get irritable with the circumstances of my life that intrude on my spiritual high!
Well you know, I’m not any better than Moses or Jesus. Moses came down off the mountain, all a glow, only to find the people dancing around a Golden Calf—now that will ruin a mood!
And Jesus. When he came off the mount of his transfiguration the crowds were waiting for him. And a man threw himself at Jesus’ feet asking for healing for his epileptic son. Jesus didn’t even have time to bask in the afterglow!
That’s the whole point of the experience! It’s not just for you. It has been entrusted to you to bring back as a gift to your family, your community, the world.
It is so easy to compartmentalize our lives, to separate the spiritual part of ourselves from the rest of our lives. When we compartmentalize like this we tend to ignore, or even hate the rest of our life. We numb out, or check out on our everyday life until the next spiritual fix or high. The geography of the level places invites us to relax those boundaries, to bring those experiences down from the mountain and integrate them into our lives.
The geography of the level places requires trust. Trust in God, trust in yourself, trust in the goodness of the world. At first that might sound like an easy thing to do, but instead of trusting, we find ourselves clutching. We are afraid we might lose some spiritual ground, or great spiritual identity if we relax our grip on it. After all this progress we’ve made is the result of a lot of hard work on our part—or is it? When we trust god with the whole of our journey we realize we can’t lose anything because we weren’t the ones that found it in the first place. God gave it. Sure we need to pray and be disciplined on our spiritual journey, in order to be open and available to God’s work in our lives. But we can’t schedule a transfiguration! All we can do is open the doors and windows of our soul to be ready for the blowing of the Holy Spirit. We can’t make the breeze come, but we trust in God that it will.
The prophet Isaiah knew about living in the level places.
“A voice cries out in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
How?
“Every valley shall be lifted up and every mountain and hill made low.
The uneven ground shall be made level and the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed an all people shall see it together.”
When we risk coming down off the mountain.
When we relax our grip on the experience.
When we integrate what we have seen and heard into our lives.
When we trust God with our journey.
GOD WILL LITERALLY CHANGE THE LANDSCAPE BEFORE OUR VERY EYES.
Happy Transfiguration.