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| Looking out from Chanting Steep at Sewanee |
©2024 The Rev. Seth Olson
Holy God, let my words be your words and when my words are not your words, let your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.
It doesn’t happen often—an encounter with the transcendent wrapped in the mundane. A moment when despite all odds we see clearly what is not there otherwise to view. Frederick Buechner, the late great churchman and one of my favorite preachers, in his work Whistling in the Dark, described these beautiful interjections of God entering the humdrum with the following words:
The face of a man walking with his child in the park, of a woman baking bread, of sometimes even the unlikeliest person listening to a concert…[or one] standing barefoot in the sand watching the waves roll in, or just having a beer at a Saturday baseball game in July. Every once and so often, something so touching, so incandescent, so alive transfigures the human face that it's almost beyond bearing.
Today, we face one such moment as we walk with Peter, James, and John, following Jesus up a high mountain. We have skipped over seven chapters since last Sunday—a product of the peculiarities of the Church year—and in the process, we have missed much. God has been on the move in Jesus’ healing, teaching, preaching, and being with the poor, the sick, and the marginalized. As his path wove ever-nearer to Jerusalem, to his last week, to the Cross, Jesus invited his inner circle of disciples to a mountaintop respite. There something happened that these disciples could only talk about with one another in hushed tones—at least until the Day of Resurrection.
On top of this high mountain, Jesus was transfigured. A rarely utilized word in modern speech, it indicates to us that his appearance became more beautiful, radiant, and luminous. Even Jesus’ clothes changed such that they were dazzlingly white. Just for good measure, Mark shared that even if launders had tried, they would not have been able to make his garments this white with all the bleach in the world.
Mysteriously, Jesus was joined in converse high by paramount figures of the Hebrew Faith—Moses and Elijah. Moses was the founder of the Law and Elijah the chief prophet. How the disciples knew who these persons were remains baffling! Of course, the entire encounter defies the grasp of what is logical or reasonable. In this overwhelming state, Peter grasped at straws.
The disciple approached Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Mark adds that he knew not what he was saying. Of course, he did not—he was witnessing his teacher glowing with the two most important figures of the Jewish Faith right beside him. Peter then did the most human of things—he tried to hang onto this sacred moment. He wanted to capture the Holy, to teether the Divine to the mountaintop, to box up God.
All of a sudden though, a cloud descended—the mysterious presence of God, the Father enveloped the whole scene. How marvelously terrifying would it have been to be standing in the disciples’ sandals! In the shadow of the Divine presence God’s voice shared the Truth: “This is my son, the beloved; listen to him!”—a mountaintop revelation we continue to unpack.
Then, as suddenly as the figures and the cloud had appeared they vanished. Peter, James, and John were left alone with Jesus. They were left also with the weighty truth of their rabbi’s true identity. He was not just a teacher—he was the Son of God, the Beloved One, the One to listen to and to hear. On top of holding this good and overwhelming news, Jesus gave them the instruction to tell no one, at least until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. Imagine the scene when Peter, James, and John next sat to eat with the other disciples.
“What was it like up on the mountain with Jesus?” asks Andrew. Peter, “Uhhh…”
James, “It was nice.” John, “Yeah, we just chatted with Jesus and looked at the view. Prayed a little bit.”
As funny as this might have been, the Transfiguration, even though we hear it every year on the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, the last Sunday before we begin the Season of Lent, even though we hear this every year, the impact of this story on our lives is often cloudier than the mountaintop. Buechner rightly pointed out that these encounters with the Divine, when God enters our common, human lives are at most once-in-a-lifetime. Still, there are times when we surprisingly catch a glimpse of the ethereal shining brightly through the everyday, like the brilliant spring sunlight illuminating shards of stained-glass. I wonder, have you ever had such a once-in-a-lifetime moment?
God once gave me such a gift. When renewing my Baptismal Vows at the Easter Vigil in 2008 I encountered a Great Mystery. After the Rt. Rev. Duncan Gray Jr., late Bishop of Mississippi and Civil Rights leader, had led me through the renewal of my vows, I was given the opportunity to bear chalice. I was a 23 year-old working in All Saints Chapel where the service was taking place. As I picked up the Schwartz Chalice a fishbowl sized communion cup something happened. The first person kneeling to receive the Blood of Christ, the Cup of Salvation was my childhood priest, the Rev. Francis Xavier Walter. Fr. Francis in his early years of ordained ministry picked up the holy work of Jonathan Daniels that cost him his life. Something holy radiated from Fr. Francis’ face that holy night.
After giving him the chalice, I started to move onto the next communicant, Francis’ wife, Faye. Something stopped me though, as I looked into the reflection of the silver cup. It was a momentary glimpse into the Divine Cloud. Sewanee is known for its fog, but this was a surreal glance, which revealed to me the Great Cloud of Witnesses. It was as though those who were, are, and will be God’s People had converged there to share in Holy Communion. And, just like that, the vision was gone. I faltered for a moment, then got on with communing the full congregation, afraid to share what I had seen for several months.
I know this may sound like the wanderings of an unhinged priest succumbing to the fullness of life as a new rector; however, I know what I saw. I know the truth that has been revealed. Jesus is God’s beloved, and we have the opportunity to dwell in this reality, like we are watching the fog roll in on a misty Sewanee morning.
And yet, these moments of holding the Divine are fleeting, like the joy of holding a baby for the first time, the sting of holding a beloved’s hand as they enter the nearness of God, or a million other incandescent moments in life that we briefly hold as they dissolve before our very eyes. The human instinct is to build containers in these moments—to do something to capture the Divine, like Peter wanted. As we come down from this luminous mountaintop to walk the path of Lent, the road towards Jerusalem, the Way of the Cross, I invite you to embrace every mundane moment with open hands, which allow you to receive what God gives you and to give it away. For as terrifying as this sounds, we will only see the transfigured one, we will only hear God speaking to us, we will only experience the belovedness of the God who made us and makes us one, if we show up, if we watch, and if we listen.
God’s here and now. Do you hear the Divine voice? “You are my beloved.” Amen.
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