RCL
Last Sunday after Epiphany
15
February 2015
Saint
Faith’s Anglican Church
Vancouver
BC
Focus
text: Mark 9.2-9
Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 a.m. Eucharist on the 15th.
Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 a.m. Eucharist on the 15th.
Of
all the things I lost when I left Colorado to pursue the dream of a doctorate
and a teaching career, I miss the clear mountain air. Above the tree line the air grows thinner and
your lungs struggle to breathe in what oxygen is on offer. But what you receive in return for the
struggle is the air that filled the lungs of our earliest ancestors. Crisp.
Carrying the aromas of the trees below.
Air worth the struggle. Air that
says, ‘This is life.’
There
is more than just the breathing. There
is the seeing. The light is
brighter. Objects in the distance seem
clearer. Everything is in sharper
focus. Even in a cloudless sky you see the
wind as well as feel it on your face.
God
called me away from that air above the tree line. But I have been shaped by that air; I have
been changed by it. From time to time I
will catch a whiff of that air and I long to make my way up the slope of the
mountain and leave everything else behind and below.
They
climbed the mountain with their teacher.
They were not mountain people but lake-dwellers. Their world was defined by water and its
depths not by thin air and heights. But
Moses had climbed the heights to see God and receive the tablets of the Law
while the rest of the people remained below.
Elijah had challenged the priests of Baal on heights such as these and
defeated them while the people watched to see what the outcome would be. Perhaps these fishermen thoughts, as they
were climbing, that it would have been better to wait below and find out later
what happened on the heights.
But
Jesus had asked Peter, James and John to climb and so they did. I wonder if they pondered how the air changed
as they went higher. No doubt years of
fishing had given them strength, but their lungs were certainly aching as they
approached the summit.
And
then the clarity they found when they reached the summit --- at least until the
cloud came. Even before Jesus was
transfigured before their eyes, did Peter, James and John see the land lying
below them in a new and clearer light?
Was there an ‘aha!’ moment when so much of their lives, before and after
Jesus, were put in perspective? I
wonder.
I
understand full well Peter’s desire to leave some marker to show others that
this was a place of revelation, of insight and, it must be said, of
danger. As they made their way down the
mountain and followed Jesus on his way towards Jerusalem, did they ever catch a
whiff of mountain air and say to themselves, ‘Oh, to be back on those heights
again rather than on this dusty road’?
But
their loss led to a greater gain. What
they left on the mountain was more than compensated for in the glory of the
resurrection and the wind of Pentecost.
As
we gather here today to celebrate the eucharist and then participate in our
annual vestry, we may catch a whiff of the mountain air of our past. We remember old friends who are no longer
with us and we miss them. We may wonder
why many of neighbours fill our parking lot on the weekdays and avoid our pews
on Sundays and festivals. The voices of
children fill the hall during the week but are very quiet today. We can be excused for any desire to find a
way to retrace our steps to the mountain top that was.
But
what I think Jesus saw on the mountain top was the dusty road towards Jerusalem
and the way of cross. After all, when
Moses came down from the mountain with the tablets of the Law, there was still
many years left on the journey from oppression in Egypt to freedom in Canaan,
hard years, thirsty years. When Elijah
came down from the mountain after the defeat of the priests of Baal, he still
faced the hostility of the political and religious establishment of his
day. Mountain tops are wonderful places
to survey the way towards God’s future, but they are not meant to be dwelling
places. One loses the excitement of the
summit to gain the experience of the pilgrim’s road.
And
this is where we are today. We are on
the pilgrim’s road towards God’s future.
It’s a dusty road and there are times when we find ourselves hungry and
thirsty for the food and drink of clarity, clarity that shows us what we should
be doing and how we should be doing it.
But on this road we find companions who share the joys and the
sorrows. We even find sources of
refreshment and renewal on this road, even a mountain top or two from which we
can catch of glimpse of where we are going.
I
take strength in the fact that Jesus chose to come down from the mountain and
to walk the pilgrim’s road. After all,
it is below the mountain heights that most of the people are waiting. They wait to hear from us what we have seen
of the road ahead of us. The road to
Jerusalem, after all, does not stop at the cross; it continues on to the
resurrection, to the gift of the Spirit and the promise of God’s coming reign
of justice and peace. It is a road that
all are invited to walk in order to discover their true selves and their place
in God’s loving purposes for the whole of creation. Mountain tops are great places to see that
road, but one must come down to walk it and find life. Amen.
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