Baptism of the Lord

“Disciple’s Dilemma”

Exodus 24::12-18 ? Matthew 17:1-9

Let us pray. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight,

O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

Well, I knew it would happen sometime! And it has: this year, Super Bowl Sunday occurs on the very same day as the church’s Feast of the Transfiguration. Or, actually, odds are that most Americans would see it as the reverse: that the church’s Feast of the Transfiguration occurs on Super Bowl Sunday.

But, whichever event seems primary to you, there is a lot of similarity between the Transfiguration story that we just heard in our Gospel Lesson and Super Bowl Sunday. Because both of them are all about what we might call a “mountain-top experience.”

Super Bowl Sunday is certainly the mountain-top experience of the sports world – or at least it is here in America. The best illustration of that that I could imagine came across my computer screen, as I was doing some online research for today’s sermon. On a whim, I typed “Super Bowl Sunday” into my Google search bar. Now the fact that I got three hundred twenty thousand “hits” will surprise no-one, I’m sure, and really didn’t surprise me – because Super Bowl is, without doubt, the biggest event on the American scene, following Christmas itself. But what surprised even me, was that the very first web site I called up for Super Bowl Sunday had this headline: “What the world has been waiting for.”

What the world has been waiting for…. And, in many ways, I guess it is – though I suspect it’s mostly the American world that has been waiting. But all through the nation, people will be gathering around their TV sets this evening – most of us will be there too, I’m sure. In fact, if you should happen not to be a football fan and want to do some shopping, this is the day to go: because, hours before the game begins, the malls will be so empty they will echo; and you’ll finally be able to find a salesperson to wait on you.

But those who don’t take advantage of the empty malls, again, will probably be at home around the TV. And often we won’t be alone, either. Because only Thanksgiving rivals Super Bowl Sunday in our nation as a day for families and groups to gather. In fact, I suspect that many of you here in church this morning will be rushing away after church yourselves to get started making the food and getting the house ready for the guests who will start showing up in just a few hours. And, if you’re somehow still wondering what to fix, by the way, just call up the first web page under “Super Bowl Sunday,” like I did: you’ll find there not only a review of the teams, and a history of the game; but you’ll also find a list of “Super Bowl Party Ideas” plus a list of Super Bowl Recipes – things like Buffalo Chicken Wings, Sloppy Joes, Fried Chicken, Tacos, Lasagna, Beer Batter Shrimp, Sausage and Peppers, Chunky Beef Crockpot, Super Chili, and hundreds more via the links you can click on. And I know your mouth is already watering at culinary prospects like these!

For forty-two years now, Super Bowl Sunday has been getting bigger and bigger. And I suppose it’s not too far off base to believe that, somehow, this is indeed, as the web site claims, “What the world has been waiting for.” It’s America’s secular “mountain-top experience” that truly brightens up the grey winter landscape for many. It will be what everyone will be talking about tomorrow, all next week, and often for weeks beyond.

The only problem? The only problem is Monday. Someone has called the Monday after Super Bowl “Let-Down Monday.” Football is over for the year, and life at work or even at home seems for many suddenly prosaic, maybe dull and even boring. It’s truly the end of the “holiday season” that began back on Thanksgiving. And life now gets back to whatever “normal” is for each of us. The only problem with Super Bowl Sunday is Super Bowl Monday.

II.

And that brings us back to our Gospel Lesson, would you believe? – the story of the Transfiguration. Because the only problem there was Monday, also, so we might say. Actually, it was Sunday. But because the Sabbath then was on Saturday, Sunday was the first day of the work-week there and then – like Monday is for us.

Here’s what I mean…. On the Sabbath, Jesus had taken Peter, James and John with him on quite a hike. They went clear up to the top of a mountain that most commentators agree must have been nine-thousand-two-hundred-foot-high Mount Hermon, up in the far north of the Holy Land. Today, it’s the only authentic ski area in the whole of the country of Israel – an area typically called the “Golan Heights,” these days.

Well, you don’t climb nine-thousand-two-hundred feet of mountain without effort or quickly; so it must have been quite an ordeal to get there, and must have taken easily half the day. But it isn’t so much the climb or the effort that was so significant, as what happened when Jesus and his top-leadership-circle of Peter, James and John got there to the top of the year-round snow-covered peak.

Now, heaven only knows what Peter, James and John expected to happen on the top of the mountain. But, odds are, whatever they expected was not what happened. Rather, they had scarcely planted their feet on the summit when Jesus himself seemed to start glowing like the sun. Next thing you know, Moses and Elijah appeared and stood next to Jesus. And, as if that were not enough, a glowing cloud floated over, and a voice from out of the cloud boomed out, “This is my Son, the beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” In response, the three disciples fell to the ground and were filled with fear. And why not? What would you do in a situation like that?

What had happened? What had happened was that Jesus had been revealed for who he was. If the disciples had had any doubts before – and surely they had – this experience was meant to dispell them. For Jesus had been “transfigured” before their eyes; he had been utterly changed, I mean. A moment before, he might have seemed merely a great teacher, an outstanding leader, a miracle-worker perhaps – but, still, one who might have been only human. But suddenly, they came to see and know him for who he ultimately was – the very Son of God: divinity itself standing and literally shining brightly before them.

Do I need to say that this was a life-changing experience for those disciples? Indeed, this experience is what gave rise to the English term, “mountain-top experience.” It changed everything. So much so that they didn’t want to come down. In fact, Peter impulsively offered to build three “dwellings” there – three “shrines,” he probably meant: three places where they could continue the “spiritual high” they had experienced, and either never leave it behind or come back regularly to reclaim it for their lives.

But that was not to be. And here’s where the Super Bowl comes back in: just like the Super Bowl comes to an end and things then reluctantly go back to normal, this mountain-top experience of the disciples did the same. And next thing you know, Jesus is leading them back down the mountain, at the end of the Sabbath. The glory is now just a memory – though a very important memory; and the next day it’s back to work as usual – down at the foot of the mountain, away from the glory, among the suffering people who flocked to them and Jesus, desperately seeking to be cured of their diseases.

And just to show how real reality can be, we read (in a section we didn’t have time to read today) that the disciples tried to do a healing themselves – as Jesus presumably had taught and graced them to do. But it didn’t work; and they had to take the unhealed epileptic boy to Jesus to do what they had been frustrated in doing. Truly the time of glory had passed. Super Bowl Sunday was over, so to speak; and the next day was back to the frustration of life, as you and I and every other human know it.

We don’t read that the disciples ever went back up the mountain, or that they ever had such an experience again. But don’t you know they wanted to? Don’t you know they wanted so desperately for their own Super Bowl Sunday, their mountain-top experience, to last forever?

III.

Don’t you know that we want it too? We went to a Billy Graham rally, years ago, our life was changed; and we want that experience again – we want it to continue. We had a really great youth director who took us on a retreat one weekend, life has never been the same, and we want to prolong that experience. We were so uplifted in church last Sunday, we just knew the week ahead would be bright and different; but it wasn’t – and we find ourselves praying, “Why, Lord, why?” We spent a little time reading the Bible and maybe The Upper Room too one evening, we were filled with the presence of Christ like we had never before known; but we can’t seem to get that experience back again, no matter how much we try.

That is what I’m calling this morning “The Disciple’s Dilemma.” It’s the dilemma of trying our best to stay spiritually-minded and spiritually-occupied; but being called at the same time to live in and deal with the often-disappointing reality of life. It’s the dilemma of loving worship and devotion; but also having to deal with raising money for a church budget and actually doing something to bring in new members. It’s the dilemma, as the old religious cliché has it of holding the Bible in one hand, but knowing you can’t read it accurately without also reading The New York Times that you hold in the other hand.

But the story of the Transfiguration wants us to know this, if it wants us to know anything at all: that what comes up, must also come down. I mean, if God leads us up the mountain one day, odds are God will also lead us down the mountain the next day.

Why? Well, American Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes had it right when he referred one day to “Some people [who] are so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good.” And Holmes had it “right,” too; because Christianity is not and never has been simply a religion, but Christianity is also a way of life. And Christian disciples are not people who do only religious things; but Christian people are people who also do very worldly things.

Scouts, let me put it this way for you. In Scouting there is a program that leads toward what is called the “God and Country Award.” Has anyone here ever heard of the God and Country award? If you haven’t, I hope you will hear about it soon. But it’s not just the “God award;” and it’s also not just the “Country award.” Scouting wants you to serve both God and country. That’s why the award is called the “God and Country Award.”

Do you remember the Scout Law? The second statement of the Scout Law says “A Scout is loyal.” And it means loyal to our nation, among other things. But do you know the twelfth statement? It says, “A Scout is reverent.” It means that a Scout also is religious and honors God.

So it’s not just one or the other; it’s both: A Scout is loyal and a Scout is reverent. A Scout honors God and a Scout also honors his country.

But it’s not just Scouts who are called to do that. Every Christian is called to live that way too.

IV.

Sometimes, though, we are reluctant. Sometimes the temptation of a disciple is to want to spend all our life in the religious world, because of some mountain-top experience that has made all the difference in who we are. And, of course, Christ wants to take us there – that’s why he created the Church, and why we are called to worship here not just once in a while, but every Sunday. Christ wants us to know the joy of the mountain-top in that and so many other ways.

But Christ also wants us to follow him back down to the needy crowds on life’s plain. He wants us to follow him down and bring the glory of the mountain-top into the real lives of people. It’s why a church like this one has not only Sunday morning worship, but also cooperates with other Christians in serving the needy via a Soup Kitchen and BACM, and serves children struggling academically in our tutoring center. It’s all a matter of the old cliché being right – that we dare not hold only the Bible in our hands, but also need to hold The New York Times, and read them both together.

Because…the answer to the disciple’s dilemma is not to choose the mountain-top or the plain. But the only valid answer to the disciple’s dilemma is to have a place for both in our life, and to let the one inform the other.

For the true Transfiguration occurs when the disciple comes, perhaps reluctantly, down the mountain and back into ordinary life; and one day, so unexpectedly, finds Christ shining forth there, here, just like he shone for the three disciples, or you or me, on the mountain top of experience.

In the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.