Down that Mountain
February 18, 2007
St Luke 9:28-43

I was in the bookstore the other night and I found three books of folk stories.  One was from Ireland, the other was from Africa, and the third was from Mexico.  If you’re ever in a bookstore and you are looking for something good to read, pick up some short stories.  There is always a volume that is put out every year with the previous year’s best short stories.  Some of them are truly amazing.

The first short story I ever heard, in fact, it may be the first story I can remember hearing was sitting on my grandfather’s knee.  I only knew one grandfather.  My mother’s father left them when she was just a tiny girl and my father’s father died when I was 8.  But I do remember sitting on his knee in that squeaky recliner with the leather peeling off the armrests as he told me about Brer Rabbit.  I had no idea who Uncle Remus was and I had no idea who Joel Chandler Harris, the author of the Uncle Remus stories, was.  All I knew was that my grandfather could tell me about that Tar Baby every time I saw him and I would never get tired of it.

“Tell me again.”  I would say.  And he would take a deep breath and start talking about Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox, the Tar Baby, and the briar patch.  I see the same thing with Abby, but instead of wanting to hear about Brer Rabbit, she wants to watch Chevy Chase in Christmas Vacation over and over again.

I think at some point when we turn 11 we grow tired of repetition.  If we hear a story that we’ve heard before, we’ll speak up and say, “I’ve heard that one before.”  At some point when we start telling a story, we’ll say to folks, “Now, if you’ve heard this one before, stop me.”  We like to move on to the next story, to the next image, to the next sound. 

Maybe that’s why Bible stories are so fascinating to children.  Whenever my schedule permits, I go over to the Wimberly House on Wednesday afternoons and tell Bible stories.  It’s nothing deep or terribly theological, just learning the stories in Genesis and Jonah and Exodus and Luke and John and so on.  And for the most part, they sit on the edge of their seats and hang on every word of the story.  Last Wednesday they wanted to hear about Jonah.  “He was swallowed by what?”  You know one or two of those children rode home in silence just thinking about Jonah sitting in the belly of a whale.  “What would I do if that happened to me?” they might think.  And you can just see the fullness of the story working within them. 

But when they get to be our age…they’ll hear the stories in the Bible and say, “Yeah, I’ve heard that one.”  Maybe that’s why adults don’t like to read the bible much anymore.  There is no sequel, there is no prequel.  It’s all here.  66 books and the last edition was printed a long time ago. 

I wonder what folks think of when they hear our gospel reading today.  Jesus took his inner-circle of disciples up on a mountain to pray.  And while Jesus was praying, he changed.  His face changed.  His clothes changed.  And the two greatest figures Judaism, the great lawgiver Moses and the prophet Elijah flanked Jesus on both sides and the voice of God the Father boomed from the heavens.

Now if we tell that story to a bunch of children, their faces will turn white.  “His face, changed?  His clothes did, what?”  “Who is Moses and Elijah?”  “How did they appear with Jesus if they were dead?”  “What did the voice of God the Father sound like?  Did it shake the trees on the mountains?  Could everybody hear it?" 

But maybe after you’ve heard the story so many times, we know the story is incredible but the freshness, the reality of what happened kinda of rolls off our imagination.  And when our imagination is taken out of the equation, the power of the story is harder to grasp. 

Imagine being the fourth disciple in Jesus’ inner-circle.  Say it was Peter, James, John, and Larry.  You are an ordinary middle-class Palestinian who was mystically attracted by a young teacher from Nazareth. You can’t really explain why you have dropped everything to follow him, but there is something about him and what he is saying that just moves you do follow him, just to see what he is going to do next.

And over the course of a few months, you saw him, you actually saw him do things that you didn’t think were humanly possible.  He actually drove the demons out of people.  He cured diseases without any medicine.  He cured the lame and leprosy.  He took a few loaves of bread and fish and somehow made those feed 5 thousand.  And that was just the men!  And perhaps the most amazing of all, one day according to St Luke, Jesus was in a town called Nain and they ran into a funeral possession.

Now we are respectful at funeral possessions.  In the south we sometimes pull off on the side of the road and if it’s not too cold, we’ll stand by our cars out of respect for the deceased.  So Jesus and his disciples stood respectfully as the procession passed by.  The deceased was the only son of a crying woman.  When Jesus saw her he told her not to cry.  And then he went over to the dead man and said, “Young man, I say to you, rise.”  And he did! 

And after all of this, Jesus took Peter, James, John, us as Larry up on a mountain to pray.  And as Jesus was praying, his face was like the sun.  His clothes were whiter than any bleach could ever make.  And Moses and Elijah were standing right beside him 

Now, to be honest, if I saw a person drive out a demon, I could rationalize that and say the person was mentally ill and just responded to the power of suggestion.  We see this all the time with tv preachers casting out demons on old ladies.  The Church believes in demonic possession, but it’s more complex than that 

If I saw a person cured without any medical treatment, I could rationalize that and chalk it up to yet another instance where our bodies do miraculous things to keep us alive.  I would thank white blood cells and antibodies, and all that stuff I learn about by watching Dr. House on tv. 

If I saw a person who was lame or had leprosy, suddenly walk or have clean arms, I could be skeptical and say they were faking the disability or they didn’t really have leprosy in the first place 

And if I saw a person feed thousands with enough food for only a handful, I could rationalize and say that all the people felt guilty and took pieces of bread from their knapsacks and fish from their catches and shared them with the masses.

And even if I saw a person’s face and clothes changed to dizzying white, and two people who have been dead for centuries appear and start talking, and then the voice from God the Father starts booming all around me, I could say I am just seeing and hearing things.  But if you saw it, and you saw it, and you saw it, too, I think I’d have to find a change of pants 

Think of the most mystical, spiritual, loving experience you’ve ever had in your entire life and multiply that by infinity.  That’s what Peter, James, and John felt.  They were in the presence of Almighty God with a glimpse of the heavenly host.  They were looking at God, and perhaps for the very first time, they realized that Jesus was God 

I wouldn’t want to leave!  Who would want to leave the presence of God?  Who would want to leave the presence of Heaven?  And Peter tried to convince Jesus to let them build houses and stay there.  I think that was a good idea.  Let’s make this permanent.  Let’s never leave. 

But St Luke picks on Peter and says that he didn’t know what he was saying.  Why did he say that?  Why couldn’t they stay?  Why could they bask in the presence of God and the heavenly host forever?  Isn’t that what God wants us to do?

But they had to go down that mountain.  Because down that mountain was a great crowd.  And in that great crowd were people possessed by demons and hurting from sadness and suffering from diseases and hungry for answers.  Down the mountain. 

The presence of God may be felt high on that mountain and our mountains may be any number of places and it is good to be on that mountain.  But we can’t stay.  Because down the mountain is the pain and hardship and dullness of everyday life.  Down that mountain are war and famine and hate. 

We can’t stay on that mountain.  We have to go down.  Because if we don’t go down, what about the people in the great crowds?  Who’s going to comfort them?  Who’s going to heal them?  Who’s going to feed them?  And you know what?  We may be the very ones who are waiting down at the bottom of the mountain.  In fact, more times than not, I’ll say we are. 

Because at the bottom of the mountain is where life is.  It’s where the daily grind is.  It’s where family problems and work issues and money difficulties are. It’s where we have doubts and fears and it’s where we become angry and anxious and sad and arrogant.  It’s where the Kingdom of God is. 

Because how much hope would our faith give us if we can only experience the transfigured Christ on a high mountain?  The good news of this story, dear children, is not that Christ shone brightly and brilliantly and heavenly for Peter, James and John on that mountain.  It’s not that he talked to Moses and Elijah and that the voice of God the Father shook the earth as it boomed down.  The good news of this story is that Christ came down from the mountain.  The good news is that Christ came to the crowd.  The good news is that Christ came to us.

That’s hope!

The next day, Jesus, James, John, and Peter walked down from the mountain and the crowd met them.  A man brought forth his child possessed by a demon.  Jesus healed the boy.  Don’t you know that we are the father of that child?  Don’t you know that we are the boy possessed?  Don’t you know that we are in the crowd?

And don’t you know that Christ is among us!

Now isn’t that a story you want to hear over and over again?

Amen.