Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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The 1996 Book of Discipline of the AME Church contained an embarrassing misprint, but one that was much commented on. In the section where it enumerated the chargeable offenses which might be brought against a minister, possibly leading to loss of ordination, one such offense appeared as "immortal conduct." The AME preachers had a heyday with that, as well they should. There is, of course, such a thing as immortal conduct, where people truly behave like children of an eternal and loving God - and Christians have, on occasion, been punished for that. And then there is ordinary, mortal conduct - the way would live if there were no god, and Christ had never come, and we expected to live and die and be no more. That's an important dividing line today: how do we conduct ourselves, and based on what? The Gospels bend in the middle. There is a sudden shift, a dividing line in each of them. Jesus is gently but firmly moving his disciples from mortal to immortal ways of thinking and living. When this moment arrives the mood darkens, and the story line changes from basically a happy story (Jesus selecting his disciples, going around healing and teaching in beautiful Galilee) to the utterly tragic account of his fateful trip to Jerusalem, of his last days -- a story of failure and betrayal and broken dreams.

The change begins with it dawning on the disciples that Jesus is apparently something other than mortal, more than simply a man, that Jesus belonged, somehow, to a divine world. First, Peter blurts it out on the road to Ceasarea Phillipi: "Thou art the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God." That was a very dangerous piece of knowledge - still is. Jesus tells him to keep it quiet.

And then there is this (which we just read), the transfiguration. Jesus takes his inner circle (Peter, James and John) up a mountain and scares the begeebers out of them. I mean, come on. Think about it. These are fishermen, unsophisticated, have probably never been more than a few miles from the place they were born. And here they are, atop a very high mountain. (It feels like you're in an airplane up there.) First, they see Jesus start to glow, and then Moses and Elijah show up and start talking with Jesus, and then, finally, (and this is what seems to have done them in) a bright, shining cloud appears in the sky and a huge voice from the cloud says, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I delight. Listen to him." At that they collapse in abject fear. Some of the old paintings show them kneeling with their hands folded in prayer. I don't think so. I see them all the way down, faces in the dirt, curled up in little fear balls, trying to get away from something which has them terrified.

Yogi Berra s said, "The future ain't what it used to be." As silly as that sounds, these disciples, could have said much same thing. (Many commentators after September 11 said, "Life in America will never be the same again," The future, truly, wasn't what it used to be.) These three disciples felt the same unsettling reality, "Life as a follower of Jesus will never be the same." Not after we've said out loud that Jesus is the Christ, not after we've been given this glorious glimpse of Jesus in his element. They come down off that mountain (It's all downhill from here.), and he tells them, again, not to speak of what they've seen. "Be still, and know that I am God." Many years later, in the opening chapter of his Gospel, John reminds his readers of that amazing day, "And we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten Son of God." And Peter in some distant day will write, in his second letter, "We have been eyewitnesses of his majesty." It was never the same after that.

But something else is going here, something which, in the long run, will be much more troubling to the disciples. So far - if this were as far as it went -- Jesus was a "superstar" to them. They were ready to induct him into the Religion Hall of Fame. Wow! Messiah! Wow, he's buddies with Moses and Elijah! Wow! God says nice things about him from a cloud. How nifty to be his friend! But Jesus puts a stop to that very quickly. He begins telling them about the cost of discipleship. "The Son of Man must suffer and die at the hands of sinful men." And they won't hear it. They're goin' to Jerusalem. Goin' to take over. Like Dorothy and the Tin Man and the Lion, they are skipping down the yellow brick road toward Oz. Oblivious. And, like Dorothy, they will be disappointed. In fact, they will be broken and remade in the next few weeks. We know the end of the story. They didn't.

Lent begins this week. It begins with ashes and ends with lilies. It begins with tears and ends with rejoicing. It begins on the road to death and ends on the road to eternal life. If we undertake Lent rightly, we will be tossed about by it. That's because we must experience the whole of Lent - its agony and its ecstasy. The life of a Christian is not a bowl of cherries. There are crosses to bear. But (beneath the suffering) Christians find a deep and saving joy. That's the tension we live with. We visit the mountain-tops from time to time, but we inhabit the valleys. The mountain tops, however, sustain us. Peter was crucified upside down - speaking of valleys. What do you think he thought about as he hung there awaiting death? Don't you think he remembered the vision of Christ he had experienced that day on the mountain? That would be something (someone) a man might be willing to die for.

I challenge you to make Lent special this year. Not by giving up something (You may do that, of course, if you wish.), but by adding something. And what you decide take on for Lent may be separate and distinct from church. That's fine, as long as it's in line with Jesus' teachings. I know a woman who took on, for Lent, getting along better with her mother-in-law…and reported good results which lasted way beyond the holy season. What can you do? There are thousands near you who are lonely. Could you help relieve the loneliness of just one person during Lent? There are children who desperately need someone to love. Could you make yourself vulnerable like that for forty days? That's the issue. In all of these things there are risks to take. We have to get out of our shells to do them. I watched those fresh-faced Olympic athletes marching into Salt Lake City's stadium Friday night, and I suddenly realized why it is that we love them so. Because, while we have been seeking safety, they have been willing to make themselves vulnerable, have taken risk after risk, have taken the chance of losing time after time, to get where they are. And now they were doing it again. Can we make ourselves vulnerable for the sake of the Gospel, can we take the risks of love?

Of course, there are also church-related things you might take on for Lent. I read about a man who only came to church on Easter. One Easter the pastor drew him aside and said, "We need you in the army of the Lord." The man said, "Why, preacher, I'm already a member of the Lord's army." "Well, then, how come I see you so seldom in church?" "I'm in the secret service," the man replied. It's hard to imagine a covert Christian. But there are lots of Christians who do seem to be serving God in secret. One way we express our love for God, publicly, is in worship. Could you make a pledge to be in church (some church, somewhere) every Sunday in Lent? You can't just drop in on Lent. It doesn't work…spiritually it doesn't work. We have a little communion service every Thursday morning. One half hour. We talk about a scripture passage, pray together, and receive the sacrament. Would that be something you would consider taking on for Lent? Could you commit to brief devotions every day - we've even published a devotional booklet to make it easy! There's a Lenten Study planned this year. Five Sunday nights. Could you do that? It's up to you. Lent can come and go willy-nilly, or you can make it a mountain-top experience. Won't you do something to make your life different in the next six weeks? Why not? What's to lose?