Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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Bishop Fulton J. Sheen was famous for telling  stories on himself.  My favorite is the one he told about having a speaking engagement in Philadelphia, at Town Hall, and leaving his hotel, on foot, confident that he knew the way, but soon getting hopelessly lost.  He approached some young boys on the street and asked them how to get to Town Hall.  "Why you going there," asked one?  "I'm giving a lecture."  "About what?"  "About How to Get to Heaven.  Would you like to come along?"  "Are you kidding," said the boy.  "You don't even know how to get to Town Hall."
 Now and then we get put in our place, and usually it's good for us.  Just when we're full of confidence, just when we think we know everything (even to how to get to heaven -- which is the one thing we need to know, more than any other) -- just when we are full of ourselves, we discover that we don't even know the way to Town Hall, that we are hopelessly lost and stumbling around in this world.  Moments of truth like that are painful, but they make us grow.  It can happen when we lose a job, or when we fail in a relationship, or lose someone in death.  It can happen (this shattering of our self-confidence, this being-put-in-our-place) -- can happen when someone says something hurtful, and we know deep inside that it's true.  Sometimes it comes with an illness or a disability, showing us beyond doubt that we can't go on in our own strength.   It happened to Peter in the crowing of a cock, when he suddenly realized what a fraud he was.  And he broke down and wept, and started preparing to be head of the church.  It happens to me when I read the New Testament and allow myself to hear what Jesus is really saying, and see how far short I have fallen.
 Here, in Mark's Gospel, he leads three of his disciples up a mountain and is transfigured before them.  Peterson catches the profound meaning of the word, "transfigured,"  rendering the passage this way: "His appearance changed from the inside out, right before their eyes.  His clothes shimmered, glistening white…"   Surely it was an unforgettable experience.  They would not forget it in the days just ahead, as they went through Holy Week (all their dreams crashing around them).  They would not forget the mountaintop during those horrible three days when they thought he was dead, nor later when they were called upon to suffer for their faith.  Years afterward John begins to write his Gospel, and can't wait to say, "And we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten Son of God."  You could never forget something like that.  Whatever else this was, it was proof positive that Jesus was God, that he was a more important figure even than Moses and Elijah.  But what happened next, after the miracle, was even more important.

 He starts down the mountain with the three, swearing them to secrecy until after he has risen from the dead.  (That puzzles them, of course.)  They have just seen the prophet Elijah, remember, and they know well the old Jewish tradition that Elijah has to return  before Messiah comes.  So here it is, plane as the nose on your face.  Elijah has now returned, we saw him.  Jesus must be the Messiah.  And Jesus seems to agree, but then he says, "They treated … Elijah like dirt, much like they will treat the Son of Man, who will, according to scripture, suffer terribly and be kicked around contemptibly."  The disciples had seen one kind of glory on the mountain; now he would show them another kind of glory, even more profound: the glory that comes in suffering and service.  No, Peter, we appreciate the thought, but we won't be erecting any monuments -- that's the world's idea of success.  You will see my kind of success when you see me on the cross.  I will die and be buried in the hearts of men and women -- that's where my monument will be.  "…that kings, for such a tomb, would wish to die."

 We are programmed for success.  We are programmed to get, not to give.  We are programmed to ignore the poor, the weak, those who can't help us, and to flatter those who can.  We are programmed to seek revenge, to remember slights, to hold grudges.  We are programmed to want much for ourselves and to envy those who have more than we.  All that goes together to make up what the world calls "success."  And we are wired for it.  And Jesus says it's just the opposite.  He calls us to be downwardly mobile.  We have to sit at the foot of the table, give away what we have, forgive those who harm us, and pray for those who abuse us.  I like the picture drawn by one preacher when he said that "Jesus was parachuted into the war zone of this world."  How strange he was in this place, as if he had fallen from the sky.  I think he landed here and found everyone facing one way, and said,  "Turn around."  (Another word for that is "repent.")  Turn around.  Look the other way."  Do the opposite of what you are wired to do. That is where true glory is: in suffering and service.  How foreign, how odd that sounds!  But it is the message that comes down to us from Jesus himself and every one of his saints:  "…it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life."

 We were too hasty in removing crucifixes from our churches.  I know the reasons that are usually given, but they are wrong -- wrong because they are based on the notion that Christ on the cross is a weak and defeated figure.  Our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters see something else in a crucifix: they see God in all his glory, never more wonderful, never more glorious, not even in his transfiguration.  For his glory, and our glory, is in suffering and service.  If that weren't so, the story of Jesus would have ended with the transfiguration: that's how Hollywood would have ended it.  What a wonderful climax it would make for a movie.  Can't you see the last scene? Christ standing there in splendor, atop a mountain, with Moses and Elijah at his side, and God certifying (from a cloud -- with the voice of James Earl Jones) that Jesus was, indeed, his Beloved Son.  But miracles and heavenly visions do not create faith.  If the story had ended there, we would never have known it.  The real story goes on.  Jesus leaves the Mount of Transfiguration and very shortly is in Jerusalem -- the end is near.  He takes them into an upper room, and serves them this meal -- turning the bread (his broken body) and the wine (his spilled blood) into something wonderful, supremely glorious and much to our benefit.  No longer a defeat, his suffering and death would become evidence of God's love and grace.  And we, who cannot find our way to Town Hall when it comes to this radical new way of living,  -- we repeat the meal remembering him, and remembering also that this world's success is not our success.  This is truly a mysterious thing we do. And it renews us.

My eyes are dry, my prayers are cold.
My heart is hard, my faith is old. And I know how I ought to be,
Alive to you, and dead to me.

What can be done with a hard heart like mine?
Soften it up with oil and wine.

The oil is you, your Spirit of love.
Now wash me anew, in the wine of your blood.

    --- Keith Green