Seeing Things

Fourth Sunday in Lent – Year A

March 30, 2014

John 9:1-41 (The Message)

Walking down the street, Jesus saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked, "Rabbi, who sinned: this man or his parents, causing him to be born blind?" Jesus said, "You're asking the wrong question. You're looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do. We need to be energetically at work for the One who sent me here, working while the sun shines. When night falls, the workday is over. For as long as I am in the world, there is plenty of light. I am the world's Light." He said this and then spit in the dust, made a clay paste with the saliva, rubbed the paste on the blind man's eyes, and said, "Go, wash at the Pool of Siloam" (Siloam means "Sent"). The man went and washed - and saw. Soon the town was buzzing. His relatives and those who year after year had seen him as a blind man begging were saying, "Why, isn't this the man we knew, who sat here and begged?" Others said, "It's him all right!" But others objected, "It's not the same man at all. It just looks like him." He said, "It's me, the very one." They said, "How did your eyes get opened?" "A man named Jesus made a paste and rubbed it on my eyes and told me, 'Go to Siloam and wash.' I did what he said. When I washed, I saw." "So where is he?" "I don't know."

They marched the man to the Pharisees. This day when Jesus made the paste and healed his blindness was the Sabbath. The Pharisees grilled him again on how he had come to see. He said, "He put a clay paste on my eyes, and I washed, and now I see." Some of the Pharisees said, "Obviously, this man can't be from God. He doesn't keep the Sabbath." Others countered, "How can a bad man do miraculous, God-revealing things like this?" There was a split in their ranks. They came back at the blind man, "You're the expert. He opened your eyes. What do you say about him?" He said, "He is a prophet."

The Jews didn't believe it, didn't believe the man was blind to begin with. So they called the parents of the man now bright-eyed with sight. They asked them, "Is this your son, the one you say was born blind? So how is it that he now sees?" His parents said, "We know he is our son, and we know he was born blind. But we don't know how he came to see - haven't a clue about who opened his eyes. Why don't you ask him? He's a grown man and can speak for himself." (His parents were talking like this because they were intimidated by the Jewish leaders, who had already decided that anyone who took a stand that this was the Messiah would be kicked out of the meeting place. That's why his parents said, "Ask him. He's a grown man.")

They called the man back a second time - the man who had been blind - and told him, "Give credit to God. We know this man is an impostor." He replied, "I know nothing about that one way or the other. But I know one thing for sure: I was blind . . . I now see." They said, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?" "I've told you over and over and you haven't listened. Why do you want to hear it again? Are you so eager to become his disciples?" With that they jumped all over him. "You might be a disciple of that man, but we're disciples of Moses. We know for sure that God spoke to Moses, but we have no idea where this man even comes from." The man replied, "This is amazing! You claim to know nothing about him, but the fact is, he opened my eyes! It's well known that God isn't at the beck and call of sinners, but listens carefully to anyone who lives in reverence and does his will. That someone opened the eyes of a man born blind has never been heard of – ever. If this man didn't come from God, he wouldn't be able to do anything." They said, "You're nothing but dirt! How dare you take that tone with us!" Then they threw him out in the street.

Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and went and found him. He asked him, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" The man said, "Point him out to me, sir, so that I can believe in him." Jesus said, "You're looking right at him. Don't you recognize my voice?" "Master, I believe," the man said, and worshiped him. Jesus then said, "I came into the world to bring everything into the clear light of day, making all the distinctions clear, so that those who have never seen will see, and those who have made a great pretense of seeing will be exposed as blind." Some Pharisees overheard him and said, "Does that mean you're calling us blind?" Jesus said, "If you were really blind, you would be blameless, but since you claim to see everything so well, you're accountable for every fault and failure."

One of the things I've always enjoyed is optical illusions. I find it fascinating how the ways in which our eyes and brain function together, the ways in which we interpret the things we see can be influenced in such a way that we can see things that aren't there, not see things that are there, and see multiple things within a single image. Our eyes are without question one of the most amazing things that God has made about our bodies. Even if we are color-blind we can see a huge amount of variation in hues of colors, seeing literally thousands of different colors. We can tell the difference between different shades of the same color. Our eyes are so adaptive we can see in bright sunlight, and in almost complete darkness. Scientists are amazed with how our eyes and brain are able to take what we see and tell us so much – how fast something is moving, how far away it is from us. Without that amazing ability of our eyes playing catch would be impossible.

Yet, as amazing as our eyes are there are times when I feel like I'm blind. I wander around the house looking for something when it's right there on the table in front of me. I can't see the pain or discomfort in those around me. I fail to notice that a friend has changed their hair style, that they painted a room in their house. I don't know how many times I've spent hours looking for something I thought was hidden that was sitting out in the open. As amazing as our eyes are, we sometimes simply can't see.

Our text from John this morning is all about how sometimes we can be blind to things that are right in front of us. One of the primary themes in John's gospel is light and darkness. We normally think of this in terms of those that have seen the truth, having been enlightened, and those that are still blind to the truth of God being in the darkness. Jesus is the light of the world, and those who do not see that continue to live in darkness. The faithful people are in the light, while others are not. Yet, in our text we discover that it is the religious, faithful folk that are described as being blind, as not being able to see the light, not able to see what is right in front of their faces. And it is literally someone who is blind, who was viewed as cursed by God, seen as excluded from faith that sees.

Jesus encounters a man who was born blind, a person who has depended on others his entire life. There were no social agencies in Palestine to help those who were blind, or deaf, or physically less able than others. People were forced to beg in order to survive, and life was rarely much more than survival. This was not a life that was blessed, it was a life viewed by many as cursed.

There was a common belief that anyone who suffered some sort of tragedy did so because of some failing on their part – do good be blessed, do bad be cursed. If someone was born with a condition such as blindness, or deafness, or a physical deformity, they were paying the price for the wrong doing of someone in their family. Jesus' own disciples seem to think this way as they ask Jesus, “who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2) Jesus however doesn't believe this. In fact he rejects it completely. Life is not about some big cosmic Karmic scale where our good is rewarded and our failings are punished by blessings and curses. Funny how that's something we still hear in many churches today Jesus though, he says that tragedy and misfortune in the world around us are not to be seen as curses lived out on others, but as opportunities to live out our faith in the works of God, opportunities for kindness and mercy, generosity and compassion.

This false belief about being cursed by being born blind isn't the only thing that the religious authorities seem blinded by; they also are more than a little upset that Jesus chose to bring sight to the man on the Sabbath. Jesus, by bringing healing and wholeness to a man born blind on the Sabbath day has obviously done work, and work was not allowed on the Sabbath, and since he had broken the Sabbath laws, Jesus himself must be a sinner himself – no better than the man born blind. For the religious authorities, a life lived out properly in faith was one lived according to a long list of very specific rules and expectations, to not follow any of these rules was to put yourself outside of God's blessings and thus a sinner. Jesus hadn't followed their rules down to the letter, he hadn't kept the Sabbath suitably holy, he therefore must be a sinner.

Here we find the man who was born blind seeing more clearly than those who believed they could see. The religious authorities come to the man who had been blind, asking, pressing, demanding for some way in which they could show that Jesus had not healed him, that he had not been made to see. If Jesus had done this, what would it mean? Finally in exasperation they cry, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner!” As a sinner, Jesus could not have done what he did. Then this man, this man who had been born blind, this man who likely lived on the streets, this man who had likely never been in a school or synagogue, this man who had been shoved aside again and again by those around him, shows he can see more clearly than they, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I do not know. But, I do know that now I can see!”

When bad things happen to us, when misfortune enters into our lives it's easy to lose heart, to get down, to say to ourselves, “What did I do to deserve this?” The reality is that life is often full of misfortune and pain, that life is not always wonderful. Being a person of faith, believing in the words and actions of Jesus is not some magic formula that frees us from bad things happening to us. The reality is, as Jesus reminds us in another passage, “God causes the rain to fall on both the just and the unjust.” (Matthew 5:45) The promise of God is not that we will have lives without difficulty, but that in the difficulty we will not be alone. Faith is knowing that we will never be abandoned by God.

But that doesn't seem like it's enough for some people. There are lots of ways we try and make ourselves feel better, especially as people of faith. We look to ourselves, and others, we pass judgment., we declare other people as sinners while we sit on our holy mountain confident that we are in the right. We are God's children after all. We know what is right and what is wrong, we have the Bible, we have our teachings, we know. How often have we heard, or perhaps even said words similar to those of the religious authorities, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?”

Being able to declare that God is on our side is a pretty powerful argument. “Look at our deep faith, look at how we live, look at the ways in which God has blessed us, you know we're right. Can't you see how wrong you are? Can't you see how God is using all sorts of things to punish those who go against God's will? Don't you know that earthquakes, and fires, and floods, and disease, and death are all acts from God to show displeasure? Don't you know that God only listens to the good people, and punishes those that are sinners?”

Yet, if God doesn't listen to sinners, if God only listens to “perfect”, “good” people then we are all in trouble. When it comes to sin, when it comes to labeling who's blessed and who's not, who's a sinner and who's not, perhaps the right thing to do is to heed the wisdom of not being confident in our answers, of allowing God to be the active party and not us.

Our text comes to an end with Jesus making a statement about his purpose in coming, about his mission among us,”I came into the world … , so that those who have never seen will see, and those who have made a great pretense of seeing will be exposed as blind.” (John 9:39 – The Message) There are many different ways we can read the stories in the Bible, there are often many facets to how we can understand the words of Jesus. But I think the message of this text is clear: this story is in Bible to teach us all a lesson. This story is about taking off our blinders, taking off our pious belief that we are in the right, that we are the holy and righteous ones, the ones who God has blessed, that we know who the righteous and unrighteous people are. That we can declare who is the sinner and who is not. This text is a word to wake us up to the grace and mercy and compassion of God.

Jesus' words of warning are for those who make a pretense, a show, of knowing the right and wrong, of declaring they can see. We must be aware, we ourselves must see, that it is not the “sinners” who go around making a pretense, a show, of being holy and pious, of being righteous and of God. No it's the religious folk. It's the pastors and church members, the deacons and elders, the evangelists and missionaries of this world that are the one's making a great show, a pretense, out of their faith, their belief, their religion. It's often us that are the one's going around labeling other people as “sinners.”

The reality of the situation, the reason behind why we do and say the things we do is the same as that of the religious authorities that challenged Jesus and the man who had been born blind. All the religious pretense and show, all the assumptions and declaration, all the words of judgment and prejudice tend to be a front for seeking to justify and validate ourselves, ways of seeking to ensure our inclusion among the righteous ones. And we do so, not only at our own expense, but at the expense of others. Our own confidence in being right blinds us to being able to see what is obvious, what is right there in front of us. Our own self-righteousness, keeps us from being able to see those around us, not as “sinners”, but as beloved fellow children of God. Our desire to be as good as we can in God's eyes, may keep us from seeing other people with the eyes of God; eyes that see with mercy, compassion, and love.

Open our eyes O God; be our vision. Help us to be blind to the things that we need not see, and help us to see the things we have been blind to. Amen.

Trust Me, It's No Secret

Second Sunday in Lent – Year A

March 16, 2014

John 3:1-17
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God." Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." Nicodemus said to him, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answered, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?" Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? "Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."

In the last few years, ever since The Di Vinci Code became a smash hit both as a book and as a movie, stories and movies that involve puzzles and secrets that need to be figured out have become popular. Especially popular are stories that contain some sort of religious or mystical secret that needs to be deciphered. The characters follow one clue to another, working their way toward the discovery of that final clue whose solution will reveal all that has been hidden by the mists of time. The treasure is discovered, the religious relic is found, the long lost scroll is translated and read. I must admit I'm a fan of these stories and tales, I find the puzzles and clues to be fun. It's also fascinating how the authors often skillfully weave their imaginative stories with the truth of history to create great tales of mystery and intrigue.

Of course, the popularity and fascination with following clues and solving mysteries is nothing new. Not too long ago it was Indiana Jones whose archaeological adventures made us grab our seats with excitement as he sought out the Ark of the Covenant or the Holy Grail. When I was growing up I spent hours reading the stories and adventures of the Hardy Boys, the Bobsy Twins, the Alfred Hitchcock Investigators, Nancy Drew; I spent hours watching Scooby Doo and the gang solve cases as they drove around in the Mystery Machine. Before those stories and shows, there were Agatha Christie's stories and Sherlock Holmes' exploits that grabbed the interest and excitement of would-be investigators and sleuths. These and so many more.

In just about every one of these stories there is some sort of hidden passage, a hidden drawer, a password, a secret handshake that allows admittance into the secrets that have been hidden. How many of us when we were little had club houses, or locked ourselves in our rooms declaring that you would only be let in if you knew the password, if you could do the secret handshake? Just this last year at Christmas I saw journals that could only be opened if you uttered the correct password. And, when that password was known, then like Alibaba and the Forty Thieves, the door would swing open and access would be granted to the special room, the special club, the treasures hidden from those that didn't have that special key.

Soon after I arrived at my boarding school in New Guinea, I encountered a question that caused me to wonder if there was some special knowledge that had been withheld from me growing up: “Are you saved?” When I found out that this question was asking about my faith, about my salvation, I confirmed that yes, I was saved. I was then asked when, where, how did I know, had I said the believer's prayer? To this poor boy who had grown up in a Lutheran home, to discover this different way of speaking of faith was both intriguing and somewhat scary. What if there was some special knowledge that I had missed out on, some special information that could only be obtained if I uttered specific words, if I did things in specific ways? Was there perhaps some special information about Jesus, about God, that was only known by the people who had the uttered the right password to gain access?

Of course there wasn't anything special, some secret information, secret knowledge reserved only for the select. In fact, the idea that there is some secret knowledge about Jesus that is withheld for only the chosen few is a heresy known as Gnosticism. Gnosticism has come and gone again and again within the Christian faith, it was especially popular in the beginning years of the Christian faith when there was no Bible, when almost no one could read, when stories were being told about Jesus. There was a tendency to think that if you just did the right things, if you just said the correct words, if you could just rise up high enough in the church, your devotion would be rewarded with some special knowledge about God – reserved for the select few.

We may shake our heads, but the attraction of Gnosticism is still around today. We just dance around its edge. We read books and devotions that we hope will give us some insight into faith, help us to give God greater power in our lives. We move from one translation of the Bible to another, hoping to find some greater clarity or understanding. Some people spend their lives bouncing from one church or denomination to another in search of that unknown thing that will speak to their souls and let them know the answer they have been searching for has been found. The way we speak with each other about faith stuff, using words that we think we know the meaning of but the uninitiated have no clue: grace, Eucharist, salvation; big words like soteriology, transubstantiation, or epistemological. We throw out books of the Bible and verses likely only to be understood by Christians. Who hasn't seen the football player with the location of one of today's verses written in the black under his eyes: 3:16. Secret knowledge, only to be revealed to those who have the key.

I thought a lot about how it could be that this happened, and I think it really comes down to how we understand and think about what may be the most-quoted verse in the New Testament, and perhaps the Bible, John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” We all know it, in fact most of us probably memorized it during our time in Sunday School.

This verse has two parts to it, a God part, and a human part. God's part is far greater than ours, God loves, God sends, and God saves. God loves the world, God sends the Son – Jesus Christ, and God saves us from punishment and gives us eternal life. All of God's stuff is out of our control, we can't really do anything about them. We can't make God love us more or less. We couldn't make God send Jesus for our salvation. Punishment and eternal life are also in God's hands. God's actions are just that, God's actions and we are simply the recipients.

The human part of the verse is far smaller, far shorter, we believe; and it is here that I think we run into some potential problems. It's really about the way we think about belief. Webster's Dictionary tells us that to believe something is, “to accept or regard [it] as true”.¹ The unfortunate thing is that when it comes to us humans, it's a rare thing when we all agree on something as being true, and sometimes we discover that what we believed to be true was in fact not true. For millennia we believed that the sun revolved around the earth. We believed for a long time the earth was flat. Much of what we believe is really our opinion, or a set of things that we are expected to believe. If we believe certain things about God, about the way we do church, about the Bible, we are grouped together with other people who believe those same things. And then, we end up fighting with one another about which one of us right. Belief becomes a way of dividing us up. If we don't believe the right things then we aren't in the club, we don't have the password, the secret handshake.

For many the words of John 3:16 end up not being heard as a powerful declaration of God's love for us, of Grace, of what God has done for the world but words about what we have to do in order to be saved – we have to believe certain things, as defined by someone else. In context, John 3:16 is part of Jesus seeking to help a righteous person not to take things quite so literally. Yet, we have taken the verse out of its context, and we often end up interpreting it rather rigidly. A verse all about what God has done for us becomes focused on what we have to do.

What it comes down to is how we think about believing. One of my favorite theologians, Marcus Borg, feels that we have perhaps lost the true meaning of the word. In The God We Never Knew, he writes about how belief is less about making declarations about what we assert to be true, what we accept as fact, and more about a relationship of trust. Borg says that faith that "believes God", that trusts in the promises of God, is not something we can simply will, on our own: "we are led into it. It grows….It is not a requirement that we are to meet but a quality that grows as our relationship with God deepens." It's less about making sure that we know the secret handshake, but about letting God grab us by the hand.

As a child, I looked to my parents for care, for guidance, for love. I believed they loved me, but more than that, I trusted they would care for me because they loved me. When they disciplined me, when I didn't get the electric slot-car race set, it didn't change my trust in them. But, if belief had been more powerful, then when things didn't go the way I wanted, I may have questioned if I had believed wrongly, if perhaps I had done something to make them love me less, care for me less. Focusing on belief would have become all about me, whether I had done enough for my parents, or followed the rules closely enough.

Nicodemus came to Jesus wanting to know how someone could be born again. We come to the church, to Jesus, to God with questions about how we can be saved. We search for the answers, we read books, listen to sermons, search the scriptures looking for guidance. Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was a simple list that we could follow, that we could do, as if it were all up to us and what we can do, not what God is doing in this world, not what God is doing for this world that God loves so much. If belief, if faith is really about trust, if it's really a matter of the heart, the answers aren't up here, in our heads, or in books, or devotionals, or internet blogs; what really matters, more than our words or claims or creeds or arguments, all our theological learning, is a love that can't be measured or restricted, contained or boxed in, a love that can't be held back or kept away from any of God's children – God's own love for the world that was so great that only God's beloved child was a good enough gift for such a beloved world. There's no secret in that. May God guide us, and hold us, as we daily grow in our love and trust for and in God. Amen.

1http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/believe

Mountain Trails

Transfiguration Sunday – Year A

March 2, 2014

Matthew 17:1-9
Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!" When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, "Get up and do not be afraid." And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.
As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, "Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead."

Last week my years of running and not really paying attention to my body in high school came back to haunt me. On Sunday evening I was playing volleyball (as I usually do) and my knee started to ache. By the end of the game the ache had turned into a sharp pain, and I ended up spending the next 2 days trying not to move too much. It seems like my knee is okay now, but for a few days I wasn't sure what was in my future. Either way, I get to see an orthopedist on Tuesday, so..we'll see.

On Monday and Tuesday as I spent pretty much all my time trying not to move, and relaxing on the couch – I tried to do some reading and work for this week. But, I ended up spending a lot of my time just bouncing around the internet. After a bunch of different searches and then clicking here and there on different links I ended up on Youtube watching videos of mountain trails; and not just any mountain trails. These were trails that all had being incredibly scary in common. Most of these trails and paths were places you would never find me; heights don't bother me too badly, but I'm still mostly sane.

The path, trail, walkway...tightrope, that seemed the most intense was El Camino del Rey. It's located in Spain, and I honestly think that only people who are not quite right in the head would ever willingly walk it. The path is about 3 feet wide, is basically a shelf built onto the side of a mountain 300 feet above the ground. If that isn't bad enough, it's over 100 years old and in bad repair. There are numerous holes several feet across, there are missing handrails, crumbling stone, and a long drop waiting for just about any misstep. Like I said, I think you have to have at least one screw loose to embark on traversing El Camino del Rey – the pathway of the King.

This is Transfiguration Sunday, the day in the church year when we focus on transformative experience of the holy on the top of a mountain. We don't know if the path up the mountain was as scary or treacherous as El Camino del Rey. But, we do know something about the path of the king who was revealed on the top of the mountain. We know the journey that Jesus is to embark on, a journey to Jerusalem, trial, crucifixion and death. We know that path, the disciples on the mountain have been told of that journey – yet they still do not want to see it. Just before this passage Jesus revealed to his disciples that “he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” (Matthew 16:21). Then follows Peter's famous denial of that possibility and Jesus telling him, “Get behind me Satan!” The disciples seem ready to listen to and accept what Jesus says, yet when push comes to shove they have questions. “You are the Messiah, but you can't die!”

On the mountain top Jesus is revealed as the beloved Son of God to the disciples present and they are told to, “Listen to him!” Not just the parts they like, the fullness of who he was, and what he came to do. “Hear him when he is shining in glory between Moses and Elijah, and hear him as well as he is hung between two criminals on the cross. Hear him when he talks of the way of the kingdom, and hear him when he says to do it.”¹ The path is clear, but it's more than a little scary, sort of like that mountain trail in Spain that you probably feel like you are going to fall off of with every step. Even the disciples when they are told by God to listen to Jesus, to really listen to what he was saying, what he was teaching, dropped to ground, paralyzed be fear. And Jesus touches them, “Get up, do not be afraid.”

The comfort of Jesus' words and his touch were, I'm sure, powerful. But, I'm willing to bet that the disciples were still more than a little uneasy. And based on conversations that come after this holy moment on the mount, they are still very uncomfortable about the path that has been put in front of them, and in front of Jesus. They had seen Jesus changed, they themselves had been changed by the experience, but change can often be difficult, can often be very uncomfortable.

In the church, there tends to be a rather strong aversion to change. We like the way things have been, and are more than a little suspicious of new ways of doing things, of change. We disagree and argue about all sorts of stuff: what sort of liturgy is appropriate, what's appropriate when it comes to church music, what hymnal to use, which version of the Bible to read from, do we use wine or grape juice, the role of women in the church. All sort of things. If we look around the church there is more than enough evidence to point to us being rather comfortable in the way things are. A lot of us really don't like change that much.

There are lots of different ways the troubles that pervade the world have been described, different lists that have been made pointing to the biggest problems of society at any given time. Perhaps it's racism, maybe it's our tendency for violence, perhaps it's the way we get trapped by the lust for more and more stuff, the way we control other people of our own gain, the ways in which we discriminate against anyone that we see as being a little too different for our taste. There are people who point to all that is wrong about the way we treat one another as proof there is no God. For others, all those things we cannot control make us want to control what we can. We focus on our ability to control things, and in so doing we avoid change and habit becomes our god.

The way things are, the things we can understand, the things that are comfortable become ways in which we protect ourselves from the changes all around us. All too often we give the name of god to the ways in which we avoid change, to keep things the way we are used to. We want to avoid having to embrace those different than us, those who worship differently, those who sing too loudly, or not loud enough, those who remind us of just how broken we are, how we do so little to actually change the injustice and evils of this world. Yet, Jesus seems to want us uncomfortable; and reminds us to not be afraid.

On the mount, in the clouds, with Moses and Elijah the disciples saw something incredible, and were changed by what they saw. Maybe not right away, but they were changed. When we think of the transfiguration we normally focus on Jesus and how he was revealed. Transfiguration, mountain top experiences though, aren't just about Jesus; they're also about the ones who see Jesus and are changed by that seeing. In the transfiguration God declares Jesus the beloved child of God, and through Jesus' death and resurrection and our baptisms we also are claimed and declared as beloved children of God. And it is as beloved children of God that we are called and challenged to be the implements of change in the world.

When we cling too rigidly to our habits, our routine, when we refuse to change we stand in contradiction to the call of Jesus that we go out into the world and “make disciples of all nations.” When we are unwilling to change, we are ultimately denying our identity as bearers of the Good News of God, which requires of us that we get off the mountain and go out into the world. In our reading, Jesus commands the disciples to get up, to embrace the change they have seen, to leave those places where they have been comfortable, to be changed themselves. But, they will not be alone. Jesus may be asking of them to leave their comfort, but he reminds them not to be afraid.

As followers of the Christ, as people who have all had an experience of the holy, whose lives have been transformed and changed by our knowledge of the one who shines brighter than brightest day we cannot help but to share the story, telling others of what has been seen and heard. We have been transfigured and dedicate our lives to bringing about the vision of God's reign here on earth.

There are many prayers that have been prayed throughout time that speak to our need to be transfigured, transformed by our God. It is the words of a Franciscan prayer that speaks to the need for us to be uncomfortable, yet not afraid. It asks God to bless us “with discomfort at easy answers, half truths and superficial relationships … with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people … with tears to shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, starvation and war.”

May that be our prayer as we walk the difficult path, the sometimes scary trail of faith, moving from the habits and traditions that have become too comfortable. May our encounters with God's transfiguring presence transform us to descend from the mountains and enter into uncomfortable places, where with the help of God, we may be a transfiguring presence in the lives of others. Amen.

1http://www.progressiveinvolvement.com/progressive_involvement/2011/02/lectionary-blogging-matthew-17-1-9.html