Come With Me, I Want You To See Something (Sermon)

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Come With Me, I Want You To See Something

Mark 2:2-9

Chris O’Rear, M.Div., M.M.F.T.

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church

Franklin, Tennessee

February 19, 2012

The story of Jesus’ transfiguration is one of the more debated stories in the Gospels.  Many have questioned whether these events occurred as they were described or if there are embellishments that were added later.  Some have questioned the timeline of the events and when they might have actually occurred.  Others have questioned whether these events occurred at all.  Though I am not a biblical academic, I will observe that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke each contain a version of this story and, while there are subtle differences in the re-telling in each Gospel, the content seems consistent.  We take as a matter of faith the events of the Gospel, but the Gospel writers have included this story for a purpose and I want us to understand what that purpose might be.

As I imagined this story this week, I kept thinking of how the events of this day might have begun:  One day, Jesus got up from sleep and as he ate breakfast with his disciples, he said to Peter, James, and John, “I want you all to come with me today.  I have something I think you gonna want to see.”  We know that there were 12 disciples, so I am wondering…how did the other 9 feel about not being asked to go.  Why did the other 9 disciples not get asked to go?  I wonder how they might have felt as Jesus only took the 3 chosen disciples and left them wherever they were doing whatever they were doing.  Did they feel left out?

  At one point in my training, I was working 3 different jobs and was struggling to make ends meet and barely providing for my family. I had a conversation with a woman at her elegant house… as I was delivering a pizza to her door.  Her husband had just purchased a brand new Harley-Davidson motorcycle and was driving the bike around the neighborhood.  With envy, I commented that the bike was beautiful and the woman said, “Well, God has really blessed us this year.”  I have heard others, like you may have, describe how while Christmas shopping, they were so busy shopping and so in need of good parking space and they prayed that God would provide them a space and sure enough, one opened up just as they arrived.  Are these people really chosen and blessed by God while others of us are left to struggle?  Does God really care about parking spaces, motorcycles…or touchdowns for that matter?  For those that have struggled in their life, we sometimes wonder if we are forgotten or if God cares for us at all.

We are confronted with the question about why Jesus chose only Peter, James, and John.  Was it because Peter, James, and John had more spiritual maturity?  Were they Jesus’ favorites?  Did Jesus even have favorites?  If we look further at the Gospel, it certainly might look this way.  In Mark 5, Jesus heals the daughter of a man named Jairus.  As he goes into see the sick girl, the Bible says that he allowed no one to follow him except…guess who…Yep, Peter, James, and John.  It might seem that these three were the chosen ones, but we also see that these three seem to struggle more with the idea that Jesus was not going to be an earthly king with a kingdom and power, but a servant king whose power was in serving others.  At one point, as Jesus described the suffering he would go though, Peter pulled him aside and began to correct him and criticize him for saying such things.  James and John were brothers and they went to Jesus asking if when he came into his kingdom, the two of them could sit one on his right side and one on his left.  Jesus only commented that they did not know what they were asking for.  The Gospel says that the other 10 apostles were indignant that they would ask Jesus for such a favor.  While the other disciples may not have understood it at the time, Jesus seems to have selected these three because they were having the most difficulty grasping the reality of who Jesus was and why he had come.

It seems that again and again in the Gospels that Jesus seems to know what people need when he encounters them.  So many times in the stories of the Gospels, Jesus seems to give each person he encounters just what they need to experience.  When Jesus met the woman at the well, he knew just what to say to her to make a connection with her.   When Jesus was confronted by the group of men who had taken the woman caught in adultery, he knew just what to say to them.   Last week’s Gospel reading included the story of Jesus healing the leper with a touch.  The leper who had lived outside of the community and away from others for so long, Jesus seemed to know that the physical touch would bring healing not just to his body, but to his soul.  In the same way, perhaps Jesus selected these 3 disciples because they most needed to see and hear what was going to happen that day.

What exactly did happen that day?  Whatever it was, it seems to have been for the benefit of the 3 disciples.  They are the focus of the story.  They observe what happens.  They attempt to understand it.  And God speaks directly to them.  It is hard for us to comprehend exactly what happened that day.  We are told that Jesus was “transfigured” in front of them – his face was changed and his clothes became whiter than any TV. spokesperson in a commercial for bleach could even imagine.  For some reason, as I read this passage this week, I kept thinking of Charlton Heston as Moses in “The Ten Commandments” when he came down from the mountain after his meeting with God and his beard was different, his hair was different and he seemed to have an aura that surrounded him.  I guess that is the closest I could come to imagining what happened to Jesus in this story. 

Jesus was joined in the story by Moses and Elijah.  In Luke we are told a bit about what they talked about, but Mark seems satisfied just to note their presence.  If for no other reason, there is significance in Elijah and Moses meeting with Jesus because of who they are.  Moses represented God’s revelation through the Law (the commandments) and Elijah represented God’s revelation through the Prophets.  In this meeting, it is implied that Jesus is the revelation of God in a new way to a new generation.  Peter, James, and John are overwhelmed by what they see and we are told they were afraid.  Peter, who is notoriously impulsive, immediately says that they should build a tent for Jesus,  a tent for Elijah, and a tent for Moses and it is implied in this that they should all just stay there.  Mark is forgiving of Peter’s impulsivity by saying, “Peter just said that because they were so afraid and nobody knew what to say.”  However, Peter’s response seems pretty normal to me for the experience.

Have you ever had an experience of the holiness of God and just wanted to stay there.  Some of you may remember the experiences on the mission trip or at a summer camp.  Some of you  have had  those moments in your life when you feel particularly close to God – at the birth of a child, in a special time of worship, while hiking in the mountains or visiting at the beach.  In those moments, you don’t want to leave.  You may think, as Peter does, let’s just build a house  here and stay.  Those experiences of spiritual highs can be powerful, but if we are not careful, they can be fleeting.  In those moments, we feel so close to God and so connected with those around us, but then we return to the “real world” with school, work, traffic, and all the terrible things in the news and those feelings can begin to fade.  We lose the focus until the next event that makes us feel close to God.  Peter was so excited to be where he was that he just wanted to stay…but they could not stay.  They heard the voice of God say of Jesus, “This is my son.  Listen to him.”  To listen in this context is not just to hear the words, but let them seep into the fabric of our being and affect our life and our actions.  To listen, in this context, is about taking the teachings of Jesus to heart and letting them transform us.  I found an interesting fact this week in my studies.

In the book of Romans (12:2), Paul writes the following: 

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

The word “Transformed” in this passage is used two other times in the New Testament.  In 2Corinthians, it is also translated as “transformed”, but in the Gospel of Mark, it is translated as “Transfigured”.  The word for Jesus being transfigured is the same word that is used to talk about the transformation that should occur in the believer’s life.

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

“That which is good and acceptable and perfect” comes from the teachings of Jesus, the life of Jesus, and the example of Jesus.  We are to “Listen” to this, to emulate this, to be transformed into this.  Sometimes we are frightened when we grasp the magnitude of what we are asked to do.  Sometimes we are at a loss of what to do or how to live this out.  I don’t know, God may really care about parking spaces and touchdowns, but the life and words of Jesus would indicate he loves those that are hurting and those in need.  The life of Jesus would indicate that we should seek to meet people where they are and seek to provide them with what they need.  The teachings of Jesus tell us that those who seek to save their life, will lose it and those that try to be first will be last.  Jesus’ teaching turns the world as we know it upside down.  Power is not in ruling like a king, but serving like a servant.  Jesus has invited you to see his life and his place in history.  The voice of God beckons us to listen.  Can you hear?  What will you do?

Buried Treasure (Sermon)

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Matthew 25: 14-30

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church

Franklin, Tennessee

November 13, 2011

            I don’t know about you, but I get uncomfortable when we start talking about God’s judgment.  I certainly am much more comfortable when we are talking about God’s love, God’s grace, and God’s forgiveness.  In our Gospel reading this morning, Jesus is talking with his disciples about the end times and how there will be a time when people are gathered together before God and evaluated.  It is not a comforting image.  However, the evaluation is not based on random and arbitrary standards.  In fact, the story Jesus tells his disciples in the reading this morning is just one of many that make the standards rather clear.  

            Jesus tells the story of a man who went away on a journey and entrusted his servants with certain gifts.  To one, he gave five talents.  To the second, he gave two talents. And to the third, he gave one.  Now a talent was originally a measure of weight, but became equated with a certain weight of gold or silver and, therefore, had a specific value.  Some have valued a talent as much as 15 years’ wages for the average worker.  While we may be able to read this story as a story about money, the story is an allegory of sorts and, as such; the talents represent something more than money.  The fact that we now refer to certain gifts and abilities that we have as “talents” can be traced to this parable.  Certainly, we could talk about this parable in terms of our God-given gifts and abilities.  Ultimately, the “talent” seems to represent several aspects of our whole being and, in the end, may just represent our life itself.  

            Sometimes it is difficult to know what our “talents” are.  For many it is often easier to know what they are not.  At a recent conference I attended, I sat in on a “jam session” with some friends who were playing music.  At one point, a friend started to hand me a guitar.  I told him that I only played at guitar and did not really play.  Another friend said, “Well, you can always just sing along”.  Then she paused a moment and said, “Oh wait, I’ve heard you sing.  You don’t really sing either, do you?”   I wasn’t crushed because I know that as much as I love music, music has not really been a gift.  In fact there have been several things I have tried through the years that I have enjoyed to one extent or another that I know I am not that good at.  Sometimes our gifts are harder to recognize because they are not the public gifts that others might see.  The Country Music Association gave their awards this week, but there are never any award shows for someone who is a good listener.  They don’t give Nobel prizes for someone who is really good at hospitality, but all of us have something in our life that we can offer in the service of God to benefit others. 

            We see in the story that the good servants – the faithful servants took what they had been given and multiplied it.  I don’t think we should get bogged down in why one servant got five talents and one got two.  The issue is that these servants took what they had been given; they took some risks and multiplied what they had.  With pride they bring their earnings to the master when he returned.  If we are going to be faithful with what God has given us, we must use what God has given us.  We have to take risks.  We cannot sit idly by – as we see in the life of the servant who had the one talent.   

            It is perhaps a bit unsettling to note that burying a gift of money to keep it safe was a perfectly acceptable practice prescribed in Jewish law.  Jewish people were also not supposed to charge interest from other Jews.  Therefore, what this servant with one talent did would have been perfectly acceptable by Jewish law and standards of the time, but I think it is safe to say that is was the bare minimum.  It was simply adhering to the minimum standards of the law.  This servant seems to do the minimum and plays it safe out of fear.  He buries the gift out of his own fear of master and perhaps out of other fears.  

            I think that too many times we take the gifts of God and we bury them.   We bury them under our fears of failing.  We bury them under our own insecurities.   Our gifts can get buried under the expectations we place on ourselves and that others place on us.  Our gifts get buried under the pain inflicted on us by others.  As a pastor friend ofmine pointed out recently, in the church, our gift as the church sometimes gets buried under the structures of hierarchy and committees that we have.  We could be doing some great things for God in the world, but the good things are buried in the processes and the bureaucracy.  The gifts get buried, but we are no less gifted.  We just need to get the gift from under all that stuff that has covered it.

            It is possible that people sometimes stick to the minimum standards and play it safe by their own choice.   In a conversation with a client this week he described how his relationship with his ex-wife had eroded to a place of legalistic score-keeping in which each of them continually pointed out how the other was missing the terms of their separation agreement and each of them defended their own position by noting how it complied with the letter of the law.  I could not help but think that anytime a relationship is reduced to monitoring the letter of the law, there is a loss of trust and love; whether it is in a work relationship, a parent-child relationship, a friendship or marriage.  Who really wants any kind of relationship with someone who is just trying to do the minimum?  Do you want an employee, a boss, a teacher, a parent, child, friend or spouse who is just trying to do the minimum?   No, we would much prefer someone that we feel cares for us and will go the extra mile for us.  Doing the minimum and waiting passively for the master to return is not what Jesus seems to desire in his story to the disciples.  

            God would have us take risks.  God would have us go beyond what is asked and be faithful in what we do.   We sometimes have to look beyond the monetary costs and do what is best for another person.  Sometimes we have to set aside our own desires and our expectations in order to do something that makes another person’s life better.  Sometimes we have to risk being rejected, risk being hurt, or risk disappointment to reach out to others.    

            It is interesting to me that after working so hard, the reward for the servants with 5 and 2 talents was not a rest from their work, but more responsibility.   When I read it in the story about how the one talent was taken from the one servant and given to the one with ten talents, it seemed somewhat cruel, but when I reflect on it, it makes some kind of sense.  The one who takes risks and goes a bit farther seems to get more opportunities than those that play it safe.  The one who is faithful in little things may get the opportunity to be faithful in more.  We can all buy a cup of coffee anywhere, but many are willing to pay more for that cup of coffee if they know the company selling it is watching outfor the well-being of the coffee farmer and not trying to take advantage of the farmer.  I know that in my work, if a client feels that I understand them and if they feel they can trust me with small disclosures, they are more likely to share more deeply with me as our relationship progresses.   We are more likely to favor an employee that continually does a bit more without being asked over one that simply wants to punch the clock and do what they are told to do.  Those that do a bit more, those that are thoughtful, those that are creative, loving, and trustworthy will have more opportunities.  They ultimately share in the joy of being the presence of Christ to those around them.  The one who buries their gifts in fear and the one who does only the minimum, will not participate in the joy of the master and will find themselves separated from others and from God.

            As I was reflecting on this passage this week, I thought of a country song from a few years ago called “I Hope You Dance”.  I had the chance a few years ago to meet Tia Sillers, who co-wrote this song.  It was Lee Ann Womack that took it to number one.  I close with the words of this song as a prayer for you:

"I Hope You Dance"

I hope you never lose your sense of wonder,
You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger,
May you never take one single breath for granted,
God forbid love ever leave you empty handed,
I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean,
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens,
Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance,
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.

I hope you dance.

I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance,
Never settle for the path of least resistance
Livin' might mean takin' chances, but they're worth takin',
Lovin' might be a mistake,  but it's worth makin',
Don't let some hell-bent heart leave you bitter,
When you come close to sellin' out reconsider,
Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance,
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.

I hope you dance.
(Time is a wheel in constant motion always rolling us along,
Tell me who wants to look back on their years and wonder where those years have gone.)

I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean,
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens,
Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance,
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.

Dance....I hope you dance.

Amen.