Transfiguration Sunday (Written on February 13, 2009)

For the Lectionary (what's a lectionary?) of February 22, 2009: Mark 9:2-9

 

Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them . . .

BUDGING by Larry Patten

Jesus strode to a “high mountain” with Peter and James and John. There, away from the pressure and routine of their itinerant ministry, between earth and sky, Jesus was transfigured! Visions of Moses and Elijah came and went. God spoke. Glory abounded.

The best sermon on the transfiguration I ever heard took maybe five minutes. It came on the last morning of a backpack with church youth. I co-lead the trip with a person who was then my senior pastor. After tramping through the Sierra Nevada backcountry for a week we were homebound. The kids had slogged over granite passes and waited for cantankerous stoves to create mushy one-pot meals. Mornings chilled their bones. Mosquitoes dive-bombed them. The ground was a harsh mattress.

And yet, on that final morning, before we hit the trail, my colleague held them riveted to the story of Jesus’ transfiguration. To the meaning of life-changing, eye-opening glimpses of divine beauty and beloved community.

I vividly remember one young lady. On that morning, she was rapt with the words of the five-minute sermon. I knew that some of the words she’d heard earlier in the trip had held her attention in a different way.

She was perhaps sixteen. Had just moved to town. Her parents brought her to the nearby church. Mine! They urged their daughter to take the summer hike to “make friends.” It would be “good” for her. She was developmentally disabled. And shy. And, at about three days into the hike, she refused to take another step.

She shrugged off her backpack and declared, “No more.”

We hesitated. My friend and co-leader reassured me he’d stay with her, and would make sure they caught up. Slowing our pace, the rest of us kept tramping upward toward a ridge. I trusted my friend. He was (and is) a wise and compassionate pastor.

Later, he told me how he convinced her to keep hiking . . .

First my friend showed empathy . . . “I’m an old guy. This is tough for me. I know how you feel and we’ll climb the mountain together!” She didn’t budge.

Then, sensitivity . . . “Let’s rest awhile. Enjoy the mountains. We’ll leave after a bit.” Bits went by. She didn’t budge.

Affirmation . . . “You’re such a great hiker!” She didn’t budge.

Peer pressure . . . “We don’t want others to think we can’t make it!” Compromise . . . “A few baby steps at a time. We stop. Then a few more steps.” Fear . . . “We don’t want to be stuck here at night, in the cold and dark.” She didn’t budge.

At this point in the recounting of those anguished moments with the girl-who-would-not-budge, my gentle friend’s voice lowered. He sighed. After awhile, he forlornly looked at me and finished the story, “Then I just started yelling at her. Got angry. Forced her up the trail.”

They caught up with the rest of us in an hour or two. Maybe it was his persistence. Maybe it was because he, and all the others in the group of strangers, never gave up on her. But after that day she started bonding with others. And the others bonded with her and one another. In spite of the dull food and sharp mosquitoes, the kids formed a true community. Transfiguration?

The last night out we had a “sharing circle,” where everyone could relate the ways they’d come to know each other and how their faith had been strengthened. The once-shy young woman shared and thanked everyone. Kids cried. Hugged. Spontaneous laughter and a crackling campfire warmed all of us.

On that next and final morning, I watched her listen to my friend’s explanation of the transfiguration. In his “sermon,” he reminded the kids that like Jesus and the disciples, they’d leave the mountain. What grand events they’d had together. But now it was time to continue the journey. We can’t just stay in the mountains, he said. It’s always what we do next with our day-to-day learning and faithful living that will matter so much.

In all my years of leading backpacks with youth, I never witnessed what occurred when we reached trail’s end that day. The young woman’s parents had traveled up the mountain to retrieve their daughter. With trail dust still swirling around us, packs still on our backs, her protective, smothering parents whisked her away. Gone! Equally odd, that family quickly drifted away from church. Still protecting her? Still smothering her?

I like that Jesus’ transfiguration was soon followed by the disciples’ departure from the mountain. Within a few verses, Jesus will heal a child and the “day-to-day” work of ministry continued for him and his followers.

Don’t we all have “mountain top” experiences? We don’t need to be surrounded by pristine peaks to sense a Holy longing or calling. But I think all true “mountain moments,” those rare and precious transfigurations, are best understood when we risk the return to normalcy. To bring our renewed selves into the next day, the next task, the next relationship.

Years later, I imagine that shy young woman. And my friend, bone-tired and frustrated, yelling at her to get moving. But he never left her; all are beloved. And she got it. And the rest of the kids got it. Changed. New. Transfigured.

How I wish she hadn’t been whisked away. How I wish those parents would have trusted her to keep growing with a newly formed community.

in Peace,

Larry