February 28, 2021: Beloved from the Valley to the Mountain
Mark 9:2-10
Rev. Rhonda Blevins
Six days later, 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, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean.
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We’ve all had our coping mechanisms over this past year, haven’t we? Things we’ve done not to go crazy during the pandemic? Little things to take our minds off the isolation, the challenges, the anxiety? If you’ve listened to many of my sermons over the past few months, you’ve likely heard me name that “Hamilton” on Disney Plus has been one of my saving graces. I’ve been a little obsessed. I might be able to sing along with the entire soundtrack. But another distraction for me last spring during quarantine was “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” a fun-loving comedy sitcom in which the background to the story involves the main character spending fifteen years underground imprisoned in a bunker with three other young women after having been kidnapped. Kimmy and the others are finally rescued; the show follows Kimmy’s antics as she adjusts to life in New York City after she is rescued. It’s hilarious, often ridiculous—Kimmy is so naïve! In the opening credits of the show each episode, we see Kimmy and the other three women as they are rescued from the bunker. They step out into daylight for the first time in fifteen years; the light is blinding. Can you imagine how bright the sun would seem after fifteen years in a bunker?
That kind of brightness is what I imagine Peter, James and John experiencing on the mount of transfiguration in the story we read together from the Gospel of Mark. Mark tells us that Jesus’ “clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.” Matthew adds that “his face shone like the sun.” (Mt. 17:2) Can you imagine? Jesus’ face shining like the sun? You can’t look at him lest you go blind! Then Moses and Elijah appear. The experience is so amazing, so wonderful, so en-light-ened, that Peter wants to stay there forever, “I’ll build three houses, one for each of you, we can tabernacle here forever!” he says because, you know, Peter. Then a cloud descends, Matthew calls it a “bright” cloud, and then the voice from the cloud says, “This is my son, the beloved, listen to him.”
Last Sunday, the first Sunday of Lent, we considered the text from Mark about Jesus’ baptism and forty days in the wilderness. If you recall from the story of the baptism, a voice from on high offered this same blessing, calling Jesus, “beloved.” A couple of differences—perhaps a significant differences—between these two stories of Jesus being called beloved:
In the baptism story, it seems that only Jesus can hear the voice: “YOU are my beloved; in you I am well pleased. This is in second person. This seems to be a private naming and a blessing.
In the transfiguration story, the disciples gathered with Jesus hear the voice “This is my son, the beloved, listen to him.” This naming and blessing is in third person. This seems to be a public declaration and command.
God’s personal blessing to Jesus at his baptism now becomes public; now “the church can see what Jesus alone heard when he was baptized.”[1]
If last week, my hope was to help us recognize that we share the beloved nature of Christ—that we, through Christ, are also the beloved—this week is to name what God wants from us in light of this deep and profound knowledge.
Let’s start with naming the undesirable responses to hearing God’s voice saying, “This is my son, the beloved, listen to him”
Did God say, “This is my son, the beloved, build him a house, and one for Elijah, and one for Moses while you’re at it?” No.
Did God say, “This is my son, the beloved, believe in him?” No.
Did God say, “This is my son, the beloved, worship him?” No.
Did God say, “This is my son, the beloved, stay up here on the mountain with him?” No.
What did God say? “Listen to him.” The word hear in Greek is ἀκούω (akouó) from which we derive our English word “acoustics.” But in context here, it has the connotation of not only listening, but obeying, of yielding. “This is my son, the beloved,” God says to the three disciples, “yield to him.”
What did yielding to Jesus look like in the short term? It meant leaving the mountain, heading back down into the valley, keeping silent, taking their many questions with them back down to the valley.
The valley.
Mountaintop experiences are rare, maybe once in a lifetime if we’re lucky. We live the vast majority of our lives in the valley. With the masses of people, we live in the valley.
Prior to moving to Florida, my family and I lived in Louisville, Kentucky. Louisville is a great city. When you think of Louisville, Kentucky, what do you think of? The Kentucky Derby? Bourbon? So gambling and liquor? Is that what you think of? (Depraved people J!) What about the Louisville Slugger? That’s fun! Less fun: the tragic shooting of Breonna Taylor last year at the hands of police and the protests and riots that followed. Over 75 days of protests. The riots led to multiple shootings, including two LMPD police officers, in the streets of downtown Louisville.
One block away from where one of the most violent riots took place is the corner of 4th and Muhammed Ali (named after one of Louisville’s most famous residents). This is one of the entrances to 4th Street Live, a hopping section of town with a vibrant nightlife—there are dance clubs and pubs and a rockin’ piano bar. Rumor has it that you pastor might have had a raucous bachelorette party at 4th Street Live a lifetime ago!
And right there, on the corner of 4th and Muhammed Ali (what used to be Walnut Street), on this busy pedestrian street corner with businesspeople during the day and party goers at night, there is a mostly overlooked historical marker. Here’s part of what it says:
Thomas Merton: Trappist monk, poet, social critic, and spiritual writer. Merton had a sudden insight at this corner Mar. 18, 1958, that led him to redefine his monastic identity with greater involvement in social justice issues. He was “suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people...” He found them “walking around shining like the sun.”
“Shining like the sun,” Merton wrote. Now where have I heard that phrase before? Ah! From Matthew, describing what the three disciples saw when they tried to look at Jesus up on that mountain. They saw his face, “shining like the sun.” They heard the voice from on high, “This is my son, the beloved, listen to him.” Yield to him.
What does it mean to yield, generally? Merriam-Webster uses the words “give way,” “give up,” “surrender,” “relinquish.” It means to let go. For Peter, it meant letting go of his desire to stay up on that mountain forever, and instead to follow Jesus back down into the valley.
And this letting go is what the Lenten journey is all about. And it’s hard. We have our many attachments, our compulsions, our addictions, our ways—it’s hard to let go. I have attempted to practice letting go of my technology attachment/compulsion/addiction during Lent. I decided to “let go” of tech an hour a day and a day per week. I’ve mostly been successful with the hour per day, and, er, what was the other part of my Lenten discipline? Yeah. Not going so great. A day per week without tech. “But Jesus, I don’t want to let go that much!”
It’s not just outward things like technology that we find ourselves attached to, is it? We have our opinions, emotional baggage that we cling to, disappointments, regret, anger . . .
There’s a classic story about two traveling monks who reached a town when they happened upon a young woman waiting to step out of her car. The rains had made deep puddles and she couldn’t step across without ruining her very expensive shoes. She sat there, looking very perturbed and impatient. She was scolding her attendants. They had nowhere to place the packages they held for her, so they couldn’t help her across the puddle.
The younger monk noticed the woman, said nothing, and walked by. The older monk quickly picked the woman up and put her on his back. He carried her across the water, and gently placed her down on the other side. She didn’t thank the older monk, she just shoved him out of the way and departed.
As the two monks continued on their way, the young monk was brooding and preoccupied. After several hours, unable to hold his silence, he spoke out. “That woman back there was very selfish and rude, even after you picked her up on your back and carried her! Then she didn’t even thank you!”
“I set the woman down hours ago,” the older monk replied. “Why are you still carrying her?”[2]
What are you carrying that you need to relinquish? What inner baggage or outward compulsions keep you from yielding to the Christ who walks with you as you journey in the valley? Wouldn’t you like to lighten the load you’re carrying? We were created for the journey, not for the baggage. You don’t need all of that stuff to listen to the one who calls you, “beloved.”
[1] Melinda Quivik, “Commentary on Mark 9:2-9,” https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/transfiguration-of-our-lord-2/commentary-on-mark-92-9-5 (accessed Feb. 25, 2021)
[2] Adapted from Jon J. Muth, Zen Shorts, Scholastic Press, 2005.