Transfiguration/Confirmation Sunday February 22, 2009 "Remembering Transfiguration" Reverend Michael D. Powell Mark 9:2-9

This morning we’re welcoming five youth into membership in the Morningside United Methodist Church. It’s called “Confirmation,” and it’s a wonderful celebration of inclusion. These youth are not the church of the future – they are the church right now! We need their presence, their participation, their youthful energy, joy and enthusiasm.

Please note that we’re confirming their membership in the United Methodist Church, not into Christianity or the universal Body of Christ. They were born as children of God, and we symbolized their full inclusion in Christ through the sacrament of Holy Baptism. So church membership doesn’t make them any more holy, more Christian or more loved. They were already fully loved by God and fully included in the universal family of God. Confirmation is a celebration of community. They’re being welcomed into this particular church family of Morningsiders and United Methodists.

I believe in the ministry of the United Methodist Church, and I especially believe in the ministry of Morningside. Unfortunately, too many people have never been exposed to the Open Hearts, Open Minds and Open Doors theology of the United Methodist Church, and far fewer have been exposed to the Reconciling Ministry of open and affirming, welcoming congregations like Morningside. I’m thrilled that these youth have been brought up in and taught the kind of progressive, open-minded and warm hearted theology we embrace here at Morningside.

So many people have been wounded by religion, especially by a wrong-headed, exclusive and judgmental, form of Christianity. I have been very active in the interfaith movement over the years and have moderated a number of Interfaith Panel Discussions. Interfaith folks are generally very open minded and eclectic, and it’s common for Buddhists, Hindus, Native American Indians and Islamic Sufis , as well as Wicca and Pagan folks to comfortably plan services and activities together. But, sadly, for all the open-mindedness in interfaith gatherings, Christianity is still too often perceived in negative terms, and it's because of that judgmental aspect of Christianity that has wounded so many people. Old wounds, suspicions and misunderstandings are still projected onto those of us who proclaim Christ as Lord.

This morning is also Transfiguration Sunday. It’s always the last Sunday of Epiphany. On Wednesday we enter the season of Lent and this year our theme will be “Lenten Voices of Transformation.” The scripture for Transfiguration Sunday is always the same, and provides the perfect bridge to Lent. It’s the story of a mountaintop experience during which three of the disciples saw Jesus transfigured into a Being of Light who communed with Moses and Elijah. They heard the voice of God testifying to the divine sonship of Jesus. This is obviously the account of a mystical experience of the highest order and the question for us is, so what? What does this story have to do with our lives? What difference does it make that three disciples saw Jesus transfigured and walking with a couple of Old Testament prophets? What difference does it make to you or me that they heard the voice of God? If this is a genuine mystical revelation, then there is universal and timeless truth embedded in the particulars of the story, truth that both challenges and empowers us, as Paul says in Romans 12:2, to “be transformed, by the renewal of our minds.”

First, the voice of God assured the disciples that Jesus wasn't just another guy with a philosophical gift of gab. There are a lot of gurus around these days, but they aren't Jesus Christ. A lot of people believe in Jesus as a great man or an inspired prophet, but they just don't buy the whole "Lord and Savior, Son of God" thing. According to that reasoning, Jesus said a lot of beautiful things, but suffering and death still hold the trump cards. When all is said and done, beautiful words don't provide much comfort to someone dealing with terminal cancer, a heartbreaking divorce, stress at work or alienation in the family. If Christ is Lord, however, as the voice of God declared, then his gospel of love is able to transfigure you and me, empowering us to recognize that love triumphs over all and death is not the end. We can have faith that peace and joy, reconciliation and life eternal are God's gift to us through faith in Christ. If that's true, then and only then does the mountaintop vision of 2000 years ago have the power to offer comfort and reassurance to us today.

Secondly, what difference does it make to you or to me that Jesus walked and talked with Moses and Elijah? In a nutshell, these two figures epitomized the Old Hebrew Covenant of the Law and the Prophets, which excluded you and me and most of the human race. But in this vision these premier representatives of the Old Covenant confer their blessings upon the New Covenant, the Universal Gospel of Jesus Christ which extended God's love to everyone. Before Jesus Christ, religion was summed up in an exclusive, ethnic, nationalistic and legalistic code of "thou shalt nots." God's blessing was only for the hyper pious few who toed the line. The concept of God's unconditional love that reaches out to the alienated, the forsaken and the broken hearted was virtually unheard of. If only we could communicate this vision of the Transfiguration to those who so desperately need it – those who need to realize and accept that God's healing love is universal, unconditional and so intimate and personal that it has their very names written all over it!

Finally, Peter's response to the vision was his desire to build booths, to set up camp and stay on the mountain top. This phenomenon is called “enshrinement.” All over the Holy Land there are churches and shrines that have been built on the location of some historical, spiritual event. The idea is that by building a holy shrine you can somehow capture, enclose or nail down a spiritual experience, but it never works. If you've ever had a mountain top experience, you'll understand this thinking. When you're feeling on top of the world, who wants to come down? It feels so good to feel good, why would anyone return to the valley where people feel bad? And yet enshrinement never works. Jesus knows that, which is why he tells his disciples to leave the mountaintop of spiritual ecstasy and return to the valley.

Here's an interesting fact. In a recent Gallup poll, 85% of the people interviewed, people just like you and me, said that they had had a personal experience of God. They didn't all say that they'd seen Christ transfigured or even heard God's voice, but they did say that whatever they had experienced had become the touchstone of their faith, that it was what gave them the assurance of God's presence and sustained them through the dark and difficult times of their lives. These are often described as mountaintop experiences but, again, so what? What difference does it make to anyone else that you or I have experienced the unconditional love of God in a very direct and personal way?

Our faith is about community and communication - with God and with one another. If you have been to the mountain top, if you have experienced the healing love of God, share that love, so that it can bless and heal others. That's why we're here this morning. That's what worship is all about. That's what it means to be a part of the Body of Christ.

I'll close with a story. It takes place in the Middle East. The people in one village heard that there was a wise man in the next village so they invited him over to talk with them. When he arrived, he began by saying, "Do you know what I am going to tell you?" "No," they all said, to which he replied, "People can really only learn what they already know. If you don't know what I'm going to tell you then there is no use for me to speak," and he left. The village people were very puzzled about this, talked it over, and invited him back. When he returned he said, "Do you know what I am going to tell you?" They all answered as one, "Yes," to which he said, "Then obviously there is no reason for me to speak." Now they were really confused. Once again they talked it over and asked him back one last time. Many gathered in the village square, and when he said, "Do you know what I am going to tell you?" the people on one side of the square said, "Yes," while at the same time the people on the other side of the square said, "No." The wise man smiled and said: "Will the people on this side of the square who said yes please communicate with the people on the other side of the square who said no," Then he left and didn't return. That night a woman had a dream. The next morning she gathered the village folks together and said, "I know what the wise man taught us. Wisdom is found in the experience of community and not in the words of some prophet from afar, and he left us very clearly with that understanding."

This Day of Confirmation and Transfiguration is about community and communication, both with God and with one another. When we gather for worship we're re-minding one another with the Mind of Christ. When we welcome new members we are re-membering ourselves as members of the Body of Christ. We are celebrating the unconditional love of God as revealed through the Transfigured Body of Christ. My prayer for these new members, for you and for me is that we accept the challenge to “be transformed, by the renewal of our minds.” Thanks be to God, and may Christ be your shalom. Amen.