On The Mountain Top
"On The Mountain Top"
Mark 9:2-13
"Together with Peter, James, and John, Jesus climbs the mountain, away from the world in which they lived, with its business, its quarrels, its competitions, its jealousies, its sacrifices, and its strange list of priorities. They climbed out of it all, higher and higher, until they were at the top. Then Jesus, who marched them out of the old into the new, started to shine, brighter and brighter, like the moon, like a start, and in the end, like the sun."
This quote from Joseph Donders "Praying and Preaching the Sunday Gospel" calls us up to the mountain top with all the wonder and beauty of any great "religious experience." Up on the Mountain Top where all the cares of the world pass away! Up on the Mountain top away from everything! A time to reassess and reprioritize our life list!
Do you have a life list? A priority list for your life? Mountain Top experiences are a great awakening for shifting what is most important to the top or bottom!
Joseph Donders refers to such a list as strange. At least our priorities show as a strange list compared to the list of needs and priorities of the world. At any rate, Peter, James and John took a weekend holiday, perhaps to reflect and review their life. Their spiritual guide was with them. Jesus may have even directed them to the top of the mountain.
We call it "transfiguration Sunday" because for some reason while there on the top of the mountain, on the holiday or retreat, resting, Peter and the boys saw Jesus in a new way, from a new perspective, from a different angle or direction or with new eyes.
We've all had such moments. Those perfect moments. And if we can't make them last, we at least try to hold on to them so they will never leave us, or we try to reinvent them so we can have the special feeling again.....though it never works.
Peter, James, and John wanted to put up tents for the men of honor and just keep them on their mountain.
It was as if the three disciples had finally figured out what Jesus and the prophets were all about, how beautiful life is or could be, and they wanted to keep it for themselves, or at least keep it in such a way that it might last forever. To stay on the mountain top, a perfect life.
As Colorado residents, you know nothing grows on the top of the mountain! You have to go down into the valley to find the growth that makes a difference, that feeds, waters, and nourishes our lives.
God knew that. God has always known that! You can't just put up an alter and stay put and make life work. Life is about moving on, getting off the mountain tops, murking it thought the valley, and growing.
But what do we know with our strange list of priorities. Our casual thought out life list of goals. Our casual day-timer of activities that keep us on the move, on the go, in the car, with the kids, the culture, the social plans. What do we know, about murking it through the valley and growing?
Well, some of us know a lot. And with time, all of us know more than we want to know.
With time, we all experience the valley. And with confidence and hope, we all have mountaintop experiences to remind us of the brightness, the goodness of life that carry us through the valleys.
My friends Ed and Mary Bonneau from Nebraska know about the mountains and valleys. Ed is a clergy colleague now serving First United Methodist Church in Lincoln.
He ask if I was preaching on the transfiguration story this morning! Believe it or not, when clergy get together we often compare notes and stories.
He said, "I've got a great transfiguration story!" And started talking about January of 2001 when he, wife Mary and their 2 adult boys were out here skiing. The particular day he was remembering, he and Sam his youngest son of 20, were at Winter Park. Ed said it was a perfect day. At one point in their going up and down the mountain, Ed and Sam stopped at the top....stood in the sun....and said, "It doesn't get any better than this."
Then as Ed continued to tell his story his way, he said, "Little did I know that less than 2 months later Sammy would be dead. Hit and killed by a bus while crossing the street in the crosswalk on a green light."
Then Ed said, "that's what the transfiguration is all about.
It's about being up on the mountain, and knowing that you have to go back down into the valley to live. But because you've been on the mountain, you know you can live through the valley, because that's what faith and hope are all about."
Peter wanted to build a tent and keep life safe, comfortable, secure, perfect, on the mountain top.
But a voice came and said: "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased. Listen to Him!"
It's important that we take the time to go to the top of the mountain. That we take the time to stop, to reflect, to provide some open-space in our lives, and perhaps during that time of open-space we encounter the mystery of life. The power of life, the brilliance of the sun that shines in such a way that we wonder, could this be what it means to see Jesus?
We must take that time. It's giving our attention to God, and to God's life list for our life.
God is constantly asking for out attention! Listen!
But in the experience of the encounters that God puts on our path, daily we have to listen.
Listen! Not to our own voices, not to the voices and demands of the world around us, not to everything and everyone else, but we have to listen..........
Yesterday as I drove across Nebraska and the Platte River valley God yelled for my attention for almost 50 miles as the Sand Hill cranes were doing their annual spring dance through the sky for as far as the eye could see in any direction the eye could look. It was so beautiful I cried. Then the cell phone rang and brought me back to earth and reality. It was a mountain top experience in the plains of the heartland.
God cried out to us to listen. If we slow down enough and notice God calling we will hear.
Are you listening? Are you listening in such a way that when life throws the hard balls, when the valley's become the valley of death, will you be able to keep walking?
Will you still have faith?
Are you going to remember that the mountaintop of light, is for the purpose of moving on, not for the purpose of keeping everything just right?
Mark 9:2-13
"Together with Peter, James, and John, Jesus climbs the mountain, away from the world in which they lived, with its business, its quarrels, its competitions, its jealousies, its sacrifices, and its strange list of priorities. They climbed out of it all, higher and higher, until they were at the top. Then Jesus, who marched them out of the old into the new, started to shine, brighter and brighter, like the moon, like a start, and in the end, like the sun."
This quote from Joseph Donders "Praying and Preaching the Sunday Gospel" calls us up to the mountain top with all the wonder and beauty of any great "religious experience." Up on the Mountain Top where all the cares of the world pass away! Up on the Mountain top away from everything! A time to reassess and reprioritize our life list!
Do you have a life list? A priority list for your life? Mountain Top experiences are a great awakening for shifting what is most important to the top or bottom!
Joseph Donders refers to such a list as strange. At least our priorities show as a strange list compared to the list of needs and priorities of the world. At any rate, Peter, James and John took a weekend holiday, perhaps to reflect and review their life. Their spiritual guide was with them. Jesus may have even directed them to the top of the mountain.
We call it "transfiguration Sunday" because for some reason while there on the top of the mountain, on the holiday or retreat, resting, Peter and the boys saw Jesus in a new way, from a new perspective, from a different angle or direction or with new eyes.
We've all had such moments. Those perfect moments. And if we can't make them last, we at least try to hold on to them so they will never leave us, or we try to reinvent them so we can have the special feeling again.....though it never works.
Peter, James, and John wanted to put up tents for the men of honor and just keep them on their mountain.
It was as if the three disciples had finally figured out what Jesus and the prophets were all about, how beautiful life is or could be, and they wanted to keep it for themselves, or at least keep it in such a way that it might last forever. To stay on the mountain top, a perfect life.
As Colorado residents, you know nothing grows on the top of the mountain! You have to go down into the valley to find the growth that makes a difference, that feeds, waters, and nourishes our lives.
God knew that. God has always known that! You can't just put up an alter and stay put and make life work. Life is about moving on, getting off the mountain tops, murking it thought the valley, and growing.
But what do we know with our strange list of priorities. Our casual thought out life list of goals. Our casual day-timer of activities that keep us on the move, on the go, in the car, with the kids, the culture, the social plans. What do we know, about murking it through the valley and growing?
Well, some of us know a lot. And with time, all of us know more than we want to know.
With time, we all experience the valley. And with confidence and hope, we all have mountaintop experiences to remind us of the brightness, the goodness of life that carry us through the valleys.
My friends Ed and Mary Bonneau from Nebraska know about the mountains and valleys. Ed is a clergy colleague now serving First United Methodist Church in Lincoln.
He ask if I was preaching on the transfiguration story this morning! Believe it or not, when clergy get together we often compare notes and stories.
He said, "I've got a great transfiguration story!" And started talking about January of 2001 when he, wife Mary and their 2 adult boys were out here skiing. The particular day he was remembering, he and Sam his youngest son of 20, were at Winter Park. Ed said it was a perfect day. At one point in their going up and down the mountain, Ed and Sam stopped at the top....stood in the sun....and said, "It doesn't get any better than this."
Then as Ed continued to tell his story his way, he said, "Little did I know that less than 2 months later Sammy would be dead. Hit and killed by a bus while crossing the street in the crosswalk on a green light."
Then Ed said, "that's what the transfiguration is all about.
It's about being up on the mountain, and knowing that you have to go back down into the valley to live. But because you've been on the mountain, you know you can live through the valley, because that's what faith and hope are all about."
Peter wanted to build a tent and keep life safe, comfortable, secure, perfect, on the mountain top.
But a voice came and said: "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased. Listen to Him!"
It's important that we take the time to go to the top of the mountain. That we take the time to stop, to reflect, to provide some open-space in our lives, and perhaps during that time of open-space we encounter the mystery of life. The power of life, the brilliance of the sun that shines in such a way that we wonder, could this be what it means to see Jesus?
We must take that time. It's giving our attention to God, and to God's life list for our life.
God is constantly asking for out attention! Listen!
But in the experience of the encounters that God puts on our path, daily we have to listen.
Listen! Not to our own voices, not to the voices and demands of the world around us, not to everything and everyone else, but we have to listen..........
Yesterday as I drove across Nebraska and the Platte River valley God yelled for my attention for almost 50 miles as the Sand Hill cranes were doing their annual spring dance through the sky for as far as the eye could see in any direction the eye could look. It was so beautiful I cried. Then the cell phone rang and brought me back to earth and reality. It was a mountain top experience in the plains of the heartland.
God cried out to us to listen. If we slow down enough and notice God calling we will hear.
Are you listening? Are you listening in such a way that when life throws the hard balls, when the valley's become the valley of death, will you be able to keep walking?
Will you still have faith?
Are you going to remember that the mountaintop of light, is for the purpose of moving on, not for the purpose of keeping everything just right?
posted by Rev Waters | 5:03 PM
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