“Real Religion”
A sermon by Sid Burgess
for Edgewood PC, Birmingham, AL
Transfiguration of the Lord,” February 18, 2007
Text: Luke 9:28-43a
We have just heard two contrasting stories from the gospel according to St. Luke. The setting of one story is a mountaintop, the setting of the other, the valley below. In one, we get a glimpse of Israel’s golden age—the age of Moses and the prophet Elijah. In the other, we also get a preview here of the glory to come for Jesus followed by harsh dose of reality. We see a father in agony over the suffering of his special-needs child, a son seized by convulsions, foaming at the mouth. In one story—up on the mountaintop--three of the disciples share our glimpse of past and future glory. But in the other story, down in the valley they share our helplessness in the face of human misery. In one story there is divine affirmation: “This is my son, my chosen. . . .” In the other, there is divine condemnation: “You faithless and perverse generation . . . .”
One wonders why Luke would put these two stories together? Think about it. This is the same Luke who tells about choirs of angels in Bethlehem. If he needed an addendum to the story of Jesus on the mountaintop why not bring back the angelic choir for an encore? Why this down-in-the-depths story of chronic illness, inept disciples, and harsh criticism? Maybe Luke was writing in a rush, trying to get all the stories in, and we all know he didn’t have the luxury of a word processing computer. But what about the lectionary editors—those modern scholars who put together our three-year cycle of scripture readings? Surely they could have used their editorial license to better effect. They could have left us on the mountaintop with Jesus, Peter, James and John. Left us to contemplate the glory of our ancestors and the future grandeur of Jesus on Easter Sunday. Instead, we are plunged down into the abyss of human suffering.
Don’t we get enough of that on our own? After all, what is religion for if not to pull us out of the “mirey bog,” and spirit us quickly and painlessly up to the mountaintop?
As most of you know, I’m an avid cyclist. I ride about 100 miles a week, whether I need to or not. But when I come to the hills— when it comes to climbing these mountains around here— Red Mountain, Shades Mountain, Double Oak Mountain, I cringe. I know it’s going to hurt I know I’m going to be huffing and puffing. I know all my younger, slimmer, and speedier buddies are going to leave me behind. So, I begin to fantasize. I fantasize about throwing a rope onto the first truck to pass by. Casting a rope up onto the back of a pick-em up truck, and letting the truck pull me effortlessly, painlessly to the top.
Of course, it’s just a harmless fantasy. Down below, I lower my head and keep on pedaling, plodding my way to the top. I will eventually, slowly make it up. My thoughtful buddies will kindly wait for me, and I’ll be a better person for the effort, having—for the one-millionth time—once again sworn off of ice cream forever.
This fantasy is harmless when I’m 20 miles from home and have no alternative but to press on. At other times, fantasy is not so harmless. Down in the valley of depression, valley of frayed nerves, broken relationships, and discouraging debt. Down in the valley of chronic illness, fighting off nagging injuries, trying to ward off the ravages of age . . . Down in the valley, saddled with excess weight, plagued with high blood pressure, and tense relationships, the fantasy of a quick, painless fix is not so healthy. Such fantasy can lead to alcohol and drug addiction. Such whimsy can lead to ignoring reality, refusing to make difficult choices. But it is not the way of real, genuine Christian faith—the way of the Cross.
In today’s gospel lesson Jesus leads by example. Real religion can offer us a peak at past and future glory, our glory, and theirs too--- but the path to that glory leads down the mountain to where the hurt is.
Even in the midst of glory, up on the mountaintop, Luke tells us Jesus, Moses, and Elijah are talking about Jesus’ “departure” for Jerusalem. The Greek word for “departure” can also be translated as “exodus.” Just as our Hebrew ancestors had to make their “exodus” from Egypt, through the Wilderness, before arriving in the Promised Land, so Jesus will make his exodus through suffering and death through the Passion— to the Resurrection. So, too, we who would follow him, must leave our comfort zones of Southern cooking, our safe enclaves of family, our cozy surroundings of “home, sweet home.”
On the mountain top, Peter tries to the delay their departure. “Let us make three dwellings,” as in three lovely sanctuaries. Jesus rejects the idea. Religion is not for show. Religion is for real. And so he leads his disciples, and us, down the mountain to where the hurt is, to the demon-possessed son and his anguished father, to unbelieving officials, ineffective institutions, and vacillating followers.
One of my sources writes:
Real religion is not about building temples and keeping shrines. Real religion is about healing hurts, speaking for and being with the poor, the helpless, the voiceless and the forgotten who are at the silent bottom of every pinnacle, every hierarchy and every system in both state and church, church and state. Real religion, the scripture insists, is not about transcending life; real religion is about our transforming life.[1]
This, my friends, is the gospel of the transfiguration, the gospel of change, calling us to change our attitudes about the role of religion in society, in the church, and in our own lives. Real religion is not about escape from reality, it is about the incarnation—God incarnate in a human being, God at one with humankind—messy, stubborn, resisting, even rejecting humankind.
Real religion calls us to the Beatitudes, to the works of mercy, to the casting out of demons, to the doing of miracles for those in need, to the being and act of irrational love and burning justice of God. That is what the Transfiguration is about, that is what religion is really about, changing ourselves so we can help change the world.
How in the world do we do that: change. Fight the great inertia, the indifference? The battle of the bulge? The compulsion to hoard more and more stuff? To pile on more and more debt? To deaden our own pain, while we ignore the hurt of others?
One of my scholarly sources points out the difference between Moses’ encounter with God on Mt. Sinai and the encounter Peter, James, and John have with Jesus here in Luke’s Gospel: On Mt. Sinai, Moses receives the Ten Commandments – on the Mount of the Transfiguration, the disciples receive only one commandment – ‘listen to Jesus.’ Up on that mountaintop, in a cloud of uncertainty, the deep mist of mystery, with Peter, James, and John we hear the key to making changes in our lives: “A voice cries out ‘This is my son, my chosen, listen to him.’”
Listen to him up on the mountaintop. Listen to him in the valley below. Listen to him in moments of joy and happiness, times of triumph and success. Know that that in times of failure and loss, in the midst of sadness and despair, this voice—the voice of Christ our Savior— can never be silenced. Listen to him, saying, “You, too, are God’s chosen ones, God’s beloved.” With that sacred assurance we make the changes we need to make, in our lives, in the church, someday, in the world.
Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor
and power and might
be to our God forever and ever. Amen.
[1] Chittister, Joan, “The Role of Religion in Today’s Society,” from “Thirty Good Minutes,” November 24, 1991, http://www.csec.org