Sermon: Down from the Mountain

Sermon: Down from the Mountain 

Rev. Holly MillerShank

July 2016, Korea

Text: Matthew 17:1-13 NIV

After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters- one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said “this is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell face-down to the ground, terrified. But Jesus came and touched them, “Get up,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.” When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus. As they coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them, “Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” Then disciples asked him, “Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?” Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist.

I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to worship with you today. I am especially thankful for the partnership between the PROK and Global Ministries and that our partnership can be made manifest in common worship services such as this.

I recognize that the text I selected for today is generally read on Transfiguration Sunday; the Sunday before Lent begins. Transfiguration Sunday is a liturgical reminder of Jesus’ divinity and calls the listener’s attention to the fact that this isn’t just any man going through the trials of the Lenten season but that it is indeed the Son of God. I believe that this is a rich text that teaches us many lessons throughout the year and not just at the inauguration of the Lenten season.

Regarding this text, first, I want to talk about the desire to mark sacred spaces as holy. During this six week journey that Jonathan and I have had with the PROK getting to know Korean history and to experience contemporary Korean culture we have visited many sites that have been marked for important memorial occasions. We visited the site in Jeam-Ri where the men who spoke out against Japanese rule during the March 1^st 1919 uprising were forced into a church and burned alive. We also visited the April 19^th memorial marking the graves of the students and professors who spoke up against corrupt presidential leadership in 1960. We have been to Ansan and Jindo where memorial sites have been set up in remembrance of the lives of hundreds of youth killed in their prime in the Sewol Ferry tragedy.

Sights such as these are an integral part of the human condition. We know that our ancestors; from Moses to David to Jacob used stones to mark important sites. Rocks where placed upon rocks and prayers uttered; claiming the ground as sacred and asserting that the actions that took place on at these locations would be remembered for generations to come. The sites that we have visited so far in Korea have been powerful reminders of the past as well as commitments towards a different future.

You see that’s the thing about memorializing a site, a memorial can never adequately capture the pain or joy of a specific moment, nor can a memorial ever exist in isolation from the future. In our scripture from today Peter wants to create booths for Moses, Elijah and Jesus. Peter want to hold this sacred moment, he wants to capture it and somehow to contain it. But God cannot be contained by any memorial. As if to prove a point, God speaks at the exact moment when Peter is proposing building the shelters and says that “this is my son with whom, I am well pleased”. God seems to be telling Peter that it is not a physical location that is to be memorialized but that is a person, specifically Jesus, whose life is to be modeled as the most powerful witness to God’s love.

Jonathan and I have taken in a great deal of information about Korean history, and while we are striving to learn the dates and names of exact moments in time, it is obvious that is the collective spirit of dignity, accountability and self-determination that are the overall hallmarks of the people which are collectively more powerful than any one monument or memorial.

A shift occurs in our text as soon as God’s word is spoken. No longer is the desire to remain on the mountaintop, but instead the direction of Jesus and his followers shifts down the mountain. As often seen in Biblical narratives, the mountaintop is sacred encounter with the Holy experienced by a select few; recall Moses going up the mountain to receive the commandments or when he summits mount Abarim to witness the promise land that he will not live to experience himself; in all of these mountaintop experiences the protagonist travels back down to carry God’s message to the people. The transfiguration narrative is no different; God’s word is experienced in one place but does not remain sequestered there, it travels back down the mountain to be with God’s people.

During this trip we have worked with numerous PROK churches and have found that the commitment to sharing God with the community is an essential aspect of the ministry of your denomination’s churches. We have found congregations that bake bread for the hungry, congregations that farm the fields to feed factory workers who have lost their jobs, we have sat in the senior citizen day center of a PROK church that ministers to the needs of those who have suffered strokes and cannot remain on their own during the day. We’ve had coffee in community shops run by churches as safe meeting spaces for the community, we’ve seen daycare centers run for the children of migrant workers and meeting halls where public forums are held and protests planned.

These are all examples of bringing the word of God down from the mountaintop experience of Sunday morning worship and into the everyday aspects of humanity.

In the United Church of Christ, where I am an ordained minister, we believe in three core value; first that God is still speaking; meaning that God continues to reveal a meaning and purpose for God’s people in this current age. Secondly, we believe in Jesus’ extravagant welcome, meaning that no matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey that you are welcoming into the faith and family of Jesus Christ. And finally, we believe that the role of the Church is to change lives; meaning that our faith cannot remain solely in our heads or our hearts but must be lived out in direct actions that change the lives of the communities where are churches are located. It is our responsibility to live into our request that we recite in the Lord’s Prayer asking to have God’s will be made manifest on earth as it is in heaven.

We have been witness to congregations throughout the PROK striving to make God’s promises of justice and peace a reality not only within the membership of those who belong to the church but even more so within the communities where the congregations are located.

We have heard much about the PROK’s work for reunification and applaud the consistent message of reconciliation. Jonathan and I will both freely admit that the conversations we have had here on reunification of the Korean peninsula is not the same one shared with us through the media in the United States. This is part of the reason why partnerships are so important. You see, when Jesus went up the mountain, and experienced the transfiguration he did not do so alone. He took his disciples with him, and not just one of them but several of them.

The disciples are examples of partnership, no one disciple has the right answer to fully explain what they were experiencing on the mountaintop or how to respond to the experience, but they were able to talk and share together. Together they were able to move towards greater discernment and understanding of Jesus’ teachings including the understanding that John the Baptist had been the prophet Elijah sent again to call the earth to repentance.

The difficult work of following Jesus should never be attempted alone; doing so can only lead to myopic understandings of the Gospel. Just think why it is that we have four different interpretations of the Gospel included in the Bible. We always need different perspectives in order to grow in our understandings of Christ’s teachings. The same thing is true for our ecumenical partnerships, by working collaboratively towards a more complete understanding of God’s call we strengthen the witness of Jesus Christ across the globe and simultaneously improve our own faithful witness within our individual denominations.

Being with the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea has been a transformative experience for both Jonathan and me. Our own faith has been strengthened; we have visited powerful monuments of historical events and lamented with all of Korea in the loss of young lives in the Sewol Ferry. We have had just a small taste of what it is like in Korea to come down from the mountain and share God’s word among the community, and we have been witness to the power of partnership. We pray that our time here has been equally beneficial to those who have given generously of their time to meet with us.

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention the vital aspect of women’s dignity we have encountered on our trip so far. I realize that there are no women listed as eyewitnesses to the transfiguration in today’s scripture lesson but we do know that it was women who were the first witnesses to Christ’s resurrection. The role of women in society is an imperative part of the biblical narrative. Women’s lives are essential to the perpetuation of the gospel. It is crucial that all governments and churches take the role of women in society seriously and create mechanisms for equality as well as reparations for the systemic mistreatment of women in the past. During this trip we have talked with women lured into the sex industry near military bases and with women’s whose bodies were used as battle grounds during the Japanese occupation. These incidents are not isolated to Asia but are replicated across the globe. Violence against women is a worldwide epidemic and is why the world council of churches has repeatedly fostered programs to address violence against women.

While there is much to celebrate about our shared ministry and our ever-growing partnership, it does not mean that there is not more work to do. Jesus comes down from the transfiguration to face some of the most difficult days of his ministry. It is after the transfiguration that he calls out the unjust acts of the Roman Empire and of the religious elite. It is after the transfiguration that he turns over the tables of the money changers and is anointed by the unnamed woman with expensive perfume for his impending death. No, my friends, the work of ministry is not done. We cannot be like Peter wishing to build booths hoping to remain unchanged, instead we must journey forward with Christ and with one another striving always to bear the most faithful witness possible to the creating God’s kingdom here on earth. I welcome being a traveling companion with you on this journey and pray that our two churches will be partners along the way.

May it be so. Amen.