“Mountaintop Views” based on  Exodus 24:12-18 and Matthew 17:1-9

When
I was 13 I read the Chronicles of Narnia.  They were good, not my
favorites, but easily kept my attention to finish all the books.
However, it was not until MANY years later that I learned that the
books were written as intentional Christian metaphors, and I was
floored.  Nothing, at all, in the books had felt like Christianity to
me.  I didn’t go back to reread them, but I did get peer pressured
into seeing some of the movies, at which point I was able to see
both: 1. How the story could have been written and understood as
Christian and – at the same time – 2. How I entirely missed it.

(The
key really being that I was raised in a Christianity that centered on
“Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me” while
those narratives are inherently violent.)

It is
a little bit embarrassing though, to have missed the entire point.
However, I just didn’t see it.  I couldn’t.  There is a deep truth to
the fact that we can’t see things that we don’t have the context to
make sense of.  The Chronicles of Narnia didn’t look to me the way
Christianity looked.  Now, there are 2.3 Billion Christians in the
world, and I don’t think it is reasonable to assume we all understand
our faith in the same way.  Sometimes it is a little bit startling to
realize just how wide Christianity is and how often it contains its
own opposites.  

At
the same time, that’s sort of the beauty of it all.  People from an
incredibly wide range of worldviews, life experiences, and
backgrounds are all able to find meaning in our tradition because it
is quite adaptable to variation.

The
scriptures this week have led me to thinking a lot about perspective,
as they both have to do with changing perspectives.  Mountaintops
themselves are places where people see things differently.  Some part
of that has to do with the effort expended to get to the top, and
another part has to do with seeing things from a different angle.
From the top of the mountain, it is easier to see the forest than the
individual trees.  It is also easier to understand how various parts
of the landscape related to each other.

Additionally,
both of these stories have transformational experiences occur at the
tops of those mountains.  Moses has been called up the mountain by
God, and leaves behind the people he is leading in order to follow
God’s instructions.  As Moses ascends, a cloud descends.  For the
people left behind, that may have created a sense of mystery or
distance from Moses on the mountain, or perhaps anxiety for his well
being.

But
for Moses, alone on the mountain in the midst of a dense fog, for 6
days without further instruction, that was likely INTENSE, like a 6
day silent retreat with visual sensory deprivation.  When I had a 6
hour drive home from college in the days before cell phones, the time
alone with myself was enough to be disconcerting and clarifying.  6
days alone on a mountain in deep fog would be plenty of time for
reflection – to say the least.  There are many people who can’t
handle 30 seconds of silence – for good reason.  Probably most
people in our society get squirmy well before 30 awake minutes
without distractions.  But 6 days!!!  Yet, the people I know  who
have gone 6 days or more away from distractions all describe it as
holy and perspective changing, although not usually easy.

The
six days are a passing note in the story, but my goodness I think
they matter.  On the seventh day, God calls Moses and the cloud
dissipates to reveal the “glory of God” which was so intense the
people at the bottom of the mountain could see it.  After 6 days of
dense fog, that also must have been a new and different sort of
intense.  AND THEN, Moses enters the cloud WITH God and they spend 40
days and 40 nights together.    

This
is one of the stories of Moses receiving the 10 Commandments, and it
seems to emphasize the holiness and uniqueness of the experience.
Moses got A LOT of time with the Divine – way more than his
preparatory 6 days.  

This
story is cleaned up to fit into a good, faithful telling, but there
is an incredible core to it.  As Addison Wright once pointed out, the
faith traditions in the Ancient Near East at this time were all god
and goddess centric.  That is, people sacrificed at Temples or
engaged in behaviors meant to please the gods, with the goal of
gaining favors from the gods.  Favors like fertility for people and
and flocks, rain for the fields, etc.  Thus faith, worship, and
offerings were largely transactional.  Wright believes that something
entirely new emerged in the Sinai desert, and that something new is
the core of this story.  

That
something new was the concept of a God who cared how people treated
EACH OTHER rather than simply being interested in
self-aggrandizement.  That is, the faith traditions of the area
really saw gods and goddesses as being like powerful people –
selfish, greedy, and needing to be manipulated into helping out.  But
somehow, a small group of desert wanderers came to understand a God
(possibly singular, more likely this started as a primary or tribal
god for them) whose PRIMARY CONCERN was moral behavior.  And that’s
the story of the rest of the Bible, right?  The people try to claim
that they’re all about God and God keeps on responding, “then take
care of the vulnerable among you and build a just society.  THAT is
what I want.”

This
new idea of a God interested in moral human behavior and a just
society is the core message lurking under this cleaned up version
about Moses, a mountain, a fog, a fire, and a lot of waiting.  It is
impossible to tell where the original story lies and where it has
been adapted, but the core is powerful and the current version is
powerful and they’re both worthy of consideration.

The
mountaintop experience being such a powerful part of the Jewish
story, it makes a lot of sense that the Gospel writer Matthew tells
the Transfiguration story as another mountaintop story.  In this
case, rather than a dense fog, it is as if a fog has been lifted and
the disciples are finally able to see clearly.

From
the Gospel writer’s perspective, people were confused into thinking
that Jesus was just another teacher/healer, but on the mountaintop
they saw just how holy and special he really was.  The experience of
being close to God on the mountaintop is repeated, with God’s own
voice speaking.   “This is my child, the beloved, with whom I am
well pleased.” It doesn’t get much better than that!  Yet those are
the words that whisper through the ages, being shared time and time
again, because those are the words that God speaks to each of us.
“This is my child, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
Imagining being on mountaintop seeing God’s delight in Jesus reminds
us of why we continue to work in the world as the Body of Christ.  

The
perspective change on the mountaintop is interesting.  In these
stories, new insights are gleaned, ones that change lives.  I’ve been
thinking about when those perspective shifts can happen for the rest
of us.  Climbing mountains remains a good option 😉 but what are
others?  Some of the most common in the church are mission trips, or
participating in new-to-you ministries of the church.  Anytime we
meet and engage with people who are different from us, we gain
valuable perspective.  And, the more we listen to people, the more we
learn.  Sometimes I think perspective shifts are just direct gifts
from God.  Other times they come after long term spiritual practice
or prayer.  Some require those 6 days of silence in dense fog (or
variations thereof).  Julia Cameron in “The Artists Way” says the
way not to get stuck is to write 3 pages of longhand every day and
have a date with yourself to do something new every week.  Her
particular goal is to keep creative juices flowing, but it turns out
those are related, aren’t they?

One
other intersecting piece comes to mind.  When our anxiety is UP, we
tend to see the world more in black and white.  So, rather than
developing increasing capacities to see many perspectives in the
world, we will tend to pick one and STICK WITH IT AT ALL COSTS.  The
challenge is, that for most of us today, anxiety is high.  Of course,
the  current power structure (of any time and place) benefits from
the increased anxiety that leads people to either/or thinking and
doubling down into opposing camps.  It maintains the status quo.  The
status quo is generally the compromise between two opposing camps,
right?  But what is really great for people are win-win situations,
which require creative thinking, the capacity to see multiple
perspectives, and openness to new ideas.

Now,
it turns out we can’t spend our whole lives on mountaintops, and we
all exist within some parameters of perspective that we can’t just
will our ways out of.  Furthermore, we LITERALLY can’t see things we
aren’t expecting to see, which makes it SUPER hard to break out of
our perspective when it is… in fact…. wrong.

My
favorite idea from John Wesley is this, “Sometimes each of us are
wrong.  Clearly, if we knew when we are wrong, we would correct
ourselves and not be wrong.  So, sometimes when others disagree with
us, it is actually a sign that we are currently wrong.  Since we
don’t know which times those are, we should approach all
disagreements with humility.”  

What
would have happened if Moses came back down the mountain with a new
conception of the Divine and people said, “naw, that doesn’t sound
right?”  Where would we be today?  Where would the world be?

Transfiguration
Sunday is the final Sunday before Lent.  It foreshadows for us the
perspective shift of Easter, and by giving us a foretaste of it,
gives us the motivation to engage in reflection for Lent to prepare
ourselves for Easter.  It turns out that Lent is also meant to give
us a perspective change.  It slows us down, offers us time to think,
and reflect, and consider.  

There
are a lot of ways to expand our worldviews, to glean a better
understanding of what is going on all around us.  None of them are
perfect, and our capacities to see and understand will be limited,
but thanks be to God, we can grow and become.  May we take the view
from the mountaintop and let it change us from the inside out.  Amen

–

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady