Sermon on Matthew 17:1-9

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

The season after Epiphany always ends with the perplexing story we call “The Transfiguration.”

I always feel bad for Peter and the other disciples, because they get told off for not really getting what’s going on. I feel bad for them because I’ve never really gotten what’s going on in this story either.

One minute, Peter, James, and John were going on a nice mountain hike with Jesus. Then next, Jesus started glowing so bright their eyes hurt and they saw not one but two long-dead ancestors in faith!I wonder if they thought the altitude was getting to them.

Poor Peter started nervously offering to build religious monuments when apparently all he was supposed to do was listen.Then a talking cloud rolled in to tell him to be quiet. And after they got back down the mountain, Jesus told them to keep what they had experienced to themselves.

No wonder they were terrified! That’s a lot to take in on one afternoon, and they couldn’t even process it with others.

But for all the perplexing supernatural elements, some important physical details ground this story.

First, it happens on a mountain. Like Moses meeting with God on Mount Sinai, Jesus was inviting some of his disciples to meet with him among the rocks and trees. The setting of this story, despite its mystery, is profoundly earthy.

And when the poor disciples fell to the ground, scared out of their wits, it was Jesus’ touch that brought them back to themselves. Sometimes words alone can’t shake our emotional state, but someone’s hand on our shoulder or a long hug can help regulate us.

Then, Jesus led them back down the mountain. They had a mystical experience, but they weren’t supposed to stay on the mountaintop. They had work to do in their ordinary lives ministering to ordinary people.

Have you ever had a mountaintop experience?

Perhaps you went to camp as a child and connected with God in a new way amid the beauty of nature.

Or maybe you’ve attended our annual women’s retreat and walked the labyrinth at night under the star-filled sky.

Or maybe you’ve had a mystical experience in a hospital room. Or maybe you’ve had a dream that felt like a vision.

God can do amazing things to get our attention.

But I wonder if we’re as open as we could be to receiving what God has to say to us.

I wonder if mystical experiences of God seem to happen most often on a mountaintop because that’s where we slow down enough to be willing to listen.

I’ve heard creativity researchers talk about why we most often have our best ideas when we’re in the shower or on a walk.Those are often the only times we stop giving ourselves input—we’re not listening to the radio or watching a show or checking our email.

Our brains need downtime, even boredom, in order to engage in creative thinking. I wonder if it’s the same for being receptive to God’s messages for us.

If we never slow down to breathe or notice what’s around us, maybe we’re missing messages from God.

Maybe we need to get out of our daily routine to change where we put our attention. So many biblical stories of encountering God happen on a mountaintop or in the wilderness.

We’re pretty disconnected from the natural world. We spend a lot of our lives indoors. That’s definitely the case for me. Even when I’m walking around the park near my house, I’m rarely without headphones. If I go to the mountains, I want to stay in at least a cabin, thank you very much. If I’m at the beach, there’s a good chance I’m walking on the sidewalk instead of the sand.

We may not pay much attention to the natural world in our fast-paced, climate-controlled daily lives.

But the good news is that though we might consider ourselves apart from the natural world, we’re actually a part of it. We can’t get away from nature, because we are nature.

So, we don’t necessarily need to go to a mountaintop or to the wilderness or any other natural place to have an encounter with God, because nature is all around us. Wherever we are, there is nature, which is God’s handiwork. We don’t need to go somewhere special to find God, because God is with us, God’s creations, wherever we go.

We just need to slow down enough to pay attention. God doesn’t always speak through something as dramatic asa voice coming from a mighty cloud or a burning bush or a talking donkey.

Sometimes God speaks through the sun warm on your skin or a child’s laughter or a leaf crunching underfoot or your own heartbeat.

Just as Jesus invited the disciples up the mountain, God beckons to us wherever we are to meet with God. And just like the disciples fear dissipated at Jesus’ touch, we can find comfort in the physical—in what God created. And then, God leads us back into our daily lives, where we get to live out God’s love for all creation, including you and me.

God created the world and called it good.

God created you and calls you good.

But when we humans forget that we’re part of nature, we tend to create problems for the beautiful planet we live on—polluting and extracting and dominating our own global home.

We’re going to spend the Lent and Easter seasons this year talking about creation: God’s love for it, why we should care about it, how we can love it better. From remembering this Wednesday that we are dust and to dust we shall return to celebrating that we have a God of new life, let’s find our mountaintops right where we are and meet with God, whose love permeates every seed and sparrow and strand of your hair.

God’s voice is still speaking, listen to it.