Can You See the Light?

I learned a new term this week:  ecclesiastical burnout.    It is a term that describes long-time church members who moved beyond being tired of committee meetings… or the routine of weekly church events… or the same old parking lot conversations… or the years of struggling with needs of youth… or elderly parishioners.  They’ve moved beyond being tired to burned out… burned out on church… ecclesiastical burnout. 

Let me see if I can describe these folks to you.  If they came into this church building, they would see only the same stains on the hallway carpet… the same people week after week… the same food moldering in the refrigerator… the same order of worship in the bulletins… the same old coffee pot that takes forever to make a pot of coffee… the same choir room that is too crowded for comfort.  They would focus on the typographical errors in the bulletin… the notes they don’t know of hymns they don’t want to sing from the new hymnal… the mistakes the organist makes… the mistakes the lector makes…the mistakes the preacher makes… and the list goes on.  Oh, they still come to church… and they still participate in church activities, but they feel no enthusiasm… no joy… no sense of purpose… only a bland sameness …a dogged weariness…a grinding discouragement… and exhaustion.  Ecclesiastical burnout.  They are burned out on church. 

When Peter, James and John went up the mountain with Jesus that day, they might have been in very much the same place as our burned-out parishioners.  After all, they had been following Jesus all around the countryside, leaving family and friends behind… as well as the comforts of hearth and home.  They had ministered for weeks… months… even for years to the widows… the orphans … the aliens… the strangers that their day-to-day journeys brought to them.  They had dealt with hungry crowds and angry Pharisees… ministered to untold numbers of sick and suffering people… been threatened by those had leprosy or were possessed with demons… and rejected by those who could not see the truth of the gospel message.  I can imagine these three men wondering what the heck they were doing climbing this mountain behind Jesus.  They were probably tired… and weary… and resentful… and maybe even glaring daggers through his back as they trudged up the narrow path to the top.  And this wasn’t just a little hill… it was a high mountain.   What now?    Jesus of Nazareth had dragged them all over the countryside, putting them in lots of new places… surrounding them with lots of new people… always expecting them to be there to minister to others.    Who knew what this day might hold?  But it was probably just more work…and little reward.    Hot and tired after their long climb, I imagine that they were not happy campers when they got to the top. 

Then the gospel tells us simply… and I quote… “he [Jesus] was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.  And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus.”    At which point, Peter, frightened totally out of his wits, turned into a babbling idiot.   Then came the cloud… and the Voice: “This is my son, the Beloved, listen to him”… which very effectively stopped the babbling.    And… just that fast… it was over.    Jesus was himself again… but Peter, James and John were not.  They went back down the mountain… and Jesus told them not to speak of this experience until after his resurrection, but I would guess that they had no idea what he was talking about.  What resurrection?    As they walked down the mountain, they had a lot to think about… a lot to process… and it was at once terrifying… and confusing… and unbelievable… and mysterious.  Once again, they were probably all staring at Jesus’ back.  I don’t know what they were thinking… but there is one thing I do know:  They weren’t burned out any more!    Tired?  Maybe.  Confused?  Probably.  Burned out?  Not a chance. 

Peter, James and John had just had a “mountaintop experience”…literally… and figuratively.  Something happened on that mountain that changed them.  Something happened that was totally beyond human understanding… totally beyond the expected… totally beyond the everyday… something that burst the bounds of their limited physical existence… and transported them, however briefly, to a very different place.  When it was over… when they returned to “reality” as they knew it… life was different… they were different. 

Sometimes, we just see what we expect to see… what we’ve always seen… and our dreams and vision shrink to fit our reality… our experience.    J.R.R. Tolkien, the Oxford professor and Christian author who wrote “The Lord of the Rings,” said that the purpose of fantasy… of fairy stories… was to take people to a place that was so different from their known reality that it allowed them to see new possibilities…new opportunities… in the ordinary things of life when they returned to their own reality.    Jesus did that for these three disciples.  He took them to a place that seemed ordinary and showed them a vision of a new reality that was beyond the bounds of any reality that they could imagine.  In a split second, these three disciples saw him as he truly was… the Son of God… God Incarnate… and they caught a glimpse of life beyond the bounds of this existence…beyond the constraints of this world… where saints long dead are alive and active in eternity… where those who were once mortal speak with their Savior, their God, face-to-face... where those who are God’s are claimed and affirmed by God.    How could they see this… how could they witness this… and remain unchanged? 

But what is it that keeps us from seeing what Paul calls “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the presence of Jesus Christ” in the ordinary… the everyday?  Why can’t we see the glory of God in every committee meeting we attend… in every routine chore… in the light bulbs we change… the dishes we wash… in every piece of torn or stained carpet that covers our floor?  Paul says we cannot see it because we are blind… blinded by the god of this existence into seeing only what this world claims is real… of not being able to see the glory of God.  We get used to our reality.  We accept it.  And we live within its bounds.    And, as we slide further and further away from the vision of the glory of God, we allow the god of this world… or, I would suggest, the many gods of this world… to dictate our lives.    Slowly… insidiously… we slide into a downward spiral that reinforces itself.  The further we slide away from God, the more we allow the things of this world to control our lives… and the more we allow the things of this world to control our lives, the further we slide away from God… and the light of glory of God in the presence of Jesus Christ that Paul was talking about in our text. 

Most of us believe that sin is act of willful disobedience to God.  But sin is actually defined as separation from God… separation from God.  And anything that separates us from God is sinful.    When we understand sin this way, then it is possible to see that the act of willful disobedience is simply a sign that sin already exists in our lives… that we are, indeed, already separated from God.    It is at these times… times when we realize that we are separated from God… that we need a “mountaintop experience”… an experience that reveals to us the truth of who God is.  You see, the importance of the gospel message is not in what it reveals about where Jesus lived and what Jesus did… the importance of the gospel message is in what it reveals about who Jesus is… that it reveals to us a vision of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.    That is what makes the ordinary extraordinary! 

Now, true confessions from your pastor:  Sometimes, I come into the office in the morning… and that’s exactly what it is… the office… not the house of God.  Sometimes, I sit at my desk and just do work… ordinary, everyday tasks… and I don’t see the vision of the glory of God in those tasks.    I’m no different than you.  Sometimes, when I’m reading Paul’s letters, I just want to grab Paul and say “Did you really see the light of the glory of God in everything… in every long, exhausting journey… in every cold, dank prison cell… in every long committee meeting… in the face of every squabbling parishioner? 

I need a mountaintop experience from time to time as much as you do.  I need to draw close to God again.  And that’s why we all need Lent.    The question that Lent presents to us is this:  How do we rediscover the glory of Easter every day?  How do we catch a glimpse of the vision of the glory of God again?  How can we get so close to God that every day… every task… is a mountaintop experience?    Jesus showed Peter, James and John a glimpse of something holy… something special… something unbelievable… something out of this world… so that they would see something different in this world when they returned.  And they did.    Lent is for that.  For drawing closer to God… for removing all that separates us from God… for lifting the blindness of our everyday existence… by deliberately… intentionally… setting time aside for the holy… the unique…  the sacred… the special… the unbelievable.  For allowing each day to become a mountaintop experience.   Come.  Join me on the journey toward Easter.  Come.  Draw closer to God… and rediscover the glory of Easter every day.  Amen.

2 Corinthians 4:3-6; Mark 9:2-9