At the Intersection of It All - 3/3/19

The New Revised Standard Version The Transfiguration

The Transfiguration

(Mt 17:1–8; Mk 9:2–8; 2 Pet 1:16–18)

28 Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. 29 And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. 30 Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. 31 They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. 32 Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. 33 Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”—not knowing what he said. 34 While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. 35 Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” 36 When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.

Intersections

A couple days ago, Stacy and I had a chance to get out of Bellingham on a long drive and found ourselves in the heart of where I grew up, downtown Edmonds. It was, as they say, “an Edmonds kind of day,” sunny, clear, the Puget Sound deep dark blue and waves crashing along the beach.

I spent the first 18 years of my life in that town. I know those streets well, even as they’ve changed, businesses have closed, buildings torn down, new life taking over and awakening that beach side town.

I know the streets well. I rode my bike all over that town as a kid. Up the hills, down to the water, from Woodway to Shoreline to Richmond Beach to Meadowdale. And when you know the streets, you know the intersections. Especially as a kid on a bike.

One intersection has always captivated my imagination. It’s at the top of the hill in Edmonds, where Main Street meets 212th St meets 83rd Ave W meets 84th Ave W meets Bowdoin Way — that’s right, 5 streets converging. 5 Corners.

Now the intersection is a roundabout, but not long ago, it was still a 5 way stop. A driver’s ed nightmare (which, by the way, I took drivers ed at my high school, Edmonds-Woodway, just about a half-mile from there, so we most definetely drove that intersection in class). A nightmare, but also a mystery, a curiosity. And for a kid on a bike, an entrance into liminal, intersectional, faith and trust space every time you pedaled out into the great wide, 5 cornered unknown.

Think of the thrill of going through an intersection.

What, you don’t find it thrilling? What, you’ve been driving for decades and the risky, you-go-no-you-go-no-you-go dance has lost it’s spark?

Well wake up — Intersections are amazing. They are spaces between trajectories, liminal and full of possibility. Which way are you going to go? And think of the risk it takes to step into the intersection, to push the pedal — the unknown awaits.

Our text today is an intersection moment, a place in Jesus’ story where the stories of the Hebrew people and the traditions of the priests and prophets and the longing for the king all suddenly meet on the mountaintop. Stories of intersection should cause us to pause. To breathe, to enter into the mystery and hopefully emerge with a new trajectory, a newly invigorated path.

Story of Edmonds, 5 corners, and fascinating intersections.

Stepping into the street

This is one of the moments along the faith journey when all is seen differently, where God is revealed, where the story changes. A story at the intersection of it all.

Stepping into the intersection

Longing for Divine Encounter

Do you long to have an experience like this? To stand on some mountaintop or grand vista and encounter God’s presence firsthand? I’d be surprised if your answer wasn’t yes — those of us who follow along this journey of faith long for moments of revelation, moments when the curtain is pulled back and we see things with more clarity — scandalously hoping that it is God who we may see.

The disciples would have had this in the back of their minds: “OK, Jesus is leading us up a mountain. These are places people see God, encounter the Holy One.”

Remember, Moses went to the Mountain to hear God’s law. Elijah heard God in the mountain cave, God found in the silence and whisper of presence. So Peter, John and James, for however drowsy and inattentive they might have been, had to be holding some sense of expectation here in this moment. The ones with eyes to see and ears to hear would have an inkling of God’s revelation.

But that’s just the thing — they’re not paying attention. And maybe that’s just what needed to happen. Because the disciples are suddenly swept up into the moment. Fulfilling their expectations about the stories they knew from the Hebrew tradition, all of a sudden there with Jesus they see Moses and Elijah. To their astonishment — this is one of those intersection moments, one of those unplanned for, holy encounters with God that we all long for.

Peter grabs some rocks — He wants to remember this moment. He wants to create tabernacles, dwellings of glory to these divine figures that have been revealed.

Remembering our intersections

What do you do when you have a significant experience like this? Perhaps you haven’t found yourself up on the mountain with Jesus and the Hebrew Patriarchs, but I bet each of you have some experience of the divine in your story that has drawn you here. How do you remember that? How to you mark that? Did you set up a rock on the ground where you stood? Did you write about it? If you’re like me, you might have found an object of remembrance to hold or wear, like this ring I wear on my right hand.

We

The Glory of the Lord

The Cloud of God’s Presence - the Ahah moment

This is a “now what” moment

Jesus is discussing the next steps with Moses and Elijah.

Jesus is revealed in glory, a moment when we enter the intersection of many storylines and discover that God is most certainly in our midst.

The center of the intersection

Hebrew story

Christian story

Story of all our lives - found in Christ

A Story about how all life is finds its center in Jesus

From within the cloud, in a moment when all things are obscured and shrouded, the clarity comes. Do you catch that? God is providing clarity to God’s people in the place where all is covered up, all is clouded.

We need to rethink our hope for clarity. It is in obscurity that God often reveals direction to us. It is climbing up to the mountaintop, not to find a beautiful, panoramic view, but to be enveloped by the presence. It is in nudging our gas pedal a bit to enter into the intersection. It is a step of faith — hoping you’ve remembered all the rules from drivers ed or that you’ve looked both ways — but the whole journey through is one of faith. I’m going to commit to enter into this intersection moment, hoping against hope that somebody won’t come through out of my blindspot and run that red light. Standing in a place of holy revelation and not gaining greater clarity or more answers, but actually seeing less, becoming overshadowed.

And it keeps getting more beautiful and more dangerous — The obscurity leads to clarity. At the intersection of it all, where Jesus and the disciples stand, we find the voice of the cloud. “This is my Son, my Chosen, listen to him!”

What did you go up to the mountain looking for? Clarity. What did you find? Obscurity.

And that’s the beauty — In this intersection moment, God’s presence reveals to these disciples and to us the utter immensity and grandeur of what existence is really about. God’s voice reveals that Jesus is much more than they had been ready to accept — Jesus is God’s chosen one. In this moment of overshadowing, the expansive, limitless God of the universe is revealing presence to this men.

Standing at the Intersection

Think again of moments of intersection you have experienced, moments when you entered into the crossroads or to the mountaintop and found something there.

You passed through those intersections. You came down off the mountain. By passing through those moments and now looking back upon them, what has been revealed to you? What mystery did you encounter there that still rocks your world and leaves you in obscurity? What presence did you discover that has changed your trajectory?

God is calling us to move through intersections throughout our life.

The intersection of life and death — moving into the unknown only to realize that all of life has been wonderfully filled with unknown and it is on that holy ground we have found God.

The intersection of inclusion and diversity — moving into the complexity of living among difference and otherness, only to find that through that movement we discover both a greater sense of our own identity and deepen a love for that which we are not.

The intersection of presence and absence — moving into clouded ground, where we come to acknowledge how little we are able to truly know about one another (absence) and yet hungering all the more greatly for closeness, depth, connection (presence).

For the people of God, we walk through this world looking for the intersection point of the stories and news about kings and leaders, longing for there to be, somehow, an intersection of God’s promised prophet, priest, and King — and finding this intersection in the Messiah, Jesus, alone, the true King who fulfills those desires and at the same time shatters any sense of king or leader or ruler that we had ever held — God’s reign is so much more expansive, inclusive, wide, and good.

These are intersection moments. Holy mysteries.

The Invitation to Lent and to the intersections.

Finally, we are invited into Holy, mysterious intersections right here and now. Today, we participate in the mysterious intersection of Holy Communion, where we remember that mundane elements like bread and juice are at once also the body and blood of Christ — signs of God’s presence and absence among us.

We also enter a Holy, mysterious intersection as we stand with our sisters and brothers who will stand before you all and affirm their commitment to Jesus Christ and the shared life together here at St. James through the rite of membership.

All roads lead to God? Maybe, but more like Jesus’ journey is the hinge on which all the other journeys turn.

The intersection of calling and movement

The intersection of inclusion and diversity

The church lives at the intersection of it all. A faith community, like we are striving to be here, is a place to witness these moments of holy intersection. We are called together to be these intersections with one another, to name them, to explore them, to stand in the cloud of obscurity and presence with each other. Is this not what you seek? To catch a greater glimpse of God’s mystery among your family here?

The intersection of life and death

As it was on the mountain, so we experience this intersections as moments of great revealing and glory. And a quick and vital warning to you all — do not fall asleep. Do not fall prey to keeping the mystery at bay by dosing off. Do not settle for lazy, sleepy, distant, safe sidewalks. I see it and I feel it all the time — among us the pressure to sleep, to be comfortable, to leave the religious experiences to someone else who has more time for that, more energy, a different set of gifts.

The intersection of presence and absence

My strong encouragement to you all, this church at St. James is to continue to wake up and see the cloud which is around us. Wake up to the tension, the obscurity, the beautiful, mysterious possibility of the place on which we stand. Because it’s happening around us — the holy one is breaking in and showing us the mystery — we must pay attention and listen. Pray and watch.

Thank God for these moments, these intersections. These places in our life together where we stand at the intersection of it all and glimpse God’s beckoning into something greater.

And thank God for seasons like Lent, which we are about to step into this week. Lent is a season to train our hearts to keep beating, our eyes to stay away, our breath to get stronger. Lent is a season of movement. We have heard our calling, now it is time to turn and move toward the cross with Jesus, move toward others in compassionate sacrifice, move toward changing the status quo and the powers that be, move toward God’s presence as it dwells within us.

Will you stay away in this season? Will you actually do more than that — will you enter into Lent in ways that jumpstart your heart, that charge up your faith, that make you hungry for God’s presence all the more? I hope you will. Because we’re coming down off the mountain and we’re moving — don’t stay asleep up there — move with us.

The intersection of the priests, the prophets, and the King

The church as the living intersection of it all — the place where God’s people gather and dwell and return to the world, following our given trajectories and journeys.

Closing

We must pray, as we enter this season of Lent, for our eyes to be opened. We do not want to fall asleep when Christ is being revealed right in front of us.

We have perhaps heard our calling — this is the moment when we recognize, all of a sudden, what purpose our calling serves. Jesus’ proclamation is now leading him to the cross — to death and resurrection.

What is the corner you’re standing on? Will you move into the intersection, risking all that will be revealed, obscured, and emerging to continue the journey? What are you waiting for?

What needs to change? What are you standing there waiting for?