Six-year-olds and love that will not compute

A sermon for St. Peter Lutheran Church, Oran; and St. John Lutheran, Buck Creek

Luke 9:28-36

The Gospel this morning begins by saying “About eight days after these sayings, Jesus took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray.” It begs the question: What were the sayings Luke was referring to?

It is worth noting what drove Jesus up the mountain, because when we pull one story out of Luke 9, the break-neck speed at which everything is happening quickly becomes evident. In Luke, chapter 9 alone, we begin with Jesus giving the disciples power to heal diseases and sending them to proclaim the kingdom of God, while ordering them to do so without taking any payment. Then, Herod shows up, wondering who this Jesus is. Then, Jesus feeds five thousand people; he asks the disciples who they think he is; foretells his rejection; and tells them what the kingdom of God will look like. Then, we have the transfiguration reading today. After this story, Jesus heals a boy, proclaims he will be betrayed, breaks up an argument between the disciples about who is the greatest, gets rejected trying to enter a Samaritan village, and finally says a whole lot of cryptic phrases that nobody really understands.

That is not a recap of the entire Gospel—just Luke 9. There is so much going on all at once in Jesus’ ministry. It’s a chaotic storm of activity. The only time things slow down—the only time they ever slow down—is when he heads up the mountain.

I feel that in my bones when I look at the world today. Everything is moving at breakneck speed. Things are hectic; they are scary; they are uncertain. Our lives are lived on the high speeds of the internet and the high speeds of the highway, receiving information and watching things fly by faster than ever. By the time we can digest what is happening now, it is gone. And as everything speeds up, requests turn to obligations, and obligations turn to orders.

That is one loud story, but it is not the story we hear on the mountain top.

Nine times in scripture, Jesus retreats to pray in a wild space, and at least three times, he heads for the mountain. How telling is it that Jesus, who spends his entire ministry moving at break-neck speed toward the cross, routinely retreats from the busy world to the mountain to pray! If Jesus does it, we must as well. Not out of obligation, as if God needs our prayers, but because it is the thing that will save us from a busy world bent on turning us into cogs in a machine. It’s a crazy world out there, and it is all too easy to lose sight of the face of God in our brothers and sisters when we are taught to view them as cogs in a machine. The transfiguration of Jesus is less about discovering that Jesus was holy—the disciples should already have known that! Every healing bore witness to it! Rather, the transfiguration reminds us that holiness is right in front of us if only we retreat from the busy world to see it.

Of course, the disciples don’t get it even when they see it face to face! Instead of marveling at what is holy, they make their encounter with God into an excuse for shrine-building, which is the danger what can happen at the mountain.