At the height of Jesus’ ministry, he was continually surrounded by crowds of people. They pressed around him everywhere he went. They came to touch him, to listen to him, to be touched by him... They came ill and went away well. They came burdened and went away with a spring in their step. They were dead and walked away alive. So Jesus said with authority: “I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.”
In the scripture this morning, Jesus heals Simon Peter’s mother in law of a fever. You never think of Simon Peter the chief disciple of Jesus being married? Obviously he was. Wonder how his wife felt about his leaving his job and following Jesus? Maybe she was an understanding woman, maybe not. The day he left his job following some dream, could have been a day of severe conflict. Anyway, I don’t know how I got off on this, nevertheless, people were healed and healthy in the presence of Jesus and consequently, Mark tells us, The People Brought To Jesus All The Sick And Demon-Possessed.
Early one morning, Jesus was up before everyone else and slipped quietly out of the house of Peter’s mother in law, for a time of prayer. People were coming to find him, but he quietly leaves alone. Simon and his companions went to look for him and when they found him said: “Everybody is looking for you!” “Where have you been?” Or, as Mary and Martha would say to him when Lazarus died, “If you had been here, he would not have died.”
One of the things we know from the biographical information that we know of Jesus, that he claimed consistently time away from the crowds. He needed to be by himself. Anyone here ever feel like that?
Occasionally the United Methodist Women’s organization will have what they call “A Day Apart”. It is a time of prayer and meditation. One day I was sitting in the back of the Wright Place beside a young mother that had brought her infant with her to the meeting and the baby was restless. The speaker went on and on, and finally the young mother leaned over to me and said: “How much longer will it last”? I looked at her frustration holding her restless baby in her arms and whispered back, “about eighteen years.”
Sometimes you just need time apart, a day off, an hour when no one is pulling at you or demanding something of you. With “Everyone needing Jesus,” he would slip away early in the morning or late at night, for times of quietness and prayer. If Jesus needed such time apart, you can bet you could benefit from it as well.
We are told that Jesus prayed. Don’t you find it fascinating that when you consider what we know about Jesus, Son of God, and the only begotten of the Father that he needed time for prayer? Jesus had a first hand experience of the powerful phenomena which we call prayer.
Later he would even say to the disciples: “Some things are only healed through prayer” and at another time, “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” Prayer is a resource which God offers to human beings in their daily battle with evil and life’s illnesses.
We human beings are so strange. We will believe almost anything except what millions of people have rested their lives on over the past two thousand years. And that source of power is that the God of the entire universe is available through prayer.
Jesus needed time for prayer because it was a source of strength and was needed for him to focus on his primary mission.”
When Peter came to Jesus saying “Everyone is looking for you”, Jesus said: “Let us go to other villages so that we can preach there also.” In his time, he had come to a new resolve that his primary divine mission called on him to go on to other places.
If Jesus’ “Healing Ministry” was primary for him, he could have set up a medical clinic in downtown Jerusalem and seen patients everyday. In prayer he concluded that he was not just a healer, but also a teacher, and a preacher, and so he concluded that he would move on to other villages. In prayer, life gets back into focus.
About once a year, I will have my eyes examined just to keep properly adjusted and focused. About once a day, About once a week in worship, I need to pray to keep my life adjusted and focused on what is most important before life gets out of control, overwhelming, beyond me.
The eye examiner will ask you a thousand questions: Is this better or this? Is this clearer or this? Is this more crisp or this? How do you like this or that? For those of us who have a hard time making a decision anyway, a trip to the eye doctor can drive us crazy. All of these decisions---yipps!!!! Well so also everyday can become overwhelming with all of the decisions which claim our time and restlessly wait for us at the door when this hour is finished. God can help you with those decisions and can give you assurance, confidence, a new resolve.
I used to have a professor in Philosophy in College who would give nothing but essay tests. And she would grade you down if you didn’t at the beginning of the essay jot down an outline for your paper. Some of us complained about her deductions on our papers, when we knew we had written a good paper and she would say: “It’s a matter of organization. You have got to get organized and move forward one step at a time.” Organize first and decide what comes first and then proceed. Well, we as students always lost that battle, but our argument was always “You don’t give us enough time to write the essay and outline it.” And her argument was always “You don’t have time not to outline it.”
And the truth is we don’t have time not to pray, to organize or allow God to organize our life. I don’t have time to be sick, or confused or afraid or scattered. How much time do we spend that is unproductive? How much time do we spend on unimportant things? Prayer will help us organize our lives.
I pray briefly in the morning, and then as I exercise, or as I drive in the car. I have always thought Malcolm Boyd was right in his book entitled Are You Running with me Jesus? I pray in the evening as I am going to sleep, turning off the light and lying first on my left side and thanking God for gifts received and then turning over from the thankful side to my right side and asking God for some help with some challenging problem. And before I get very far I will be asleep. Most of the time I will be asleep before I roll over to the problem side.
Stephen Covey in a chapter in his work Seven Habits of Highly Effective People tells of the need to “sharpen the saw”. It is a picture most of us have witnessed with all the tree cutting crews that we have had to hire of late. They spend some of their most precious time at the beginning of cutting a tree, “sharpening the saw.”
Wayne Dyer in a small book entitled “Getting in the Gap” writes of the importance of putting yourself in the sacred silence between your thoughts and the demands which are on you. “Getting in the Gap” means that through meditation you can place yourself between your thoughts and the Creator can then help draw you to the ones which are of ultimate importance. If it is true that we have about 60,000 thoughts each day, then we have got to reduce them in some way and sort through them. Creative meditation, intentional prayer time, you name it but name it and get on with it, for otherwise life’s demands will overtake you.
If Jesus needed to spend time in prayer, how much more do you and I need to claim sacred space? If he needed sacred space to refocus his ministry, how much more do we need to reflect upon our lives and reorder our priorities? The old Professor was right, you don’t have time not to pray and outline the day, or worship and outline the week. Here is this invaluable resource available to us and we will be foolish not to use it. Let God help you determine those things that are most important in your life. “Whatever you ask in prayer, believe and it will be yours.”
Later today, many of us will watch the Super Bowl. In the last few years, it has sometimes been a blow out and I hope tonight Pittsburg takes it easy on Seattle. But more times than not these super games will come down to the last few seconds. Often the smart team will use their time outs will be the one at the last minute, in the crunch of time, will call time out, calm their team, get them refocused on their game plan, and win the game. It is important to carefully use your time outs. They are sacred moments. Prayer is “Time Out” that can pay off big time.
Have you ever been lost? With many of the road signs still missing since the hurricanes, it’s not hard to become lost in our own city.
When I was a kid, I went quail hunting with my father a lot, and, in those days in Marengo County, there were few fences, and the fields, forests and hedgerows sort of ran together. When you found a covey of birds you would follow your dog as he pointed out their hiding places. Sometimes we would walk beyond familiar territory and a time or two we would become lost. My Dad carried a small compass and tried to teach me how to use it. Among learning how to safely shoot a gun and never pull the trigger until you knew without a doubt what you were aiming at, I learned also that you had to hold the compass very still for the jumping needle to settle down. I can still hear my Dad’s irritation with me when he would say, “If you will hold it still, you can read it.” “BE STILL,” he would say in a stern voice.
The Bible says “Be Still and you will know.” Maybe Abraham was teaching young Ishmael how to read a compass in the Negeb.
When the Hebrews were living in Babylon around 600 years before the birth of Jesus, they built buildings called synagogues to gather to worship. They would not call their places “for being still before God,” a Temple, for they believed that the Temple was the place for sacrifice. There was only one and it was in Jerusalem where cattle, lambs, and birds were offered up to God in primitive times, to please the mysterious deity. Occasionally in the synagogues there would come one who would regard himself as a prophet to teach the people what he had come to understand about the mysterious One. One of the prophets was a man named Isaiah. And Isaiah said to the people, that God had said to him, “Behold, I am doing a new thing. Behold, God had said: I will show you a new way.” This new way became known as “The Way of the Lord.”
Jesus would later say to his disciples when they were feeling bewildered and lost, “You know the way”. And the disciple Thomas once said to him: “We do not know the way.” And Jesus said: “I am the Way.”
If you are bewildered, confused or feeling that you have lost the way, that you are going nowhere, then “Be Still and you will know.”
For the better part of two decades, I have tried to be faithful in my calling to proclaim to you “The Way of the Lord.” Many have listened. Many have chosen a new way, some of you have grown in huge spiritual ways, even beyond my journey, while others haven’t changed for years and are not going to start now. Well this morning I am going to throw these pearls of great wisdom before you one more time.
The way of the Lord has to do with a life of Service, Generosity, and Love.
The Apostle Paul in writing to the church in Phillpi said: “Jesus was among us as one who served.” Recalling the last night in Jesus’ life when life was closing in on him, he took a wash basin and towel and washed the disciple’s feet. A servant’s work is not easy nor necessarily pretty. Paul wrote in Philippians 2 “Jesus was equal with God”
The other day I was lost in the halls of Baptist Hospital. The personnel of Baptist Hospital continues to train their people to make their long corridors “user friendly,” and I was looking a bit confused and a nurse said to me,” May I help you?” It is a question we who follow Christ need to use often.
“May I help you?” Student to teacher, child to parent, patient to doctor, parishioner to preacher, husband to wife.
I was riding with Mack Strange, who serves Gulf Breeze Church, on one of the many Florida turnpikes around Orlando. We stopped at one of the toll booths and he handed the lady a couple of dollars and said: “This will pay mine and the car behind me.” He didn’t know them, but he said that last week someone had done something nice for him and he was “paying it forward.” We came to the next toll both and for a second time he paid for himself and the fellow behind us. This time the car sped up, pulling along side of us and looked us over, checking out what kind of perverts we might be. And, a child in the back seat, smiled and said, “Thank you.”
I’ll bet today in a random act of kindness you could really do something nice for someone. Why don’t you start at home? Resolve to be a Servant at home. It’s the way of the Lord!
And secondly, be generous. Find a way to give something to someone else or start tithing your income to support Christian causes. We have people in our church who are members but don’t pledge to support, and have given no indication of their giving to any of our causes.
All I can say is that you don’t know what you are missing.
And thirdly, the way of the Lord consists not only of being servant like and generous, but is even more than that, it is the way of love.
The disciple John defines God as “Love.” When we love one another we are God’s children. Let us resolve no longer to live unto ourselves, but to be kind, supportive, helpful, and loving to others.
The way of revenge, mean-spiritedness, hatred, is a dead-end street, and if you are on it I suggest that quickly you try the way of love, lest you die and you carry other innocent people out with you.
In college, I majored in history in undergraduate studies and frankly was amazed that most of our history was dated by the wars. It was the wars that became the marking points of history of our nation: The Revolutionary War, The French and Indian War, the War Between the States, World Wars I and II, The Korean and Vietnam Wars. For four years we have been involved in a war in Iraq. Part of my frustration with the deaths of our soldiers and the Iraqi people is that I thought that our world had matured beyond such shortsightedness and violence and had moved into an era of diplomacy and mediation. When can we start dating our history, by the major acts of kindness, the CCC Camps, the Civil Rights Act, the right to vote, the invention of Penicillin, the Polio Vaccine, and Social Security. There is so much in our nation’s history that makes it great and powerful, and it is not the size of its guns. Let us date our lives by the date we decided to be a servant of God, a gentle servant of God, a gentle, generous, servant of God, a gentle, generous, loving servant of God.
The New Way is marked by love, generosity, service, and let me add something here: The Way of Christ is the way of Passion. Let us love and live like there is no tomorrow. You Have The Power To Build Or Destroy. You Are In The Image Of God And You Can Create, and you need to get on with it.
Years ago, in the 19th Century, a major shoe company in America sent two of their representatives to Africa to explore expanding their company’s business.
One reported back by telegram: “No possibilities for expansion, most people here in Africa don’t even wear shoes.” The other one reported back: “Unlimited possibilities, let us proceed. Most people don’t yet have shoes.”
Those who walk in the way of Christ see new possibilities, A New Way, new destinations. We have in our lives, and in this church, and in this community and this nation the ability to build a future for the human race which will include and enhance all lives, and you want to be a part of that. It will start, when you resolve to walk in the way of service, gentleness, generosity, love, passion. I Invite You To Walk With Me As Together We Will Make Our Way Down The New Way.
Summary: Three Years Ago Jane And I Went On A Sabbatical Leave Of Some Four Months. We Studied In Seminaries In California And In Europe. We Traveled, We Rested. But Trying To Get Off Proved Too Much And I Didn't Take Care Of Myself And Became Sick. We Were To Fly Transcontinental From The East To The West, From Atlanta To California, Where We Would Be The Guests Of The President Of Clairmont Seminary In Clairmont, California. If You Are Asking Directions To The Cemetery, Then Keep Doing What You Have Been Doing. If You Are Asking Directions To The Seminary, Then Follow The Directional Ways Along The Paths Of Generosity, Prayer, Helpfulness, Love, Faith Passion, And You Will Arrive At Many New Places Of Abundant Blessing.
The Scripture concerning the “transfiguration” of Jesus is one of those Bible stories that pushes us right over the edge of our common everyday experiences into sheer mystery.
It was not unlike the transfiguration of Moses, who spent time with God on the Mount of Sinai. When he returned with the “Commandments,” the Israelites observed that there was brightness about his physical features which were stunning. He was transfigured or brightened. I have often observed to someone in love, “You Look Different,” And they have often said: “Yes, I am different, I am in love. I know a love beyond myself.”
Moses spent time with God, and was different.
Jesus spent time in prayer, and was different.
When you spend time with God, you will be different.
Now the interesting way the disciples recalled this visual experience is fascinating they said: “Moses was present. Moses, the great law giver of old. Moses, the central figure of the Torah. The Teacher of the 12th Century. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in Vain, No other God’s before Him, Thou shalt not Kill, nor steal or bear false witness.” And there was Elijah, the prophet of God of the 9th Century. Here was a Prophetic Giant of the history of Israel. It was Elijah three hundred years after Moses led the Slaves of Egypt into the Promised Land that Elijah reaffirmed that the Hebrews, “Were to have no other God’s but Yahweh alone.”
So here we are on a lonely hillside and Jesus is praying really for the first time, the disciples Peter and James and John, who were not the brightest students in the class, realized that Jesus didn’t represent a break with the past, but a reaffirmation of the Great Truths of our Faith: God is One and This Creator who shaped us in His Image expects us to love him and live in a unique and moral way. Study today the teachings of Moses, Elijah, and Jesus, and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.
So for the early disciples, Jesus, their companion, their teacher, is transfigured before their very eyes. It dawns on them who he is, and what he has been saying to them, and what this means for their people.
He is transfigured in their eyes as their hearts were opened. Jesus was the same as before, but the disciples saw him in a different light. Did this really happen or did it just happen in the minds of the disciples? Well, it really happened in the experience of the disciples! Someone asked me, “Is beauty in reality or in the eye of the beholder? It is in the eye of the beholder and this doesn’t make untrue the reality of life.”
Let me illustrate: A long time ago we had a family that had a baby and I was privileged to see them in the doorway of the hospital as the father and the mother were taking their first baby home. The young parents were so proud. The mother sitting there in the wheelchair said to me, “Isn’t this baby the prettiest child you have ever seen? I looked down at this ball headed, red faced, raw ugly representative of the human race, and I was quiet. The daddy thinking I had not heard the question repeated, “Isn’t she the most beautiful thing in the world?” I thought, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” and observed, “By golly, I think you are right.” And they were right.
For the first time, in the transfiguration, the early, slow disciples recognized and acknowledged the beauty and meaning of Jesus.
I have often thought of this story in relationship to my understanding of Jesus. I think for me, Jesus has been transfigured at least four or more times.
My original attraction to Jesus came as a young child in Sunday School. I heard stories about Jesus and still remember the wonderful pictures the Sunday School teachers would show us. In those days the pictures were copies of the marvelous European artists who depicted Jesus-Rembrandt, Ruben, etc. One of those pictures was of Jesus surrounded by children of every color in the world” We would look at the picture and sing, “red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.”
In Marengo County, in the lily white church in which I grew up in the 50’s, we never saw red or yellow skinned children, and if a black child had come into our church there would have been a hanging. But in the innocence of childhood, I sang the song, looked at the picture, fell in love with Jesus, and came to believe that this was the way things were suppose to be.”
Recently I taught the kindergarten class at “WACCI Wednesday” about worship and the importance of worship. I told the children about how we stand to hear the stories of Jesus to focus our attention and show respect. How we should not walk around when the Bible is being read and how they should take a hymnal and sing the songs. I asked them what their most favorite song was and one of the black children in the group said: “I like to sing red and yellow, black and white, Jesus loves all the children of the world.” One of my regrets is that over the years we have not made a more friendly space for children of color in our church. I pray that this will happen more completely as we go forward.
But the first Jesus I came to know, “loved all the little children of the world.” Jesus made God easy to approach.
The second Jesus was one whom I was taught, “Was Born To Die’ For My Sins And That We Were Saved By His Death. He is Savior!
I didn’t understand why, but as a child, I went along with the program. In the little church I grew up in, which was conservative Protestant tradition, the good news centered on the crucifixion of Jesus. Like the Apostle Paul, these country preachers, “preached Christ and him crucified.” “Jesus died for you.” the minister would say. By dying, Jesus mysteriously absorbs the penalty of all human wrongdoing through all of history. The cross becomes the focal point: “The Old Rugged Cross… “At the cross. At the cross, where I first met the Lord…”There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel's veins. ”There is power, power, power in the blood…
In this atonement theory, God is a mighty judge and humanity is guilty of disobedience. Humanity, all humanity deserves the death penalty, and Jesus, a perfect representative of humanity, is willing to take the death penalty deserved by all. Justice is satisfied by Jesus’ sacrificial death and evil doers can be forgiven. In this metaphor there is used the forensic language of law, guilt, punishment, penalty, and justification. Something takes place that is very important in Jesus’ death. So, in the death of Jesus, the guilt of sin is pronounced as satisfied and the hot wrath that erupts from the Unforgiving Judge is satisfied.
Basically, I was never at home with this image of Jesus as the Sacrificial Lamb of God, for I could never buy into the old Jewish understanding that, “Someone has sinned here and somebody has to pay a price.” It always seemed a bit unfair that Jesus had to pay a price for Adam’s sin. Even so, for years I went along and even taught this “Substitution Atonement” theory of why Jesus was born and why he died. I didn’t really understand it, nor appreciate it, nor believe it, but I bought into it and taught it. And in the process I came to know a transfigured Jesus whose death was of significant importance.
When I reached my college years, in the l960’s, I lost the gentle Jesus and the sacrificial lamb of the past as one loses a friend in the pushing and shoving of a skeptical crowd. Then was born the image of a transfigured Jesus the Rebel, who was born to live and to fight for what was right. “I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”
In the 60’s there was the Civil Rights revolution, which made no sense to me then and still doesn’t. We did what we did and lost a number of wonderful people and their prodigy, which is what happens when you lose a young man in war.
As I thought about Jesus, my picture of him was a kind and gentle man surrounded by children, and as a “Sacrificial Lamb” was gradually transfigured into a rebellious new prophetic teacher of “A New Way.” He taught the way of Generous Love, turning the other cheek, and Sacrificial Service. Jesus becomes the Moral Man of God who demonstrates the Love of God, whose life was taken because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was not willing to back down on the principles of faith. God was more important that Rome.
He healed a blind beggar. He went home with Zacchaeus, a Tax Collector. He responded to the tearful parents who begged him to heal their ill child. He cared deeply for a woman possessed of many demons. And because of this non-discriminatory love, death would not be the end of him. Thus, Jesus’ resurrection guarantees that in the end God will win.
I read the gospels looking for the words and deeds of Jesus, where he gave himself through his teachings and acts of love. In this new transfigured Jesus, I began to define our task as finding new and creative ways to make real the teachings of Jesus in our broken world. For example in our relationships, political structures, and cultural systems of our world. Thus became the importance of feeding the hungry by sharing our bread and housing the poor, the building and staffing of hospitals to help the sick and cure the diseases of the world, and to cross the racial and cultural boundaries of the world with love and to face corrupt systems even at the risk of our lives. When this is done, the Kingdoms of this world will be the Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Of late, my mind is trying to wrap itself around the concept of a Cosmic Christ, one who is here and there, and everywhere as Holy Presence.
Summary: So Jesus has been transfigured for me at least four times, and I’ll bet for you also. For me from a gentle loving man to a sacrificial servant to a courageous liberator, to a cosmic Christ present everywhere. I share all of this with you to simply acknowledge that our understanding of Jesus changes over the years for all of us. And it is okay! In some ways I believe that I am beginning to arrive at a view of Jesus that approaches the simple, integrated richness I knew of him as a little boy. You could say that I am finding a new simplicity on the far side of complexity. Jesus is far more than what you and I have Ever known. I would encourage you to celebrate And Enjoy all of the Jesus’ you have known and are coming to know. Please understand, Jesus hasn’t changed at all, but our understanding and appreciation of him does.
Years ago, when I was much younger, when I first came to the church, I made a mistake. It is the only mistake that I can remember. What? Well, it is the only mistake I can remember.
But the mistake was this: I received an individual into the membership of the church who did not have a place for Jesus in his life. He told me and I received him anyway. That was my mistake. He was a baptized member of another church and we can receive individuals into the church by transfer of their membership without asking them a doctrinal question about Jesus. And I did it but it was not long before his life began to break down and finally all relationships crumbled and the structure of his life became rubble and ashes as he crashed and burned. When Jesus is not in your life that is the kind of thing that happens to you. Accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior and enjoy him forever.