The Very Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
Jimmy Fallon said this after the Iowa Caucus: “After receiving less than 1 percent support in the Iowa caucuses, Martin O’Malley suspended his presidential campaign. In a related story, the New York Jets have announced that they’ve decided not to play in the Super Bowl this weekend.”
If the Florida primary were this Tuesday, for whom would you vote? If you’re a Democrat, would you vote for Clinton or Sanders? If you’re Republican, would you vote for Bush, Carson, Christie, Cruz, Fiorina, Kasick, Rubio, or Trump?
Let’s say you haven’t even declared a party and you have decided to take the matter to prayer. This is so important you’re going to come over to the church. You come into the nave, go up to the votive stand and light a candle, then you go into a pew, put down the kneeler, and start to pray fervently. Suddenly, lo and behold right up by the altar you see just one of the candidates. On one side of the candidate you also see George Washington and on the other side of the candidate Abraham Lincoln.
You’re so excited. You had no idea you would be given such a clear answer. Then Washington and Lincoln disappear and only the candidate remains. You hear God say, “This is my choice.”
I’ve painted this little picture for you to draw a comparison between the present day and what happened long ago when Peter, James, and John went up on a mountain to pray with Jesus. They fell asleep and when they awoke, they saw not only Jesus but also the two greatest figures of the Jewish faith, Moses, the lawgiver (if you will, the George Washington of Judaism), and the greatest prophet in Jewish history, Elijah, whom we shall compare to Abraham Lincoln.
St. Luke tells us that Peter, James, and John saw Jesus “in his glory.” His “countenance was altered, and his raiment became dazzling white.”
What an epiphany Peter, James, and John had on that Mount of Transfiguration. They knew that Jesus was special. They had even come to the conclusion that he was the Messiah. But they had never dreamt that the Messiah was even greater than Moses and Elijah, the two greatest figures of the faith. Yet they heard God say, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”
Peter wanted to memorialize the event, to make three booths, one for Moses, one for Elijah, and one for Jesus. It had been a true mountaintop experience, and Peter wanted to stay up on that mountain, making the experience last as long as possible.
Have you ever had a mountaintop experience? The one that comes immediately to mind when I think of mountaintop experiences happened to me at Seminary after I had been there for about a month. I was in the Chapel of Saint Mary the Virgin at Nashotah House in Wisconsin.
The whole Seminary community had gathered for the service of matriculation. Almost the entire congregation was vested in cassock and surplice, and right after the sermon, of which I do not remember a word, the actual rite of matriculation was said, consisting of a renewal of baptismal vows. As a conclusion to that rite, the Celebrant moved up and down the center aisle, sprinkling holy water on all of us, reminding us of our baptism. And that is when my mountaintop experience occurred. I felt the cold water as it hit my face, and I sensed the powerful presence of God in a way I had never felt it before, and I reveled in the warm, loving, peaceful presence of God. It was an affirmation of everything that I had gone through up to that point on my way to the priesthood.
I could have stayed there forever, but that wasn’t what God had in store for me. Instead, I went from there to the endless hours of study, the writing of my thesis and countless revisions, and all of the complexities of community life. After I was graduated from seminary, I went to my first assignment as Curate at St. Mark’s Church in Arlington, Texas. There I became acquainted with the pattern of life that has been with me ever since: 14 hour workdays, six and seven day work weeks, myriad committee meetings, teaching, preaching, celebrating, and tackling one parish problem after another.
It really is a wonderful life and I love my work. In many ways I’m “living the dream.” But it does require sacrifice and in this work one encounters evil in many different forms. There are little mountaintop experiences along the way, but it’s not all one big mountaintop experience.
When Peter, James, John, and Jesus left the mountain, the first thing they encountered was the presence of evil. A man brought Jesus his son, who was possessed by a demon. After Jesus healed the boy, he then told his disciples that he was on his way to his death. In a very short period of time, Peter, James, and John had been both to the mountaintop and glimpsed the valley of the shadow of death. It was as if the first experience was given in order to provide strength for the second. Likewise, we are given glimpses of God, mountaintop experiences, not to memorialize them, but to give us strength to live our lives as we, too, are led to the cross.
Every Eucharist is intended to be a kind of mountaintop experience. One word that we frequently use for the Eucharist is Mass. The word Mass comes from the Latin phrase that was used for centuries when the liturgy was in Latin: “Ite, missa est,” “Go, it is ended.” We call this mountaintop experience by the word that comes at the very end—go, it is ended. Take the strength that you have received from Christ, and use that strength to love and to serve
Sermon preached by the Very Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
The Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota Florida
Last Sunday after The Epiphany
7 February 2016