My sermon this week was based on Luke 9:28-43.
There are some pithy religious maxims that simply aren't true. "Faith can move mountains", for one. No amount of faith is actually capable of moving an actual mountain, and it would be silly to think it could. In reality, it takes a swack load of backhoes and labourers to move a mountain.
More to the point, why would you want to move a mountain?
Obviously, this is not a maxim that is meant to be taken literally. Most people take this saying to mean that faith can accomplish a seemingly impossible task, and while it would be fair to say that with faith we can certainly accomplish some pretty incredible things, this statement is actually much more meaningful when we understand where it comes from and what it actually means.
This saying actually comes from the story of the Transfiguration Christ, which we observed this Sunday. The Transfiguration, one of the most (and arguably the most) significant events in the life of Christ. This event is recorded in three of the Gospels: Matthew, Mark and Luke.
These Gospels do not disagree with one another in any meaningful way, but not one of them tells the whole story.
For example, all the Gospels agree that Peter, James and John accompanied Jesus up the mountain and witnessed the Transfiguration. All agree that Jesus' face shone with the light of God. All agree that Moses and Elijah were seen to appear with Jesus on the mountain, and that Peter is the one who suggested that they build three dwellings for Jesus, Moses and Elijah so they could in that place forever. All agree that Jesus led them back down the mountain, and all agree that the next day Jesus healed a boy, and it has always confused as to why these two events are coupled together in all three accounts.
Here's where the accounts start to differ somewhat. Luke and Matthew tell us that Jesus and the three disciples came upon "a crowd" in which a father pleaded with Jesus to heal his son. Mark gets a little more specifically, telling us that the other disciples were in the crowd, as well as "teachers of the law". He also tells us they were arguing about something. We don't know what, though.
Luke and Mark tell us the boy was possessed, whereas Matthew tells us the boy suffered from epilepsy. All agreed regardless that the boy was in great suffering and the father was deeply distressed as he implores Jesus to help.
The father says the disciples could not heal the boy, and Jesus responds in all three Gospels with something along the lines of, "You faithless and perverse generation! How much longer must I stay with you and put up with you?"
Harsh!
I have never heard or read of a plausible explanation for why Jesus might have said this, but I think it is fair to say he was deeply frustrated and exasperated. But with who? The disciples for their failure to heal the boy? The teachers of the law for arguing? The crowd at large for following him for his miracles rather than for love of God?
Mark does have the father respond to this by exclaiming, "Help thou my unbelief!", but it actually in the Gospel of Matthew that I think this passage finds its fullest fruition, and where saying "Faith can move mountains" comes from.
After Jesus heals the boy, the disciples ask him why they were not able to drive out the demon. Jesus responds, "Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."
This is why I think these two events, the Transfiguration and healing the boy are always paired together: Jesus brought the mountain to us. That is how we can move mountains.
The mountaintop has long been perceived as a place of communion with God or the gods in most world cultures. The Greek gods lived atop Mount Olympus, for example. Moses received the Ten Commandments atop a mountain. God or the gods have always been felt to live "up there somewhere" and so to seek a mountaintop in order to commune with God seems only natural.
The mountaintop is where we seek perspective, and also where we have spiritual experiences, such that many people refer to spiritual awakenings as their "mountaintop experience", whether it occurred to them on a mountain or in a cave.
If you have ever had an experience like this, you have probably encountered the frustration of trying to describe it or explain it to other people who have not had that experience. You have probably realized that it is essentially a mysterious and emotional experience that simply does not translate into language.
But these experiences inevitably lead to deepening of faith, and faith, like love, is a verb. Faith is an action. So while Peter, James and John wanted to stay up on the mountain and treat faith like a noun, in or around which they could live forever, Jesus calls them and calls us out of that bubble of awesomeness and down into the world.
So while we can't drag anyone to the mountain, it takes only a little faith to realize that we can be of some good, of some use in this world, to encourage us to get out there and do our part for our family, our church, our community, our world.
In other words, while we can't take the whole world to the mountain, we can take the mountain to the world. Jesus refused to stay with the disciples on the top of the mountain, even though that would have been a wonderful, spirit-filled place to live, but that is not the sum of faith. The sum of faith is not about having one emotional experience after another or living in a comfortable bubble of ignorance. It means coming down off the mountain and taking action, taking up our yoke and taking responsibility for making the world a better place.
Today I hope you can find the mountaintop you need, and that it strengthens you to bring that mountain out into the world.
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