February 24, 2013 Cycle C
Genesis 15:5-12,17-18 Philippians 3:17-4:1 Luke 9:28-36
Those of us fortunate enough to live here in Colorado have a powerful religious symbol in our midst. I am thinking of our mountains, the beautiful Rocky Mountains with Pikes Peak in the distance, or the Sangre De Cristo or Wet Mountains. For you see in every religious tradition mountains stand out as a symbol capable of evoking the deepest religious meaning.
In Tibetan Buddhism it is Mount Kalais. For the Jews, it is the Temple Mount. And among the Dakotas of the Northern Plains it is Bear Mountain in the Black Hills. For them this place is sacred. In our own Judeo- Christian tradition, mountains have long been associated with an encounter with God. We can think of Moses at Mount Sinai, or the Prophet Elijah at Mount Carmel, and in our Gospel today we hear about Mount Tabor and the transfiguration of Jesus. Clearly, there is something deep in our consciousness that associates mountains with the awesome, sometimes transforming, power of the Divine.
There are many among us in the parish who describe mountain climbing as a religious experience; an exercise that has placed them in touch with the “Divine.” While that is true, the mountains can also speak to us more as a symbol or metaphor for the spiritual ascent that we are all involved in. For we are all called by God to climb a mountain. Not physically necessarily, but spiritually. It’s a journey perhaps best described by the Spanish poet mystic, St. John of the Cross, who in his writing “Ascent of Mount Carmel,” describes, in some of the best poetry ever written, what the climb is all about. St. John describes in metaphor and lyric verse all the obstacles we must overcome if we are ever to reach the top. And we must reach the top. The desire has been planted in our souls by God to reach the top. And when we reach the top we experience transfiguration; that divinization of our own humanity that the Gospel speaks of today.
But as we do climb the mountain of God, our own Mount Carmel, there is always a competing voice. It is a nagging voice from the lower elevation that says, “This is not the way to go. There is an easier way. You don’t have to undergo pain and suffering to reach the top. It is a voice that competes vigorously with the voice of God calling to us from the mountaintop. It is the prevalent voice of our own affluent culture that lures us to accept the easier way to transfiguration through drugs, through wealth, through power and force.
Jesus knew well the competing voice when He asked Peter, John and James to accompany him up to Mount Tabor. It is the same voice we hear.
But that was not the voice Jesus heard. Jesus heard the still small voice that had spoken throughout Israel’s history. It was a voice that spoke to Him now of a radically new way of transformation – the Way of the Cross. Jesus was transfigured, was glorified on Mount Tabor, and the disciples will remember it after Jesus’ journey ended and the pain and the suffering of the Cross. Then and only then, in the light of Resurrection, when the disciples realized that there is no easy, fun way to reach the top of the mountain. The way to transformation is the way of the Cross.
Fr. Richard Rohr has said it this way, “Suffering is, I am sorry to say, the most efficient means of transformation, and God makes full use of it whenever God can.”
The way up the mountain, the way of the Cross, does involve suffering, but for those who follow Jesus it is a suffering that takes on new meaning. And we sense that meaning most clearly in our sacraments. For us the true mountain of the Lord is now this altar, this altar of sacrifice, this table of plenty.
We admit today that we, who live particularly in the West, live in an agnostic world. It is a world that does not know about God. This is not to criticize the world, but merely to describe it honestly. Not everyone goes up the mountain! Yet many people who have no religious faith have a great belief in the goodness of life and an instinct to live their lives in the service of others. For deep within us all God has planted the yearning for what is good and true and loving. People live for that and search for that. This is an instinctive faith in the goodness of the world, even as we know how dark and ominous it can be.
For us such instinctive faith has been made clear by God’s gift. We believe in Jesus. We see God’s Glory in the beauty of His face. We feel God’s love in the joy of His presence. Our place is in the community to remind everyone we meet of our mountaintop experience; reminding a world filled with competing voices that the God who showered miracles, gifts, and amazing experiences upon those who preceded us, continues to do so.
For we are the ones who must offer an alternative voice to the world. We must say to this world that God is generous and faithful, for we know it is true because we have been to the Mountain of the Lord.
Amen. Amen. Msgr. Tom Adrians, Pastor Christ the King