Peter and James and John must feel that they are being selected for some privilege when Jesus takes them up the mountain to pray. Climbing a mountain is an image of spiritual intensification throughout the scriptures. Moses speaks to God on Mt. Sinai, Elijah battles the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel. From Mt. Ararat, Noah glimpses the rainbow that symbolizes God’s covenant with Israel after the flood. On Mount Moriah Abraham learns that God will not require him to sacrifice Isaac. Mt. Zion, a hill in Jerusalem, is variously taken for the mount on which the Temple is built, the whole City of David, and the dwelling place of the LORD himself. I almost picture Peter reminding himself of these holy places as they climb. Maybe he is excited
But maybe we, and maybe Peter, have some wrong ideas about what it means to climb with Jesus.
Maybe it’s because we lost the wonderful actor Christopher Plummer this week, but I can’t stop thinking about that scene in The Sound of Music where Maria goes to visit her mother superior and mother superior breaks into song: “Climb every mountain / Ford every stream. / Follow every rainbow / ‘Til you find your dream.” For us, for modern folks like us who may or may not have been fascinated by that movie when we were children, the effort of climbing is important. The story of climbing is important. Getting to the top is wonderful, partly because it’s an accomplishment, because you “find your dream” awaiting you there: Christopher Plummer, and eventually an escape from the Nazis. The emphasis is on personal effort and the fulfillment of personal dreams. Not coincidentally, that effort takes Maria right out of the convent and into the world of secular romance. That might be a clue for us that the story of personal effort and personal success is not the church’s story. It’s Hollywood’s.
So what’s different here?
For one thing it’s notable that this gospel story says nothing at all about the climb itself. I know the hills around Jerusalem are not the same as the Alps, but it’s striking that what’s arduous about this experience is not the effort the disciples have to put in to get up to that holy place. Jesus just takes them there.
And then it has to be admitted that their experience on that mountain is nothing like an experience of personal fulfilment.
No, when Peter and the other disciples arrive on that mountaintop with Jesus they suffer a strange disorientation. Yes, they’ve been granted a privileged vision of Jesus, gleaming like the sun and deep in conversation with Moses and Elijah, those other mountain climbers. But if they thought it was going to be gratifying to get to the top of that mountain, if they thought it was going to be rewarding, they must have been surprised about what happened. Because whatever else takes place for Peter and James and John that day on the mountain, I think it’s hard to say that they experience anything like a sense of achievement. It doesn’t really resemble what we now commonly call a mountaintop experience.
Honestly, it’s when they get up there with Jesus that things get uncomfortable. Because when they get where they are going with Jesus, they find that they are out of place. Jesus fits right in, but the disciples are out of place. Jesus comes into his own, but the disciples stand out like a sore thumb. They are awkward. Peter tries to say or do something to normalize the situation. Peter has the silly idea to build three tents. “Rabbi,” he says, “it is good for us to be here. Let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Now, notice the complete failure of anyone in the story to respond to his enthusiastic suggestion. Jesus doesn’t correct him gently. Jesus doesn’t say “Peter, Peter, you worry about many things but only one thing is important.” James and John don’t scold him or compete with him or fault him for having some big idea. Nobody says a word. His lack of understanding just hangs there in the mountain air. Moses and Elijah need tents why exactly? Who would propose such a thing? Nobody even wants to know more about why Peter is so off base. The narration simply apologizes for Peter’s faux pas: “He did not know what to say, for they were terrified.”
It’s not just that the disciples don’t know what to say or do, though. They are also getting some mysterious instructions. They hear the voice of God speaking from a cloud and saying “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.” Isn’t it perplexing that at the moment God tells them to listen to Jesus, Jesus is deep in conversation with other people. They can’t listen to him. He is having a mysterious exchange with Moses and Elijah that is not for their ears.
They’ve been taken up that mountain to see Jesus revealed as he truly is, but Mark tells us that they are also surrounded by mist, their eyesight dimmed. What kind of revelation is that? They have been taken up the mountain and told to listen but they cannot hear. Peter speaks but what he says is worse than nothing. I’m certain that they are not, as Mother Superior would say, “finding their dream.”
No, if we are going to cherish and learn from this story it will not be because of a rousing message about personal accomplishment. And for that, I thank God.
Because we have been given so much more than a dream here. We are hearing something so much more important than a story of victory.
It turns out that it’s just possible, in the logic of our story this morning, that our darkest moments are the ones in which we are closest to God. It may be that when we have nothing much to say—oh how hard that is for a preacher to contemplate!—when words fail us, that we are beginning to see who Jesus is. It may be that when we know we can’t hear Jesus speak, we are hearing him correctly. Possibly, when we don’t know what to do, we are very close to knowing who our savior is.
We might look back at some of those other mountaintop experiences in the scriptures. We might remember Moses coming down from the mountain to discover his people worshipping a golden calf. We might remember that Abraham’s revelation about sacrificing Isaac is one of the most perplexing revelations in the whole bible. We might notice that the story of Noah is a story of loss and destruction, not so much a story about finding a rainbow.
There are hills and mountains to climb in our walk with Jesus. We are climbing one right now, in this pandemic, in this time of turbulence and loss. We may not be sure what it is that we are seeing. We may not know exactly what to say or do. All of our best efforts may hang in the air, their likely futility made manifest. Discomfort? Yes, discomfort at best. Terror? Yes, for some much more than for others. Our vision is limited, our hearing inadequate.
And Jesus is lord of precisely this. Jesus is revealed in precisely this. God is present in human suffering, not so much in the act of escaping. Our great revelation will be made plain for us soon, as we enter into the season of Lent and make our way to the Mount of Olives with Jesus where he is crucified. We will see him, perhaps as we have not seen him before, clothed in his full glory, taking our suffering and sin upon himself. We will see him for who he is, in his mercy.
Preached by Mother Nora Johnson
February 14, 2021
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia