"Living Legends"
Renewing faith from the mountaintop
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Text: Matthew 17:1-9
This week, the world remembered two great men of the 20th century, men whose legacy will indeed go on through the 21st and even beyond. The two men had something in common: They had both been to a mountaintop, and from there they looked down on the world, observing it from on high. From that perspective, they saw something that led others to see the world in a different light, and both of them came down from the mountaintop and changed the way people lived their lives.
The first of these men is, of course, Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior. This past week the world remembered him, and the United States of America took a day to remember him. Although he only went to a mountaintop metaphorically, it was nonetheless from the perspective of that mountaintop that he had a vision of a society full of justice, reconciliation and freedom. What he saw from that perspective inspired many to work for those ideals.
This past week, I received a telephone call asking my opinion on the notion of having racially segregated schools. They wanted to know my particular perspective, because of my background. I said that one only needs to ask those who understand the legacy of Martin Luther King - how he fought so hard and so strongly for racial integration and for people to live, study and be side-by-side regardless of their race - to know how I feel. For the first 20 years of my life, one of the defining struggles was for people of different races to live and work together in harmony. If I were ever to ask any of my friends from South Africa whether or not they feel there should be any form of segregation in schools, I know pretty well what their answer would be.
Even for good reasons and good motives - I don't question those - we sometimes just lose our perspective. Sometimes we need to go back and find out what people saw when they were on the mountaintop, for this is what Martin Luther King said:
Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. Let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge, and make America a better nation. And I want to thank God once more for allowing me to be here with you. I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead, but it doesn't matter to me now, because I have been to the mountaintop and I don't mind. Like anyone, I would like to have a long life. Longevity has its place, but I am not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will, and he has allowed me to go up to the mountain, and I have looked over, and I have seen the Promised Land. And I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised Land. And I am happy tonight, and I am not worried about anything, fearing of any man, for mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
He spoke these words on April 3, 1968. He died April 4, 1968. Sometimes people go up to the mountaintop, see things and have a perspective of where God wants people to go. We need to listen to them.
Likewise, this week the world has remembered the life of Sir Edmund Hillary, who on May 29, 1953 did what no person had done before: He went to the summit of Mount Everest with his great friend, Tenzing Norgay. Together, they went to the highest place on which a human being can stand to look down on the world below. What many don't know about Sir Edmund Hillary is that he also went to the North and South Poles and climbed other great mountains. It wasn't always easy for him, for he was badly burned after an air accident on the Solomon Islands during World War II when he was with the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Yet, when he came down from the mountain, this humble man, who in many ways considered himself “second” rather than “first,” worked so hard for the people of Nepal. He set up foundations to help them because he had been up on the mountaintop. But he wanted to come down, and by coming down, he wanted to make the world a better place for those who had helped him go to the highest spot.
Sometimes, going up to the mountaintop helps you come back down to make the world a better place. I remember in the dark days of apartheid, when life was very difficult, dark and confusing, I would go up with Christian friends to Table Mountain in Cape Town. I would sit there, pray, play with the little dassies - animals that run around on the mountain - and take great delight in watching the baboons pick the purses of the tourists who were up there. (I am shameful that I enjoyed that!) I played baseball with the baboons: They threw rocks and I ran around. Nevertheless, I looked down and all of a sudden it gave me a whole new perspective. All the people below were somehow - even though they didn't realize it - still living side-by-side. Lerner and Lare were right: “On a clear day, you can see forever.”
I want to look at a mountaintop experience that transcends any of those, even the greatest. It is the moment when Jesus was transfigured on the mountain. Although the Synoptic Gospels give different accounts of precisely what happened and the timing, as New Testament professor Dr. Alison Trites, formerly of Acadia University, once said:
This is one of the most important moments, if not the most important moment in the New Testament before the Resurrection. It gives us an understanding that we might have a whole new perspective on the world around us.
It is an incredible story, and although I have preached before on its meaning for Jesus and for the disciples, I want to focus on two men who are mentioned in this story who went to the mountaintop themselves. I call Moses and Elijah “living legends” because these two men give us a new, fresh perspective of the mountaintop experience that helps us live our Christian life.
It is no surprise that these two men are mentioned. Indeed, there are places in the Intertestamental Period, in the Book of 4 Esdras and Baruch 2, where it is mentioned that many of the greats will return before the Messiah comes and the last days are inaugurated. There are passages in the Old Testament that speak of Elijah just ascending to Heaven: In Kings 2:2, there is an account of that, and Josephus in his Antiquities wrote that many of the Jews in the time of Jesus believed Moses would return before the Messiah came. Elijah is mentioned 25 times and Moses is mentioned 24 times.
I once went to a synagogue and took part in a Seder meal. It was very moving. At the table, there was a seat that was left empty. I asked for whom this seat was left. Was it the Messiah? Was it the protestant minister who was visiting? The rabbi said, “No. It is for Elijah when he returns, and then the Messiah comes.” It is not surprising that Elijah was thought in many ways to be John the Baptist, or John the Baptist to be Elijah, because the coming of Elijah meant the coming of the Messiah - the change in the world. It is not surprising, therefore, that Elijah and Moses were the two who were on the mountaintop with Jesus. Why? Well, clearly, there was a sense in which Elijah and Moses were passing the torch to Jesus and that Jesus and his followers were to fulfill - and Jesus said this many times - what Elijah and Moses spoke about. In other words, the works of Moses and Elijah were to be carried on.
Moses, as we know, was the recipient of the law. Where did he receive the law, but on a mountaintop - on Sinai, on Mount Horeb. The law was the defining document, the great statement of God's will and purpose. This Decalogue he received would be the core of the Torah; it would be the foundation of what Israel believed. Jesus, many times, confirmed the law. He wanted it to reside in people's hearts; he wanted people to follow it; he wanted people to be obedient to it and let their righteousness even go beyond it. For Jesus, the law was something to be fulfilled and promoted. Therefore, what Moses received is still applicable for the Church of Jesus Christ even today, for what it teaches is obedience to God.
We live in an age where, philosophically, this seems to be an untenable concept. The writings of Derrida and Foucault express the belief that the highest good is the good of freedom and the real meaning of something is found behind the text, not directly through it. Therefore, you can interpret anything in any way you, the subject, feel is important. The problem is that if you follow that, then you look at the law, not in absolute terms as a demand upon your life, but rather with the idea that we have the freedom to pick and choose what we like within that law. Because we live in such a world, it seems like an anathema to point to Moses and to the law that asks of us - demands of us - obedience to the rule of God.
I think we need to reclaim that. Hillary and/or Norgay said, “It is not that we conquer the mountain, but that we conquer ourselves first.” There is a need for obedience, a need for us to be responsive to the grace and word of God. We've got carried away with our great system: We think anything goes and nothing is required of us. The presence of Moses on the mountain suggests that, in fact, there is a demand on us, even with the work of Jesus in all its grace, to be obedient to him and to the law.
It's like the story that I told at a Burns Night dinner about a man called Jack from Kirkcaldy, Scotland. Jack was extremely upset because he had lost absolutely everything, and he was mad with the Lord. He said to the Lord, “Look, I am about to lose my house; my bairns cannot eat; I am about to lose my job - now help me!” And nothing happened.
Lottery time came around and he thought winning the lottery would help him. So he prayed to the Lord and said, “I am about to lose my house; my bairns cannot eat; I have absolutely nothing - now help me!” The lottery numbers came out and he hadn't won.
Again the lottery time came around. This time, he really got on his knees and he pleaded to the Lord Almighty. “I'm about to lose my house; my bairns cannot eat; I am about to lose everything!” He still didn't win.
Finally, there was a bolt from heaven and a bright, shining light. The Lord spoke to Jack and said, “Jack, Jack - at least meet me half-way and buy a ticket.”
We sometimes think that the grace and power of God is just sort of there. It was Martin Luther King who said:
The belief that God will do everything for man is as untenable as the belief that man can do everything for himself. It, too, is based on a lack of faith. We must learn that to expect God to do everything while we do nothing is not faith but superstition.
In other words, there are a lot of people who want the freedom, but they do not want the obedience. They want God's grace and help like great, superstitious gifts from the sky, but they don't ever really want to follow.
Moses put that right. Moses understood that after God liberated the people from the power of the Pharaoh, they next received the law to live in obedience to the God who called them. You can't have freedom if you don't have obedience. The fact that we sometimes miss that is one of the great tragedies of our society.
This brings us to Elijah. Elijah pointed to God and the coming of the Messiah. He was the one who went up onto Mount Carmel, where he confronted the power of the prophets of Baal - 400 of them. And what did he bring to the prophets of Baal but the word of the Lord. What did he want from them but faith in the living God. What did he want to reveal but the power of the Lord over the power of the gods that we make. That was what Elijah did.
When Elijah was on the mountaintop with Moses and Jesus, the disciples and Jesus all knew the meaning and power of this moment. Elijah would not only come before the Messiah, he was the one who would bring the power of faith in God. He was the one who would remind the nations that they were to follow in the path of God.
Tom Tewell, formerly of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York, tells a story of visiting Madeleine L'Engel, who was the librarian at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. She gave a wonderful quote: “Human beings have a point of view, but God has a view.”
What Elijah did was offer God's view. What Elijah brought was God's perspective. If there are not voices that speak of God's perspective, then the world is still in a rut, not on the mountaintop. It does not have a vision and does not see what God has promised. The world needs Elijahs; the church needs Elijahs; you need to be an Elijah, but first you need to go to a mountaintop. Like Jesus, like Moses, you need to go to the mountaintop for solitude and prayer. You need to seek obedience in your life. You need to go to the mountaintop of the Kingdom of God to see the world as God sees it. You need to go to the mountaintop and renew your faith in the God who made us. You need to go to the summit, the highest place: The place of devotion to the living God.
When I look back on my life, one of the most defining moments - if not the defining moment for me - about whether or not I was going to serve God and endeavour to bring God's word to the world was when I listened to a recording of a speech by Martin Luther King Junior. In it, he said:
So I say to you, seek God and discover him, and make him a power in your life. Without him, all of our efforts turn to ashes and our sunrises into darkest night. Without him, life is a meaningless drama with the decisive scenes missing. But with him, we are able to rise from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope. With him, we are able to rise from the midnight of desperation to day-break of joy. St. Augustine was right: We were made for God and will be restless till we find our rest in him. Love yourself if that means rational, healthy and moral self-interest. You are commanded to do that - that is the length of life. Love your neighbour as you love yourself - you are commanded to do that - that is the breadth of life. But never forget there is a first and even greater commandment: Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul and all they mind. This is the height of life. When you do this, you live the complete life.
That, my friends, is the mountaintop, and Elijah, Moses and Jesus say, “Amen.”