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LUM in the Valley

Coming Down From the Mountain Syme ® 2qiis ke er
September 12, 1971
luke 9:28~37

Summer is over. Last week's weather notwithstanding, the season of summer
has come to an end and fall is upon us. For many y if not all of us, it has been
a time for diversion, rest, leisurc; many of us took vacations: some of us had
experiences this summer we shall long remember; thrilling experiences. nd even
if we did nothing out of the ordinary ourselves, we were affected by the vacation
mentality of our culture. Life was significantly different two weeks ago than
it is this week. Now the pace quickens, children return to school, organizations
resume meeting, calendars fill with engagements; from the halls of government
in Washington all the way down to the elementary school P.T.ij., American life
is cranking up to begin in earnest once again. It might be described as coming
down from the mountain. :

One of our needs as individuals is for those experiences that provide
diversion and respite from the normal round. We need to get away from it
all: to forget about the press of professional, social and parental responsi-
bilities. ‘We need, occasionally, to flush out our systems, and breathe the
pure, undefiled, quiet air of a vacation week-end. We are better people for
it. We function better in all our different roles if we take time to step away
for a period and let our bodies, minds and spirits rejuvenate themselves.

But sometimes, and I think all of us know a little bit about this part, we

have a little difficulty making the necessary adjustment to normality. Falling
back into the usual pattern is not as enjoyable as falling out of it. Coming
down off the mountain is difficult., It's quite a bit like the NASA moon
missions. Houston Space Center officials always point out that re-entry

is the vital stage of every mission: that the euphoria of moon exploration

is fun, but the real technological skill of everyone involved is put to the
most strenuous test in the effort to bring the astronauts back home safely.

Anyone who has returned from a great vacation experience well knows the

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difficulty of the re-entry process. Y ;

Of course, we have the option of trying to stay on the nountain Vo
can, if we choose, live from vacation to vacation, or more to the point,
from week-end to week-—snd, putting little nioak in what transpires in
between. We can, if we choose, try to live a kind of life that refuses to
descend into the valley, or for that matter, refuses to acknowledge that
there is a valley. I sense that this particular life style is a kind of
model for a growing number of Americans. And I can think of no better
example than Playboy Magazine and the particular philosophy from which it
emerges. | Now this gets a little sticky because I believe that magazine does
render a service to the mind set of middle America. It has helped to teach
that pleasure is not bad; that to be self-conscious about one's sexuality is
to be normal. It has helped to rid our culture of some taboos that we needed
to be rid of. oat fore are no children in Playboy, and no alcoholics, and no
junkies, and no ghettoes, and no broken lives which result from sexual promiscuity;
no guilt, no unemployment, nothing, in fact, that alludes to the reality of life
in the valley. It's all on the mountain — the mountain top of good music,
food, clothes, cars, booze and beautiful women. I think that's a model for
many people, even if they're achieving it only in the private world of fantasy.
It's a model of life lived on the mountain top, in which no one ever has to
come down. And it's shallow and superficial and naive and totally impossible.
Por the valley - at the foot of the mountain — is where life is really lived.

Our New Testament Lesson this hoctun is about this business of coming down
from the mountain. Let's take a careful look. The account is included in all
three Byhopthe Gospels — Metthew;-Merle-omdluke, with very little variation. It
is known as the Transfiguration, and Now Testament Scholars agree that it is
one of those important, pivotal events in the Gospel narrative. It is pivotal

because it marke the transformation of the disciples' relationship with Jesus.

aisles.

What happened exactly? We don't know, and it's good to acknowledge that we
don't, and furthermore it's probably futile and irrelevant to attempt to
restructure the experience. I choose to interpret in this manner. The
disciples had been with Jesus for some time — probably several months.

They had come to know him as teacher, healer, prophet. The inner circle,
Peter, James and John, probably knew him best, and were more deeply involved
with him than the others. So it was those three that he invited to accompany
him to the mountains, for a brief vacation, if you will. Matthew notes that
they were there for six days. ‘During that time their relationship with him
turned a corner. They came to see him in an altogether different light. They
went up into the mountains with their friend Jesus, teacher, healer, prophet,

While on the mountain they were led to see him as Savior, Lord, Son of God.

given _totmew-desus—Christ—as_Lord and-Savior. The testimony of the Church

down through the ages has always been that men, on their own, do not will faith

in Christ. Rather men are enabled to have faith, given faith, by the very
Spirit of God prodding, pushing, disturbing them. So it was that Jesus
was transfigured: changed: altered. They saw him in a new light. Their
relationship with him was different: and in a real sense they were now
different.

The Gospel account is full of rich Old Testament Symbolism. It helps
to understand that, too. Moses took the Elders of Israel up on a mountain,
and after six ‘days a cloud descended and God spoke to Moses out of the clond.
Elijah - the prophet of God exemplary, Moses ~ the servant leader of God's
people. It all ties together. The New Testament writers are here saying
something about the continuing redemptive activity of God which bégan long
ago in the time of the Exodus, and which now comes to fulfillment in Jesus

Christ.

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. Well, Peter, the impetuous one, the first to speak always, wanted to

prolong that experience. Something great had happened, and it felt very
natural to suggest that they do something to give it permanent structure:
at least a reminder that on this spot we - Peter, James and John saw
Jesus as God's only Son.

So he said, "Master, it is good that we are here. Shall we build three
shelters, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah?" The shelters -
or booths ~ didn't get built. But it's interesting to recall that this ar
is a very rich Old Testament image. When God addressed Moses out of the

cloud on the mountain, he told Moses to build a sanctuary, a tent for him to

reside among his people. That's what the tabernacle was, a portable sanctuary,

partly wood, partly cloth , which was erected, taken apart by the Levites

and reassembled at each new campsite during the long years the people
wandered ‘icecnasi Wik wilderness. $0 Peter wasn't just talking off the top of
his head: there was historic precedent for what he was suggesting.

But what Peter missed was the key to the whole tabernacle idea in the
first place. Moses didn't build the tent on the mountain. He built it in the
valley - where the people were. He built it for portability - it could be.
picked up and carried with the people. In that tabernacle was housed the
Ark of the Covenant, and on it the mercy seat - the locus of God's presence
among the people. The mercy seat always pointed forward — God was understood
to be looking ahead, always with his people but at the same time out in front
of them. The "tabernacling presence" of God is a turning point in Old
Testament thinking: one which develops in the Bible into incarnational
theology, i.e. a God who in-dwells: who lives in and among his people. And the
whole point is that you don't pin God down to a certain spot and place —
either in the heavens or in a wooden temple, because his presence moves
with his people down in the valley.

Peter suggested three permanent structures to prolong the experience on

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the mountain top. While there is precedent, he had missed the point, and the
Gospel writer apologizes for him with the remark: "He spoke without knowing |
what he was saying."

The outcome of the transfiguration is that they came down and significantly
there was a crowd waiting for them. Peter would have stayed, but Jesus led
him back down, and waded right into the realistic business of clamoring,
hungry, dirty people, among them an epileptic boy whom he healed.

The Word of God to us in all of this is, I believe, quite clear. Real life +2
is in the valley. Real life. needs to be lived in the valley. We need those
occasional trips to the mountain, but we will be measured by our willingness
to appropriate what happens up there for the sake of living effectively down
here, | .

4nd what is true about life in general is particularly relevant in regard
to specifically Christian life. As I read this text, the Christian life is
a combination of going to the mountain top, incorporating that experience and
then walking courageously back into the valley. In what was probably his
greatest speech, the late Martin Luther King told the is as of thousands of
people at the Washington Monument that he had been to the mountain , and had
seen there a vision of a new America crowned with brotherhood and equality
and justice for all ofGod's children. This country needs those soaring visions.
But the greater nced is for men like Dr, King who see the vision and then
walk into the valley of garbage collectors and welfare recipients and urban
politics. We need both - the glory of the mountain - and the dirt and foul
air in the valley.

[ the trouble is that we, like Peter, prefer it on the mountain top.

The Church of Jesus Christ, in a very real sense, has done in our age what Peter

could not accomplish. I+ has built booths, shelters, monuments to one glorjous

moment in time. Shelters that have become stained glass mausOleums, empty

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cathedral museums that speak of a wonderful day that is no more.

We are learning, painfully, the error of our ways. We are Lessnind as a
Church, that Jesus Christ calls us to follow him, and that to follow him we must
be portable, flexible, movable. lat me at yee about an Poi that is
relevant Sncasna it involves us and our money. On the corner of 16th and
Delaware in Indianapolis stands the First Presbyterian Church, a great old
church with a long and glorious history. The sanctuary is huge, well
appointed, red carpet and houses the most expensive stained glace window in the

city as well as a $100,000 pipe organ. Beside the Church stands a community

center and educational building, constructed for the children of the white

\Y doctors and lawyers and professional people who used to live in the noigh-

borhood. But there is no congregation. From past strength the congregation
dwindled over the years to a fraction of its size. Recently, its
predominantly white, middle class constituency merged with a suburban
Presbyterian Church. Now, when this sort of thing happens, and it is
happening in every urban area in the nation, the denomination usually
abandons the cite, tears down the facility or sells off to the highest
bidder. However, this time, the Presbyterian Church — Synod of Indiana
and Presbytery of Indianapolis - is not backing off. Rather we are
attempting to stay in that particular valley. The building is now called
the Presbyterian Metropolitan Center, and it is one of the most exciting
projects I've seen. You and I are helping to pay for it. It currently houses
day care centers, block clubs, youth organizations, drug rehabilitation
centers: plans include the formation of an experimontal worshipping
community, and many other people-oriented programs. That's what it means
to come down off the mountain. We're hoping to do something of the same
thing here with the Lafayette Urban Ministry. But the point is that every
congregation .must, if it is to live by the power that God alone gives,

learn what it means to come down from its particular mountain and walk in its

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particular valley.

What is true about life generally is specifically true for the Church,
and abundantly true for individuals. I guess there is no one here who doesn't
wish, deep in his heart of hearts, for some clear, concise experience of the
reality of Jesus Christ. As a corollary to that I would expect that many
feel a little guilty, perhaps,and more than a little inadequate, when confronted
by a Zealous evangelical who appears to be on the mountain top all the time.
And, I think, we find ourselves in this dilemma because we've been sold a
theological bill of goods. Too frequently we've been told that our need is
to know Jesus Christ as our personal savior, period. Too frequently, evangelism
and a lot of it is coming right out of the bosom ofPresbyterianism —- is
described as the mountain top experience of knowing and feeling that Christ
is my Lord, He died for me, He is my Savior and Pilot and Guide, period.

It's wrong ~ dead wrong - that preponderance of "me's" and I's. Jesus

Christ is a personal savior - but to accept him as such is to be led by him.
eserve ”

It is not to Fh that personal experience as the prototype by

building a shelter to mark the spot. It is to follow him: to go where

he leads and do what he wills.

Jesus came down from the mountain and bids us follow. Let us not forget
that Peter, James and John were invited up onto the mountain as a result
of their following. Their experience of discipleship did not begin on
the mountain top ~ it did not end on the mountain top. Rather Jesus invited
them to that good and great experience as an. interlude to the hard work of
following.

So, I believe it shall be for you and me and any who would be his
disciple. We will be invited to the mountain one day. Those rich ex-
periences of faith will come to us in God's good time. In the meantime
there is work to be done in the valley ~ where his people- including you

and me = live and move and have being. Down in the valley where we live

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Grant us to come down from our mountain, in the steps of .