Exodus 34:29-35

Luke 9:28-43A

I stood at my kitchen window this morning, squinting out at the sunshine and the snow.

We had high winds last night.  Winds which impeded the sight of anyone who found themselves out and about any time after sunset yesterday, what with the light snow we had the day before. Today, though, the sun is bright and the snow is brighter and one can hardly look without shielding one’s eyes against it.

With all this brightness outside my window, I am taken right into the heart of the vision before us now with Jesus and Peter and John and James on the mountain and Jesus praying and suddenly his face shining and his clothes whiter than white. And I imagine that the disciples found themselves squinting into that brightness, too, nearly unable to see what was right before them. And yet we are told that even though all this brightness could not keep them fully awake, still Peter offers to build semi-permanent structures to shelter them all. Indeed, while most of the sermons I have heard (and probably preached) on this have me landing in the understanding that Peter shortsightedly wanted to stay on that mountaintop, today I am not so sure. For while we may at first think he does not see clearly, maybe he does after all.

Indeed,

• instead, I now wonder if Peter recognizes what he has heard about before but not yet, until now, seen for himself, for there are strains of the story of the Exodus all over that mountain, what with Jesus’ shining face and brilliant light and shadowy clouds, not to mention the actual very presence of Moses himself.
• I wonder if even for just a moment Peter and the rest recognize that they are also in the middle of a journey from slavery to freedom, a journey which is repeated again and again throughout the Biblical witness.
• No, perhaps Peter could not have articulated all of this himself — at least not yet — but at some level maybe he got a glimpse of the larger story in the middle of all that brightness and cloud.

For that is the point of it all in the end, isn’t it, that we might each and all be led from a place of bondage, literal or otherwise, to a place where we can fully be all we were intended to be? I mean, wasn’t that the call to both Moses and Elijah and couldn’t that be why they gather with Jesus now on that mountaintop, perhaps affirming and reshaping that call for a new time?

And isn’t that precisely what is experienced when they come down from the mountain and Jesus casts out the unclean spirit which had held a child and his family captive for too long? Bringing freedom to a family who had been debilitatingly bound by the disease of one?

Indeed, I saw this very call to lead from bondage to freedom come alive myself a few days back as again I sat in a circle with a group which has been grappling with our racial history for months and months now. This time we were grateful to welcome one from our community who has started a nonprofit, The Sir Donald Foundation, with the vision of assisting the recently incarcerated reenter life outside of prison.

In an hour’s time, Earnell Brown spoke to us of the ways in which those who wind up in prison are already bound:

• by limited education and few, if any, opportunities
• and by meager hope for a life beyond what they have known.

And he talked about what life in prison is like:

• the frequency with which physical isolation is experienced;
• the exposure to the chance to learn criminal behavior even ‘better’ than before;
• the ways in which growth is stunted, especially emotionally and mentally.

And he pointed out the challenges faced when ‘freedom’ is finally gained:

• that housing is too often not readily available;
• that employers willing to hire are far too few;
• that when they step out into the world again, not only may they not have a place to sleep, they likely will not know where their next meal is coming from, nor a decent change of clothes or basic toiletries which guard and enhance our dignity.

(If you want to learn more about these systems which keep too many imprisoned even once one’s sentence is served, spend some time with The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander.  It will change how you see the world. Or at least it did for me.)

There was bright shining light all over that hour as we who know so little first-hand of what our speaker shared gained insight into what keeps so many of our neighbors, and indirectly ourselves, bound. Indeed, we may never have experienced prison ourselves nor may we have ever gone through the security check points and searches to visit a loved one there, but we are still not yet ‘free’ when we live in fear or judgment, or with limited understanding of what drives our neighbors who live through and with such as this.

• And I wonder now what it would mean if we hear this story on the mountaintop in a new way this time as the very same story which bears repeating and living into once more.
• I wonder what it will look like if we recognize that Jesus comes down off that mountain with one call only and that is, in the tradition of Moses and Elijah, to lead to freedom.
• And oh, I wonder now what it could mean tomorrow and the day after that if you and I heard that call as meant for us as well, not only to our own freedom, but to be among those who lead others there.

For there are so many things which keep us bound, aren’t there?

Some among our neighbors are ‘bound’ by the same story which Earnell Brown shared with a group sitting in a circle a few nights back. Others of us are ‘bound’ in different ways, but we are not much closer to being free, not really:

• For I am bound by ignorance, sometimes willful ignorance, of the heartbreaking experience of too many of my neighbors.
• I am less than free when I do not recognize that too many have no means to gain a decent education, or a safe place to live, or not enough healthy food to eat, or ready access to affordable health care. Oh, the bondage is different, to be sure, but when such as this produces broken human beings, then too much, I expect, I am bound by fear which has me seeing another as somehow different than me in fundamental ways.

Now maybe for you this is not an easy or ready pathway into the story of bondage and freedom that we all share, deep down. No matter, for it seems to me that all of us certainly can hear that call to freedom meant for all people as we watch Jesus and those disciples come down the mountain this week.

• Whether we yearn for freedom from fear or a grief which will not let go…
• Whether we know ourselves bound up by unrealistic expectations of our time, our energy, our resources, self-imposed or otherwise…
• Whether we yearn for the release from past narratives which no longer define us and certainly do not lead to freedom — as individuals, families, or as worshiping communities…
• Whether we know ourselves in need of forgiveness and fresh starts…

Or whether you, like I, sat in one circle or another in the last few days and in the deep listening shared, got a glimpse of not only bondage but a way out of it together…

You name it.

For if the journey of faith is a movement from bondage to freedom, we all find ourselves somewhere on the way: the same way of Moses, and Elijah and Jesus who each in different ways led others to freedom, enabled freedom, granted freedom…

So maybe, just maybe, Peter’s inclination to build dwelling places for those on that mountaintop is an indication of his sense of the truth of this even then.

Maybe Peter recognized they were at the start of or in the middle of another ‘Exodus’ which would lead to freedom, and like the other time whose story he had long heard told, such dwelling places would be needed for everyone along the way.

Indeed, maybe Peter’s offer here is a way of pointing to that larger story.

The one that always leads to freedom.

The way of freedom that Jesus leads us to when they go down from that mountain and into a world in still bondage once more, bringing healing and hope to a world so desperately in need of it.  The same world you and I inhabit today.

• I know that my take on Peter this time through differs from any I’ve heard much before.  What do you think? Might Peter actually have a deeper sense of what is going on than he is often given credit for?
• Perhaps one could build a whole sermon comparing the different and similar ways that Moses, Elijah, and Jesus led and lead people to freedom.
• Is it possible that the time spent on the mountain is meant to have us remembering Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt or the prophetic call of Elijah and how these are reflected in Jesus? How might this deepen our understanding of what is before us now?
• I have offered one extensive example of ‘bondage’ above which I will probably at least point to in my preaching.  If your preaching leads you in this way, what examples might you be led to share?