This sermon was preached at Trinity Lutheran Church in Connellsville, PA, using the texts for Transfiguration Sunday.
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Who watched the Superbowl last Sunday? Who was watching mostly for the commercials and the Justin Timberlake concert? I don’t know about you, but the series of ads for Tide detergent may have been my favorite. In case you missed them, here's a compilation:
In case you missed them, each one started out with a stereotypical scene from some other kind of commercial - a sleek car, speeding down a mountain road; a noisy, crowded bar with a beer bottle sliding into the scene; the Old Spice guy sitting on a horse on a beach; two insurance adjusters with clipboards at the scene of an accident; clydesdales prancing in a grassy field; even a hip-twisting Mr. Clean pushing a mop across the floor. But then the actor (David Harbour, from the show Stranger Things) would turn to the camera and snap the viewer back to reality - nope, it’s not a car ad, or a beer ad, or an Old Spice ad; it’s a Tide ad! What makes it a Tide ad? Why, the clean clothes, of course!
So of course, it wasn’t far into Monday morning when some enterprising person familiar with the lectionary made a meme with a verse from today’s Gospel reading: “And Jesus was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white...and it was a Tide ad.”
The thing that made the Tide commercials funny was that they played with our expectations. We know what car ads look like, and beer ads, and insurance ads, and detergent ads, for that matter, and so it catches us off-guard when the thing being advertised is not what we expected.
As I was reading the story of Jesus’ transfiguration, I was reminded that the same thing is true for Peter and the other disciples. Jesus takes Peter, James, and John with him up a high mountain, and we (along with the disciples) should immediately be thinking - oh! I recognize this scene - high mountains are where people go to experience the presence of God. On the mountain, Jesus is transfigured - his appearance is changed, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them - not even Tide!
Then Moses and Elijah appear, those great people of faith, and they are talking with Jesus. So Peter, well-meaning Peter, surveys the scene, interrupts the conversation, and says, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
We can see where he’s coming from. It is good - miraculous, even - to have such faithful, important people together. It must have felt like such a holy moment in time, and Peter wanted to hang on to that. It may have been, though, that Peter also had another motive. In addition to being good and holy to have Jesus and Moses and Elijah together on the mountain top, it was also safe. After all, just prior to this scene, Jesus “began to teach [his disciples] that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes; and be killed, and after three days rise again.”
If you remember how that story continues, Peter jumps in, interrupting Jesus, and says, “Lord, this must never happen to you.” No suffering, no rejection, no death.What kind of God suffers? What kind of God dies? What is that about, anyway?
Instead, isn’t this mountain top scene what you picture when you picture the Son of God? White dazzling clothes, tucked away on a mountaintop with other holy people, close to heaven and away from the messiness and sin of the rest of the world. Sounds perfect, right? Peter thought so.
But while this may be what we expect, it’s not who God is. Rather than being present in those perfect, holy places where we expect God to be, surrounded by glory and brightness and separated from all that is painful, evil, and sinful, God instead comes to dwell with us. The word, made flesh. Arms and legs and skin and bones and breath, with us in the person of Jesus.
Where, then, do we see God? In the places we least expect it - down the mountain, among the Gentiles and Samaritans, on the cross. Not away from suffering, but right smack in the midst of it.
This is really wonderful good news for us, because suffering seems to be awfully present these days. Death and grief, illness and pain, brokenness and heartbreak, disappointment and despair. Perhaps we see these scenes and expect that we’re alone in our suffering. Perhaps we believe, wrongly, that our suffering is something God has done to us, that at our lowest point we have been abandoned, even by God. But we are reminded that Jesus didn’t avoid the cross, but instead loves us even to the point of death. In our suffering and pain Jesus walks with us. Nothing we experience is foreign to God.
In what unexpected places have you seen God? Perhaps in the face of someone with whom you disagree, someone who doesn’t look like you or sound like you or believe as you do. Or maybe you’ve seen God in someone from whom it is difficult to accept help. Or perhaps at your lowest point, when you feel worn down, or ashamed, or guilt-ridden; in the clinic, or the bar, or the courtroom. Or maybe you’ve seen God through the words and actions of a child, or someone who doesn’t seem to have much to offer.
We may think we have things figured out, but God is always showing up in unexpected people and surprising places. God, who put on flesh to dwell with us. God, who was born in a dirty stable. God, who ate with tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners. God, who was executed on a cross. God, who descended into hell. God, over whom death had no power. God, who comes to us in ordinary water, and bread, and wine. God, who offers forgiveness and mercy and grace to people who could never earn or deserve it.
The mountaintop might seem like a nice place to stay, but God had bigger, more surprising plans. As we enter into the season of Lent, we will be traveling with Jesus to Jerusalem and the cross. In what may seem like a story of death, Jesus turns to us and says, nope. This is a story of life, wholeness, relationship, and love. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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