Tag: mountain

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On A Different Mountain

First Sunday in Lent  |  Matthew 4:1-11

Last Sunday the lectionary marked Transfiguration Sunday, a remembrance of the story of a mountaintop experience in which Jesus transformed into a glorious figure. Moses and Elijah made a striking appearance as well.

Valley thru Trees 003For the first Sunday in Lent, we remember a different story of visiting a mountain. This time Jesus has the devil for company.

We know the story of the temptation of Christ, though we may wonder who told the details to Matthew. Jesus has purposefully fasted for forty days and nights. Along comes the devil with three temptations: turn stones into bread for your hunger, throw yourself off the pinnacle of the temple and let the angels catch you, and worship the devil to gain the whole world.

We get that last temptation, because it is reasonably clear to most of us that worshipping anything less than God is wrong, even in order to get everything in the world. The other two, well, it is a little more difficult to find anything wrong with the ideas.

Throwing oneself down from the pinnacle of the temple is not unreasonable, given that one was up there anyway and angels are really going to catch you. No harm done, and it would be amazing. The idea seems to be that one should not put God to the test, just for the sake of doing it. God doesn’t perform circus tricks on demand.

That first temptation, though, is the hardest one of all to understand. What is wrong with having a little bread? Provided one has the power to do it, and nobody in the story seems to question whether Jesus actually could turn stones into bread, why not?

On one level, it seems to be about observing human limitations. Human beings cannot, generally speaking, turn stones into bread. On the other hand, human beings cannot, generally speaking, heal the sick, raise the dead, feed thousands of people with a child’s lunch, or pull tax money out of the mouth of a fish. Yet, in Gospel stories Jesus did all of these things.

Maybe it was also a question of doubt. The devil does not propose the bread simply as food: “If you are the Son of God…” Such a miracle would prove, presumably to Jesus himself or to the devil since no one else is present, that he is indeed God incarnate. Still, self-doubt doesn’t seem to be a problem. The gospels do not record an instance of Jesus wondering about his own identity, except in the eyes of others.

The real problem of these temptations is that they would alter the true nature of Jesus. He was an authentic human, complete, what our species aspires to become. Acts of self-doubt, or self-acclamation, would have torn the fabric of Jesus’ being, would have made him less than he was.

Perhaps that is how we can measure temptations that come our way. Regardless of the hunger that might be filled, or the apparent lack of harm, or the ends that we might achieve, we measure our choices by the injury done to our humanity, to our souls. There are worse things than hunger,  obscurity, and the lack of wealth.

Matthew tell us that Jesus went up on another mountain, and this time he was followed by crowds of people. Maybe when he sat down to speak, he remembered his own temptations.

“Blessed are the poor,” he said. “Blessed are the meek…blessed are the hungry….”

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Transfiguration Sunday | Strange Things on the Mountain

 

Transfiguration  |  Strange Things on the Mountain  |  Matthew 17:1-9

Strange things happen on mountains. Moses meeting with God to chisel out a new way of living comes to mind.

Matthew’s story of the mountaintop experience raises questions that have few answers. Why a mountaintop? Why just Peter, James and John—what’s so special about them? What is transfiguration anyway?Mountain Range Over Ledge 005

Where did Moses and Elijah come from when they appeared up there on the mountain, and where had they been in the meantime?

Is the cloud a cloud or an actual manifestation of God, and do we really know the difference? What about the voice—is this God speaking? Is God talking about God as someone else, someone who is also God? Can we make sense of God in one place or form making a reference to God in another place or form—God talking about God? Are the aspects of God, whom we call Father and Son and Spirit, always manifested separately, or do we simply perceive God differently from beings who are not God? Was all of this real or some kind of hallucination?

Why are they all afraid?

Where did everybody go afterward—Elijah, Moses, the cloud? Why did Jesus touch each of the men? Was there something in his touch that worked differently than his words?

Why was it all a secret?

For whatever reason, physical reaction or mental shock, the men fall to the ground in fear. Jesus tells them, “Get up and do not be afraid.” We have this statement plain and simple from Matthew’s story. Is there anything we can make of it? Could Jesus be demonstrating what God would have us do? Could it be that God does not wish or need us to fall on the ground in fear, but that God wants us standing, unafraid, even in the very presence of God? Is it human to react with such poise?

We can speculate on entities made of energy, on parallel worlds separated only by a breath from our own. We can wonder whether it is our reality that is limited or our ability to perceive it. All of these things are fascinating. All of them are simply speculation.

Whatever happened on the mountain, most of us have never been there. We are like the other disciples, wondering about the amazing experiences that these special ones shared, wondering why we were not invited to join them.

We live in the lower places.

We might feel ordinary, and maybe we are. We might think the mountain climbers to be special, and maybe they are. It might be that Peter, James and John were special, but only in their need. Maybe the other folk, left down in the valley, did not need to see Moses or hear voices.

It may have bothered John, all those years. Much later, long after Matthew had put out his gospel, John wrote another one. John’s perspective was different, his themes and emphasis different. It was John, who had been up on the mountain that day, who gave us another saying, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Faith is easy on the mountaintop, but there is little use for it. Down in the lower places, the valleys, the flat lands, faith is not so easy, but it is much more needful.

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A Word to the Ancient Ones

Sixth Sunday After Epiphany  |  Matthew 5:21-37

They stood on that mountain, sat there, lay there, a great crowd, and all of them so quiet that you could have closed your eyes and thought yourself alone. The only sound beyond the wind on the rocks was the voice of the man speaking.

Mountains with Blowing RockHe reminded them of what they knew, what had been told to the ancient ones, a people gathered centuries earlier at the base of another mountain covered in smoke and clouds. Moses had brought them words from God the Almighty, words to drag them out of their dark bondage and to lift them slowly to become a new people.

Thou shalt not. That was what Moses had told the ancient ones. Thou shalt not.

They forgot, of course. They forgot the rules, forgot the telling of them, sometimes one rule or two, and sometimes they forgot them all in a rush to satiate their needs, their lusts, their anger, their rights. And that had been when the rules were new and simple and fresh upon their minds.

The rules weren’t new to the crowd on the mountain with Jesus. They had heard the rules all of their lives, knew all the ramifications, all the ways one could fail. The law had become a ponderous thing since the days of the ancients, as though it were alive, growing, full of snares and loopholes. Surely, they must have thought, this man can give us some relief, some easier way to live.

No. He seems to want to make their path more narrow. It is no longer their choices that are wrong, it is their thoughts.

Pluck out your eyes, he says. Cut off your hands, if it will save you. And keep your bothersome wives. Surely he goes too far, says crazy things? “But I say to you,” he says. He thinks he has more authority than Moses. Who is he to tell us these things?

But they are quiet on the mountain, and they are still listening.

Later, they know by the silence that he has finished. They gather themselves and walk back down the mountain. Some of them whisper to one another, others mumble like the ancient ones themselves did so long ago. All of them look back to get one more glimpse of Jesus, but he is already walking away, hard to see through the band of followers.

A boy climbs onto a rock for a look, and his father waits for him.

“Does he mean it?” he asks. “Is it better to cut off our hands?” He looks down at his own hands, rubs one with the fingers of the other.

“No,” his father says. “He only told us that to make us think.”