Speechless

Sermon for Transfiguration Sunday 2009
Mark 9:2-9

Have you ever been speechless?
Have you ever found yourself with absolutely nothing to say?

It can sometimes be embarrassing. If you’re in school and the teacher calls your name, and you haven’t been paying attention so you don’t even know what the question is… Omigosh! You’re speechless. And you feel yourself turning shades of red. If you’re going through the receiving line at a wedding, or through a line where you greet the grieving members of a family at a visitation—you might feel embarrassed if you find yourself speechless. But being speechless—even in those situations—can sometimes be a good thing. Certainly it’s better than saying something stupid—Lord knows, I’ve learned that in my life—and still, sometimes, seem to be learning the lesson.

Sometimes we’re speechless because of joy, sometimes because of grief and pain. Sometimes because we’re so angry we could scream—that’s a probably a good time just to remain speechless. Sometimes because we’re so elated that words… just… can’t… express! Like Meriwether Lewis of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, when he saw a glimpse of the Pacific for the first time could only write, “O the joy!”

Sometimes being speechless is a reaction to something so grand, so big, so vast— Words can’t express.

Your first sight of the Rocky Mountains
The view from an airplane over the Boundary Waters
The Grand Canyon
The ocean

Two phrases hit home with me on two separate occasions as I read and reread and prayed with this passage. The first is the phrase about Peter, "He did not know what to say." This cracks me up! Because it's a parenthetical comment about what Peter has previously said which was pretty lame. It’s almost as if the gospel writing is explaining: If this sounds stupid, well, let me explain, you see, Peter—and you know how Peter is—Peter didn’t know what to say. So he just blurts out the first thing that comes to mind.
Like me? Omigosh, yes! Yes, that’s so JUST LIKE ME sometimes, when there is nothing to say, I just spit out something stupid to fill the empty space. And so I wonder if this parenthetical aside in this passage is just telling me to shut up a little more often.
To listen.
To be quiet.
And to just breathe in the vastness, the greatness of God.

And then, the second phrase which hit home—very much related to the first—the beautiful and familiar words,
"This is my Beloved Son, listen to him."

I hear God speaking loud and clear. “Randy, shut up and listen. Turn your eyes towards the face of my dearly loved Son, and listen to him.” Maybe you’re hearing something like that, too?

I've been reading bits and pieces of a new book by Ann Spangler called The Tender Words of God. In the last chapter she refers to Jesus as "the last, most tender word" of God. In the brightness and the “oh wow, baby, wow” of the Transfiguration, can we just not say anything… and just listen to Jesus tender words?

These are Jesus’ tender words.
These are words God wants you to hear.

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son… God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to rescue the world through him.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed my to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty..... and whoever comes to me I will NEVER drive away.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds.

I am the good shepherd....

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest....

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.

Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.

Get the idea?

Peter spoke because he didn't know what to say.
When he maybe should have simply dropped to his knees
In awe and amazement at the glory of God
Revealed in the face of Jesus Christ.

The transfiguration story—situated as it is between two teachings about Christ’s suffering and death on the cross, and his resurrection, and just before Christ’s teaching about discipleship—if anyone wants to be first he must become last, if anyone wants to lead the way she must become servant of all—the context of the transfiguration story reminds us that God is revealed not only in the transfigured, glorified face of Christ, but in the suffering of Christ who—even though he knew no sin, knew no shame, was made to be sin and shame on our behalf, so that in him we might be the Righteousness of God. And so an ancient Saint of the Church could say, “The Glory of God is the man or woman fully alive.”

The ultimate goal of the cross is more than the forgiveness of our sins, it is more than just the restoration of our relationship with God—the ultimate goal of the cross is oneness with God in and through Jesus Christ in whom our human nature is not only saved, healed, and renewed, but lifted up to participate in the very light, life and love of God the Father Son and Holy Spirit. That bright light, the “glory,” the strange and wonderful glow we see on the Mount of Transfiguration is the “Glory of God revealed in the Good News. And the good news is that God has loved us to the uttermost and has even entered the darkest, deepest depths of our sinful humanity within this fallen creation “in in order to make our misery, shame, sin, guilt, alienation, and godlessness his own, substituting himself for us, thwarting evil, redeeming and restoring us to union and communion with the Triune God who loves us more than he loves himself.”

(Torrence quoted by Colyer and paraphrases from Colyer/Torrence)

This is a mystery before which even the angels hide their faces.

It ought to render us speechless.

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!
Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me.
Underneath me, all around me
Is the current of his love;
Leading onward, leading homeward
To my glorious home above.

Peter spoke because he didn't know what to say.
And we all do that sometimes. I know I do.
But when, instead, I listen to the tender words of Jesus,
Then I am, like a young person who has fallen in love…
In total astonishment—even like being in shock—
In total awe at the great, great love of Jesus:
Speechless.
Lost in wonder, love, and praise!

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen,