2 Kings 2: 1-12

 2 Corinthians 4: 3-6

 Mark 9: 2-9

 The Measure of the Spirit

Mary R. Brownlow

February 19, 2012

 I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine – she was a member of this church 20 years ago - during leaf season in October. Autumn, when the colors are breathtaking, and the visitors and tourists arrive. This friend had guests visiting from Europe, and they were taken all around to see how beautiful the mountains and valleys can be when they are lit up in red and yellow and green and orange. The visitors had heard of the concept of “peak color” - that day and place when leaf season was on full blast. So as they drove around, everywhere they went, the visitors kept asking, “Is this peak? Has it peaked yet? Is that past peak?” It drove my friend crazy. “Just be here,” she wanted to say. “Stop measuring and quantifying the beauty.”

  Like views of natural beauty, spiritual experiences, epiphanies of the divine, are a moving target. It is hard, if not impossible to measure the presence of the Holy Spirit because it is a moving target. It’s here, it’s gone. But it happened, we know it happened, so we try to put in words what it means, and what was the impact. Some write sermons, some write books of theology. But Scripture gives us something else: stories, narratives that help us glimpse something, if only for a moment. Then we go on, living in the residual glow of that peak moment.

  The two stories we are given today are about that moment, and living after the moment. They are about inheritance: the passage of vision and leadership and power from one person to another, from one generation to another.

   The Books of Kings are a chronicle from the Hebrew tradition with an editorial slant. Together they cover the 400 years from the death of the great King David to the defeat and exile of the Israelites from Jerusalem. We hear about 40 kings and one queen. Only two of those rulers get the stamp of approval from the narrator. Over and over, we hear instead that a king or a queen “did evil in the eyes of the Lord.” It is the prophets that function as the true spiritual leadership in Israel. They see through the deceptions and schemes of royalty; they illuminate the power and majesty and judgment of God. Elijah did this illuminating during his whole life, often alone, often in great danger. Now his life is at an end, and who can carry his vision forward?

  There is some evidence that things had changed since Elijah’s famous epiphany on the mountain, when he heard the still small voice of God. Instead of one prophet, alone against the world, there is a company of prophets. Elisha is one of them, the devoted follower of Elijah. This younger prophet won’t stop following, even disobeying his master. He follows from Gilgal to Bethel to Jericho, and across the miraculously parted Jordan River. He can’t quite let go. But then, at the last moment, he asks to “inherit a double share” of Elijah’s spirit. In other words, he wants to be in the place of the oldest son. According to Elijah, “he has asked a hard thing.” Not hard to give perhaps, but hard to receive and accept a lifetime of spirit-filled prophethood. Elisha is told that this depends on whether he can see (or should we say, envision) what happens next. That vision of the departing prophet is the signal that the inheritance has been transferred, the mantle now sits on Elisha’s shoulders, the torch has passed on. It is a time of grief and loss. But Elisha goes on to do many of the same miracles that his master had done, and even more spectacular signs and wonders. That vision of chariots and horses of fire was a brilliant moment, a life-changing moment, a mountaintop moment. What mattered, though, was the life that followed, the work to be done, the kings to be challenged, the persistence and integrity of a life of devotion. How do we measure any of those things? Only by the trajectory of the Spirit, a moving target, escaping our grasp, hard to keep in sight.

  In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus, like Elijah, has been a bit of a loner. He has some followers, but they don’t seem to ‘get’ what he’s doing, they don’t always obey, they misunderstand. He has started teaching the disciples about what’s coming. He has implicitly accepted the title of Messiah, though he wants them to keep quiet about it. But he envisions a future of suffering, rejection, a cross, death and rising up. This is a hard time: after all the miracles and healing and authority Jesus has displayed, the disciples are ready for a different kind of future. They hear, but they can’t truly listen, they can’t truly accept any of this kind of teaching.

 So Jesus takes three of them up to a mountain, where different perspectives are possible. By the way, this is the only “mountaintop” story in this Gospel. Mark says that they saw Jesus transfigured – or transformed or metamorphosed – in this place, with clothes whiter than any laundry on earth could bleach them. That was amazing. Then they see him talking to Moses and Elijah, those spirit-filled men of God. That was amazing. Then a cloud comes and a voice speaks. That was amazing. And the point of all of this? The voice says, “Listen to him!” The text almost seems to add, “you idiots!”

  Peter has been very impressed by the change in Jesus’ appearance and the company he keeps. In more ways than one, it is a mountaintop experience for him. If Jesus were the leaf season in Vermont, Peter would be saying, “Is this peak? I think this is peak!” Even though the disciples were afraid and “did not know what to say,” Peter can’t keep quiet and starts talking anyway. That rings true, somehow. Let’s fill any empty spaces with talk, with plans, with ideas. Anything’s better than that foreboding, brilliant presence.

  Peter’s response to that vision is often presented as a plan to institutionalize a vision. He wanted to capture the mountaintop moment in structures: make a cult, repeat the experience. But, as I read it this time, I see his words as almost desperate. I think he has begun to listen and he doesn’t like what he hears. The vision of the future as difficult and painful and shameful is pressing in on him, and he sees one last chance to swerve in another direction. “It is good for us to be here,” he says. “Good – compared to where you seem to want to go.” In Mark’s narrative, it takes time, it takes walking next to this Messiah, it takes a death, to gain full insight into the meaning of the vision. This Gospel rejects any interpretation of Jesus that is made before the cross, and before he has passed the torch to his disciples. Those interpretations are always incomplete.

  Our scriptures today weave together pictures of physical sight and spiritual insight. These pictures are amazing and frightening to their viewers.  Madeline L’Engle once wrote: “The brilliance of God is indeed blinding, and we need myth, story, to help us bear the light.” I think we also need to find our place to see ourselves as inheritors of the story. As long as the brilliant leader is in place, and seems to know everything and take care of everything, we are only spectators. There is a moment of brilliance, a moment when we recognize the power of God in the ones we admire. Then the moment passes, and we have to pick up the mantle, go back across the Jordan. Or we have to walk down the mountain, down a path that leads to a hill outside Jerusalem. We live our lives reflecting that moment of light.

 So, we come down off the mountain. It can be a quick descent. In liturgical terms, Transfiguration Sunday is followed in 3 short days by Ash Wednesday. We come back down into ourselves and see what’s there. We note our shortcomings, our emptiness. But we had the vision: this is an emptiness that can be filled. This is a path that can be walked. This road leads us to people who need healing and hope. 

  There are peak moments when heaven and earth, Creator and creation, God and humanity meet in our lives. These moments may not be as mind-blowing as chariots and horses of fire, with a whirlwind leading up to heaven. We may not see Jesus, either alone or talking to Old Testament prophets. We may not even have a picture or a word description of them: they are a great mystery, and they don’t happen according to our schedules. But we remember the preaching of John the Baptist and Jesus: “The kingdom of heaven has drawn near,” they said. “Trust in God’s Good News.” So, in whatever way you have been touched, by whatever vision you have been granted, know that you have been given a gift to share. You carry that light within: not to hold close to your heart, but to shine out, revealing something about God to the world.

  In this church, we have built a building for worship, a place where we can gather to tell the stories of the many ways God’s love lights up creation. We tell stories, we sing, we pray…sometimes we even listen to the sermon. But I think something else is happening at the same time. We are trying to make sense of our epiphanies. We are trying to discover how to follow faithfully, how to pick up Elijah’s mantle and inherit the Spirit. We are trying to see what it means to follow faithfully one who healed and taught and suffered for those he loved; one who was and is so often misunderstood. Because this is hard to puzzle out, we do it in community. We reflect to each other moments of insight. We encourage each other to accept a share in the mantle of power and responsibility. We will not always have moments of spectacular beauty and transcendence…we may not even agree on when those peak moments are. But, thanks be to God, we have measureless resources in this calling, an abundance of Spirit to share.