Proper 19 B, Isaiah 50:4-9 Psalm 116:1-8, James 2:1-5, 8-10, 14-18, Mark 9:14-29 The Rev. J. Brian Ponder Church of the Resurrection Starkville, Mississippi September 17, 2006 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O God, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen. Imagine it. You’ve traveled a long way to be there. It’s the premier release of one of the season’s greatest hit movies, or maybe even awards night in Hollywood. There you are with countless others. Energy fills the air. Crowds have been lining the streets for days just to get a glimpse of who might be coming, what folks will be wearing, what outrageous things might happen publicly. This is the place to be. Every detail has been planned and timed just right. The red carpet is receiving guests. Celebrity upon celebrity is arriving, flash bulbs light up the approaching evening sky. Shouts ring out as fame and fortune pass before your very eyes. “Turn this way! Hey, look over here! Look this way!” It’s the place to be seen, the place to be. It’s the event, and you’re now in the midst of it...the weeks or months of planning for you to be there, the money spent to get you there, the hopes and wishes for what you might see have all come to fruition…and then in a flash, [SNAP: just like that] it’s all over, it’s all said and done. And next week or next year’s to-do is already being planned...what’s been has been and something bigger and better will be on its way. Not all of us follow the lives of the stars. Not all of us are enamored with celebrity and fashion or royalty or fame in any of its various forms. But all of us have probably, at some point in our lives, put a great deal of excitement and energy into some event, some moment when something BIG was to happen...a class reunion, maybe a wedding or a prom, a citywide social event, an academic awards ceremony...something where the moment captured us, more so than what was happening around us. I think we can all relate. It must not have been too terribly different that day as Jesus descended the Mountain of the Transfiguration—whether people actually knew they’d see Jesus, or not. I get the impression that this for many of his followers was a moment when they “saw” Jesus’s Star-dom, his star-quality, this really being a moment where Jesus Christ is “Superstar.” And who knows, maybe his face was still gleaming from the events from atop the mountain? … Maybe this was his moment, or at least a moment, to shine! … And what happens is that because of it all, folks are caught off their guard. … It’s a moment where everything that’s supposed to be important isn’t, and Jesus bursts in on the scene and in so doing, bursts some bubbles. He lets some folks really “have it,” and we get a glimpse of Jesus that we’re not really used to. When Jesus shows up, the disciples and the scribes are in the midst of a discussion—a debate—and most probably over the fact that the disciples can’t seem to heal this epileptic boy in their midst—not able to heal him, even though in two other places before this account in Mark’s gospel, they have been given all authority by Jesus under heaven to “cast out demons” and make people whole. And the scribes, nay-saying and pointing out that, at least in this case, the disciples aren’t miracle workers, has consumed them and the crowd that has pressed in. This is what’s captured everyone’s attention, not the fact that a child is still suffering in their very midst! There is human suffering right before their eyes, and they do nothing about it, rather they lose themselves in a discussion instead of energizing themselves to aid the child or to look for other ways in which to ease his discomfort. Jesus comes on the scene, and he’s fed up! … He’s made the transition from what must have been one of the most powerful moments in his life and ministry in the Transfiguration again into the midst of a world that just doesn’t get it … where everything important isn’t and where everything unimportant gets priority. … “How much longer must I be among you?” “How long do I have to put up with this?” “When will you just open your eyes?!” Today’s lessons warn us not to fall into the trap of shortsightedness. They encompass a number of themes: the costliness of discipleship, good works and faith and doubt just to name a few. They’re full of the notion of an ebb and flow between belief and disbelief and the responsibility to which we are called as children of God in the midst of it all. And this is something quite relevant to us, or it should be, we who find ourselves encamped within the Church on one side of the aisle or another, or maybe lost somewhere in the middle, concerning the battles and issues our national church faces, those that we and our brothers and sisters are currently trying to sift through; or relevance within the world—a world that has and continues to witness the horrors of institutional, widespread depravity—silence for years in the face of things like apartheid in South Africa, and complacent ignorance to the ongoing genocide in places like Darfur, or the loss of freedom and religion for the sake of re-enculturation in places like Tibet or some of the Russian states not too many years back; continued drug wars in South and Central America; the vendettas carried out through gang violence that now creeps across our borders; the immediate rise in genuine and long-term needs facing some of the most vulnerable residents of this town and county, especially in their day-to-day living; and the countless other places, moments and instances where the miraculous news of God’s redeeming work has something to interject, breaking open for grace and transformation, if we but name them and work towards something new. Jesus comes on the scene in the midst of an argument in the face of human suffering. He’s viewed as part medicine man, part sideshow attraction, part Superstar, part miracle worker. And those who have pressed in to see him, even those closest to him, aren’t quite sure what to expect or to make of him. And before the disciples and the scribes can get their acts together, and confess to him what the devil it is that they’re going at it about, Jesus makes room for the man to seek healing for his child—makes room for grace and transformation, doing the unbelievable in the midst of those working out their own disbelief, even in the midst of those who believe but just don’t understand. Jesus has seen the mountaintop and again and again, his story is about where he meets people...back down in the valleys, back down on the plains, back down off the mountain. Jesus descends the mountain from prayer and solitude, the place of encounter with the Other and transformation, and brings a message of hope and healing, reconciliation and the glimpse of what might yet become into the midst of a world that has not seen the beauty of it all, certainly not from that vantage point. We too are called into the world as people of hope, as a people of transformation—holding up the various broken parts of our very lives in the name of healing and wholeness—in the name of Christ. This is the message of Christ for us, and it is the message of Christ called to flow from us. There are days and there will be days when this makes more sense than others … that’s part of our story, too—that ebb and flow between moments of great belief and moments when were not so sure just what it is that we believe. And there will be times when this belief is challenged, perhaps stretched so thin that we’re not sure if there will be any going back. But the message of God in Christ is that there is redemption, that there is union and communion with the Other, there is healing and there is wholeness. Friends, we are called to live out our faith in community with one another, and we’re called in community and as individuals through our faith and beyond our doubts to get busy—called to works of compassion, works of forgiveness, and works for others in any need or necessity or want. We’re called as Christians to see the risen Christ in our very midst, but more than that, to make Christ seen and make Christ REAL in the midst of a world torn by strife, ripped by war and hatred, wounded by misunderstanding and prejudice, severed by egos, shattered in so many ways unthinkable that we must be compelled to take action—not transfixed by the majesty or the magnitude or the awesomeness of the possibilities of God’s working, but as active agents of transformation and change—people living out the Good News, agents of healing, workers for peace, movers of mountains, messengers of hope. May we know the miracles of Christ working in our own day. May we stand ready to recognize the One, who more often than not is in our very midst. Amen.