First Presbyterian Church
Sharing the Faith
Sermon for February 18, 2007
by Pastor Susan Barnes

Children's Time:

“There was once a well-respected and loved teacher named Hufis, a Sufi sheik who could do all sorts of wonderful things. But he began to hear of another sheik Raaleh, whom travelers from the other side of Persia said could do even more wonderful things. Troubled, he set out to find her, and they met on the shores of the Persian Gulf. As it happened, it was prayer time. So Hufis took his prayer rug and flung it out on the water. Then walking across the water, he said his prayers seated on his prayer rug, floating on the water.

When finished, he turned to Raaleh, “Can you do that?'

She took out her prayer rug and threw it into the air. Then, climbing an invisible staircase, she sat down and said her prayers, floating in the air. Upon descending, she called to Hufis, ‘What you and I have done today, the fishes and birds do every day. Wouldn't it be more worthwhile if we would learn instead to treat each other as human beings?” 1

Do you think it's hard to be kind or to float on the air?

What about floating in the water?

Our unison reading is found on page 552. Listen for the word of God as we read it together in Psalm 99.

1 The LORD is king; let the peoples tremble! He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake!

2 The LORD is great in Zion; he is exalted over all the peoples.

3 Let them praise your great and awesome name. Holy is he!

4 Mighty King, lover of justice, you have established equity; you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.

5 Extol the LORD our God; worship at his footstool. Holy is he!

6 Moses and Aaron were among his priests, Samuel also was among those who called on his name. They cried to the LORD, and he answered them.

7 He spoke to them in the pillar of cloud; they kept his decrees, and the statutes that he gave them.

8 O LORD our God, you answered them; you were a forgiving God to them, but an avenger of their wrongdoings.

9 Extol the LORD our God, and worship at his holy mountain; for the LORD our God is holy.

Our gospel reading begins on page 69. It happens just after Jesus finished lecturing the disciples asking, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” They answered “Elijah” or an ancient prophet. Jesus then asks “Who do you say that I am?” and Peter answered “The Messiah.” But Peter, like the rest of them, doesn't understand what that means. Jesus tries to tell them, that those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for Jesus' sake, will find it. Listen for the word of God as it is found in Luke 9:28-36.

28 Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. 29 And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white.

30 Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. 31 They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.

32 Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. 33 Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah"-- not knowing what he said.

34 While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. 35 Then from the cloud came a voice that said, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!"

36 When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.

This ends our reading of the gospel. Jesus spoke to Moses and Elijah about his exodus. The first exodus was about escape from slavery and death. Jesus' death and resurrection lead us out of slavery and death. Moses was unequaled for all the signs and wonders that Yahweh sent him to perform in the land of Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his servants.

So naturally, when Jesus was seen talking with Moses, that was exciting and significant – Jesus was talking with one of the greatest Jews of all time. Elijah the prophet, the one responsible for calling kings to account and for miracles of healing and feeding, was also talking to Jesus. And so the disciples see that Jesus isn't Elijah.

Jesus' clothes became dazzling white, the color of holiness. A cloud comes over them. A cloud is a symbol of God's presence, as we read in the psalm. During the exodus, God was with the Israelites in a pillar of cloud by day. At the transfiguration, a voice says, “This is my Son, my chosen; listen to him.”

The story of the transfiguration, this event where Jesus goes up on the mountain, is transfigured white and the heavenly voice identifies Jesus as “my son” is also in Matthew and Mark. Luke is the only one who says the disciples were weighed down with sleep, but managed to stay awake. Perhaps it looked like a dream to them. Perhaps being sleepy is why Peter suggested building booths for Jesus and Elijah and Moses. Maybe he thought this moment was the end of Jesus' work; that his holiness would be located on the mountain in a shrine. But then they heard “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”

The disciples continue to misunderstand what Jesus is doing and what they are supposed to do. I always thought the disciples' blockheadedness was a literary device to help us listeners know what's really going on with Jesus. But maybe the disciples just didn't get it until the very end, after the crucifixion and resurrection and ascension.

To help us get it and figure out what is going on with Jesus, the church has statements of faith, or creeds. The creeds explain what scripture means and what ideas are most important to us at the time. Most of us know the Apostles' Creed almost by heart, without being aware of it. We say it when people are baptized, or like today, when people join the church. Go ahead and look at it in your bulletins.

There are a few things in the old creeds that many of us don't get. They did a great job of explaining important theology a thousand years ago, but it's hard for us sometimes to figure it out without some background.

So today I wanted to explain a little bit. The first line doesn't seem all that controversial to us. But in the second century, there was a Roman Christian named Marcion who thought the old testament, the Hebrew Bible, spoke of a tyrannical God who had created a flawed world. Marcion believed Jesus revealed God to be full of love and mercy. Yet there are plenty of places in the Hebrew bible that speak of God as merciful and loving, and plenty of references to God's judgment in the new testament. Nevertheless, Marcion thought the old testament shouldn't be scripture. He even wanted to delete the parts of the new testament that were too Jewish, like the birth narrative in Luke. So when we say “Maker of heaven and earth”-- that means that the God of Genesis, the creator of the world, the Jewish God—that's the God we believe in.

When we say that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary, that means that he wasn't a spirit that came down to earth as an adult, as some Greek and Roman gods did. Some Gnostics believed in the spirit of Christ, but not in the human being Jesus. They didn't believe that Jesus Christ was a flesh and blood person. To them, the flesh was evil, but the spirit was holy. That means either that everything the flesh wanted was wrong, so humans should deny themselves any pleasure, or that since the flesh was evil, it didn't matter what the flesh did, and so human beings were free to experience every pleasure no matter the cost.

So when we say Jesus “suffered, was crucified, died and was buried, we are talking about a real flesh and blood human being, not an ethereal spirit who had the appearance of a man but didn't really suffer on the cross.

Some of you might have learned the phrase he “descended into hell” where we say today “He descended to the dead.” Hell in the Bible is not necessarily a place of punishment, but the place people go after they die. So the English word was changed in the creed. This line just means that Jesus really died and was resurrected; he didn't fall into a coma and wake up. To say that Jesus rose again is to believe that God has power over death, that death is not the last word, that we can trust God's promises of life in Christ, no matter what.

Being seated at the right hand of anyone is a place of power; so for Jesus to sit at the right hand of the father means he is equal to God, the son of God as we heard in the transfiguration story.

Some of you might have heard the phrase “he will come again to judge the quick and the dead. One meaning of ‘quick' is “living,” although it's an old meaning, which is why we use the word ‘living' instead.

And when we read the words "holy catholic church” it does not refer to the Roman Catholic church, but the church universal: all Christians everywhere. The church isn't just for a heroic few, but for everyone who wants to join.

“We believe in the forgiveness of sins” doesn't seem controversial to us, usually? After all, the Bible says so. But for the persecuted Christians of the second and third centuries, this was a big deal. If Christians denied the faith while they were being tortured and survived their torture, could they be readmitted to the church? The church eventually answered yes with this line in the Apostles' Creed.

So I hope explaining some of these things makes you appreciate this creed. By the fifth century, the Apostles' Creed was almost like we say it today. Churches used variations of the Apostles' Creed since the first century, as a way of teaching Christians about the faith. Christians have wanted to know how to follow Jesus, how to be holy, for nearly two thousand years.

If we are holy, it's because God is. Being holy doesn't gain us anything; it is just who we are. The psalm said that the Lord God is holy three times. Because God is holy, we are to be holy. The transfiguration marked Jesus as the son of God, and so Jesus' work was holy. Rabbis taught that ordinary work, done for the glory of God, was holy.

And so we take in Jesus at communion so we can continue to be holy. Being holy means we do what God wants and wills. Amen.

1Faith-full stories: the Narrative Road to Religion, ed. John C. Hoffman.