Highs and Lows

(This one got away from me-- sending late!)

Some people think religion is going to get them an exemption from the lows, and then they get surprised and disillusioned when that doesn’t happen.  We are promised abundant life through Christ, but not an easy or painless life.  

We all face low points.  Some of those are our mood, our body’s biochemistry.  Some are rough spots in relationships, health crises, and there are all kinds of lows.  Does our faith make any difference?   The nature of lows is that we lose perspective. When you’re in a deep hole you lose perspective.  All you can see is the walls of your hole.  This is not a lack of faith.  This is being human.  But faith means we can remember things not seen.  We remember the perspective of the mountaintop when we’re in the hole.  We allow ourselves to trust in a God who is with us, suffers with us, and makes a way for us through whatever hole we’ve found ourselves.  Not always around or over.  Sometimes through.  Trusting the perspective we have known from our highs, that God is with us, and for is, and creating possibilities for our future, helps us through the lows. 

****

Brea Congregational United Church of Christ

March 3, 2019

Highs and Lows

Luke 9:28-45  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.  34While 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. 

            37  On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him.  38  Just then a man from the crowd shouted, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child.  39  Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he shrieks. It convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him.  40  I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.”  41 Jesus answered, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.”  42  While he was coming, the demon dashed him to the ground in convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father.  43 And all were astounded at the greatness of God. 

            While everyone was amazed at all that he was doing, he said to his disciples, 44 “Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands.”  45  But they did not understand this saying; its meaning was concealed from them, so that they could not perceive it. And they were afraid to ask him about this saying.

A month ago I got to stay at Questhaven Retreat in north San Diego County.  To get to Questhaven, you drive inland from I-5 through miles of suburbs.  You know the style: add stucco and stir.  Miles of condos.  Starbuck on the bluffs.  Then take a right turn, and suddenly: rural.  Questhaven is in a valley that time forgot.  Gardens, hiking trails, and native plants.  I got two nights there with my pastor friend Joy to unplug and contemplate what really matters. T get perspective.  I asked Laurie the host which was the best hike, and of course it was to a mountaintop.  Well, a high hilltop anyway.  So I huffed and puffed, and I made it to the top, and I found plants I hadn’t seen below. Even though I was miles inland, I could see the ocean peeking out from between the far hills.  Sitting on that rocky peak at sunset, surrounded by sages, it felt sacred.  I got perspective on some situations that had been troubling me.  In my everyday life, it’s more hit and miss.  Maybe it was that special place.  And maybe it was because I took the time to pay attention. 

There are special places like Questhaven, where heaven and earth seem to touch.  “Thin places,” they’re sometimes called.  God is everywhere, but some places you just feel it.  And you don’t have to be religious to feel it.  Often those places are in nature.  What are your thin places?   

Mountain tops, but also in the crash of waves against a cliff, a high desert sky blazing with stars, a great old oak tree.  The meeting of heaven and earth can also come in the smile of our beloved, or the face of a child, in an act of kindness, or a beautiful piece of music.  This church building can be a thin place.  For or almost sixty years people have gathered here with the intention of meeting the sacred in prayer and song and speech.  Heaven and earth are touching.  Our job is to notice it, to pay attention, so that we will remember it in our everyday lives.

According to Luke, Jesus had a rhythm of working.  He would be among the people for a while, teaching and healing, and then he would withdraw to a thin place, desert or mountaintop, for a quiet prayer vigil, often all night long, to get perspective I suppose.  Jesus did not consider these mountaintop experiences as extras, but essentials for his work.  There’s food for thought.

Let me guess what this mountaintop experience we call transfiguration was like from Jesus’ point of view.  He has been working among the people, and he needs to recharge.  (Sobering to realize that even Jesus had limits, even Jesus could get out of tune with God.)  His relationship with his disciples is deepening, so he invites a few of them along. I don’t think he invites them to witness a miracle.  He invites them to participate in authentic prayer.  He prays, and that prayer connects him with the one he calls Abba.  He speaks with Moses and Elijah, the two greatest figures in Israel’s history. (You can do things like that in prayer, you know.)  And what do they talk about?  His departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.  “Departure” was a nice way to say “death.”  So there, in that radiant high of communion with God and the revered ancestors, Jesus talks about the lowest low that he will have to face.  Does that seem odd to you? I think it makes perfect sense.  What Jesus was called to do was not going to be easy.  He needed to work through it with God, to get perspective from his ancestors, to be ready to face his impending death.

And what about the three disciples, Peter, John and James?  They didn’t sleep through the whole thing.  They were awake to see Jesus’ appearance changed somehow.  They even see the great ancestors. They hear a snippet of their conversation, which they clearly don’t understand.  

Peter, impulsive Peter, wants to make it last.  Get the holy ancestors to stick around and build a shrine!  Show all our friends!  Only as quick as he can get the words out, fog rolls in.  A voice speaks in the fog, “This is my son, the chosen one. Listen to him.”  And they forgot to turn their cell phones on to record it! You can’t record a mountaintop experience, you can’t reproduce it, and you can’t make it last.  But you can savor, and remember the perspective that was revealed to you, and tell about it, and let it sustain you through the low times. 

Their low times began the very next day. As soon as they come off the mountain, they are met by a desperate father seeking healing for his epileptic son.  The disciples who stayed downhill had already failed.  Failed at the work Jesus had just empowered them to do at the beginning of this same chapter.  Jesus is not pleased.  “You faithless generation.”  Ouch!  So much for not judging!  Jesus must be human, as well as divine.  Failed disciples, angry Jesus, a low day all around.  Only the boy is healed, and restored to his father.  Don’t ask me how that works.  So there was drama, but no real damage. Isn’t that true of so many of our lows?  They are more about our bruised egos and our disappointed expectations than what’s actually happening.  Perspective.  Jesus ends with a reminder of his death: “Let these words sink into your ears:” he says.” The Son of Man is going to be given over into human hands.”And the disciples still don’t understand what he means. No wonder he is grumpy.  

Some people think religion is going to get them an exemption from the lows, and then they get surprised and disillusioned when that doesn’t happen.  We are promised abundant life through Christ, but not an easy or painless life.  

We all face low points.  Some of those are our mood, our body’s biochemistry.  Some are rough spots in relationships, health crises, and there are all kinds of lows.  Does our faith make any difference?   The nature of lows is that we lose perspective. When you’re in a deep hole you lose perspective.  All you can see is the walls of your hole.  This is not a lack of faith.  This is being human.  But faith means we can remember things not seen.  We remember the perspective of the mountaintop when we’re in the hole.  We allow ourselves to trust in a God who is with us, suffers with us, and makes a way for us through whatever hole we’ve found ourselves.  Not always around or over.  Sometimes through.  Trusting the perspective we have known from our highs, that God is with us, and for is, and creating possibilities for our future, helps us through the lows.  

I admire those people who always seem to have the perspective that their lows are not so so low.  I think of my friend Diane who fell of a ladder and broke both ankles.  She met me in her wheelchair with a smile on her face. “Terry, this wheelchair gives me such an interesting perspective.  I am learning so much being in a wheelchair.”  Diane may be a special case.  But when I take the time to remember that God is with us, and for us, and working through us, and we don’t have to stay alone, or guilty, or inadequate, or grieving… the lows are not as low.   

Back to the highs.  Who doesn’t like a high?  There are all kinds of highs out there, and not all of them are sacred.  It is natural for us to seek the highs.  As followers of Jesus, we learn which ones are momentary pleasures, that do not really feed our souls and sometimes leave us worse off than before, and which highs heal us, strengthen us, and bring our awareness to the sacred.  These experiences may or may not seem overtly religious.  But they feed our faith, our hope, our love.  We need to make time to find those highs, find the thin places where heaven and earth touch, so that we can get perspective, be renewed, become strong and wise enough to do God’s work effectively, in fact even to know what it is we are supposed to be doing.  Remember, God never asks you to do the impossible.

Devout religious people have understood that we need the high that comes from connecting with God.  Only we may have heard it expressed it as duty and obligation.  Try a change of perspective.  It is a gift and a privilege to take time to encounter the sacred. You haven’t found the way that’s right for you to connect with the sacred till you can trust that it is a gift and a privilege.

But we are all so busy.  Busy can be real or not, but busy is always a trap.  We need inspiration more when we’re busy, not less.  Busy too often means we start spinning our wheels.  We can be busy trying to do what isn’t good for us, or what isn’t meant for us to do.  We can be busy not doing the one thing God longs for us to do.  Being too busy to seek connection with God is like driving a car and being in too much of a hurry to look at the map and figure out where we’re going, or the gas gauge! 

Let me invite you, on this last Sunday before Lent, to think about how you can make a regular time to find a high place, a thin place, a place or a practice that works for you to get inspired, listen, get perspective, whatever that looks like for you. And maybe to get healed, strengthened, renewed.  A regular repeated practice requires discipline. Discipline is remembering what you want. If you don’t succeed in being disciplined, Lent is a great time for letting go– of guilt, and for second chances. 

There are the familiar spiritual disciplines, prayer and Bible Study and we’ll have those nice daily devotional booklets from the UCC for Lent, but don’t limit yourself. Do something wonderful to connect with the sacred.  Discover the practice that works for you to touch the sacred, just one.  Just one.  You might have to buy yourself flowers.  You might have to make appointments to make love with your spouse. You might have to take regular walks in the green hills among the native plants.  You might have to dust off that instrument or songbook and make some music.  Finding the high places is not a luxury. It’s like air and food and water. We need the sacred in our lives for perspective, to remember that we are each beloved children of God, that we are loved, that we are never alone, always supported and invited into abundant life.  Amen.