Remember who God is (when you look up at the mountains) and remember that God loves you intimately

How do you see God in relation to yourself? How much do you think that you need God? Maybe you think, as I often do, that God is important, especially at times of sadness or emergency or joy, but there is a lot that you can and need to do on your own. I know that so much of my time is spent looking horizontally at the people and places and things in front of me that need my attention and this causes me to forget to look vertically towards God. 

I think that this is one of the reasons why God created the world in the way that God did- to draw our attention to things larger than ourselves. God made mountains- the tallest structures on earth- and valleys as deep as the mountains are tall, many of them far beneath the powerful and uncontrollable oceans. God also gave us a window into the heavens with stars and other spatial bodies and energies that go on for ever as far as we can tell. God made these things to give us a taste of the height and depth and power of God. How small do you feel when you look up at the mountains that surround us here in Lynn Valley or smaller still when you look up at the heavens and think about how our planet which is huge to us is just one amongst who knows how many? How lacking-in-control do you feel when you look at the ocean during a storm or a river after many days of heavy rain? 

This could be scary if we forget something very important- that God is the creator of ALL of these things and that God loves each and every one of us. 

In three of our Bible readings today, a person either acknowledges correctly or incorrectly their true position in relation to God, and in our fourth reading Paul says that it is simply the correct acknowledgment that enables every person be made right with God.

In Psalm 121, the writer starts off with, “I lift my eyes up unto the mountains, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” The psalmist looks to the highest structure that they can see and they acknowledge that God is higher because God made the mountain. The maker is always greater than the made. 

In Genesis 12, God tells Abram to leave everything he knew to go to a land that God would show him and that God would bless him, and Abram goes. The Bible doesn’t say anything about Abram before this, so we don’t really know much about him. All that we do know from this passage is that Abram sees God rightly, as bigger and wiser than him evidenced by his quick and trusting actions. And God tells Abram later to look up at the stars to remember his promise to him to provide him with that many descendants. 

In our gospel reading today, which just so happens to be the transfiguration passage that we read three weeks ago (it’s a mystery to me as to why it’s repeated), the disciples forget the truth about their relationship with Jesus and Jesus’ relationship with God. 

I may be wrong, but while preparing for this sermon, I came to the conclusion that I actually think that this story is about a dressing down of the disciples. Jesus went up the mountain with three rough and tumble characters- Peter and the “sons of thunder”- James and John. They kind of remind me of members of a hockey or football team or maybe bikers. He actually led them up so they had to look up to him to see where they were going. Then Jesus stopped and transfigured into the light of the sun with pure white clothes and Moses and Elijah joined him.

You’d think that this would be enough to make the three disciples fall to their knees, but no, they remain standing. Peter thinks that it would be enough to make three equal tent shrines for Jesus, Moses and Elijah. He sees Jesus as equal to the other two humans he is with; he either forgets or doesn’t truly know that Jesus is as high as or equal to God, even though he is shining and the other two aren’t. He forgets to look up but rather looks straight on ahead. It takes God’s authoritative voice which says, “This is my dearly loved son, who brings me great joy. Listen to him.” to get the disciples to fall face to the ground and in a position where they, if they lifted their faces, would have to look up at Jesus. It took quite a bit for them to see their relationships with God rightly. 

Lastly, in the Romans passage, Paul writes about how the foundation for every person’s righteousness or right relationship with God is accessible to all because it relies most importantly on simply looking up and beyond ourselves to trusting in a God that’s bigger and wiser than us. Paul says that anyone can be made right with God if they just look to God and say help and lead me; I trust you. Yes, Paul says that it’s this simple. 

So, while the truth is that God is big and we are small and God is all powerful and we have relatively little power and we should always keep this in the back of our minds, God does love us deeply and wants to be close to us too. We look up to God, and God draws close to us. 

After God speaks to the disciples on the mountain from the clouds, Jesus touches them and tells them to stand up and not to be afraid. Jesus didn’t want the disciples to remain prostrate on the ground incapable of doing anything. He wanted them to work beside him and he wants the same for us. He even says “Have faith in God. Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. (Mark 11:22). He says the biggest thing that you can see has no power over you if you’re with me because my power is your power. The psalmist in today’s passage also speaks to this. The psalm is all about God’s close protection of us- not letting our foot be moved and being the shade from the scorching sun at our right hand. God is so big, beyond our comprehension and only hinted at by the wildness of parts of God’s creation, but God is also so loving and intimate, in time even becoming a part of our very hearts if we want. All praise be to God. Amen!