Erica Whitaker
Pastoral Resident
Wilshire Baptist Church
Transfiguration Sunday
Off Cloud Nine
February 7, 2016
11:00AM
Luke 9:28-43
In 1969, The Temptations came out with their ‘psychedelic soul’ album
titled Cloud 9. Here are a few of the lyrics:
I wanna say I love the life I live.
And I'm gonna live the life I love.
Up here on Cloud 9.
I'm riding high on Cloud 9.
It's a world of love and harmony.
You're a million miles from reality.
The Temptations were living on cloud nine that year in the middle of a very
successful Motown career. During the sixties and seventies, these five men
were soaring through the clouds, living the high life a million miles from
the reality of the world below them.
Three other men have also found themselves soaring on cloud nine.
Jesus has chosen three disciples to accompany him up to the high
mountaintop. He takes two brothers, James and John, and Peter, a zealous,
opinionated man who is quick to speak his mind like any young pastor in
training.
These men have been traveling with Jesus throughout his ministry crusade.
They’ve seen successful revivals in Galilee, Nazareth and Caesarea.
They’ve seen Jesus heal the sick, walk on water and feed thousands. Now,
their mega leader is glistening on the mountain beside their ancestors.
They’re on cloud nine, up on the mountain with Jesus, dozing off into
dreams of the future.
I wanted to see how people today experience cloud nine so I searched a
reliable source of society’s news, Twitter #cloudnine.
“When you find out you killed your EKG and cardiac med tests.”
#cloudnine
“I’m an auntie again!!! Welcome to the world Aaron Jerome 9lbs, 14ozs.”
#cloudnine
“God works in mysterious ways.” #cloudnine
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Erica Whitaker
Pastoral Resident
Wilshire Baptist Church
Transfiguration Sunday
February 7, 2016
11:00AM
Cloud nine for Buddhists is one of the stages towards “idyllic happiness.”
Scientists classify cloud nine as the fluffy cumulonimbus cloud that is seen
high up in the sky on clear blue sunny days.
However you look at it, cloud nine is the place everyone wants to be – a
mountaintop moment no one wants to come down from.
But we cannot stay forever on cloud nine, for the majority of our lives are
spent down in the valley in the messy everyday reality of our world.
In this passage, we discover that Jesus is working up above and down
below. Following Jesus below means coming down the mountain – off
cloud nine.
Before we come down, let’s explore what God is doing up above.
Up on the mountain, the fullness of Jesus is revealed to Peter, James and
John who are heavy with sleep. Their minds are floating off elsewhere.
They’re thinking about Jesus overturning their current political nightmare.
They’re thinking about a beautiful Sanctuary for all to come in and
worship. We know this because Peter wakes up and starts speaking without
thinking. I call this “word vomit.”
Have you ever been so anxious you could just throw up?
You know, high intense moments spinning your mind out of control,
causing your body to react by pushing your latest meal back up in socially
unacceptable ways.
There are two moments in my life where I experience this feeling – riding
roller coasters and preaching.
Today, I made it to the pulpit safely but this past week I was not so
fortunate on the Aerosmith G-Force roller coaster at Disney World. The
human body was not created to flip upside down going 60 miles an hour in
the dark.
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Erica Whitaker
Pastoral Resident
Wilshire Baptist Church
Transfiguration Sunday
February 7, 2016
11:00AM
During this ride, while my stomach is churning, my mouth is hurling up not
so appropriate words to the stranger next me. But in most cases I believe
word vomit is still better than actual vomit.
Peter would probably agree with me as he speaks out of his anxiety at the
flashy Jesus flipping his world upside down.
Peter is trying to embrace this magnificent moment but he just can’t see
beyond his own vision for the world. Instead of tuning into the
conversation between Jesus, Elijah and Moses, Peter decides he has
thoughts to contribute. “Let us build three tabernacles here so everyone can
come up here and worship.”
Peter wants to extend the Hebrew festival called the Feast of Tabernacles.
They had just spent a week living in tents, remembering their Israelite
ancestors’ great exodus from Egypt.
He wants to build another tent for the future festival of Jesus, the Messiah,
who will save his people once again.
Not a horrible idea but this is not the way of Jesus. Peter doesn’t fully
understand that the true tent and sign of salvation is Jesus himself; the
tabernacle is his body that will be broken for all. It is the symbol of Jesus’
body and blood that we will partake of this morning.
What is interesting about Peter’s response is that he goes straight to
religious reasoning. “Let’s build a church and worship here forever.”
Surely if we build churches full of programs, people will come up here and
worship on our mountain. But this is just spiritual regurgitation from the
latest religious digest.
For example, eighty percent of people in the United States do not go to
church on any given Sunday. However, we can’t react to the empty pews
by building more pews.
This is not the vision of Christ.
So who is Christ and what is his vision for the world?
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Erica Whitaker
Pastoral Resident
Wilshire Baptist Church
Transfiguration Sunday
February 7, 2016
11:00AM
Peter’s ridiculous moment doesn’t last long. A mysterious cloud creeps
around them and gives a cosmic slap across his face. “This is my Son, my
Chosen; listen to him.”
Point well-made, God.
Jesus is God’s Son.
The voice at Jesus’ baptism is echoed here on the mountain. Jesus’
baptism, a symbol of his burial and resurrection, is mirrored in the
transfiguration. Jesus is the One who will die – a truth the disciples cannot
consciously comprehend.
Jesus is conversing with Israel’s number one lawgiver and number one
prophet. He is centering himself for the role ahead. He is prayerfully and
boldly moving towards Jerusalem, moving towards the cross where his
death will fulfill both the Law and the Prophets.
Jesus is clear about his identity.
But are we clear about our identity in Christ? Are we as the body of Christ,
resolute in our mission and intentional with our spiritual formation?
Yes, we are undeniably shaped by social, cultural and economic pressures.
So what do we do about the eighty percent who, for whatever reason, has
no intention of coming up our mountain for worship?
Gannon Sims, a former resident here at Wilshire, has been working on one
idea.
Gannon and his wife, Carey, are partners with Fresh Expressions, a
movement that encourages unconventional ways of growing the church.
Fresh Expressions seeks to transform communities and individuals through
new ways of being the church. Their model of church has only one model –
Jesus Christ. They encourage Christians to live their faith in their current
context.
This past week, a handful of us from Wilshire experienced a fresh
perspective attending a church hospitality conference at Disney World.
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Erica Whitaker
Pastoral Resident
Wilshire Baptist Church
Transfiguration Sunday
February 7, 2016
11:00AM
To be honest, going into this conference I was skeptical. What does a
billion-dollar business have to teach the church about Christian hospitality?
Well, the first day we all were struck by one particular practice Walt
Disney expected all employees to embrace. The Disney culture is not about
transactions with customers but interactions with guests.
If you ever go to Disney World, you will see cast members kneeling down
to interact with children or people in wheelchairs in order to have
conversations at eye level.
As followers of Jesus we call our human interactions with others
incarnational moments at eye level.
Peter is wanting to create a tabernacle for transactions with God. But he is
about to witness Jesus’ interactions with a little boy at eye level.
God is not satisfied remaining on the mountain top. No, God is also leading
us down into the everydayness of people’s lives.
If we believe and trust in God’s will, then what do we do when God is
moving us down into the world.
Doing God’s will means analyzing our present situation while moving into
the vision of Christ for the future.
We could sit around a conference table talking about vision until we are
blue in the face but we cannot live our faith floating around in the clouds –
only dreaming and not living. Dreams are inspiring but they can distance us
from reality if we do not have legs to carry them.
We are not called to linger on the mountain, building buildings and
creating wider gaps between us up here and them down there.
We are called to carry Christ’s vision down into the world.
A good starting point today is simply walking down to community hall
after the service and partaking in the Souper Bowl of Caring lunch.
Yes, we must journey with Jesus back down the mountain, down into the
world where it’s crowded and full of people different from us. Down where
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Erica Whitaker
Pastoral Resident
Wilshire Baptist Church
Transfiguration Sunday
February 7, 2016
11:00AM
we will rub shoulders with others who would never make it up the
mountain – those burned by church, the outcasts and people living on the
margins.
It is back down the mountain where we discover what on earth Jesus is
doing.
Jesus is doing ministry in the messy everyday world below. He is seeing
people as they are. He is talking with them. He is rubbing up against the
people that society pushes away.
The first person he encounters is a demon-possessed boy who is thrashing,
screaming and throwing up in front of everyone. And yet without latex
gloves, Jesus picks up the boy, heals him and gives him back to his father.
This family, pushed away by society, rejected by their religious
community, invites Jesus into their lives.
I wonder if those who invite Jesus into their lives are people we would
invite into ours.
Based on OUR church values we would. Our website reads, “Every person
is created in the image of God, gifted by God for service, called by God to
salvation and thus worthy of our acceptance and hospitality.”
Wilshire, our values mirror the way of Jesus.
These are difficult values to hold.
In her new book Searching for Sunday, Rachel Held Evans writes;
The gospel is offensive because it isn’t about who it keeps out, but who it
lets in. Because we religious types are really good at building walls and
retreating to temples. We’re good at making mountains out of our
ideologies, extractions out of our theologies and hills out of our script
notions of who’s in and who’s out, who’s worthy and who’s unworthy.
We’re good at getting in the way.
Well, in order for us to get out of the way, we have to make room for the
Way, the Truth and the Life.
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Erica Whitaker
Pastoral Resident
Wilshire Baptist Church
Transfiguration Sunday
February 7, 2016
11:00AM
We have to fight the temptation to climb higher into the clouds of Christian
success that only gets us stuck in self-preservation mode. We have to get
off the mountain.
Today, on Transfiguration Sunday, we come down the mountain with
Jesus.
As Jesus turns towards Jerusalem, we turn towards Easter, entering into the
season of Lent. Jesus is leading our church down into the world.
Our church isn’t the only church trying to figure out its identity in Christ
and its mission along the way.
Transfiguration Lutheran Church in the South Bronx is a bilingual
congregation that has wrestled with its mission and identity for over a
decade.
In 2004, their community was struggling, barely surviving.
They mostly kept their doors shut to the demonic world around them – full
of crime, drug abuse, lack of education and opportunity.
Then one day they started living into their identity – living into their calling
to carry Christ’s vision into their community.
When they unlocked their doors they discovered a deeper connection with
the world around them.
In her memoir, Breathing Space: A Spiritual Journey in the South Bronx,
their pastor at this time, Heidi Neumark, wrote, “living up in the rarefied
air isn’t the point of the transfiguration. It was never meant as a private
experience of spirituality removed from the public square. It was a vision
to carry down, a glimpse of unimagined possibility at ground level.”
An unimagined possibility sounds like a fresh expression for the church
today, an incarnational interaction between the church and the world.
This is the Gospel Story, the vision of Jesus Christ you can live out every
day on ground level. Amen.
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