Re-member, Re-tell, and Re-live The Story

Rev. Ron Campbell
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

February 3, 2008

Our text and subject today is the transfiguration of Jesus before his three key disciples, Peter, James, and John, who must be absolutely convinced, not only of Jesus’ humanity, but also of his divinity as the Son of God, the long awaited Messiah. This transformational event must be interpreted within its context, what came before and what came after.

I direct you to the insert in your bulletin titled, “Re-member, Re-tell, and Re-live The Story: The Three R’s.” I hope this outline gives you an easy way to remember the points of the message; that you might dwell upon it, pray for God to use it to bring you closer to the living Christ and to live into God’s calling and purpose for your life.

Now visualize a perfect equilateral triangle with three points and three angles. Place in your mind an R at each point and angle. We’ll use this image to show the relationship of three events which must be viewed together, the transfiguration, Peter’s confession of Christ as Messiah, and Jesus’ commission of Peter to “Feed my sheep.” Now to the 3 R’s.

The first R is for Remember: Re-member The Story

At the top of the triangle place in your mind the event of the transfiguration. This centerpiece of our lesson today has to do with God’s confirmation of Jesus as the Christ in a convincing, experiential manner. This event occurred at the end of Jesus’ upward climb, not only to the top of this mountain, but also to the end of his preparation for fulfilling his mission. Shortly after the transfiguration the scriptures say “Jesus set his eyes on Jerusalem.” It’s from this mountaintop, Mt. Tabor or Mt. Hermon (take your pick), that Jesus descended into the valley of the shadow of his death.

But let’s not look backward and forward yet. Let’s pause to explore what happened here on this mountain. Verse 2 says, “And Jesus was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.” What do we make of this?

The Orthodox Christian tradition has a term which may help us here. It’s called “uncreated light.” The idea of uncreated light tries to get at a human experience many people have that is totally unexplainable by our regular modes of understanding, reason and intuition. Aren’t there times in our spiritual experience that we have in some out of the ordinary way, sensed that we have been bathed in God’s “uncreated light?” Wednesday morning this week, at the Men’s Bible Study on this passage, several men shared their experiences of God’s “uncreated light in their lives.”

We don’t have to scientifically analyze what actually happened that day. What’s important is how this story was remembered and retold by these three disciples, and how it impacted the trajectory of their lives later.

Then, in Jesus’ transfigured state, Moses and Elijah appeared with him, talking to him. They disappeared as the voice of God from a cloud said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” This one moment contains the whole story of God’s salvation history with creation and with Israel. Jesus is identified with Moses, the greatest prophet and man of righteousness, the law giver who carried God’s laws down from Mt. Sinai. Matthew over and over in his Gospel drives the point home that Jesus is in the line of Moses, yet Jesus is greater than Moses and supersedes him, and Jesus brings a new law, a new covenant for the people of Israel.
Jesus is also identified with Elijah, the great prophet who fought the priests of Baal on the top of another mountain, Mt. Carmel. Elijah was expected to return just before the Messiah would appear. Some thought that the spirit of Elijah was present in John the Baptist, who prepared the way for Jesus and lost his life by being beheaded by King Herod. Jesus later reinforced this connection, and also identified himself with

What’s important here is that Jesus is fully identified with the prophetic tradition of Israel’s history, rather than with the priestly tradition and the kingly tradition. Jesus had been rejected by the priests and the kings. He didn’t match their idea of a messiah who would violently turn the tables on the Romans and reestablish Israel as a powerful, dominating empire, with all nations bowing at its feet. Jesus instead understood his mission as fulfilling God’s prophetic vision as a humble, suffering servant whose power was manifested in humility, fairness, and compassion. So the whole story of God’s salvation history is present in this one moment on top of this mountain.

Now let’s go back to the first R: Remember The Story. Imagine all the Bibles in the world destroyed, gone: If you were the only Christian left alive, how would you remember the story? Rev. Brian McLaren has the best technique I know for concisely remembering the story, The 7 C’s: Creation (Garden), Conflict (Fall), Calling (Abraham), Communication (Prophets, Poets, & Philosophers), Christ (Birth, Cross, Resurrection), Church (Community), Consummation (End times; Eschatology). So the first R, on top of the Triangle, is for Remember The Story, God’s salvation story with creation, with Israel, in Christ, with the Church and even to the end of time.

The 2nd R is for Retell: Re-tell The Story

The 2nd R is the R at the lower left of the triangle. For this R we go backward in time to another key event related to understanding the Transfiguration, Peter’s Confession in Matthew 16:13-20. Six days before the transfiguration, Jesus, walking with his disciples had asked them “Who do people say the Son of Man is.” They replied “Some say John the Baptist, but others say Elijah, and others say Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” Then Jesus had asked, “But who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered for them, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

This is still the question for us, “Who do you say I am?” Our task, almost 2000 years after these Biblical events, is to place ourselves into the story; not to just figure out what happened then, but more importantly, how we fit into this ongoing which is not completed yet. Who do you say Jesus is? How would you tell God’s salvation story, not just as an historian reporting the past, but with you in the story?

The 2nd R focuses upon our own personal profession of our beliefs in conversations with others. I encourage you if you don’t already have a place for Christian sharing, to use the two tools outlined in your handout. The first tool is the United Methodist Men’s Bible Study focus question: “What implications for our lives do we see in this passage?” With another person or a small group, I invite you to commit to using this question for putting yourself into the story with others, perhaps after hearing a sermon together.

The other tool is titled: Conversations about Life, Faith, and the Church. These are typical conversation starter questions we use on mission trips to share with others about our lives, our faith, and what it means to be a person of faith and to be the church. Its’ focus is dialogical, interacting with others by sharing and listening about how our stories are influenced and shaped by The Story. I won’t read these questions to you. You have them. I hope you’ll read through them, and use them to open conversations with others as you Re-tell The Story with you in it.

Conversations about Life, Faith, and the Church

1. What have been the high points and the low points in my life?  When have I felt far away from God and when I have felt close to God? 
2. If faith is a journey over a whole life-time, how would I describe my journey up to this point?
3. Where do I see my life headed on this journey?  What questions, fears, discouragements, doubts, hopes and dreams do I have related to my walk with God in the future? 
4. What does it mean to be a person of faith?  What does it mean to be a Christian? 
5. How do I, or should I, live my life differently if I understand myself to be a Christian?
6. What are the ways God’s grace comes to me in my daily living?
7. How have the stories of faith in the Scriptures impacted and shaped my faith and the way I live my life?
8. What does it mean to join together with other Christians and call ourselves the church?
9. What is the purpose of the church in enabling us to be Christians and to live our faith together in the world?
10. What is it that I need from the church to be a better Christian and to live a more faithful and joyful life as a Christian?
11. What are the gifts, talents, and passions that I offer to the body of Christ that can be of service to our fellowship of faith as we become more effective in proclaiming the Gospel to the world and sharing Christ’s compassion for the world? 

The Third R is for Relive: Re-live The Story

This R is the R at the lower right of the triangle. This R looks forward to a future event which is related to the Transfiguration of Jesus. The event occurred in Galilee after the crucifixion; in the place on the shore where Jesus had originally called Peter to “Follow Me.” It’s told in John 21:15-19. After Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Messiah and the transfiguration, many things had transpired. Jesus and the disciples had come down off the mountain into the valley of real life. Jesus had kept instructing them that his mission involved sacrifice and suffering. The disciples had continued to resist this. So when the betrayal, trials, torture and crucifixion occurred, the disciples were baffled and confused. Even after several resurrection appearances, it still wasn’t clear what all of this meant, and what they should do with the rest of their lives. So Peter and others had gone back home, fishing like they’d done all of their lives, and pondering about the past events.

Suddenly in the early morning light, Christ appeared again to them. Peter recognized him on the shore, jumped out of the boat, and swam to join him around a camp fire. You know the rest of the story: Jesus asked Peter three times, “Do You Love Me? Three times Peter responded “Yes Lord, you know I do!” Three times Jesus commanded, “Then feed my sheep!”

Like Peter, our profession, “You are the Christ,” must involve more than mental assent, love, and good intentions. Our profession of faith in Jesus must be accompanied by action, by re-living the story of the gospel in our daily lives. Peter re-committed himself this time to living out his confession of Jesus as Lord by taking up his cross and following Christ. So must we. We must connect the first 2 R’s, Re-member The Story and Re-tell The Story, with the 3rd R, Re-live The Story.

Our Church and Society Committee has a prayer that captures the necessity of matching our beliefs with our deeds: “Lord, help us to pray the Lord’s Prayer with more than our words.”

We have a mission prayer which asks God’s help to do just this also, “Oh God help us to attune our spirits to yours that we may be transformed by your holy grace, that we might renew the church, that the church might impact the world for the better. Help us Lord, as individuals and as a church, to pray the Lord’s Prayer with more than words, with the living of our lives; that your kingdom may come on earth as it is in heaven. Amen!”

Well, today we’ve looked at the story of Jesus’ transfiguration through the lens of the 3 R’s, Re-member The Story, Re-tell The Story, and Re-live The Story. And we’ve used the image of a triangle with three points and three angles to visualize how the transfiguration needs to be interpreted in light of two other events, Peter’s confession of Jesus as Messiah and Jesus’ commission to Peter to “Feed my sheep.”

As we close I want to mention how we as a church are currently applying the 3 R’s in an intentional way. We’re applying the first 2 R’s, Re-member and Re-tell The Story, though a process of intentional church transformation called Holy Conversations. Church leaders have been engaged for over a year in dialogue addressing three core questions: What is our identity as a community of believers? What is our mission and purpose? Who are our neighbors? These holy conversations are being expanded to involve the whole congregation. They will give us all a structured way to start remembering the story and sharing with each other how we see it impacting our lives in the future as individuals and as a church.

And “Repair for the Future,” our church home improvement action ministry, is a way to apply the 3rd R, Re-live The Story. Part of our Christian action involves taking care of the containers in which ministry is able to happen. In this case our facilities are in need of great repair and improvement. I leave you with this analogy. We will soon come to the table of the Lord to re-member, re-tell, and re-live the story of the Last Supper. We will pour the wine of the Spirit into the cup of Salvation. Remember, the cup is as important as the wine. If the cup leaks, it can’t contain the wine of ministry. The wine of the spirit would be poured all over the table, were it not for the cup into which it is poured.

Let us pray: Lord, help us to Re-member, Re-tell, and Re-live The story of your grace as individuals and as a church. Amen