“Life is so beautiful. Life is so hard.” That’s a phrase the author Kate Bowler often uses. It’s a reality we’ve all experienced. It’s a truth today’s gospel (Luke 9:28-43) holds before us. 

It’s not an easy truth to accept or live. I’d much rather stand on the Mount of Transfiguration than beg in the Valley of Disfiguration but I’ve been to both places. I suppose you have too. It’s not one or the other, it’s both and both are the landscape of God.

Life Is So beautiful.

Peter, John, and James are experiencing the beauty of life. It’s a mountaintop experience. They see the appearance of Jesus’ face change and his clothes become dazzling white. They are standing in glory and they hear the voice of God. No wonder Peter says, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings.” He wants to stay and why wouldn’t he? Who doesn’t love and long for a good mountaintop experience? 

What about you? When have you experienced the beauty of life? What happened and what was it like? Is beauty your experience of life today? In what ways? 

Now before you answer those questions let me offer a caveat. Don’t literalize the experience of Peter, John, and James. Let it be a metaphor, an image, a lens through which you look at your life.

I’ve never had a mountaintop experience like Peter, John, and James have in today’s gospel but I’ve had times when I was on top of the world, haven’t you? 

When has it felt to you like everything was just right, life was full, and you were soaring? When have you felt connected to and a part of something larger than and beyond yourself? When have you seen something in a new light and it changed your life? When has beauty been not just an object you looked at but a presence you felt? When was the last time you said to yourself, “This is it. It doesn’t get any better than this. I never want this moment to end?” 

I think those are experiences of transfiguration. We sometimes describe them as our moment closest to Christ. It would be nice if that’s where today’s gospel ended, but it doesn’t; not in Matthew, Mark, or Luke’s telling of this story, and not in our own lives. The story continues in the Valley of Disfiguration. 

Life Is So Hard.

It is an ugly and heart wrenching story of just how hard life can be and I wonder when that’s been your experience of life. Once again, don’t literalize the story. Let it reveal and connect you to your life. 

Haven’t there been times when you were as desperate and scared as this father? When have you felt overwhelmed, powerless to do anything, and all you could do was beg for help? What has seized and mauled you, and won’t leave you alone? When did it look like everything was falling apart and you were crashing?

I’ll bet you’ve had days you didn’t think you could get through and you asked God, someone, anyone, to save you from that moment. I have. We’ve all been through times when life was so hard. Maybe that’s where you are today. 

Holding The Tension

I want so badly to resolve the mountain-valley contradiction in my life. I want to resolve it in your life. I want this sermon to offer some satisfactory resolution but I know it doesn’t. It won’t. It can’t because today’s gospel doesn’t offer one. 

Today’s gospel simply tells us the truth and reality about our lives. There are mountains and there are valleys. It asks us to hold them in tension, not privileging one and denying the other, but embracing both. Maybe that’s the most and the best we can do.

That’s what Jesus did. Here’s why I say that. When Jesus was on the Mount of Transfiguration, after his face changed appearance and his clothes became dazzling white, Moses and Elijah appeared and were talking to him. Do you remember what they were talking about? They “were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem.” They were talking about Jesus’ death, the valley to which he was headed.

What if we could hold that tension for ourselves and with one another?

I don’t know where you are today, but I know this. Some of you are basking in glory and some of you are begging in agony. For some of you life is really beautiful today and for some of you it’s really hard. 

Every one of us could tell stories about both of those in our lives. But they’re not just our individual stories – my valley, my mountain – they are also the story of our life together as families and friends, as a parish, as a town, and as a country. 

Joy and pain, light and darkness, mountain and valley live side by side not only within us but between us. My mountain might be next to your valley. You might be sitting here today in deep gratitude and someone two pews away is drowning in tears. One does not negate the other. 

What if we could name that, not only for ourselves but also for one another? What if we could open ourselves to the whole truth of our life and each other’s lives? What if we could acknowledge and hold each other’s mountain or valley with the same regard as our own? 

Maybe it would help us be a bit less judgmental and more compassionate. Maybe we’d have more patience and understanding. Maybe we’d be better listeners when we asked someone, “How are you?” Maybe we’d be more honest when someone asked us that question. Maybe we’d be more enthusiastic in celebrating each other’s joy and more responsive to each other’s pain. Maybe we’d begin to care about and for each other in a new way.

I wonder what all that might mean and look like in your life today. How might you more fully show up to and for someone else? And how might you open yourself to another? 

Here’s the thing. We need each other. We often act and argue like we don’t, but we really do. None of us gets through this life alone, not the transfigured days and not the disfigured days. But mountains and valleys are just mountains and valleys. It’s you and me and all the people who show up that make the difference. 

Every day, whether transfigured or disfigured, reveals the sacredness and fragility of life. The beautiful days of transfiguration remind us of what we love most and the terrible days of disfiguration remind us of what we never want to lose (Kate Bowler) and both matter. They are the places where life gets really real. 

I don’t know how it happens but I know that it’s in holding the tension of our mountains and valleys that life is transformed, loved is deepened, God is revealed, and something new arises.

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Image Credit:
1. By George E. Koronaios – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.
2. Walters Art Museum: lyas Basim Khuri Bazzi Rahib, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.