This sermon was preached for the Last Sunday After Epiphany on Sunday, March 2, 2025 at St. Andrew's, Ayer. The texts for this sermon was: Exodus 34:29-35, 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2, Luke 9:28-36, and Psalm 99.
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.”
This line reminded me of that moment on backpacking trips - I’m sure it’s happened more than once - toward the end of the hike or maybe even the midpoint, let’s be honest - when I’m exhausted and panting and my feet have blisters and my backpack feels so so heavy. The sun’s going down but there’s still so far to go to get to the camping site and I just want to turn to my companion and say, what about here? Can’t we just stop here? Here looks good. Let’s make a dwelling here.
But of course, whoever I’m with urges me on to where we are actually headed - the safer, drier place up ahead. The place we are meant to go.
The story of Jesus’ transfiguration appears in all three synoptic Gospels. In each, the scene is connected with Jesus’ warning to his followers about what will be asked of them as his ministry reaches its climax - some iteration of “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” Matthew and Mark say the transfiguration happens six days after this saying; Luke says about eight. But regardless, it’s possible we are meant to have this in mind as we climb the mountain with Jesus, Peter, James, and John.
The Gospel of Luke differs from the other accounts in one fascinating way. In all three Gospels, Jesus’ appearance drastically changes, and Moses and Elijah appear, perhaps representing his continuity with Jewish scripture: the Law (Moses) and the Prophets (Elijah). In each account, Peter says pretty much the same thing in reaction: he offers to make booths or tents for the three. But only the writer of Luke fixates on Peter and the disciples’ exhaustion.
“Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep,” the text says. I can imagine how heavy his eyelids felt, there on the mountain watching the three mysterious figures half-listening as they discuss the road ahead - all that Jesus was about to accomplish in Jerusalem. The text does say that Peter isn’t quite aware of what he’s saying when he suggests that they all just stay here for the night. Perhaps he’s just too tired.
This won’t be the last time the disciples will struggle to stay awake while Jesus does holy things in the Gospel of Luke. On the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus pleads with the disciples to stay awake while he prays in the Garden of Gethsemane. Now, in both cases, you’d think the drama of the dazzling white clothes or the impending arrest would be enough to keep the disciples up. I mean…Moses and Elijah, long-dead heroes of the faith and prophets of old, have just appeared out of nowhere. Jesus has just transfigured, his appearance is totally altered, magically.
So what does this Gospel’s fixation on the disciple’s sleepiness mean? I think there’s a clue for us in the Gospel of Mark. That Gospel mentions the disciples’ fear a bit earlier in the story than Luke and actually attributes Peter’s comment to his terror: “For he did not know what to say, for they were exceedingly afraid.” We find another clue in Luke’s account of the Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus finds the disciples are “sleeping because of grief.”
The temptation to sleep is about exhaustion, but it’s about exhaustion mixed with something else, too: fear and grief. Sleep is an escape from all three.
I want to mention here that you can find plenty of scriptures that also extol the virtues of sleep - the power of a good nap, everyone’s right to rest from labor on the Sabbath. Jesus loves a good nap. So much of following Jesus, of ministry and community work, is like that Banksy quote: “If you get tired, learn to rest, not to quit.” In general, I see a real need to learn how to rest in our community and culture. But I don’t think this is about resisting the urge to rest. I think this is much more about how this particular Gospel uses sleep, and temptation to sleep, as a metaphor for spiritual numbness.
Sleep as the act of closing your eyes and tuning out the world right at the moment it’s all about to turn upside down. Sleep as giving up, checking out. But also perhaps, sleep as the more comfortable alternative to actively being in the waiting, in the uncertainty and in the dread.
When we are in the grip of fear and grief, and exhaustion gets piled on top, sleep is incredibly tempting. When we are caught in uncertainty about what to do next, when our sense of impotence or incompetence feels too intolerable, feeling nothing sounds really great. Sleep is the most ancient human painkiller we have.
Now, I’ll say here that science has come a long way in revealing how active our brains actually are during sleep - recording memories, working out problems, and healing connections. Researchers like Emily Nagoski have also discovered that there’s a huge difference between healthy types of rest and unhealthy types of rest when it comes to preventing burnout. So I want to suggest that an updated metaphor for the spiritual numbness Luke’s getting at here might not be sleep, but the other modern methods of tuning out. I’m sure we can all think of some: doom scrolling, watching mindless TV, getting high, anything that hits pause on us creating, being, and connecting, but also on feeling and processing and listening and paying attention to the real, tangible world about us.
When we reach for whatever it is that numbs us, it’s often not because the world is too boring. It’s often because the world is too much. The leader or leaders we were following suddenly and drastically change, dazzlingly white. The conversation around us is confusing and over our heads. Someone we love is about to die.
And when we jump to do something, anything, say something, anything, without really knowing why, it's often not from an authentic desire to create a new thing. A frantic, desperate burst of activity is often so that we might stay here, in the same place. So that we don't have to change.
The disciples could not stop Jesus’ arrest from happening. Peter couldn’t get Moses and Elijah to linger, couldn't keep Jesus on the mountaintop. The disciples couldn't stay there either.
“For he did not know what to say,” says the Gospel of Mark. “Not knowing what he said,” says the Gospel of Luke. Peter has just witnessed something amazing because he resisted sleep - because he stayed awake he got to see the glory of God. But he has nothing useful to contribute to the conversation between Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. He sees two options here: sleep or getting up and making a dwelling, and then sleeping. God’s voice booming from the cloud offers a third option: Listen.
And when Jesus encounters the sleeping disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, he offers another: Pray.
Listening and praying require making our bodies still, holding back from action. They feel frustratingly like doing nothing. But they are very different from sleep. Listening and praying require attending to the other: the person in front of us, the divine voice inside. To listen well, you must continually tamp down your own distracting thoughts and consider each word, each gesture, each emotion of the other as they speak. To pray well, you’ve got to turn off your to-do list and access a deeper sense of reality. Listening and praying prepare us to act deliberately and faithfully rather than out of panic or desperation. In a world that valorizes leaders and leadership above all else, listening and praying are also the key to following well.
Then he said to them all, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”
This retelling of the Transfiguration occurs at a turning point in the Gospels, when Jesus sets his face toward Jerusalem. The beginning of Jesus’ ministry is marked by God’s voice saying, “You are my son.” And here, halfway through, God says again, this time to Jesus’ followers, “This is my son.” This reading also falls at a turning point in our church year, always on the last Sunday before Lent, before our own journey to the cross.
Recently, I listened as two folks shared a memory of a church activity that had brought them joy. “It was a long day and we were really tired and just fell into bed at the end,” one of them said to the Zoom gathering. “But it was a good tired, you know?” And I watched as all the other church folks on the screen nodded knowingly. Because we knew exactly what they meant: that good kind of tired that comes from having contributed well, given fully, that comes from having done something that mattered.
There is a good kind of exhaustion. There is a good kind of discomfort. Even a good kind of pain. That’s the beauty of Lent - in our various fasting practices we remind our bodies and hearts that all transformation begins in discomfort, in feeling unsettled and stretched.
We’ve climbed so far, but there is so much path still ahead. God calls us onward, back down the mountain and where we are meant to go.
Don’t stop here. Don’t tune out.
You know, when Jesus says, “Stay” he so rarely means stay where we are, stay who we are. He usually means: stay with me where I am going, stay awake to what God is doing. Stay engaged. Be brave in the fear, be grateful in the grief. Follow me into the fray.
Listen. Pray.
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