“Traveling Mercies: Into the Storm” (Mark 9:2-9)

One of my favorite writers about the spiritual life is Anne Lamott who views life and the walk with Jesus from an honest and open understanding of the challenge of living a life of faithfully following him towards the Kingdom of God.  As she would say, it ain’t easy.  In her first big selling book, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, she shares a story:

Broken things have been on my mind as the year lurches to an end, because so much broke and broke down this year in my life, and in the lives of the people I love. Lives broke, hearts broke, health broke, minds broke. On the first Sunday of Advent our preacher, Veronica, said that this is life's nature, that lives and hearts get broken, those of people we love, those of people we'll never meet. She said the world sometimes feels like the waiting room of the emergency ward, and that we, who are more or less OK for now, need to take the tenderest possible care of the more wounded people in the waiting room, until the healer comes. You sit with people, she said, you bring them juice and graham crackers. And then she went on vacation.

"Traveling mercies," the old black people at our church said to her when
she left. This is what they say when one of us goes off for a while. Traveling mercies: Be safe, notice beauty, enjoy the journey, God is with you.

“Traveling mercies: Be safe, notice beauty, enjoy the journey, God is with you,” says Lamott.  These are good words for this season and journey of Lent.  The season of Lent is our invitation to make the journey of exploration of our faith and lives . . . to determine what is good, what is bad, and how we can bring congruency into our faith and lives.  It is not something that is easy to do if it is done with openness and honesty with ourselves as the followers of Jesus.  And, it is not something easily done when we recognize the brokenness of our world and the trauma it has inflicted upon our own lives.  The journey is tough . . . and, as we make the Lenten journey, we need all the “traveling mercies” we can get . . . we are entering the clouds . . . entering the storm.

Our reading this morning comes at the end of a hectic time in which Jesus has been busy.  The writer of the Gospel of Mark tells us that prior to this moment, Jesus has fed the four thousand, he has been performing miracles, teaching his disciples, confronting the authorities . . . days of whirlwind activity.  Now he pauses after six days of sharing the “good news” and takes a break, inviting Peter, James, and John to join him on a high mountain.  A moment of respite and prayer, I imagine . . . and, so they go.

Well, it wasn’t quite the respite one would imagine.  In fact, it was quite an exciting adventure.  Something happens up there on that mountain . . . Jesus is transfigured . . . he is changed.  His clothes become a dazzling white.  He looks as if he glows.  And, then the prophet Elijah and Moses—the biggest heavyweights of the Jewish faith show up and start talking to Jesus.  Peter, James, and John are in awe.  Peter volunteers to build shelter for the three luminaries because he did not know what else to say.  Then a cloud covers them.  A voice speaks from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love.  Listen to him.”  Then poof . . . it was over.

It was over.  There they stood.  I imagine that the three disciples were in awe of what they had just witnessed and heard.  That they were confused and curious as they were not sure of what had just happened.  As I said earlier, it had been a whirlwind since they had hooked up with Jesus and started to follow him.  They had seen so much.  I am fairly certain that they were wondering . . . wondering about Jesus, wondering about what they had just seen, and wondering what in the world they had gotten themselves involved in.  And, then to be told by Jesus that they are “not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.”

Little did they realized that they had enter the storm.

Too often we preachers take the scripture reading from the lectionary reading—what they call the pericope—and forget that it is part of a bigger story.  I do not know how many times I have done this with the transfiguration story, but this morning I want to look at this in the context of the larger story . . . in the context of the events that led up to this moment.  It is in that that I believe we will find its meaning for us during this Lenten season and journey.

As I said, prior to the transfiguration there is a whirlwind of activity—miracles, teaching, preaching, the whole kit-and-caboodle—for Jesus that is witnessed by his disciples.  Throughout all of this they are attempting to make sense of all of it and of who Jesus is.  They even get questioned by Jesus about who they think he is during this time.  To which, Peter stumbled upon Jesus’ identity—the messiah.  It was a good answer, but we all know that Peter nor the disciples really get it.  They know there is something special about Jesus, but they just aren’t totally sure what it is yet.  They just know that their heads are spinning.

So why not a break . . . a break to re-center themselves, find their bearings.  A hike up a mountain with Jesus for a little rest . . . a little prayer just might be what they needed.  Little did they anticipate the storm they were entering.  Yeah, I know . . . it doesn’t seem stormy as we listen to the story.  Sure, a cloud appears.  There is a voice that speaks.  The writer leaves it to the imagination of the reader or listeners to visualize the whole scene in his or her minds.  For me, it is a dark grayish cloud—a storm cloud--that descends . . . covers those who are gathered.  I picture a dense fog that makes it difficult to see.  I hear a loud voice speaking—after all most of us think of God’s voice as booming . . . a rolling thunderous sort of voice.  And, then, it is over . . . or is it?

In the bigger picture of the story it might be that they have entered into the “eye of the storm” . . . the storm is not over.  It is the lull before they encounter it once again.  As they descend the mountain little did they realize the storm they were entering . . . a storm that would last until they understood who Jesus was.  They would need all the “traveling mercies” they could get . . . to be safe, to notice the beauty, to enjoy the journey and to know that God was with them.

We all do.

It has been over a year since we entered into this pandemic that has come to symbolize so much of the broken world we live in.  That lives and hearts get broken of those we love and those we do not know . . . ours included. Anxiety about how all of this brokenness will be played out if and when this craziness ends in the world we live in. We are attempting to make sense of all of it . . . to understand.  To understand how we fit in and how we are to live in faith following Jesus through these times.  That is the challenge of Lent.

We dive into the storm and the journey begins.

We begin to explore who we are in relationship to God through Jesus.  We begin to ask the questions of who we say Jesus is . . . and, because of that, who we are.  We begin to discern how we fit into the world and the lives of those who are a part of it.  We begin to wonder how we fit into the bigger world and the lives of those who encompass it.  We will discover that some of what we discover we like . . . some we don’t . . . and, we ponder how we make it congruent to our understanding of Jesus, his purpose, and mission.  We wander through the fog of the storm clouds of this challenge that have descended upon us in the season of Lent.

We think about that message that God gave to those gathered on the mountain when Jesus was transfigured . . . “This is my Son, whom I love.  Listen to him!”  Are we listening?  Listening to his message of grace, love, peace, justice . . . acceptance?  The Kingdom of God?  Are we listening to his call to come with him to bring God’s will into existence?  This, too, is a part of the storm we enter during Lent.

We step into the unknown.  It is not easy and it is scary.  Yet, if we truly believe then we must go and make the journey of this season.  We must enter the storm.  But let us offer to one another “traveling mercies” for the trip ahead of us.  Let us be safe.  Let us notice the beauty hidden in the adventure.  And, let us enjoy the journey for it is in the journey that we will find the answers we seek.  It is in the journey that we discover that God is with us.  Amen.