If Mankind Can't Come To The Mountain...

Most of us are familiar with the phrase “if the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, Mohammed must come to the mountain.”

The phrase gets used when someone or something can’t or won’t budge. Sometimes we apply this proverb to grand events and sometimes to everyday circumstances. The idea is that when one cannot get one’s own way, one is forced to make adjustments.

The proverb has roots in a story about Mohammed. The legend goes that when the founder of Islam was asked to give proofs of his teaching, he ordered Mount Safa to come to him. When the mountain did not comply, Mohammed raised his hands toward heaven and said, 'God is merciful. Had it obeyed my words, it would have fallen on us to our destruction. I will therefore go to the mountain and thank God that he has had mercy on a stiff-necked generation.’ Because the mountain would not come to Mohammed, Mohammed went to the mountain.

In the New Testament gospel of Luke, we have a story that is popularly known as the Transfiguration. It is a story about a mountain. In the story of the Transfiguration, Jesus takes Peter, James and John up a high mountain. Mountains, you may well know, in Greek, Hebrew, Roman and Asian religious literature, were always places where the human could touch the divine. Sure enough, at the top of that mountain with Jesus, a wonderful thing happened. Jesus was revealed in new form, surrounded by bright light. The apostles began to see Jesus a new way. The apostles got a brand-new insight into whom this Jesus really was -- dazzling, consuming, literally enlightening. Here stood their teacher, Jesus, alongside two of the greatest men from their history; Moses and Elijah. Two men who were, for all intents and purposes, the law and the prophets. Jesus is revealed in His true form, and the effect on the apostles is instantaneous and the experience is glorious.

When we find ourselves in the midst of enlightening experiences, what we often call “mountain top” experiences, there is a strong desire to want to live in the moment, to want to make of the experience a pious response. To say to ourselves "this as close to heaven as I can get, so I'm staying here." This is what Peter opts for. He says, "Let's settle down here, Jesus, and build three booths, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah."

I'm not really sure, but I think what he had in mind was to build a sanctuary and call it a church. Peter, in other words, was opting for a religion of temples, institutions and shrines. Peter was opting for a religion that transcends the world, but the scripture reads that before he could even finish speaking, God interrupted and said, "Listen." Before Peter could go into the greater details of his amazing plan, God spoke, pointed to Jesus, and said "Listen to him."

Then something happens that we too often forget. The gospel is completed by a portion that is usually unread, too little remembered, too much unfulfilled. At the very moment, when it would seem that Jesus is emphasizing the mystical and transcendent dimension of religion, Jesus himself takes the apostles away from visions, away from privatized religion, to meet the ones who needed them most in the town.

Jesus takes them down the mountain to a man whose son was possessed by a demon. Jesus himself leads them down to the bottom of that mountain to the hurting people, unbelieving officials, the ineffective institutions and the demons below.

Following Jesus isn’t about building a church, but being a church. It is not about building temples and keeping shrines. It is about healing hurts, speaking for and being with the poor, the helpless, the voiceless and the forgotten who are at the silent bottom of every pinnacle, every hierarchy and every system.

Following Christ, the scripture insists, is not about transcending life; following Christ is about transforming life.

The purpose of holiness is not to protect us from our world. The purpose of holiness is to change the way we live in the world, not for our own sake but for the sake of others.

The disciples are permitted to see the transfigured Jesus, but now they want to stay in the world of the transfiguration, and no longer return to the real world. They want to remain in the world of Jesus' visible glory and power, in the world of the visible fulfillment of the promise. They want to remain where they can see, not where they simply have to believe. But the disciples are not allowed to do this.

The people below, the people at the bottom of our mountains, wait to be healed of the diseases that spring from our spiritual darkness. The poor wait for jobs; the homeless wait for shelter; children are waiting for food. Those who are lost and lonely and broken wait to hear some piece of good news.

That is what the Transfiguration is about, that is what religion is really about, we are transformed so that the world might be transformed.

When Mohammed commands the mountain to move, the mountain scoffs at his arrogance and will not budge. But the people who sit at the foot of the mountain cry out for mercy. Thousands of years earlier, God’s people, the Israelites, encounter the presence of God at a mountain known as Mount Sinai. The glory of God is so great, that the people cannot even touch the base of the mountain. It is so terrifying that the Israelites ask that Moses go up on the mountain and bring back some word, some glimpse of God’s glory. The people cannot come to the mountain and they suffer as a result.

Today our predicament is the same. The glory of God is too great for us. Our sin creates a gap between us. We cannot come to the mountain.

And so, if mankind cannot go to the mountain, the mountain must come to mankind. In the person of Jesus Christ we receive the Word who was with God and is God. We have looked on Jesus and we have seen his glory. Through the Son of God, born as a man, crucified as a sacrifice, and risen as Lord, the glory of the mountain is brought to us. Through His Holy Spirit, it dwells in us.

If Christ brings the mountain to us, then we must follow suit on behalf of others. Too often the church has existed for it’s own purposes, a people on a pedestal instead of a city set on a hill. Too often we’ve been so enthralled with our own mountaintop experience that we have sought to re-create it as an ongoing series of mountaintop experiences. In starting churches we built booths at the top of unreachable mountains. Too often we have said that if people want church they have to come to church, but that doesn’t follow with the example set by Christ. If Jesus Christ goes down the mountain, the followers of Christ must follow Him down. Follow Him into the everyday circumstances where the light of Christ is most needed, into the lives of people who are crying out for someone to save them, into contact with the demons who torture and afflict them. If the people won’t come to church then the church must come to the people.