The Sermon Text —Luke 9:28-36

Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, 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" - not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!" When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.

I had a dream the other day that was absolutely horrifying. I dreamt that I was being tortured. I won’t get into any of the gory details, but suffice it to say it was very realistic and very disturbing. This dream—or I guess I should say this nightmare—was so distressing that it shocked me awake and once awake I couldn’t get back to sleep. Since that was the case I figured I might as well do something productive—so I went downstairs and began to exercise.

While I was on my treadmill I began to wonder why I had such a disturbing dream—what had I seen or done in the past few days that might have made my brain create such a vivid and alarming story?

As I was mulling that over, I remembered two articles that I had read in the newspaper recently. The first was a short article in the Wisconsin State Journal about a 40-year -old American man who had been sentenced to 8 ½ years in prison. The man, who was hired by the CIA and had worked in Iraq, had been found guilty in the beating death of an Iraqi prisoner. The prisoner was being interrogated by this American and had suffered internal injuries after repeated blows to the groin and stomach area. Within 48 hours, after receiving no medical care, the prisoner had died from his injuries. In just a couple of paragraphs this brutal image of torture began to be etched upon my mind.

The second article was from the Capital Times—it was the featured article for that day—and it dealt specifically with torture—if I am not mistaken that was the title of the article. The article caught my eye because part of its focus was on a television show that I am somewhat embarrassed to say I watch regularly, 24. The article explained, in more detail than I needed, that the show was not really accurate in their depiction of torture—suggesting that in real life when people are tortured to gain information it typically takes far longer than the few minutes it required on 24. I came away from that article with more information than I needed about torture.

24, for those of you who do not watch, is a fictional televison show on the Fox network that tells the story of federal agent Jack Bauer, played by Kiefer Sutherland. It is an intense show that tells, in real time, the story of how Jack Bauer tries to prevent terrorist attacks. As stated in this article, the plot includes moments where prisoners are tortured in order to get needed information to prevent some future catastrophe. And, as stated before, I watch it each and every week.

As I was working up a sweat on my treadmill, the answer to my question, "Why did I have such a disturbing dream?," became far to clear—I was subjecting myself to some horrible stuff and I was doing it over and over again.

There are many things that bother me about this issue of torture—but two come to mind very quickly. First, I am simply bothered that such a thing happens at all. I realize that most of the pain that is inflicted in this world is done by guilty people—some might say bad people—to innocent people—or good people. Those actions are obviously wrong and those who do them should be punished. But is inflicting pain back on the guilty person—the bad person—the best way to deal with this problem? And is inflicting pain on people to get information okay if it can somehow be justified?

The second thing that is so disturbing, and this is actually the most disturbing for me, is the ease with which the average person—someone like me, obviously and perhaps someone like you—how easily we can begin to tolerate such a horrible thing. We can watch it on television, read about it in newspapers and even learn that our own country is taking some of its war prisoners to other countries that allow torture, so that they can do it without fear of legal ramifications—we take all of that in and it hardly seems to phase us.

Please know that I am not saying all of this in an effort to bash our current administration and its policies or to bash Hollywood for making movies and television shows that depict such violence. That would be far to simplistic and more importantly, it would be letting far too many people off the hock. Whether torture is done by bad people or good people—which, to me, seems rather strange to even say—but regardless of who is doing it and who it is being done to, torture is wrong. So why does it happen?

The answer is fairly simple—sin. Torture is merely a byproduct of sin, specifically the sin of indifference. Indifference to our fellow men and women and indifference to God. If we, who are Christian, truly understood and believed that in our neighbors we were meeting Jesus, we would be up in arms right now over the unfair ways many of our brothers and sisters are treated in this country and throughout the world—not just those who are tortured, but all who suffer. Sadly, there are countless examples of how people face injustice and hatred throughout our world and people seem to do nothing about it.

Somehow we have become numb to such things and we see in our neighbor—both those near and those far, far away—not Jesus, but strangers that mean next nothing to us. Indifference—I suppose it is not the greatest of all sins, but it certainly is a costly one.

At the heart of this sin—this sin of indifference—is a lack of trust in God or, dare I say, a lack of true belief in God. If our faith in God were stronger we could not be as indifferent towards others as we are today—it would be impossible. We would see that each person is a gift and that those who mistreat others should be punished appropriately, but not inhumanely.

Several years ago I was doing a funeral at Gunderson Funeral Home on Monona Drive. After the service we drove—in procession—the short distance to Roselawn Cemetery for the burial. When we were making the left-handed turn from Monona Drive onto Femrite Drive (which, if you know the area, is cutting across traffic), the lead car driven by a Gunderson Funeral director, stopped to make sure that the oncoming traffic would stop. When the first few cars stopped, the lead car then continued to drive.

As this was all taking place, I happened to look at one of the cars that had essentially been forced to stop to allow all of us to go through. A man was driving this particular car and I could tell that he was livid—he did not want to stop, he was apparently in a hurry, and even though he was inside his car and the windows were rolled up, he was screaming at us. Then he decided that screaming was not enough. So he began making a gesture with his finger—first at the lead car, then at me, then at the hearse and then at all of the other cars in the funeral procession, one by one.

As we gathered at the grave side a few moments later, the mood was obviously negatively affected by this man’s pitiful display. Indifference. It is certainly a costly sin.

Our Gospel for today tells the story of Jesus’ transfiguration. Many pastors who are preaching this morning are relating this Transfiguration text to beautiful, wonderful, powerful mountaintop experiences that they or others have had where faith is developed and nurtured in breathtaking ways, and here I am dragging all of you so far down into the valley that, not only have I ignored such grand stories, I have created a cloud of depression and guilt so thick that the entire view of the mountain is blocked.

We know the story—it is an incredible one. Jesus took his three closest disciples and together they climbed to the top of a mountain for a time of prayer and renewal. But something altogether different happened when they arrived at the mountaintop. Moses and Elijah appeared, and Luke tells us that they talked with Jesus about his departure—about his journey to the cross. If that were not enough, a voice from heaven called out, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!"

There are a few stories in the Bible that seem almost impossible for us to relate to—this is one of them. Our lesson for today is another—after Moses had received the Ten Commandments he came down from Mount Sinai with his skin and face glowing from being in the presence of God. Moses and the burning bush is another story along those same lines, as is Jesus’ baptism. They are amazing stories—stories that are almost beyond belief—but they are stories that leave us wondering what really took place.

What do we do, then, about these kind of stories? Are they so beyond our comprehension that we just ignore them? I don’t think so. I think we can look at these kinds of stories—especially the stories of Jesus baptism and his transfiguration—as epiphanies. As events that reveal the power, majesty and awe of God. They are not events, however, that we can hope to relate to; at least not in the same way that we can relate to most of the stories in the Gospels—stories of Jesus’ interaction with people like Zacchaeus, Mary, Martha, Peter, the woman caught in adultery, the woman at the well. Those are stories that we can hold onto and understand because we are like those people and we can learn from their experiences with Jesus.

But this Transfiguration story is different. It distances us from Jesus like few stories do. It reminds us that while Jesus is truly human and truly like us, he is also truly God and as such he is unique, thus some of his experiences are unique.

Having said all of that, there is something in this Gospel passage that stands out—that teaches us—and it brings me back to this great sin of indifference. Verse 32 in our Gospel states, "Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory..." The Greek is actually a bit different. It says, "But when they were fully awake they saw his glory..."

I got a sermon report the other day from one of our confirmation students who asked me two questions. "Is it a sin not to believe in God? If God’s not always there for us, should we still believe?"

I answered yes to both of those questions and went on to talk about faith and doubt, but as I read those questions I thought about that 32^nd verse: "But when they were fully awake they saw his glory..."

Our faith is weak for many reasons and most, if not all of them are due to sin. The sin of indifference is one of those reasons, the sin of addiction, pride, greed, and envy are others. Those sins and many others pull us away from God and they pull us away from our neighbor.

"But when they were fully awake they saw his glory..." Are we fully awake? Are we fully awake to the harm that our indifference causes? Are we fully awake to the needs of others? Are we fully awake to the pain that we can cause in other people’s lives? Are we fully awake to the struggles that others face?

Our faith wavers and our indifference continues because we are not fully awake to God’s glory. We are not fully awake to the vision of love and compassion that Jesus has shown us. We are not fully awake to the call for justice and mercy that is so desperately needed in our world today. How do we become awake? How did Peter and his companions become awake? They followed Jesus up the mountaintop. And that is what we can do as well. Come and follow. Amen.

© 2007