Matthew 17:1-9 NRSV
1 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and
his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. 2 And he was
transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes
became dazzling white. 3 Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah,
talking with him. 4 Then Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to
be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for
Moses, and one for Elijah." 5 While he was still speaking, suddenly a
bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, "This is
my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!" 6 When
the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. 7
But Jesus came and touched them, saying, "Get up and do not be
afraid." 8 And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself
alone. 9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, "Tell
no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the
dead."
MOUNTAINTOP
EXPERIENCES – The Bringer of Hope
In the above scripture, the disciples experience their
friend, teacher, brother and leader in a new, yet strange and disconcerting
way. They don’t know what to make of
him. Clearly however, Jesus as mystic and
prophet and treasured child of God is now indisputable – and he has a message
for everyone. God’s affirmation of this
is overwhelming, even frightening to the disciples. Yet they are God’s children as well and they
have a role to play in spreading Jesus’ message. So, with a reassuring love, God counsels the
disciples to neither fear nor despair.
The mountaintop experiences in life often come during
difficult times in our lives. For me,
one such experience took place May 26th, 2011 in my hotel room in
Austin, Texas. Struggling profoundly in
my soul over two deeply personal matters, God paid a visit. At first, I felt a deep sense of foreboding
as God’s presence filled the hotel room.
Fearful and unsettled, I cried out, “You can’t do this to me. Please don’t do this. Please don’t do this.” But as C.S. Lewis once described, I could no
longer resist “the unrelenting approach”
of The One who cannot be denied. In the
hours that followed, God brought clarity, hope and renewal to my life and
calling. The ecstatic experience,
occurring over the course of nearly ten hours that followed, brought this
message, “You are called to establish a church free of the encumbrances of the
world. You are to do this so that my
apostles can return and prepare the world for my coming. When this is done, then you can rest and she
will be at your side. Why you? Because your heart is pure.”
As one might imagine, there has been a great deal of soul
searching in the years since this mountaintop experience. Additionally, I learned long ago from other
mystical experiences and from my master’s degree work in religion that ecstatic
experiences usually call for much deeper examination of the symbols and words
conveyed. To keep things brief, in the
years since my “God Encounter”, I came to understand this experience of calling
as follows: “You are to establish gatherings
and opportunities for building up the messengers who I have called-out. They are my stewards of healthy
community. You are to do this so these bringers
of hope can prepare humanity for when I will be fully present among you. Together we will make everything new
again. For I shall wipe away every tear
from my children’s eyes and death, mourning, crying, and pain will be no more
-- for the old order will fall. Write
this, for I am Alpha and Omega and what I say is trustworthy and true. When the task I have given you is done, then
you and she who I have sent to be at your side can rest. Why have I called you? Because your heart is pure.”
Responding to this renewed and expanded sense of calling
came at a price however. The price
involved ending a marriage of nearly thirty years between two good people whose
life paths had arrived to a fork in the road and whose paths had diverged in
different directions. The time had
therefore come to set one another free in order that each of us could follow
the road we felt it necessary to travel.
From that thirty year union however, I am blessed with two
amazing beautiful gifted and talented daughters that I love to pieces and for
whom I will always thank God and the Universe that they are much of my life’s
bedrock. As their lives have grown and
developed, my life now includes a terrific son-in-law and a toddler grandson
who is clearly a reflection of his profoundly loving parents – but also at
times a startling sense of connection to my toddler self of long long ago. In that regard, I find a grandparent’s joy at
seeing how much healthier my grandson’s development and upbringing have
been. His vibrant potent sense of self is
free of encumbrance to the trauma-exposure which I suffered from and lived
through as a child and youth. My
grandson’s parents are truly messengers/bringers of hope for healthy community. With every passing day, they inch us closer
to a time when tears, pain, suffering and mourning will be no more. Lastly, I have been blessed with one who has come into my life who loves me unconditionally. My fiance brings a joy I thought I would never know again.
The “Old Order” will fall.
Those who study humanity’s march toward a time of a just and lasting peace
in our world, estimate we will arrive to such a condition sometime within the
next three hundred years. In the past
few centuries, we have made much progress toward the time of God’s just and
peaceable reign. Our progress has been
phenomenal in comparison to the millennia of brutality, crushing injustice, and
fevered oppression by those who have appointed themselves humanity’s overlords
and overseers. Their time, their order –
the “Old Order” – is about to fall. As
former US President Obama recently shared regarding the USA itself, untold
numbers of brown skinned children are growing up and coming into their own and
their sense of social justice will remake the USA into a far more egalitarian
society and culture.
Until the time that an egalitarian society and culture arrive,
we will have to cope with and confront the “supernovas” of bigotry, oppression,
social injustice, prejudice, misogyny, and obscenities of the present moment’s
“Old Order”. Today, the swirl and swill
of these dying stars are perfectly personified in REPUBLICAN POTUS 45. Make whatever promises he does, this
individual will not remotely abolish poverty or end suffering. Instead REPUBLICAN POTUS 45 crushes life,
crushes hope, makes everything about him.
His days are spent humiliating, demeaning, and if possible --- destroying
the lives of those who do not worship him or fail to provide the constant
adulation upon which his fragile ego must feed.
What he does promise is this – that he will “harness” you and me to the
task of being made over into whatever image he wants you or me to be. It’s an “Old Order” promise which is that we are
to mirror to our masters the reflection they want and demand. When we don’t, such as the reflection a free
and independent press mirrors, we then become the opposition. We then are labeled and demonized – “fakes”
and “sad” as REPUBLICAN 45 POTUS likes to put it.
This past week I spent some focused time reading many of the
stories of people who voted for REPUBLICAN 45 POTUS. I came away from such stories shaking my
head. No matter how much such persons
attempted to nuance their rationale for voting REPUBLICAN 45 POTUS into power,
it stills mean that you gave license to lying, breaking our laws, bigotry,
social injustice, misogyny, and a wide variety of other extremely frightening
obscenities. You are essentially a
driver’s test examiner and no matter how many things REPUBLICAN 45 POTUS crashed
into, no matter how many times the person drove recklessly, no matter how many
times the person left the road you, no matter how many times the person
exhibited road rage, no matter how many lives were run over – at the end of the
driver’s test you handed a license to a very dangerous individual. If you want his chains, his falsehoods, his
version of reality including his heedless, careless, reckless ways of trying to
drive all our lives in the ground, then you are welcome to his decimation and
devastation of humanity.
If instead you are a Bringer of Hope and want healthy
community, wish to see the Old Order end, then join “The Resistance”. Make your voice heard. Stop REPUBLICAN 45 POTUS from breaking of our
laws, violating ethics, and ignoring our Constitution. The current REPUBLICAN GOP CONGRESS would
never tolerate for a single moment a DEMOCRAT POTUS like REPUBLICAN 45 POTUS. Hearings, impeachment, removal from office
would constantly headline their day.
Listen to The One -- Be a Bringer of Hope. You can do so by reading Michael Moore’s
article with the Huffington Post. Click
on the following link (title for the article) and you’ll have everything you
need to get started. The article title
is “Do These 10 Things, AndTrump Will Be Toast”.
If you’re really
daring, feel free to share this post with others desiring the Just and
Peaceable Reign of God.
Brad Shumate
Free of
Encumbrance
©Copyright 2017 Brad Shumate
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