God Is In the Grind

Brad Sullivan

Last Sunday after the Epiphany

February 11, 2018

Emmanuel, Houston

2 Corinthians 4:3-6

Mark 9:2-9

God Is In the Grind

                                                                                                              

Have you ever been outside walking around and then looked up and been startled, scared even, by a hideous, almost other worldly beast staring at you with hungry eyes, vicious teeth, and razor sharp claws, only to have your eyes refocus and realize you were in fact looking at a tree branch?  The tree branch didn’t change, only how your eyes saw the tree branch changed.  I wonder if that isn’t something like what happened to Peter and James and John with the transfiguration.  Rather than Jesus changing before their eyes, perhaps what changed was their eyes’ ability to see for a few minutes something they had not previously been able to see:  the radiance and majesty of the light of Jesus.  Perhaps even, Moses and Elijah had been there previously as well, unseen and unheard by Peter, and James, and John, until God changed something within them and allowed them to see and experience more of the world than any of us are able to see or experience with our regular senses. 

Perhaps Jesus took Peter, and James, and John up to the mountain top in order to change something of their ability to see and experience the world for a short time, so that they saw not only the majesty of Jesus, but also the majesty of God’s kingdom in which those who have died are still alive and well with God, and the world.  Perhaps then, when God turned the dimmer switch back down on Jesus and Moses and Elijah disappeared, what they had seen on the mountain didn’t cease to be, but only their ability to see it.  As beautiful and wonderful as the world is then, what they saw for a short time was that the world is far more beautiful than they or we could ever have imagined. 

Little wonder then that they wanted to make booths and stay there.  In any mountain top experience, any jaw dropping, mind blowing, beautiful experience of our lives, we tend to want to stay in that moment, rather than come back down to earth to the drudgery of daily life.  As much as we like to poke fun at Peter for seemingly always saying the wrong thing, I have a feeling we’d have all wanted to stay up on the mountain a little while longer as well. 

I wonder then how Peter, and James, and John saw the world once they came back down the mountain.  Did the world seem dull by comparison?  Maybe, but I sure hope not.  I hope instead that after Jesus’ transfiguration, the world seemed to Peter, and James, and John to be alight with possibility and alive with wonder.  I hope they realized that everything they saw up on that mountain was still there in the regular old mundane world, just simply hidden from their eyes.

I would say that’s the reason for any mountain top experience, any jaw dropping, mind blowing, beautiful realization of the majesty of God and his kingdom all around us.  We’re never meant to stay on top of the mountain.  The only reason we go up the mountain to see Jesus transfigured before us is so that we can come down the mountain and also see Jesus in the miracle of the mundane, the non-dopamine laced divinity of the daily drudge.  Every moment is a possibility for love and wonder.  Every person we see is a beautiful miracle of God’s design, made with the spark of God’s image and the dust of our common humanity out of which we are all made and to which we all go.  We go up the mountain in order to come down, realizing Jesus is just as transfigured at the bottom of the mountain as at the top, even if we can’t see it

Bishop Doyle writes similarly in his book, The Jesus Heist: (p. 67)

The only reason to come into a community [for worship] is so you can learn how to leave it and do the real work of worship - being with Christ in the world around us.  This is how we show the love of God - we go and love people, heal people, care for people, live with people, eat with people.  We go and discover where Jesus is in the world and join his work there.

Whether the mountain, or church service, or any experience we have of the divine, we’re never meant to stay, we’re meant to live, and we’re meant to realize that the rest of our lives are every bit as sacred.  As mundane as our lives may seem at times, they and we are all part of something bigger and far more beautiful than we can see or imagine. 

Something as simple as a kind gesture.  Giving a cup of cold water to a kid who is thirsty, as Jesus said…or an old person who is thirsty for that matter.  Going to work or school each day at a job that does not satisfy or an education that seems pointless, God is there just as much as on the mountain top in the miracle of the mundane. 

What in us keeps us from seeing the miracle of the mundane and the divinity of the daily drudge?  How about our wounds?  How about our desires to make the world be how we want it rather than to accept the world as it is?  What if we were to give some of those wounds and desires to God so that he might heal them and transform us so that we could see the miracle of the mundane and the divinity of the daily drudge? 

That’s kinda what Lent is all about, which we start this Wednesday.  That is why we give things up during Lent, and so my suggestion is this:  rather than give up something simple like Diet Coke or Chocolate, try giving up some of your woundedness which keeps you from seeing the miracle of the mundane.  Try giving up some of your desires for control which keep you from seeing the divinity of the daily drudge…or perhaps, do try giving up something as mundane as Diet Coke or Chocolate and see the miracle of the world in even so simple a sacrifice. 

In any case, realize that the sacrifice, like the mountain top, like the community gathering for worship is not the point, is not where we stay.  The sacrifice, like the mountain top, like the community gathering for worship is done so that we can then come back down the mountain, leave the gathering for worship and “do the real work of worship - to show the love of God by loving people, healing people, caring for people, living with people, eating with people:  going and discovering where Jesus is in the [mundane] everyday world and joining his work there,” for God is in the work, the common work of eating with people, living with people, working with people, getting angry with and reconciling with people, caring for people, healing people, loving people, and seeing people as brothers and sisters.  That is the work where God is at the bottom of the mountain.

God is in the grind of daily life.  Realizing that truth, trusting that God is in the grind just as much as on the mountain, we can spend the grind in worship and prayer, in communion with God, every moment a miracle, every step a sacred act, resting in God’s presence, even in the mundanity of daily life, for God is in the grind.