Mark 9: 2-9

Sisters & brothers, grace to you & peace from the God of pulsing radiance, from Christ the blazing light, and from the Spirit of transcendence and imminence.  Amen.

Think of how many times you have prayed the Lord’s Prayer over the years, and how many times the words “thy kingdom come” have rolled off your tongue, over your lips, and out into your close, personal airspace.

If you’re like me, you might have occasionally imagined what that kingdom might look like:  “peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled,” a lion laying down with the lamb, somewhere over the rainbow, a glorious and everlasting kingdom in the clouds awaiting us.  But truth be told, too often we find it hard to imagine a new world coming to transform our ordinary, mostly mundane existence.

Yesterday Christopher & I went to see the film everyone is buzzing about “Slumdog Millionaire,” in which the story is traced of Jamal, a boy from the cruel and inhuman slums of Mumbai, India where any life beyond a demeaning level of poverty is nearly-impossible.  Jamal eventually — and quite by accident — ends up on an Indian version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” and wins the big bucks (or in this case, rupees).  Yet it isn’t the winning of the big money which in the end creates a new world for Jamal; rather it is his determination to be with Latika, the girl of his dreams, with whom — his heart is determined - he shares a “destiny”.  Every time he sees her, he is both transfixed and transformed by the one whom he calls “the most beautiful girl in the world,” and in the end it is their love for each which creates the ultimate new world for them, a literal transfiguration from their prior lives of cruelty and despair to one of absolute joy and fulfillment in one another.

The movie may well walk away with multiple Oscars tonight, but regardless of all that hype, it nevertheless points to the hope and promise of a new world that breaks through and comes even in the midst of the cruel world of poverty and desperation.  For in the final analysis, it is not in the winning of millions but in the destiny of love which has the capacity to truly transform and transfigure the “slumdog” Jamal.   The film is saturated with the promise of “Thy Kingdom Come,” and yes, of transfiguration amid the most hopeless circumstances.

In our gospel text this morning, Peter, James and John have a “thy kingdom come” moment on the mountaintop with Jesus.   With a poignantly human shortsightedness, Peter wants to enshrine the moment by building three “tents” or “dwellings” on the mountaintop, one for Moses the lawgiver, one for the prophet Elijah, and one for the transfigured Jesus who clothing became dazzling white “such as no one on earth could bleach them.” (a scripture which really does sound more like a line from a commercial than from the Bible!)

In other words, Peter thinks this is it. Peter assumes they have “arrived” and the kingdom has come and it’s going to be the big three: Jesus, Moses, and Elijah along with the three disciples Peter, James, and John, and from this phantasmically mysterious and mystical mountaintop experience would flow the everlasting kingdom. Peter is so very sincere and yet so very distracted by the glorious and awe-filled theatrics of the moment. And then, no sooner than you can say the whole five-syllable word — trans-fig-ur-a-tion — a cloud had overshadowed everyone and from the cloud a voice “This is my Son, the Beloved, listen to him!”  And then, Jesus only remained.  No more Moses, no more Elijah, no more cloud, no more voice, no more dazzling white clothes, no more drama.  Just three guys standing on a mountain with Jesus, wondering what to do next.

With only a head-scratching experience to ponder, a mountain to descend, and a life to get back to.  And a Lord to lead the way.

It’s not unlike the next few moments we’ll share together as this community surrounds Sienna Maria Morgan in holy baptism.  Although we all relish the holy moment of baptism, when the water is pouring and the Holy Spirit is descending and the power of the Most High is infilling, although we all love having our imaginations heightened by a vision of saints and angels surrounding us, and all-the-while with words of scripture and liturgy being spoken and sung, we know we can’t remain in that holy moment forever.

It’s a mountaintop experience.  It’s a vision of “thy kingdom come” in the present. It’s a “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine, O what a foretaste of glory divine” moment. But like Peter, James, and John, there’s only one place to go from this transfigurative moment: back down the mountain, back into life, and with a Lord to lead the way.

For Sienna, it will be back to being and doing what a vibrant and energetic 3-year-old is and does!  And we know she will do it with great energy and enthusiasm! For Dakota it will be back to being Sienna’s big sister and back to school tomorrow. And for Helene and Georg, it will be back to the tasks of parenting and providing for their family. But with them, we will all have seen a transfiguring vision of “thy kingdom come” and of “thy will be done” on earth as it is in heaven.  A bright and shining moment infused with God’s pulsing radiance.

Author Annie Dillard imagines such inspiring and reorienting “thy kingdom come” moments like this, from her book Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters: She writes, “Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews.”

Sisters and brothers, the power and promise of the resurrection is what peeks out at us as we hear again the story of the transfiguration today, but that power and promise is only realized in the story of what happens as Peter, James, and John descend the mountaintop with Jesus. What awaits them once they get back to the flats is suffering, crucifixion, and death. As they re-enter the fray of life down below the mountaintop, they are met head-on with the endless needs of a hurting and hurtful humanity, with more questions than answers, with misunderstandings about who Jesus is, and with tensions and quarrels amongst themselves regarding who was the least and who was the greatest. Finally, betrayal, denial, suffering, crucifixion, and death come for Jesus while all his followers, including even those from the mountaintop, abandon him.

We need “thy kingdom come” moments like today to remind us that the reign of God is both now and not yet among us. It is now among us today in the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup. It is now among us today in the bathing of Sienna Morgan in the waters of new life. It is now among us today in the Word made flesh — Jesus — whose body we are in the world.

But even so, the reign of God is not yet among us in its fullness. Sickness and pain invade our lives, death brings sorrow among us, poverty, hunger, and war continue to scourge the people of the earth, the environment continually groans as water, air, and land suffer polluted conditions, and hatred and prejudice infect the hearts of humanity and keep us from loving one another in true bonds of affection.

“Thy kingdom come,” we pray, into this slumdog mess of a world.

“Thy kingdom come,” we pray, into our lives.

“Thy kingdom come,” we pray, as we bathe our little ones.

And then, as if we might be expecting an answer to that prayer, we put on our crash helmets, descend this mountain, and let the kingdom come among us.

Amen.