The first time I met Jesus...

The First Time I Met Jesus

Mark 9:2-9

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             This past week I chaired the first official Evangelism Committee meeting for the Diocese of Alabama.  I know, right?  You would think we would form a snake handling committee before forming an Evangelism Committee.  To be fair, the word evangelism carries a lot of baggage because it has long been associated with those who see evangelism as strictly a way to convert as many people to Jesus Christ as possible through less than Christian tactics—through manipulation, through guilt, through bullying, and the list goes on.      

Because of this narrow minded view of evangelism, a part of our committee’s work is to re-brand the word to better capture what evangelism is really about.  And some of this re-branding happens when we recognize that evangelism is less about doing and more about being.  As one author says, Evangelism is about delighting in the wonder of God's new creation given through Jesus Christ.  Fundamentally, evangelism is about naming how God is active in the world.  Evangelism is about articulating how God is acting in our daily lives.  Evangelism is also about having faith that the Holy Spirit will do the converting. 

In order to get the committee off on the right foot, I asked them to do something else that makes Episcopalians squirm.  I asked each member of the committee to give a testimony.  I asked them to give a witness.  I asked each member of the committee to talk about a time when they met Jesus and tell how that encounter changed their heart.

A part of me felt a little guilty for putting these unsuspecting souls on the spot so I promised them that I would testify from the pulpit on Sunday.  So here I am to tell you a part of my story, about a time when I met Jesus, about a time when my heart was changed by the message of the gospel.  And I sincerely hope that I get to hear your story too sometime.  Be thinking about it now because I just might call you up one day and ask! 

My first authentic encounter with Jesus started the day I was confirmed in the Episcopal Church at the age of 14.  How theologically correct, right?  While the confirmands were enjoying the reception prepared for them in the parish hall, I found myself feeling a little sad.  While every normal fourteen year old was celebrating the end of confirmation class, I was grieving the loss of this community that was gained through this experience.  

The fact I was grieving the loss of a Sunday school class as a teenage boy should have been my first clue that God was calling me to ordained ministry but then again, I was a teenage boy.  Anyway, I started to name this loss to my youth minister and asked him, “What’s next?”  He said, “We have one more spot on our mission trip to North Carolina with your name on it.”  Like any normal 14 year old boy, I showed my excitement by looking down at my feet and muttering, “Yeah, I guess that sounds fun.”

 In two weeks, I found myself on a church van in route to Valle Crucis, North Carolina.  It was love at first sight.  I stepped off the van and the temperature was in the high-50s in the middle of the summer.  And then we started to play one of my favorite games—ultimate Frisbee.  I knew I didn’t ever want to leave this fog covered mountain.   

The part of the story that I haven’t told you yet is that part about how my home life at the time was not easy.  I was ashamed of who I was and where I came from and this shame was magnified when I went to high school where I thought everyone had a perfect family.  I know now that wasn’t true.  However, at the time, I felt alone.  I locked this shame deep down in my soul for no one else to see.

So I went on this mission trip looking for a message of hope and a message of healing.  At first I thought the trip was just a lot of fun and fun was healing in its own right.  We got to play ultimate Frisbee all the time.  The food was good.  I liked the people on the trip.  The youth ministers were great.  But soon I realized the trip was more than fun. 

The trip gave me a different picture of the world as I lived in a bubble.  My work team was assigned to help a family add a laundry room and a deck to the back of their mobile home.  Not only did I learn basic carpentry skills but also got to see poverty first hand in the United States.  I simply didn’t know that people lived in such conditions.
But something else stood out on this work project.  This family that we served included some of the most grateful and loving people I have ever met.  A part of me wondered, “How can a family who lives in such poverty be so grateful?”

Something else strange happened.  I found myself waking up at 6:30 a.m. to go to Bible study.  I had never been to Bible study in my life, let alone get up before the sun came up, but one of the youth ministers there seemed to really believe in this Jesus stuff.  His lessons were powerful and perhaps for the first time I truly saw the power God’s Word could have on one’s life.

By the end of the week, I was on a high but didn’t quite know how to articulate what all was going on inside of me.  As I was processing everything that happened that week, we gathered for a healing service in the chapel.  After receiving communion those who wished for prayers of healing were invited to the altar rail. 

The deacon who ran the ministry asked what I wanted healing for.  I told him that my parents were sick and that I wanted them to be healed.  He picked his head up and looked me in the eye and said, “You must not have heard me correctly. What do you need healing for?”  I couldn’t say anything and tears started pouring down my face.  I couldn’t say anything because I really didn’t know how to tell someone else what it was like to be me, what it was like to carry around the shame I had.  As Paul said to the Romans, I know now that the Holy Spirit was interceding for me with sighs too deep for words.    

The deacon laid his hands on my head and started to pray, “Heavenly Father, I ask prayers of healing for your beloved son Jack...”  The words beloved son rang through my head for days and weeks to come--and they still ring in my head to this day.  Beloved son.  Was I important enough to be called beloved of God?
You see, the story I lived by in high school told me I had to be perfect and come from a perfect family in order to be loved, let alone loved by God.  According to all standards I knew at the time, I wasn't deserving of God's love.  But God seemed to be saying something else through the gospel of Jesus.  I was beginning to understand that my status as God's beloved wasn't based on who I was or wasn't but based on who Jesus is--God's beloved son.  

My whole experience that week was distilled down into that one moment at the healing Eucharist when I met Jesus face to face.  And the message of the gospel that I received that evening is just as powerful today.  As someone once said, Jesus’ good news never gets old.  It never gets old to hear that God is forming us in a community where we are all valued as beloved sons and daughters not because of what we do or don’t do but because who Jesus is and what Jesus did when the laid down his life for the world. 

I remember never wanting to leave Valle Crucis.  After all, it was the first place I met Jesus.  I wanted to stay as long as I could.  I wanted to preserve that moment in time.  But the van took us back to Birmingham after a week in the mountains.  I had to go back to the real world as they say. 

It took me several years to realize that God wasn’t going to act exactly like that again.  A part of me was looking for God to show up in the exact same way again at the healing Eucharist.  And only when I accepted that God wasn't going to reveal himself in that way again was I able to move on and experience God in new ways.
It has been my experience that when we encounter the divine in a powerful way we are hard pressed to let go of that experience.  We want to hold onto that moment or experience or memory for as long as we can.  We want to hold on because we are afraid that we might not have such an experience again. 

But God is telling us something different, isn’t he?  God is telling us that these mountain top experiences give only a glimpse into God’s final glory, a glory that is a still in front of us.  But we have a hard time trusting that message because, for now, we are called back down the mountain to a world filled with problems.  We are called back to the real world.      

We are all a little like Peter in that we try to memorialize our best moments and memories.  In today’s lesson, Peter tries to preserve this incredible moment in time by trying to build three dwelling places—one for Elijah, one for Moses, and one for Jesus.  In Peter’s mind, the scene on top of this mountain is the completion of God’s plan for redemption and completion.  He never wants to leave this mountain.  He says, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here.” 

But like any mountain top experience, God calls Jesus, Peter, and the rest of the disciples down from the mountain toward Jerusalem, toward the inevitability of the cross.  In the same way, God doesn’t let us hold onto any moment or experience—not matter how great they are.  Instead, God is always calling us onward to follow his Son Jesus Christ in the way of the cross. 

I read somewhere that the biggest danger to authentic community are our dreams for it.  We will grow to love our dreams more than the reality we are given.  I believe one of the reasons God calls us down from our mountains is because God knows that we will grow to love our experience on the mountain more than the God who calls us to the mountain.   

What do I mean?  For example, this past week at Diocesan Convention a lot of people were wearing “I love Camp McDowell” buttons on their shirts.  I love Camp McDowell too.  I also have one of those buttons.  But a part of me wondered where the “I love Jesus” buttons were. 

As humans, and I am just as guilty, we are prone to love places, events, and memories more than the God who made those places, events, and memories possible.  Ultimately, God is trying to get us to see that we can’t hold onto anything in this world, no matter how good and holy, because in the end the only thing left will be the Word of God in Christ.  The Word of God is the only thing that can be trusted.  But sometimes that is scary, isn’t it?        

Yes, Peter is right; it is good for us to be on these mountains.  It is good for us to meet Jesus face to face.  But God doesn’t call us to these mountains for permanent escape.  Like Eucharistic Prayer C says, God calls us to his nearer presence not only for pardon and solace but also for renewal and strength so we can go back out into the world and witness to Christ’s reconciling love.  So we can move past our fear and tell other’s what God is up to in our midst.  So we can be, dare I say it, evangelists for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And the good news is that we are not alone when we make our journey down the mountain.   Because of Jesus Christ we have a God who dwells, not only on mountains, but in our hearts whispering, “Do not be afraid.  Trust me and believe that whatever happens, wherever you go, not matter how dangerous, no matter how scary, you will always dwell with me.”  We can trust God because through his Son Jesus Christ the world of failure, the world of death, and the world of unmet expectations has been destroyed by a life lived beyond the cross and the grave.  Amen.