Church of the Good Shepherd

                A picture of me with Matt Damon (I mean how many times do I hang out with movie stars?)

Tell me about pictures you love.

Pause

When I hear the lessons that we had today about Peter wanting to make booths for Jesus, Elijah, and Moses, I think of taking pictures, about how he didn’t have a camera nor would even know about cameras.  Yet he wanted to save the moment because he knew it was a special one, and so he wanted to make time stop and capture that moment forever.

I think pictures sort of do that, but not nearly as well as we would like them to because a picture is only one dimensional – do you know what that means?  Flat – a flat thing.  Now, a child like one of you has three dimensions, front, side, back.  A picture is not alive or moving, not like you!  And every one of the pictures I brought had a next moment: when the spoons fell off the noses or when we moved on to the next thing or the baby cried or the breakfast was served or . . . whatever it was in the next moment.

So just as Jesus was right to show Peter that you can’t capture the moment forever, so we have to go down off the hill and do what it is God is calling us to do.

And what the disciples really didn’t want to hear is what the next thing was going to be even though Jesus had been trying to tell them.

We hear this lesson right before Lent starts because we don’t much like what Jesus has to say either – or at least I have a difficult time with it and most people do. 

Do you know what Lent is?  A time of preparation for Easter -yes!  And what happens on Easter?  The Resurrection – yes!  But what happens before the Resurrection?  Jesus was tried, convicted, and died on the cross, didn’t he?  The disciples didn’t want to hear that Jesus was going to suffer, that he wasn’t going to be a great king like David.  They didn’t like it that people were going to be mean, even cruel, to Jesus.  They wanted to live on that mountain top with him forever.

To fix the moment, to stop time, to prevent the next moment from happening, you know we can’t do that; they couldn’t do that.  Not even Jesus could do that.

So while I think it’s important to have pictures to remind of us of wonderful times in our lives, and I am sorry Peter couldn’t take a picture of that day on the mountain, I think the most important thing is to live in the moment and not to dwell on what was – which when I look at how skinny I was or how young, I get a little nostalgic (folks like me do!) – and remember how much there is in this moment right now.  How good things are right now.

So right now, I want to take a picture of you because you are precious.  You are the mountain top of this moment in time; you are worth preserving and remembering.  But I know you are not flat and you won't be contained or limited to the flatness of the picture.  You will be contained much more fully and completely in my heart, just as the disciples contained Jesus in their hearts.

So as we go into Lent I invite you to surround yourselves with wonderful pictures of all the really great people and things in your lives – so far, and to remember the people you love, the good times you have had, the challenging things you have learned from, and to hold them around you as you think and pray this Lent.

And then go on to the next moment.  Go “down the mountain,” so to speak, and find new adventure and new life, just as Jesus taught the disciples to do; and do not be afraid to go through hard times, because Jesus always promises that the end of the story is resurrection – and that is the end of my story too.

Take picture of kids

Amen.

The Rev. Dr. Gale Davis Morris
Church of the Good Shepherd