I love to sleep. It is a wonderful thing to lay one’s head on a pillow and fall into a deep, lasting sleep. When I get ready for sleep, my body is excited. I long to lay on my cool, soft bed and fall asleep. It moves me to no end to be able to sleep long and fast. I have only one problem. When my wife arrives to enter into our bed, she is like a cat that is getting ready to nest. She has to situate herself just right. Move this way and that way until she has roused me from my slumber and then she takes at least another five minutes to get her self situated and ready for sleep. She tells me that she has to be in just the right position for her to go to sleep. I think she just wants me to be awake for a little bit so she can say good night. It is alright with me, but then I have to try to fall back asleep again.
Sometimes falling asleep is not easy. I have a hard time when my mind is racing with too many things and I cannot get calmed down to sleep. I have a visit to make tomorrow that I am dreading, or I have a class to teach that I know people will not be happy to take, or I have a funeral to preside at and I dislike funerals. All these things can keep sleep at bay and I sit and think and toss and turn and count sheep but never fall asleep.
The transfiguration is a time to be awake, and yet the disciples are almost asleep. The disciples have just told Jesus who they think he is and Jesus takes the special three, the three amigos up on a mountain top alone and Jesus is changed right before their eyes. It is a momentous time in the life of Jesus and the three chosen disciples are almost asleep. Their eyes are groggy with sleep and I am not sure they truly understand the significance of the event they are witnessing. But then again, are we truly awake to understand all the things that God is doing right before our eyes?
Do we see the hand of God working through the hearts of people that we encounter every day? The person who stands at the intersection with a sign that says will work for food. Do we see God working in that person? Maybe God is asking us to be God’s hand that day to feed a person down on his or her luck? Maybe God is asking us to be God’s heart that day to show a person who is an outcast that God has not forgotten them?
Do we see God working in the weather? Here in the Northern Great Plains we are in the middle of a cold streak. The temperature has not climbed above zero for over two weeks. People are tired of the cold even through they should be used to it. I have only been in these parts for four years, they have been here a lifetime, and they complain more than I do! But, is God working in the cold and we just don’t see it? The cold is a way to keep the pathogens dormant and we might need dormant pathogens right now. The cold is a way to help people get closer together and people need to be closer to each other right now. The cold is a way to help people remember the blessings we all have here in America. Maybe God is trying to tell us something in this cold and we are just turning a blind eye to?
Or do we see God at work in the conflict in our churches? Right now, my national denomination is once again talking about homosexuality. I have to tell you, I am tired of talking about sex. I was told in seminary to leave money and politics out of the pulpit, but I would much rather talk about money and politics than sex. Sex is a gift of God and when the church talks about sex, it takes all the fun out of sex, plain and simple. People have their hard felt beliefs about sex, and people will fight tooth and nail when it comes to those beliefs. But could God be working in this conflict to show us something new? Could we all be wrong? Could there be something we are missing in this conflict that in our anger and bickering we have missed because we are blind to the movement of God in our world today? Could the problem in this conflict be that neither view is really seeing God at work? I don’t know.
The disciples did not have their eyes open to fully understand what was happening on the mount of Transfiguration and I find that today, most people are blind to the movement of God. Wake up! Amen
