Awakening

Matthew 17:1-9

Please note that some of the links in this sermon lead to descriptions of discriminative policies affecting LGBTQIA+ individuals and people capable of pregnancy. I include these policies to ensure that any narrative built around recent events at Asbury University do not leave out the violence done by such policies and the systems of theology from which they arise. In most cases, these links come from Asbury’s own website. We can be in awe of what God might be doing in a community while also challenging the ways that community harms vulnerable people.

Some of you may have heard of or read about something interesting that is going on in my home state of Kentucky. In Wilmore, just outside of Lexington, Kentucky, there is a small Christian liberal arts school called Asbury. Asbury University is officially non-denominational, but the institution was born out of and continues to be heavily shaped by the evangelical Wesleyan Holiness tradition. As of this morning, the chapel on that small college campus has hosted eleven days of non-stop evangelical worship. What reportedly started as a few students staying after the regular Wednesday chapel service has exploded into national and international headlines, with individuals and groups traveling from hours or even states away to join in. Musicians are taking turns playing for hours at a time. The spiritual life staff of the university, as well as students and faculty of the seminary housed on campus, have spent every waking moment praying and processing with the young people at the center of this movement. Students are reportedly sleeping in the chapel, and the administration has had to set up simulcast locations elsewhere on campus to accommodate all the visitors to campus. People I went to college with are bringing their entire families and staying in hotels near Asbury so that they can be close to the action. The media and many participants are referring to it as a revival.

I have not had the chance these past eleven days to drop everything and drive 8 hours homeward to see for myself what is happening in that chapel. The Revival movement is historically and culturally not one that fits comfortably for most Episcopalians and Anglicans, although we do have some shared instincts. The descriptions I’ve read and the videos I’ve seen do not so much resemble frantic Hollywood caricatures of tent revivals, but rather more like an emotionally heightened retreat weekend. There is a lot of singing, and hands in the air, and people so overcome with emotion that they weep or stand in silent awe, faces raised toward heaven or bowed in prayer. I’ve been at Episcopal camps for closing worship, and in Episcopal churches on Good Friday, and at the Great Vigil of Easter, and seen people spiritually overwhelmed in just the same way. It may challenge our habits and preferences to imagine such a display of emotion in an act of public worship. It definitely challenges mine. And yet, I keep coming back to it, watching and even finding myself rooting for them to continue their streak, fascinated by the question of when that chapel will again know silence. And what will come next.

In Asbury, as the days have gone on, more structure has been introduced- prayers and sermons by worship leaders and pastors, small group Bible studies, opportunities to share testimonies about what God is doing in people’s lives. I do not doubt that the Holy Spirit is at work, nor do I doubt the sincerity of most of the people being drawn to the experience. But I was immediately struck by the timing, as we approached today’s Gospel passage. At this time when the Christian world is talking about what is happening in the rolling hills of Kentucky, Jesus has taken a small group of close friends with him for a mountaintop experience. I wonder what the Spirit might be up to in all of this.

Six days after telling his disciples that he will be captured and killed and rise again, Jesus takes three of his disciples up to the top of a very high mountain. Not all the crowds whom he taught, not the twelve. Just three, Peter, James, and John. And right in front of them, there on that peak, Jesus is transformed, transfigured into a shining beacon of heavenly light. His face shines like the sun and his clothes dazzle the eyes of his friends. Moses and Elijah, the Law-giver and the great prophet, make their presence known and strike up a conversation with Jesus, all in front of the overwhelmed and inspired disciples. Poor Peter’s reaction always speaks to me. “Lord, it is good for us to be here!” Yes, it is good to be present to witness the in-breaking of the Divine, it is a gift and a privilege every time. It is almost never where you’d expect, although we’ve gotten so used to the idea of finding God on top of mountains and in churches that we risk taking those gifts for granted or even missing them when they come. Lord, it is good for us to be here. He’s right about that, dear Peter. It’s the next bit where he puts his foot in his mouth. “I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah.” God bless him, I might have said the same thing.

Lord, it is good for us to be here, in this spiritual high. Let’s capture it, build walls around it, keep it forever. Lord I know you said you’ve got work to do and that you’re probably going to be killed soon and all of that but what if instead you lived here on this mountain where we could always find you? What if we just never left this mountain?

The president of the Asbury Theological Seminary wrote in a blog post that he is not referring to what is happening in their chapel as a “revival” just yet. Instead, he is calling the eleven day marathon an “awakening.” Only in hindsight, says President Tennent, can a revival be recognized. Lasting transformation, the fruits of the awakening, are the only way to identify a revival. I have to admit that in this specific instance, I agree with my evangelical brother in Christ. What is the response of the voice from heaven to Peter’s bright idea? “This is my son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him!” Listen to Jesus. Listen to him when he tells you how to live, who to love, where to go and what to say when you get there. Listen to him, because everything he’s told you is part of your awakening.

The mountaintop moments of faith, whether they be on the peak of Mount Tabor or in the chapel of a college or at a retreat center or in a tent in a field, are necessarily fleeting. We cannot sustain the emotional high of Easter morning year round any more than we could survive trapping ourselves in the devastation of Good Friday. We are mortal, and so we cannot sing Holy Holy Holy in perpetuity, not this side of the resurrection. It is what we do in between the mountain tops, how we live in the valleys and the plains of our everyday lives that reveal the never-ending creativity of the Holy Spirit.

I don’t know what will happen on February 24^th, the day after Asbury University has announced it will return to its normal worship schedule and no longer host the hordes of outside guests currently overwhelming the campus and its resources. I don’t know if this spiritual experience will lead the administration to reexamine their policies on human sexuality, reproductive healthcare, or gender. I don’t know if the attention they’ve attracted in recent weeks will affect enrollment, or if any of those young people in the chapel at all hours will still identify as Christians when they graduate. I don’t know if anyone entered that chapel a skeptic and left a Christian. Only time will tell what was awakened, and if anything was revived.

What I do know is that Jesus told his disciples to get up, and not to be afraid. He went down the mountain with them, and he kept teaching them even with his last breath. He did not expect them to see him in his glory once and never question him again. He did not expect them to see Moses and Elijah with their own eyes and suddenly understand everything they were taught. All Jesus asked of his friends was that they keep listening, keep learning and keep trying. This is all he asks of us, on the mountaintop and in the valley and on every hike and hill in between. We listen to Jesus. The Holy Spirit will reveal what comes next.