Godly Essentials

Transfiguration Sunday
February 10, 2013
West Side Moravian Church

What is essential

Brothers and sisters, what is essential for our salvation is that God wants us to be healthy spiritually, God acts to allow us to be healthy, and God enables us to accept life in its fullness. What is essential in a life of spiritual health is that we live faithful to God, that we live hopeful of God's triumph, and that we act out love towards all whom God loves.

The most that can be said of anything else is that it draws us to these essentials.

The scriptures today assure us of God's desire for us to be spiritually alive and healthy. They describe ways that God has acted on our behalf and they declare that God's action has been effective in human life.

Mount Sinai 1

When Moses and the Hebrew people went out from Eqypt, when they left slavery behind them, God went with them. Now, there was no question about the power of God. They had just watched God bring the most powerful nation in their world to its knees. They had been on the shore of the Sea of Reeds when God defeated the pursuing army. God is powerful. And scary. And God was travelling on the road with them.

First of all, the attributes of power must be understood, and we must understand that it breeds fear, for power makes it possible for cruelty to rule, threaten, abuse, do violence, imprison, beat, and kill. … Power will better prosper and endure by these means than by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick, … [Peter Chelcicky]

This is power as we know it, power as the Hebrews had experienced it under the Pharoah and taskmasters in Eqypt. It is worth remembering, therefore, that God decided to travel along the road with the people, to provide food in the wilderness, to find water in the rocks, to set a limit to contagion. This was power taking on a different form.

When the Hebrews came to Mount Sinai, the holy mountain, God was on the mountain with them. When the Hebrew people wandered for 40 years across the deserted places, God's tent was in their camp with them. God loved them and believed in them so much that God pitched a tent among the people.

The tent is not essential. What is essential is that God desired good for the people and took action to bring them salvation.

When Moses went up the mountain, God shared with him God's guidance for how we should live. It was not enough for God to slog along the trail with the wandering tribes; it was not enough to provide food and water to meet their physical needs. God wanted us to be healthy in all ways.

So God provided guidance for our spiritual health. But there was one flaw: We did not accept the guidance. Rather than finding a guidebook leading us toward perfection, we – our ancestors certainly, but also we ourselves – we understood the Law of God to be an obstacle to overcome. Rather than following a road to bring all people together, we – our ancestors certainly, but also we ourselves – we used the Law of God as a barrier to keep people out. Rather than working together to achieve spiritual health, we – our ancestors certainly, but also we ourselves – we turned the Law of God into a system to lord over other human beings. We took God's guidance for social and spiritual health and turned it into an edifice of personal power.

Mount Sinai 2

As time went on, God's gift to human beings became lost under the accretions which we heaped up on top of it. Rather than hearing the simple words which God gave us, we followed twisting paths that led around and over and under the guidance God had offered. So God sent prophets to point out what was important. But there was a flaw: We did not listen to the prophets.

Elijah complained to God. He said, Lord God All-Powerful, I've always done my best to obey you. But your people have broken their solemn promise to you. They have torn down your altars and killed all your prophets, except me. And now they are even trying to kill me! [CEV] Then God's word came to Elijah like a gentle breeze.

The soft breeze is not essential. What is essential is that God wanted the people to be spiritually healthy and took action to make it so.

God asked Elijah, Why are you here? Why are you hiding? Why are you afraid? Elijah was a powerful man and a close ally of God, but with all the other prophets killed and the king's soldiers hot on his trail, even Elijah felt afraid. Elijah explained his fear to God, and God said, Stand at the mouth of the cave and watch. God was saying, watch and listen to the power which will be standing beside you, if you stand with God. Then, after Elijah saw some signs of God's raw power, God speaks again to Elijah. God speaks quietly, gently, like a friend standing beside you, and again God asks Elijah, Why are you here? God says, Go back into the world, go back to your work. And don't be afraid of the twisted power of human beings.

When Elijah was running away, running to hide himself at the mountain of God, God provided food and water which enabled Elijah to run to Sinai. But for God it was not enough to offer bread and water that provided for Elijah's physical needs. In the soft voice, that gentle breeze, God gave Elijah courage to continue his work as God's prophet.

The water was not essential. The earthquake and fire were not essential. The gentle breeze was not essential. What was essential was that God wanted good for people and made it possible for Elijah to continue working.

So God provided confidence to Elijah and to the other prophets who called us back to hearing God's guidance. Some of our ancestors heard part of their message once in awhile, but overall we imagined the prophets were calling us to be exactly what we had already chosen to be. We deflected their words from ourselves and onto anyone who was standing in our way. We turned the prophetic voice into a murmur for the status quo.

Mount [Tabor]

As time went on, God's call to justice, love, and healthy living was lost under the explanations which we heaped on top of it. Rather than hearing the simple words which God gave us, we followed twisting paths around the guidance which God had given. So God came as one of us.

When Jesus came to us, he lived out the guidance which God had already given Moses, the guidance on how to live in order to live lives that are healthy in all ways. When Jesus came to us, his life breathed the gentle breeze which spoke courage to Elijah. When Jesus came to us, he lived a life of power, that strange, Godly power that was able to walk toward Jerusalem, suffering, and death.

When Jesus went up the mountain, his appearance was transformed into light. His solitude was transformed into conversation with Moses and with Elijah. The very air about him was transformed into the Glory of the Presence of God.

The light was not essential. The conversation was not essential. The cloud was not essential.

What is essential, brothers and sisters, is that God has wanted us to be healthy spiritually, God has acted to allow us to be healthy, and God has enabled us to live life in its fullness. What is essential is that we are faithful to God, that we are hopeful of God's triumph, and that we act out love towards all whom God loves.


Peter Chelcicky, Treatises on Christianity and the Social Order, translated by Howard Kaminsky; in William Bowsky, editor, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History (1964), pages 138, 140; as quoted by Craig D. Atwood, The Theology of the Czech Brethern From Hus to Comenius (2009), page 139.