This Sunday, we wrap up the season of creation with Mountain Sunday. What is it about mountains that can be at once holy, inspiring, and intimidating all at the same time? We will also consider the joys and perils of the "mountaintop experience."
Our starting point is the idea of the holy mountain found in Isaiah and in the Psalms (see Isaiah 65:17-25 and Psalm 48).
Over the month of September, we have focused our attention on God’s creation. We have heard the stories of God’s mighty acts and touched on our need to care for creation as God has cared for us. As we look at the planet on which we live, the people we share it with, and the many different aspects of this world, we find beauty and interconnectedness, and we find places in need of care.
Today, we turn our eyes to the mountains of this world. I suspect most of you have seen mountains in real life. Perhaps you have driven up into the lower Appalachians for hiking and camping. Maybe you have been out west and seen the taller, more jagged peaks of the Rocky Mountains. Maybe you’ve seen the Alps in Europe or possibly even the Himalayas in southeast Asia. Perhaps you can think back to your first look at these mountains. How did they make you feel?
For as long as people have existed, mountains have inspired awe, wonder, and inspiration among the people who have seen them. In many cultures around the world, mountains are considered sacred. In Japan, Mt. Fuji has long been revered, even given the Japanese honorific of respect by many people -- Fuji-sama. Mt. Olympus figures prominently in ancient Greek beliefs. Machu Picchu in South America was a sacred site to the Incan people. Here in our own country, we know that many mountain ranges or particular mountains have been sacred to native peoples, from the coastal ranges of the Pacific Northwest to the Black Hills of the Dakotas to Blood Mountain right here in Georgia.
It is no surprise then that mountains figure prominently in many stories in our Bibles. Following the great flood, the ark comes to rest on a mountain. After God freed the Isarealites from bondage in Egypt, Moses met with God on a mountain. Elijah sees God’s glory on a mountain.
In our Christian scriptures, while Jesus is fasting in the wilderness following his baptism, Satan takes Jesus to a high mountain in order to tempt him with power. Later, Jesus frequently climbs mountains in order to pray. He chooses his disciples on a mountain, preaches from the sides of mountains, prays in the garden on the Mount of Olives. In an echo of our readings today, Paul speaks of Mount Zion, the holy mountain, in the letter to the Hebrews. In the book of Revelation, echoing the temptation of Jesus, John is taken to a high mountain so that he can see all the nations of the earth.
If we consider the heavens as the realm of God, it is not difficult to understand why mountains are seen as holy in both our tradition and in others around the world. Mountains are a part of this world that stretch up into the heavens. Mountains connect the earthly realm to the realm of the divine. As in Hebrew tradition, cultures around our world have seen mountains as the place where gods dwell when they come to earth.
In today’s readings, Isaiah builds up to naming God’s holy mountain. Sharing with us God’s words, Isaiah tells us that God is creating a new heaven and a new earth. In this new place, past events will be forgotten. No longer will anyone cry. No one will live for a short time; the lives of people will be like the age of long-lived trees. The people will not labor in vain nor bear children into a broken and horrible world. No one and no thing will hurt or destroy at any place on God’s holy mountain.
This sounds an awful lot like our vision of what heaven must be like -- a place with no pain, no need to cry; a place of unending life and well-being; a place devoid of violence and destruction. In the world in which they lived at the time, this was a vision of hope for the Hebrew people. As I mentioned last week, we must be aware of these prophetic visions and how they are thoroughly grounded in the events of the times in which they were written. This part of Isaiah was likely written in the time period immediately after the Babylonian exile that Jeremiah was alluding to in last week’s reading. During the invasion by the Babylonians and the period that followed, people’s homes and crops were destroyed, people’s lives were cut short, and many people were carried away to live in the homes of other people and to toil in the fields of others.
With the end of the exile in sight, is it any wonder that Isaiah envisions a world of hope? A world in which all of the pain of the previous period is put behind them and forgotten? A world where the people get to live to old age in their own homes tending to their own crops? A world where the violence that the Hebrew people were subjected to is no more?
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, we see some similar themes in our Psalm today. Psalm 48 picks up on some of the same imagery of the holy city on God’s holy mountain. But the tone of the Psalm is vastly different from the tone of Isaiah’s vision. Where Isaiah finds hope in peace and serenity, in long life and the absence of destruction, the psalmist finds hope in God’s strength and fortifications. Rather than describing the holy mountain in terms of peace, the psalmist describes the mountain as a place of safety. He tells us how the kings of the world tremble in fear before the strength of God’s mountain.
When we look to the mountains and think of God’s handiwork, I think we can experience many emotions at once. We can be inspired when we look to the mountains. We can be in awe of their majesty and grandeur. We can see them as a place of strength, something that is eternal and not easily moved or destroyed. Our experience of mountains may leave us trembling in fear or feeling deeply relaxed. We may even feel both at the same time.
Remember again your own experience of mountains. Are you more likely to experience mountains as Isaiah saw them or as the Psalmist presents them?
One of the other important stories involving mountains in the New Testament that I did not name earlier is the story of the Transfiguration of Jesus. In this story, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John with him up a mountain. While there, the disciples see Jesus conversing with Elijah and Moses (though I admit to being curious how they knew who these two Biblical characters were on sight). During this encounter, Jesus becomes dazzling in their sight and a voice from heaven, in an echo of the Baptism story, claims Jesus as God’s own son.
Expressing both the fear and the awe that we have named, the disciples aren’t sure how to respond. Peter suggests that they build shrines on top of the mountain so that they may stay there in worship. But Jesus reminds them that there is much work still to be done, and leads them back down the mountain and into the ministry that remains.
Whether we consider this story the source of our own ideas of the “mountaintop experience” or merely an example of it, we can easily recognize this idea from our own lives. People speak of life-altering experiences, moments of pure clarity in which they understand the world and their place in it, as a mountaintop experience. These experiences may be on a literal mountaintop, or they may take place in other places. Most often, people describe having these experiences after a time of challenge or hard work. They attain a state of euphoria or joy as they finally understand their place in the world. They may even describe it as a moment of connection with the divine, a time when they experience a personal closeness to God.
Most of the time, these experiences come about unbidden. Peter, James, and John were not expecting their experience on the mountain. Moses was not expecting to encounter God while tending his father-in-law's flocks when he stepped aside to examine a burning bush. Isaiah did not go out seeking to have visions from God. These experiences were a gift from God.
For many of us who have had a mountaintop experience, it is likely the same. We may be going through a time of difficulty and experience a sudden sense of hope and a vision of a better world. We may be hiking a tall mountain and be inspired by the beauty we see and our connection to it. We may be visiting with people completely different from ourselves and have an overwhelming sense of God’s love and presence to us and those around us. The important thing is for us to recognize the gift for what it is and to accept the ways in which that gift can change our lives.
However, these experiences are not without their dangers as well. Too often, we go out in search of the experience, trying to force an experience of God on our own terms. Or, if we have had a live-changing experience like this, we may spend all of our time seeking to recreate that experience. This is what the disciples tried to do. “It is good that we are here. Let us stay in this place and worship.” But that is not what God expects of us. Jesus chides the disciples that there is still ministry to be done, reminding us all that we cannot simply remain apart from the rest of the world in an attempt to remain with God. God grants us these experiences to provide us with both hope and the strength to lead the way into that new reality.
What are we inspired to do after we have these experiences of the divine? Where do our mountaintop experiences take us?
Whether we see them as sacred or not, mountains have inspired people for millennia. In many places around the globe, indigenous peoples have been inspired by the mountains around them, telling stories and seeking connection. They have cared for the beauty of the world around them, including the high places of our world.
In our own history on this continent, the great naturalists of the last two centuries have found inspiration in the mountains of our country. Henry David Thoreau wrote about the wilderness of our nation, even dedicating lines to Mount Katahdin in Maine. Famed naturalist John Muir wrote about the mountains of California. The work of these men and others inspired early conservation efforts to protect the wilderness areas of our country, particularly the mountains.
As our annual Season of Creation draws to a close, how are we inspired by God's creation around us? How do we understand our place as a part of creation, and how do we understand God’s command that we rule over the rest of creation? Where do our mountaintop experiences take us?
At the very least, I pray that we recognize in the beauty of the creation around us the signs of God’s handiwork. Just as the beauty of this planet, from the flowers of the field to the majesty of the mountains to the vaults of the heavens, proclaim God’s glory, may our time together and our presence in the world point as surely to God’s love and grace for all that God has made.