Apparently some 25 years ago Ronald Regan told a story about a collective farm in the Soviet Union, in which a state commissar grabbed a farm worker and said, “Comrade, how are the crops?”  “Oh,” said the farm worker, “Comrade Commissar, if we could put the potatoes in one pile, they would reach the foot of God.”  The commissar corrected him, “This is the Soviet Union, comrade. There is no God.”   “That’s exactly right,” said the farm worker, “neither are there any potatoes.”  Not the funniest joke in the world I know but it does illustrate a point, for some reason we can’t seem to shake the notion that God is way up there and we are way down here making it a monumental task to reach even the foot of God let alone exist in God’s presence.  That is what we crave isn’t it to be in the presence of God, to feel close to God; to be on the mountain top and feel closer to God?

              Bill Myers a United Methodist pastor recalls one mountain from which he was glad to come down.  He and a friend were on the second day of a backpacking trip trying to catch up with the rest of their group and had just finished a steep climb to the top of a mountain when they heard a rumble of thunder and noticed dark, menacing clouds. Before they knew it the fast-moving storm was upon them. The sky grew dark and lightning flashed around them. They quickly abandoned their aluminum-framed backpacks and retreated about 100 feet away. A tarp provided some cover from the rain, but it was no protection from the trees they heard crashing down around them. There on that mountain they found themselves a little closer to God than they wanted to be, so close, in fact, they wondered if it would be the day they’d meet God face to face. Fortunately, the storm abated and while wet, they were unharmed. As they hiked down the other side of the mountain they were certainly more thankful for life and awestruck by God’s power than they were on the way up. 

           We may experience God more closely on the mountain top maybe in Pastor Bill’s case too closely. However it is at the foot of the mountain where we live most of our lives.  Like it or not life is not lived in the clouds but on the level ground and sometimes even in the valleys.  There will be mountain top experiences no doubt but even those are not as easy as they sound.  In the passage we read from Exodus this morning God invites Moses to come up to the top of Mt. Sinai so that Moses could receive God’s commandments for God’s people Israel.  So Moses started up the mountain and a cloud covered the mountain for six days.  If you have ever been stuck in an airport because your flight was delayed due to fog you know it is no fun; six hours seems like an eternity can you imagine being delayed for six days?  On the seventh day God calls to Moses out of the clouds as if to say “what’s the delay”; so Moses entered the cloud, and went up the mountain.  It was on Mt.

            What we learn from Moses on the mountaintop is that we each long for an experience of God — an encounter with the God who’s alive and powerful and gracious and loving. We want to enter into God’s presence, and spend time with God — as Moses did. We want to know that God loves us and we want to feel that love close to us only then will we really understand and accept God’s claim on our lives and God’s calling us to faithful living. However all too often we don’t feel that love at least not as closely as we would like, we don’t sense God’s presence with us, at least not as securely as we wish.  We feel like we are in a fog, we are searching for God, groping in hope that by the grace of God we may get lucky and find God’s foot poking down out of the clouds.  We wonder why we can’t be like Moses and have this close encounter with God.  Notice however where it is Moses finds God- in the clouds.  God doesn’t lift the fog so that Moses can see God more clearly instead God calls Moses into the clouds and it is there in the fog that Moses finds God.   Moses was in a fog for six days! But so was God! When we’re going through a period of confusion and disorientation, when we are in a fog it may seem like God is very distant but it could be that we’re precisely where we need to be, and that we’re exactly where God is.  God has promised to be in the fog with us.  We all need those mountain top experiences once in a while to feel especially close to God, but that is not where most of life is lived.  Most of life is lived on the level ground and sometimes in the valley and that is ok because when we come down off the mountain God is still with us. 

          I think that is the message we get from the first reading this morning from the Gospel according to Matthew.  Jesus and some of his disciples are up on the mountain and Jesus is revealed for who he really is- that is God.  Jesus was transfigured before their very eyes and his face shone and his clothes glowed.  Heroes of the faith long since gone from this life emerge and stand with Jesus.  As if this weren’t enough to cap it all off out of the clouds comes the very voice of God ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to Him!”  Sure they were overcome with fear and a profound sense of awe and wonder at what they had seen but after all that there would be no mistaking that Jesus was for real.  Peter was so taken by the experience that he wanted to set up dwelling places and stay there, but they don’t - they walk back down the mountain, down to the level ground.  In fact each step they take is one step closer to Jerusalem, to Jesus trial, and subsequent death.  I am sure when Peter was being asked those three times if he was the one others saw with Jesus, if he was one of Jesus’ followers- I am sure he wished he was back on that mountain top where God was near.  But that is just it God was near, God was with him, that was the whole point of what he and the other disciples saw up on that mountain.  No matter how far from the mountain he may have been that experience was with him, God was with him and God is with us. 

           Theologian Karl Barth is credited with having said, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us- then through the discourse of theologians it became words again.”   Friends in Christ God became flesh and dwelt among us- God came down off the mountain to be with us on the level ground and to pull us out of the valleys.  There is no place we can be that God isn’t with us, that is the startling truth of the gospel.  Sometimes however we so grapple with what that means for us that we forget.  Sometimes we are so distressed about being in the valley that we can’t remember.  Sometimes we are so consumed in our search for God that we neglect to open our eyes and see that God has already found us.  Mountaintop experiences are great, wonderful, feel good moments but we don’t get to stay on the mountain forever and that is ok because God is with us on the mountain and wherever we go.  So the joke at the beginning that wasn’t really funny may have been more true than the farmer realized even at having virtually no potatoes the stack would be enough to reach the foot of God because God isn’t just up there in some far off corner of the heavens God is here with us also.  Therefore it is safe for us to come down out of the clouds and live out our faith on the level ground trusting that God is still with us and that God’s steadfast love endures forever.  Amen.