Life doesn't happen on the mountaintop it happens in the valleys. St Peter's Niagara Falls Last Epiphany Year B, Feb. 11, 2018

 +On this Transfiguration Sunday, this first Sunday before Lent, we look ahead, we glance behind and we take stock of our own faith journeys-
have we been transformed, have we been transfigured?
     Episcopal priest Adam Thomas  says that the Transfiguration isn't so much about the change in Jesus' appearance, or about the arrival of Moses and Elijah, or even about the proclamation of God from the cloud. …instead, says Thomas, the Transfiguration is about how a glimpse of the Holy, an experience of the Divine, transformed the disciples, and how it can-how it must-- transform us.
 There's no doubt that exposure to the Holy, the Divine, casts a physical change- Moses' skin shone when he encountered God, Jesus' face and clothes glisten in this morning's gospel account of the Transfiguration-but the real change, the everlasting change, is what happens internally, when one experiences the Divine.
What really matters is how that experience changes us, how we carry it in our day-to-day lives.
       According to Biblical scholar Fred Craddock, mountain top experiences are fine and dandy, but where the rubber really meets the road is what happens when we come down off the mountain, when we enter the valley where the light has faded, the sheen dulled, and the dirt and grime of daily life predominates.
 Craddock and Thomas are on to something here…Christianity isn't about mountaintops, it's about valleys.  Because if it was about mountaintops then
Jesus wouldn't have been born in a barn to peasant parents from a backwater town. If it was about mountaintops Jesus wouldn't have been executed like a common criminal, hung on a tree, mocked and spat upon. If it was about mountaintops Jesus' followers wouldn't have been a rag-tag band of disciples who fell asleep at a drop of a hat, doubted at the slightest turn, or denied their teacher in times of greatest need.
 No, this faith of ours is the faith of the valley. This faith of ours gets lived out in the ordinary of our day-to-day lives, because Christianity is less about fancy and more about simple.
              But simple doesn't mean less Holy.
Even down here in the valley, sacred things happen all the time. The Holy can-the Holy does-- pop up everywhere.
The sacred isn't necessarily glamorous and the Holy needn't come in some transfigured glory. Usually, God's right here, walking with us through the valley of regular life.
    But, who can blame Peter (or the rest of us) for wanting to freeze that moment of glory upon the mountain, to linger in the wisdom and wonder of Elijah, Moses, Jesus and God?
That's far more appealing than going back to daily life.
But Peter forgets that such an overwhelming experience of the Holy isn't the transformative thing-no the Technicolor wow of an experience of the sacred, of the Holy is simply the fuel for change. Blockbuster encounters with the Holy serve as the nourishment needed to follow God's directive that we listen to God's beloved Son-and use the Good News of his life and ministry to transform this world.
Peter sees the Transfiguration but fails to feel the transformation.
     Everyone has experienced this in one form or another---we have some powerful experience-a moment when we feel truly touched by God and we swear, we swear that this is it, we'll change our ways, we'll never forget, we'll turn over a new leaf…but it doesn't last. It doesn't last because the high of that moment cannot be sustained.
It cannot be sustained because life doesn't happen on the mountaintop it happens in the valleys.
      In the Holy Land there are two sites considered most probable as locations for the Transfiguration. At one of these sites, Mt.Tabor, a gorgeous church has been built. The day I visited was very sunny and the view from atop the mountain was as stunning. I didn't want to leave! I lingered, taking lots of pictures, trying to freeze the mountaintop moment- I wanted to stay there forever! In this way, I guess I was a lot like Peter. But soon I had to go and suddenly our tour group was back in reality. Jesus, James, John and Peter do the same thing.
Jesus' reality, his valley, is on full display, in the few lines following today's Gospel excerpt we hear about infighting among Jesus' followers, clamoring  among people desperate for Jesus' healing touch and temple authorities out for His blood.
     It's here, at this point of the Gospel, that the true meaning of transformation becomes clear.
For all the bright shiny white garments, all the glorious sun splashed mountaintop views, all the unremitting wonder of God's voice booming from the heavens doesn't heal our world.
All the experiences of the Holy, all the sacred feelings, all the Transfigurations doesn't bring God's kingdom to earth.
What heals this world, what brings the Holy right here, right now, are people. People like you and me who've listened to God's Son, and try our best to live as we've been taught:
Finding the sacred in the mundane,  finding the holy in the ordinary and being transformed by the routine.
For our faith is not the faith of royalty, it's the faith of peasants.
Ours isn't the faith of the powerful, it's the faith of the weak and ours isn't the faith of the mountaintop it's the faith of the valley.
Today, as we dedicate the kitchen renovations that will transform the lives of the Carolyn's House residents, and many many others, the Gospel challenges us live into the fullness of what the incarnation:
We are to journey with Jesus to Jerusalem, we are to climb upon His cross and we are to lay alongside him in his tomb.
 Today we climb off the mountaintop of the nativity and and walk down into the valley of real life ---- not a walk of despair and hopelessness but a walk of transformed faith and transfigured hope rejoicing that we, along with with God's Son, and along with all who are served by and through you in Christ's name are Chosen and Beloved by God. Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.
Amen