Hey, Call Jesus

Transfiguration/Last Epiphany

27 Feb 2022

A preacher gets two chances to preach the transfiguration story every year. The first is at the end of Epiphany and the next is in early August. Maybe it is a good thing the second occasion is likely to be a weekday and, lacking the popularity of Epiphany, no one tries to sneak the feast day to the nearest Sunday. This year I get one chance to break open this text in all its befuddlement.

These texts ARE befuddling to me. The more I study them, the more confused I get. All three follow a very similar path: Peter confesses Jesus as the Messiah, Jesus predicts his own death, the small group of core disciples goes up the mountain and Jesus shines or glows or looks like he has been bleached; Elijah and Moses are there. The voice of God is heard saying Jesus is his son. At the end of each version, a boy, an only son, is freed of a demon who possessed him. The disciples could not do it; Jesus alone was able to accomplish the deed.

OK, so where does that leave you and I? This story has been told for almost 2000 years. It is one of the stories I remember hearing as a child. Jesus going up the mountain, taking his core group with him. In my cynical moments I think it was a good thing Jesus lived in Palestine and not Nepal, where a mountain top could mean death from lack of oxygen.

But the story really is not about the mountain itself; it’s not about claiming our own great moments, the ones we call our mountain top experiences. I have had a few and I hope you have as well but that misses the mark when trying to understand this great story of our faith. .

Instead, I would like you to think about what this means for you and I as followers of Jesus. The story was first put to paper long after the death of Jesus and was meant to teach his followers about the Way. It needs to teach us about the Way and what it means for our life today. We see Jesus in a blaze of glory, the radiance of God. But what is Jesus talking about in the story? Not how wonderful it is to be the Son of God, but rather he talks to Elijah and Moses about his impending death. He literally says he is going on his exodus to Jerusalem, where he knows exactly what awaits him. Talk about a way to spoil a good day!! In all three Gospels the inner group see yet fail to understand. All think that this is a culmination, much like the climax of a great story. Instead it is the beginning of the long road to Jerusalem.

Luke was writing this story for people who were confused; it was a fairly widespread belief among early Christians that Jesus would return in their lifetime, something that obviously had not happened. People needed to function in the world that was around them, just as we do. When Covid first came among us, isolation and lock downs were not nearly as difficult; surely this would all be over in a matter of a few weeks or months. Well, we know how that played out and how it is playing out now. For the early followers of the Way, the mindset may have been similar. We can sell our goods and share and wait it out. It didn’t work. All the Gospels make it clear that followers must depend on Jesus, on God, but also must live in this world. The transfiguration is, among other things, a way of telling me I have picked the right way to be. I did not pick the easy way.

I keep asking myself why the disciples could not cast out the demon from the boy, a boy who was his only child and on whom he would depend when he grew old. It was a desperate situation. The disciples had been given the power to do what needed to be done, but still could not. This is why I love Raphael’s painting. Despite showing Jesus as ethnically of northern European heritage, he got the full story of the Transfiguration. At the bottom of the painting are several disciples trying unsuccessfully to cast out the demon. Onlookers point upward to the transfigured Jesus, as if to say, “Hey, I bet Jesus could handle this; call him!!”

What is this story saying to you and to me, today in the year 2022? The beauty of the story is that there are multiple ways to enter in. I am a white Euro-American who is fairly privileged and economically comfortable. I am also queer and female and come from a background where folks were not comfortable. My history colors the way I see this story, and every story.

I see on the one hand the great manifestation of Jesus as the Son of God, all the awe and glory and wonder and even fear of it and on the other hand, or at the same time, the acknowledgement of what this meant for Jesus. It would kill him!! A different Jesus comes down the mountain than went up. And while it may almost seem to be an afterthought, the story of release of the demon from the man’s son, and the inability of the disciples to do so, says much about Jesus’ mission in the world AND our own. If we see the Transfiguration as the place where God becomes manifest in Jesus, where his entire mission, including death and resurrection, are confirmed, then we have our own mission statement.

We need to go into the world. How and where we do that is less important than the impulse to do it. Luke made a point in our reading from last week of the stark and difficult nature of God’s command to us: love our enemies and do good to them. This week’s charge is perhaps just as challenging: how do we as Christians act in the world? Are we going to be the disciples who could not cast out a demon or the ones who can?

I recently read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book Leadership In Turbulent Times. Goodwin is a masterful writer, and I came away with a new respect and awe for the four presidents whose stories she told (Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, FDR, and Lyndon Johnson). While there were great differences in the religious and political views, it was clear all believed that if you are given power the welfare of vulnerable people, especially those that have no power themselves, is the first duty of government.

There is no way I would ever have had the ability to do what any of them did. But each one of them, as flawed as they were, accomplished great good. I know I can never reach the level Jesus reached, not even the level of Lincoln. But that is not my role. My role is to be who I am met to be, and that is yours as well. As Christians, I believe this story is telling us something about who we are to be by telling us about the God made man we chose to follow. The disciples failed at first but go on to create a new world order. They cast out the worst of demons. The sick are healed, the hungry fed. We know where the road is leading in the next 43 days. We go down that road every year, even if it is never the same. We can do it because we have faith in the one who was transfigured and who soon will give his life for us.