Readings
Exodus 34:29-35
Psalm 99
2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2
Luke 9:28-36, [37-43a]
Today we hear the story of Jesus’ transfiguration before his closest disciples. In it we hear of Jesus becoming radiant and his clothes appearing dazzling white. We hear of him standing and talking with Moses and Elijah, two figures who symbolically represent the law and the prophets (in other words the whole of Jewish history and theology – the whole of the Covenant with God). In this story we see the disciples overwhelmed and struggling with how to respond in the face of it all. And finally, we hear the voice of God coming from a cloud telling the disciples “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”
We could spend an inordinate amount of time unpacking all the imagery in this passage. We could spend equal amounts of time searching for the spirituality of what happened. But today I would like us instead to focus on the words of God. “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”
It is easy, as people of faith, to presume that we listen to Jesus. This may be especially true if we have a daily prayer discipline or regularly read our Bibles. But friends, when I look at my own life, I wonder how well I listen to Jesus and how often I take my own thoughts and assumptions and project them onto him.
Peter, in today’s story did just that. He used the framework of his religious upbringing and made an assumption about what should be done in the face of his miraculous encounter with the transfigured Lord.
How often do we do the same? How easy is it for us to take the frames, ideologies, and metaphors of our life and project them onto Jesus? Project them into our theology and our understanding of how God is or is not at work in the world?
In today’s Gospel we see confirmed that Jesus is the fulfillment of the whole of Hebrew scripture. In today’s Gospel we see confirmed that he comes, as he said, not to abolish the law but to fulfill it. We see that the shape and pattern of his life and the content of his teaching is authoritative for us and for the world in which we live.
We are, in today’s Gospel, being challenged to make the shape of our life match the shape of Jesus’ life. We are being called to internalize his teaching and to claim its truth. In short, we are to so listen to him that what we say and do reflects what he said and did.
But that is not as simple as it may sound. We, like Peter, are tempted to take a host of cultural and social teachings and project them onto our religious understanding. We’re tempted to assume, without reflection, that because of our Christian identity our understanding is an appropriate response to whatever we face in our life.
We are living in a time when such thinking is rampant. In our current polarized society, we have Christians taking strong political and social positions that may or may not be informed by the teaching of Jesus. And lest you be concerned that I am speaking only to one side or the other, let me say clearly that this is true on both sides of the divide.
We live in a time when there are plenty of Christians who are ready to make their Church either the Republican Party at prayer or the Democratic Party at prayer. There are those who are quick to take what are, in fact, assumptions that come from sources other than our faith and to “cherry pick” verses from the Bible to bolster their claims.
The truth is, friends, that we live in difficult and scary times. Not since the civil war has our culture been so deeply divided. There is much for which to be uncertain or concerned.
But if we are to be followers in the way of Jesus, if we are to be the ones who “listen to him,” then we must resist the temptation to simply take the secular ideology which we find most comfortable or comforting and dress it in religious clothes. We must be quiet and embrace the mystery of the moment before us. We must hold ourselves to a standard higher than what either side of the political divide would call us to.
Following in the way of Jesus is neither easy nor cost free. In the end it will anger and frustrate both sides of our divided nation.
“How so?” you may ask. Well, as an example, as followers of Jesus we are called to “love” our enemies and “pray” for those who persecute us. And yet if you listen to the rhetoric of the present age there is little room for love or prayer. No, if anything we are called to hate our enemies and to either persecute or prosecute them.
Now there are those who say that religion or the expression of religion has no place in politics. But I would disagree. Our faith, if we take it seriously, has real social and political implications. We need to remember that Jesus didn’t live in a vacuum. He lived in a time when both the Roman and the Jewish authorities were impacting the lives of people in significant ways. We need to remember that Jesus spoke to those realities as he reflected his authentic understanding of the law and the prophets. And we need to remember that Jesus’ life and teaching led him to being prosecuted and executed as a political prisoner. Jesus’ teaching had real social and political impact and there were many in his society who felt threatened by him.
Friends, Jesus calls us to live differently in the world. We are to be a people who care for our neighbors, understanding that neighbor is neither a term of geography nor affiliation. In other words, we are called to love everyone. We are called to recognize that we are loved by God. We are called to recognize that our relationship with God is about the nature and quality of our relationships with others. We are called to recognize that God cares about the poor, the powerless, and the marginalized and that we are called to do the same. We are called to work for justice and peace. But not simply equality before the law or the cessation of violence, but for a world in which the dignity and worth of every human being is valued and honored. We are called to do the hard work of creating a justice system that restores people rather than simply punishes them. And finally, we are called to take up our own cross and follow Jesus wherever that my lead.
And when we take that vision and those values into our society we must be attentive to be true to the one whom we are called to follow. We must make sure that the conclusions we draw are in fact in line with Jesus’ message and the shape of his life. There may well be other voices that are congruent with what we stand for, but we need remember that we advocate and work for the Kingdom of God and the vision of Christ.
Even as we live in these difficult and uncertain times, we stand in the midst of the cloud with the transfigured Lord before us. The question for each of us is will we listen to him?