Text: Matt 17:1-9
Introduction
Transfiguration Sunday is always the last Sunday of the Epiphany season. It is the full Epiphany. What started out as a baby in a Manger being visited by Magi has become the grown rabbi teaching. We’ve spent the last few weeks reading the Sermon on the Mount – the catechism of that teaching. But what I want to say today – what I think is an important part of the text before us – is not as direct as that teaching. It is more of an experience. It might be more intimate with ourselves and our confusing times.
The examples I intend to use might be hard to hear. I’m using them because they are what is in front of us on the front pages or what leads the news broadcast. That is either a trigger warning, or simply a plea to leave your ears open for a few minutes.
Trouble in the World
Journalism has always been about telling stories. Every article about boxers used to be a morality play about the champ battling his demons and overcoming them. Until boxing itself became a bloodsport that polite society could no longer tolerate. Of course it was replaced in the popular imagination with MMA.
One thing about telling stories about humans is that there are the external facts. A happened, then B, which lead to C and D. Journalism used to major in that story leaving it to the readers imagination to make the connections as to why B lead to C and D. When you are living in a shared moral universe, the majority of people fill in the same reasons, or even if they aren’t exactly the same, they can understand each other. Truman dropping the A-bomb, at the time – due to the shared moral universe – might have been a heroic call that ended the war fast, it might have been a necessary evil, but nobody would have called him a moral monster. That came later.
Depending upon what your primary news source is, the after a month recap of the Trump presidency is either: “Dangerously out of control” or “Surprisingly effective given fierce opposition”. And each one of those stories will string together events A, B, C, D to tell that story. The same was true for the 8 years of Obama. It was either “Amateur hour” or “8 dimension chess” the only difference being those who told the “Amateur hour” story didn’t have as big a megaphone.
But there is a particular story that I want to highlight. If you’ve avoided it, happy is your world. I’m sorry I’m intruding upon it. Theoretically he’s infamous enough to just go by one name Milo. I’ll stick to that because I can’t reliably pronounce his last name. The simple A, B, C of Milo is that he was a flamboyant homosexual Trump supporter who worked for Breitbart News. But the stories about Milo that were told are not just binary, although there is some of that, but functioned more like a Rorschach test. You could see what you wanted see. The far left saw something that shouldn’t be. And because he shouldn’t be, they would set out to make it so, even at the extent of violent rioting. UC-Berkeley rioted causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to prevent Milo from speaking at that campus. Ross Douthat, the New York Times conservative columnist, saw Milo as a performance artist. By performance artist he meant that he thought large parts of MILO were made up for the camera or inauthentic for the purpose of creating a new community. If Mr. Douthat thought he was more authentic he would have called him a community organizer. But he didn’t like the community of video gamers, flamboyant homosexuals, outright racists,assorted losers of the meritocracy that Mr. Douthat won, and everybody that has ever been told to shut up that MILO brought together. At the other extreme is a University of Chicago professor of Medieval History. She saw a truth-telling Holy Fool. The core truth which she saw was an important one. One of the A, B, C’s I left out was that Milo claims to be Catholic – the same religion as Mr. Douthat. And when pressed about how could he be a Catholic and gay, MILO would simply answer, “What else would I be? I’m a sinner.” If you ever saw him give that answer, it wasn’t with an ironic smirk. The audiences would always laugh at that, which tells you how religiously ignorant the audience is, but MILO said it straight – a public confession. Was it evil (the left), performance art (Mr. Douthat) or truth (professor)?
Trouble in the Text
Milo’s story has a bunch of other layers, but my purpose isn’t to use these 15 minutes to preach Milo. That is enough to make the comparison.
In the Gospel according to Matthew after Jesus emerges from the temptation in the desert, he begins his teaching, and the first thing recorded is he goes back to Nazareth, his hometown. He reads from Isaiah – “those dwelling in the region and the shadow of death, on them a light has dawned”. And then he adds, “these words have been fulfilled in your hearing”. The people of Nazareth didn’t exactly see Mary’s Son in that way. Jesus would go to the top of the Mountain – what we’ve been reading these past weeks – and authoritatively proclaim the law. He wasn’t claiming to be Moses because Moses didn’t give the law at the top of mountain. Moses gave it at the bottom. God gave it at the top. Jesus heals a centurion’s servant and says “not in all of Israel have I found faith like this.” He calls fishermen to follow, and when a learned scribe comes up and says “I will follow you wherever you go” Jesus replies “foxes have holes and bird have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head.” In other words – “go home, you can’t hack it.” They bring a paralytic to him, and he says “your sins are forgiven”. He calls Matthew, the tax collector, from his counting table and then he goes and has dinner with all of his tax collector and sinner friends. They come and ask him why he or his disciple don’t fast and Jesus answers “How do you fast when the bridegroom is here?” When they saw him picking grain on the Sabbath he replies “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” They demand a sign, he’s been doing miracles so it is not an outrageous request – the centurion and some other gentiles have done it, and Jesus says – “the only thing you’ll get is the sign of Jonah.”
And then Jesus turns to his disciples and asks, “Who do people say that I am?”
And their answers are carefully tailored but still spread. The disciples tell Jesus “some say the Baptist, others Elijah, others Jeremiah or another prophet”. They leave out the Pharisees who would say “Son of Beelzebub”. They leave out the High Priests who would say, “the rabble he gathers puts the political order at risk”. Peter would step forward and proclaim “You are Christ, the son of the living God!”
Peter’s confession is cheered, but then Jesus adds, “oh, by the way, I’ve got to go to Jerusalem, and suffer and die, and then be raised.” This is the work of the Christ. To which Peter relies, “No Way, that is not the Christ, that I just confessed.”
Gospel in the Text
If we were left to ground our own stories. All of them would be built on sand.
I challenged a fellow pastor “how many different answers have you given to why you became a pastor?” When people ask the question I think they are usually looking for the plus/minus list. And we are human, so we have that list. And depending upon who is asking you, and what you know of their situation, you can answer the question appropriately. And all of those answers are the truth, small t. The capital T truth though had better be, I was called. I couldn’t do anything else and still follow Jesus.
All of those plus/minus answers are a useful exercise in discernment. They are part of answering “who do you say that I am?” But if you actually had to base any momentous decision in life on your own reactions – that is building on the sand. Or reflecting Paul in the last few weeks, that is building with materials that will not last.
God has not left us with sand. He has given us a firm foundation of the finest materials. The Law and the Prophets – Moses and Elijah – all spoke about him. And in Him the Father has revealed himself. “This is my beloved son, the one in whom I delight, listen to him!”
We are not left with our emotional reactions. We are not left with our rational sorting. We are not left unsure or in the dark. This one was transfigured before them. His face shown like the sun and his clothes were white as light. He is not crowned and covered and honored with tents made by human hands, but the cloud of the Spirit overshadowed them and left them with no one but Christ alone.
Peter, after the resurrection when the “don’t talk about the vision” is lifted, connects this vision to our sure ground. We heard this voice and saw this sight. “And we have something more sure, the prophetic Word, to which your will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place.” God- Father, Son and Spirit – has made himself know, has revealed himself in Christ and through the scriptures. These are a solid foundation. A reliable way of seeing rightly.
Gospel in the World
And that foundation is not about the heavens or the mountaintops. After confessing the Christ, Peter rejected front on Jesus definition of that – Jerusalem and the cross. And Jesus told him “Satan, go away”. Peter may be a rock, but he does learn. Up on the mountain, instead of front on Peter says “let’s build three tents”. Jesus, let’s stay here. People will come to us. Let’s forget about what is down there – Jerusalem, chaos, confusion, the cross. Which would smack them immediately when they get down, with a Father and his demon possessed boy. But Peter didn’t know what he was saying, although he was learning.
Instead of the rebuke, Jesus would touch him and say “Get up, and stop being afraid.” We are going down the mountain.
The foundation of Jesus Christ is for this confusing and mixed up world. It is for a world that doesn’t and can’t create its own shared moral universe. It is for a world that is convulsed by the demons that divide it, and for those made cynical by the many attempts to cast them out.
Yes, that foundation is a call to the cross. To be salt and light. To love your enemies. To develop those habits of piety that keep you connected. To take part in what is a community of sinners – the poor in spirit. But that cross is the Truth in this world. God could have stayed shut up in his heaven. He owed us nothing. But He so loved the world, that He gave his only son. His good creation was worth coming down the mountain. Coming down, touch by touch…heart by heart…living stone by living stone. Coming down to the deep darkness, to open eyes to the only light that shines. Amen.