Shine A Light (Mark 9:2 - 9)

For a lot of years, the standard in preaching was the narrative sermon.  That’s in fact what I do: I’m a narrative preacher.  I tend to write a sermon as a narrative, as a story.  One reason this works is that large portions of Scripture are narratives, and the parts that aren’t . . . well, we narrative preachers turn them into narratives.  For instance, when we preach the letters of Paul – which tend not to be narrative—we’ll couch the sermons in terms of a story about Paul or his situation or the congregation to which he is writing.  If we’re preaching from the prophets—a lot of poetry, not a lot of story –we do the same thing, we give a history of the prophet or his times or something, so that it tells a story of some kind.  That’s just kind of how we roll.

And by and large, it works pretty well: psychologists have known for a long time that one of the primary—if not the primary—ways we learn is through narrative. We remember them about ourselves and our circumstances, or folks we know and their circumstances.  We tell them to one another, about one another, and we learn from them: Uncle Fred did this and then this happened, so don’t do that, or do do that, whatever the case may be.  And that’s one reason, I suspect, that there are so many stories in scripture:  that’s how we learn, Jesus knew it and couched his teaching in them, and the authors of the Hebrew scriptures and the gospels knew it and set down their theology in large part in narrative form.

And that’s what we have before us today: a narrative and, like most biblical narratives, it’s not all it seems on the surface, because Mark, like every other gospel writer, has ulterior motives. True: he wants to tell the story, he wants his audience to know what happened, but he has a theological agenda as well.  There have been arguments for centuries over just what the Gospels are, but one thing for sure: they’re not just straight history.  Mark wants us to learn something about his conception of the Gospel, about whom he thinks Jesus is, and what it all means.

A defining characteristic of a complete narrative is that it has a beginning, a middle, and an end.  In film and theater, these are called acts: Act one is the set-up:  all the major characters are established, along with the relationships between them, and usually the setting as well.  Act two is where the action takes place, where a sequence of events that moves our characters ahead, that changes them in some way—or not—takes place.  Act three is the denouement: the loose ends are tied up—or not—the characters learn their lessons—or not—and everyone rides into the sunset.  Or not.  And narratives in the scripture are no different: they generally have a beginning, a middle and an end, and that’s one way we can study them.

Does our story have this structure? Is it a complete narrative, or just a fragment?  Let’s see: “Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain, apart, by themselves.”  Looks like a perfectly fine first act to me: the setting is six days later on a high mountain, the characters are Jesus, Peter, James and John, and they are apart, by themselves.  Everything we need to know to understand the story has been told us in that one compact, economical sentence.  And being as it’s Mark, that’s what we expect:  Mark doesn’t mess around, he’s concise and to the point: Jesus, Peter, James and John went up on a mountain, and they were alone.

He’s got our interest now, we want to know why the four are up there, where are the rest of the disciples, and what’s going to happen.  And so along comes Act Two which is where all the action takes place, and the way you can tell where the transition is, where Act two begins, is that something happens to begin the action, perhaps to alter the course of the characters’ lives—something happens to set things going. And what a thing that is: Jesus is transfigured before them, right before their very eyes – can you imagine?  His clothes became a dazzling white, such as nothing on earth, not Tide or All or All-Temperature Cheer, could bleach them as white.  That’s the first thing that happens.

The second thing that happens is that Elijah and Moses appear right alongside Jesus, and they’re talking with him, and I want you to picture it:  it’s like they’re onstage with the spotlights shining down on them, illuminating them as if they were a rock band or something, like Mick Jagger or Elton John, because that’s what Moses and Elijah were to good Jewish boys like James and Peter and John: they were like rock stars, they were the first and the last, the alpha and omega of prophets, and they’re talking with their teacher!

And Peter’s babbling now, he doesn’t know what he’s saying, he just blurts out something about how good it is to be here, and about making three houses, one for each of them, and as he babbles along like a tinkling brook, a third thing happens: A cloud comes over them, and the sky darkens, and a voice comes out of the cloud—and you know what that means, you know who that is—and it says “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”  And it all sounds awful familiar, doesn’t it?  Where have we heard these words before?

And then comes the transition point, that signals the beginning of Act 3:  Suddenly, Mark says, they looked around, and there was nobody there with Jesus anymore—they’d all disappeared, and this sends the narrative off in a fundamentally different direction: they come down from the mountain, and Jesus warns them not to tell anyone what they’d seen, at least until after the Son of Man has risen from the dead.

One, two, three:  they go up the mountain, stuff happens—some pretty strange stuff, you’ve got to admit—and they go back down again.  Pretty straightforward story, isn’t it?  But to assign meaning to it, you have to examine not only what happens, but the order in which it happens as well as when it happens, and to whom.  And the first question to ask is: six days later than what?  Mark says it all happened six days later, and it turns out that it’s six days after Jesus predicts the fulfillment of the kingdom of God.  “There are some standing here,” he says, “who will not taste death until the kingdom of God has come with power.”  Six days after that—and note that six is a symbolic number, it’s one day less than seven, the number of days in which the first creation was made—six days later, Jesus is hob-nobbing with Moses and Elijah in a blinding pool of light, and looking at it in our mind’s eye, we can imagine that Jesus and the two prophets are of a piece, they are equals, no-doubt talking over weighty things like theology or biblical authority or maybe just the who’s gonna win Jerusalem Idol that year.  It doesn’t really matter what they’re talking about: Jesus and Moses and Elijah are together, Jesus is one of them.

And what happens next is important: a voice comes out of the cloud, and we are reminded—or we should be—of his baptism.  Here it serves a similar purpose: it tells us who Jesus is. “This is my son,” says the voice “My beloved.”  And the cloud lifts, and the disciples can see Moses and Elijah—reminding us of Jesus’ place in the line of the Hebrew prophets, reminding us that he’s Jewish after all, and that he’s right up there with the big guns—they can see that now they are gone, Jesus he is alone, peerless.  It is as if Moses and Elijah have been subsumed, have been absorbed, and now there is only God’s son, the beloved.  Jesus is the fulfillment of all their prophecies.

Jesus is thus revealed by the tableau up on that nameless mountain to be without peer in the end, and at this turning point, we begin the ending, we begin the final act, and it’s not up on the mountain, it’s not up there hob-nobbing in little dwelling-places with Moses and Elijah.  Remember that it’s been only six days, not the perfect, fulfilled seven, and the final act is on earth anyway.  So they return to the cares of the world, they come down from the mountain, to finish up Christ’s ministry on earth.

Not only is this a straight-up narrative, a story that tells a linear sequence of events, with a beginning, a middle and an end, but it’s packed with meaning and symbolism besides.  And if we step back just a little further, and think about when we in the church tell this tale, it might teach us just a little more.  “This is my Son, the Beloved,” said the voice “Listen to him.”  Unlike at the baptism, where God expressed his pleasure at his Son—I am well pleased—this time we are told, along with James and John and Peter, to listen to him.  This time, unlike the baptism when the voice speaks only to Jesus, the disciples are addressed as well: listen to him, the voice says.

 And for the rest of the Gospel, those three in particular are shown not listening to him: on the road, when James and John ask him to sit, one at his right and his left, in the Garden of Gethsemane, when those precise three—Peter and James and John—fall asleep in the garden not once, not twice but three times.  And at last, when Peter—as predicted—denied the Savior three times before the cock has crowed twice.

We in the church put this story here, on the cusp of Lent, on the knife-edge of the passion, when it is revealed what Jesus means when he says “the first shall be last and the last first,” we’re right there with Peter and James and John, sleeping in the garden, right there with Peter, denying him daily.  We want to skip the final days, stay up on the Christmas mountain and never come down, build a little shrine in our hearts for Jesus and keep him in it.

But it’s only been six days, not seven—the kingdom has not yet been fulfilled, and we have work to do down here on earth.  As Christ’s agents on earth, as his salt that preserves and light that shines, we have work to do in the meantime.  And if there’s anything that brings us back down to earth, anything that cuts us down to size, it’s Lent.  We come down from the mountain of hope, down from the summit of glory, and straight into the 40 days, beginning next week right smack dab in the wilderness.

Brothers and sisters, God comes to us this week, at Christ’s transfiguration, and shows us who Jesus is as Messiah, as anointed Son, but there’s more to it than that.  Over the next six weeks, we will see what that means, we will see that it means more than the glory, more than the coming reign in power and might, that it means suffering and pain and the ultimate sacrifice for us all.  God comes to us on the mountain, and asks us to come down, where the action is, where the kingdom is still not yet fulfilled.  And as God does, God speaks to us those words of power: this is my Son, my beloved, listen to what he has to say, what he has to show us, what his life has to tell us over these next six weeks.  Amen.

Voice of Exile (Isaiah 40:21-31)

I am a voice of exile . . . I was born in Babylon, and my mother was born here, too . . . her mother carried her in her belly from the smoking ruins of Jerusalem, caught up in Nebuchadnezzar’s last deportation, his final solution to the Hebrew Problem.  My grandmother was lucky: a sympathetic Babylonian soldier noticed that she was with child, and she got to ride in a wagon; there were many who had to walk.  I guess I was a lucky one as well—she would have otherwise lost her child, my mother, and I would not have come into existence, or I would be someone else, perhaps . . . I don’t know, it’s all so confusing.

All I know is who I am now: I am Joshua, named after the great hero of legend.  The name means “savior,” but I’m hardly that, just the son of a courtesan.  If I had been born a girl, I might be one as well; as it is, my mother’s master had sold me to the kitchens.  I am lucky: my mother was one of his favorites, or I might have become a common laborer, carrying rock, building roads or keeping the gardens in repair.

I am a voice of exile, a voice of my people, who have been strangers in this foreign land for over half a century.  Far from their roots.  Far from their families.  Far from their God. We have tried to keep our faith, our traditions, our Hebrew-ness, but it has been hard, and many no longer make the effort.  They have become like our captors, assimilated into this foreign culture, worshipping their foreign gods, forgetting the old ways.

The rest of us have held on, we continue to go through the motions, light the candles, celebrate the festivals in quiet, dark corners of the city . . . But we have lost hope.  The word of the Lord was not just rare, as it was in the days before King David, but nonexistent, and visions never came.  We have lost hope in salvation from the Lord God Adonai, and simply go through the motions, holding on for the sense of community it gives us.

Now, even that is fading with the defection of our brothers and sisters; as their numbers grow, they have eclipsed the faithful ones like me. But I cannot blame them, really . . . Who could, when hope is as distant as afternoon thunder, as rare as desert rain.

But now, suddenly, there is a prophet about, there is a word from the Lord.  Or at least, many of us choose to believe it is one.  The preacher is one Jerusiah, but most of us call him, “Second Isaiah,” because he claims descent from the original court prophet of King Hezekiah, over a century before.  I do not know if this is true, but it could be so.  The original’s career was long, nearly sixty-five years, and he had many children.  Or perhaps he claims symbolic descendant, as  could have Jeremiah, prophet to the last kings in Jerusalem.

Be that as it may, his preaching is sewing hope, at least among the young and gullible, who have bought into his prophet-hood.  Me?  I’ll wait and see, though his message, purportedly from the Lord God Adonai’s own self, is certainly attractive.  He preaches comfort, redemption, an end to exile.  He preaches forgiveness, that Jerusalem’s punishment has come to an end, that its penalty is paid, that it has indeed received from the Lord’s hand double for all its sins.

But the Lord, says Second Isaiah, is aware of their doubt, aware of their weariness.  The Lord is aware that many have lost hope, that many complain, that many are saying “Our way is hidden from the Lord, and our right is disregarded by our God.”  Many exiles in the land of Babylon have concluded that God has abandoned God’s people.

And through the voice of Second Isaiah, the Lord says “Have you not known?  Have you not heard?”  God bids us to think on what we already know about God’s ways, what we have already experienced.   “Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?”   We have been told this all along, from the beginnings of our formation as a people, and from even before: from the beginning of the world itself.  The Lord bids us to look back on our dealings with God, on God’s dealings with us.  In other words, God is bidding us to remember.

And what is it that we are being asked to recall?  Only the nature of god’s own self, that’s all . . . God is all seeing, all encompassing.  God sits above the circle of the earth and the stars, God looks down on us, and we are like grasshoppers.  God stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.  God brings princes to naught and kingdoms to ruin . . . If any nation considers themselves great, if any consider themselves sovereign, they should think a second time.  We are to remember that the Lord alone is supreme, the Lord alone is sovereign, and we are but grass.  And the grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.

And yet, we are also to remember that that same God knows each one of us and calls us by name.  That same God will feed us—who are God’s flock—like its shepherd.  That same God will gather the lambs in her arms, and carry them in her bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.  Though the Lord is the almighty God, though the Lord is the everlasting God, the Lord nevertheless knows and calls each of us by name.

Haven’t you known?  Haven’t you heard?  God sees our grief, God feels our weariness . . . weariness so deep that even our youths will faint and be weary, our young will fall exhausted to the ground.  But God gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. And those who wait for that Lord—those who follow and believe and rest in the stillness of God’s arms—shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

 

I have come to believe that sovereignty is not just overarching power, as we have been led to believe by our elders.  It is not just distance, it is just not unsearchable transcendence, it is not just greatness.  Earthly kings, earthly rulers emphasize their greatness, do they not?  They ride their white horses, sit on their mighty thrones—and there is always a great distance from where the people are to the throne, a great carpet or something, isn’t there?  But they emphasize the transcendent, almighty-ness of their positions, they are always out—on their white horse, of course—they are always out watching their mighty armies march before them, unassailable in their greatness.

 

But our Lord is both unsearchable and intimate, both transcendent and immanent.  As it is written by King David, your “knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it,” and yet “You know when I sit down and when I rise up; and discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.”  And that is what Second Isaiah bids us remember—both God’s transcendent power, God’s ability to bring whole nations to heel with just a flick of the  wrist and God’s intimate knowledge of each and every one of us, calling each of us by name,  tenderly shepherding and lifting us up when we grow weary.

 

Jerusalem’s hope is borne on eagle’s wings, on wings of remembrance, on remembering this paradox, remembering the things that God has done for us in power, and those things God has done for us in infinite compassion and care.  Our hope is borne in remembrance, and yet we often forget.  We often forget what God has done for us, and run after all matter of things that are not, by nature, God.  We let ourselves be caught up in a whirlwind of life, we worship power and things, and forget the One who has given it to us all, who has given us life itself.

 

As I sit here in Babylon, awaiting the sure redemption of our Lord, I often wonder what it would be like if God embodied the other side, if God made manifest the intimate, shepherding care and compassion for all created things?  I do not know exactly how, but maybe God could become somehow physical, so we could see the compassion, feel the empathy.  Maybe God could become—just for a time, you understand—human.  What if God was one of us?  Amen.

Sloganeering (1 Corinthians 8:1-13)

 

      Modern-day Corinth is only one hundred and fifty years old.  It was founded in the middle of the 19th Century after an earthquake destroyed the village that had sprung up around the ruins of Ancient Corinth, which was of course where Paul founded his church.  It was first occupied some sixty-five hundred years before that, and by the beginning of the Bronze Age, it had become a major center of trade. But about that time, something happened.  Archeologists noticed a sharp decline in the number of pottery shards after that time; they think that the by twelve hundred years before the common era, the city was only sparsely populated.

      But you can't keep a good city down, and 450 years later, in the middle of the 8th Century, the city's fortunes changed: an oligarchy, centered around a single family, unified Corinthian rule.  They began to build grand public buildings and establish it once again as a major center of trade.

      By the Classic Period, some 250 later, Corinth had come to rival Athens and Thebes in terms of wealth and influence.  It was frequented by wealthy and powerful tradesmen and government officials, and its pleasures became known far and wide.  And though there were temples to all kinds of gods and goddesses, the most renowned was doubtless the one dedicated to Aphrodite, goddess of love, where a thousand temple prostitutes served those powerful men.  Speaking of the city's exorbitant luxuries, the poet Horace wryly observed, "non licet omnibus adire Corinthum"--not everyone is able to go to Corinth.

      But alas: nothing ever stays the same, especially, perhaps, places of opulent power and privilege.  Rome was on the rise, and a hundred and forty-six years before the birth of Christ, it came knock, knock, knocking on Corinth's door: General Lucius Mummius besieged and captured the city, killing the men and enslaving the women and children. Then, in what seems to me to be an act of overkill, he burnt it to the ground.

      For a century, it remained a city of ghosts and squatters, until it was rebuilt by Rome.  By the time Paul got there, 50 years after the birth of Christ, it was once again a thriving, cosmopolitan city, home to a large, vibrant population of Romans, Greeks and Jews.

      And that's the city through which Laius Maximus hurried one Sunday evening just at dusk. The air had that hazy quality that came after a hot day in those climes, and humidity still hung in the air.  Laius knew the dew would lie thick on the ground by morning.  He was coming from one of the parties that had sprung up around the pagan temples of late, parties where the cognoscenti ate and drank well and discussed the issues of the day.  They were the ancient equivalent, perhaps, of tweedy, private men's clubs, or maybe the salon culture of 19th-century Paris.

      Laius Maximus was heading to an evening service in one of the house churches that had sprung up like mushrooms after Paul's visit.  He was full of good wine and fine food, and was in fact just a little tipsy, though he doubtless would have called it "relaxed."  He was late, having tarried over good food and conversation just a little too long, and in a hurry to get there because he'd heard that a messenger would be reading a letter from Paul himself, and he just knew the place would be packed.

      And sure enough, when he got there, it was nearly full, and the messenger--a woman named Priscilla--was almost half-way through Paul's letter.  The place was so crowded that Laius had to make do with a seat on the very back row between a vegetable seller and an overweight kitchen slave who smelled of garlic.  This was not something he was used to, to say the least.

      But as he sat, he quickly forgot his discomfort, because Priscilla was saying something that directly related to him:  "Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that 'all of us possess knowledge.”. And Laius thought quite right!  We do all possess knowledge, and he thought finally.  We're going to put this controversy to bed.  And indeed a conflict had arisen in the Roman church about the eating of meat that had been previously sacrificed to pagan gods, or idols.  You see, meat was scarce in Corinth, and difficult to find, but it was always being offered to idols.  And because there were a lot of the little devils around town, there was a lot of meat that went to waste, because the idols themselves rarely ate anything.

      So, a thriving grey market of meat previously offered to idols had sprung up, and it was particularly prevalent at the kind of parties from which Laius had just come.  But what was troubling to the nascent Christian community was that it would doubtless be featured at the communal meal following the message, donated by wealthy elite such as himself.

      Now.  Laius, like the other elite--indeed, like Paul himself--was well educated in the Greco-Roman manner, and knew full well that those idols weren't real, that they had no life of their own, and therefore that it made no difference whether they ate of the meat offered to them, which they did, as often as they could get ahold of it, and with great gusto.

      The problem lay with the, how shall we say it, common people--like the two Laius was wedged between on the back row.  They were uneducated and, might as well come out and say it, superstitious, and they thought idols were real.  And so the controversy arose: some in the community thought--no, they knew--that eating meat offered to idols was no big deal, while others thought that it was evil, and shouldn't be done.

      And now, Paul--their beloved founder, their paterfamilias--was finally going to lay the matter to rest, and Laius was sure which way he was going to come down.  After all, Paul was an educated man, he'd had the same education he'd had, and he knew idols were nothing but wood or metal or clay, just like Laius.

      And Paul started out by quoting popular sayings, popular slogans, of the educated amongst them: we all have knowledge, and it was true: everybody knew that there was no such things as other gods, and everybody knew that knowledge could puff up, as well.  You could get big-headed, you could lord it over other people, but you know what?  Right was still right.  Wasn't it part of being children of God that they cast off the old ways, the superstitious ways, the ways that held them back?  Didn't they have the authority, the freedom in Christ to do it?

      But Paul grounded his argument in love (Laius hated it when he did that), contrasting those who based their behavior on knowledge, or claiming to know something, with those who base it on love, who in fact love God, saying that those who love God are known by God.  Then he uses more of those slogans again, saying that although they know that “no idol in the world really exists,” and that “there is no God but one," there are those who have no such knowledge.  There are those who have recently come from worshipping idols, without the education and perhaps the sophistication of people like Paul and Laius, who have what Paul calls weak consciences--those whose faith is still immature, whose will-power is not what it should be.  Paul is saying that these people, whose faith is not as strong as it should be, or not as strong as it will be someday, might be harmed by people like Laius--who know that it makes no difference what they eat--nevertheless, such people might be harmed by them eating meat offered to idols.

      And at first, Laius scoffed--how could that be?  How could he and his colleagues' eating such meat possibly harm someone who hasn't?  In answer, Paul quotes yet another slogan "Food will not bring us close to God."  It doesn't matter to us, to people like Paul and Laius, whether or not they eat such food makes no difference to them.  But to others, to those whose faith is weaker or less formed, it could be a stumbling block for them, it could cause them to lose their faith, to revert back to the old ways, the old ways of relating to idols.  In other words, it could destroy their faith.

      As Priscilla spoke Paul's words, Laius could see that the Apostle considered the congregation at Corinth to be a family, from people like Laius to his friend Pelonius to the working-class people he was wedged between. And though he wasn't sure he liked sharing intimate, family kind of stuff with even Pelonius, much less these people, he understood Paul's point.  When you do harm to a member of your family, when you sin against your brother or sister or mother or cousin twice removed, you sin against Christ.  Therefore, even though he knows better, even though he has the knowledge that it's ok to eat meat offered to idols, Paul, for one, will not do so if it will bring harm to a brother or sister.  Because love trumps knowledge, every time.

      And I don't know if Laius ever changed his mind, or whether the conflict in Corinth was ever resolved, but I do know that this kind of thing plagues us even today.  In one congregation, it was drinking.  One group thought it was no problem to drink, they just knew that their freedom in Christ allowed them to have a glass of wine now and then, all in moderation, of course.  Another group felt the opposite, that alcohol was harmful.  Some of them had been harmed in the past, with alcoholic parents or children, and there was even an ex-alcoholic amongst them.  They went on a leadership retreat, and at the hotel restaurant the tipplers had a few and the tee-totalers didn't, and they sat apart from each other so the totalers wouldn't be tempted, and what would Paul say about this?  I think he'd say that "Drink will not bring us closer to God."  It makes no difference in our faith whether they drink or not drink, so why do they insist on drinking when it might tempt the tee-totalers and destroy their sobriety?  A congregation is a family,  and if you hurt a member of God's family, you sin against God.

      But does this mean that a church cannot be a prophetic witness against injustice or sin within its own body?  Can some members not express their view on poverty, say, or war, or who can marry whom because others disagree?  Of course not, as Paul would say: he himself spent a lot of time correcting false opinions and doctrines in the church, and he advised brother to correct brother, sister to correct sister, all done of course in love.

      And that is the distinguishing factor, the thing that must guide us: love.  Knowledge is all right, is it necessary to have it to get along in the world.  But it can puff up, it can be used to ill effect, to build the ego instead of the body of Christ.  That is why that down through the ages, wise women and men, sages of all the great religions, have said the same thing: whatever you do, do it in love.  Amen.