Transfiguration Sunday: Year C: Exodus 34:29-35; Psalm 99; 2 Corinthians 3:12--4:2; Luke 9:28-36
"Keep the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other."
- Karl Barth, German theologian (1886-1968)
It has never escaped my attention that people do not like sermons that they perceive to be political. Furthermore, many people come to church, hoping for a break from the endless news cycle and its doom, gloom, and overwhelming encroachment on peace of mind and heart. Desperate for good news, when these people come to church, they implore the pastor to stay away from politics or news, just preach the gospel.
What is that gospel, exactly? Does this mean a desire to hear the story of Jesus welcoming the children over and over, with no assessment as to why the disciples tried to keep the children away or how children were treated in that society? Does it mean to only proclaim the stories of healing and ignore how the sick were marginalized and shut out from the benefits of the society at the time? Does it mean to embrace historical treatment or explanations about Jews or Romans, but never lift up God's covenants with the former or the pressures of empire on the latter?
I am never fully sure what to think when I am told to stay away from political topics, particularly when I serve a very mixed congregation politically. I'm especially unclear on how to do it when it seems antithetical to the text in front of me. Most Biblical passages seem to me to be very political, very concerned with how people live their lives and their freedom to do so.
When I know that people do not want political sermons, I do not know what to do with the words in today's texts that refer to Elijah and Moses speaking to Jesus about his "exodus". Our English versions say "his departure", but the word "exodus" is more than clear in the Greek. For Luke's community, use of the term 'exodus' would have brought up more than just the memory or the story of Moses leading the Israelites to freedom.
The exodus story features a despotic ruler, a hardened heart, blood and the loss of children, fear and destruction. In order to move toward freedom, Moses and the people of Israel, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, must be willing to acknowledge that being free means the opposite of all that surrounds them and shapes their daily lives. When Jesus sets his face toward Jerusalem, his focus isn't specifically or merely on his death, he is focused on the truth of his mission- the freedom that comes from understanding and being in relationship with the God of freedom, the God of released captives, the God of truth-telling and redemption.
To appreciate the fullness of the Incarnation, Christ's presence in the world, we must consider what use of the term 'exodus' means here in Luke. We must recognize that Jesus, as the enfleshed person of the Trinity at this point in time, God with skinon, pursued justice throughout his life, not just in being willing to die. Exodus does not happen just when the Israelites step out of the Red Sea or, for us, once the tomb is empty, God works to bring hope, healing, and freedom before the human story is even on the page. That truth is political, and I cannot ignore it.
In seeking an apolitical sermon, I must turn away from Paul's circumstances. I must try to consider him writing words in vacuum to people whose sins, whose straying, is simply a matter of their as-yet-unturned hearts. I must pretend that there is no pressure on them to yield to the expectations of the Roman empire, no financial threat to them if they fail to worship the emperor, no existential threat to their lives as the occupying force of the Roman garrison parades in the streets.
To strip Paul's writing of political implication, I must set aside that his words have been willfully misinterpreted to harm Jewish people, women, racial minorities, and others throughout history, even into the present. I must water down his intense rhetoric to platitudes. "Since it is by God's mercy we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart." That sounds nice. And it's much less challenging that the pressure to act with boldness, to remove veils from our faces, to renounce the shameful things that are in opposition to God's will- both in our own hearts and in the world. Being willing to do that means having prayerful conversations about these shameful things and each of us feeling the Spirit's conviction about things we've said and believed.
Lastly, if I am to pretend that there are no politics in scripture, I must simply describe Moses's dramatic and terrifying appearance on the mountain with no other commentary. I will not say anything about the reception of the 10 commandments. I will pretend that we all know what it means to turn away from murder- in word and deed, as well as what it means not to adulterate relationships- platonic or romantic. Honoring the sabbath is obviously a clear commandment in a 24-hour world and bearing false witness is only applicable in court as opposed to a reality for our everyday speech in how we speak well (or don't) about others. In case my tone was too subtle, all of that was tongue-in-cheek.
The commandments, their interpretation, their use, or disuse is all political speech- having to do with our relationship with God and with others, every minute of every day. They cannot be stripped of their intent for God's justice and God's will to be done.
Here we stand, on Transfiguration Sunday, about to enter Lent. We are on a mountain peak with Jesus and, while we can see the empty cross from here, we are called and compelled by the Holy Spirit to proceed into a season of reflection, contemplation, and repentance.
The best thought I can give you in this season is a verse from a Christmas carol:
Oh little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by
Yet in thy dark streets shineth, the everlasting light
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
It is only by acknowledging political realities, personal griefs, and painful truths that we can fully appreciate what it meant and what it means for the "hopes and fears of all the years" to have been gathered and confronted in Bethlehem on that night. Those hopes and fears do not wait for the cross or the tomb, they are present and being confronted from the moment Gabriel speaks to Mary, from the moment Joseph lays Jesus on Mary's breast, from the moment the shepherds are shocked out of their wits.
The hopes and fears of all the years are confronted when the dove descends at Christ's baptism, at the first exorcism, at the first raising of the dead, at the first healing, when the first bite of bread and fish passes the lips of the first person on that hillside among the thousands of other people. And every single one of these acts was political- concerned with the well-being of people, concerned with the well-being of God's people, the well-being of all people.
Our faith, our trust in God, our daily responsive living to the grace which we have received cannot be untangled from politics, from the political realities of our day, from our prayer that God's "will be done on earth as in heaven." Each time we say those words, we are asking God to give us the will, strength, and courage to be part of the accomplishing of that will. We are acknowledging the hopes and fears of all the years and asking that God, who already knows them, continue to meet them in every street, in every home, in every field, on every mountain.
Let it be our hearts and minds which are transfigured today. Let it be our spirits which shed fear. Let it be our mouths that utter "Thy will be done" and mean it for every corner of our lives.
And let it be our lives, transformed by the grace which has met all our hopes and fears... let it be our lives, which are full of words and deeds that compel others to give glory to God and to seek the Divine will of love - in the mundane and in the political.
Amen.
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