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Transfiguration Sunday

Mark 9
2Six days later, Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John, and brought them up on a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them;
3and His garments became radiant and exceedingly white, as no launderer on earth can whiten them.
4Elijah appeared to them along with Moses; and they were talking with Jesus.
5Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three tabernacles, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah."
6For he did not know what to answer; for they became terrified.
7Then a cloud formed, overshadowing them, and a voice came out of the cloud, "This is My beloved Son, listen to Him!"
8All at once they looked around and saw no one with them anymore, except Jesus alone.
9As they were coming down from the mountain, He gave them orders not to relate to anyone what they had seen, until the Son of Man rose from the dead.


Theologians are a lot like racehorses. In the same manner that most racehorses can trace their lineage back to Northern Dancer, most theologians will happily describe how their lineage traces back to Germany. If you have been listening carefully over the last fifty years of sermons, you will know that Germans dominate the world of liberal theology. Think of it as a religious version of the Winter Olympics. Every time the preacher wants to make some kind of theological slam dunk (mixed-metaphor warning) she or he will quote or mention Barth, Bultmann, Buber, Moltmann, Niebuhr, Bonhoeffer or anyone else that sounds vaguely German.

Beyond indiscriminate name-dropping, there is also the habit of tracing backward to make links with the luminaries of the last century. Ask any professor of theology to describe their academic background and you will hear many of the same words: beer, University of Tubingen and then someone in the "bloodline" that links them to Barth, Bultmann, Buber, Moltmann, Niebuhr, Bonhoeffer or anyone else that sounds vaguely German.

In case you were wondering, I studied under Bob Bater, who when to both Tubingen and Union in New York, and studied under Niebuhr, who also taught Bonhoeffer, who went to school with Karl Barth. Try as I might, I can't make any solid links to Northern Dancer.

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2Six days later, Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John, and brought them up on a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them;
3and His garments became radiant and exceedingly white, as no launderer on earth can whiten them.
4Elijah appeared to them along with Moses; and they were talking with Jesus.

Ascending a high mountain, Peter, James and John discover that Jesus has a lineage too. Transfigured, shining before them, Jesus is lost in conversation with Moses and Elijah. A voice speaks from a cloud and says to the three disciples "This is my beloved son, listen to him." And Jesus, to end the story of his transfiguration uses familiar words that are quickly ignored by his followers: "Tell no one."

The story of the transfiguration marks the end of Epiphany, the season of light. For eight weeks we have been surrounded by stories of healing and transformation as "the light of the world" began his ministry. Now we reach a critical moment, a bridge between the teaching and healing that characterized the first part Jesus' earthly ministry and the final journey down to Jerusalem. It is the transition that John describes in his prologue:

The true light that gives light to every one was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.

Next Sunday begins Lent, and we will hear the final stories that lead to the cross, and we will discover the truth of John's words and the extend to which the voice that said "listen to him" was ignored. For now, however, we remain covered in light, and the true glory of Jesus is revealed on a high mountain.

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It is no accident that Moses and Elijah are standing by. They too stand in the light, and prove the lineage of Jesus. They become the filter through which we can see the great light, the key to understanding much of Jesus' meaning.

Moses, of course is most familiar. Although some might argue that Elijah also deserves the Cecil B. DeMille treatment, only Moses can claim the fame that comes with being played by Charlton Heston. He was a Prince of Egypt, he liberated his people, he gave them the law, he led them through the desert, and he took them to the edge of the promised land. And more important that all of these, he "wrote" the first five books of the Bible. If you are only hearing this sermon, I confess that I put "wrote" in quotes. It's a stretch for even the most ardent of biblical literalists to explain how Moses could write a narrative description of his own death. Nevertheless, the first books of the Bible are credited to Moses because much of it is told in his voice.

It would be pretty easy to argue that Deuteronomy was Jesus' favourite book of the Bible. It explains the law that Moses received at Mt. Sinai and establishes it as the basis for the covenant that exists between God and Israel. It was part of the tradition that every kid, Jesus included, would commit to memory and hear read aloud over and over again. I'm going to share with you a couple of quotes and you will see the extend to which it forms the centre of Jesus' own theology. The first comes from Deuteronomy 6:

4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. [a] 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

And the second from Deuteronomy 10:

17 For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. 18 He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. 19 And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt.

While the precise phrase "love your neighbour" is found in Leviticus, there is little doubt that the intent of the commandment finds full flower in Deuteronomy. Jesus love for the outcast, the sinner, the powerless begins and ends with Moses. It is his assumption that as former slaves, the Israelites should be the first people to understand the plight of the powerless. It lives at the heart of Jesus understanding of the Father, that as God heard the suffering of his people under Pharaoh, God continues to hear the cry of anyone who enslaved: physically, emotionally, spiritually.

In many ways, Elijah is more fun. Moses may be more famous, but Elijah's story has it all in a few short chapters of 1 Kings: an evil queen, a deadly contest, and even a chariot of fire. His greatest moment comes in chapter 18: Jezebel the evil queen, while married to the king of the Israelites, is quite devoted to the pagan god Baal. But Elijah is equally devoted to God. We pick up the story at verse 22:

22 Then Elijah said to them, "I am the only one of the LORD's prophets left, but Baal has four hundred and fifty prophets. 23 Get two bulls for us. Let them choose one for themselves, and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. 24 Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the LORD. The god who answers by fire—he is God."
Then all the people said, "What you say is good."

25 Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, "Choose one of the bulls and prepare it first, since there are so many of you. Call on the name of your god, but do not light the fire." 26 So they took the bull given them and prepared it.
Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. "O Baal, answer us!" they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made.

27 At noon Elijah began to taunt them. "Shout louder!" he said. "Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened." 28 So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. 29 Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention.

Of course Elijah was able to call down fire from the true God and the priests of Baal were first embarrassed, then killed, and the story goes again from PG-13 to Restricted. The real duel, the one between Elijah and Jezebel continues, however, and we begin to see why Jesus might count the prophet as mentor.

In the 21st chapter the king wants to acquire a really nice vineyard, but the owner Naboth refuses to sell. The king is sullen. Enter his queen:

5"What in the world is the matter?" his wife, Jezebel, asked him. "What has made you so upset that you are not eating?"
6"I asked Naboth to sell me his vineyard or to trade it, and he refused!" Ahab told her.
7"Are you the king of Israel or not?" Jezebel asked. "Get up and eat and don't worry about it. I'll get you Naboth's vineyard!"

She then conspires to have Naboth killed and the vineyard reverts to the king's possession. It falls to the prophet Elijah, of course, to reveal this corruption and (like Justice Gomery) predict the downfall of the house of Ahab. Fast forward a few centuries and you can imagine a young Jesus hearing these stories and discovering the same corruption around him: moneylenders in the temple, Roman overseers drunk with power, a religious elite more concerned with piety than God's promise of new life.

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It's not enough to do good things and quietly go about our work here at 33 East Road. We need to be able to explain our lineage and demonstrate why doing the things we do is consistent with what we believe. Care in point. In 1930 the Toronto Conference of the United Church voted to abolish capitalism, deciding that it was a cruel system that bred inequality. For those who say the United Church is too radical, the truth is we've mellowed. The church that came out of the Social Gospel movement of the teens and early nineteen-twenties was far more radical than we are today. They reflected on the question "Who is my neighbour" and read the Gospels and Isaiah and Deuteronomy and decided that the Kingdom Jesus preached needed to be built right away. History unfolded differently, but the line from the Social Gospel to ministers like J.S. Woodsworth and Clarke McDonald to the food bank in our basement is pretty direct.

The ultimate lineage we claim is to Jesus. From disciples to early church to Reformation to here is also a direct line and as we proclaim Jesus we also claim his values, his lineage, his radical love for God. We need to brag about it, because the world needs to know who we are and to whom we belong. Amen.

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 9:55 AM