Marilu Thomas “Surrounded”
Scripture:
The Transfiguration is a very weird story. If you don’t understand what’s going on, you are not alone. Frederick Buechner called it, ”as strange a scene as there is in the Gospels.” What mountain are they on? Why does Christ have light coming from his face? What are Moses, Elijah and Jesus talking about? What’s up with the weather? One way to look at this story is that it shows how we’re looking for love in all the wrong places until we finally find it in the cross.
In the last chapter, Matthew 16, Jesus had a discussion with the disciples about denying themselves and taking up their cross to follow him. Our text today starts out ‘six days later,’ when he takes Peter, James and John up the mountain. Right away, Jesus is ‘transfigured’ before them, which is described as “his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.” Moses and Elijah, who if you haven’t been following along from the Old Testament, are dead, but are talking with Jesus. How we know this is Moses and Elijah is anybody’s guess. In my mind, they would look like Gandalf and Albus Dumbledore – maybe one holding stone tablets and the other just looking old and wise. But we have no indication of what they are saying or why they are there. But as predicted, Jesus is surrounded by his angels in the glory of his Father.
How does Peter react to this? Like we would. He sees an opportunity for himself. Johnathan Watt says Peter was probably thinking, “Now this is what I’m talking about, Jesus! This is more like it. Here’s the real stuff, the power, the dazzling white I need for life. Here’s a god that will make my best life now. Here’s a god who can heal me, fix my finances, straighten out my wife, and fill my life with driven purpose. Here’s a god who can teach my obnoxious neighbor a real lesson in humility. Here’s a god who I can use to make my life better!” Glory is wanting to be important, powerful and problem-free.
Who would want this glory train to stop? Not Peter. He wants this moment to go on forever—free association with the Glory and Power of God in Jesus with his new friends Moses and Elijah. He immediately springs into action. What Peter wants to do sounds really plausible when he tells Jesus. “Lord, it’s good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He is careful to make sure Jesus doesn’t think he’s making any for Peter, John and James. He is being gracious and self-sacrificing, right?
But God will have none of it and loudly interrupts Peter saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” It seems like saying, “Enough of your manipulating! Enough of thinking you know what’s going on! Enough of your works trying to please me to get what you want! You want to know who I am and what I want? Listen to him!” Forde tells us that, “God moves against the presumption of our works. He is out to do it all… We suffer from this move of God, because we are rendered absolutely passive, put totally out of commission.” 87 If there’s one thing we don’t like, it’s powerlessness. We suffer because we don’t like being a passive recipient. We want to do it for ourselves.
Peter is us. We want a god who can solve all our problems so that our lives will be problem free. We want a stress free ride through life with accolades for ourselves. All we have to do is figure out what to do to make Jesus happy to win the cosmic lottery. Seeking glory means thinking if we put the right religious coins into God’s slot machine good things will pop out—and continue to pop out. Gerhard Forde says, “We like to look on ourselves as potential spiritual athletes desperately trying to make God’s team, having perhaps just a little problem or two with the training rules. We have a thirst for glory.” (Gerhard Forde, On Being a Theologian of the Cross, 92)
One short chapter back, Jesus tells Peter that he must suffer, be killed and on the third day raised. Peter rebukes him, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you!” Christ’s response is like God’s from the cloud, “Get behind me Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” Martin Luther tells us that this orientation towards ‘works for self’ has an affect on us because like the love of money, we can never have enough glory. “Because men do not know the cross and hate it, they necessarily love the opposite; namely, wisdom, glory, power and so on. Therefore they become increasingly blinded and hardened by such love, for desire cannot be satisfied by the acquisition of those things that it desires…As Christ shows in John 4, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again.’” 93
Bill Wilson, founder of AA, wrote: “Most people try to live by self-propulsion. Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery, and the rest of the players in his own way. If his arrangements would only stay put, if only people would do as he wished, the show would be great. Everyone including himself would be pleased. Life would be wonderful. In trying to make these arrangements our actor may sometimes be quite virtuous. He may be kind, considerate, patient, generous, even modest and self-sacrificing. On the other hand, he may be mean, egotistical, selfish and dishonest. But, as with most humans, he is more likely to have varied traits. What usually happens? The show doesn’t come off very well. He begins to think life doesn’t treat him right. He becomes on the next occasion, still more demanding or gracious as the case may be…Our actor is self-centered- ego centric…we [cannot] reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or trying on our own power. We had to have God’s help.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, 62)
Look at Peter after his big idea. He needs God’s help. He is face down in the dirt with James and John, overcome with fear. Like the disciples, our addiction to self-glory, self-propulsion leaves us blinded and afraid. We have done what we thought would make God happy so He would give us good stuff. Maybe we attended lots of bible studies, or gave money to the guy on the corner with the cardboard sign, or were tolerant to our weird neighbor. That should have given us some points with God today—something to give us an easier life with good parking spots and no suffering. But God will be God and His ways are greater than our ways. He knows something we don’t seem to get; that there is no way to make him love us more than when he sacrificed himself on the cross for us. Our attempts to make him love us or give us more are futile because he loves us 100%. Listen to him.
We still don’t know what is totally going on in the Transfiguration. But we do see Jesus’ response to Peter’s plan of self-aggrandizement. Jesus does three things: he touches Peter, tells him to Rise up and to not be afraid. This is why God’s way of doing things are different than ours. Jesus is gently inviting them to go to the cross with Him because that is the place of true transfiguration, where the love of God was released into the world through Christ’s resurrection. It is the power of love—for all the Peter’s of the world including us. Listen to him.
Amen
