Mark 9:2-9 CLOUD AND SIGHT
Sermon February 22, 2009: People's United Church of Christ, Dover, DE: The Rev. Dan Griggs
This is Transfiguration Sunday. The way the Gospel of Mark tells the story of Jesus, the high point came six days before this, when Jesus asked his disciples "Who do you say I am," and Peter replied, "You are the Messiah, the Son of God." Immediately it became clear that Peter thought that means Jesus was going to seize control of the empire and rule as an earthly king—the triumphalism among the churches to which the Gospel of Mark was written. So Jesus began to teach them that what it means to be the Messiah has nothing to do with empire and triumphalism: that his Messiahship would be defined by the Cross. Now, still following Mark's outline of the story, six days later Jesus is transfigured before these three disciples. It means--Yes, he IS the Messiah. Yes--divine authority is centered in him. But this visible triumphalism has a context. The disciples still don't understand, and so over the next several chapters as Jesus leads them toward Jerusalem he continues to teach them that his Messiahship is defined by the Cross.
On the Mount of Transfiguration the three disciples saw the vision, but the revelation was covered by a cloud, just like their understanding. Peter blurts out this silly proposal to build three shrines, but he only says it because he doesn't know what to say. And yet the revelation of God is right there before his eyes. Somehow Jesus must move the disciples from "cloud" to "sight" on the Jerusalem road. Somehow Jesus must move us from "cloud" to "sight" on the road we travel with him. He has to bring us to "see" that his Messiahship is defined by the Cross. That's why the Gospel of Mark was written. This is the core of the story.
How does Mark get there? Back earlier in Jesus' ministry, Mark has him tell the parable of the four soils. A farmer sowed his seed. Some fell on the road, and the birds ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground and it died in the summer heat. Some fell among thorns and the thorns choked the grain. But most of it fell on good soil that produced a good crop. The Gospel of Mark interprets this story as an allegory: the birds represent Satan coming and stealing faith from some people's hearts. The rocks represent people who start out on the life of faith but drop out when trouble comes. The thorns are life's problems and pleasures that slowly seduce people away from faithfulness. You don't suppose he's talking about us, do you?
This early parable about faith that produces and faith that fails now confronts the disciples when Jesus tells them that the Christ in whom we place our faith—his Messiahship is defined by the Cross. How confusing! And more: during that week between Peter's confession and the Transfiguration, Jesus also said: "If any want to become my followers, let them deny self, take up their cross, and follow me." OUR cross? His Messiahship is defined by the Cross: so is my discipleship defined by my cross? Yes. That's the point. And he nails the point down solid on the Mount of Transfiguration where he reveals his authority and his glory. It is this Jesus who points us to our cross. And a cloud fills the disciples' understanding, just like we feel confused about all this. It's too big! It's too massive a leap! Why don't we just set up some shrines so we won't forget it, and go about our business? My cross! Hhumph.
And our confusion, or feeling put off by the thought of our own cross as the definition of our discipleship, is exactly what Jesus' parable of the soils is about. Here's our cloud. Do we really want to see? If we see, we might have to do something about it! We might have to change and be different. The way we have figured out who we are might all get interrupted if we let our cross define us.
When I first started working on this sermon I had a completely different point in mind. I was going to say that if we can really see, what we see is comforting: "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." "The Lord is my shepherd." "Underneath are the everlasting arms." Now that's a good message, and I do preach that good news—often. But that's not what Jesus was telling his followers either in the parable or by explaining Peter's confession or on the Mount of Transfiguration; and it's not his message for us now. The Holy Spirit is both our "Comforter" and also our "Guide." In our Gospel today the Spirit of Christ is calling us to take up our own cross and follow. We have some responsibilities.
I'm reminded of a criticism I've heard several times since 9-11: that President Bush led us in grieving and called us to war against terror, but then he sent us out to shop—he never asked us to sacrifice anything; and so we didn't have a chance to get serious about the war against terror like those Americans in 1941 who gladly sacrificed in the struggle to defend democracy—they collected scrap metal, they gave up real butter, real rubber tires, real cigarettes, rationed gasoline, rationed food—sacrifice in the cause. I see that so far President Obama is taking the same approach as President Bush—I haven't heard the word "sacrifice" lately. We think of ourselves as "consumers," "customers," "recipients" of the sports and the arts and the education and the entertainment and the religion of our culture. We don't think of ourselves as DOERS and sacrificers, we think of ourselves as "consumers." I think Jesus' disciples thought the same way: they started arguing on the road to Jerusalem about who was going to be Secretary of State, and who was going to be Secretary of the Treasury, and so on. Jesus interrupted their consumerism: "If any want to become my followers, let them deny self, take up their cross, and follow me." Faith is not a bargain bin for customers to pick over. We either are or we are not Jesus' followers. And he nails down this truth on the Mount of Transfiguration by revealing that God has given him the authority to call us to the cross—to our own sacrificial living in this world that God wants to save from going to hell in a hand-basket.
There is a big cloud before our eyes. We have made other agendas first and we have fit God in to support the other project. I look at my family and see how we've done it, too. My parents grew up in rural West Tennessee, and my father devoted his life to upward mobility: he even chose to drive Buicks because back in the 1950's a Buick was a status symbol. And, oh, by the way, we went to church. For my brother it was football: when he failed to get on the University of Tennessee football team, he dropped out of college and his life went into a tailspin that took him most of three decades to correct—and on this journey of self-contempt he dropped out of church—it wasn't supporting the project.
But we Griggses aren't the only ones who have co-opted Christ and the church to support our real hopes and dreams. Both on the Left and the Right, many Christians in America have let a political agenda dominate "discipleship." Others have placed business in the dominant role, and Jesus is supposed to support capitalism (even though capitalism was a creation of the early Modern period). Others have placed family life first, others comfort, and many have chosen the regular daily schedule and called God in to help. Is God on my side, or am I on God's side? It's really not the same thing. One is faith, and one is idolatry.
The Christians for whom the Gospel of Mark was first written believed in miracles leading to the triumphant return of Christ in glory. The Gospel of Mark re-tells the story of Jesus to them to let them hear Jesus say that his Messiahship is defined by the Cross, not the glory. On the Mount of Transfiguration we see so much glory even Peter is dumbfounded; but next, he goes to Jerusalem, to the Cross. And he says, "If you want to follow me, then deny self, take up your own cross, and follow me." What might that look like for us in the twenty-first century?
Your life is your life: you have to work, you have to love, you have to sleep, you at least have to pay taxes as a participant in America—and in all this we're just like everybody else. So where's the cross? It is simply this: to bring your faith and the kind of ethical commitment it gives you into the center of each thing you do. In other words, the real theologian of Christianity is you, and the theology you do is not so much in words as in your deeds, your choices, your way of doing what you do. At work: there are ethical dynamics every day; are you paying attention? In relationships: following Jesus is not jabbering on and on about Jesus, it's doing what is loving, speaking what is true, guarding what is sacred. I mentioned sleep: this raises questions about medications and self-medication, and the ethical requirement to keep your body sound because it is a temple of Christ's Spirit. And politics: well, each of us has the right to think our own political thoughts and to act on them; but what's different about Jesus' disciple is this: even in politics you carry your cross of faith—that means ethics (which is always refreshing to see), and it means service instead of greed.
Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration made unmistakably clear his authority to say that his Messiahship is defined by his Cross, and that your discipleship is defined by your cross. This is what there is to see up there in the mountain-top experience. He accepted his Cross as the Son of God because he loved you. Who do you love?
AMEN
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