Sermon for March 2, 2025
Readings:
My son has recently become fixated on Jesus. His parents, as they are both priests, are delighted with this, as you can imagine. He knows lots of Jesus songs, and because Jesus is usually depicted in similar ways, even in cartoons and children’s picture books, he can easily recognize the image of Jesus. We sometimes argue about Moses, Noah, and Abraham, but Jesus he correctly recognizes. It is all very heartwarming and encouraging.
But several times this week, my son has looked at me and said “What’s Jesus doing?” Now, because he wasn’t looking at a cartoon or a picture book, it wasn’t a question about what is happening in this story. It was more of an existential question; at least an existential question for a two-and-a-half-year-old. “What’s Jesus doing?” And the only honest answer that I could give, at least this week, was “I don’t know, son. I just don’t know.” I could easily tell him all about the things that Jesus did. I could tell him about my hope for what Jesus is going to do. But when it comes to here and now, in this moment in history, in this time in which we are living, at times I find myself struggling to understand what God is up to. What is Jesus doing?
Of course, my son doesn’t read the news yet, so I know that the things that I find distressing or crazy-making, he isn’t even aware of. He doesn’t know about politics or world affairs; He’s just being a curious toddler. His question really revealed more about my own day to day faith than it did in his. Because I can tell you all about what Jesus said and did while he walked the earth. I know the gospel stories. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t read something that Jesus said. And I do have faith that ultimately the salvation of the world is in his hands. I do believe in those things that I say I believe every week. What Jesus is going to do. I believe that he will come again to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting. Where I struggle, and where I think many people struggle, is wondering what Jesus is up to right now. Doesn’t he see all the sin and hypocrisy? Doesn’t he see war and death? Does he see lies and misinformation? Doesn’t he know what a mess the world is? I would so love to have perfect clarity in knowing what God is up to at all times, but that is not something that my faith affords me. I may have occasional visions and moments of revelation, but they pass and I am forced to get on with everyday life just like everyone else. Sometimes the only honest answer I can give when asked what God is up to is to say, “I don’t know.”
So, I am very sympathetic to Peter in today’s gospel story. I am sympathetic because when he has this wondrous vision on the mountain of who Jesus is and what he is up to, Peter says to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here. Let’s build some houses and just stay here.” Peter wants to stay right there in that moment. Peter can see a transfigured Jesus. God’s glory is just shining out from him. There is little room for doubt about Jesus’s identity in this moment. You have all the special effects: the light, and the clouds, and the booming voice from above saying “this is my son. Listen to him!” It’s all there. Its spectacular. There is little room for doubt. And then you have the figures of Moses and Elijah on each side of Jesus talking to him. They are a revelation too. They reveal that this Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. The law from Moses and Elijah the greatest of the prophets. And they are talking to Jesus about his departure. That’s another revelation, because the word for “departure” in the text there is exodos, which means exactly what you think it means. His exodus. God makes clear to Peter and James and John in this moment that there is a link between what Moses did and what Jesus is doing. Both figures represent divine liberation from slavery into freedom. Both represent a journey from an old way of living, according to the rules and laws of this world; rules that are focused on power and who has it; into a new way of living with rules and laws that are focused on love and where it must be shown. This is a revelation to Peter; it is a glorious vision. So, I can understand why Peter would want to just live in that space. Who wouldn’t?
But no sooner does Peter say that, and the vision is gone, and he and James and John and Jesus are headed back down the mountain and into the messiness of everyday living. I don’t think it is an accident that our gospel goes from a glorious vision of who Jesus is and what he is doing immediately into a personal encounter between Jesus and one sick individual. There is a whole crowd of people that want to see Jesus, that need his help. But one father shouts out above them all that his son is sick. And what makes matters worse, is that this man has gone to Jesus’s followers for help and has gotten no relief. When Jesus comes down the mountain he seems to be pretty disappointed in what he finds in his disciples. Why? It seems like he calls them and their whole generation faithless and perverse? Well, maybe they had the power to alleviate this person’s suffering and they just didn’t do it. Or, maybe they didn’t understand that they could call upon God and God’s power to fight evil. Maybe they didn’t realize that God’s power wasn’t just for fighting globalized and glorified evil like images of Armageddon or the devil running around with a pitchfork, but also mundane evil. The evil of sickness. The evil of pain and loneliness. The evil of despair. The evil of callous disregard. The little evils of everyday life. Gods power can be called on to fight that evil too. God’s power can set people free, and Jesus has given his disciples access to that power. But Jesus comes down the mountain and finds people in bondage to the evils that he was trying to set them free from. Sort of reminds you of Moses coming down the mountain. He came down to discover that while he was away the Israelites had constructed a golden calf to worship, an Egyptian God, not the God who was setting them free. Exoduses don’t always go easy. The people want to turn back. They wonder where they are going and fear that they may be lost. So it was with Moses, and so it is with Jesus too. The disciples are not faultless in following Jesus. They don’t always get it and they often try and turn back to idols and the ways of the world. But as at the foot at mount Sinai, so also at the foot of the mount of the Transfiguration, God shows himself to be faithful, even when his closest followers are not.
The challenge of being a follower of this God and of his son Jesus Christ, is translating that vision of God on the mountaintop into the God of everyday life. Peter and James and John have a vision of Christ’s glory, but God doesn’t let them stay there. They have to go back down the mountain, to people who are suffering and lost and in despair and find God and God’s power there too. They have to put God’s power to work. They need to see God’s power at work. It is so easy to get overwhelmed by trying to figure out what God is doing globally, that we can’t see God at work when it is right in front of us. It is also so easy to be so overwhelmed by all the suffering and evil in the world that we think there is absolutely nothing we can do to make life better for anyone. But there are things that we can do. We may not have the power to save the world, Jesus does that, but he has given us power, his power, to fight evil and sin and hard-heartedness, sometimes in very simple, little and small ways.
Yesterday, March 1st was the Feast of Saint David, the patron saint of Wales. He is actually where our son gets his middle name. Saint David was famous for his last words to his followers “Be joyful, and keep your faith and your creed, and do the little things.” Do the little things. Little acts of compassion. Little moments of grace. Little prayers to God asking for helping with either speaking up or shutting up, whichever the case may be. Little moments of remembering who our God is can help you a lot when you aren’t sure where you are going. Peter and James and John had this awe-inspiring vision of Christ on the mountain, but then they came down the mountain and saw Christ’s power at work in the life of one ordinary sick person that needed help. What is Jesus doing? Well he is setting that person free, and that person free, and that person free. That is what Jesus is doing. We just can’t see it all at once. That is why it is easy to doubt sometimes, or to wonder like I do at times, what is Jesus doing? Well, we may wonder sometimes what Jesus is up to, and that’s ok, but we know who Jesus is. And that is far more important.
I didn’t have a ready-made answer for my son when he asked me “what’s Jesus doing?” mostly because I just didn’t expect the question. But at one point this week, he sat down next to me on the couch with his little play computer, and he said to me Jesus loves me. And I said “that’s right buddy” and I looked down and I realized that he had typed it. Correctly. And then he did it again. I think he answered his own question. It was a better answer than I could give. What’s Jesus doing? Jesus is loving you. That’s what he’s doing.
Inwardly Digest 