Six Days Later ... (Transfiguration Sunday Feb 26 2017)

Homily: Yr A Transfiguration, Feb 26 2017, St. Albans

Readings: Exodus 24.12-18; Ps 99; 2 Pet 1.16-21, Mt 17.1-9

Six Days Later …

Six days later.  Six long days later.  Six of the longest days of Peter’s life.  Almost a full week with Jesus’ words ringing in his ears: “Get behind me Satan!  You are a stumbling block to me.”

Everything had been going so well.  The week before, Jesus had taken Peter and the disciples up north, to the outskirts of the Roman city of Caesarea Philippi.  There, overlooking the enemy city, overlooking the soldiers’ barracks, he had asked his disciples, “Who do you say I am?”  And it was Peter who had responded, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”  Jesus had been pleased, he had praised Peter for his response, and he had chosen Peter as his leader, the rock on whom he would build his church.  Peter was honoured and thrilled and determined to take his role seriously.

So when Jesus turned away from the Roman enemy at Caesarea Philippi to go to Jerusalem, when Jesus began to teach his disciples that he must undergo great suffering at the hands of the Jewish authorities, that he would be arrested and put to death, and on the third day be raised, Peter objected.  Peter wouldn’t listen to Jesus.  He had a different understanding of what it means to be the Messiah and so he pulls Jesus aside, and begins to rebuke him, saying this must never happen to you.

And that’s when Jesus lets him have it.  He turns to Peter, and with everyone listening, Jesus says to Peter, “Get behind me Satan.  You are a stumbling block to me.”  Strong language.

Have you ever screwed up?  Tried your best but failed?  Tried to understand something but just not get it?  Been chewed out and put down in front of your friends or your colleagues?  If so, then maybe you can relate to Peter, maybe you can relate to where Peter was at that very moment and how difficult the next six days must have been.  Confused, angry, remorseful, bitter, dejected – all of the above?

Six days later, Jesus takes Peter, and James and John with him and leads them up a high mountain.  I don’t imagine he gave them much of an explanation why, after all, what explanation could you possibly give for what was about to unfold.

On the mountain top, Jesus was transfigured before them, his face shining like the sun and his clothes becoming dazzling white.  And there appeared with him Moses and Elijah, talking to him.  It is an awesome moment, a moment of transcendence, a once in a lifetime experience for Peter.  And so Peter gets excited, and he starts talking, he starts talking about making three dwellings, one for each of them, he wants to capture the moment somehow.  But then a bright cloud overshadows them, and a voice from the cloud says, “This is My Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased.”

And then, continues the voice:  “Listen to him!”

But Peter had refused to listen to Jesus, in fact he had argued with him, had rebuked him.

“Listen to him!”  The last words Jesus had said to Peter were “Get behind me Satan!  You are a stumbling block to me.”

“Listen to him!”

Peter collapses, falls to the ground, overcome by fear.

Have you been there?  Afraid?  Overcome? Overwhelmed?  Knowing you’ve screwed up, feeling like a failure?  If you have, then I want you to pay close attention to what happens next.

Peter is lying on the ground like a corpse, as good as dead.  But Jesus comes to him and touches him, and says, “get up.” 

“Get up.”  “Be raised up”.  This is resurrection language.  These are the same words which will be used at Easter when God raises Jesus from the dead.  Get up.

No matter how bad it gets, Jesus cares about us and Jesus has the power to raise us up.  To give us new life.  And so we don’t have to be afraid.  Get up and do not be afraid.

Jesus called Peter to be the rock on whom he would build his church.  Peter screwed up royally on his first day on the job.  He fully expected to be fired, or worse.  But that’s not how God works.  Even in our weakest moments, even in our moments of failure, God will raise us up to do the things he has called us to do. 

For Peter, the transfiguration of Jesus was a life-changing event.  In our new testament reading from the letter that bears Peter’s name we hear how as an old man, Peter looked back to that mountain top experience as the pivotal event that confirmed his faith in Jesus as Lord.  Did he look back to that vision of Jesus with Moses and Elijah, his face shining like the sun, his clothing dazzling white?  I’m sure he did.  Sometimes we can really use the occasional glimpse of glory on the mountain top to encourage and inspire us as we slog our way through everyday life in the valley.  We long for moments of transcendence, those moments when we get a glimpse of God. 

But I also believe that Peter looked back to the transfiguration as the day when he was lost but then found.  The day when he was dead but then raised to new life.  The day that he was down and overwhelmed by fear, but then Jesus came to him, touched him and said “Get up, and don’t be afraid.”

And it’s the same for each one of us.  Jesus doesn’t just call the best and the brightest to be his disciples.  He calls us.  He calls us with our strengths and our weaknesses, with our hopes and our fears, with our insights and our misunderstandings.  He calls us as we are, and when we screw up, and we will, he will come to us, and gently touch us and say “Get up, and don’t be afraid.”  For he has the power to raise us up.

Amen.

No One is Disposable (Feb 12 2017)

Homily:  Yr A Proper 6, Feb 12 2017, St. Albans

Readings:  Deut 30.11-20; Ps 119.1-8; 1 Cor 3.1-9; Mt 5.21-37

Image by Chris-Havard Berge, CC

Did you find today’s gospel disturbing?  If so, that’s a good start.  The kingdom of God has come near.  And it’s going to disturb us.  Shake us up a bit.

One of the reasons that we hear today’s gospel as disturbing or even painful is because we hear it as ethics.  We hear it as a high ethical standard, which I know that I don’t meet, and that makes me liable, and I don’t like to hear that.  We hear Jesus teaching about the law as ethics, and it sounds like it’s aimed squarely at us.

But it’s not about us.  It’s about God.  This is not ethics.  This is revelation.

Two weeks ago, when we started reading the sermon on the mount together, I said that this was Jesus’ manifesto, his public declaration of who God is and what God wants.  Or, to put it another way, in this teaching, Jesus is revealing for us what it looks like when the kingdom of heaven breaks into our lives.

In fact if I had to sum up today’s gospel reading in one sentence, I would use the exact same words that Jesus used as the opening statement of his ministry:

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

The kingdom of heaven is a vision of life the way God intends it to be, a vision of what it looks like when we become the people that God created us to be.

What would that look like?

In God’s kingdom no one is disposable.  People are not plastic cups.  No one in God’s kingdom will be insulted or dismissed as a fool.  No one will be denied their dignity by being objectified and looked at with lust.  People are not tools to be used for profit.  Women are not something to be discarded when they no longer serve a man’s purpose.  All people deserve to be told the truth.  When promises are made they are to be kept.

This is what God intended when God created humanity in God’s image.  This is the vision that God affirmed at our baptism when we were recreated as children of God and told that we are loved.  This is the vision of humanity that was embodied in the person of Jesus.  This is why Jesus called disciples to participate in the realization of this vision, on earth as in heaven.

In the kingdom of God, no one is disposable.  That is what God intends.  That’s what Jesus is revealing about God, what he’s trying to get us to see in today’s gospel.  It’s not about me.  It’s about God.  And it’s about God’s vision for us.  We are the people of God, and this is who we are.

It’s not like we haven’t heard this before.  Each one of us at our baptism committed to this vision, or our parents committed to it on our behalf.  Let me remind you of what you affirmed.  Here are two the questions which were posed:

“Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbour as yourself?”

“Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?”

To which you responded each time with, “I will with God’s help.”

These are first and foremost statements about God.  This God that we commit to in baptism, this is what God intends.  This is what the kingdom of God looks like.  First, revelation.  First, we commit to God’s vision.  Only then do we consider the ethical implications of God’s vision for his people.  How then shall we live?

Remember what Jesus is doing on the mountain.  He is not speaking in the first instance to the crowds.  He is teaching his disciples, those who have made a commitment to follow him.  He begins by teaching them who God is and what God wants, fleshing out for them what he means by the kingdom of God, pointing out the disorienting nature of a kingdom which blesses the poor and the hungry.  Then he turns the focus on the disciples, telling them, telling those of us who have committed to following Jesus, that we are the salt of the earth, we are the light of the world, and that this isn’t some kind of private practice that we are called to but rather a very public vocation that shines, that gives life and light to those who need it, life and light for the world around us.  Because as disciples we are called to embody the kingdom of God in this world and to be the very place, the very community where God’s kingdom draws near and breaks into people’s lives.

This is the vision, this is the revelation, this is our identity, this is our vocation.  First, we need to see it.  Only then do we ask the question, how then shall we live?

And now with this perspective, this new perspective, it is pretty clear that it’s not enough to not murder or not commit adultery.  Jesus is calling us to embody this new reality called God’s kingdom, a reality in which no one is disposable.  When we are angry, or insulting or dismissive with another, we fail to embody God’s vision.  When we objectify people and view them as a means to an end, we fail to embody God’s vision.  When we consider some people as not worthy of hearing the truth or of having promises kept, we fail to embody God’s vision.

And when we do fall short, and we will, we confess our failings and God forgives us and reminds us once more that he loves us and that we are his children and that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world, the ones that he has chosen to make his kingdom known.  And we will, with God’s help.

Let me say a word about divorce.  I know that gospel readings such as this one can be painful to hear for those who are divorced or whose loved ones are divorced or who are in the midst of a difficult marital situation.  I know that readings such as this one have been used in a way that has caused hurt and harm. Let me repeat what I have already said this morning.  I believe that Jesus’ words here are first and foremost revelation, and not ethical instruction.  They are intended to reveal to us something of the kingdom of God, and something about who God is and what God’s vision is for humanity, what God intends for us.  God never intended for us to have to go through the pain of divorce.  God never intended that there be bad or abusive marriages.  God never intended broken relationships.  This is not what God wants, and when these things happen, God shares our pain.

In this text, I believe that Jesus is revealing to us what God intends for marriage, which is that two people should be joined in a life-long, loving, covenant relationship.  That is after all, what each of us intended at the beginning of our own marriages.  But when things go wrong, this teaching of Jesus about what God intends, this vision of the beauty of God’s kingdom is not sufficient for us to sort out the ethical issues involved.  Our church has recognized that it is insufficient to use this text alone to deal with the ethical issues around divorce.  We need also to remember that our God is a God of mercy and compassion.  We need to remember that Jesus’ most important ethical teachings are love and forgiveness.  We need to remember that the way that God deals with our failings is not by judgement and punishment but by the love manifested on the cross.  As St. Paul puts it in his majestic letter to the Romans, yes, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” but “they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” and, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

This holds true for all of us. 

When we hear today’s gospel as ethical instruction, as an ethical standard that no one I know has ever met, and for which we are liable, it is disturbing and even painful.  And maybe it’s okay that we spend a little time in that place, and then know that we are forgiven.

But when we hear today’s gospel as a vision of what God intends for us, as an image of the kingdom of God which is coming near and breaking into our lives, this is glorious.  Don’t you long for a world, for a day when no one is disposable?  When the dignity of every human being is respected?  When we recognize the image of God reflected in each member of our community?  When we can fully live into our identity as salt and light?  When each one of God’s children will know that they are loved?

That’s what God wants.  That’s what we want.  Thy kingdom come, on earth as in heaven.

Amen.