II Sunday of Lent
(Luke 9)
Context is critical. If we yell “fire” in a theatre where there is no fire, we might be convicted of manslaughter. But if, in fact, a fire has broken out, we might be rewarded as heroes. There is a significant context to Jesus’ going up the mountain to pray. He has just made the realization that he will suffer and be killed on behalf of the people. He shares this prediction with his disciples. And he tells them that they will have to take up their crosses behind him.
Mountains are places of visions. The night before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his famous “mountaintop” speech. He said that he had received a letter from a little girl after he had been stabbed in the chest. The knife blade had lodged itself a fraction of an inch from his heart so that if he had sneezed it would have killed him. The girl wrote that she was glad he hadn’t sneezed. Dr. King admitted that he too was glad he hadn’t sneezed. He said that if he had, he could not have been to the mountaintop. From the mountaintop he saw African-Americans in Selma, Alabama, and Albany, Georgia, standing up for their rights. From the mountaintop he saw hundreds of thousands of people – black and white – endorse his dream of equality in Washington, D.C. That was is a great vision of liberation, but there is a vision of even greater liberation on the mountaintop with Jesus.
Jesus is being “changed in appearance” with his clothing becoming “dazzling white.” No doubt, this transfiguration consoles him after becoming aware that he will be crucified. Now he is assured that his death will end in glory. We can appreciate Jesus’ new confidence. As we saw in the gospel about the temptations last week, Jesus is human like us. No one wants to suffer. But if we can be guaranteed that our pain has purpose, we might bear it. So marathon runners undergo grueling conditioning in order to compete at Boston or New York. So teachers forsake large salaries in order to assist children learn. So parents sacrifice meals and rest in order to care of a sick infant.
The conversation with Moses and Elijah is also encouraging. The two prophets inform Jesus that his “exodus” or death in Jerusalem is not incidental. Rather, he will die there to fulfill what God his Father has planned for His people from the beginning. Moses led the original exodus freeing the Israelites from slavery and bringing them to the Promised Land. Elijah waged the winless battle of keeping Israel faithful to God’s law. Now Christ will bring the work of freedom and faithfulness to completion. Liberation will begin in Jerusalem and go out to the whole world. Jesus will free us from our sins and send his Spirit to keep us faithful to his new law of love.
With the disciples we should be waking from our sleep. That is, we should become aware of how we have been held captive. Slave masters do not bind us. But distorted values of our contemporaries do. There is a saying, “In America one cannot be either too rich or too thin.” America esteems money and sex, the drive behind its obsession with thinness. Even people who come to church talk of wealth as if it were their greatest hope. Many hold sexual pleasure as a natural right like voting or education. All the attention given to Anne Nicole Smith’s demise last month illustrates this reality.
From the cloud God claims Jesus as His son. He urges the disciples, “...listen to him.” The ordeal he will undergo will unbind them. His teachings will point them in the direction of heaven, their true goal. Jesus teaches us not to despise money but to help the poor with it so that our treasure may accrue in heaven. He tells us that sex is to be treated with utmost regard. We are not to lust after one another but to love everyone as a brother or sister. This coming week in the mission we will listen to more of Jesus’ teaching. I think that you will find it interesting and hope that you can attend.
The movie “Flags of Our Fathers” shows what we might call the liberation of Iwo Jima. Japanese soldiers are dug into the rocks like ants. U.S. marines must fight them hand-to-hand in cases. For awhile it’s a winless battle. But at last there’s the vision of the American flag raised on the mountaintop. We can think of Jesus liberating us from the distorted contemporary values of money and sex with even greater effort. He has to suffer and be killed. But he makes the sacrifice out of love for us, his brothers and sisters. He loves us.
