Jesus, Violence, and Power (or Unknowing)
In line with my “saved from what” story last week, I have a similar memory of another encounter with family. We were sitting at the table discussing the latest work by an author, teacher and theologian.
As a matter of fact, it may have been Brian McLaren, author of our current year long study. Someone (who may have been the same person who pointed out the family member who had just recently been saved) listened intently to the conversation and interrupted: “That is all well and good. But is he a Christian?”
There was a moment of silence. And someone else at the table responded, “well, I guess in order to answer that question, we would first have to agree on what is meant by the word Christian. We would have to share a common understanding of what that entails.”
I’ve thought a lot about that conversation over the years.
I think it is so very hard to have meaningful conversations without shared vocabulary. And beyond shared vocabulary, how is it that we begin to share a world view? Begin to seek common understandings? This is one key reason why we are making the road by walking together this year – our shared footsteps begin to forge shared experience and shared understanding of the world and one another on the path.
Today, our scriptures reveal a rapid-fire series of revelations about who Jesus is, what the Kingdom of Heaven might be, and how the church is called into the mix.
Many of us have consciously or unconsciously drawn from these scriptures and evolved some answers of our own over a lifetime. (For example, the image of Peter as the gatekeeper with a list whose in and whose out is popularly drawn from Matthew 16: 19 – I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven…)
The average traditional reading of these texts by the church have subtly influenced our beliefs about various things like Jesus, heaven, hell and the church.
And maybe we’ve never thought to poke at what we think we “know” or understand. Maybe we’ve never wrestled to fully understand the stuff that didn’t click in our hearts, accepting them at face value.
Today as we visit this text, I invite you to consider letting go or holding loosely what you think you already know and, I hope we might let go of our need to know definitively “the one right way” to understand in order to be open to what is still being revealed to us as we make the road by walking.
In the traditional rhythm of the Christian year, today marks the “transfiguration,” that moment when Jesus is seen all sparkly and glowing and bright white alongside Moses and Elijah while on a mountaintop with Peter, James and John. We tend to visit that story in scripture by itself. But it is so vitally nestled with other things in Matthew’s gospel as you heard today.
Let’s unpack the action of 24 verses from Matthew we heard today. Over the course of these verses, we have:
· A discourse or revelation about who Jesus is, what role he fills, how he is understood by those he’s teaching.
· A revelation about who Peter is and how the church will take shape with him as a cornerstone.
· Some hints about the Kingdom of Heaven – and about the role death might play.
· Jesus’ first revelation to his disciples about the suffering he is to endure.
· A comparison of Peter, to Satan, more of a stumbling block than a rock.
· A discipleship challenge – revealing the expectation that life will never be the same and in fact, a call to give up life as we know it.
· A trip up the mountainside, which always suggests something big is about to happen.
· A visitation by Moses and Elijah, topped off with the voice of God reiterating the words spoken at Jesus’ baptism, along with a command to listen to him.
· And finally, Jesus’ instruction that Peter, James and John are to say nothing about what they’ve experienced…until the resurrection.
There is a LOT that happens here.
You’ve heard me say that I struggle with titles for sermons. I don’t always love McLaren’s chapter titles – and this one I really don’t love. How about instead of Jesus, Violence and Power this one is something like, The Work of Unknowing to Understand? At a minimum, I’d rather use that title for my sermon.
McLaren focuses his work in this chapter on how Jesus is understood in contrast to the prevailing political winds of the day. He focuses on the radical revelation of Jesus as “Messiah” in Caesarea Philippi, a town that had significant importance to the various political players of the day, a place where various gods with a small “g” were venerated, a place where political leaders played.
And so, to stand in the shadow of that place and name Jesus as “Messiah” and the Son of the Living God was truly revolutionary. And dangerous. And powerful. And political.
In light of that revelation, Jesus’ announcement that he will suffer and die, turns expectations of folks like Peter upside down. In Peter’s pronouncement, to be the Messiah of God was to be the conquering force, doing what needed to be done, in order to unseat Rome and the power of the religious elite.
Instead, Jesus reveals that he must suffer. Which doesn’t sound so powerful and salvific all of a sudden.
Peter pulls his teacher aside and cries out in his pain and disbelief – this must never happen!
Confused by Jesus’ warnings, Peter expresses his concern and denial of what Jesus is saying will happen. As a result, Peter is rebuffed by Jesus, soundly, sharply – “get behind me Satan.”
In just a quick turn, Peter has gone from the rock on which the church will be built to a stumbling block for Jesus. It feels sudden. It feels harsh. I suspect it felt disappointing and confusing.
By way of making it “clear” (and hear the irony there) that Jesus’ fate as Messiah is to undergo great suffering, Jesus has completely undone Peter’s understanding of how power might work, of how the future might play out.
In Jesus Christ Superstar, these lyrics speak into this moment:
Neither you, Simon, nor the fifty-thousand
Nor the Romans, nor the Jews
Nor Judas, nor the twelve, nor the Priests, nor the scribes
Nor doomed Jerusalem itself
Understand what power is
Understand what glory is
Understand at all
But we’re just getting started!
We turn from Jesus and Peter’s squabble to a trip up the mountainside six days later, this time with James and John in tow. Just days after taking Peter down a notch, Jesus becomes dazzling and shiny, flanked by the prophets Moses and Elijah. Peter wants to preserve the moment, to create dwellings for each of them. But he’s interrupted by a voice from the clouds – this is my Son, the Beloved. With him I am well pleased. Listen to him.”
The disciples are struck down in fear, and Jesus comes to them, no longer shiny and bright, telling them not to be afraid. And by the way, tell NO ONE about this vision until after my resurrection.
So now these men carry THIS responsibility. They have seen and heard another amazing revelation about who Jesus is. And they were already confused but now…now they need to hold onto this experience until when? Until what happens?
Until after Jesus is resurrected. I have to imagine that Peter is still wrestling with the hard truth that Jesus must suffer and die. And now there is a resurrection to expect.
It is so much to take in and none of it quite makes sense in the world that the disciples lived in.
Heck, none of it quite makes sense in the world that we live in.
God’s way of achieving victory is not our way. And even as Jesus is beginning to explain some of this to the disciples, it is clear that God’s way cannot be easily understood. Perhaps by anyone.
God’s victory is not political victory. It is not a violent overthrow. It is not an earthly kingdom of possessions and power. It is a movement. A following. A set of choices. A will to love God and one another above all else.
But that is so different than our worldly ways. Back then it was so different from Roman rule. Now it is so different from our market driven ways.
This week, imagining Peter’s experience and then remembering the times I have bumped up against people so convinced that they know in a very concrete way how this all works, I wonder…
I wonder…
Do they really know? Have they tried to un-know? To empty themselves of the clear-eyed understanding in order to see in a new way? What does God think about our knowing?
In Hebrews, it is written, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
Which might be “faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things we cannot fully understand.”
Do we have faith to let God be God? To accept that we might have it wrong, that we might need to open ourselves up to new learning? To accept that maybe we cannot really “know?”
This feels like the threshold of Lent to me. Can I empty myself of the pride of knowing, of the pride and assurance of clean and easy answers, in order to be in relationship with the LIVING GOD who is working in each moment across a continuum of time and space that I cannot even begin to understand?
And …I have a role to play in the midst of that unknowing. I can’t just shrug it off and sit with my lack of understanding. The role I have to play is to keep looking to and for God in the midst of the thing. To keep listening to and for God in the midst of the thing. To keep proclaiming the Messiah even when I am not fully aware of what that means in light of the world we live in today. This is the work. This is the work of Lent.
Unknowing, in the midst of faith that God is doing a thing – a new thing – an ongoing thing, a thing that may not make sense. A thing that I am a part of but not always privy to.
As I have looked back across these weeks of study since Epiphany, we have focused on aspects of who Jesus was, seeking to know him deeper by understanding his work, his teaching, his worldview. And I am aware that as we turn our feet toward Jerusalem, as we consider the journey we will make with Jesus and his followers toward the cross, I am keenly aware of how much we still do not know and cannot know or fully understand or of the things we may have thought we knew but now have to reconsider.
And yet, we walk. We walk forward. Together. Because the road keeps unfolding before us.
And God is with us each step of the way.
Thanks be to God.
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