Last Sunday after the Epiphany, B, February 15, 2015, The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of blessing, grant us the wisdom, the strength and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Reflecting on white more dazzling than any bleach could achieve struck me as I pondered our Gospel passage for this morning as the threat of yet another blizzard developed. However you feel about the snow, invigorated or exhausted, it sure is dazzling white.

But before I say some things about the Gospel, I want to invite you to reflect with me about the story of Elijah and Elisha’s last journey together. In Hebrew, the tale is funny and so poignant. I decided that even though it is printed in your bulletin in the approved NRSV, we’d hear a snow day mash up of Eugene Peterson’s the Message translation with my own translation adjustments. Elisha was desperate not to lose sight of his beloved mentor and he didn’t want to hear that Elijah was going to be taken from him. I can relate to that, and I imagine some of you can too. Think of a mentor who was taken from you before you were ready. Think of what that mentor’s spirit was like and what it might mean for you to have a double portion of it. Think of the grief of losing your mentor, of being left with nothing but his or her covering – cloak – which can also be translated mantle or magnificence or glory! Nothing left but the glory. Think of being so angry at God that you want to die. Think of Elisha crying out in anger “Where is Elijah’s God now?” and flailing at the barrier that was the Jordan River. Think of a new way opening up where there appeared to be no way. Think of crossing over somehow.

The context for our Gospel reading is that Jesus and his disciples are making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He has told them that it will be his last because he will be betrayed, he will suffer and die and rise again. Peter has blurted out a version of, “Shut up!” and Jesus has responded, “You shut up.” (or get behind me Satan). The trip has gotten off to a very rough start. Six days later, in other words, on the seventh day the Sabbath day, Jesus took Peter and the sons of Zebedee away for some time by themselves. I always wonder why Peter’s brother Andrew wasn’t included.

We refer to this story as The Transfiguration – as being about a transformation or metamorphosis of Jesus that could be seen. But the voice of the Holy One doesn’t say, “Look at him! Or watch what he does!” The voice out of the fog or cloud says just what Mark reports Jesus hearing when he was baptized: You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.” Now the message is repeated for Peter, James and John: “This is my Son, the Beloved.” And the Voice issues an imperative: “Listen to him.”

Listen to him.

I think I know what Jesus says – I know that more than anything else in the Gospels, Jesus says, “Do not be afraid.” I know Jesus says things like love God and love your neighbor. What else does Jesus say? What, particularly, does Jesus say in the Gospel of Mark? (I wished on Friday that I had a red-letter Bible at home – you know, an edition that has everything that Jesus says already highlighted. I didn’t, so I just searched and highlighted the old fashioned way.) The first thing Jesus says in Mark is after John had been arrested: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” Do you know the last thing that Jesus says in Mark? “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Listen to him.

And that is what’s going on here in Mark, which is why I think the more the disciples did listen to Jesus, the more confused and more afraid they got. Just as soon as Jesus’ friends imagined that he was the savior, the Messiah, the Christ of God, he began to teach them about suffering – preparing them not just for his suffering but for their own if they were going to follow him. You know, people in Mark’s time and now cite suffering as evidence that God doesn’t (or isn’t Love), or that God is vengeful and punishing, or that God simply doesn’t exist. Some wonder why God would permit suffering, if God is so powerful. A month doesn’t go by without someone who is suffering deeply asking me why God is letting suffering happen, or where God is if God exists, or telling me of their absolute and fierce conviction that God does not exist. But this transfiguration or transformation story is telling us that the most profound truths cannot be proven, they can only be revealed in mystical ways.

Mark’s Gospel story is that God is With Us (Emmanuel) – right in the suffering. Indeed, listening deeply and responding to God can even mean more suffering according to Mark. And this story of the transfiguration/transformation, in the middle of the material about how to prepare for suffering and how to live with and through suffering, is a story about the glimpses – the flashes of Easter that we sometimes get to sustain us in the midst of suffering or helplessness. The suffering that Mark is most focused on is the suffering that we experience on behalf of others as we work to alleviate the suffering of others.

I think that’s what this story of the transfiguration/transformation is doing here in the middle of a Gospel focused on suffering. It’s a story Mark tells to reveal something of the greatness of God in Jesus Christ in the innermost, centerpoint of sadness and pain and loss and grief. It’s a story to help us remember the stories of those moments in our own lives, where in the midst of a mess of suffering we’ve gotten a glimpse of the power of transformation, of redemption, of pure grace, of Love, of God.

According to Mark, Jesus’ power – what made him the Messiah — was revealed in his response to suffering. Listen to him. He did not back away. Jesus responded to suffering (his own and others’) with the covenantal connectedness of Moses, with the prophetic clarity of Elijah, and with his own extraordinary compassion. (The Greek word for compassion literally means gut-wrenching.) It’s not that Jesus thought suffering is desirable, just that it is inevitable in order to bring about healing and liberation, justice and peace. Listen to him.

Maybe you remember the story about a Rabbi of a synagogue who is known for responding whenever a congregant shares bad news, “how do you know that’s not going to turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to you?” (Somehow his congregation tolerates this because they know that when a congregant shares a piece of good news he will ask, “how do you know that it won’t turn out to be the worst thing that could happen to you?”) We never do know how and when our own suffering on behalf of another might be redeemed through the surprising grace of God. Think about that as we prepare to move into the season of Lent, reminded with the ritual of ashes on Wednesday of our own mortality. Think about that as we sing our last Epiphany alleluias. It reminds me of my favorite prayer in the burial service: “All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.” How might we listen better to Jesus and to our own lives? How might we listen more deeply for the covenantal connectedness, the prophetic clarity and the extraordinary compassion shining on that holy mountain? Theologian Mark Davis writes in his blog posts, “We blurt – just when it would be wise to wonder. And listen” [1] “Maybe there are moments that do not invite ‘interactive learning’ but need us to sit on our hands and sew shut our mouths in order to open our ears… and hearts to something beyond our categories and comments.” [2]

1. Mark Davis, PoliticalTheologyToday.com, “The Politics of Bedazzlement – Mark 9:2-9, Feb. 9, 2015.

2. Mark Davis, LeftBehindandLovingIt.com, “Bedazzled and Blurting,” Feb. 9, 2015.

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