Last Sunday after the Epiphany,
March 3, 2019

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

Those of you who have heard me preach before will know that my desire to preach against the ways that the Christian Church has promoted supersessionist theology (that is, the idea that Christianity supercedes Judaism) gets stronger every year. Supersessionism is very much like racism – it’s systemic, it’s oppressive, it’s insidious, it’s often internalized, unexamined, and always wrong. It distorts our vision and injures our souls.

So on this day on which we mark the end of the Epiphany season with story of the transfiguration of Jesus, in light of the story of Moses’ shining countenance, I’m again compelled to say something about the Apostle Paul and his strong words to the gathering of Jesus-followers in Corinth. That’s because our passage today sounds like Paul is dismissing Moses and the Israelites as old news, and preaching the newness and better-ness of Christianity. But I must remind you that Paul was not a Christian. [1]  Paul was thoroughly Jewish, arguing with people within his own tradition for openness and inclusivity in the realm of God, much like arguments within the 21st century church. Furthermore, Paul was not inventing the ideas of openness and inclusivity (nor was Jesus, for that matter). Both Paul and Jesus (though Jesus, to a lesser extent), were declaring stretched boundaries and widened gates for belonging and beloving as people of God, using the Torah and Prophets as their prooftexts. Rather than discontinuity, it’s continuity and expansion of belonging and beloving that Paul and Luke assert in encouraging people to follow the Jesus Way.

I want to persuade you that Paul was not hating and rejecting his former self or his tradition. He was a great writer and he had a passion for welcoming people into the beloved community by proclaiming that the God of Israel’s mercy and grace extended to all nations – that is, all Gentiles. The context for our passage from 2 Corinthians is this: having founded the community of Jesus followers in Corinth, Paul moved on to gather similar communities in other cities. After he was gone, folks who Paul derisively called “superapostles” came to Corinth and insisted that, in order to really be people of the God of Israel, the Gentile men had to be circumcised and Gentile people had to follow Jewish dietary laws and other customs. Paul’s audience in Corinth was made up of Gentiles. He was arguing that the Torah does not apply to Gentiles in a literal way. In the writings we have, Paul never spoke out against Jews observing Torah – only Gentiles! In his letter to the church in Rome, he wrote “Do we then render Torah void? God forbid! On the contrary, we uphold the Torah!” Rabbi Berman often teaches that Torah is so much deeper and wider than our comparatively flat English word “law.” It is a multi-dimensional way of being, created before the world. Torah is the Word, the way of being, given to Jews, for embrace by Jews. Gospel is the Word, the way of being, given to Christians, for embrace by Christians. They are equally good and equally challenging ways of living faithfully.

According to Paul, God’s mercy and grace extend to people even if they aren’t Jews. This is good news for us! Interest in openness and inclusiveness has its roots in the First (or Older) Testament and is continued in our Second Testament. We bear witness to openness and inclusiveness at Emmanuel Church, not out of some new-age liberalism (which is perfectly good) but out of scripture, tradition and reason, and with the authority that comes from engaging with a God Who is always doing a new thing. Paul is asserting that God loves us just the way we are, and God loves us too much to let us stay this way, as Anne Lamott has said (and I am fond of repeating).

“New covenant” doesn’t nullify any previous covenants from the standpoint of the God of Israel – God was offering new covenants to God’s people throughout ancient history – the new covenant of Noah, the new covenant of Abraham, the new covenant with Moses and the people in the wilderness (indeed, our story today happens after God gave a new covenant to Moses who broke the first set of tablets). There’s a new covenant with David, the new covenant written on the hearts of the people described by the prophet Jeremiah, the new covenant proclaimed by Jesus. That’s where we might stop, but there are also new covenants after Jesus, you know.

Here’s what I notice about the story of Moses veiling his face and about Paul’s interpretation. Moses was radiant, brilliant, dazzling, terrifyingly luminous, because of his encounters with the Divine. The people were afraid – and so to avoid frightening them, Moses veiled his face after he told them what God had spoken. In Paul’s opinion, Moses had good intentions, but in trying to protect people from their fears, he obscured something essential – the reflection of the glory of God. The unintended consequence of being protected from the reflection of the glory of God was that people’s minds (or hearts) became hardened. Appeasing or placating people made them less open to the glory of God. Paul encouraged his audience to be bold and unafraid of the light of God wherever it shines.

The Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke all contain an account of what is commonly known as “The Transfiguration” followed by an account of Jesus healing a boy who is plagued with seizures. In the lectionary assignment of the Gospel reading, the story of the healing of the boy is optional. I’ll tell you, I’ve been a church lady for a very long time, and yet when I think of the story of the transfiguration, I don’t link it in my mind to the story that follows, and yet our scripture doesn’t separate the stories because they belong together. Notice the repetition of “not knowing” of Jesus’ disciples in the two stories. Peter did not know what he was saying when he suggested building three dwellings for Jesus, Moses and Elijah on the mountaintop. Notice that the disciples on the ground below the mountain top did not know how to stop the boy’s seizures. The disciples did not know what to say or do, even when begged.

Of the three gospel writers who include “Transfiguration” stories, only Luke tells what Jesus, Moses, and Elijah were talking about in that mystical conversation. Luke says that they were talking about Jesus’ departure which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Our English translation of the ancient Greek does us a disservice here because the word “departure” doesn’t quite cover what Jesus was about to accomplish. The word that is translated “departure” is Exodus. Luke tells us that the three great spiritual leaders were talking about the Exodus which Jesus was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Of course Exodus means departure, but for people whose primary sacred text is the Bible, Exodus means so much more than leaving. Exodus means liberation from oppression, freedom from cruelty, release from captivity. Exodus means emancipation from the narrow place (the mitzrayim – the Egypt) that is squeezing the life right out of people. For Luke, the Exodus is an important interpretive lens or key to the story of Jesus. I invite you to notice that what sounds like a short-tempered, crabby Jesus in the words, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you?” With that question, Jesus is quoting the final Song of Moses in Exodus. It’s a song of warning and instruction and of great hope. It is a song about crooked and twisted people (another way to translate unbelieving and perverse), about dull and witless people, and the steadfast, mighty fortress-like love of God. It’s a song of great hope at the end of the Torah, a song reminding listeners that those who are wrestling with the Holy One will grow in strength and number, in body and in spirit.

The voice in the cloud says “this is my Son, my Chosen, listen to him” and, down the mountain, the voice of the father in the street says “this is my son, my only child, look at him.” Jesus is never described in Luke as Only Child or Only Son, but this afflicted child is described that way. The description of the child, convulsing, mauled, and shrieking is exactly how one might describe a person who is being crucified. That makes me think that Luke is reminding us that while we Christians do whatever we do, sing whatever we sing, celebrate whatever we celebrate, lament whatever we lament, our huge challenge is to do all of those while simultaneously holding the knowledge of the horror of the cross with the great hope of the steadfast, enduring, self-giving love of the Divine. Our huge challenge is to hold both pain and joy, not denying one or the other. Our own lives progress like these two stories from Luke, lurching between high points and low points, the mystical and the mundane, the pious and the profane, the ecstatic and the excruciating in close proximity, one right after another. Luke wants us to know that it all points to the Exodus which Jesus accomplished at Jerusalem. It all points to emancipation from what binds us.

It was surprising (even scandalous) that Jesus’ true nature, indeed his power, was demonstrated on the cross, in a culture that tended to see suffering as evidence of the absence of God. In the story we heard this morning, the boy’s father thinks that his suffering child is possessed by a demon, in the same way that many argued that Jesus’ suffering on the cross was proof that Jesus was not God’s beloved Son, not God’s Chosen. It is surprising and scandalous even today, as many people see suffering as evidence that God doesn’t love, or that God is punishing, or that God doesn’t exist. We may wonder, in fact, many do wonder, if our God is so God-like, why then would God permit suffering and cruelty and disease, earthquakes or hurricanes? Luke’s Gospel story is that God is with us – Emmanuel – right in the midst of all our suffering, working to transform – to transfigure — our suffering. Luke’s Gospel story is that God is with us – Emmanuel – right in the midst of our joy, working to get us to share grace – to spread it around.

And this story of the transfiguration, in the middle of material about how to prepare for suffering and how to live with and through suffering, this story that we hear on the brink of Lent, is a story about the glimpses – the flashes of grace that we sometimes get to sustain us in the midst of suffering or helplessness, especially the suffering that we experience on behalf of others. It’s a story told to help increase faith in the greatness of God in the midst of sorrow and pain and grief.

Did you notice that before Jesus accomplished his Exodus, before he got to the cross, the tomb, the resurrection and ascension, Jesus came down from the mountain, went back to his normal non-dazzling appearance and continued with his work of healing and feeding and freeing people he encountered along his way? According to Luke, the disciples told no one of what they had seen. They didn’t tell until much later, until after Jesus’ true nature had been revealed and lifted up for all to see in the communities that gathered and grew in the aftermath of his brutal execution. And I wonder if the reason they waited so long to tell was because they had nothing to tell until they realized by their life experiences that Love was indeed more powerful than even the most humiliating death, and that what we consider finite – our life – is not finite at all, and we need not be oppressed even by death or imprisoned by the fear of death. Death is not Pharaoh or Caesar or Lord, and we are encouraged to be subversive in our joy. It reminds me of the beautiful and subversive closing of our prayerbook burial service. It’s often spoken, but I’m going to chant it for you: “all of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.”

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