Last Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B, 11 February 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

• 2 Kings 2:1-12. “Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you.” Elisha said, “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.”
• 1 Corinthians 4:3-6. For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
• Mark 9:2-10. He did not know what to say for they were terrified.

O God of revelation, 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.

This past week I had an unusually high number of harrowing experiences as I was navigating the streets in and around Boston. Last Tuesday, two cars crashed right in front of me on the Mass Pike; and on Thursday a car I was riding in nearly got T-boned by a distracted driver. I witnessed pedestrians nearly getting hit in crosswalks by drivers running red lights, bicyclists riding against traffic and traffic signs, aggressive tailgating, erratic lane changing, and gridlocked intersections. It seems to me that drivers have gotten so much worse in the last few years. I googled the worst drivers in the country and was shocked by the results; it’s very bad news. Boston is not even in the top-twenty cities with the worst drivers; we are not even close; we’re not even competitive!

What does this have to do with the Gospel of Mark’s story of the metamorphing of Jesus? It has to do with what Peter, James, and John hear the voice from the cloud saying about Jesus: “This is my son, the beloved.” You might remember that our Epiphany season began with the Gospel of Mark’s story of the baptism of Jesus, in which Jesus alone heard the voice of the Divine saying: “You are my son, the beloved. With you I am well pleased.” You might remember that the phrase is a rhetorical allusion to Isaiah 42, in which the Holy One says, “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights.” (The Holy One has a soul that has the capacity for delight!) The phrase is also a rhetorical allusion to Psalm 2:7, in which the Holy One says, “You are my son, today I have begotten you.” What’s important to me that you know is that, in both cases, the Holy One is referring not to a person, but to a people. Thus, when Mark identifies Jesus as the Son of Man, he is understanding Jesus to be representative of, prototypical of, a people. The voice from the heavens is speaking to people through Jesus, according to Mark: in other words, you people are beloved. If I were the kind of person who put bumper stickers on my car, the bumper sticker I’d choose would say, “You are beloved of God; drive like it.” If I were the kind of person who put signs up at intersections or billboards on highways, the message would be, “You are beloved of God; walk like it; run like it; bike like it; ride like it; act like it.”

Let’s back up a little bit. Mark writes that Jesus took a small group on retreat up a high mountain, apart by themselves. Were the others a little jealous or thoroughly relieved to not be a part of the getaway? We don’t know. While they were up there, Jesus’ clothing became dazzling white (like the clothing of a heavenly messenger). Was this transformation voluntary or involuntary? We don’t know. Jesus appeared to be in conversation with Moses, giver of the Torah, and Elijah, denouncer of idolatry, corruption, and whatever keeps people from being in right-relationship with one another and with God. What were they talking about? We don’t know. All we know is that Peter blurted out something about how good it was to see them together (but maybe each staying in their own tent would be better, less overwhelming). Why did Peter say this? Because he was terrified, freaked out is a closer translation.

Here’s what I want you to notice. If they were terrified of the vision of an angelic looking Jesus speaking with Moses and Elijah, then the cloud functions like a giant etch-a-sketch that makes the picture disappear. Did that make it better or worse? We don’t know. What we do know, according to Mark, is that the voice, repeating the belovedness of Jesus, reminds them all of the belovedness of the people and adds the command, “Listen to him.” This Godly admonition is, in fact, the exact center of the Gospel of Mark; and that is no coincidence. Mark, like other ancient writers, employed the literary device of chiasmus (or chiastic structure) to emphasize and highlight particular parts of the narrative, the most important being the innermost, center point, or capstone. This scene is it; although oddly, Jesus doesn’t speak in this story. So, one might ask the Divine voice, listen to what? I believe the answer is: listen to Jesus’ actions; listen to his healing, to what you have seen, to his life, to your gut, to his life in you. I believe that’s what listen to him means in the Gospel of Mark.

What had Peter, James, and John seen? They had seen people astonished at Jesus’ teaching in the synagogues and in the countryside. They had seen him healing people who were sick with various diseases and conditions and had seen him casting out many demons. They had seen Jesus dining with tax collectors and other sinners; they had seen crushing crowds of folks, who’d come from every direction searching for Jesus, trying to get close to him. They had seen him calm a storm and send pigs off of a cliff into the sea. They had seen him send his followers out two by two, without money, food, or even a change of clothes to spread the message of turning toward the Holy One and to try their own hands at healing people and exorcising demons. They had seen him feed thousands with a little bit of food. They believed he walked on water. They thought they’d seen everything, but no: listen to him.

Jesus ordered Peter, James, and John to tell no one about what they had seen until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. That’s a detail that always makes me smile, because the Gospel of Mark was written more than a generation after that Son of Man had risen from the dead. So the instruction to the hearers of any and every subsequent era actually means, tell everyone. Sadly, the next verse of the story is omitted from our lectionary portion. In fact, it never gets read in church on any Sunday. Verse 10 says, “So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead is.” That’s comforting to me because they just had seen all these things; they had had this mystical experience. They had no idea what it meant, nor did they know what rising from the dead meant. That gives us a lot of elbow room, doesn’t it?

We know the more the disciples did listen to Jesus, the more confused and afraid they became. Just as soon as Jesus’ friends started to imagine that he was the savior, the Messiah, the Anointed One of God, he began to teach them about suffering, to prepare 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 people now cite suffering as evidence that God doesn’t (or isn’t) Love, 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, where God is if God exists, or telling me of their fierce conviction that God does not exist. But this transfiguration, transformation, metamorphic 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), deeply beloving us, right in the suffering. Indeed, listening deeply and responding to God will mean more suffering according to Mark. And this story of the transfiguration, transformation, metamorphosis 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, which we sometimes get to sustain us in the midst of suffering. The suffering that Mark is most focused on is the suffering that we experience on behalf of others as we work to alleviate their suffering. 

I think that’s what this story of the transfiguration 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, center-point of sadness, pain, 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, redemption, pure grace, Love, 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; he responded to suffering (his own and others’) with the covenantal connectedness of Moses, the prophetic clarity of Elijah, the eagerness of Elisha, and his own extraordinary compassion. (The Greek word for compassion is literally 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.

As we celebrate Leo Thomas Davis’ baptism this morning, officially welcoming him into this particular (and peculiar) family of God. Let us remember that Leo is God’s beloved son, with whom God is well pleased. Listen to him. Let us also remember that we all are God’s beloved, with whom God is well pleased. Listen to one another; listen for the Divine spark humming and buzzing in all people, sometimes loudly and sometimes barely audibly. What is this rising from the dead? We don’t know, but here’s what we do know: we are all beloved of God. So drive like it, wait in line like it, work like it, serve others like it, greet people like it, go about your day like it!