ALC – Sermon Lent 1B

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2012

On Mark 1:9-15

Just last Sunday we were on the mountaintop with Jesus. And we wanted to stay. But we had to come down again, and Jesus came with us. Ash Wednesday we finally arrived at the bottom of the valley where we were reminded of our mortality, of being but dust. We are back in the wilderness of life for we are wilderness people.

And today is the third time in 6 weeks that we hear God saying: “This is my beloved Son.” But this time the passage doesn’t end on that exciting note, and Mark’s story becomes rather dark and foreshadowing. We just heard how Jesus is driven out into the wilderness – right after his baptism. The same Spirit that descended upon Jesus just moments ago… the same Spirit that just confirmed Jesus’ identity as Son of God, now takes Jesus by the cuff of his neck and throws him out into the wilderness… the wilderness – a place of testing and alienation, temptation and despair, struggle and loneliness. Like Moses and Abraham and Elijah before him Jesus is thrown into the wilderness. Jesus is thrown into the wilderness to meet sin and death: He is tested by God’s adversary. Mark doesn’t tell us any details about that encounter. There is an obvious lack of specific temptations, of long dialogues between Jesus and Satan, as we might remember this story from the gospel of Matthew. For Mark is not much concerned about temptation here, but about the wilderness experience of Jesus… the danger and the hardships that Jesus is confronted with. So, we only hear that Jesus is tempted, and that he is surrounded by wild animals. And that God’s angels tend to him.

Overall, the somberness, the foreboding, dark tone of today’s gospel reading matches the tone of the Lenten season we are in. Lent is not so much a season during which we give up something or take on a discipline of some kind but it is a reminder of where we actually are. Lent is the season to talk about the real “us”, … our brokenness, our shortcomings… as uncomfortable this might be. Because Lent is the journey through the wilderness. Wilderness is struggle, temptation, alienation, darkness. It resonates with what life is often like for us. Each of us is part of life’s wilderness. And wilderness is not a place but the state that we exist in. Loneliness, the fear of meaninglessness, depression, grief, addictions of all kinds, pain, illness, suffering, dying – these are all wilderness. We all know what wilderness feels like. But we like to cover it up. We don’t want to talk about the desolate parts of our lives. Even when it comes to our relationship with God we often struggle to be honest about ourselves. We believe that if we just show our ‘nice’ side God will love us. At the funeral of the renowned singer Whitney Houston, it came as a surprise for many fans that this obviously talented and successful woman felt inadequate. Apparently throughout her whole life Whitney was afraid that she couldn’t measure up to her own over-the-top expectations. In her mind she wasn’t good enough, not pretty enough, not talented enough. That is wilderness. Wilderness is human. Wilderness is our reality. We are wilderness people. We are sinful and doomed to die.

And into this doom and gloom of our existence God throws Jesus. God tosses Jesus into the wilderness of this world for him to meet sin and death.

And what is the first thing that Jesus says today?

‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.’

Jesus doesn’t say, ‘if you are nice the kingdom will come’. Jesus says, ‘God has come near.’ An outrageously radical proclamation in the eyes of the people of Israel… To common folks God was inaccessible. Only the temple priests were allowed to come before God’s very presence – once a year, and only after elaborate cleaning ceremonies. It was the temple priests who knew what was pleasing in the eyes of God. They were the mediators between the Holy and the profane. Commoners would only be allowed to enter the outskirts of the Temple by following many rituals and tedious rules enforced by the temple cast and through costly sacrifices. And still, they were wondering if God could be propitiated. Through the priests God would hopefully incline his gracious ear to the cry of his people and allow them to come into his presence.

And here comes Jesus and makes God accessible to the people by walking in their streets, into their homes, into their work places, and preaching the good news to all. Here comes Jesus, God in flesh, and BRINGS God into the people’s midst, into their wilderness of life.

In his ministry Jesus calls the disciples, casts out demons, and heals many, for Jesus is ‘God come near’. Evil spirits recognize who Jesus is. People cry out for help and just need to touch Jesus’ clothes, for Jesus is ‘God come near’. God is no longer inaccessible but comes to the people. And those who are touched by Jesus, turn around, are changed…

 

On Ash Wednesday we were harshly reminded of the reality that we are but dust and ash. The season of Lent is a reminder of where we are. Lent reminds us of the wilderness of human existence.

God’s answer to our wilderness is Jesus. God becomes but dust and ash. And God throws Jesus into our wilderness. Here Jesus comes to us. Jesus makes God’s kingdom accessible to us by finding us and joining us. We don’t need to go look for God!

God in Jesus meets us where we are: Jesus meets us in our wilderness of fear, grief, death, disease, and depression. God comes near to us in our suffering and brokenness, in life’s challenges. Jesus’ coming into our desert doesn’t make it disappear, Jesus doesn’t take it away but God shows us a way through, brings us to the other side. As God’s messengers tend to Jesus in the wilderness so tends Jesus to us in our wilderness … where he meets us with life:

Jesus meets us in the life-giving waters of Baptism so that we die to our sin and so that death dies, too. God brings us out of these waters to discover new life, to be transformed.                                   The kingdom of God has come near.

Jesus meets us in the body of Christ. When we gather together, when we pray and sing together, we become the body of Christ.
And the kingdom of God has come near.

Today Jesus meets us through, in, with, and under the bread of life. Every time when we receive God’s bread and wine we receive God’s forgiveness and grace.
And the kingdom of God has come near.

‘God coming near to us’ changes us. ‘God coming near to us’ opens us to turn around. ‘God coming near to us’ opens us to believe in the good news of God being with us in our wilderness.

Amen.

ALC – Sermon Transfiguration B

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2012

On Mark 9:2-9

Transfiguration… The Sunday of Transfiguration is a pivotal Sunday in the life of the Church. The dictionary says that transfiguration means “A change that glorifies or exalts”. Today’s transfiguration event is the threshold – getting us out from the season of light – Advent, Christmas and Epiphany -, into the season of Lent and Easter. Jesus’ transformation in today’s gospel connects the time when we learn about who Jesus is and the time when we learn about what Jesus does. Lent is our journey to the core of our Christian faith, the season of remembering our baptism.

In the gospel of Mark important things happen on mountains. And today we are climbing up a high mountain with Jesus and Peter and James and John. It is an intimate, small group, Jesus’ closest friends. And what they are about to see is extraordinary and unique… something that has never happened before. The disciples’ mountain-top experience may be the happiest moment of their lives. Unimaginable proximity to God, God’s voice and divine glory right in front of them.

Yet, the words the gospel writer is using for this event are sparse. Because there are no words to describe such a situation. Have you ever searched for words to explain an experience, and there weren’t any really? Like holding your first grandchild in your arms? Like going for a first walk outside after a serious illness and seeing the world with new eyes?

Well, Mark puts a greater-than-life moment into a few words: And Jesus was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus.

That’s it. The writer leaves it up to our imagination what it might have been like… what it all might mean. I can’t help but think of the movie “Shrek” in which the beautiful Princess Fiona is cursed to turn into an ogre at night. She can only be changed into her true form by true love’s first kiss. At the end of the movie Fiona is indeed transfigured into who she really is but in an unexpected way.

In today’s Gospel God shows the disciples God’s true love’s true form.

And in steps Peter… good ol’ Peter. Peter isn’t good with this miracle, unexplainable stuff. Peter is the concrete one, the practical one. The one who often speaks before he thinks. Who says, what’s on his mind. Instead of asking the good Lutheran question: what does this mean? Peter says, “I know what it means.” Instead of listening to God’s declaration “This is my Son, the Beloved”, Peter has figured it out already and is trying to set things in stone. Peter has the plan. His solution to Jesus’ grandiose transformation is: “Rabbi, let’s build huts for the three of you. I’m not sure what’s going on here. But it sure is different. Let’s organize and manage the uncontainable, the uncontrollable. Let’s nail things down!”

Doesn’t that sound familiar? Often we, like Peter, are good at trying to control life, the uncontrollable. We are trying to organize things and people around us. We are trying to make sense of it all. We, like Peter, are good at trying to nail things down. For change is frightening, especially when it is forced on us. It could be changes such as driving a new car, or working on a new computer. Changes like “no more sugar”, or “more exercise.” It could be a new pastor in the community. It could be the move to a new city, into a new life. The fear of having to do things differently, the fear of change leads us to push away the new, the other. The fear of change can push us to close down… to become stagnant. We are faced with that at home, at work, in school, and in the Church.

The opposite of resisting change is change for change’s sake. There can’t be enough change. “15 Minute Celebrities” or the media trying to hunt for the latest news (the gorier the better) and dictating a pace in delivering information that is impossible to comprehend. Only what makes the news is in. This culture of the New doesn’t stop at the church doors either. Pub churches with a transient, always changing community are just one example. This culture of the new suggests that if things don’t change or move constantly it’s boring, not valuable.

Both states – resisting change and the hunt for constant change – have one thing in common: both states become stagnant, become the status quo. Both states create anxiety. If it was for us we would prefer the status quo. We are good in preferring the stagnant, we like to nail things down. It is part of our human nature.

What does this excursion into pop psychology on change have to do with Jesus’ transfiguration you might ask.

Well, everything.

There, on top of the high mountain God shows the disciples in one brief moment who God is and what God does. They get to see the transforming power of God.  They are front-row witnesses of how God is stepping visibly, in all grandeur, into their lives. God, by transforming Jesus in front of their very eyes, shows them what it means to be named and claimed by God as God’s child. God’s beloved. But it’s too much for the disciples.

And then… God clouds their vision.  Everything is back to normal. Jesus is the Jesus again whom the disciples know. Their Rabbi, their teacher. The extraordinary is gone. Almost as if it never happened. A sobering moment…

And together they are coming down the mountain again. After this highlight in the lives of Jesus and the disciples the way down into the valley becomes the direct way to Jerusalem. It’s the journey into Lent. And soon they will follow Jesus up another mountain and end up at the foot of a cross where Jesus is nailed down. What Peter wanted to preserve on the mount of Transfiguration today, humanity will want to kill on Good Friday.

But for now the disciples have witnessed God’s transforming power and they are terrified. And so are we. God’s transforming power is too much for us to handle, and wanting to control, nailing things down is our very human response to God’s changes – as splendid as they might be.

The ultimate state of status quo, of stagnation is death. God’s ultimate sign of change, of transformation is resurrection, is making all things new. And God’s will for this creation is life. God’s will for us is life. And so, God calls us, names and claims us by drowning us in the waters of Baptism. In these waters of life we are transfigured, changed forever. We come out squeaky clean. Dazzling white… despite our spouting and sputtering, despite our resistance to being transformed. God’s waters of life transform us, shape us and mold us into the person God intends us to be… despite our desire to nail things down.  We are both – simul justus et pecator, saint and sinner. Alive and dead. Moving and static.

It takes us a life-time to be changed. God transforms us through hearing and sharing the good news… the good news of God’s transformation. God transforms us by feeding us his body and blood through bread and wine. God transforms us by binding us together into community, relationships, friendships. God’s love in the person of Jesus shines through the cracks and into our darkest darkness of the huts that we tend to build in life. From that which we nail down God brings forth new life.

Our witnessing God’s transfiguring Jesus today prepares us for what lies ahead of us. We are following Jesus down the mountain… through the valley and shadow of Lent. Ash Wednesday we will be reminded that we are dust and ash. We will be reminded that we are dead. And following Jesus we will journey through Lent towards the next mountain.

Today’s transfiguration is a powerful reminder of whose we are. We are declared beloved children of God, transformed by God into God’s true love’s true form.

Thanks be to God.