Luke
9:28-43a
Listen to Him!
Listen to Him!
James
Sledge Transfiguration
of the Lord February 17, 2013
Some of you may be familiar with
French writer and philosopher Albert Camus.
Perhaps you read The Stranger in
a high school or college literature.
Camus was an agnostic and a pacifist, but after witnessing Nazi
atrocities, he became part of the French Underground during World War II. Though agnostic, he was asked once after the
war to speak to a group of Christians. Speaking out of the horrors of the war and the
Holocaust he said this.
What the world
expects of Christians is that Christians should speak out, loud and clear; and
that they should voice their condemnation in such a way that never a doubt,
never the slightest doubt, could arise in the heart of the simplest man. That they should get away from abstraction
and confront the blood-stained face history has taken on today. The grouping we need is a grouping of men
resolved to speak out clearly and to pay up personally… Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from
being a world in which children are tortured.
But we can reduce the number of tortured children. And if you don’t help us, who else in the
world can help us?…
It may be, I am well
aware, that Christianity will answer negatively. Oh, not by your mouths, I am convinced. But it may be, and this is even more
probable, that Christianity will insist on maintaining a compromise or else on
giving its condemnations the obscure form of the encyclical. Possibly it will lose all the virtue of
revolt and indignation that belonged to it long ago. In that case Christians will live and
Christianity will die.[1]
I’m reading this from the book, Christian Doctrine, in a chapter
entitled “Are You a Christian? The
Doctrine of Sanctification.” Shirley
Guthrie, the Presbyterian theologian who wrote this book, says that Camus, an
unbeliever, challenges Christians to take seriously our own doctrine of
sanctification. Sanctification is about
how we, who have been embraced, forgiven, and claimed by God as children, begin
to live as such children, letting the Holy Spirit work within us to transform
us so that we act more and more like true children of God.
Though not a Christian, Camus is
knowledgeable enough about the faith to expect this of the church, and he is
upset when he does not see it. He is
frustrated by our failure to live out our faith claims. Interestingly, Jesus
seems to share some of Camus’ frustrations in our gospel today, saying to his
followers, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with
you and bear with you?”
Perhaps more than any other
gospel, Luke seems to have the Church in view as it talks about Jesus. By the time Luke is written, hopes for Jesus’
immediate return have begun to wane, and the Church has to focus more on what
it meant to be faithful in an indeterminate, perhaps long lasting,
meantime. And in this story of Jesus’
glory and identity being revealed to the Church – here represented by three of
his closest followers – Luke speaks both of how the Church is to live in the
world, and of frustrations over our failure to do so, frustrations not unlike
those Camus shares.
The story of the transfiguration
is framed by the disciples’ failure immediately afterward, and by Jesus’
instructions to the Church immediately prior.
“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take
up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will
lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”
The transfiguration story itself
is filled with symbolism. Moses and
Elijah, representing the Law and the Prophets, the two central categories of
Jewish Scripture, speak with Jesus about his impending death, an event clearly
seen as fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. And a cloud overshadows them,
an image of God’s presence from the Exodus story of Israel’s escape from
slavery in Egypt. And at the pinnacle of
this event, the divine voice speaks, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”
“Listen to him!” This command clearly lays out the Church’s
call. In the cause of revealing God’s
coming rule, we will, even at the risk of death, proclaim and live in new ways,
the ways shown us by Jesus. And nearly
2000 years later, Camus says nearly the same thing. “Listen to Jesus and live
as he says, or in attempting to save yourself, you will die.”
Throughout history, the Church has
struggled with this challenge, at times rising to the occasion, and at other
times failing miserably. And this is
less a matter of the quality of folks who inhabit church pews, and more a
matter of faith. If you read the book of
Acts you will see it has been this way from the beginning. The Church is always
a mixture of those who, to greater or lesser extent, entrust themselves to
Jesus and the way he shows us, and those who see the Church as a means to get
something they want.
And in
those moments when the Church succumbs to temptation and turns inward, more
about affording respite or warmth or promises of heaven to those within its
walls than about risking itself for the sake of those outside those walls, the
challenge of Camus and the heavenly voice confront us once more.
___________________________________________________________________________
In just a few moments we will
celebrate a baptism. What a wonderful
moment as God’s grace and love embrace Jonathan and mark him as one called to
follow Jesus. Here the Holy Spirit is promised to be with him and help him to
grow in faith and to follow Jesus.
Unfortunately, the institutional church sometimes forgets this, and
baptism becomes one of those things we do to children like childhood
vaccinations, done and then forgotten.
But I hope you will listen to the
questions and responses that Jonathan’s parents and all of us join in
today. “Will you follow where Jesus
leads, and will you share his love with those you meet.” To which we all will
answer, “I will, with the Holy Spirit’s help.”
As Jonathan becomes a part of the
community of faith, we promise to obey that heavenly voice that says, “Listen
to him!” We promise to trust that Jesus will lead us where we need to go. And as
we follow, we will teach Jonathan the ways of faith, how to live as a child of
God.
And as we seek to be faithful, to entrust
ourselves to Jesus’ call, we do not journey alone. Jesus goes before us, and the Spirit goes
with us, equipping us, nourishing us, empowering us, strengthening our faith,
and building us up so that we can do all that Jesus asks of us.
Thanks be to God!
[1]
Quoted in Shirley Guthrie, Christian
Doctrine: Revised Edition (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994)
330.
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