You are being transfigured into Christ for the world, even if now you feel a failure or even feel resistance to God’s call. And all will be healed because of it.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Transfiguration of Our Lord, year C

Text: Luke 9:28-43a

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Take your eyes off of Jesus shining like lightning.

Just for a few minutes. This is the feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord, so you’d think we should focus on that scene, ask questions about what’s going on, dwell on it.

But maybe instead of trying to put up a couple tents so we can sit and gaze at God’s glory shining from Jesus we might better consider the transfiguration of the disciples.

Because the comments I heard after last week’s sermon suggest that’s the part of the Gospel we need most.

Last week was hard. Heavy. Jesus put an assignment on you and me that for many seemed too much. “I’m not there yet,” many said afterward, Not ready to live Jesus’ commands: love your enemies. Do good to those who hate. Bless those who curse. Pray for those who mistreat.

It isn’t that you’re not willing to work against the cruelty and evil that keeps pouring out of our leaders, with more and more danger and threatening situations week after week. It’s the commands to love, do good, pray, and bless those who are doing it.

Whether it’s you or others that are the target of evil and cruelty, these are hard commands to swallow. How are you supposed to get hate out of your heart when people do such things? How can you not be angry?

In short, you’re not yet where Jesus commands you to be.

That’s why you need the disciples today.

If anyone is obviously not where Jesus hopes, it’s these disciples. A week before this event, Jesus, Peter’s beloved Teacher, called him Satan for rebuking Jesus. Peter didn’t like him saying the path of the Messiah, the path of Christ, was leading to suffering and a cross and death. Jesus said Peter was a Satan, an opponent of God’s way.

How Peter didn’t abandon following is a mystery to me. But if he’s anything like us, all week he’d at least have hidden on the outer edges of the seventy or so women and men following Jesus, hoping not to be noticed. Then today he botches it again, babbling about making tents. Luke charitably says, “he didn’t know what he was talking about.”

Peter’s so not ready to lead, so not ready to follow Christ’s path.

And at the bottom of the hill, it’s not going well either. At the beginning of this chapter in Luke, Jesus sent out the twelve leaders, giving them power to cure diseases, cast out demons, and proclaim the reign of God. They apparently had success. But now, those remaining at the bottom of the hill can’t do anything. No one can heal this possessed, epileptic boy with his destructive seizures. One by one they fail, one by one their despair deepens. Instead of having a successful healing to show Jesus on his return, they leave him a mess that clearly irritates him.

They’re so not ready to be Christ, so not ready for this work.

But how does Jesus handle these struggling followers?

Yes, he called Peter Satan, and probably sent Peter into a tailspin of doubt and anxiety and grief. But today, a week after that, when Jesus needs his leaders at his side, he taps Peter on the shoulder to join James and John. The three key leaders, as usual. You can’t overstate the grace and love of that choice or the relief and joy Peter must have felt.

Yes, Peter’s stumbling, his heart isn’t ready to consider a path of self-giving love, or sacrifice. He’s making big mistakes and will make more. But Jesus says, “I still need you on the path with me.” Jesus consistently keeps him in the fold, patiently waits for him to grow, learn, catch up. And one day Peter will be so joined to this path he’ll be killed for the love of God in Christ he embodied and proclaimed.

And the same is true of all the others. Jesus doesn’t berate them for fumbling the healing. All of them are still enfolded in his welcome and embrace. And in the next chapter he sends them out again, this time seventy of them, for more healing and casting out demons and proclaiming.

Jesus understands this call to follow, this path of Christ is hard. And he understands that changing your heart will take time. He’s constantly ready to forgive failures, hold out a hand to get you back on your feet, and send you out again.

If you’re not fully ready to love enemies, do good to haters, bless cursers, pray for abusers, Jesus gets that. He’s got patience and love enough to know you need to learn and grow on this path.

Martin Luther understood this beautifully.

He said, “This life is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health but healing, not being but becoming. This is not the end, but it is the road.”[1]

That’s it. That’s all you need to know. It’s not if you’re ready and able to do all Jesus asks. Whether it’s standing against evil or offering love to those who do it, Christ’s path is all about becoming.

We’re not where we will be. You are not where you will be. But as long as you want to be on the right road, Christ’s road, that’s enough. And you’ll know you’re there when you commit to loving, doing good, blessing, praying for all, even those your heart says don’t deserve it.

The Triune God spoke on that hilltop to all who follow Jesus the Christ, saying:

“This is my Son, my Beloved, my Chosen: listen to him!” Listen to the words of life Christ speaks, the path that leads to hope and healing for all people.

Listen, and then act, as Jesus urged last week. That’s how your heart will be changed. Act as Christ. Act in love. Act as best you can even if inside you’re feeling unready. Because your neighbors desperately need you. They need me. God’s threatened and hurting children need all of us to step forward on this path, ready or not.

This is your transfiguration, that more and more you become changed into the love of God in this world. And as you go, even the first steps of love you make for others are already healing and life.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

[1] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, vol. 32, The Career of the Reformer II, p. 24. “Defense and Explanation of All the Articles,” a response in March 1521, to Exsurge Domine, the papal bull of condemnation of his writings issued by Pope Leo X in July, 1520. This is from a translation by William Lazareth, not the Charles M. Jacobs translation in Luther’s Works.

The foundation of a life that can not only endure wickedness but transform it is a life built on the love Christ calls of you, the same love that already holds you forever.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Seventh Sunday after Epiphany, Lect. 7 C
Texts: Luke 6:27-38 (adding 39-49 from Lect. 8 C); Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

“Do not be provoked by evildoers,” we sang today in the psalm.

And then we sang, “leave rage alone; it leads only to evil.” Because, Psalm 37 says, “in a little while the wicked shall be no more, but the lowly shall possess the land and delight in abundance of peace. God will rescue them.”

Really? That’s what we’re told today? Every time the Bible says those who do evil will be dealt with by God, we wonder: When does that ever happen? Most seem to get away with it. And we’re not supposed to get angry at that?

And Jesus isn’t helpful today, saying, “The Most High is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.”

When so much wickedness is happening around us, so many are being hurt, not just here now but around the world due to our rulers in Washington, how can we not be provoked and angry? And wish that those who are doing all these things would get what we think they deserve?

But instead of answering that, Jesus looks right at us and asks, “why are you so concerned about the sin of other people?”

In these familiar words about ignoring the log in our own eye while obsessing over the speck in our neighbor’s eye, Jesus says, “check yourself first and clean that up.” Never mind if we don’t think what we do compares to rounding up thousands of good people and sending them to detention camps, or randomly firing thousands upon thousands, leaving them in unemployment and despair. Or targeting those who are different from whatever ridiculous norm those in charge think is the only way for a human to be. Or risking the lives of children and the weak by acting against hard earned scientific and medical wisdom.

Surely we’re not that bad, are we, Jesus?

But Jesus doesn’t seem interested in having us compare sins. If you wish to follow me, he says, pay attention to your walk, your life. Are you being Christ in your love and in your life? You can’t control what others do. You can do something about how you live faithfully, he says.

But the path Christ shows today isn’t just hard. In these times it could also make you angry.

Love your enemies, Jesus says today. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you. Give to anyone who asks of you. And that love and blessing and good also applies to any who hurt others.

This is as frustrating as those other words we began with. Not only must we forget about hoping God’s going to pay back people for evil they do, and remember that God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked, now we have to actually love them? Pray for them? Do good to them? Give them whatever they want? Living these words isn’t just hard. It feels wrong. It feels like acquiescing to wickedness and evil and letting it win. Letting vulnerable people be destroyed.

So this is your great challenge to your trust in Christ and following as a disciple. You know you’re fully loved by God forever and always in this life and in a life to come. Nothing can stop that love.

Trusting God’s love enough to walk this path that seems counter to everything that makes sense? Little wonder that at times in his ministry disciples just walked away from Jesus, saying “this is too hard.”

But what if Christ knows something you don’t?

What if changing your heart to love enemies and pray for the wicked can transform you into God’s very heart in this world? Wouldn’t that be something? And if one by one, person by person, the Spirit transformed hearts this way, Christ’s way, to walk this hard path, can you not see how that would change the world for good?

We can hardly argue that our usual human way of dealing with evil – power, retaliation, hatred, violence – has created a better world. Why not try Christ’s way? Look for the logs in our own eyes that lead us to anger and despair and hatred and ask the Spirit to help us forgive and love and pray for all, even the ungrateful and the wicked?

Those disciples who left Jesus because following was too hard were pretty honest.

But they missed the whole point of Jesus’ coming. In coming as one of us the Triune God means to draw us all into God’s way of seeing, acting, loving, so the world can be healed. If Christ’s path is hard it’s only because it’s so counter to the way we’re used to behave and see. But it’s the only way to life and hope. Look at history, at people of faith who have walked this path. You’ll see wonder and joy appear like flowers in the desert. You’ll see healing in the midst of suffering, hope in the midst of despair.

And Christ promises today that if you build your life on this foundation of love, with all of this community around you also putting down their roots to this bedrock, all the while praying that the Holy Spirit change your heart and thereby change your life and thereby change your behavior and thereby change the world, you will see there is no storm, no challenge, no fire, no flood, no drought, no evil, no wickedness that can knock down you or anyone else so built on Christ.

And know this: following Christ’s path this way is absolutely not acquiescing to the wickedness and saying “do what you will.” The call on Christ’s path is still and always to care for those who are hungry and thirsty, those without clothes or homes, those sick and imprisoned, because they are Christ.

We pray for those who do wickedness and love them, while working as hard as we can to undo their wickedness by our love and care for those who are hurt. We ask God’s blessing on those who mock and curse and threaten others, while working as hard as we can to bring healing and hope to all who are so abused.

And as we and millions more are so grounded and changed, God’s healing can finally reach everywhere.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen