The Transfiguration is the showstopper. But what happens when Jesus comes down the mountain reminds us what Jesus is really doing.
the Transfiguration, trust, and transferred power
Last Sunday after Epiphany C | Luke 9:28-43a
This is the quintessential mountaintop experience. The kind of moment that totally changes the way these three people see the world.
Like every crazy mountaintop experience, there’s a bit of backstory being wrestled with in the thin air. Including the two phantom companions who join their party.
There is little wonder why Moses and Elijah are there. Moses brings the Torah and Elijah the prophetic tradition: all the Law and the Prophets. But unlike Moses, Jesus isn’t handed tablets with rules to order the community.
He isn’t Moses, up there alone. He brought friends with him. Student teachers, disciples already named apostles. They already have Jesus’s power to transform the world.
The Backstory
If we remember back to chapter 5 in the gospel we attribute to Luke, Jesus calls some fishermen to be his disciples and then names them apostles. He gives them the mantle and authority to do the same holy work Jesus does; to be the hands and feet of Christ in the here and now!
So there’s all sorts of healing and traveling and exorcizing of demons and the whole thing goes crazy. People are coming from out of the woodwork to get a piece of the action.
And at the beginning of this chapter, chapter 9, Jesus sends his closest apostles out by themselves to do this healing-of-the-world work. It says that he “gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.”
And they do it. So when they get back, they feed thousands of people. All of this is just incredible stuff.
It is in this moment that he takes his closest followers and asks them who they think he is. And Peter says: “The Messiah of God.”
Because Jesus is always revealing and bringing our attention to God in our midst.
Eight days later, Jesus is climbing a mountain with him, taking James and John with them. There they have the mind-blowing, sight-blinding experience of the Transfiguration.
The Real Story
That’s a bit of the backstory, but the real story isn’t only what’s going on up on top of the mountain. Something’s going on down where the rest of the disciple/apostles are.
If you’re at least passable at math, you can figure out that at the beginning of the chapter, Jesus gave power to 12 followers and 3 went up the mountain with him. Which means 9 were left with the crowds of followers.
So these 9 have been empowered, entrusted with the kin-dom building mission of Jesus while the rabbi and his buddies go up for their retreat. I don’t really know why Jesus only takes the three, but I suspect he trusts these 9 disciples to hold down the fort.
And down here, with Jesus, Peter, James, and John up the mountain, these 9 are clearly having a rough go of it. A guy comes to them with a case tailor-made for them and they blow it. Here’s their chance to prove to Jesus they can handle things while he’s gone. A simple exorcism. Jesus has given them his power, and they can’t do it.
It reminds me of the last time Jesus’s ministry fails to heal people: back in chapter
In other words, they were more worried about the rules of his identity and who gets to speak than the fact that God’s healing power was in their midst.
So when Jesus comes down the mountain, he finds his followers unable to do the very thing they could do before he left.
The Anger
But they don’t get the chance to explain themselves or wonder what they’ve missed. A strange man shouts to Jesus, telling him all about his son, what the demon is doing to him. Then he throws the disciples under the bus: “I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.’
But Jesus’s response is truly shocking:
“You faithless and perverse generation”
This is his answer to a father shouting in desperation.
“You faithless and perverse generation”
Now, I’ve often read this as Jesus’s exasperation: he’s letting out a little frustration after the near-constant harassment he receives. He’s got to be hungry or tired or something.
Or I’ve read it as a snide rebuke of his disciples for their inept showing while he was gone. Clearly he shouldn’t have trusted them.
But what if Jesus is getting mad at the man? Not for being a dad or being desperate. Maybe the disciples couldn’t heal his son for the same reason Jesus couldn’t heal any of the people in his hometown.
What if the Dad is desperate and faithless, both?
The disciples weren’t inept or unable to make a miracle happen because there was no way they could.
So it’s not that the disciples are incapable, but that the man doesn’t trust people like him! He wants a guru, down from the mountaintop. Or a spiritual guide with the very word of God on his lips. Second-hand God, not third-hand. The father wants an old man, not a group of young men, women, and children. He doesn’t want the disciples, but the leader himself.
The man’s faith was completely dependent on the appearance of authority, not the authority given by God.
The disciples are revealing God to the world right now and will continue to do so! And it would seem that the man won’t let them reveal God here.
A Second Transfiguration
My friend, David Henson describes this as a story of two transfigurations. The first is the one we all know. The one on the mountaintop with three disciples to see it. The one with the light and the cloud and the booming voice: “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”
The second happens down where all the people are: on level ground. Like the sermon on the plain. There, the demon is rebuked and the son of the faithless generation is healed by Jesus “And all were astounded at the greatness of God.”
It doesn’t say “at the greatness of Jesus.” They aren’t astounded by his words or afraid of his power. This act, like the one up the
While we all long for these mountaintop experiences and often come to church expecting a high of inspiration, we don’t all get that. Because that experience isn’t the only way to know the greatness of God.
The purpose of church and discipleship is the freedom we receive as we free one another. It is not an act of faith to demand the same experience others get, the healing of a son or to have a bunch of prayers unite a community. Faith isn’t expressed in only thinking Jesus can save us while denying our neighbors the opportunity to be Jesus to us!
Jesus left a community “to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal”. He gave them “power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases”. And I bet they could, if the man actually let them.
If we actually let each other.
What’s next?
The very next passages in Luke make this need to trust and listen to Jesus plain. He will tell them again of his going to Jerusalem to die while they argue about who is greatest.
They come across someone healing people in the name of Jesus and think they should stop them. Jesus tells them that’s a terrible idea.
Then, when Jesus is rejected by a Samaritan town, the disciples ask if they should bring down “fire from heaven to consume them”. So clearly the disciples are missing the point, too. They want to use the power of God more than they want to reveal it.
But at a time when all manner of people of faith, claiming to follow Jesus in the way of love are choosing to throw consuming fire over healing the spirited, this second transfiguration is ever timely.
The second transfiguration is for us.
A transfiguration that doesn’t happen on the top of the mountain for the few. But down here, where we live. Where our own issues get brought before our councils and attempts at order would cleave our communities. When all our reckless skepticism and distrustful tribalism would rather look for Jesus to save us than the hand of a sister empowered by God. The hand of an LGBTQ person empowered by God; the hand of a person with dark skin or a child or an uneducated or a Protestant or a Catholic or a Muslim or a Jew or any other fallible human being empowered by God to heal us.
Let us not let this faithless generation get us down. For this is not the end; thank God for that! But it is another step on the walk; another chance to trust and open ourselves to the freeing love of God. One step closer, all of us, one step closer. We turn our faces to Jerusalem; to freedom and hope. Each step, a new opportunity to
We’re all the heroes of this story. We’ve got a love superpower. While Superman gets his powers from the sun, ours are only present when we use them. Powers to reveal the true love of God to the world over and over again. A freeing love. A merciful love. The true greatness of God comes into this troubled world through our love. Expressed, given, to free and be freed with profound mercy and true grace.