Command and Love In a Time of Fear
Epiphany LastA | Matthew 17:1-9
Jesus goes with three of his disciples up a mountain where he is transfigured, Moses and Elijah show up, and God speaks. Then they go back down. That is what we call eventful. A lot of stuff is going on. But I’m struck by the opening words, which compel us to remember the wider context. The first words of the passage, of the seventeenth chapter of Matthew are “Six days later, Jesus took with him,” and now we need to know what happened six days ago and why we should compare that to these events as if they are happening on the seventh day, on the Sabbath.
Six days ago, Jesus started talking about his impending death by crucifixion at the hands of Rome after his brutal arrest by Judean elders. And when Peter heard this, he got so upset, so afraid for Jesus, that he stepped out of line, pulled Jesus aside and had a heart-to-heart with him. The kind of move only a good Number Two could do, like Riker to Picard. This is a bad strategy and could ruin the whole thing. We can’t let it happen. That is what Peter wants to communicate and Jesus responds with fury, like Peter is being insubordinate. This is how we could see that moment.
But what Jesus does is remind everyone of the mission. That it isn’t about strategy, coercion, or even living and dying. It’s about loving. And the temptation to protect ourselves — that is how the adversary, how Satan tempts us to use power that isn’t ours.
The Turning Point
We’ll talk about that encounter soon enough, but for today, let us note that it is the central turning point in the three synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It represents the turn toward Jerusalem, which brings with it more than a literal shift in direction, but a metaphorical and spiritual shift as well. A shift that draws disciples from thinking only of God’s generous love toward an additional concern for the dangerous abuse of empire. To remember the Kin-dom of God and compare it with the kingdoms Earth.
This Sabbath, up the mountain, resting, Peter’s rejection by Jesus is fading. He is chosen to have this special time, nearly alone, with the other inner circle. With James and his brother John. And that seems to be the order, he probably thinks. At least I’m still first, right? The favorite. Above my brother and James’ brother. James, too.
And it is a very Sabbathy response that Peter makes to an incredible encounter: let’s stay here — we’ll make a place to rest, Jesus, for you and Moses and Elijah. It is most generous and thoughtful. A very earnest “Martha response” we might say. To do the work instead of waiting, watching, listening. Jesus doesn’t scold him this time, because the Adversary isn’t present, tempting, preventing Jesus from his mission.
The voice breaking in is surely God’s. It breaks in a second time. The first at his baptism, saying “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” This comes to us like an echo: “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” It is nearly identical, but with a command: “listen to him!”
Before Listening
Before we get into what they are or are not listening to and for, let’s note how the lectionary pairs the Transfiguration this week with Moses at Mt. Sinai in Exodus. When he spends a liturgical season — forty days — up a mountain with God. And he spent that time together with God listening to what they are to do as a people. To prepare for their moving from there, taking God with them. And how to order their society. God gave Moses tablets, written by the finger of God, which declare the ten essential commands, the Decalogue, that the people would understand the core of this project, to be the children of God, starts with love and respect and commitment to our common decency.
And then, when Moses comes down the mountain, he finds total blasphemy, as the people had at some point in those forty days chosen to abandon their faith. Out of fear. Fear that Moses wasn’t coming back. It doesn’t make any logical sense, which is how you know it’s true, right? They’re like, you were gone forever, so we melted down some gold and formed it into a calf and started worshipping it because we didn’t know what else to do!
We’re supposed to think of the mountaintop and those left at the basecamp in both stories. Because the zenith is intoxicating and on the flat ground is fear of screwing up and running from our obligations.
That’s what we see when Jesus and those three disciples descend the mountain: the rest are failing to heal a child. They don’t know how to do it anymore. They could last week. Literally. Now, on the Transfigured Sabbath, they can’t. The power, they argue, has abandoned them.
Now Listen
God’s command on the mountain is directed at those three disciples. That is for sure. But it is also for us. And I suspect it is listening to Jesus the same way St. Francis encourages us to proclaim the Good News, sometimes with words. So we speak with our mouths and our hands and our eyes and with our very presence. I expect we can listen with our ears, yes, and with our eyes and in our reading and watching and feeling and knowing the love of Jesus in the world around us.
So we take the words of Jesus directly here when he says to them “Get up and do not be afraid” because they are on their hands and knees in worship, full of awe and fear. And he is speaking to us, isn’t he? Literally sitting, yes. But are we on our metaphorical or spiritual knees right now? Are we afraid of what is going on in the world or our community or families right now? Is there need to be told by Jesus to “Get up and do not be afraid”? My guess is yes.
And in the verses after this, the disciples ask Jesus about Elijah as they descend the mountain and he says “Elijah is indeed coming and will restore all things, but I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but they did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of Man is about to suffer at their hands.”
Listen to him.
And finally, when he comes to the base, a man brings his son to Jesus saying that the disciples have been trying to heal him and can’t. And Jesus calls the generation perverse, expresses his frustration, but heals the boy. And after they leave the disciples ask Jesus why they couldn’t do anything, he says “Because of your little faith.”
Little Faith
Rather than an insult, however, Jesus is describing the possibility of their faith. He says that with faith the size of a mustard seed you can tell a mountain to move and it would move. Without spelling it out completely, he wants them to own their faith because it can do amazing things.
And because we have our listening ears on, hear it further: that believing that Jesus is the Messiah and Son of God does not give us telekinesis. We don’t lift mountains with our minds. Jesus says that if one with faith as small as a mustard seed, the tiniest of seeds, were to tell a mountain to move, it would move. This isn’t domination over the mountain, moving it against its will. It is communication, encouragement, perhaps even persuasion. In short, the mountain would listen to you.
Do you hear that? Like that game of telephone. Listen and speak, listen and speak.
And I suspect the reason the disciples couldn’t heal the boy was that they were struggling to listen — to Jesus, yes, but to the man, to the boy, to one another. Like Peter, they were afraid, stuck on their hands and knees, not knowing what to do, worried about the future, about the mission, about this thing that they were building, about rent and insurance and fixing the roof and having enough people and paying bills and rising costs and Jesus says “Get up and do not be afraid.” And they want to but they don’t think they can. The fear holds its grip on them — they’re avoiding their little faith. They aren’t listening so they can’t speak.
God Told Us to Listen.
Not to fear. Reject. Avoid. Listen. Just listen.
And we get the example from the disciples of how they struggle with listening so that we can see the way we do the same. The way we forget to listen. Forget to participate in this life of faith together, in partnership. As disciples and apostles.
This isn’t a lesson about what more we could do if we had more faith. It is a story about what we block ourselves from doing with our little faith. A faith that is for loving God and our neighbors. Showing as much commitment in protecting those around us as we protect ourselves.
No, this isn’t a story of how. Jesus isn’t telling us how to do this. But that isn’t the issue. That’s another obstacle that prevents us from doing; an element that connects with our fear of doing things wrong, of not being perfect. No, the question isn’t what we do but that we do.
Listen to him. When he tells us to get up and to not be afraid. When he speaks about the outrageous selfishness of power. Or when he names the incredible power of the smallest faith.
This is our command, friends. To Listen. Listen when he tells us to “Get up and do not be afraid.” We need each other’s small faith. The world needs it too. Because there are mountains that need a good talking to.