Visions

Luke 9:28-43

March 2, 2025 Transfiguration

 

Eight days earlier than this event of transfiguration,

Transfiguration 
James Janknegt

Jesus was telling his disciples that he would

undergo great suffering at the hands

of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed.

 

He also said he would be raised after all that,

but I’m sure that’s not what stuck in the minds of Peter

and the rest of the disciples.

 

I’m sure all that Peter and the other disciples heard

was that the mission of Jesus would end in failure.

That their leader would be arrested and killed that he would suffer.

That everything they were working for would not come to pass.

That they would be humiliated.

That everything was going to turn out bad.

 

If a CEO gave that kind of talk:

Your leader will be arrested, suffer and be killed -- and rise again.

lots of investors and workers would jump ship and

that company would soon be bankrupt.

 

If I gave that kind of talk in front of a congregation,

you all would wonder what was wrong with me

and what was the point of going on.

 

Maybe Peter and the rest of the disciples

were having some of those thoughts and conversations among

themselves. Wondering why they were doing this

if their leader was going to be arrested and killed.

Maybe they  even thought of leaving Jesus and abandoning

the whole thing before they were taken down with it.

But , in the middle of this swirling anxiety and doubt,

eight days later, Jesus brings his three closest disciples

up to the mountain to pray with him.

Probably a typical afternoon event for them.

 

But while they were up there, it says Jesus is transformed.

He is turned into a bright light, his clothes and his whole being.

And there with him are two old testament prophets,

Elijah and Moses. How they knew it was them,

I don’t know, but some how they knew.

Wow. It must have been awesome.

 And Peter says to Jesus.

It is good to be here.

Peter briefly entertains the notion that they

should just stay up there.

He offers to build three tents for Elijah, Moses, and Jesus.

And they could all just escape up the mountain.

But it also said that he didn’t know what he was talking about.

 

He knew that Jesus doesn’t offer an escape.

Jesus didn’t say, follow me to a place of safety and assurance.

Jesus said, take up your cross, and follow me.

 

Peter knew that Jesus ministry

was not on the top of the mountain,

Jesus ministry is down in the deep valleys.

 

And just to prove this, Jesus and the story takes

us down the mountain again.

And the disciples encounter a boy

with a demon that the disciples could not

expel. Back to the difficulties.

The disciples went back to the swirling anxiety

and doubt, and back to the uncomfortable situations.

But I feel sure that the disciples did

not feel the same as before they went up there.

 

The transfiguration was a gift for those disciples.

For a brief moment, on the way to the crucifixion in Jerusalem,

God gave the disciples a vision.

A vision of hope and glory and promise.

A vision of purity and love and resurrection,

to help them go on with the difficult task of following Jesus.

 

Today, these kind of visions might not be held

in such high regard. If someone said they saw

a vision of Jesus glowing white with Moses

and Elijah, we might tell them they were

mentally ill.

 

But we still rely on visions to help us through hard times.

Our visions today are maybe a little more pragmatic.

 

Today, God still gives us brief visions.,

Today, we still get visions of God’s kingdom on earth

to help us get through the hard times we experience.

And those visions keep us going in times of doubt.

 

We get visions of kindness, community, sacrifice, and joy.

We see people helping other people, welcoming

others, standing up for others.

We see people who are in desperate situations,

coming back to rejoin life and the world.

We see people standing up for justice,

even at great sacrifice to themselves.

We see peace where there was war,

joy where there was sadness, hope where there was defeat,

life where there was death.

These are our mountaintop moments.

These are our visions.

Martin Luther King jr. said later in the years to follow,

when he lost hope, he would remember the march on Selma.

Or the passing of the civil rights act.

Those were visions for him.

When my friend struggled in her difficult

nursing job, she said she would look at her graduation

pictures and remember her naive ambition,

and her desire to help people,

she would remember the hope she felt at that moment,

and it would get her through those hard times.

That was her vision.

 

My internship congregation was in an

inner city congregation in Milwaukee

in a very challenging neighborhood.

And it was a struggle to get a choir together,

But they did and it was a mix of older, white

congregation members and younger,

black neighborhood people.

And they sang at their first worship service while I was there.

And it wasn’t technically the best, but it was

very moving to know what had gone into it

and what it took to get everyone together. It was beautiful.

And the pastor, who was inspiration to so many,

got up to preach and he said, this day with this choir

will keep me going for years to come.

That was a vision for him.

And when I wonder what I’m doing here,

I remember that day that one of the

residents of Chimney Cove came over

to show us the note that told the residents

that the order to evict them had been rescinded.

That is a vision for me.

That was a moment that gave me clarity about what

I was doing here and what this

congregation could do in the community.

 

The world can be a confusing and messy place.

And it seems to be getting more confusing

and more messy at a rapid pace lately.

It’s a world of swirling anxiety and doubt.

It is a world full of controversy, full of sadness,

illness, full of uncertainty, and darkness.

It is a world full of crucifixion.

But God gives us these moments of clarity,

these moments of certainty, and hope,

and brilliant, blinding light.

And we can go back to them again and again.

They get us through the difficult moments.

 

This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday,

the beginning of Lent. 

It always follows Transfiguration.

Lent is the time in the church when

We walk with Jesus to his fate at the cross.

 

When we look right at that

at that confusing and messy, anxiety-filled

world of crucifixions we live in,

and we contemplate our role in it.

We reflect on our sin and the sin of the world

and we repent and work to change.

 

And this is also a time when we need to hold

onto our visions.

Those tastes of beauty, hope, certainty and light.

Like Peter and James and John got on that mountaintop.

 

We need to hold onto those moments that tell us

what the Transfiguration of this world could be like.

We hold, with faith, onto the fact that on the other

side of crucifixion there is resurrection.

 

Turning the Other Cheek

 Luke 6: 27-38 Epiphany 7  2-23-25

Beatitudes
Joseph Matar

 

Russell Moore is an Evangelical pastor

who has been kind of ostracized out of the

Southern Baptist Convention.

 

He wrote a book called “Losing Our Religion”,

and he said in an interview that

it came out of an experience

he heard repeated often by his colleagues,

 

He says, “it was the result of having multiple

pastors tell me essentially the same story

about quoting the Sermon on the Mount–

turn the other cheek - to have someone come up

after and to say,

‘where did you get those liberal talking points?’

And what was alarming to me

is that in most of these scenarios,

when the pastor would say,

‘I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ’,

the response would not be, ‘I apologize’.

The response would be,

‘yes, but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak.’

And when we get to the point

where the teachings of Jesus himself

are seen as subversive to us, then we're in a crisis.”

 

Basically, the church people thought they

knew better than Jesus.

 

To be honest, whenever I tell the preschool

kids about this part of Jesus’s sermon in chapel,

which I did only two weeks ago,

they are not buying it either.

They were actually a little horrified that I

would suggest they turn the other cheek.

They thought it sounded weak too, or stupid.

They would much rather take the super-hero

approach to offenses and respond with lasers

or bolts of obliterating lightning.

Similar to those church people,

I had to tell them, “I didn’t make it up.

It’s Jesus. This is just what he said.”

 

Did you know that in 1937, Nazi supporting pastors

got together at the behest of the government,

and worked on an alternate version of the bible.

Since I’ve been in Silke’s class about Dietrich Bonhoeffer

on Wednesdays, I’ve been reading about this.

Their group was called “the Institute for the Study and Elimination

of Jewish Influence on German Church life”,

and their assigned task was to render Christianity

acceptable within the antisemitic

and militarized climate they had created.

 

They abridged and edited pieces and

left whole books and writings out.

Including the entire Old Testament and

all of Paul’s letters because he was too Jewish.

 

Instead of presenting Jesus as he was actually presented in the bible: 

a Jewish person oppressed by the state,

they ridiculously made Jesus into a martyred warrior who

died fighting against the Jews. And in version,

Jesus advice to the average person was, basically,

be nice to be nice to your fellow Germans

and to don’t make trouble.

 

Apparently the pastors first task as a group was to produce

an alternate version of the sermon on the Mount –

or the similar sermon on the plain in Luke.

They aimed to neutralize the ethics in Jesus’ sermon

because it was so contrary to maintaining

a fascist oppressive government.

 

It’s difficult to find a complete version of this re-write.

and I wouldn’t read it to you here if I could find it.

But the “turn the other cheek” line was written:

“If someone has hit you on the cheek, overcome him by kindness!”

You can see where this is going.

Close, but just not right. Kind of the Chat GPT, AI version of Jesus.

 

So what do church people, Nazis, and four year olds agree on?

Jesus teaching is difficult and we’ve got to change it.

It just doesn’t lend itself to our toddler sense

of right and wrong and strength and weakness.

It actually goes against most everything we think,

our instincts, our inclination, even what we think might be effective.

 

Jesus said, “But I say to you who are listening:

Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you;

bless those who curse you; pray for those who mistreat you.

If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other”

 

Jesus could sound weak I guess.

People have accused Jesus of telling his followers

to be doormats. To just take it when violence

without objection. Some people have used this turn the other

cheek line, especially, to keep people in abusive relationships.

 

Someone could manipulate it to understand

that followers of Jesus should just let

everyone do whatever they want.

That Jesus followers should never say no,

that we shouldn’t have any boundaries or limits.

That the offender always wins.

 

I’m sure that’s the way the Nazi’s wanted the people

to understand it. Just be nice!

No matter what atrocities we’re doing over here,

you just be nice.

 

But this is not what Jesus was advocating for.

Jesus was not advocating for non-resistance.

He was advocating for a non-violent resistance.

Which is very different.

 

Walter Wink, an excellent theologian from the 1980’s

who wrote about power coined this, “The Third Way”

The first two ways being fight or flight.

 

Wink says “Jesus is not telling us to submit to evil,

but to refuse to oppose it on its own terms.

 We are not to let the opponent

dictate the methods of our opposition.”

 

Do not submit to evil,

but refuse to oppose evil on its own terms.

 

In Jesus time, without formal legal ways of responding to violence,

retaliation for violence was frequent.

If someone hit you or hurt you, you couldn’t call the police.

Many people used retaliation which escalated the violence.

You slap me on the cheek, I slap you on the cheek.

You hit me with a bat, and I bring out the superhero

lasers that the preschool kids wanted to bring out,

and everyone is dead. It’s basically how many wars play out.

 

Turning the other cheek is a way to not escalate violence,

But at the same time, not submitting to it.

It takes quite an act of bravery to stand there

and dare the other person to do it again.

It’s not fighting, but it’s not running either.

 

And not escalating violence is just one of Jesus’ lessons.

 

We have to remember, Jesus was a non-politically powerful

Jewish peasant, preaching to other non-politically powerful

Jewish peasants. They constantly lived with a drastic

imbalance of power with them on the bottom.

A real complete police state.

 

There was no representative government for people

who were not Roman citizens, there was almost no recourse.

Protests were quickly put down. Acts of defiance or

violence against someone more powerful

was sure to get you arrested or killed.

 

So how do you resist evil in this situation?

You shame your attacker with their own actions.

If they hit you on the cheek,

remaining in front of them and offering

them the other one is actually an act of defiance.

not being a doormat. It makes a spectacle of their

cruelty and their loss of control.

 

Mahatma Ghandi used Jesus words in this sermon,

even though he was Hindu,

to create his practice of non-violent resistance

against the oppressive South African and then

Indian government in the 1920’s.

He called it non-cooperation with your opponent.

Ghandi said “The spirit of the Sermon on the Mount

competes almost on equal terms

with the Bhagavad Gita for the domination of my heart.”

 

And then Martin Luther King Jr. went to India

in 1959 to learn about Ghandi’s understanding

of non-violent resistance and used it during

the fight for civil rights in the United States in the 60’s.

 

Activists for civil rights were told, and taught,

and trained in non-violent resistance.

Before they went out in public,

They had training sessions where they were

put in aggressive situations and taught to

resist their natural inclination to retaliate.

 

The televised scenes of young black people

being attacked by dogs held by police

and being hit with fire hoses, and

then not responding with violence,

were extremely effective in revealing the

violence that was always a part of the system of

segregation and oppression in the South.

And it had a great affect on the public perception,

and turning the tide in the United States

and then getting the civil rights act passed.

 

Do not submit to evil,

but refuse to oppose it on its own terms.

Do not let the opponent dictate

the methods of our opposition.”

In other words, do not let the oppressor

make you into what they are.

 

It actually puts the oppressed person

in charge of the situation again.

It gives them agency where they would

normally feel as if they had none.

 

And that is one of the greatest effects of

this third way of Jesus teaching.

This feeling of agency reduces fear.

The person who turns the other cheek

is not cowering in fear, they become strong.

 

And truly, it makes almost a parody of the situation.

 

If we go on to the line right after

the turn the other cheek,

it says, “if someone sues you for your coat,

give them your shirt too.”

 

Someone demanding another person’s coat

is something that would happen in a debt court.

A creditors’ loan wasn’t repaid and

the creditor demands the coat that they wore to court,

which was a court of the Roman empire

and completely weighed in favor of the creditor.

 

Instead of fighting it, which a poor person had no

chance of winning, or crying or cowering or

rolling up in a ball, Jesus suggests making

a mockery of the procedures.

Go “oh please, you must be

cold, take this shirt too. And you give them your shirt

and soon you’re walking around in your

naked in front of them. Which brought more shame

on the viewer of it than the person without clothes.

You may have lost your clothes,

but it makes their demands look pretty stupid.

And you have not given into violence or fear.

 

Walter Wink calls this “unmasking the powers”

 

Humor is often a really effective tool

against oppression. Humor shows

shows that people are not intimidated,

they’re not fooled by their oppressor’s

temporary power, they’re not afraid,

they see that the emperor actually has no clothes.

 

Intimidators and bullies and tyrants need

the people to be afraid.  

They rely on their ability to intimidate.

And fear makes us capitulate in advance.

They need the people they want to control to be

afraid, and to comply, and if that doesn’t work,

they need them to be violent, so they have an

excuse to be more violent.

 

Jesus is telling the crowds there,

to stand up for themselves,

but to take control of their responses.

Don’t answer the oppressor in kind,

but find a new third way

that is neither cowardly submission,

nor violent reprisal.

 

So Does could third way of turning the other cheek,

work on a micro and macro level?

Does it work between personal enemies?

Could it work between nations?

I don’t know. This is a good discussion we can have.

I do think it would work better

than the other options, of escalating violence,

of escalating rhetoric, or of capitulating in fear.

 

I do think we can use this teaching

of Jesus in so many different ways,

when we feel attacked, or bullied,

or oppressed, or like we have no

recourse or power.

When we want to retaliate against someone.

Resist, but do not let the opponent dictate

the methods of our opposition.

 

And the intent of all this has to come

out of what Jesus starts this sermon with.

We have to start in a place of love,

even those who mean to do harm.

We put ourselves in a place of power

when we pray for our enemies.

 

This is a concept that the Nazi bible

had no room for at all.

They just completely omitted Jesus line that

that said “love your enemies and

pray for those who hate you.”

 

When we pray for our enemies,

when we refrain from violence,

we maintain our integrity, and

we prevent ourselves from becoming

the very evil thing we fear and hate.

 

In the end, Jesus is not showing us how to

win a war or a court case, or an election

or any other of those small battles.

 

Jesus is telling us the way to win

in the ultimate way.

Jesus is showing us THE WAY.

Jesus’s way.

The way that said, on the cross,

“I would rather die than hate you.”

 

The way to build an empire, not based on force,

but based on love.

The way to bring God’s kingdom on earth.

The way of peace.

 

And there is nothing weak about that.