Abuse of power has been a hot topic in the news of
late. There’s President Trump and his
border wall, of course. But, now there’s
a storm brewing here in Canadian politics…maybe. We now have a controversy that almost rivals President
Trump firing then FBI director James Comey…depending on who your news source
is. The controversy is over how much
influence a Prime Minister and his office can wield over the Attorney General
when over 9,000 Canadian jobs are at stake many of which are within the Prime
Minister’s home riding. The answer to
that question is an absolute zero – no influence period. But…at what point does a series of in-house,
inner-circle, “How do we solve this problem?” conversations after the Attorney
General has made her decision turn into a “veiled threat”? Hmmm.
Enquiring minds want to know.
We are quickly finding out that there are two sides
to every story and that the media is not unbiased. Moreover, the issue has become highly
politicised. Conservatives are gloating
in the moment saying Trudeau has finally shown himself for who he is. They are calling for his resignation and
asking for a criminal investigation. The
Liberals are saying that no wrong was done and that the Prime minister was only
doing his job of trying to protect the jobs of thousands of Canadians. For the public, what and who to believe are
difficult questions. In the words of
Pontius Pilate before he declared Jesus innocent and then in the same breath
turned him over to be crucified, “What is truth?”
There’s a rule of thumb when it comes to power: If
you give somebody power, pretty soon you will see them for who they are. Backing off the world of politics and looking
at the Church. There’s no shortage of
ministers who started out in sincere response to Jesus’ call to serve him in
pastoral ministry. Then, with Bible in
hand and standing on the authority of the Word they become little Napoleon’s
starting wars to build their own empires.
To the crowds they seem successful and genuine but to those closest to
them, the price for not being loyal enough is often quite high. Minister-tyrants make you feel guilty, make
you feel ashamed, make you feel like you’re betraying God if you in anyway
appear to not whole-heartedly believe in them and their ministry. Sometimes, it is totally disillusioning to be
one of the minister’s inner circle, especially once you begin to see him for
who he is.
I think of Jesus’ disciples in our reading today,
particularly his inner circle of Peter, James, and John. Jesus pulled them away
from the others and took them up a mountain to pray. As the night unfolded they got to see Jesus
for who he is. While they were praying,
weighed down with sleep, they suddenly came fully awake to see everything
transfigured, glistening. Jesus’ appearance
had changed. His clothes glistened. He was talking to Moses and Elijah about his
coming Exodus in Jerusalem. It felt really
good to be there. Peter wanted to do the
hospitality thing and put up some tents.
Then a cloud rolled over them and they become terrified. The voice of God the Father from the midst of
the dark cloud of the Holy Spirit said, “This is my Son, my Chosen one. Listen to him.”
Little do we realize it but if we try to hear this
text with the ears of someone from the first century, we hear a spooky
similarity to something Roman and Imperial.
Almost all the Roman emperors of the first century were adopted sons who
succeeded their adoptive fathers to the emperorship. Adoptions were usually a matter of simply
making a public declaration that this person is now your own child. God the Father saying, “This is my beloved
Son, my Chosen One” would have sounded to people back then to have been nearly
the same thing Julius Caesar would have said publically when he adopted his
nephew, Octavian, to be his successor Caesar Augustus and what Augustus would
have said when he adopted Caligula and what Claudius would have said when he
adopted Nero. This was the way adoptions
happened back then, particularly when you were adopting an adult son who was
going to be heir to your estate.
So, if we are listening to the Transfiguration story
with ears attuned to the first century Roman Empire, we are hearing that the
God of the Jews just made Jesus, his true Son, the One to take his throne as
Ruler of all Creation. Talk about seeing
Jesus for who he is. He is the Son of
God not than just a prophet or a Rabbi. The
Roman emperors made claims to be gods.
Here the one true God reveals that Jesus really is God. It is interesting that after such an event that
Peter, James, and John told no one.
Back to my opening remarks on power – If you give
somebody power, pretty soon you will see them for who they are. We must ask how does Jesus handle the power that
God the Father has given him? Does
absolute power corrupt him? Well, we
have to come down the mountain for that answer.
We must come down from this “mountaintop experience”.
Down the mountain we find Jesus and his disciples not
in the midst of a dark cloud, but rather a great crowd has gathered. We meet another father and his only son. This is a distraught father whose only son
has a demon that frequently besets the boy with what looks like violent epileptic
seizures. The other nine disciples, to
whom Jesus had given power to cast out demons, were suddenly and oddly powerless
to do anything. So, the father begs
Jesus to help his only child. Yet, Jesus,
sounding quite condescending we might add, expresses his frustration at having
to be with and endure this unbelieving and perverse (the word is better
translated as mislead) generation. Jesus
tells the man to bring his son and as he does the demon does his best to give
one final bludgeoning to the boy. Jesus
rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the boy and gave him back to his
father. Everyone marvels at the
greatness of God. They have seen Jesus
for who he is.
Back to reading this passage with first century Roman
Empire ears; as someone living back then we would know that the Roman Emperor Caligula
had frequent epileptic fits similar to the boy in this story. Caligula was emperor in the first decade of
the church when it was still very much a Jewish sect. He required that he be worshipped as a god,
an act that infuriated the Jews. He even
went as far as to have a brass statue of himself placed in the Jerusalem Temple
and he changed the name of the Temple to The Temple of Illustrious Gaius the
New Jupiter. Caligula’s birth name was
Gaius Julius Caesar. There may be in
this passage a hidden message of hope to early Christians that though they were
powerless over the unclean spirit behind Roman imperialism, the Lord Jesus can
and will cleanse and heal the nations and give them back to God the Father.
That being said, this is Transfiguration Sunday. Normally on Transfiguration Sunday we hear a
sermon about spiritual “mountaintop” experiences and coming back down the
mountain to real ministry. Or, we hear a
sermon on prayer being so crucially important in our relationship with God the
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This year
the message is a little different. It is
likely that the Transfiguration event was more down-to-earth political than
we’ve ever thought. To see Jesus for who
he is is to see him as the Lord of all Creation who reigns with the power to
heal and restore what the unclean spirit of powerlust has corrupted. In these very bizarre days when nations and
governments are dabbling in Populism and Authoritarianism, when nuclear weapons
are yet again being touted as viable means to peace, when we can’t trust our
media to be unbiased, when we ourselves seem to have lost the ability to think
critically and rather just fly off on social media whims, when everybody is
just a little more stressed about political stuff than we need be – in these
days we the disciples of Jesus the Christ who died and raised to save this
Creation which he loves, we need to get a little more serious about him, about
the peace he has given us, about loving each other, about loving our
neighbours, about being a true signpost pointing the way to the road of hope. The peace-filled reign of Christ flows
through us. Amen.
