Facetiming with Jesus

Sermon for Aug. 8, 2021 (Feast of the Transfiguration, transferred)
Exodus 34:29-35; Luke 9:28-36

At our weekly staff meeting, we begin by reading the day’s appointed Gospel selection from the Daily Office Lectionary, and then we do a little theological reflection on it.  That’s a fancy way of saying that we listen for what jumps out at us from the reading and try to connect it with the lives we’re living.  Last week, Tuesday’s Gospel reading included one of Jesus’ healing miracles – the one where it took two steps for him to restore sight to a blind man, as if the healing didn’t quite “take” the first time (Mark 8:22-33).  That story led to some great reflection on how we experience Jesus’ divine presence in our own lives … and, honestly, how we often long for his presence without quite seeing it.

All week, I’ve been thinking about a story Mary Sanders shared.  Mary, our assistant to the clergy, was telling about her granddaughter, also named Mary.  As Mary’s parents put her to bed each night, they all sing “Jesus Loves Me”:  “Jesus loves me; this I know, for the Bible tells me so.  Little ones to him belong.  They are weak, but he is strong.”  Every night, they sing that.  Well, one night recently, when Mary Sanders was watching her granddaughter, she and little Mary finished the song, and little Mary asked, “Can we Facetime with Jesus?”  Caught off guard, Mary Sanders tried to explain that’s not quite how it works, that we can’t just call Jesus on the phone, let alone see his face while we talk.  But little Mary was not to be denied, refusing to take “no” for an answer.  She kept insisting that if Jesus loves us, we must be able to be with him somehow, right?  Why can’t he come here, she asked; or why can’t we go wherever he is?  It’s not among the answers they give you in the grandparents’ handbook….

But Little Mary is onto something.  She may not have read any theology, but she understands deep in her bones what Christianity is all about.  What sets us apart from the other ways of understanding the divine is this:  It’s the doctrine of the Incarnation.  That’s fancy way of naming this crazy idea that God didn’t just create us, and love us, and call us to follow the way of love.  God became one of us, too, living out that way of love here on earth, among other humans.  “The Word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood,” as the Bible paraphrase The Message brilliantly puts it (John 1:14).  What sets us apart as Christians is this claim that Jesus was fully human as well as being fully divine, that he died just as we die but then rose into eternal life so that we can do that, too, if we trust in him and follow his path.  Jesus was, and is, fully one of us as well as fully God, reigning over all creation and loving us as deeply as love can be expressed.

So, when little Mary wanted to Facetime with Jesus, she was claiming that theology of Incarnation at a deep level.  Now, the disciples in today’s Gospel reading have a little less clarity about who Jesus is.  Just before today’s reading, Jesus asks them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” (Luke 9:18).  This much his friends know for sure:  Some say Jesus is John the Baptist risen from the dead; some say Jesus is the ancient prophet Elijah, come back to prepare the way for God’s true king; some say Jesus is one of the other prophets – maybe Elisha, another miracle worker.  Then, Jesus asks his friends the real question: “But who do you say that I am?” (9:20).  Everybody’s silent until Peter blurts out the right answer whose implications he doesn’t understand: that Jesus is “the Messiah of God,” the divinely appointed ruler of God’s kingdom on earth.  OK, Jesus says; “Yes, and….”  He’s not appointed by God just to be Israel’s king; he’s the one who will rule the universe after being rejected and tortured and crucified and finally rising into life again.  His friends don’t quite get it yet, but Jesus isn’t just working for God.  He is working as God, in the flesh.

That brings us to today’s story of the Transfiguration, which comes right after this interaction.  One of the roadblocks to understanding the Transfiguration story is that it sounds as if something happens to Jesus and changes him, “adding on” to whom we’ve known him to be in the Gospel so far.  Actually, just the opposite is true.  Though his appearance changes, it’s more like something is pulled back, revealing his true self that hasn’t always been apparent.  This is Jesus in the fullness of his glory, with divinity radiating from him in ways his humanity usually contains. For all the times his friends no doubt wondered, “Who is this guy?” – now, the answer comes in the baffling “both/and” of the Incarnation.  Yes, he’s their friend.  And, he’s God’s anointed king who will suffer unbelievably but then rise again.  And, he is divine himself – fully human and fully God, all at the same time.

I think if little Mary, or any of the rest of us, Facetimed with Jesus and experienced that reality, we might never pick up a phone again.  The divine presence is more than we can bear.  There’s a reason why, on the mountain with Moses and later with Elijah in the Old Testament, God obscures the fullness of divinity, giving them only glimpses while passing by (Exodus 33:17-23; 1 Kings 19:4-13).  But even that’s enough to change Moses’ face, making him radiate holy light and freaking out the people he leads. 

God knows that, for us to learn who we’re supposed to be, we need the intimacy of relationship, even relationship with the elemental power of the universe that would literally blow our minds.  God wants us to know what Moses glimpsed on the mountain, which is God’s own heart.  Here’s Yahweh’s self-description to Moses on the mountain:  “The Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and sin yet by no means clearing the guilty,” holding us accountable for our failures to follow Love’s way (Exodus 34:6-7). 

That’s the path God wants us to follow.  That’s the beat of God’s heart.  And we keep that beat when we commit ourselves to God’s way of love, which we do in the sacraments of holy baptism and confirmation.  We promise to trust in the One God who exists as relationship; to share in the life of other people of faith; to love other people with everything we’ve got; and to turn back when we forget it’s God’s love that claims our hearts.  We’ll remind ourselves of that when we renew our Baptismal Covenant in a few minutes.  It’s important to remember and reclaim those promises because it’s so easy to lose God’s heartbeat and follow the world’s distracting cacophony instead.

For us to know God, and trust God, and follow God’s way, we have to experience love in the flesh.  So, if we can’t Facetime with Jesus, what’s our next best option?  I think the answer is still Incarnation – that God still takes human form, that the Word still becomes flesh and moves into the neighborhood.  We see Jesus when we serve one another, divine Love showing up in a casserole brought to someone in pain.  After all, as Jesus said, “Love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12).  We see Jesus when we choose to give ourselves away in the interest of people we don’t know, divine Love showing up at Welcome House or the Rose Brooks Center or the Kansas City Community Kitchen, or guiding policy in the interests of others.  After all, as Jesus said, “As you did this to one of the least of these who are my brothers and sisters, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40).  And we see Jesus when God breaks in to day-to-day life, in those moments when Love shines through the mundane human faces we wear and reveals the spark of divinity that dwells in us all – in the kiss of your beloved, in the embrace of your best friend, in the song a parent sings to a child.  After all, as Jesus says, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).

Never forget:  In our service, in our sacrifice, in our love for one another, we wear the face of God.  You wear the face of God.  Don’t put a veil over it.  Let others see that they, indeed, are God’s beloved – and that their faces shine with Christ’s light, too.