February 27, 2022 Sermon Series: Shining Forth: Seeing Jesus in a New Light - Zumbro Lutheran ...

February 27, 2022
                                                            Sermon Series:
                                 Shining Forth: Seeing Jesus in a New Light

We Are Going to Need a Bigger Boat
Pastor Peter Strommen

Luke 9:28-36 (NRSV)
28Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John

and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. 29And while he was praying,
the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white.
30Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. 31They appeared

in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish
at Jerusalem. 32Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep;
but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who
stood with him. 33Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it
is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for
Moses, and one for Elijah" — not knowing what he said. 34While he was saying
this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they
entered the cloud. 35Then from the cloud came a voice that said, "This is my
Son, my Chosen listen to him!" 36When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found
alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they
had seen.

Today is Transfiguration Sunday, a kind of archway between Epiphany and Lent.
What Peter, James, and John witness on the mountaintop caps the emphasis of
Epiphany, which means shinning forth. Jesus has revealed himself through signs,
teaching, miracles, and the like. But here on the mountain, Jesus’ identity and
purpose shine forth in a mystery and brilliance that leave the disciples speechless.
At the same time, what is foreshadowed there signals a journey of rejection and
death in Jerusalem, also a part of Jesus’ purpose. Matthew, Mark, and Luke see
the transfiguration event as a kind of pivot in Jesus’ public ministry, where
preparing his disciples for what is to come now assumes top priority.

This morning I would like to approach this event from the eyes of the disciples.
They remember it as a key stop in their journey of faith. They walk up the
mountain at a crisis point in their understanding of Jesus. The vision they behold
there challenges their very understanding of the Christ, while also rendering them
speechless at his glory. As they come down the mountain, their understanding of

Jesus’ journey does not seem to be greater, but their trust in him has deepened. I
see this sequence: climbing, experiencing, and descending as CRISIS, the need for
A BIGGER BOAT, and trust in a GOD WHO MAKES A WAY WHEN THERE IS NO
WAY.

I. CRISIS
A clue to how Luke sees the transfiguration comes in how he introduces it. Did
you notice? “Eight days after Jesus had said these things…” Luke connects his
telling with what happened eight days before. And what was that? Jesus asks his
disciples a crucial question at a critical time. “Who do people say that I am?” They
answer along the lines of seeing Jesus as an important prophet, like Elijah or John
the Baptist (back from the dead, even). High praise.

“And who do you say that I am?” Jesus continues. Peter has a “eureka” moment, a
flash of insight that in its very saying has the ring of truth. “You are the Christ, the
Son of God.” We can only imagine the joy that came to all in this moment as
Jesus acknowledges it as true.

But joy becomes confusion, perhaps anger, certainly disillusionment at what
Jesus says next- - his journey will lead to rejection, suffering, death, and rising
from the dead. “Rising from the dead” is something Luke comments on later. The
disciples don’t understand what it means. But the rejection, suffering, and dying
they get. A common understanding of the Christ (Messiah) did not have such a
scenario at all! Peter loses his senses (in Mark and Mathew’s telling), and steps
away from being a follower and rebukes his master for such heresy. “No. Never.”
For Jesus, Peter’s rebuke sounds like Satan’s temptation. Peter is rebuked for
thinking, “like man, not God.”

II. A BIGGER BOAT
Eight days later, Jesus invites Peter, James, and John, his inner leadership circle,
to accompany him up a mountain to pray. There they experience a powerful
vision that leaves them speechless.

I describe an effect of this experience as needing a bigger boat, a kind of iconic
expression from the movie Jaws. Jaws is a great story that like so many stories
involves a journey. Three very different characters find themselves on a boat with
a mission to hunt and destroy a killer shark. Captain Brody, the town sheriff, is
scooping bloody chunks of chum into the water to lure in the shark. Suddenly and
for just a moment, he gets a full look at their prey - - a gigantic Great White. He
drops the bucket and heads to the wheelhouse, his face ashen as he says to
Quint, the boat’s captain, “You need a bigger boat.” Quint’s personal vendetta
against all sharks nixes that idea right away, for he wants the shark. This decision
will cost him his boat, and his life.

“You need a bigger boat” is the most famous line from Jaws, and has entered our
culture. It’s an expression said to people who underestimate their opponent, or
task. It can also mean how we think: like a paradigm. To illustrate: Pope Urban VIII
used the power of the church to silence Galileo from writing about a solar system.
Pope Urban’s “boat” had the earth as the center of the universe, not the sun. But
the boat capable of further discovery would not be Urban’s, nor could it be.
Galileo may have been silenced for his time, yet the truth of his work carried the
future.

Peter and the disciples had an understanding of what the Messiah (the Christ)
was to be. Compared to what Jesus had discerned about his mission, their “boat”
was too small. They needed a bigger boat. Actually, our spiritual journeys often
include the same realizations too - - our idea of God may be too small!

The vision atop the mountain is anything but small! They are clearly awed,
perhaps confounded and shaken to their core, words not easy to come by. What
Luke describes is a brilliant, unearthly light, a reality beyond ours as Elijah and
Moses, two giants of scripture, converse with Jesus about a coming “departure”
(also translated “Exodus”) in Jerusalem. The cloud enveloping them is the
Shekinah in Jewish and Christian thought, a visible form of God’s glory, being
present, yet covered and deeply experienced. The voice of God says, “This is my
Son, my Chosen, Listen to him.”

There is no confusion here of God’s glory, Jesus’ truth, and the call to listen and
follow. The few words are powerful, and the experience envelopes the disciples
whole being.

III. GOD MAKES A WAY WHERE THERE IS NO WAY
Heading down the mountain it’s clear that even though Jesus reiterates what he
said after Peter’s confession, Peter, James, and John have no greater
understanding of what is to come. Isn’t that often the way our journey of faith is,
especially in difficult times? We continue because we trust in the One leading us,
not because we necessarily understand at the time.

The disciples will be with Jesus as he journeys a dark and lonesome valley,
entering the basement and dungeons of humanity, opposed by the powers and
principalities as Paul puts it, or “Sin, Death, and the Devil” as Luther does. It will
crush the disciples for a time, Peter will completely disintegrate, and Jesus will
enter the abyss.

But Jesus’ entry into and triumph over sin, death, and the devil is what allows us
to face these things in confidence. We can be reminded of our mortality with the
sign of the cross on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday, receive Jesus’ Body and
Blood for our salvation, and be counseled to face the darkness and demons not in

fear, but in repentance and healing. Who could expect the disciples to have
understood any of this while on the mountain? We are grateful for their faithful
witness of it though, and for the meaning their vision has revealed over time.

IV. A SPIRITUAL INHERITANCE BORN IN AMERICA’S ORIGINAL SIN
The disciples experiences of sin and grace, faith and hope, struggle and
redemption have been repeated throughout our history as a Church, individually,
in families and even in historical movements. Since we are observing African
American History this month, and worshiping through its gospel music tradition in
our service today, a story from the Black Church is fitting.

Henry Louis Gates of PBS “Finding Our Roots” did a remarkable series on The
Black Church. I had admired its contribution, but do all the more having been
shown its history.

It takes little thought to imagine what it would be like to be captured by slave
traders, find yourself in shackles, and eventually chained in the hold of a ship as it
sails across the Atlantic Ocean. On average, a third of your companions don’t
survive the journey, and you emerge weeks later, weak, afraid, and in despair,
auctioned off to a master who requires your work and owns your very life. At
some point you are exposed to a foreign religion - - initially the religion of your
owners - - and it’s a wonder a slave could trust the God of those who own you in
this way. But here’s the thing: the slave owners boat that extended to God was
too small. They thought that hope of heaven and a duty to obey master - - both
in the Bible - - would work for them.

But deeper knowledge of God requires bigger boats than our limited plans,
especially when they violate the heart and soul of God’s law. The God known by
the African American church blessed them as God does the Church. All the gifts
of knowing Jesus as Lord and Savior, of praying to him, of finding community
with others through him, of learning to love and forgive, of looking to heaven…of
developing healing ways of worship and expression. All these gifts came. And
more. Comfort in hard times. Courage. nd, early on, a recognition that the Bible’s
narrative of love, being created in the image of God, and the release of captives
presents a much different picture of who God is to slaves. “Promised land” begins
to have two meanings - - heaven, and freedom. “Steal away to Jesus” too. The
Black Church is faith with despair at the door, resilience in the face of injustice,
joyful worship amidst the struggle for inherent dignity. Faith matters. It’s about
life and death. This is about life and death.

A few years before World War II a brilliant young Lutheran theologian, Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, spent time in New York on the faculty of Union Theological Seminary.
We remember Bonhoeffer for his writings, but also for his courage in warning
against Hitler, defending the Jews, being in the Confessing Church, and
participating in a plot to overthrow Hitler. He was executed just before the war’s
end.

What isn’t known as widely is the profound impact the Black Church had on him.
While at Union, a colleague invited him to the Abyssinian Baptist Church in
Harlem. There Bonhoeffer experienced a soulful faith with an urgency and
ardency he had never encountered. He attended there, taught Sunday school,
learned gospel music, and regarded this community as the place where he
discovered the heart of his faith.

It seems to me that the Black Church is an expression of God making a way when
there was no way, of inviting and challenging a whole society to get a bigger
boat. It has been the key link of community, inspiration, and vision for an enslaved
and unjustly denigrated people. And God’s grace to all of us has been given in
and through its gifts.