“Our Imaginations, Transformed By God’s Imagination” Transfiguration Sunday February 22, 2009

(First, read the text for this sermon: Mark 9:2-9)

There have been remarkable news images this past week – of California state legislators. California was facing a budget deficit of $41 billion, and the state constitution requires a balanced budget! What could be the solution? To get to that point, the Speaker of the California House decided to lock representatives into the House chambers until a resolution would be worked out.

Was that a good move to make? Representatives pictured were exhausted. Some were dead asleep at their desks, and even on the floor! Was that the best environment for imaginative thinking? (That, of course, is what’s needed to come to good solutions to huge problems.)

Usually, when there is a lot of stress, there is very little imagination. The heavy pressure makes it hard to be creative, to perceive options. We often fall back to simply wishing that everything could be the way it was, during flush times. When the reality of the challenges seems so overwhelming, it is very difficult to imagine another reality.

These days, the imagination deficit is as big as the budget deficit. Our representatives in Washington are working hard to get the economy back to where it was, say, a year ago – as if everything was fine a year ago. So they’re propping up car makers who have shown little innovation, and they’re propping up banks which were motivated by the deadly sin of greed when making shaky mortgages, and they’re propping up people with the same motivation, who borrowed more than they could pay to move into a house. The aim, of course, is so we can all get back out there and buy lots of stuff again. Then everything will be fine again, right?

But could it be that that’s the wrong approach – to try to restore what was old? Instead – is something new happening? Can you imagine what that might be? That’s hard to do, isn’t it?

Jesus’ closest disciples are suffering from an imagination deficit, in this morning’s story from the gospel of Mark.

Just before this morning’s story, we read in Mark: Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" And they answered him, "John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets." He asked them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered him, "You are the Messiah." And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him. What is going on here? Do not tell anyone about him?

It gets even more confusing and frightening: Then [Jesus] began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things." What is going on here? Jesus is saying that the Son of Man must suffer and be killed? That’s not what any of the disciples signed up for! That’s not what any of them expected, according to the old, accepted prophecy of the Son of Man, the figure they expected God to send, to free Israel!

Do the disciples have the imagination to understand what Jesus says next, either? [Jesus] called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."

And then, six days later, Jesus leads his three closest followers up a mountain. And [Jesus] was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus.

This is a precursor of the resurrection. This is something entirely new! You know this. I know this. That’s because you and I know how the story is going to turn out. You and I know about Easter. But the disciples don’t understand any of this. They haven’t been able to process what Jesus told them six days ago. They are suffering from imagination deficit! That’s obvious in what Peter says next. Then Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah."

Peter’s imagination has not been transformed. He is not imagining the new thing that God is doing. Instead, he is wanting to preserve this moment. He can only conceive of what is old. He’s there with this all-star trio of Elijah and Moses and Jesus, and he wants to create a religious shrine on the mountain to remember this occasion forever! It’s all he can figure out to say, suffering as he is from imagination deficit. In fact, we read, [h]e did not know what to say, for they were terrified.

Unfortunately, it gets even worse for Peter and James and John! Then a cloud overshadowed them. That evokes our Biblical imaginations: you and I know that this setting – up on a mountain, engulfed in a cloud – is the same as in the story of Moses on the mountain. You and I know that this is the presence of God! But Peter and James and John so far are showing no signs of such imagination and insight. Then a voice comes from the cloud, and I imagine the voice of God with this inflection: "This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him! Jeez!" (Because, so far, they haven’t been listening!)

Then we read, As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. Don’t say anything, in other words, because before Jesus’ resurrection can be understood, first people will need to see that it is necessary for him to suffer and to die.

But – why suffering? Why death? Why is the cross necessary? Even at the end of Mark’s narrative, the disciples are unable to imagine what God is doing. Why is God having to enter into human suffering? Why can’t God just be all-powerful, as we’ve expected God to be, making everything better in one “poof?” Here‘s how the gospel of Mark ends, when Jesus’ followers find the tomb to be empty: So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. The end.

So – how would you be: up there with Elijah and Moses and Jesus, on the mountain, engulfed in a cloud, hearing a voice? How’s your imagination? What is God doing that is new?

Isn’t that the same question for us who are living in these days? Obviously, huge changes are happening. Where is God in all of this? What is God doing that is new? Perhaps you and I will experience a dramatic transfiguration. More likely, this is the question: How can we offer our imaginations to the Holy Spirit, so that our imaginations will be transformed by God’s imagination? How can our imaginations be transformed to envision the future that God desires for God’s creation?

God the Holy Spirit does transform us, as we practice the faith. When we worship with openness to what the Spirit will say to us today; when we offer our anxieties and griefs and joys to God in prayer, and then listen for what comes; when we read and pray over passages in the Bible, noticing how the Spirit is leading us through those words into the mystery of God’s judgment and grace, then we experience the life-long journey of conversion, of turning to God. As God the Holy Spirit moves within and among us, opening us up in these ways, transforming our imaginations by God’s imagination for the future, then we come to perceive what God is doing that is new.

I invite you into the practices of faith that will lead to such transformation. The season of Lent, which begins this Wednesday, is a special period of openness to the Spirit’s movement. As a start, let me invite you into a deeper practice of prayer. I am no longer surprised when I hear someone say, “I don’t know how to pray.” That foundational practice of the faith will be the subject of our Wednesday evening experiences this Lent.

In the name of God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia