A powerful Jesus
Scripture Text:
Matthew 17:1-9
Sermon:
I want to tell you about a priest named Father Koomson and a face of Jesus that he taught me about.
When I was in seminary at Seabury in Evanston, we would do healing prayer during one of the weekday Eucharists. Three professors would stand at the altar rail and students could come and the professors would lay hands on them and pray over them. Once I had a sore throat, and so I went up. I stood in line and was called to stand before Robert Koomson, an African priest from Ghana who was our seminary chaplain.
We called him Father Koomson, although we called our professors Ruth and Frank and Paula. Father Koomson is a deeply spiritual and holy man, and we found we couldn’t call him by his first name. He is a somewhat short man with glasses, he speaks with a beautiful West African, British accent, he was always giving away chocolate bars, bananas, and croissants (!) to students, although, ironically, he was an expert on the spiritual discipline of fasting. Some of our fellow Episcopalians in this diocese petitioned him to run as a candidate for bishop in 2007, in part because of his great holiness and kindness.
So: there was Father Koomson and me, at the front of the Seabury chapel. I told him I had a sore throat, and he put a hand on either side of my head and he started praying. And I had never heard anyone pray like him. I only remember some of the words he used; but he said something like, “And you, Sore Throat, you will also bow to the blood and the power of King Jesus.”
I was blown away by how he prayed. I’d never heard Jesus talked about in that way, or a sore throat addressed in the second person. The church I grew up in, perhaps not unlike St. Benedict, didn’t really talk much about Jesus as powerful. Jesus was compassionate and loving, Jesus was wise, Jesus was unpredictable, but we didn’t really talk about him as powerful or even as a King, much.
When Peter, James, and John go up to the mountain with Jesus, though, that’s how they see him: he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.
He seems SO dazzling and divine that I feel a little confused. A “dazzling Jesus” has not been much a part of my Christian faith. Dazzling Jesus sounds like he should be hosting the Oscars. Or a character in Lord of the Rings. Or even a caricature of himself! I associate this shining, powerful Jesus Christ with a poster I remember an evangelical neighbor at my college put on her walls: a poster with a sword, a lion, and a big burst of light.
But when you mix and match a lion, a sword, and Lord of the Rings, you sort of get Aslan and the books about Narnia. C.S. Lewis became a Christian late in his life, and he wrote children’s books (which have since become movies) about a land called Narnia that are also an allegory about Christian salvation. Aslan is his Jesus: a lion. Aslan is both fierce and strong and frightening, and yet also noble, compassionate, and wise. And even sort of cuddly sometimes!
This is one of my favorite quotes from the first book, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe:
“Is he – quite safe? [asked Susan,] I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will, dearie, and make no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver; “if there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King…”
The King in dazzling white is very different from Jesus as our friend, the bearded man laughing with children. Or the simple rabbi walking the roads of Galilee. Or the poor man who invites everyone to eat with him.
But of course, he is.
Peter, James and John sound taken aback, too, although they already knew Jesus wasn’t any ordinary rabbi.
Just a few verses earlier, Jesus asked them: “Who do you say that I am?”
And Peter answered him, clear and quick as a bell, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
But on the mountain, when Jesus reveals himself in all his glory and majesty to his three tired disciples, just like God revealed himself to Moses up on Mount Sinai, they seem nervous. Peter, as usual, is the disciple who seems most like someone you know. Like maybe even yourself. When things get stressful and confusing, he wants to DO something.
He offers Jesus: “I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
It’s hilarious but very touching.
But God won’t even let him stop talking… the bible says “while he was still speaking” and then God cuts him off, as if to say, “Will you just sit still and shut up for a minute?” Will you just listen to my Son, please? Hush!
God was supposed to be distant to ancient Jews like Peter and James – with a booming voice, living at the tops of mountains, surrounded in clouds and smoke, with a righteous temper and infinite wisdom. Jesus was the teacher who walked among his people. The Messiah, but God among us – more familiar and knowable than the Almighty God
But here Jesus isn’t familiar.
Here we see a King, taking his place next to the prophets Moses and Elijah. Here we see a glimpse of his Resurrection still to come. Here we see man ready to face his death: because as soon as they walk down from this mountain, he will set his face to Jerusalem and begin making his journey toward his death.
That’s a different kind of power, isn’t it?
He isn’t safe, but he’s Good.
Even if you don’t consider yourself an evangelical, you have something to learn from the Powerful Jesus. Father Koomson was as Anglican as they believed in the Power of Jesus: his power of healing, his power in the face of death, his power as our savior, and the power of his love.
Jesus is friend and King, Lamb and Lion, not safe but good, gentle and very very strong.
Amen.
