Luke
9:28-36
Moses’
face was shining, and the Israelites were
afraid to come near him. Jesus’ face was shining, and his disciples were terrified. What do you think
everyone is so afraid of? It would be simple and perhaps tempting to hear these
passages superficially as “scary god” stories. The “scary god” notion is,
unfortunately, so deeply embedded in our minds and in our culture that this
would be the easiest way to interpret these stories. God is scary: he is a huge
guy in the sky with a big beard and an even bigger temper. He is irascible and
vindictive, routinely dishing out diseases and disasters as punishment. If we
get everything right and live the way we’re supposed to, then God will love us
and be nice to us, but that’s always a big “if.” The only certain thing is that
most people make God angry and it is only a lucky few saints and superhumans
who manage to consistently stay on his good side. So, yeah, coming into close
contact with that God would be frightening and would explain the behavior of
the Israelites and the disciples in these readings.
Except
that it doesn’t make any sense. There is no scary god in these stories. The
face of Moses is shining because, as Exodus tells us just a few verses before
this passage, when Moses talked to God, the LORD spoke to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend (Exod.
33:11). The light they see on his face is the light of friendship and love. And
when Jesus goes up the mountain, he brings his three closest friends with him,
Peter, James, and John, who then see their friend revealed as he truly is, with
all the love of God shining out of his face. These people are not afraid of
lightning bolts or punishments. There is something far scarier than that going
on in these two passages. And it shouldn’t completely surprise us. You know,
various polling groups and research studies regularly publish articles about
the things people fear the most. And the list of things people are most afraid
invariably include old favorites like snakes, heights, flying, public speaking,
going to the dentist, and death. But perhaps the most telling fear of all, and
the most pertinent as we hear these texts today, is the fear of intimacy, the
fear of being vulnerable and really loving someone else and really allowing
someone else to love us as we are.
I
am convinced that provides us with the key to fully grasping these two stories
today because what these people encounter is the love of God. I don’t mean
benign indifference, some deity patting us on the head and saying, “Oh, sure,
whatever.” I mean pure, unadulterated love, the love that pierces the depths
and gazes into our hearts and minds and sees everything: every lie, every
pretense, every addiction, every heinous thought, every hurtful word, every
hateful act — and loves us, loves us completely and thoroughly, always
forgiving us, always working to heal us and make us whole so we can enjoy
fullness of life forever. Paul sums it up in Romans: God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ
died for us. This is the Good News, no strings attached — and it scares the
hell out of people. Literally. Hell is just separation from God, but to
experience God’s love means to know there is no separation. God loves us no
matter what.
And
that “no matter what” part is frightening because it makes us so vulnerable: we
are left to receive love as a gift. It’s all we can do, but we’re not good at
that. I have been paying attention of late to advertisements and internet
memes, and there is a message I encounter over and over again. Here are just
some of the catchy phrases I have seen and heard: “Earned, not given.”
“Everything is worth more when you have to earn it.” “If you earn it, you will
appreciate it more.” “Trust isn’t given, it’s earned.” “Success is not given,
it is earned.” “Respect is something earned, not something given.” “Everything
is worth more when you have to earn it.” “My love is not a lottery. You can’t
win it, you have to earn it.” I could go on and on. Our culture is obsessed
with earning things. It satisfies our egos to think that we deserve everything
we have. And, conversely, that people who lack anything just don’t deserve it
because they haven’t earned it. And while there is some limited value to that
approach — encouraging a good work ethic, that kind of thing — the whole
“earning worthiness” system completely falls apart when it comes to God’s love,
or love in general, and that threatens our whole way of being in the world and
it unnerves people. Several years ago I did some pastoral counseling with a
man, and I was able to help him during a difficult time. And so he insisted on
paying me, but I refused it. This is my job, and I wasn’t going to take money from
him for helping him. But he wanted to feel like he somehow earned it by paying
for it: “I am not a charity case!”
Dear
people: we are all charity cases! Every blessed one of us! We exist because God
loves us. I get no brownie points for being a priest. You get no brownie points
for being in church today. We get no brownie points for all our good deeds and
kind words. We don’t need any! God already loves us infinitely. We could be in
church every day for the rest of our lives and give all our money away to the
poor, and we could not make God love us any more than God loves us right now.
There is nothing we can do to make God love us more, and there is nothing we
can do to make God love us less. We could go out and lie, cheat, and steal; we
could become murderers and terrorists, and still God would love us. That is so
shocking and so upsetting to our human ego systems, and the change of
perspective it demands is so dizzying, that the Bible uses very dramatic
language to describe it: being transformed, being born from above, being filled
with the Holy Spirit, dying in order to live. But when people get it, it
changes everything, and their whole being shines. Look at Moses. Look at Jesus.
Look
at yourself. There is so much damage done by people who have never experienced
unconditional love. This world desperately needs the good news of God’s love to
shine out in the lives of believers like you and me. If the thought of that is
scary, so be it. Admit the fear, but open yourself up to the love. There is
nothing we can do to earn it: it is already ours. So we don’t have to judge
ourselves any more. We don’t have to judge other people any more or compare
ourselves with them. We don’t have to decide who’s worthy and who’s not. We
don’t have to boost our fragile egos by pretending we have earned a place in
heaven or by trying to keep others out. We are free: free to live and to love
and to share in God’s ongoing work of forgiving and healing and restoring the
whole of creation. Yes, even you and I. Scary, yes — and awesome. Let your
light shine by first letting God’s love in.
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