Lent 5, 2021

 I didn’t realize until this week that the Gospel of John does not have a transfiguration story on the mountaintop with Jesus shining and God pronouncing Jesus the beloved son.  Instead, John has this story that deals with when and how we see Jesus and we even hear voice of God talking about glory and glorifying God’s name. 

Some Greek people want to see Jesus.  They have come to Jerusalem because of their faith, first in Judaism and also in Jesus the Messiah.  This is a breakthrough moment.  Generally, Judaism was for Jewish people.  At least initially, people also thought Jesus was for Jewish people.  They were having a hard enough time wrapping their minds around non-Jewish people having an interest in Judaism, and here come these Greeks interested in Jesus. 

We can understand their wish.  What would we give to see Jesus?  Some of us have already plotted out what we would ask him, what we will say to him, when we finally do see him in person.  These Greeks have their list of questions, and probably the first is, “Do you like Greeks?  Can we be part of your movement?  What is the greatest commandment?” 

When we say we want to see Jesus, we might consider “What Jesus do you want to see?”  For the most part, we’d like to see Jesus, put together, smiling, young, healthy, glorious and inspiring.  That’s what occurred at the Transfiguration on the mountain top.  It is lovely to picture Jesus in all his glory.  And Jesus is so much more.  Through his ministry, we see Jesus frustrated at injustice and people’s hard-heartedness.  We see Jesus unclean, having touched lepers and dead people, having no place to lay his head.  We see Jesus the defiant, breaking the sabbath rules, challenging people to treat each other like humans.  We see Jesus the puzzlement, telling stories that don’t have an exact answer, giving unclear messages, being confusing.  We see Jesus dirty and tired from his travels.  We see Jesus misunderstood. 

Of all the sides of Jesus that are hard to look at and see are Jesus the condemned criminal and Jesus the vulnerable dying one, weak, and giving up power, giving up his life.  I don’t want to see Jesus like this, suffering.  It hurts too much.  But we are invited to see this Jesus, to open our eyes.  Jesus the condemned criminal shines a light on injustice.  The court systems, the corruption, the powers that politicians have, the power that crowds have, the creation and blaming of victims, the crushing burden that society places on people to control them and keep power for a few.  Jesus’ crucifixion shines a light on the justice system then and the justice system now, because in a lot of ways, they are not so far apart.  

The next Jesus that is hard to see is the one denied, betrayed, humiliated, and beaten, tortured on the cross to death.  That suffering would go on in our world, on purpose, one person inflicting it on another for control is unthinkable, that it would be a product of a government, even more so.  Yet it is still the case today that people torture and torment each other and governments and institutions also do just that in some cases.  Seeing the Jesus who suffers opens our eyes to the suffering all around us.  I hope that it expands our compassion for them, that it motivates us to see how we increase and alleviate suffering of people all around us and also of animals and of the earth. 

If we are going to see the full Jesus, we are going to see him killed.  Jesus knows that his followers don’t want to see that, and yet he warns them that they will.  He’s trying to prepare them, not only for his death but for the deaths of his Disciples and followers after him who are persecuted. 

Jesus speaks about his death.  He uses the analogy of a seed falling to the earth.  Unless the plant drops the seed and the seed is buried, unseen, it cannot bear fruit, the good thing that was meant to come from it, can’t.  Like the seed that falls, Jesus will be unseen.  Without dying, he can’t do what he came to do, which is draw all people, including the Greeks, including you and me, including everybody, to himself.

We want to see Jesus.  Although we can’t see him because he has died and was buried and has ascended, now we see him more than ever.  But we have to ask ourselves whether we want to see the Jesus that is visible to us.  Jesus is visible to us in those who are suffering, in people all around us who are sick, whose souls are troubled, those who are commonly rejected, people accused of crimes, people who are discounted, unloved, and maybe even hard for us to love.  Jesus says, “Whenever you did it to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.”  Jesus is present in the very least and that is where we can see him at any time.  Now that Jesus has died, he has risen again in the lives of the oppressed and hated.  The seed has borne fruit and now we can see Jesus alive in all our brothers and sisters.  Now, we can see him better than when he walked this earth in person, when we truly see our siblings in need, suffering, rejected.

The Greek people say today, “We want to see Jesus,” and so do we.  But if we see him, we’re going to see some things that are difficult in ourselves, our own judgements, and our own institutions, our own churches, our own governments, our own habits, our own comforts. Seeing Jesus challenges hurtful institutions and systems that we participate in all the time, that we take for granted.  

If we see Jesus, and not just on a superficial level, we’re going to start loving him.  We all love Jesus.  We love Jesus who held the children and talked to the widows, healed the lepers and fed the crowds.  Loving Jesus in our frustrating neighbor is harder to do.  We’re saying today, “Not only do we want to see Jesus, We want to love Jesus.”  We want to love more than just the happy Jesus that makes us feel warm and fuzzy.  We want to love Jesus in all his complexity and challenge, in all his vulnerability and unwillingness to defend himself, in all his anger at hypocrisy.  We want to love Jesus when he glows on the mountaintop and when falters in the Garden of Gethsemane.  We want to love Jesus in our midst right now, Jesus with tattoos, Jesus dumping his trash next to our dumpster, Jesus the foster child throwing chairs at Little Doves, Jesus on a ventilator with Covid, Jesus who is gay and proud, Jesus who says to turn your guns into plowshares, Jesus who leaves all the church doors unlocked.

When Jesus was here on this earth, born into humanity, not that many people got to meet him.  He was inaccessible in time and space from most of us.  Now that he has died and risen again in the love and welcome of his people, in the justice of his people, he can be seen almost anywhere.

The ruler of this world is being driven out—the one who tempts us all with money and strength and power and good feelings.  That false ruler is being driven out.  There are some things that have to go, in order to make room for a new way of doing things—God’s way, the loving way, the welcoming way, the way of abundant life.  There’s a lot that need to go—that’s part of what we do in Lent, we fast.  We give something up that isn’t giving us life.  There’s still another week of Lent and the whole rest of our lives.  Let’s drive out jealousy, fear, our judgments, our greed and hoarding, selfishness.  Let’s make room for the Kingdom that we pray to come every single Sunday.

The gunman in Atlanta last week was trying to drive out temptation, and in the process he took the lives of 8 people, mothers, grandmothers, sisters and brothers, friends.  This man was taught by his church that a sexual temptation was worse than a temptation to violence and that his temptation came from outside himself.  He thought that by killing someone, he could remove his temptation, apparently not realizing that he was being tempted into blaming others, dehumanizing others, and destroying the lives of others.  Instead of seeing Jesus in other people, he blamed them for his feelings and obsessions.  We condemn the attacks as we do all acts of murder, whether through gun violence, police brutality, or even from keeping food from the mouths of little children.  We get to ask ourselves, do we take responsibility for our own temptations, and put them in proper context that God is loving and gracious and forgives us all our sins?  Do we have a tendency to blame other people or other groups of people for our troubles or can we be honest with ourselves about our responsibility to change our focus from anger and blaming to seeing Jesus in others?

Jesus is ushering in a new day.  Jesus is drawing all people to himself.  This is a very gentle interpretation.  It should say this, “Jesus is dragging all people to himself.”  Some of us are going more willingly than others, but others simply don’t want to participate.  Well, I say, “Drag away, Jesus!”  Sometimes I get so stuck in my habits, so focused on my own priorities, I forget to look up and go to Jesus.  I am thankful that Jesus is dragging me into his Kingdom and all the other reluctant, defiant children that are our siblings.  What beautiful good news, Jesus is dragging us along, ready or not to see him, love him, and bear fruit, to lose our lives, our priorities, and follow the life that truly is life, Jesus.