February 14, 2010 Des Moines
Luke 9:37-43a

 

"The Humility of Reality"

If you are a parent, perhaps you can remember that day when you took the training wheels off of that small little bicycle and held your breath as your son or daughter climbed on and began to wobble forward across the driveway.  Would he manage to right himself and keep it steady?  Can she make that turn?  Would he crash and skin his elbow?  Will she run into the neighbor’s car?  Have I done an adequate job of teaching, or is he – is she – even now rolling toward disaster?  On second thought, maybe the training wheels should stay on awhile longer.

The fact is that sometimes they should.  Sometimes those junior riders are not ready.  It’s also possible that sometimes the falling is part of the learning.  The actual results of these “maiden voyages” are every bit as mixed as the emotions that surround them.  Sometimes they ride; sometimes they crash.   It is, at that point, all up to the kids.

If training wheels can serve as a useful metaphor then it’s fair to say that the disciples were crashing.  To be sure, they had been working at it – learning, practicing, watching.  Jesus had been showing them how it’s done in a kind of “walking tutorial.”  And he must have felt like they were ready.  At the beginning of chapter 9, Luke reports how Jesus removed their training wheels and sent them off for a ride.  He...  *

...called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, 2and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.  36They departed and went through the villages, bringing the good news and curing diseases everywhere.

And so it was that, a week or so afterwards, feeling comfortable with setting the disciples’ wheels in motion, Jesus pulls aside Peter and James and John and leads them up a nearby hill.  What happened next is part mystery, part vision, part mystical affirmation of all that Jesus had bee doing among them and teaching. 

He is, as you might remember the story, “transfigured” before their very eyes.  While he was praying, his face in some way changed, and his clothes, like in old laundry detergent ads, became dazzling white.  It was all apparently something like had happened to Moses when he received the 10 Commandments.  The story goes that when Moses came back down the mountain with the tablets people couldn’t even look at him, so bright was his radiance.  And now, on this later mountain, something similar was taking place. 

And speaking of Moses, fantastically Moses himself somehow appeared alongside Jesus – Moses and also the prophet Elijah – these two iconic, ancient heroes of Israel’s formative years, suddenly present and chatting it up with Jesus.  Think, by comparison, what it would be like if Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln suddenly appeared tomorrow morning at the State House and began to talk with the Senators and Representatives and the Governor.  My guess is that it would not only get their attention, they would think they were glowing, too!

Moses and Elijah certainly got the three disciples’ attention – along with the engulfing cloud that surrounded them all and the startling voice from nowhere – or everywhere – that told them:  

‘This is my Son, my Chosen;* listen to him!’

And then there was nothing – and no one – except Jesus and themselves and the deafening silence.  Little wonder that, according to Luke, they looked at each other, looked at Jesus, thought about the skeptical expressions likely to be on the faces of those waiting for them at the bottom of the mountain below, and decided to just keep this little episode among themselves, and told no one what they had seen.   How, after all, can one describe such a thing?  How could they capture the awe of it all?  Who would believe such a telling?  Like Mary, then, so many years before, the air still turbulent from the beating of angel wings, they kept these things and pondered them in their hearts.  And they made their way back down the mountain, drunk on wonder and bloated with glory. 

            But scarcely had they reached the foot of the mountain when they were sobered up by a crisis.  A boy was sick.  Pathetically sick.  A demon had him by the throat – how else to describe it? – a demon who routinely thrashed the boy about unmercifully.  The boy’s father went into terrible detail – the sight of it all, the sound, the agony and the anguish.  And then he dropped the crashing clincher:  “I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not."

            No way!  You’ve got to be kidding!  These same disciples who had been authorized and empowered to do this very thing only a few short days before?  “They couldn’t do it?” 

You can almost hear their sputtering apologies trying to explain what had happened. 

“Well, you see I hadn’t slept well the night before.” 

“Well, you see, it had been a really busy day – I had been healing people all morning – and, well, I was getting really tired, and...” 

“Well, it was a really BIG demon.”

And – there is really no other way to describe it – Jesus came uncorked.  “How long am I going to have to put with up this?  Can’t you get anything right?  Go to your room.  I am so disappointed in you.  Get out of the way; I’ll do it myself.” 

Or something to that effect.  I know, I know, I know.  This probably wasn’t Jesus’ finest hour.  Oh, it was a fine display of healing power and all that; but from a teaching standpoint, it was a little rough.  Shaming, after all, has only limited effectiveness, and the risk of incurring more anger probably wasn’t a strong motivator to get out there and try again.

But if we can “feel” for the disciples in all their fecklessness, I can sympathize with Jesus – whiplashed, as he must have been, between the glory on the mountain and the reality down below.  I’ve got to think that Jesus felt some urgency in the teaching – in the passing on of the work that he was doing.  There would not be limitless opportunities for them to learn.  There was an urgency to the task at hand and he was desperate for them to get up to speed.  Some things, Jesus knew, are too important for a learning curve.  While patience may be a virtue, isn’t it also possible it can simply be a place to hide? 

·         Wasn’t that the underbelly of Martin Luther King, jr.’s cry, “How long, O Lord, how long?”  How long is long enough to wait for justice and fairness and basic human decency?

·         Wasn’t that the desperate ache of the Psalmist, crying out, “How long, O God?  Will you forget me forever?” (13:1)  “How long will you let the wicked gloat?” (94:3) 

·         And isn’t that the core of the prophet’s anguish, “How long will the land mourn and the grass of every field wither?” (Jeremiah 12:4)

How long, indeed?  Aren’t there times when, far from wise counsel, patience is a luxury we or the world around us simply can’t afford?

In his unsettling poem titled hieroglyphic stairway, Drew Dellinger writes:

it's 3:23 in the morning
and I'm awake
because my great great grandchildren
won't let me sleep
my great great grandchildren
ask me in dreams
what did you do while the planet was plundered?
what did you do when the earth was unraveling?

surely you did something
when the seasons started failing?

as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying?

did you fill the streets with protest
when democracy was stolen?

what did you do
once
you
knew?

“Well, I was just trying to exercise a little patience,” we will tell them.  How do you suppose they will hear that? 

Might it be that there are some things too important, too urgent, for cautious, deliberate steps – when patience, quite the opposite of virtue, may indeed be a sin?

Here’s what I think:  I’m guessing that while this day ended rather miserably for the disciples, it wasn’t long before they forgot all about the training wheels now boxed away in the recesses of the basement; wasn’t long before they, too, began to blaze with a different kind of fire, driving them to reach as far as they could, touch as many as they could, change as much as they could, because time – at least their time – was short, and they, too, could no longer sleep at night.

We’ve done our own share of wobbling down the driveway, trying to keep our bearings, and we no doubt have skinned elbows and shins to show for it.  Neither do we always get it right.  But fear of falling – or fear of embarrassment under the amused and watchful eyes of our neighbors – is no justification for parking the wheels and walking.  Our great-great-grandchildren’s voices won’t let us sleep, asking us:

·         “What did you do to make sure that the people within the sound of your voice and the reach of your embrace knew that God loves them inexhaustibly and that there is nothing they could do to change that?” 

·          “What did you do to make sure all people had a loving, equal chance?” 

·          “What did you do when the church, the Body of Christ, was in your hands – literally was your hands and voice – what did you do with the opportunity?”

It would be more comfortable, I know, to simply stay in bed – more glorious to stay up on the mountain and just inhale the holy cloud.  But there are demons down below causing all kinds of convulsions, and this is our time.  And our great-great grandchildren, with Jesus alongside of them, are keeping us awake at night, asking “What did you do once you knew?”