Listen to Him!

Today ends the season of Epiphany.

And I realize that I did you all a disservice.

We talked about the coming of the Magi—the day of Epiphany.

But Epiphany is a season.

It’s a season of revelation and enlightenment.

Revelation of God’s incarnation in Jesus—God’s taking human form to live among us.

And also, the revelation that his coming was for everyone—not just for Jews like himself, but also for Gentiles like the Magi.

The season of Epiphany is bracketed by two important events: Jesus’ baptism and his transfiguration.

Both events feature the voice from heaven.

Jesus’ baptism is important because it marks the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry.

It is also a nod to his humanity.

Baptism is something that we share with him.

Jesus’ transfiguration, which we celebrate today, signifies his divinity.

So, the season of Epiphany—with Jesus’ baptism and transfiguration—also reveals his dual nature.

Our Lutheran doctrine says that Jesus is 100% human and 100% divine—a claim which I’m sure makes mathematicians skin crawl.

But it is meant to signify that Jesus is both things simultaneously—he is both human and divine.

Last year on Transfiguration Sunday, we spent a lot of time unpacking what it means to be transfigured.

To be transfigured means to be elevated, to become dramatically more beautiful.

I gave the example of Rachel Held Evans, who turned her hate mail into art by folding the paper into origami.

She turned something ugly into something beautiful.

And she realized something in the process.

She realized that the act of transfiguration was about more than the hate mail..

She came to realize that we are meant to remake this world together—to co-create the Kin-dom with God.

We are called to heal together¬—to put trauma behind us.

We are called to forgive together—to share the grace that God has shown us.

And we are called to create together—to bring the Kin-dom, which is near but not yet, closer still.

And, while we may experience frustration, there will also be joy.

After Jesus’ transfiguration, they hear a voice from heaven, “This is my Own, my Beloved, on whom my favor rests. Listen to him!”

It’s very similar to what the voice says at Jesus’ baptism, “This is my Own, my Beloved, on whom my favor rests.”

The difference is the voice at the transfiguration adds, “Listen to him!”

Listen to him!

The implication being that Jesus has something important to tell us.

A message that God endorses.

So, what is Jesus’ message?

We could say it is summed up in Matthew 25, “‘Come, you blessed of my Abba God!

Inherit the Kin-dom prepared for you from the creation of the world!

For I was hungry and you fed me; I was thirsty and you gave me drink.

I was a stranger and you welcomed me; naked and you clothed me.

I was ill and you comforted me; in prison and you came to visit me.”

There are no qualifiers.

There is no pre-assessment of race, religion, or political leanings.

There is only the community—the Kin-dom that is near, but not yet—helping those in need.

But there’s another way we could look at Jesus’ message.

We could look for instances where Jesus spoke in the imperative voice.

The imperative is a verb form that is used to indicate a command.

We don’t have a direct parallel in English.

In English, imperatives are handled with context and punctuation, like putting an exclamation point after “Stop!”.

But in Greek, it is an actual verb conjugation.

Looking at the original Greek text, Jesus’ most frequent use of the imperative is, “Follow me”.

The second is “love”—love God, love your neighbor, love one another, love your enemies.

So, let’s talk a little bit about Jesus’ commands—the ones that God said we are to listen to.

Jesus said, “Follow me”.

For his disciples there was a dual meaning.

Jesus wanted them to physically follow him on his journey.

But he also wanted them to follow his example.

It’s the second meaning that is relevant to us.

So, what does it mean to follow Jesus’ example?

He fed the 5,000 because they were hungry.

And he preached that we are to feed people who are hungry.

There is no “feed only the people who meet the work requirement”.

There is no “feed only the children whose cafeteria accounts are up-to-date. The others can have a cold cheese sandwich.”

Yet, we put conditions on which hungry people we will feed.

Jesus also said to give drink to people who are thirsty.

There is no “unless they are crossing the desert to avoid Customs and Border Protection. Then you can dump out the water that was left for their survival.”

What do you think Jesus would say about letting people needlessly die of thirst in the desert?

In a few minutes, we’re going to sing a hymn called “The Summons”.

It is part of almost every ordination.

It’s about following Jesus, which is the foundation of every pastor’s call.

It goes, "Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?

Will you go where you don't know and never be the same?

Will you let my love be shown, will you let my name be known,

will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?”

As followers of Jesus, our answer should be a resounding, “Yes!”.

The second most frequent command from Jesus was to “love”.

Love God, love our neighbor, love one another, and love our enemies.

Jesus said we are to love God.

And yet, Christian Nationalists seeks to remake God in their own image.

The god of Christian Nationalism is white.

The god of Christian Nationalism is American.

The god of Christian Nationalism is violent, vengeful, and greedy.

Make no mistake, the god of Christian Nationalism is an idol.

A false god that has no resemblance to the God of today’s Psalm “who loves justice, who established honesty, justice and righteousness”.

Jesus also said we are to love our neighbor, love one another, love our enemies.

For the sake of wrapping things up, I’ll lump them together and say Jesus said we are to love others.

We’re not very good at that, especially when the others are different from us.

We get so focused on our differences, we become unable to see our commonalities.

Regardless of our skin color, or the language we speak, or who we love, we are all children of God.

Possessing the divine image of God.

It begs the question, why then do we seem incapable of acting like it?

A special case of others is strangers.

Jesus said we are to welcome them—that is how we show them love.

In Matthew 25, the word that is translated as “stranger” is xenos in the original Greek.

Xenos is where we get the word xenophobia—fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners.

If we look at stranger expansively, it can mean not only foreigners but also people not like us.

Welcome strangers—no caveats.

There is no “welcome only white strangers from Northern European countries”.

There is no “welcome only cisgender people because trans people make me nervous”.

We are constantly coming up with reasons for straying from Jesus’ command to love.

These are trying times, my friends.

In the current environment, being a follower of Jesus is exhausting.

There are so many things that need fixing.

It’s hard to know where to focus—or if anything we do will make a difference.

But I assure you, the fatigue is intentional.

So is the feeling of being overwhelmed.

But Jesus says, “Follow me”.

He never said it would be easy.

We know what we’re supposed to do—because he told us.

We know what is right.

So, damn the fatigue and damn the distress.

In Philippians, we read, “I can do all things through the One who gives me strength”.

Jesus strengthens us.

Jesus restores us.

And we also have this awesome community right here to draw strength from.

Thanks be to God!

May this meditation on God’s word keep our hearts and minds on Christ Jesus.