"Epiphany" A Sermon for the Last Sunday After Epiphany, Year B

It was Friday morning. I knew I had to get my sermon for Sunday finished because we were into the final rehearsal and performance of a massive project: putting on a staged reading of the Gospel of Mark for the larger Valdosta community. I made myself settle down and lock in on what I wanted to say. I typed and typed...and finally got a completed draft finished. 

"I'll get back to looking this over first thing Saturday," I thought. "For now, I have to get the map insert done for the programs so people will be able to see the regions of the Middle East we're talking about in the Gospel." I opened the other file, made a few tweaks, downloaded it onto a flash drive, and closed my laptop.

When I got to my office in Valdosta, I opened up my laptop. 

Somewhere in that whole process of working with the map file...I lost the sermon. 

All of it. 

It wasn't even in the bowels of the laptop where one finds previously unsaved documents. It was gone.

After saying a few choice words, I sighed and resigned myself to the reality that I would have to start over. And I would not be able to put my mind to it until AFTER the Saturday afternoon performance, which went very well, by the way.

And so what you have here...and what my congregation heard...is a remix of what I had originally planned to preach...typed out at lightening fast speed between 9-11pm on a Saturday night. I actually think it's better than what I had planned to say. See what you think.

Text: Mark 9:2-9

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There’s a quote I heard recently from that great 20^th Century theologian…Dolly Parton:

“Find out who you are and do it on purpose!”

I think the sage of Nashville has hit on the perfect theme for this time as we finish the season of Epiphany and look to begin the season of Lent.

Because Epiphany is about discovery….and Lent is the chance to take that discovery…and go a little deeper into ourselves and find those ways to live more fully into our call to be the beloved children of God.

And speaking of Beloved…we have that recognition conferred on Jesus for a second time in Mark’s Gospel.

At the beginning of this season…we heard that Jesus went to John the Baptizer at the Jordan River. And as Jesus was coming up from the waters….he saw the heavens torn apart…the Holy Spirit descending as a dove… and there was voice that whispered into his ears:

“You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”

This was not a public testimony.

This was Jesus’ own private moment…something only he heard. An identity that he now had to wrestle with and try to understand for himself…about himself…what does it mean to be God’s Beloved Son?

I imagine that each one of us at different stages of our lives have had a time when we’ve had to consider who we are….and even whose we are.

I think that’s a lot of what happens in those angsty years called “teenager” which can spill over into our young adulthood.

We go through difficult growing pains in our attempt to figure out who we are as distinctly different people from our parents.

This is a normal and natural process of becoming independent adults. Sometimes we have to rush into that process earlier than we might like as a necessary for our survival.

Jesus hears this voice…and what we read in Mark’s Gospel is that he is then immediately driven out into the wilderness.

For those who originally heard this Gospel…the Markan community of the First Century…they know what “wilderness” means.

They understand that their ancestors…upon escaping the oppression and tyranny of Pharaoh…had to make a hasty run for their lives through the Red Sea. They couldn’t even take the time to let their bread rise.

It was go.

Or perish.

So they went.

And then they spent forty years….aka a really long time…wandering around in search of the place they could call “home.”

Jesus is in the wilderness.

Mark doesn’t give us a lot of details about what happened out there…but he gives us some clues…and we can imagine and fill in the details.

Satan is tempting him.

Christians like to depict….Satan as a demonic character.

In Jewish rabbinical traditions…Satan is an accuser….a bulldog prosecuting attorney…who tests the faith of the righteous.

Think of the story of Job…a righteous man who had done nothing wrong…and Satan who attacks all the things that Job values in an effort to get him to deny God.

Whether as a demon…or a vicious bully….however we want to think of what’s happening to Jesus out there in the wilderness…he’s up against the wall… in a manner of speaking….with the wild beasts circling him….and the angels hovering above…maybe giving him the strength and courage to make it through this ring of fire.

I’m sure many of us in this room can understand what that feels like.

I don’t think one can make it through life without having some moments of feeling like we’re being put through hell.

And yet Jesus makes it out of the wilderness.

And…upon learning of the arrest of John the Baptizer…has a complete understanding of what is at stake and what he must do:

The time is now.

God is with us.

Get yourselves ready and trust that goodness and love will prevail.

Jesus has had his epiphany. He knows who he is…what his purpose is…and who he belongs to.

And in today’s Gospel….Peter, James, and John are bearing witness and discovering the true identity of this man they have been following around the Galilean countryside.

Jesus brought along three witnesses to this transformative moment…the same three he would bring along to some of his healings. It was as if he was fulfilling the Jewish law as laid out in Deuteronomy that one witness was not enough to bring charges against someone. There need to be two or three.

But this isn’t a transgression; this is a transformation. A big reveal. And having seen it…these three are also changed.

Or are they?

At the end of yesterday’s reading of the Gospel of Mark…as we were taking questions…it was noted that the disciples were….well….pretty dense. A bless their hearts is in order here.

Even though these three have had repeated exposures to seeing glimpses of Jesus….they can’t help but to keep thinking that Jesus is going to the warrior Messiah they have always imagined.

Or they become obsessed with their privileged place of being around this great man….and they want to be his number one and number 2 guys…sitting on his right and left.

Again…these are things we likely can understand…and have possibly yearned to have for ourselves.

There’s something attractive to having prestige and power. We have been trained and conditioned to expect that those who are the greatest get gold stars on their papers.

They get the special parking space in the employee parking lot.

They win big prizes and get the admiration of many.

That’s how things work in the economy of our society.

That’s not how it is in God’s economy.

In God’s economy…there is no number one….because we are all one.

Think about that voice from the cloud in our Gospel:

“This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him!”

If we listen to Jesus….if we pay attention to what he is teaching us….if we pledge to follow him…we will be taught to rethink that desire to be number one.

We will need to let go of some beliefs…self-images…that perhaps are keeping us from truly living into our call to be Beloved children of God.

We may have to give up our need to have things…or be in control….in the way that we have been shaped and formed by our culture which calls dominance and having all the toys: success.

Jesus wrestled with doubt and survived the wilderness with its wild beasts.

He placed his faith in God to walk with him through death into life.

We are given this story as the message to us to do the same.

In the name of God…F/S/HS.