We say these words often. Once a week. Once a day. Perhaps more often than that.
“Thine is the power and the glory forever.”You recognize them. These are the closing words of the Lord’s Prayer. We will be saying them soon, at the end of the Great Thanksgiving prayer of the communion liturgy.
The Power and the Glory is the title of a 1940 novel by the British author Graham Greene. Like the American author Flannery O’Connor, Greene objected strongly to being described as a Roman Catholic novelist, rather than as a novelist who happened to be Catholic. Nevertheless Catholic religious themes are at the root of his writing, especially the four major Catholic novels, of which The Power and Glory is one.
Nick Ripatrazone wrote in the February 2016 Atlantic that Greene’s book is a”violent, raw novel about suffering, strained faith, and ultimate redemption.”(1) The book’s hero is an unnamed priest on the run from Mexican authorities after a state governor has ordered the military to dismantle all vestiges of the religion. Churches are burned. Relics, medals, and crosses are banned. The price for disobedience is death. While many clerics give up their beliefs and accept their government pensions, the unnamed priest travels in secret, celebrating Mass and hearing confessions under the cover of night. Yet he’s also a gluttonous, stubborn, and angry man drowning in vices, and the religious ambition of his earlier years has been replaced with a constant desire to drink, hence Greene’s term for him: the “whiskey priest.” Tired of risking his life, the priest even prays to be caught.
The tension between the priest’s calling and his humanity, between his desire to flout the uncivil worldly authority with the authority of God and his human desire to ultimately succumb to it catches many of the themes of the Transfiguration as witnessed to and responded to by three of Jesus’ disciples. On the mountain God confirms Jesus as the one called to bear grace and reconciling love to a broken, unneighborly, and unloving world wracked with conceit, greed, and unbelief. The disciples continue to misconstrue Jesus’ ministry by wanting to enshrine him with two great leaders of the past. However, Jesus takes them with him down the mountain and into the thick of the ministry which will confirm the world’s denial of him in its sordid attempt to shut out the Light of the world. Yet God will affirm the power and glory of that Light when it bursts forth from the tomb three days later.
Psalm 2 is one of several royal psalms that celebrate the anointing of God’s chosen king. It may have been for a human king or it may be for the promised Messiah. Christians have historically read this text through a messianic lens. On the surface, the psalm warns the rulers of the earth who have placed themselves in opposition to God and God’s people.
In the context of the Transfiguration Psalm 2 takes on additional meaning. Besides Jesus’ experience on the mountain, we also remember the Exodus account of the experience of Moses on Mount Sinai. Both events are instances of God putting the divine stamp of approval on the missions which will be going forward.
The obvious parallel between Psalm 2 and the Gospel story of the transfiguration is that both describe God’s anointing of a chosen one. The psalmist identifies the king as anointed, declaring, “You are my son, today I have become your father.” The story of the transfiguration echoes these words, as God’s voice booms through the clouds and names Jesus as the son whom God dearly loves.
Psalm 2 envisions God’s chosen king as a powerful military leader, who is ready – and able with God’s help – to conquer the nations of the earth. This is the dominant image of the expected Messiah which is recorded in Hebrew Scripture. With only a few exceptions, this vision of leadership is most prevalent in the rule of the Israelite kings. This is the Messiah for whom the Israelites and their descendants longed.
Except that this is not the mantle of leadership which Jesus took up. He would not become the type of Messiah that Israel anticipated. Like Frost’s traveler at the fork of woodland paths, Jesus “took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference.” Time and again, Jesus rejects the job description of a powerful, militaristic Messiah.
We see this most notably in the report of the temptation of Jesus, a temptation that this psalm almost foreshadows. In the psalm God promises to grant the king “the far corners of the earth” as his property as well as power over the nations. Compare that idea to the dramatic scene from Luke’s temptation account, where the devil shows Jesus the kingdoms of the world and suggests that they could all be his (Luke 4:5-7). You can almost see the devil’s sinister smile as he makes this offer. The irony is that in the psalm it is God who laughs at the feeble rulers of the nations.
Jesus has come to reveal a different kind of royal leadership and a kingdom with a different mission and purpose. The kingdom that Jesus leads is not defined by power and might, but by humility and servanthood. That is also the message of the story of the transfiguration. Jesus sets the tone of all he has done and all he will continue to do in the limited number of days ahead. His mission is not about earthly glory. He does not stay long on the holy mountain, basking in radiance, as his disciples think he ought to do. Instead, he leads the disciples back down the mountain. Jesus knows that his throne is not of this world and that his true glory will be revealed on the cross.
It is true news: Jesus does indeed become a king on a holy hill, but it is the hill of Golgotha, not Zion. When that coronation happens, Jesus is clothed in shame, not in splendor. We don’t hear God laughing in derision; the mockers are the crowds and the executioners surrounding Jesus. The anointed one is crucified and all the expectations of an all-powerful Messiah are overturned.
Human expectations are upended and reversed. That is a key element of the scriptural narrative. It doesn’t make sense, it is counterintuitive. The people of Jesus’ day couldn’t understand it, and we aren’t a whole lot better at it today. You and I spend enormous amounts of time and energy in pursuit of success, esteem, power, control, and all the things that go along with them. We don’t know how to define our earthly kingdoms in any other way. Our minds are boggled by the concept that Jesus’ life and mission are defined by relinquishing power and by traveling a sacrificial journey toward death.
We confess and somehow believe that God acted in Jesus to overcome death with life. In his journey toward the cross, Jesus, the unexpected Messiah, reveals a kingdom more eternal and more powerful than any the world has known. The power of the world and the glory of God reconciling the world in Christ don’t mix.
Among twentieth-century Christian writers, Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder stands out in his analysis of this unexpected kingdom and its lessons for us. In The Politics of Jesus Yoder demonstrates how Jesus defies the traditional expectations of the Messiah and forges a different kind of kingdom, the kingdom of God. This kingdom does not depend on military might or economic prowess, but rather is made known through concern for the poor, justice for the oppressed, love for friends and enemies alike. The kingdom that Jesus leads builds doors instead of walls, welcomes rather than bans, loves rather than despises, affirms rather than debases, seeks the truth rather than revels in falsehood.
In the kingdom over which Jesus is Lord, he introduces a new social ethic. Jesus forsakes the quest for power and control and doubles down in a commitment to servanthood and sacrifice. It is truly an upside-down kingdom, where the last shall be first, and where suffering and death lie unavoidably on the path toward joy and lasting life. Jesus is transfigured and messiahship is transformed.
Now that the Light of the world is so revealed that the power structures of the world must seek to envelope it in darkness we are at a decision point. Which type of Messiah will we follow: the one dependent on brute force and oppression or the one that turns the other cheek and goes the additional mile? Which kind of kingdom will we give our allegiance to: the one that squeezes power out of every last individual or the one that promotes compassion, forgiveness, and love?
May we lessen our thirst for power and open ourselves to God’s grace in Christ lavished upon us by the Spirit.
General Resource: Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010) Year A, Volume 1, 441-445.
(1) “Revisiting The Power and the Glory During Lent,” Atlantic, February 2016. http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/02/the-power-and-the-glory-lent-graham-greene/461820/
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2017 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
No comments:
Post a Comment