Never Lord

 The interesting thing that happens is that Peter rebukes Jesus when Jesus says that he's going to have to take up his cross and die. Jesus in turn rebukes Peter by saying to him that he has in mind the things of man, and not the things of God. And that seems to be the breakdown between God and humanity. Peter does not have in mind the things of God, but is that a problem unique to Peter? When Jesus says 'get behind me, Satan,' is this an issue that Peter has, or is it a bigger problem?

Honestly, if we were able to have in mind the things of God, we wouldn't be in the situation that we're in. I'm more convinced than ever that a lot of issues that are at the root of our problems are formed in a complete inability that we have to see things from each others perspectives. That is, you will be fighting about where someone left a plate, or whatever. Both sides believe, sincerely, that they're being perfectly reasonable, whereas the other person is being completely unreasonable. That problem is brought forward by the inability of the other party to seriously engage with the viewpoint of the other. There was a semi-viral blog post out there that had the title of 'she divorced me because I left dishes by the sink.' That blog post, whether you agree with the content or not, encapsulated the issue perfectly by illustrating a matter that was irrelevant to one party, of great consequence to the other, and the inability of each person to see and understand the perspective of the other person. In other words, the husband at the time said 'I don't think this is a big deal, so you shouldn't either.' And that line of thought is a real, genuine issue to be pondered. Can you, not as a husband or wife, parent or child, but human being in God's creation, ever really have in mind the things of another? Is it possible for you or I to effectively see things from someone else's perspective to the point that it adjusts our behavior, or are we likely to filter their experience through our own to the extent that we will view the other person's needs only in relation to our own.

That's why when the Lord Jesus Christ discusses morality in what we would call the Golden Rule, he does so by using our own perspective, turning that from a liability into a benefit. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Jesus knows what is in the heart of man, and therefore he is going to work with the material as it actually exists, not as we would hope it exists. So he's not going to say to you 'you should treat people the way they want to be treated' because that would run things through our own perspective anyway. But that perspective you have is supposed to influence how you treat other people. If your wife says that she would rather you not leave dishes by the sink, you're not supposed to say 'she shouldn't care,' but rather 'If I voiced a concern to someone, how would I want them to respond to me?' Then you act accordingly. 

We can, and should, do this with one another, but what about when it comes to God? When it comes to the Lord God, can we default to the golden rule? Not really, for God doesn't need anything from us. We aren't living in a universe where we can treat God the way we want to be treated. Our job is not to behave that way, but to be obedient, to listen, and so on. But part of the reason that we can't have in mind the things of God is because God is utterly alien to us, as high as heaven is from the earth, so far are his ways than our ways. The end of the book of Job is simply a big long discussion of how difficult it would be for Job to possibly understand how God operates. Job is a man of dust. He can get sick and hungry, he can weep when his children die, he can starve when his crops get stolen, that kind of thing. God cannot. It's real hard to have in mind the thing of God when you're starving, or grieving, or hungry, or just living in the world. The great wager between Satan and God was that Job would curse God if his human condition became bad enough - Satan believed that Job would only ever be able to view his relationship with God through his own lens as a human.

So, once again, if we were able to do a good job of having in mind the things of God, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in. But if we can't have in mind the things of one another, if our morality must, by necessity be run through a filter of ourselves, then God is going to have to bridge the gap for us. He's not going to wait for us to have in mind the things of God, because we're never going to get there. But what he will do is to say 'if you're not going to have in mind the things of God, then God will have to have in mind the things of man.' A great part of the incarnation is understanding how close God has to get to us in order for us to have any kind of relationship with him at all. This ain't 50/50. It's not even 70/30. You're looking at a world in which for any kind of relationship with God to happen, he's going to have to do all of it. We're not going to have in mind the things of God, so he's not going to make that a condition. He's going to instead have in mind human beings, their lives and relationships, their weaknesses and frailties, and to do all the work of redeeming them, because they're just not able to do that on their own.

In disguise

 I don't like to get too bugman on stuff, but there is a real utility to talking about Christ in terms of super heroes. That is, an awful lot of super heroes operate in normal society as regular people, with what we call 'secret identities.' Some don't but a lot do.

Thor, for example, is just Thor. That's it. He's an Asgardian alien who has the ability to lift 100 tons, can fly, is immune to disease and so on. He had a secret identity back in the day, Dr. Donald Blake, but that was retconned away as an illusion, because it was deemed to be unnecessary. After all, if you can lift 100 tons, can fly, are immune to disease and damage, why would you need a secret identity? Nobody can do anything to you, not much point in ever being in disguise, right?

So why Clark Kent? 

Surely Superman and Thor have very similar powersets, yes? Surely they have similar powers, abilities, invulnerabilities and so on. They can both fly, lift over 100 tons, are immune to disease and damage, that kind of thing. So why does one have a secret identity and one does not? The explanation is to be found not in the power sets, but in their origins. Thor comes to earth as an Asgardian exile, but as a fully grown adult. His secret identity was to blur his recollection of his Asgardian roots. The Clark Kent secret identity, though, was given to Superman by his Ma and Pa Kent parents who raised him from a baby that they found in a rocket. Superman is invulnerable to all damage that mortals could do. You could shoot bullets at him, stab him, run him over, and it wouldn't do too much. But Ma and Pa? Lois Lane? Jimmy Olson? Lana Lang? Those are all flesh and blood humans, who aren't immune to damage. Shoot Superman and the bullets bounce right off. Shoot Lois Lane and the bullets go right through.

A large part of the plots of Superman stories is not about him being in any real peril, after all, outside of kryptonite there's not much you can do to him, but the stories tend to be about the vulnerability of those around him. Can Superman save everyone? He's not at risk, but boy, the people around him sure are. So in that case, Superman has a Clark Kent secret identity not for him, but for them.

And that brings us to Transfiguration. At the mount of Transfiguration, Jesus is preparing to descend into a world of mania that will end with him being killed. And this dangerous world has knives and daggers, nail and whips everywhere. It's a world of death and destruction, and a world into which Jesus must descend, to be killed. But at the mount of transfiguration, the disciples get to see him without disguise. The secret identity is revealed only to a select few, three in fact. This tracks with this information, which has a select few people, 20 in all, knowing the secret identity of Superman. Not everyone knows, as this is a secret identity. If the vast majority of people know Superman as Superman only, then his human family is safe, his colleagues are safe, and so on. But if they know that Superman is also Clark Kent, then everyone is in play, and nobody is safe. And like it or not, Superman can quit being Superman a lot easier than he can quit being Clark Kent.

The secret identity isn't for the super, it's for the normals. Jimmy, Lana, Lois, they're the ones who need that secret identity, if they don't have it then they're shot. And when it comes to Christ, the veiling of his identity isn't for him, it's for the disciples, it's for us, it's for the normals. The people who would want Moses to veil himself so that the reflection of the divine would not trouble or alarm us. The people who need God to show himself in approachable ways. The people who need and crave a closeness with God, but who would find the grandeur and majesty of the ineffable God to be overwhelming, and which would reflect badly on our own sinfulness. 

Which is why there's a secret identity. To know Jesus is to know God, but through a lens that we can wrap our minds around. He speaks with a mouth, washes feet with his hands, breathes on his disciples, eats fish, bread and wine, and weeps at the tomb of his friend. Through that lens, we can start to see the eternal God, and at the Transfiguration, as he heads back to die, we can count on his ability to save the world because it is God, and man, who is mighty to save.

Everyone is looking for you

 I like our Gospel reading where the disciples are the best kind of correct - accidentally correct.

A lot of the time, our idioms are imprecise. What do I mean by that? I mean that when you say 'nobody is available tonight,' what you mean is that none of your employees are available. When you say that you have 'nothing to eat' at home, what you mean is that what you have at home isn't what you want to eat, but I would wager that there are a lot of things you could be eating. You just don't want to.

Now, when we talk about our Gospel reading, the disciples come up to Christ and use a similar idiom - 'everyone is looking for you.' This is standard exaggeration, you understand, the disciples mean that everyone in that house, that village, that area is looking for Jesus. They surely don't mean that everyone everyone is looking for Jesus. But they're accidentally correct. They are right in ways that they can't really imagine.

What I mean by that is that the hyperbole of saying 'everyone is looking for you' is shockingly correct. Everyone is absolutely looking for Jesus. Whether they know it or not. Why is everyone looking for Jesus? They're looking for him precisely because he offers a solution to all the problems. Usually, we want to treat the symptoms, not the cause. We're good at trying to deal with the symptoms of our sinfulness without dealing with the underlying causes. We want the fighting at home to stop, but aren't willing to address what got us into that mess. We want to still talk to our friends, our family, our neighbors, but are unwilling to deal with why we're squabbling with one another. What's driving these wedges and schisms betwixt us? 

Ultimately, it comes right down to the truth of a simple sentiment - all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There is none righteous, no not one. The difficulty usually lies in you or I thinking about what the other people need to change. A lot of the time, when people come to talk to me about broken relationships, problems, hangups, all that stuff, it revolves around them telling me how much everyone else needs to change. 'Pastor, you need to call my mother and tell her to talk to me.' 'Pastor, you need to tell my kids to be nicer to me.' 'Pastor, you need to get my friend to listen to me before it's too late.' 

You know, I bet that's the case. I bet that your mother / child / friend should really smarten up, and there's almost certainly a ton of truth to it. I guarantee that's true, without doubt. But that's not the issue, really, or I suppose it's half of the issue. The issue, really, is that there are two people (minimum) who are at odds, and who are both flawed but viewing themselves as flawless. And that's the trouble. In these disagreements, we tend to view ourselves as being good and right, and the other party as being generally wrong, and we expect and seek for the opposition to conform themselves to our views as though that was right. But we're actually expecting and asking for the other party to move from being wrong in their way to being wrong in ours. But that's still wrong, folks. It's just wrong in a way that benefits us. 

So ultimately, things keep on being wrong, as long as both parties continue to view themselves as being right, their opposition being wrong, and there being basically no middle ground to find. But your job as someone who is a human, and a human who is frequently in conflict, is to treat the cause, not just the symptoms. It's real easy to treat the symptoms, to excise picky pushy people, to squabble further and to try to get family and friends to see things our way, to dig in our heels and force, but it's much much harder to do the work of seeing our own role in the dispute, and our position as the one that needs to change. As both do. 

If you're both sinners, then you both need to repent for what got us to this point so far. And if you both do, then we can get to some sort of resolution, because you're not both sitting there waiting for the other person to smarten up. Rather, you're in the position where both you and the other party have the same flaw, and will have to work together to find common ground. Normally, the first person to admit weakness is seen by and large as the weaker of the group, but in reality, as Christians, admitting weakness and fault is a given. That's the basic position. And if you've wronged somebody, you have to ask for forgiveness. And they have to forgive. It's a system that cuts to the core of what's wrong by exposing the fact that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And you forgive the other party, and they forgive you, not because of the greatness of spirit that you have, but that we forgive as we have been forgiven. We love because he first loved us. 

If this is true, and is the path towards reconciliation, then what the disciples said is accidentally very true indeed. Everyone is looking for Him.