Proper 12, Year A | Luke 9:28-36
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
August 6, 2023
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
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“If God had a name, what would it be?
And would you call it to his face
If you were faced with him in all his glory…?
“If God had a face, what would it look like?
And would you want to see
If seeing meant that you would have to believe
In things like Heaven and in Jesus and the saints
And all the prophets?
“What if God was one of us?”[1]
I spent the last few days working on a sermon that attempted to expound upon important Church doctrine and address ancient heresies that still have a stranglehold on us today. Despite all my work, I wasn’t really feeling it. It seemed like I kept losing my point and talking in elaborate circles. I wasn’t really sure what to do until, late last night, I finally decided to focus in on the one thing that encapsulates my interest from today’s readings, a short phrase from our Gospel that most of us probably didn’t even notice as we read it: “he was about to.”[2]
Just a single word in New Testament Greek, “he was about to” doesn’t seem all that important in the big scheme of things, especially when we’ve been inundated with as much spectacle and miraculous imagery as we have this morning: terrified people, Moses’ skin taking on a permanent glow after talking with God, time ripping itself open, and a mysterious voice declaring Jesus to be “my Son, my Chosen.”[3] With all of this bold, obviously important material to cover, why get all caught up in something as mundane as “he was about to”?
The Transfiguration is one of the stories Christians like to point to when trying to prove Jesus’ divinity, and the scene does strongly imply that. However, I find that we in Modern American Christianity tend to overemphasize Jesus’ Godhood. Part of that is how we read our cultural ideals onto him, making Jesus the Rugged Individual of American lore—someone confident, knowledgeable, thoroughly capable, completely self-reliant, and utterly focused on accomplishing the task at hand. He’s come to save humanity, and gosh darn it, he’s going to do it—even if Death tries to stand in his way! We use the Transfiguration to prop up our image of an all-knowing, all-powerful God just bubbling beneath the surface of human flesh, to revel in the idea of a transcendent being restraining itself as it waits to burst its skin suit and reveal the Cosmic Reality within.
But even at the Transfiguration, the Bible refuses to present us with our American Jesus.
Now I’m not saying that Jesus isn’t God. The problem I have is that we often focus on his 100% God-ness to the detriment or even exclusion of his 100% humanity. That’s why “he was about to” is such an important detail in Luke’s presentation here.
Reading self-possessed, Western confidence onto Jesus, “he was about to” isn’t all that important. It sounds like everything’s simply going according to plan. Jesus has accomplished everything on his checklist so far, and after reviewing the details with some of Israel’s most significant historical figures, it looks like it’s finally time to head for Jerusalem on his way to overcoming death. But the term doesn’t necessarily hold that sort of self-assurance we read onto this scene. In common usage, it actually contains a strong aspect of hesitancy. Combine that with a few other unusual words choices in the immediate context, and Luke appears to be suggesting that Jesus has been delaying—maybe even dawdling. It reads very much like he knows that he should go to Jerusalem—that he eventually needs to go there—but he simply doesn’t want to.
Recognizing this beautiful, vulnerable moment buried under the distractions of a light show, surprise guest appearances, fog machines, and ear-splitting announcements, I can’t help but question, why do we do this? Why do we make Jesus so utterly inhuman, not just sinless but completely and untouchably perfect in every way? Why do we give lip-service to his humanity but always couch those statements in a subtle, knowing wink? It’s like we’ve taught ourselves to be so afraid of “the flesh” that we can’t accept the full reality of Incarnation. And despite today’s spectacle, the Feast of the Transfiguration is, at its core, a celebration of Christ’s Incarnation.
Yes, Jesus is 100% God, but Jesus is also 100% human.[4] He wasn’t (and isn’t) some strange hybrid or demigod. He wasn’t just faking being a normal person or hiding his true, divine nature so he wouldn’t scare us too much or so we could somehow attempt to relate to him better. His being was the same as ours. He dealt with the same fears and challenges the rest of us do. He experienced the same exact struggles and the same exact joys. He put off dealing with the scary stuff of life but, under the encouragement of friends and mentors, still gathered the courage to follow through on what he knew he eventually needed to do.
Fully God. Fully human. One Lord and Savior.
What then might we be or do—how might we live—if we could accept this full reality of who Jesus is?
“What if God [really] was one of us?”
[1] “One of Us” by Eric Bazilian (b. July 21, 1953)
[2] Luke 9:31 | All Bible quotations are from the NRSV unless otherwise noted.
[3] Luke 9:35
[4] For the full doctrinal statement (“Definition of the Union of the Divine and Human Natures in the Person of Christ”) please see page 861 of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer or visit https://bcponline.org/Misc/histdocs.html#Devine%20&%20Human%20Natures.