Last Sunday of Epiphany, Year B | II Corinthians 4:3-6; Mark 9:2-9
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
February 11, 2024
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
Due to technical difficulties, no audio or video of the sermon is available.
“This is my Son, the Beloved, listen to him!” [1]
One of the advantages of using the Revised Common Lectionary for our Sunday readings is that it helps us cover a majority of the Bible in the course of three years—the whole thing, if you keep up with the Daily Lectionary as well. That’s good for a couple of reasons. First, it promotes a broad familiarity with our scriptural tradition. Second, it prevents preachers from narrowing in too tightly on our own personal interests, making sure we don’t lead people into some sort of self-obsessed theological cul-de-sac. One disadvantage of the Lectionary, however, is that we often end up trying to understand broad passages—entire books of the Bible, even—with an extremely limited view of their overall message or purpose.
I find that particularly problematic when it comes to the writings of the Apostle Paul. History has chopped his epistles up so finely and dismantled them at such a detailed level that we as modern day Christians often have no real idea of what he’s trying to say. We end up unintentionally snatching out phrases and words and rearrange them to fit whatever ideas we’re trying to assert as Biblical truth.
This week we’ve encountered one of those quick dips into a Pauline letter, and I think it might be helpful to get the bigger picture before trying to understand what he might be talking about this morning.
II Corinthians is, as the title suggests, the second letter we have that Paul wrote to the original group of Christians gathered in the city of Corinth. Corinth was located in south-central Greece roughly 30 miles west of Athens. Signs of settlement in the area go back to 6500 BCE. Often a regional power in its own right, Corinth had long served as an important trade center, bridging an isthmus that allowed easy commerce with both the Eastern and Western Mediterranean regions and connected the Grecian Peloponnesus with mainland Europe. Subject to a long history of wars, the city Paul would have visited in the mid-1st Century was one that Julius Caesar had reestablished at that location about 100 years earlier.
Throughout this Epiphany we’ve spent a few weeks touring I Corinthians, a letter we recognize contains part of a conversation between Paul and the Church he had helped found in that city. It seems that the Corinthian believers had fallen into a variety of negative behaviors, and that initial letter contains both reprimands and extensive encouragement about how to actively express the type of love that Jesus had called for. Comments in this second letter suggest that Paul had returned to Corinth sometime after writing the first one, and it sounds like things didn’t go very well for either him or the congregation. II Corinthians takes on a conciliatory tone, with Paul trying to reaffirm his deep love for the Christians there while also convincing them once again of his status as an Apostle. He also spends a good bit of time encouraging them in their efforts to support the beleaguered Christians back in Judea.
Today’s reading comes from the first half of the letter and appears right after a discussion recognizing the “glory” of Moses’ teachings while emphasizing that Jesus’ life-giving Gospel appears even more glorious. He contrasts how after receiving the Torah, Moses had to cover his face to hide its radiance after standing in God’s presence. In Jesus, God’s glory is unveiled for all to see.
Turning to this morning’s Gospel, Mark’s record of the Transfiguration is considered one of three pillars in his condensed account of Jesus’ life, the other two being his baptism and crucifixion. All three incidents boast interesting parallels involving mighty voices, Jesus being called God’s son, and overt references to Elijah.[2] With the mountain locale, I sometimes wonder if this scene isn’t meant to suggest a sort of temporal rift uniting Jesus and the three apostles with Moses’ forty days on Mount Sinai receiving the Torah and Elijah’s own encounter of God’s “still, small voice” after the storm and the earthquake.[3]
Returning to II Corinthians, I find it interesting that Paul focuses in on a similar scene of “glory” in a letter that promotes reconciliation. It appears that whatever happened in the time between Paul’s two letters, both he and the believers at Corinth may have found themselves with grudges against one another. Under similar circumstances—even with a period of cooling off—many of us would probably have come back demanding, “I am an Apostle, your Founder; pay attention to me!” Yet here Paul points a different direction, to God’s “Son, the Beloved,” and instead urges everyone to look toward and “listen to him!”[4]
We too live in a time of division, a point in history where it feels like offense is seen not only acceptable behavior but sometimes even celebrated and encouraged. Loud voices of blame and fear constantly cry out reasons for us to hate and distrust one another. Sometimes it feels like even the Church has no choice but to fall victim to the divisions that plague our society. And with it being an election year, Empire’s prophets are only bound to grow more shrill and insistent over the next few months. So as we continue through 2024, I too would like to encourage us to look to Jesus, to focus on his face, to turn our eyes to his glory. I urge us to heed the one command so frequently overwhelmed by the spectacle of the Transfiguration: “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”
Just as God’s glory in the face of the Christ draws our combined attention away from the drudgery and chaos of everyday life, God’s declaration on that mountain guides us forward on a path of unity. Paul suggests that everyone—himself included—look to Jesus and reflect the light he brings not only throughout the world around us but also to one another within the Church. The voice from the cloud then tells us how to maintain that awe and connection even when our initial joy in that glory fades.
In days of conflict, if we listen we can still hear Jesus say, “Blessed are the peacemakers,”[5] and so we turn our faces toward peace. In times of threat and fear we hear, “Peace, be still!”[6] and recall the promise that “I will never leave you nor forsake you,”[7] allowing us to step beyond worry and words of distortion to see one another as we really are. In the face of hatred and division we remind ourselves with a whisper, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”[8] And in all we seek to follow the Great Commandment: to love and honor the Lord our God not before or instead of our neighbors but by loving our neighbors as ourselves.
We choose to close our ears to the drums of hostility and contempt, refusing to dance to their manipulative beat. We turn our hearts and eyes to “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”[9] and then seek remnants of that light in the faces of one another. We turn our attention to God’s still, small voice and make the choice to follow one clear word of reality over the overwhelming noise of our world’s current disarray:
“This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”
[1] All Bible quotations are from the NRSV unless otherwise noted.
[2] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/transfiguration-of-our-lord-2/commentary-on-mark-92-9-6
[3] See I Kings 19:9-13 | quotation from verse 12 of the KJV
[4] Mark 9:7
[5] Matthew 5:9
[6] Mark 4:39
[7] Hebrews 13:5
[8] Luke 6:27-28
[9] II Corinthians 4:6