Homily – 2/11/18

Knowledge is a funny thing.  We spend a great deal of our time trying to acquire it, so that we can cope with the world and make a life for ourselves.  Knowledge, we are told, is the key to life.  Knowledge is power, it is the gateway; it is something to which we aspire.  Our society places such a value on knowledge that we use public funds to offer every child the opportunity to attend school.  We go further and create institutions of higher learning which are in some ways modern temples to knowledge.

Yet, for all of this, there are times when knowledge fails us.  There are times when knowledge can get in the way of real learning.  Paul talks about this to the church in Corinth when he speaks of the god of this world.  There are many gods of this world that we create: money, power, status.  But knowledge can also be one of the gods of this world. For knowledge can create certainty, and certainty often leaves little room for other things.  Differing thoughts, opinions, new ways of looking at the world – these can all be crowded out by the certainty which we feel through knowledge.  We KNOW that the world is a certain way, so it can be hard for us to imagine any other way that the world might be.

But there ARE other ways that world may be.  Jesus teaches the disciples this time and time again.  We know that you cannot restore a blind man’s sight or a deaf man’s hearing by simply touching him.  We know that you cannot feed 5,000 people from 5 loaves and two fish.  We know that the dead cannot come back to life.  Yet Jesus did every one of these things.  And in each case, he challenged the disciples to see the world in a new way; to rely less on the certainty of their knowledge.

There are times when I envy the disciples their experience of walking and talking and sharing meals with Jesus when he was among them on earth.  And there are other times when I am quite grateful that we have the perspective of history and retrospection of knowing the rest of the story.  This is one of those times.  It is easy for us to judge the disciples harshly, to wonder how on earth they could be so dim.  They were right there, standing next to him when he worked all of the miracles.  How could they not see that Jesus was truly different, that he was not bounded by the limitations that we take for granted?

But perhaps that is the point.  They were so grounded in their knowledge, so certain that they knew how the world worked.  And Jesus was like no one they had ever encountered before.  Rather than accept the world as it was, Jesus challenged the paradigm and had the power and ability to change it.   Not only that, but he challenged the disciples to not accept the world as their knowledge told them it was, and to be a force of change; for he taught them that they too, could change the world.

Jesus asked them, “Who do people say that I am?”  Peter responded, “You are the Messiah.”  And Jesus confirmed this, but told them to not tell anyone about it.  Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must be arrested and humiliated; that he must be rejected by the leaders and be killed, and that on the third day he would rise again.

To the disciples, this must have been crazy talk. For common knowledge said that the Messiah would come to fix everything that was wrong with the world.  The Messiah would be a warrior king who would overthrow the Romans, drive them out of the land and restore Israel to its former glory.  Everyone knew this and it was the fondest hope of all the Jews that the Messiah would come and do all of these things.  And now Jesus is confirming that he is indeed the Messiah, but that he will do none of these things.  Instead of leading the rebellion he was to be hated and beaten, he would accept the shame of the cross and be killed by the very people he was supposed to overthrow.

Judged by the lens of their knowledge, this would mean that Jesus was not the Messiah.  Yet they had seen the miracles, they had listened to his teaching, and he told them he was the Messiah.  So they found themselves with quite a conundrum.  Either Jesus was the Messiah, or he was just a powerful man who was a bit of a kook.  And then, Peter and John and James go with him to the mountaintop and witness the transfiguration.  Jesus is surrounded by a gleaming white light and out of nowhere appear Moses and Elijah to confer with Jesus.  And a voice from heaven tells them, “This is my Son the Beloved, listen to him.”

On their way up the mountain the disciples must have been puzzled as they were trying to reconcile their image of what the Messiah should be with the reality of what Jesus taught them.  And now they are witnesses to another miracle, this time not one that Jesus is performing, but one that is performed on Jesus himself.  They see the Holy Spirit illuminating Jesus and transfiguring him in front of their eyes, and they hear God himself speaking directly to them.  This is more than enough to convince them that Jesus is truly the Son of God, the long awaited Messiah.  They are finally ready to admit that their knowledge has failed them, that they must rely less on what they know and more on what they hear and see and learn from Jesus.

We too are disciples.  We have the perspective of history to inform and shape our understanding, but is that enough?  For Jesus challenged the disciples to change the world, and that is exactly what they did.  After the resurrection they went to the four corners of the earth and spread Christianity throughout the world in an unprecedented fashion.  They had finally learned to rely less upon the knowledge of the world and more upon the knowledge of the Risen Christ.

Do we do the same?  Do we rely more upon the things we know about the world, or do we allow ourselves to trust that God is at work in the world and will enable us to do his will?  Self-examination is never an easy process.  It is tempting to fall back on the knowledge of the world; to embrace the familiar and not open yourselves to the possibilities of change.  But Jesus teaches us that while this may seem the safest and easiest way, it is not HIS way.  Jesus challenges us to look at the world with a fresh set of eyes and embrace other ways of living, other paradigms. The way may be difficult and unfamiliar, but he will be by our side the whole time.  And we just may find ourselves changing the world in ways we could never have imagined.