Mark 9:2-9

The enthusiasm for preaching drains quickly out of me every time I discover that this reading is the set lectionary reading for this particular Sunday. I love the readings in the weeks prior to this. I see Jesus engaging in the lives of people at a level of real need then suddenly this reading propels Jesus away from the every day lives of people and real needs to a high ecstatic spiritual plane far removed, so much so that Peter is totally lost for words to make sense of what is happening in front of him.

I find it hard to relate to, just as I find it hard to relate to people who today claim that God speaks to them directly. I have never heard God speak to me directly or I could not say with confidence that God has spoken to me indirectly.

I don’t enjoy wrestling with this text especially when I think there are more important things that I could spend my time on such as eliminating hunger, poverty, violence, racism, sexism etc from the world. I am suspicious of a spirituality that takes people out of their reality and presents ecstatic experiences as the norm or as real.

I am more comfortable with Jesus as a human being than I am with him as divine, that is, if to be divine means godly or god like or different. If Jesus is to be seen as divine, I see that he is more in tune with a way of life than transcends every day life but one that also fully engages in and with everyday life.

If this reading says anything to me it says that experiences like this are not the norm, neither are they what is really important. Jesus did not come that people might worship him in mystical god like awe and wonder. Jesus came alongside human beings and let them know that they were of worth, that they were loved, that life was theirs to live despite the domination and controlling influence of religious and political leaders. Jesus invites us to come alongside people too rather than taking up a place of domination in their lives. I guess in a way the reading speaks into our daily lives that there could be more to them than we know or we experience.

I fear though that churches model themselves on this picture. They claim to have been up the mountain with God, with Jesus, with Moses and Elijah, to be in authority, to speak on behalf of God and expect the people to fall in line, to trust and obey. Where does our preaching arise from? From a position of ecstatic other worldly experience proclaiming a message of ‘truth’ and ‘I know better’ or from a position of struggle, powerlessness, poverty and faith?