Preaching text: Mark 9:2-9
It’s not as much of a hobby now as it once was in my life, but I continue to be at least a marginal fan of “anime” (i.e. animation and cartoons from Japan). Many anime series are sci-fi themed with aliens and spaceships and superpowers and great conflict between good and evil. Not all that different in many ways than the blockbusters coming out of Hollywood here in America. There are, as many philosophers have noted, certain universal stories that are shared across cultures, regardless of geography, culture, or language. Certain universal truths that we all cling to.
One of those anime stories is Tenchi Muyo. It was released in the mid-90s and still has spin-offs being produced today. The premise is an interesting one: Various young alien women (a pirate, a princess, and a police officer) crash land on Earth and end up befriending a high school boy named Tenchi and wacky hijinks ensue. But there’s a dark undertone to the series. An ominous villain in the background who seeking something that Tenchi and his family have been guarding for many years.
Eventually, the villain Kagato shows up and the series’ tone shifts dramatically. It’s not so funny anymore as Kagato abducts one of the women and threatens to destroy the Earth to get what he wants. Tenchi is shocked. Things had been fun, goofy, full of laughter. Now he’s torn. He’s being called to do something he’s never had to do before. And he’s just a kid. What hope does he have of winning against this villain? His grandfather then says something to him that has stuck with me. “For every man, there is a time when he must fight.”
Twenty years since I first heard that, I’ve come to realize how true that is. And by fighting, it doesn’t always mean curling up your fists and beating the crap out of somebody. It doesn’t have to be violence. It can be a fight with words or ideas. And despite the gendered language in the anime quote, it’s also not a male thing, but a human thing. We all come to that moment when the rubber has to hit the road and we have to do what must be done. A time when we realize there are things in this world WORTH fighting for. And so we go.
For Jesus, that moment is the Transfiguration.
Mark structures his Gospel very intentionally. We begin with the baptism and end with the crucifixion. In the very middle of the narrative is the story we have as our Gospel lesson today: Jesus on the mountaintop with his disciples, encountering the Father and his mission very directly. Everything before that, the miracles, the calling of his disciples, the teachings, the parables, all important, but merely prelude to what Jesus is really here for. Now, on the mountaintop with the law and prophets literally bearing witness to his purpose, with God speaking again from the clouds, Jesus goes forth to fight for this world. And his way of fighting is to die on a cross for you and for me.
The rubber hits the road now. “For every man, there is a time when he must fight.” This is the beginning of Jesus’ moment.
And go forth he does. He goes to Jerusalem. He is betrayed by Judas and arrested. He stands before the Sanhedrin and before Pilate. He is condemned, tortured, and then nailed to that cross. In dying, he wins a victory for all of us. ALL of us. Inside these walls and outside.
I mentioned last Sunday that the disciples in Mark’s Gospel are generally content to just “hang out” with Jesus as are many Christians today. They, or perhaps more accurately, we are not eager to do the work of discipleship, to embrace our calling to be the people God has called us to be. And sure, when it comes to saving the world, Jesus does the bulk of the heavy lifting. He’s the one who dies and rises again, not us. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have a part to play. And so I am compelled to ask a question. At what point does the rubber hit the road for us? At what point do we realize the time is upon us to fight for what is right and good and just in this world? At what point do we stop with our version of wacky hijinks and start doing what must be done?
I’m really curious about that, because we live in a world that’s terrified and despairing. Terrorism, crime, bigotry, threats of war, of cataclysmic weather and other natural disasters. Our leadership across the board is failing us. They’re too greedy, too inept, or too selfish to care about common ordinary folk. People are desperate for hope. They hunger for it. And meanwhile, we here in the Church lament that our pews are empty and no one ever comes anymore. Those two truths are related to one another more than we care to admit. Here we worship a God that loves us so much that he even died for us, a God that cares, a God that takes care of us. A God that gives us the freedom to live without fear. That hope they hunger for is here and in abundance.
But that’s not what the people out there see. No, what they see is a group of people determined to preserve social privileges and mores that went obsolete decades ago. What they see is bitterness, hostility, judgment, and hypocrisy. They don’t see hope. They don’t see love and compassion. And they sure as hell don’t see Jesus. We’re in the way.
And heaven forbid one of us stand up and say that maybe we should rethink the way we do church. Or treat other people. Heaven forbid someone say that maybe we shouldn’t stick our heads in the sand about the nightmare that is living in these times. That maybe we should speak up about racism or economic injustice or the cruelty we show towards those different from us. But no. How dare they!!! Run them off. Silence and censor them. God forbid they suggest we change!
Well, transfiguration is about change. That’s literally what the word means.
“For every man, there is a time when he must fight.” I am increasingly convinced that time is now for us and harder still for us to swallow is that the one against whom we must fight is ourselves. It’s our laziness. It’s our fear. It’s our entrenched prejudices and hatreds. It’s anything and everything that keeps us from being the disciples of Jesus that he’s called us to be. It’s anything and everything within us that prevents the world from seeing who Jesus really is and what he’s about and what he’s done for the sake of the world. That’s what we have to fight and it’s inside every single one of us.
That’s what needs to change. And until it does these pews are going to stay empty. And until it does the world out there is going to continue in despair and hopelessness. They aren’t coming to us anymore. They don’t want to and honestly I don’t blame them. A wise man once said that the leading cause of atheism is Christianity and truer words were never spoken. That’s an indictment of the Church and of Christians like you and me.
Lent, the church season into which we are moving, is meant to be a time of self-reflection and repentance. When we take that hard look at ourselves and see the things that we don’t want to admit are there. And while we may blind ourselves to our vices and flaws, they are well known to those outside and they are big part of the reason people do not turn to Christ for the hope they seek. Lent calls us to repent of those things, to cast them off, to CHANGE the way we think, act, behave, and believe.
Jesus Christ came off the mountain to save this world. To save you. To save me. To save everyone if possible. And to do that he died the most horrific death imaginable. Let that sink in for a moment. God died for us. That’s how much he loves us and everyone else too. And we have a choice to make. We can keep on doing things as we’ve been doing them, both individually and collectively, and it’s so obviously working great [/sarcasm]. Or we join Jesus in saving the world, one life, one soul at a time. We can work to get over ourselves and get to the work that God calls us to do. The time to fight is now. Amen.
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