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Sermon 02/26/2006
Some Here Will See ~ by
Tom Kinder
February 26, 2006 Last Sunday after Epiphany &
Transfiguration Sunday
First Congregational Church in Thetford, Vermont,
UCC
Psalm 104; II Corinthians 4:3-6; Mark 8:34-9:9
Recently I have been reading two very different
interpretations of the life and teachings of Jesus.
One author says that Jesus was a social revolutionary.
Whatever you do, he says, do not read these teachings
and events as strictly spiritual. They all have
political and social purpose. This interpreter
sees the gospel as a clash of kingdoms—the
corrupt and oppressive empires that rule now,
versus the loving, just and liberating realm of
God. According to this interpretation, our calling
is to follow Jesus, giving our life to establish
God’s realm through creative, nonviolent
social action.
The second interpreter I’ve been reading
says, whatever you do, do not make Jesus a social
revolutionary. The teachings and events of his
life are meant to transform us spiritually. They
are meant to lead us to enter God’s realm
and see God’s light in this life. According
to this interpreter, each of us is called on a
spiritual journey that has as its goal not only
the vision of God, but union with God, and not
in heaven but during our time on earth.
As I prepared this sermon I had to choose which
of these interpretations to follow – the
one that says Jesus is a social revolutionary
– whatever you do, don’t spiritualize
the gospels, or the one that says the gospels
describe a spiritual path – whatever you
do don’t make Jesus a social revolutionary.
This turned out to be an easy choice. I chose
both. I believe both interpreters are right in
everything but their prejudice against the other.
We should read the gospels as a call to revolution
against the ways our society does not reflect
the Spirit of God, and we should read the gospels
as a guide to the spiritual life that will make
us best able to serve God’s realm and establish
it around us.
These two approaches taken together provide an
agenda for the church. The first item of church
business needs to be helping individuals transform
their lives, growing ever closer to God. At the
same time, the church needs to carry out the second
item on the agenda, which is helping transform
the world so that it grows ever closer to the
ways of God’s realm.
For various reasons, many churches have not followed
this agenda. Churches have forgotten or deliberately
repressed the ancient Christian tradition of spiritual
discipline toward the goal of filling ourselves
with Christ’s light and attaining union with
God. Similarly, churches have forgotten the ancient
Christian tradition of standing boldly against
society when it violates Christ’s principles
of nonviolence or care for the poor or love for
enemies. Many churches have instead chosen to
support the status quo—changing neither their
members nor the world around them. They have acted
as if things were good enough, or almost good
enough. They have been comfortably moderate.
If you look back at Jesus and at the early church
you find that they expected much more. They were
not moderate. They were extremists, both spiritually
and socially. Paul warned the church in Corinth
that the gods of this world can blind our minds
so that we do not believe in and see the full
light God wants to give us, the light Christ leads
us to find. The gospels that circulated among
those first churches quoted Jesus promising, “Truly
I tell you, there are some standing here who will
not taste death until they see that the kingdom
of God has come with power.” Seeing the radiant
light of Christ is not a moderate experience.
The coming of the realm of God with all its power
is not a moderate, compromise society. These are
extreme results, and they require extreme measures
on our part.
The interpreter who says Jesus was a social revolutionary
says that we see the kingdom of God when we see
Jesus on the cross, and we enter the kingdom of
God when we take up our own cross and give our
lives to transform the world. The spiritual interpretation
says that we may see what Peter, James and John
saw on the mountain of transfiguration. We can
actually hope to fill our vision with Christ’s
brilliant, heavenly light. Then we can experience
the power of God’s kingdom radiating out
from our own hearts – a power that can work
miracles to transform the world around us.
In both cases, the path leads through the way
of self-denial that Jesus taught the crowds just
before the disciples beheld his light. He said
that those who want to save their life will lose
it, and those who lose their life for his sake
and the sake of the gospel will save it.
Both paths require that we let nothing in this
world and no attachment to it hold us back from
taking up our cross and following Jesus, making
God the focus of our lives. Jesus said in the
Beatitudes, “Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8) The
spiritual path requires a long, difficult journey
toward purity of heart – a heart freed from
captivity to the blinding gods of this world,
free of big addictions and little bad habits,
free of self-concern. The path of social revolution
does not end until there is no more war or poverty,
injustice or hate.
Both paths can seem extreme and impossible to
achieve, but every step we take on these paths
brings us closer to God and God’s realm on
earth. And both paths share this as well –
on both the path of transforming our lives and
the path of transforming the world around us,
miracles can happen. Even imperfect Peter, James
and John can see the light. Even the mighty Roman
Empire can convert to the way of Christ. The power
of God is real.
In the twentieth century alone there were many
examples of people becoming transformed, full
of the light and power of God’s realm. As
a result they transformed the world around them
in revolutionary ways. One of those people was
a prominent Soviet scholar and author named Piotr
Andreyevitch Streltzoff. His spiritual path filled
him with remarkable power and light, by the grace
of God. He eventually became a Russian Orthodox
priest and monk known as Father Arseny. We read
about him in the Prayer of the Heart a few years
ago.
The Stalin regime arrested Father Arseny in the
1930s because he would not stop his religious
activities. During the Stalin era 160,000 priests,
monks and nuns were killed. Father Arseny spent
twenty years in the Soviet gulag in the worst,
most brutal death camps known as “The Special
Sector.” Only the most violent criminals
and most subversive political prisoners were sent
there. They were not expected to survive.
Even there Father Arseny continued his revolutionary
spiritual path. He dared to pray without ceasing.
He dared to step out of line to save the life
of fellow prisoners, risking his own life time
and again. He treated all with equal love, and
was reviled, beaten and punished for it by guards
and prisoners alike. He befriended and saved the
life of a former powerful communist official,
knowing that he had signed an order that Father
Arseny be executed. The official had subsequently
commuted the sentence to have Father Arseny sent
to this death camp where eventually the official
himself was sentenced. The official had condemned
thousands of innocent people to die. He was so
moved by the love Father Arseny showed him, that
he renounced his former ways and dedicated himself
to the spiritual path.
Once Father Arseny saved the life of a young man
by standing up to the most vicious criminal in
the camp. Father Arseny was physically very weak,
but a power came out of him that knocked the knife
out of the criminal’s hand and sent him sprawling.
The criminal got revenge by turning in Arseny
and the young man to the guards for fighting.
The punishment was to be locked in a tiny sheet
metal, unheated shed for two days.
It was twenty-two degrees below zero Fahrenheit
and the wind was blowing hard. Everyone knew they
would freeze to death in four or five hours. But
two days later, when the guards opened the cell
door, they found Father Arseny and the young man
alive and well.
The young man reported that Father Arseny began
praying as soon as they were inside. The young
man felt his body begin to go numb from the cold.
He lay down on the metal floor to die. But then
the room began to fill with light. He felt warm.
Suddenly Father Arseny appeared to be wearing
shining white vestments and the room seemed as
spacious as a church. Two people clothed in brilliant
light appeared. The young man had been a communist
and knew nothing of religion, but he stood up
and began to pray with Father Arseny. The warmth
and light continued until they heard the guards
opening the cell door forty-eight hours later.
The young man was transformed, as were the men
in the barracks who knew they should have been
dead.
Father Arseny did not set out to be a social revolutionary,
but his spiritual path brought him into conflict
both with Stalin and with his fellow prisoners.
The light and love that flowed out of him may
not have changed Stalin, but they gradually transformed
the camp society by changing how the prisoners
saw and treated one another. He changed many lives
inside and outside of The Special Sector. It is
impossible to know how far his influence extended.
Perhaps his actions helped tip the Soviet Union
back toward a more humane society. It would not
be the first time the power of the Spirit did
such a thing, acting through self-denying, God-focused
individuals.
The early churches had their share of people like
Father Arseny. As those early followers of Christ
transformed their lives and filled with light
and power, it brought them into conflict not only
with the Roman Empire and ruling Jewish establishment
but also with the violent revolutionaries who
were trying to drive Rome out of Israel. The church
was unpopular with both sides because it opposed
how each violated the ways of God. But by following
the way Christ led them, the way of the cross,
the way of love and light, the church gradually
transformed society, one life at a time, one social
issue at a time, until it had become the official
religion of the Roman Empire.
Since that time, many churches have forgotten
or abandoned the path of transfiguration. But
the promise Jesus made is still available to us.
Truly, I tell you, some here will see the kingdom
of God come with power in this life. The path
is open to you, if you want to be one of those
who fill up with that power and light. “If
any want to become my followers, let them deny
themselves and take up their cross and follow
me.”
Let us pray in silence . . .
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