Possession

Sermon on 2 Kings 2:1-12 and Mark 9:2-9 offered to the people of the Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Yesterday morning, I brought my three and a half year old to the playground for the first time in a number of months. It wasn’t exactly warm, but she was suffering from acute cabin fever and driving her mother crazy, so off we went. I was surprised to notice that there was nothing she couldn’t do on the playground. The last time we were there, she would start climbing an apparatus and, upon getting stuck halfway up, would call for me to help her. Yesterday, however, she climbed every rope ladder, climbing wall, and ramp without any assistance. When she announced her intention to get on the swings, I assumed she would run over to the toddler swings, but instead she made a beeline for what she calls “the big girl swings.” As she scrambled on the swing and I spotted her, I began to feel incredibly sad. This sadness stemmed from a poignant and deeply human recognition: if I’m lucky, there will come a time when my daughter won’t need me anymore. In fact, the best case scenario is that my little girl will grow up and move away from home. Of course, there’s a part of me that wants to prevent me from happening, but that would just be me trying to possess my daughter, instead of letting her become who she is meant to be.

There is something poignant and deeply human about the reading we heard from 2 Kings this morning. Elijah is moments away from ending his earthly pilgrimage, and his assistant and protege Elisha is trying to make the most of every last second he has with his mentor. Three times Elijah tells his traveling companion that he should stay put, because the LORD has sent the old prophet to some far off location; three times Elisha responds, “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” There is clearly intimacy and devotion expressed between Elijah and Elisha, and it’s further highlighted by Elisha’s interactions with the companies of prophets at the holy places. All of the other prophets ask Elisha if he’s heard that his mentor is about to be taken away from him. Elisha responds, “I know! Be quiet!” It’s as if he doesn’t want to be reminded about the loss that he is about to experience. I think we’ve all been there at one point or another. When we have to say goodbye to someone we love, there are times when we are simply not ready to acknowledge the reality of their departure. In many ways, this whole sequence testifies to the friendship and love shared by these who prophets of the Most High.

At the same time, there is a shadow side to Elisha’s devotion. When Elijah asks his young companion what he can do for him before he is taken away, Elisha’s response is revealing: “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.” On the face of it, there is nothing wrong with this request. After all, Elisha is a prophet: why shouldn’t he ask to share some of the spirit wielded by one of God’s greatest prophets? He even says please! If we look a little deeper, however, there is something inherently self-serving about Elisha’s request. It’s not that he asked for a share of Elijah’s spirit. It not even that he wanted twice as much as his mentor! It’s the fact that Elisha’s request seems designed to nullify the effects of Elijah’s departure. “Give me a double portion of your spirit, so I can continue to operate as if you were still here.” This is, perhaps, a worthy goal, and an understandable one for someone about to lose a trusted teacher, but it also represents an attempt to domesticate Elijah, to speak and act on his behalf. It’s worth nothing at it’s not clear whether Elisha’s request was granted. A few verses later, some bystanders proclaim that the spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha, but we’re not told if it’s a double share. One wonders if Elisha was trying to co-opt Elijah’s authority instead of establishing his own prophetic voice. To put it another way, there was a level at which Elisha saw Elijah as something to possess.

We see a similar dynamic at play in this morning’s gospel reading. The Transfiguration is generally interpreted in one of two ways. The first option is to view it as a meditation on the urgency of discipleship. In this interpretation, the whole point of the story is that we are supposed to get off the mountain and get to work. Why else would Jesus ignore Peter’s question about building houses? With that said, the second option is to read this story as yet another episode of the “Peter completely missing the point” show. In his sincere effort to ingratiate himself to Jesus, Peter says and does the first thing that comes to mind, without thinking about whether it makes any sense. Even Mark tells us that Peter “did not know what to say.” In this sense, this story is a cautionary tale: an opportunity to sympathize with Peter even as we try to avoid his mistakes. Yet, while there is merit to both of these interpretations, neither fully captures the true essence of the Transfiguration. Ultimately, Peter does not err just because he wants to build houses for Moses, Elijah, and Jesus. If anything, this impulse reveals that he recognizes the significance of the moment. As someone deeply familiar with the Jewish Scriptures, Peter knows that both Moses and Elijah had their own mountaintop experiences, and that they were up there for a long time. Peter is just being proactive when he suggests building houses for Jesus and these two prophets of Israel. Moreover, as far as Peter was concerned, this was the moment Jesus had been waiting for. He now had the endorsement of Israel’s greatest prophets: Jesus had arrived. Maybe the houses were just the beginning: perhaps Peter was daydreaming about establishing the “Jesus Christ Center for Spirituality” on this mountaintop and inviting people from all over the world to sit and learn at Jesus’ feet.

Even if this is an overstatement (which it probably is), the fact is that Peter’s response to the Transfiguration reveals that he saw Jesus a source of holy wisdom: someone who could provide him and others the tools necessary to make it through life. In other words, Peter’s error was that he saw Jesus as something to possess. This perspective is not unique to Peter. In the very next passage in Mark’s gospel, Jesus comes down the mountain and finds that his disciples are unable to cast a demon out of a young boy. After Jesus successfully heals the boy, the disciples ask why they weren’t able to do it. They behave as if they had missed that day in class or were somehow using the wrong words, when in fact they were misunderstanding the entire purpose of Jesus’ mission. Jesus did not come to teach us how to live; he came to reveal who God is. Jesus Christ came to reveal that God has power to raise the dead to life. Jesus Christ came to reveal that God’s love for creation transcends even the depths of human frailty and sin. Taken seriously, such a revelation should fundamentally alter the way we understand the world. In the end, Peter responded to the Transfiguration by attempting to domesticate Jesus, when the proper response would have been to transform the way he experienced the world.

We often think of faith as something to possess: a balm we can apply when we are feeling scared, discouraged, or sad; a tool we can use to justify our sincerely held beliefs or shame those with whom we disagree. In reality, it is our faith that is supposed to possess us. Let me be clear about what I mean, because I feel as though this statement can be misinterpreted. I am not saying that we are live in thrall to religious leaders or that our faith can be summarized with a list of religious requirements. After all, Jesus reserved his sharpest criticisms for the religious establishment. If our faith possesses us, it means that our entire lives are animated by a fundamental trust in the God revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It means that we make every decision with the knowledge that God has the power to raise the dead to life. It means that we nurture every relationship with the understanding that God’s love for us transcends even the deepest human frailty. Our faith is not about acquiring information or performing certain tasks; it is about allowing our lives to be transformed by the God revealed by Jesus Christ on the holy mountain, the God whose love possesses us and helps us become who we are meant to be.