Tools

Luke 9:28-43a

Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, ‘Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah’—not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!’ When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.

On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. Just then a man from the crowd shouted, ‘Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child. Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he shrieks. It throws him into convulsions until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him. I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.’ Jesus answered, ‘You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.’ While he was coming, the demon dashed him to the ground in convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. And all were astounded at the greatness of God.

There’s that old, kind of cheesy joke that I’m sure most of you know—it’s just so apt for so much of the Bible though, so at the risk of repeating myself or telling you a joke you’ve already heard, I’m gonna go ahead and start my sermon with it—there’s a guy at home during warnings of a flood coming and orders for evacuation. So before the flood comes, and emergency vehicle comes by, invites the guy to get in—guy says, “no, I don’t need a ride, God will save me.” Vehicle drives away. Then the waters are rising, guy is on his second floor to get above the water, a boat comes, tells the guy to get in; guy says, “no, I don’t need help from you, God will save me.” Finally, the waters have risen to the complete overtake the guy’s house, he’s on the roof and a helicopter flies over, sends a ladder down, tells the guy to climb up to safety; guy says, “nope, God will save me.” Floods completely over take the house, the guy drowns. He gets up to heaven, meets God, demands God tell him why he wasn’t saved. God response, “I sent the fire engine, the boat, the helicopter, what more did you want!

Because this week’s passage, and Jesus’ anger and frustration tells us anything, it’s that we have all the tools we need to make this world the peaceful place it should be, but we just don’t use them.

So we’re coming off a few weeks of talking about Paul and the bodily resurrection. So this week we’re going back in time to the moment right after Jesus first tells his disciples about the fact that he will suffer, die, and rise again—and it’s transfiguration Sunday, so that means that today is about that great mountaintop experience that comes right after this Passion prediction. It’s another example of the disciples just not getting it; we’ve talked about the disciples… denseness before. What is so interesting about the reading for this week though, is that it’s not just the transfiguration. It’s this exorcism, or this healing that comes after. And it’s Jesus’ frustration and anger here. And to really understand this anger that’s coming from Jesus, we have to backtrack a little to verse 1 of this chapter: “…Jesus called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases…”. So the disciples should have been able to cure this boy. They should have been able to bring him peace, but they couldn’t all of a sudden. The frustration from Jesus sounds kind of all-encompassing, but he’s really just frustrated with the disciples. He’s given them all the tools they needed, but they failed.

We’ve talked before about the constant failings from the disciples—they sometimes seem like they’re intentionally misunderstanding things, or maybe they’re just truly that dense. Usually Jesus is patient with his disciples, gently explaining the truth to them. But this time, he’s so angry. “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you?” he scoffs, when he has to make up for the disciples failings.

But let’s think about this—he just told the disciples that he was going to suffer and die, which they ended up being kind of in denial about. And then when a handful of the disciples witnessed this glorious transfiguration, they fall back on their old ways and old traditions, wanting to commemorate the moment in a way that isn’t appropriate for this new thing that’s happening. And surely even more infuriating to Jesus, the disciples now know that Jesus will be gone, so they had better take up the mantle of healing and helping when the time comes. So here's this test that’s presented to them—a young boy, suffering from what was most likely a seizure by the description, and a desperate parent begging to help. It’s the disciples’ turn to take the lessons that Jesus taught them and help this boy. But they can’t. Maybe it’s a lack of faith, maybe it’s because of their willful ignorance, but whatever the reason, they fail to help this suffering child and his frantic father.

We can only imagine what was going through Jesus’ head—he’s told his disciples the truth, he’s shown his disciples to the truth atop a mountain, and he’s given his disciples everything they need to continue his good work after he’s gone. And yet, Jesus still has to come to save the day. “How much longer must I be with you and bear with you” he angrily questions—almost as if he’s saying “I might as well just go now, what’s the point of all this anyway?” How he must be—he knows the horrors that await him, and yet, in this moment he wants to get it all over with because of how hopeless the disciples seem, because of how hopeless and painful the world seems.

And today, maybe we don’t have tools of miraculous healing, but you know—thanks to technological, scientific, medical advancements, it seems sometimes that we’re not far off! And yet, these tools aren’t used as they should be. I mean, just think about the conspiracy theories, lies, fear-mongering about safe and effective vaccines. I know I’m not the only one who’s watched in frustration and fear as many refused to get vaccines because of debunked and completely unfounded reasons, putting themselves and others at risk—we have the tools, we’re just not using them.

But there are other times where we want to use the tools, but there are barriers. So just a couple weeks before we moved up here from Philly, Chris rode his bike up to the local pizza place to pick up some takeout for the night. At the corner literally feet away from our house, a car rolled through a stop sign, and tapped Chris on his bike, sending him to the road, where he hit his head. It was clear from how dazed he was when he came to that he was mildly concussed. There was a hospital down the street from us, and we should have gone. But Chris didn’t have health insurance. He couldn’t be on mine because of how expensive it was, even through my work; and his PhD program didn’t offer insurance to any of its employed doctoral students. There was a glitch with his insurance through the affordable care act, and they let him know he wouldn’t be able to get insurance again until the next open enrollment period. So we lived pretty tenuously for those last couple months in Philly, knowing there would be some relief in the future when we moved up here. But in that moment, we had to weigh our options—go to the emergency department during a pandemic, and like wind up with thousands and thousands of medical debt, and possibly catch COVID in addition, and racking up even more medical debt, or take our chances.

We took our chances. We were lucky, Chris is obviously fine, but it was such a horrible decision to have to make— we had all the tools at our disposal, but we were scared of the money it would cost, and the long-term effects that would have on our lives. And we are absolutely not the only ones to have dealt with this. A statistic from last year states that nearly a quarter of Americans put off medical care because of the costs. In another article, a doctor, a cancer specialist in Jacksonville, Florida was quoted talking about a patient of his with metastatic cancer who was putting a hold on his chemotherapy treatments because he was laid off and lost his insurance. And I think we’ve all heard or read stories about people rationing live-saving medications like insulin because of the cost. In one story from a couple years ago, a 26-year-old who had just aged off his mom’s insurance died after he couldn’t afford his medications for diabetes. Because his prescriptions would have cost $1,300 a month.

And as with most things over the past two plus years, the pandemic has exacerbated the already crumbling and broken systems in this country. As so many lost their jobs either temporarily or permanently due to the pandemic, it became clear how tenuous having your health insurance tied to your job truly us. And yet, healthcare costs keep rising, along with costs for just about everything else.

I imagine that right now, Jesus is having flashbacks of his moment with the disciples and the young boy having a seizure. I imagine his anger and frustration rushing back to him, looking down on us, looking down on this world that has all the resources, all the tools to help people live comfortable, peaceful, and safe lives, and yet those tools aren’t used as they should be.

And I imagine Jesus getting more and more frustrated every day—especially now, as he surely sees a new war starting to Europe, as he sees this needless and malicious aggression in full force. Instead of “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear your pain?” I imagine he’s wondering, “how much longer must I watch you destroy each other?” or “how much longer must I watch you ignore the warnings?” I imagine he’s wondering how much longer he has to watch people die, whether it be from human acts of aggression, or extreme weather and rising waters.

Some revel in war or natural catastrophes because they see this as a sign of the end times, as a sign of Jesus’ return. But Jesus makes it clear, the Old Testament prophets make it clear, we are given the skills and tools to change the world, and we must do right by our fellow humans before we can expect a vision of Jesus like the one the disciples received on the mountain.

But the frustrating news is also the good news. I’ve been talking about how we don’t use the tools we have—but we have the tools! And that is amazing in and of itself. We can start by leading by example. You’re all doing your part every day. Those of us who are able have been vaccinated in order to protect ourselves, but also our neighbors. I’ve been so blown away by how this church and this entire community really looks out for one another, truly cares for one another, regardless of political or religious beliefs, regardless of age or race.

And on a larger scale, the very fact that we were able to develop life-saving vaccines so quickly; the very fact that we have technology and medications to beat cancers into remission; the very fact that we have life-saving medications like insulin readily available; that’s all spectacular. We just have to work for a world where these are accessible to each and every person. We know we can do it, we did it with the covid vaccines!

As always, it can feel hopeless, and it can feel frustrating. As I noted in my weekly message to you all this week, just as things begin looking up again pandemic-wise, we now have a war to be anxious about. But think about Jesus in today’s scripture—he’s beyond frustrated, he’s clearly just so disappointed in his disciples for their inability to use the tools that he so graciously gave them. But it doesn’t matter—he of course healed the boy anyway. We all know how deeply Jesus feels pain with each and every one of us. We know how deeply human Jesus is, and we know he couldn’t let this child suffer. We have to lead by example, we have to use the tools of healing, love, and peace that we are given by God, in spite of any frustration or hopeless we may feel with this violent and cruel world.

Let’s not be like the guy in the old corny joke, just waiting passively for Jesus to save us. And let’s not be like the disciples were in this passage today, leading on old ways and therefore being unable to use the miraculous tools we have. Let’s lead get angry, let’s get frustrated; but let’s not let that anger and frustration overwhelm us. Let’s use it to work for a world where we all use the tools of healing, peace, and love. Amen.