Theme: You were made to dance on the divine dance floor. Can you hear the divine music? This sermon is a call for Cha-Cha-Cha Christians.
Exegesis
On this Transfiguration Sunday the gospel lesson (Matthew 17:1-9) describes the event itself—-the mountaintop, the cloud, the disciples as witnesses, the presence of the prophets, the heavenly voice. The epistle text, however, demonstrates how the transfiguration event was understood and used by the first generation of Christian churches.
The epistle of 2 Peter focused on fighting those pooh-poohing the parousia—-the impending return of Jesus in all his power and glory on “the day of the Lord” and the judgments that would follow. The nay-sayers declared this threat of a future comeuppance to be a contrived scenario, devised in order to control the behavior of believers. To combat this accusation the 2 Peter epistle makes a surprising appeal to the transfiguration event as evidence of Jesus’ divinity and power. For 2 Peter the meaning of the transfiguration is projected into an apocalyptic future.
Apparently those arguing against Jesus’ return and any future judgment had attempted to relegate Jesus’ mission and miracles to the status of “mythos”—-a legend or tale. While in Greek and Roman culture there was tremendous power and influence accorded to myths used to guide behavior or explain consequences, a mythic story was not in itself evidence of a true event. That 2 Peter further describes this “mythos” status as “sesophismenois” (“cleverly devised) makes it clear that his detractors did not intend the “myth” label to suggest anything worthwhile.
To counter this myth allegation 2 Peter emphasizes the eye-witness reliability of himself and the other apostles present during Jesus’ life and work. Though the author will use the transfiguration moment as evidence of Jesus’ “power” and “majesty,” he shows no interest in detailed particulars as they are recorded elsewhere in the various gospel accounts. Peter’s eyewitness presence is established, but the others present are not mentioned. The chummy familiarity of Moses and Elijah with Jesus is likewise omitted. Not surprisingly, Peter’s awkward offer to build “booths” for the celestial dignitaries is also skipped over.
What is emphasized is that Peter was an eyewitness to Jesus’ “majesty” (“megaleiotes”), a term used to describe divine beings. This “majesty” itself came from a divine source, “from God the Father,” whose words would testify to Jesus’ “honor and glory” (v.17). Unlike the gospel renditions of the transfiguration event, 2 Peter’s telling specifies God as the source of the voice announcing Jesus’ unique divine status (“from the Majestic Glory”). Clearly what the eyewitnesses saw and heard was a communication from one Divine Being to another Divine Being.
The words 2 Peter records here are closest in form to those found in Matthew 17:5: “This is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” But the more personal “my beloved” in 2 Peter 1:17 further emphasizes the close relationship between the divine voice and the divine son. The declaration, created out of a combination of texts (Psalm 2:7; Genesis 22:2; Isaiah 42:1), links the moment of Jesus’ transfiguration with the prophetic past. 2 Peter will argue for the continuity of the promise, from established prophetic scripture, to Jesus presence on earth, and ultimately to Jesus’ return with the prophetic past. From prophets to parousia the power and majesty of the divine son is eternal.
The derogatory “mythic” status of Jesus that was suggested by 2 Peter’s detractors is given yet another slap upside the head in v.18. The text makes it clear that not only was Peter an “eyewitness;” he was an “ear-witness” to the divine voice that came “from heaven.”
Furthermore, the location of this event can be pinpointed by the witnesses, for they were with Jesus “on the holy mountain” (v.18). Along with Moses on Sinai/Horeb and the mountaintop existence of Zion (Jerusalem), Jesus’ transfiguration created a “holy mountain” because of the divine majesty experienced there.
In the second half of today’s epistle text 2 Peter continues to draw a connective line between prophetic scripture and Jesus’ own identity. Additionally this continued focus on prophetic scripture sets some of the foundation for 2 Peter’s ensuing argument against false prophets/teachers in 2:1. While it is not immediately clear what “prophetic message” 2 Peter is alluding to in v.19, the text makes the most straightforward sense if the reference is seen to be back to the words spoken by the heavenly voice in v.17. The wondrous revelation in which Jesus is identified as “my Son, my Beloved” in that mountaintop message is nothing less than a miraculous gift, “a lamp shining in a dark place.” The combined “confirmed” (v.19) status of both the prophetic words and the transfiguration event will continue to offer this light until “the day dawns”— that is until the eschatological “day of the Lord” finally arrives. Another scriptural title is accorded Jesus on that “day:” “The Morning Star” (see Revelation 22:16). It is at the moment of Jesus’ promised return that the parousia will usher in the fullness of God’s kingdom. This light will banish the darkness forever.
The truth of scripture, its relevance and reliability, is 2 Peter’s final argument in today’s text. 2 Peter argues that “above all” or “first of all” (“proton”) his listeners must understand that “prophecy of scripture” is not based on a personal interpretation or any situational convenience. The scripture 2 Peter has cited, especially the heavenly voices’ declaration about Jesus, is not a result of any scriptural spelunking undertaken by the author to “prove his point.”
For 2 Peter and the earliest Christians the fullest meaning of First Testament prophecy (the scriptures of the first century church) is accessible only through the power of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit, not any human whim, which reveals the presence of Christ both today and in the prophetic words recorded by God’s earlier mouthpieces. It was this Holy Spirit, then, that revealed the scriptural words uttered at the transfiguration, words which had found their true embodiment in the person of Jesus the Christ.
Coming Alive to the Text
Riddles play a prominent role in the world’s greatest literature. There is Sophocles’ Riddle of the Sphinx in Oedipus the King. There is the Rumpelstiltskin Riddle, and the Riddle Games in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Then there is the riddle contest between Bilbo and Gollum in Tolkein’s The Hobbit, including this challenge of Biblo to Gollum:
No‑legs lay on one‑leg,
two‑legs sat near on three‑legs,
four‑legs got some.
Anybody remember the answer?
[Fish on a table,
man on a stool,
cat gets the scraps]
“Two legs sat near on three-legs:” “Man on a stool” is one way of talking about the sources of authority that disciples of Jesus can rest their weight on. Some traditions argue that the stool has three legs: Scripture, tradition, reason. Others say the stool has four legs: Scripture, tradition, reason, experience. (Methodists call this the “Wesleyan quadrilateral.”) But whether your stool has three or four legs, God didn’t give us a stool to sit on. God gave us legs to move with, God gave us legs to dance with.
There are two personal traits that everyone thinks they possess.
The first is a sense of humor.
The second?
Everyone thinks they can dance.
The fact that each one of us can immediately think of exceptions to both suggests that self-delusion is one of the most powerful forces on the planet.
Even those of you who CAN dance still share a common nightmare with those of us who can’t, or those of us born with Baptist feet. The nightmare is endured by all who have been through Junior High school. That name of that nightmare? The “first real dance.”
Remember the school cafeteria? It still smelled like lunch, but now it was old lunch mixed with new crepe paper. On one side of the room the boys would all line up, shuffling their feet, nervously punching each other in the arm, doing their best not to be noticed as they were noticing the girls. The boys all wore exactly what they had worn to school that day, and their hair was last combed sometime that morning.
At the other end of the cafeteria the girls congregated. They swarmed in little clots, circling up like Conestoga wagons camped for the night. From the safety of those circles the girls could whisper the coordinates of any approaching boy, analyzing his approach in detail long before he actually arrived. The girls had all spent at least an hour doing their hair and makeup and all of them wore a new dress.
Little if any “dancing” has ever occurred at these first “dances”— although lots of watered down punch is nervously guzzled, a thousand trips to the bathroom are made, and a generally disappointing, if not downright disastrous, time is had by all.
So I ask you: Why is one of the hottest “reality” shows “Dancing with the Stars?” It is painful for me to watch. But millions of people are glued to this dance marathon, a competition which pairs a real dancer with an out-of-(other)-work, over-the-hill “B list” actor. The competition goes on for months and takes two hours a week to air. But, unlike in our painful junior high memories, these couples really dance. They move, twirl, leap, spin, swoop, and dip. They salsa, mambo, waltz, and tango. Each distinct dance form comes to life, and showcasing its own unique grace is the goal of each dancing couple.
My waterloo on the dance floor is the waltz, which makes a dance like the “Cha-Cha-Cha” such a wonder. The dancers can move in a variety of ways, add a succession of steps, but must always be ready to stomp out the rhythm of the “cha-cha-cha” when it comes along. Couples can separate, innovate, gyrate, spin-around — as long as they come back together and re-affirm that central, driving beat, the “cha-cha-cha.” With each and every “cha-cha-cha” the couple moves together and moves forward — advancing the dance across the room.
Now we are learning that what works on the dance floor also works in life. In the philosophy of science there is what is now called the “Cha-Cha-Cha” theory of discovery. As developed by the late microbiologist Daniel E. Koshland Jr., theory goes like this: scientific advances fall into three distinct categories that combine into a “cha-cha-cha” theory of discovery: Charge, Challenge, and Chance. (For more see Daniel E. Koshland, Jr., “The Cha-Cha-Cha Theory of Scientific Discovery,” Science, 317 [10 August 2007], 761-762. Koshland, who served as editor-in-chief of Science from 1985 to 1995, died just before his article was published.)
Some discoveries in life are Charge discoveries. Some discoveries are Challenge discoveries. And some are Chance discoveries. To be open to life’s discoveries you need to learn the cha-cha-cha.
According to Koshland’s format, the “cha-cha-cha” of a “Charge” discovery solves an obvious problem without an obvious solution. In the “Charge” phase of the cha-cha-cha, you see what everyone else has seen but you think what no one else has thought before. Sir Isaac Newton wasn’t the first guy to get hit on the head with an apple. But he was the first to connect falling fruit with rules for the gravitational pull of the earth. The “cha-cha-cha” of “Charge” is the devising of an original solution to an everyday problem.
Koshland’s second “cha” is a “Challenge” discovery. In finding a new theory, a new paradigm emerges that can hold this new store of accumulated facts. What may have seemed to be random bits of data, even anomalies, come together into a new framework which then creates a new coherent whole. In a Challenge discovery, the originality is in perceiving a problem (like data that just doesn’t “fit”) and devising a new paradigm that explains them.
The final “Cha” is a “Chance discovery,” but such discoveries still aren’t as chancy as they sound. Louis Pasteur liked to note that chance discoveries, unlooked for breakthroughs, still came most readily to “the prepared mind.” The originality of a Chance discovery lies in the ability to see happenstance or accident in the light it throws on everything else. Even the “cha” of Chance discovery comes to light more through a series of steps than with any blazing “eureka!” moment.
Even as scientific discoveries advance through a series of “Cha-Cha-Cha’s,” a life of faith progresses through the same dance refrain. In today’s epistle text the author of 2 Peter refers back to the moment of Jesus’ mountaintop transfiguration and his own witness of that event. But while most view the transfiguration as a crowning moment in Jesus’ earthly ministry. Peter sees something else.
Through the “Cha” of “Charge” Peter has a new understanding of this transfiguration moment. Arguing against the nay-sayers who scoffed at the idea of Jesus returning for the parousia, a day of judgment, 2 Peter sees the transfiguration as proof of the power and majesty of Jesus, of the divinity he shared with the one who called him “my Son, my Beloved.”
The Cha-Cha-Cha of Challenge, the need for a new paradigm by which to see life, is also part of 2 Peter’s dance. Those arguing against him could not imagine that a crucified messiah could wield power over them. They rejected any notion of a parousia. How could one so weak return with strength to judge and rule? But 2 Peter finds only “honor and glory” in Jesus and his mission. The notion of a sacrificed Savior was just the “Cha-Cha-Cha- Challenge” followers of Jesus needed to re-define the power of God as love on a cross.
Peter’s “Cha-Cha-Cha” of Chance led him to embrace the unlooked for, the unexpected, the new perspective offered to all men and women of faith through the power of the Holy Spirit. For 2 Peter the prophetic voices found throughout scripture all testify to the plans of God as epitomized by Jesus Christ. The experience of the Holy Spirit is an “Aha!” moment for every disciple. Through the Holy Spirit God’s word becomes known as Divine Love in action.
To advance through life, you need to dance. You can’t be a disciple of Jesus and be a wallflower. Moving through the life of faith as though it were more of a dance, with an exciting, exhilarating “Cha-Cha-Cha” rhythm, is what moves us forward. A “Cha-Cha-Cha” faith filled with cha-cha-cha discoveries doesn’t rely on what everybody else is saying, what everybody else is thinking, what everybody else is doing.
A “Cha-Cha-Cha” Christian moves ahead on faith more than on facts. Some people can’t move unless things have been studied and analyzed to death. They always want more data, they have to see exhaustive spreadsheets in order to hazard some forward motion. Some people have a spreadsheets spirituality.
But when you are making the most important decisions in your life, you don’t refer to a spreadsheet, do you? Like what you decide to do for a career? Like whom to marry? Show me that spreadsheet. Or better yet: show HER/HIM that spreadsheet.
Here is an amazing fact: no one noticed color blindness before about 1800. How did we miss something so obvious—-that some people don’t see colors the same way other do?
The same is true of “Cha-Cha-Cha” Christians. If you can dance the Cha-Cha-Cha, you don’t see life, you don’t DO life, the same way others do. Of course, we all stumble on the dance floor. But we keep dancing because we see the power of God’s love, the redemption of the world, the hope for a new future, in the form of a man on a cross.
Instead of a tragic ending, do you see a new beginning?
Instead of death claiming Jesus, do you see Jesus defeating death, and re-claiming life?
Instead of seeing hatred and despair winning out, do you see the victory of love and hope?
Your legs are made for dancing, not for sitting, not for balancing, but for dancing. Will you dance the Cha-Cha-Cha? Will you be open to the Charge, the Challenge, and the Chance of divine discovery this week? Will you dance with God?
It is for that reason God made the dance floor we call life.
One of the most famous of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals is called “The King and I” (1956). How many of you have ever seen it? One of the most memorable moments is when the widow Anna (Deborah Kerr), the Christian school-teacher who has come to teach the King of Siam’s children, first really connects with the King (Yul Brynner). She does it with this song: [If you can play here “Shall We Dance?” or show the scene on the screen, fantastic!]
Shall we dance?
On a bright cloud of music shall we fly?
Shall we dance?
Shall we then say "Goodnight and mean "Goodbye"?
Or perchance,
When the last little star has left the sky,
Shall we still be together
With are arms around each other
And shall you be my new romance?
On the clear understanding
That this kind of thing can happen,
Shall we dance?
Shall we dance?
Shall we dance?
Can you hear the divine music this morning? It is God’s invitation to you: “Shall We Dance?”
Illustrations, Illuminations, Animations, Ruminations, Applications
There is a wonderful exchange in a Peanuts cartoon where Snoopy says, “It’s nice to be nice because it’s nice.”
Woodstock responds: “But everything isn’t nice!” . . . .
I tend to side with Woodstock . ..
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DOXOLOGY (Tune: 261 ["Lord of the Dance"],words VCH)
Bring praise to the Maker, who abides in heaven,
Bring praise to the Son, gift of God to sinners given,
Bring praise to the Spirit in whose name we are one ‑
A Trinity of praise is begun!
Dance, Spirit, fanciful and free,
Dance to the rhythm of eternity!
Oh dance, and praise a world without end
In God’s holy love, Amen, Amen!
--Virginia C. Hoch
***
There is an old WWII story that come out of the invasion of Western Europe by allied troops on OmahaBeach. A Navy radio crew was desperately trying to function under extremely hazardous conditions.
Said the officer in charge: “We were under attack by enemy planes. At one point, I heard one of the bombs whistling through the air, close by . . . very close. Terrified I hollered, ‘HIT THE DECK.’ The bombs went off only 30 feet away, and the whole crew was showered with dir and rocks and shrapnel.
When the crisis was over, we slowly got to our feet, coughing and spitting and shaking. Somehow I remembered my training. As crew leader, it was my duty to call the roll.
Still shaking, my head still spinning, I turned on my flashlight and pulled the roster from my pocket.
As I ran down the list, I received a steady response of ‘HERE, SIR.’ Then still shaking and stressed, I called out the final tame: ‘TAYLOR.’ No response! Again I said, “TAYLOR.’ Still no response. Fearing the worst, I tried once more: ‘TAYLOR’ I bellowed.
“And out of the shadows I heard an answer: ‘That’s you, sir.’”
Sometimes life gets so nerve-wracking and challenging, we need people to remind us who we are.
***
You might want to develop the metaphor of “Wallflowers Christians” more concretely. Ask your congregation, “Know any wallflower Christians?” What are their characteristics?
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“Christian theology provides the basic skills we need to step foot on the dance floor of faith and start dancing. But theology cannot tell us about everything we’ll experience when we do. The eschatological character of Christian faith orients us toward the edges of the dance floor, which keep receding ever farther from view and inviting us to explore uncharted territory with creativity and innovation. The courage for such exploration comes from the restless energy of hope fueled by apocalyptic visions of a world that is not yet finished, the choreography of which we have only just begun to learn.”
Jay Emerson Johnson, Dancing with God: Anglican Christianity and the Practice of Hope (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 2005), 164.
***
“Rather than merely tolerating diversity, which often means little more than ‘putting up’ with it, this posture of embrace takes seriously the root meaning of the word ‘welcome.’ This means, at the very least, saying to the stranger and radically other, it is well that you have come into my life; you are indeed welcome, because I must learn from you.
Jay Emerson Johnson, Dancing with God: Anglican Christianity and the Practice of Hope (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 2005), 169.
I wish to thank Johnson’s book for inspiring this sermon. He does not deal with the “Cha-Cha-Cha,” but he has a marvelous chapter on “The Tango: A Spirituality of Divine Seduction” (111-130), and another one on “The Virginia Reel” (131-151).