We all have topics of conversation we turn to when the conversation goes in a dangerous or awkward direction. There are all sorts of topics that we don’t really want to get into, particularly if it involves our vulnerability. Instead of talking about the big things, we talk about the weather, sports teams, the weather some more, what the kids are up to, and how the family is … of course then with only so much honesty. We go to our safe topics.

Well, apparently one of the safe topics for the disciples was who was going to be the greatest. Between last week’s reading of Jesus rebuking Peter for not wanting him to die and this week’s story, we skipped over a big story in the text and that’s Jesus’ Transfiguration. This is when Jesus was on the mountain top with Peter, James, and John when he met with Moses and Elijah and God said, “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him.” Remember this story?

Jesus, as usual, says not to tell anyone, but even so I would think this would be a pretty heady time for the disciples. Your star quarterback got God’s big blessing in this dramatic way on a mountain top. How can you lose? You’re team is on fire. With God showing up like that, you’d think it’s a done deal.

So, when they hear Jesus’ teaching about the coming crucifixion coming up again, they don’t want to go there with him even in conversation. They don’t want to ask their questions, because maybe they were afraid of the answers. They glossed over that crucifixion bit and they go to their favorite topic; who’s going to be at what rank in Jesus’ reign that is so clearly coming.

We humans do this, avoid the hard things. And, as if you haven’t noticed, it’s a tricky time in our world for us to want to avoid the hard stuff. We have so many crises going on, I’ve recently heard the term meta-crisis to describe our moment in time, meaning it’s a time of multiple overlapping and intersecting crises many of which are global in scale.

There’s a lot going on. Any one of these crises on its own is big enough to trigger our escape responses of talking about the weather or the beautiful birds outside your window or who’s going to be the greatest in the Kingdom of God. All of them together, it’s almost guaranteed that we’re all avoiding reality to one degree or another.

Just this week, I heard two news reports that fell into this category; the category of “I don’t know what to do with that information.”

1. A high-ranking intelligence official on the Daily Show of all places talking about alien life forms and how they are real. (Wasn’t expecting that.)
2. Yuval Noah Harari, one of the most respected intellectuals of our times, has a new book out saying that AI is already starting to dominate human life and that we need to do something about it.

Huh.

So, what did I do with this information? Nothing. I likely played Wordle. I don’t know what to do with such information that is on top of plenty of other information I don’t know what to do with. That’s not even naming the very real struggles in our lives and families.

So, what do we do with all that? Sometimes the best coping strategy we have is to talk about what is here and now – the weather, the neighbors, the whatever that we can actually see and touch and feel. Sometimes the world is just too much, which is part of the reason why I like the genre of “cozy murder mysteries.” There is drama, but only so much. And, most importantly, you are guaranteed a satisfying solution to the dilemmas by the end. It’s all quite tidy with a dash of redemption.

These shows don’t leave me with questions that I’m afraid to ask. They don’t leave me scrambling for safe conversation. They don’t produce nightmares or anxiety or a looming sense of doom, unlike the real world can and unlike Jesus’ teaching about his coming death and crucifixion most likely did.

From our vantage point of knowing the story of Jesus, it’s easy to gloss over the very real fears that this teaching would have produced in the disciples. For those who were living the story, they did not necessarily know what was going to happen. They had Jesus’ word for it, of course. But since when have Jesus’ word on anything been enough for humans?

To follow Jesus into this conversation with openness would have taken incredible courage and faith, which apparently none of the disciples had. This would have been costly to them. They would have had to have conversations they didn’t want to have. They would have had to tolerate their fear and disorientation well enough to keep focused on Jesus’ teaching, instead of checking out and cutting the conversation short. They would have to had to get serious about what it meant for them to be disciples during and after his death. They would have had to deal with the fact that being a disciple isn’t always just healing people, delighting in miracles, or witnessing your main guy take down the hypocrites.

It was scary and threatening. And facing the scary and the threatening without numbing out and dumbing down is itself a somewhat miraculous thing for a human to do. We’re not good at it.  

Martin Luther talked about the path of the cross as not flinching and turning away from the hard, scary things in our lives. The way of the cross for the disciples would have been listening to Jesus’ teaching on his coming death and leaning into that conversation. Being curious. Asking questions. Wondering with Jesus and each other about how this was the way of God.

We are in different situations than the disciples, though we are still tasked with facing the scary things in our lives. And we want to do that as much as the disciples did, which means not at all.

However, we do have the benefit of knowing Jesus’ story. We know that he died, but he was resurrected. We know that the resurrected Jesus lives in our lives today.

In his dying and rising, we are shown a pathway, a model for what it looks like when God enters into an impossible situation.

Jesus faced the realities of the time, he loved people across boundaries, died without resistance, and was raised to continue his ministry of love, healing, and transformation. That healing is still resonating today.

So, when we face the difficulties of our days and lives, we can trust that there is a “hidden wholeness” (as Thomas Merton called it) in the midst of our troubled world and in our troubled lives. There is a path through that is full of God’s promises for us. There is a path that is itself a path of death and resurrection. It may be painful. It may have endings we’d rather avoid. It may stretch us to new depths of wisdom he’d rather not have. But there is new life on the other side. And in the midst of it all, there is a hidden wholeness.

We are unlikely to see the hidden wholeness, however, if we cling to our numbing ways, avoiding the hard conversations, or forever talking about our favorite innocuous topics, like who will be the greatest in Jesus’ reign. We can walk into the hard stuff, knowing that God is there. And therefore, there is peace and love. There is a path of justice.

This is the path of the cross – facing the pain and difficulties of the world with our faith in resurrection, in newness of life, and in the Kingdom.

I’m not personally too worried about aliens. According to the video I watched (and other reports I’ve heard through the years), they tend to hang around nuclear missile site and disable the nukes. I’m cool with that. However, I am disturbed by AI. I have gone out of my way to not learn anything about it, because I find it so unsettling. So, when I read the texts for this week and listened to the disciples living in their make-believe land of Jesus making them powerful – it made me think about how I try to live in my own make-believe lands. I like my make-believe lands of denial! I know you like yours, too. However, that is not the pathway of transformation, of new life, or of courage and faith.

There’s no way to focus on all the issues in the world and perhaps we don’t need to. But there are likely issues that are coming to mind that maybe are asking for your attention. Or maybe there’s an issue in your life, the elephant in the room, that you’ve been working hard to avoid. What is the thing or things that could really use your honest attention, questions, and faith?

God is with you in those hard places. That is the path of the cross, which no one need travel alone. Jesus is inviting us to enter into this path of death and resurrection with him. Not just back in the day, but today, here, and now. Bring your fears and denial into prayer and into community with others. I do believe that is the path of discipleship and the path of transformation for the many crises of our day and of our lives. God is with us.

AMEN