Cloudy and bright

 

Mark 9: 2-9
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
February 14, 2021

Officer Eugene Goodman watching security footage of Jan. 6 during the impeachment trial.

First, I am woefully underqualified to give this message. I am a middle-aged upper middle-class cisgender heterosexual White woman which disqualifies me from offering any kind of relevant commentary on a lot of things, but I try to be honest and I am willing to learn. On Thursday I saw this image of Capitol police officer Eugene Goodman watching footage of himself from the January 6th insurrection, his arms folded across his chest and wearing a mask with a thin blue line and I find it compelling. Like an icon that is a window not only to the divine but also of one’s inner life, I cannot turn away from it.



Like Peter, James, and John who couldn’t turn away from the sight of Jesus and his LED-bright clothing, with heroic but also rejected prophets from the past, we too are witnessing the veil pulled back to reveal truth. Revelation isn’t always so stark and obvious; most of the time it’s murky and confusing, subject to interpretation and human motivations. Because he didn’t have a lot of time, Jesus was offering a crash course in revelation, trying to make it as explicit as he could. The author of Mark also had something to do with it, having written this gospel in the aftermath of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. He didn’t have a lot of time either.

Icon of the Transfiguration

Even though we usually think we have a lifetime to ponder and question, wonder and probe this mystery we live in, lately it feels as though we are pressed for time as well. Between climate change, the pandemic, and a reckoning of White supremacy and Christian nationalism, to say that our moral center has been found wanting is an understatement. Even though it’s pretty clear what our priorities need to be, still we muddle through, because evil is perplexing and wily, and we are reluctant to change.



Officer Eugene Goodman knew what he had to do that day. The mission of the Capitol Police is “to protect the Congress, its legislative processes, members, employees, visitors, and facilities from crime, disruption, or terrorism” and he did precisely that. He protected not only those who were threatened but also the very people who would vote to acquit the person responsible for inciting violence and the need for his heroism.



In the transfiguration story, God’s presence is equated with brightness, with white light and yet God also speaks from the shadowy cloud, from obscurity and the unknown. Officer Goodman, who is Black, wearing his thin blue line mask, hailed as a courageous hero by those unwilling to convict, is a transfiguration, a conflicting revelation of his own. There is truth there, but it is a disturbing, uncomfortable, and challenging truth.

Like any symbol, the thin blue line has more than one meaning, depending on who you ask. Most police officers view it as a sign of solidarity while others regard it as synonymous with White supremacy. Though the thin blue line American flag was used in the Charlottesville riot, one of the largest retailers of the flag disavowed its association with racism, hatred, and bigotry. Now some may scoff at that, but then I look at Officer Goodman wearing it, and I witness a public servant paying tribute to his deceased colleagues and perhaps provoking those who attacked the Capitol as well those who supported the insurrection.



We’ve all probably heard someone, and maybe it was us, defend a group of people by saying, “Not all of them.” Not all men are misogynists. Not all cops are bad. Not all Republicans are fascists. Not all Democrats are solely invested in preserving the status quo. Not all White people are racists. Not all Christians are Christian supremacists.



Though we can find a few good apples in a rotten barrel, it only makes sense that we would stop shoring up, subsidizing, and reforming the rotten barrel and build a new one. The barrel didn’t go rotten over time; it was designed that way. Defund the police is about the rotten apple barrel, about a system that was designed to control Black and brown lives, and so the slogan purposefully disturbs us. Smashing the patriarchy is about dismantling a system designed to control genders other than straight White cisgender males. Antifascism is about disrupting the system that enables fascist ideology and its supporters from gaining power in our government. Antiracism is about confronting racial inequities and actively challenging racist policies and power structures. Deconstructing and decolonizing Christianity is about disentangling the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth from the self-interests of empire, militarism, and capitalism.

Just as it was for Jesus’ frightened and bewildered disciples, the way forward is not a clear nor an easy path. There can be no unity and healing until we have truth and reckoning. It has taken us 400 years to even attempt to meaningfully acknowledge the original sins of this nation, let alone imagine what reparations would look like or returning public lands to the stewardship of the original people who lived there. Even as we make progress, more mistakes and bad choices will be made, fueled by power and self-interest, enabling evil’s agenda, as evidenced by yesterday’s verdict.



God working through us is both cloudy and bright, uncertain and revealing, troubling and reassuring, terrifying and hopeful. This Wednesday begins the Lenten season, when we are reminded of our mortality and the necessity of changing course—what the Church calls repentance. What will we encounter these forty days and beyond? How willing are we for the divine purpose of justice to disrupt and discomfort us? Will we recognize when we are resisting transformation? It is tempting to give up because then we do not have to change. And it’s up to each one of us to figure out what needs changing in us; it’s up to us to discern how God is working through us.

Benediction – adapted from enfleshed.com

God sends us to practice love that knows
there is no peace where there is no justice,
and to know that transformation
depends on discomfort and disruption.
If we are open to Sacred Encounters, wild and unexpected,
It could be so among us.