Homily 667 – 26 APE
Holy Transfiguration, Ames, Iowa
December 7, 2025
Epistle:  (229) Ephesians 5:9-19
Gospel:  (85) Luke 17:12-19

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

One of the more striking elements of the accounts of Christ’s interactions with people while He was in the world, we find that more often than not, it is the foreigner, the gentile, the non-Jew who provides the example for us.

Not the – quote – “faithful” ones, the “chosen” ones.

It is the Samaritans.  Sometimes the Romans, even.  One would think that the favored people would be the most receptive to Christ, the most receptive to God, the One who spoke with the authority of God and who is God.

But that didn’t happen.  We do well to examine why.  Why did the religious establishment not embrace the One bringing salvation, the highly anticipated Messiah, the Son of God?

There are two reasons, I think.  One is understandable, one maybe isn’t, but both are completely avoidable.

The first is that Christ wasn’t what they were expecting.  The Jews read prophesies, and in some cases, read them correctly – for example, the Jews read that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, leading Herod to kill the 20,000 innocents.  But they missed the fact, because Christ arose out of Galilee, He was born in Bethlehem.  That was unusual for the day, when people didn’t stray very far from their birthplace.

Same for prophesies about the Messiah coming out of Egypt.  They didn’t know that the slaughter of the innocents led to the Holy Family fleeing to Egypt.  They did see Jesus being called a Nazarene, but a lot of people lived in Nazareth, so that was isolated.

They also were expecting a civil or military conqueror, one who would establish Israel as an independent state, not under the yoke of anyone.  A liberator – so someone who comes preaching peace and repentance isn’t on their radar.

Now they got these ideas from their interpretations of Scripture.  The Law, the Prophets, and the other religious texts they saw as predictive, much as many today see things like St. Paul and the Apocalypse of St. John to be predictive of a future event.  They looked for signs, just like some today look for signs.  They may have been able to identify the Messiah, if not for the second thing that caused them not to embrace Christ.  That second issue is power.

The religious establishment had the endorsement of the political rulers.  Rome had an agreement that the Jews could manage internal affairs, as long as they were subordinated to the Roman governor of the province.  And, as long as they paid the tribute.  It was in some respects similar to the position that the Roman Church assumed in the time after the fall of Rome, and the Orthodox Church assumed after the conquering of the Ottoman Turks.

What it meant was that power entered the equation.  I mean real power, with enforcement.  The Jews of the day had the ability to use Rome’s authority to achieve their own ends.  There were certain things they couldn’t do, but those were limited.

The power was vested in the Sanhedrin, the Jewish council of leaders, who were not elected of course.  The priests, particularly the High Priest, served and maintained power through this time.  The scribes and scholars of the Scripture, who were religious lawyers, were the governmental advisors, becoming legislators for all reasonable purposes.  They determined the behavior of the people.

To recognize the Messiah meant that these people, who held power and control, and as a byproduct, great wealth, would need to relinquish their power and very likely their wealth.  No longer would they be in control.

Had the Messiah been a political or civil figure, then perhaps they would have gone along and been willing to relinquish their own power.  Or perhaps they thought that the Messiah would simply allow them to continue, because they were doing such a good job already of interpretation of rule within Israel.

So – two primary reasons the Jews didn’t recognize the Messiah.  Good thing we do recognize Him!  Or do we?

We need to be careful, because we can also fall into these two traps, if we are not careful and guarded.  We too can have expectations that are not correct, and hold power that we are unwilling to relinquish.

Much of our struggle today is with expectations.  When we have them, most of the time, we are disappointed.  This is especially true with the expectations we have of Christ.  We are advised throughout the Scriptures that God’s ways are not discernable by humans – at least not with any degree of accuracy or correctness.

Plus, most of the sorrow we experience in life comes from unmet expectations.  If we can learn not to expect anything, we can live a significantly more peaceful life.  Sometimes we have to have expectations – of our children, perhaps, before adulthood, or expectations of our employees at the place we work.

When we have those expectations, they need to be communicated effectively and repeatedly, and in a manner that can be understood by those we wish to communicate with, and with the consequences of not meeting the expectations clearly outlined.

Then, when expectations aren’t met, the individual has really chosen to accept the consequences over the expectations.  We can be at peace, since we are no longer being subjective.

Giving up power may be more difficult for us.  With it comes wealth, just as it did in Biblical Judea.  I used to be active in Republican politics back when I was in college – an idealist even then, wanting to effect change in society.  But I asked a very senior republican operative in my area about why he did what he did.  He told me something very important.  He said, “Marty, I know a lot of people with money and no power, but I have yet to meet the person with power and no money.”

We have to be in a position not just to relinquish power and control – and the money that comes with it – but have to actively avoid getting power to begin with.  All power.  All control.

Because by having it, we may miss the infinitely greater.  We may miss Christ, and His Kingdom, and our salvation.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.  Glory to Jesus Christ!