I’ve been indulging a guilty pleasure for a few weeks: watching my way through the DVDs of ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer‘. I’m trying to spin it out now that I’m closing in on the final episodes so maybe some theological reflection on the topic will help delay me.
‘Buffy’ is full of insights that jog my theologian’s elbow but one in particular has me pondering now. This last series raises lots of issues about power and where it comes from and how it can be used and abused. It seems the Slayer’s power is bought at a price. Power doesn’t come for free. In the Slayer’s case it is at root achieved by the infusion of evil, of the demonic, and ultimately against the will of the Slayer, imposed by men who want to use her. Even the brightest power for the good (‘she saved the world … a lot’) involves a hidden pact with darkness. A pact Buffy herself refuses.
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August 6th, 2006
Readings: Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14; 2 Peter 1:16-19; Mark 9:2-10
We’ve reached here the highpoint of Jesus ministry. Literally. In recent weeks he’s raised the dead, he’s made a meal for a multitude out of scraps and gleanings, he’s walked on water … and everywhere the crowds are following him in droves. These are his glory days. And here on this mountain top his glory is unwrapped for a moment in light and shadow for us to glimpse what he is and what he will become. Metamorphosis, the Greek calls it. He speaks here as equal—and more—with Moses and Elijah. And the voice that at his baptism had whispered in his ear, ‘Beloved’, now roars it out from the cloud of glory, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him’.
But this is the high point of his ministry and from here on there’s no way but down. And downhill it will go, into opposition and misunderstanding and failure and fear and pain and death. So much for glory.
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August 6th, 2006