Ex 24:9-18 & Mt 17:1-9

6 February 2005

Transfiguration

“Remain in Light”

            It’s not every presbytery meeting that has a worship service that seems especially meaningful to me.  That’s to be expected; that’s how life is.  Not everything can affect everyone in the same way all the time.  But worship at last November’s presbytery meeting in Hamburg was one of those especially meaningful times.

            The theme was thanksgiving, but that wasn’t so much the reason I liked the service.  It was more the songs we sang—I really did like them.  We sang one of them here afterwards during Advent, “Let All Things Now Living.”  There was also a time when symbolic gifts were brought forward, as a sign of thankfulness.

            But something that really stuck with me was how Jim Burton, the pastor at Hamburg, concluded the Prayers of the People.  After going through the various intercessions, he finished with this:  “Help us to accept the truth about ourselves,” and then he briefly paused.  I was mentally finishing the sentence with something like, “no matter how proud we might be” or “no matter how startling it might be.”

But I was wrong.  What he said was, “Help us to accept the truth about ourselves…no matter how beautiful it might be.”  You know, I almost wished that he had concluded on one of those more negative notes—like something I’d been anticipating.  Maybe no one here feels the way I do about it, but it seems that—at least sometimes—being reminded of our failings, of our shortfalls, can in a strange way, actually feel better than being told how creative and radiant we are.

It can feel better because, even though this really isn’t true, it seems to give us an excuse for not being more than what we are.  It’s a convenient cop-out.  But if we’re reminded that, in Christ, there are no limits—if we say with the apostle Paul in Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me”—then we’re left with the question:  What will we do about it?

Some people in our scripture readings today have that question to answer.  In both our Old Testament and Gospel readings, the glory of God is revealed.  Being chosen for such an intimate encounter no doubt dramatically changes one’s outlook on everything.  After such an experience, nothing is ever the same again.

In Exodus 24, Moses and a group of the leaders of Israel are summoned by God to Mt. Sinai.  Words fail to describe what they see.  “Under his feet [?…this is about God, mind you] there was something like a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness” (v. 10).  And they are convinced that it is God they see.  The next verse tells us that “God did not lay his hand” on them; God did not strike them.  They would have expected death.  Everyone knew that you cannot see God and live to tell about it!

Moses, of course, is the one who is summoned even farther.  He goes up to the top of Sinai where, as the scripture says, he spends “forty days and forty nights” in the presence of God (v. 18).  The result of all this enlightenment is that Moses brings God’s law to the people.

            In our Gospel reading, Matthew’s version of the Transfiguration of Jesus, it’s Peter, James, and John who have an intimate encounter with the glory of God.  In their case, it’s their teacher and friend through whom they see that…divine radiance.  Jesus reveals to this privileged trio the true nature of his being.

            How does this happen?  People of many different cultures have traveled to the tops of mountains to meet their gods.  We’ve already seen how Moses did it at Sinai.  The ancient Greeks believed that Mt. Olympus was the home of their gods.  The indigenous peoples of Africa, Asia, and America have had mountains of their own.  Now something similar happens to Peter and his friends.  We’re told that Jesus’ “face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white” (v. 2).  The Son shines like the sun.

            Jesus not only reveals the deity within, but he literally takes his place in the Old Testament tradition.  As he is transfigured before the disciples, Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus, and they are “talking with him” (v. 3).  Imagine hearing that conversation!

            The fact that it’s Moses and Elijah who appear with Jesus is important.  As Joan Chittister has observed, “Jesus does not appear with Aaron the priest, who was the interpreter of the law.  Jesus doesn't appear there with David the King, the defender of the state.  No, Jesus does not appear with symbols of royalty or ritualism.”[1]  Instead he’s visited by Moses, leader of the exodus, and Elijah, prophet par excellence.

            Peter seems oblivious to all of this.  He babbles something about building three shelters for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah.  But these three prophets—and whatever else they are, they are prophets—they’re not interested in such stuff.  Prophets tend to be interested in stuff like doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God.

Peter wants to stay on the mountain, literally and metaphorically.  He wants to enshrine this experience.  But Jesus leads Peter, James, and John back down the mountain.  He takes them back to their lives in the world.  And just so they know, they’re not even to talk about what happened up on the mountain.

            The transfiguration is the story of an epiphany.  An epiphany is an unveiling of God’s light to us.  That’s why the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus is celebrated on the day of Epiphany.  In Jesus, we see God.

            We have events that are like epiphanies in our own lives.  In everyday language, people will talk about having an epiphany, of one sort or the other.  I’m thinking of those “aha!” moments:  when everything suddenly seems clear.  Or if you’re very seriously a dork, instead of “aha!”, you might cry out, “Eureka!”

            It’s been noted, “For a handful of people, such utterly clear moments are large, clear and frequent.  For most of us they are small and brief and occasional.  That does not mean that those who have spectacular epiphanies are somehow spiritually superior souls.  It simply means that God deals with us in different ways.  The important thing is to follow the light we have glimpsed, be it ever so brief…

            “The validity of any epiphany is not found in our feelings but in our actions; not in the length of our epiphany but in the quality of our love that the experience evokes.  Love in word and deed.  That’s the test.”[2]  The challenge is to be true to the light that’s been given us.

            That can be a tall order.  I guess that explains the origin of sayings like, “Ignorance is bliss.”  My dad had a similar saying that he sometimes told me.  (Notice, that’s my dad; I’m usually quoting my mom!)  This phrase was “fat, dumb, and happy.”

            Maybe ignorance is bliss.  Maybe it’s better to be fat, dumb, and happy.  Maybe experiencing an epiphany—witnessing a transfiguration—is too much for us.  Maybe we’re better off just retreating into our own little shell of a world, not knowing what’s out there.

            Maybe all that’s true.  But friends, guess what?  It’s too late for us.  We’ve gone too far to turn back now.  We are not ignorant; we have had the light shine on us.  And that is a good thing!  Perhaps there’s a certain trifling amount of amusement that goes with ignorance, but nothing compares with knowing the Lord.   For those folks—and maybe for us, at times—who believe that sleepwalking through life is the way to go, remember Paul’s caution in Romans 13:  “you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep” (v. 11).

So I raise again the question I asked earlier:  what will we do about it?  Will we be satisfied with the tiny amount of light we have received, or will we ask God for more?  Will we pretend that Jesus hasn’t shown us the good life, the way of the Beatitudes?  Will we put off until tomorrow the act of love that we know we should do today?

            My prayer is that the Lord will convict us of refusing to live and to love.  I pray that we will see the ways in which we hide our light from the world.  I pray that every single person here will become so unsatisfied with where you are in God that you will long for more—that, as the scripture says, you will “be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts” (2 Pe 1:19).  I pray that we will remain in light.

            I want to conclude with a quote that has repeatedly been attributed to Nelson Mandela’s 1994 inaugural speech as president of South Africa.  It actually comes from Marianne Williamson’s book, Return to Love.  I guess it seems like something he would say.  And maybe he did at some point; it just wasn’t at his inauguration.  I know, because I’ve read that speech!

            This quotation brings us full circle back to my reflections about the worship service at November’s presbytery meeting.  I’m especially thinking about the way Jim Burton finished his prayer:  “Help us to accept the truth about ourselves…no matter how beautiful it might be.”  Anyway, here’s the quote:[3]

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.  It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.  We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?  Actually, who are you not to be?  You are a child of God.  Your playing small doesn't serve the world.  There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you…

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.  It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone.  And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.  As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

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