Transfiguration: Landscape and Inscape

Last Epiphany B      February 19, 2012

1 Kg 19:9-18      Psalm 50:1-6

2 Corinthians 4:3-6 Mark 9:2-9

Lectionary Link

   What if we for the purposes of this sermon were to call life in the external world, the life of our landscape.  And the life inside of us our inscape.  How is our landscape related to our inscape?  We really cannot ever see inside of us; only surgeons get the most literal physical view of our inside.  We can now put mini-cameras everywhere including inside of our bodies.  But there is a non-physical inside; the places of feelings and emotions and thoughts that we cannot see.  So we inherit from our cultures, religions, societies and families ways of talking about our inscape.   We use feeling words and we try to locate seats of feeling and thinking: The head for thinking and the heart for feeling.

   In religious language one can find the use of terms from geography, climate and physics to characterize spiritual insights or happenings that occur in our inscape.  A mountain top, clouds, light, and space travel are all metaphors that we can find in biblical literature to relate interior events.

  In common parlance one might say, “I had a mountain top experience” to characterize an exhilarating moment of the sublime.  A view from higher elevation gives one a greater panorama and a different perspective than what one sees in the valley.  When one speaks about the experience of mystery and not knowing or not seeing, one uses the metaphor of clouds.  The experience of being in the midst of fog or clouds on a mountain is the experience of a loss of perspective because of the loss of visibility.    Though we moderns think we invented space travel, space travel of other sorts has been a metaphor for crossing over into the afterlife.  Elijah’s chariot of fire ride to heaven stands as the most dramatic way in which a person was Assumed or raised into the afterlife and unlike Jesus, he did not even have to experience a death.

  Let us look at the metaphors from our biblical lessons that were appointed for our reading today.

  What do we fear when one someone very important leaves this world?  We fear the loss of some irreplaceable goodness, genius or excellence.  Don McClean’s  American Pie song laments about the “day that music died,”  referring of course to the plane crash in Clear Lake, Iowa that took the lives of Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Richie Valens.  And more recently, can we say that music has died with the passing of Whitney Houston?  Did it die when Mozart or Beethoven or Bach died many years ago?  Indeed we fear the death of genius.   Will there is an iphone 16, now that Steve Jobs is gone?  Do any of us doubt it?

  Elisha was the prophetic protégé of Elijah and he was not sure that there would be prophetic excellence after his mentor was gone.  Elijah assured Elisha that the prophetic spirit would remain and be passed on to him and he said as a proof of this Elisha would be able to see his departure from this earth.  And after Elijah was gone Elisha began with confidence to exercise his prophetic gifts to prove that the prophetic gifts, like all really good things, cannot die out of this world.

  The post-resurrection appearances of Jesus were related to the event upon the Mount of Transfiguration.  How does the Gospel reading end?  “As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.” 

  The event of the transfiguration of Jesus was before his death and resurrection, but it could only be understood by the Gospel writer in hindsight.  And of course, all of the Gospels are about  understanding Jesus and his life in hindsight.

  What did the Gospel writers understand about Jesus?   They understood that he had a type of human genius that surpassed their great heroes of Moses and Elijah.  Moses went up a mountain to receive the law from God.  His experience on Mount Sinai made his face shine.  The prophet Elijah did mighty things upon mountains.  The Mount of the Transfiguration is about the disciples trying to sort out their understanding of Jesus.  Their encounter with Jesus represents the summit of their life experience.  It is an experience of clouds and fog; they are baffled by the mystery of this man Jesus.  Peter stammers with perhaps an uncomfortable ignorance.  And then there is light:  Light on Jesus and light that shines from Jesus.  Jesus is an experience of revelation of things hitherto unknown.

  But there is also a voice from heaven that says, “"This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”  And when that happened, Moses and Elijah had departed.  If the disciples had any doubt as to whether Moses and Elijah and their Judaic tradition should keep them from following Jesus, this event was to dispel them of any doubts.  And also in this heavenly voice is a message for Gentiles and it would also prove to be a serious political statement as well.  God the Father said about Jesus, “This is my Son, the beloved.”  People in the time of Jesus knew that Emperor’s son was called a son of a god, divi filius.  If people believed that Jesus was the Son of God, this title and belief would be a challenge and an affront to the emperor-worship cult of the time and so it would be a dangerous political confession as well.  The resulting persecution of Christians attests to the politics of believing that Jesus was the supreme Son of God.

  Beyond the context of the time of Jesus and the times when the Gospels were written, we have to deal with our own time.  The trouble in the world threatens us with doubt about the loss of a type of genius that can save and preserve our world, both on the global level and on the personal level.  We certainly don’t doubt the loss of genius; what we doubt is how the genius in the gifts of humanity are being used.

  How do the gifts of the world get transfigured so that they bless us and the life of the world?  How do our gifts get discovered and developed so that we can receive insight to live our lives with wisdom and use our gifts to bless this world?

  The lesson for us is to seek transfiguration and walk upon the path of metamorphosis.  Repentance is metamorphosis; always seeking to surpass our self in excellence.   How can we progressively change ourselves to be more Christ-like and realize more fully what was proclaimed about Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration?  How can you and I listen well enough to hear the voice of highest insight tell us, “You are my beloved child.”  And isn’t that the purpose of the Gospel, to know ourselves to be sons and daughters of God and go forth and act in a way that shows that we are a member of God’s family with Jesus as our most illustrious sibling?  Amen.

Transfiguration: Knowing the Extraordinary within the Ordinary

 Last Epiphany B      February 19, 2012

1 Kg 19:9-18      Psalm 50:1-6

2 Corinthians 4:3-6 Mark 9:2-9

Lectionary Link

  If we were arguing about the best home run hitter in the history of baseball, whose opinion do you think would carry the most weight?  What if Babe Ruth suddenly did a reappearance and did an interview and stated, “Well there’s no question about it; Barry Bonds is the best home run hitter in baseball.”  And what if Roger Maris appeared too and said, “That’s right, Babe, there has been no better home run hitter in baseball than Barry Bonds?”  If such a thing could occur, certainly Barry Bonds would be happy and the weight of opinion of Babe Ruth and Roger Maris would have to be respected.

  The opinions of what departed Hebrew heroes would be most respected by people who lived in the first half of the first century is Judaic Palestine?  Probably the two most revered figures in first century Judaism were Moses and Elijah, and King David, the Messiah would have been a third.  But Moses and Elijah were different from David; David had a recorded death but Moses and Elijah had very interesting ending disappearances in their lives and so there was a belief that they like Enoch, did not really die natural deaths; rather they were assumed into heaven.  Since Moses and Elijah had interesting Assumptions into the afterlife, there were Jews who believed that they would be important in reestablishing God’s will and order for God’s people in their futures.  There was a book written called the Assumption of Moses.  It is even written in the book of Jude that Michael the Archangel argued with the devil over the body of Moses.  A book entitled The Apocalypse of Elijah was also known in religious communities in the first century, indicating how important Moses and Elijah were as figures who could intervene and influence the opinions of those who lived many years later.

  So the two who were assumed into the afterlife were like space travelers.  They would return to be present in that visionary event that happened on the Mount of the Transfiguration where Jesus and his disciples, Peter, James and John had climbed.

  For you and me, to be honest,  this event of the Transfiguration is a literary event.  Why?  Because we only read about it in the text book of our Christian faith.  And the text book of our Christian faith in the Gospel section is about the identity of Jesus and the significance of his life.  The author of the Gospel is very interested in the association of Elijah and Moses with Jesus.  If Moses and Elijah have come to give their full endorsement of Jesus, then surely no self-respecting Jewish person could sit on the fence about Jesus of Nazareth.  But there was even a higher witness than Moses or Elijah; there was the divine voice that declared, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.”  This was like the proclamation in the Psalms when the writer wrote about the Messiah: “The Lord said to my Lord, You are my son, today I have begotten you.”   When Moses received the Law on Mount Sinai, his face shone from his encounter with God and the people of Israel were asked to listen to the voice of God through the Law.  Elijah’s fiery departure was proof that the prophetic flame had passed on to Elisha.  But now on the Mount of the Transfiguration Jesus was seen as the one who surpassed Moses and the witness of the law and also Elijah and the prophetic word.

  For the Gentiles readers of this Gospel, they knew about becoming a son of a god.  When the Caesar became Augustus, a title of divinity conferred by the Roman Senate, then the son of Caesar Augustus was a divi filius or a son of a god.  For the Gentile reader of the Gospel of Mark, they could know that there were higher conferring authorities than the Roman Senate when it came to conferring divinity; Moses, Elijah and the voice of God were more reputable than the Roman Senate when it came to recognizing the surpassing divine excellence of Jesus.

  We have read about the Mount of the Transfiguration as a literary event today.  And so what does it have to do with you and me?  We are not that engaged by Elijah or Moses anymore except through Bible stories.  We probably haven’t heard the voice of God lately, or we wouldn’t admit to it if we did, since we would be declared “crazy.”  So what are we to make of this literary report of the event of the transfiguration today?

  We can say, “I have never experienced anything like this, so this lets me off the hook regarding my faith and my commitment to God and Jesus.  Because, if I had such an encounter, certainly I would be more devout.”  Are you and I letting ourselves off the hook because we’ve not had such poignant encounters.  Probably.

  It is convenient for the church to enshrine experience within the lives of the 12 disciples and the saints and put them on a pedestal, because then we are excused from having a God-experience validated or recognized in our lives that could actually change our lives.

 But what if the purpose of the Gospel is actually to help us locate and validate our own experience of God, then we would have to understand a fuller intent of the Gospel writings.

  The face of Jesus was transfigured; it had undergone a metamorphosis.  The Greek word that is translated, "transfigured" is also more directly translated, “metamorphosis.”  Jesus was ordinary enough to be recognized as a human being; but he was extraordinary enough to be recognized as God’s Son.  So the meaning of the metamorphosis of faith is to discover the extraordinary presence of God within the very ordinary occasions of human experience.

  Jesus is a revelation of the incarnation of God within what is human.  So the meaning of the life of Jesus is that human experience is elevated and validated as being the only way that you and I can come to know God.   God has always, already been extraordinary within the ordinary, only we have not always recognized it or validated it as God’s presence to us.

  Faith includes the attitude of being on watch for the appearances of God.  It happens in the awe of sunrise and sunset; the lovely green on the hill side, the love of spouse, children and friends, the touching chord of a piece of music, the tear provoking story in a movie or book, the pain and sacrifice that is redeemed because they contribute to the betterment of someone else’s life.  You and I are not let off the hook when it comes to God touching our lives.  Where have you and I failed to recognize God?

  Just because everything does not occur in our lives with accompanying Jesus subtitles, it does not mean that God has been absent from your life and from mine.

  The meaning of the transfiguration is that God has appeared to us in the ordinary course of human experience.  And with the practice of faith, we take time to smell the roses of God’s presence to us.

  God has enveloped your life and mine providing the occasions for the divine presence to be known to us.  That is the meaning of the Mount of Transfiguration for us today, and the heavenly voice is saying to us to us within our very ordinary human experience, “You, too, like Jesus, are my child, a beloved son and daughter.”  Amen.