Last Epiphany B February 15, 2015
1 Kg 19:9-18 Psalm 50:1-6
2 Corinthians 4:3-6 Mark 9:2-9
How many of you remember one of
the most exciting words which you ever learned in elementary school science
class? That word is metamorphosis. And you remember the context. It was the stages of the life cycle in the
life of a butterfly or moth. We collected
the caterpillars and kept them under glass and fed them fresh grass and we
waited and waited for them to die and become the lifeless cocoon and then came
the exciting moment when the butterfly or moth broke out of the cocoon and got
its wings free and dry to fly away.
In this whole cycle of metamorphosis, which stage is the favorite
stage? Well, it's always nice to see the
birth of a butterfly and see it in full flight, and even better if it is
a beautiful Monarch. What a
delightful observation of a law of life and living.
Metamorphosis; this is the Greek word for Transfiguration, and we
usually just associate it with the shining face and the special effects light
show on the Mount of the Transfiguration.
We read this account on the last Sunday before Lent begins to have a
mountain top experience before we descend into the 40 days of Lent in the
wilderness to be tempted by Satan and by all of the ungodly things of life.
Just as we may favor the breaking out of the cocoon of the newly birthing
butterfly, in the story of Jesus, we may prefer some events and stages in the
life of Jesus more than others. We love Christmas because it is about baby
Jesus. We love the resurrection of Jesus
because it is about Jesus being freed from the cocoon of death's tomb. We are not sure about like Good Friday or the
placing of Jesus in the tomb. We are not
sure about his forty days of temptation in the wilderness alone or his being
hassled by lots of opponents or his being followed around by the 12 disciples
who seem more like Snow White's seven dwarfs at times. We like his miracles, his healings, his
walking on the water and his story-telling but our preferences do not matter,
we get the entire metamorphosis cycle of the life of Jesus.
And the purpose of the writing of the Gospels was to present the process
of spiritual metamorphosis in the lives of each disciple using the presentation
of events in the life of Jesus to correspond to the metamorphosis which is
happening within our lives as we experience the life of the risen Christ to be
born and growing within us and taking us continuously through this never ending
cycle of spiritual metamorphosis.
I say this because the Gospels were written after the spiritual
practices of the Pauline churches had been developed. The success of the message of the spiritual
practices of the church required a teaching method to make them available in a
discipleship program which could be taught within various gathered communities. We think of books as being public and open to
all; the Gospels as they were first used were spiritual discipleship manuals to
provide orientation and initiation into the Christian faith using the story
re-presentation of events in the life of Christ. The Gospel stories provided the subject
matter onto which the people who were being initiated into the Christian faith
communities could project their own lives and in their projection upon the
characters in the Gospel stories one could facilitate with insights the inner dynamics of spiritual progress for
one's own life.
The goal of the Gospel writings was the transformation of one’s life. The Gospel writers proclaimed that if one had
the risen Christ born within one's life, then one had become aware of a program
of the grace of God which is available to all in this life, but it is a program
of grace which needed to be tended to and developed in one's life so that one
could progress in a program of excellence called Abundant Life. For the Gospel writers there was ordinary
life and within that ordinary life there was the ability to discover Abundant
Life.
We moderns, have taught ourselves to read the
Gospels wrongly. We like to treat them
as eyewitness historical records of the life of Jesus but they were written
long after Jesus was gone and they were written after spiritual practices had
become successful in transforming the lives of many Jewish and Gentile
followers of Christ. When something is
successful, it needs teaching methods to make it accessible and teachable to
those who were drawn to the abundant life which was happening within those
early Christian communities.
The Gospels were precisely the methods used to promote spiritual
transformation for the candidates of the Christian faith.
Metamorphosis is about a repeatable cycle and for the butterfly we names
the stages; eggs, larvae, caterpillar, pupa/cocoon, butterfly. The stages have the appearance of being the
same in that all cocoon look similar, even though each occurrence and manifestation of a stage is new and fresh
and a first time experience.
Metamorphosis as a spiritual principle means that our lives change as
widening conical spiral and we return to familiar places but on a different
level of understanding.
In the event on the Mount of the Metamorphosis of Christ, we find a
teaching about spiritual metamorphosis within the history of Salvation. The Gospel writers were trying to show how
the process of spiritual metamorphosis was a part of the tradition of the
Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus then was a
further manifestation of this tradition of spiritual metamorphosis. At creation God said, "Let there be
light and there was light." There
was the external light of the sun and there was the internal light of the
spirit which had been breathed into the life of humanity. During night time or extended clouds we lose
sight of the light; there are times when it has seemed that the inner light of
the spirit has been lost or covered up or left undiscovered. The man Moses went up on Mount Sinai and got
so close to God with insights that his inner light surfaced to make his face
shine when he brought the Law down to his people. Moses had a death but he kind of had a missing body or unmarked grave;
so the apocalyptic writers assumed he was a traveler between heaven and
earth. Elijah was the great
representative of the recovery of the prophetic light to God's people. He did mighty deeds; the light of God in him
was a still soft voice which spoke to him.
Elijah did not die; he rode the famous chariot of fire into heaven and
so he too was regarded by the apocalyptic writers to be a traveler between
inner space and outer space. And sure
enough, these two space travelers met with Jesus on the mount and the face of
Jesus shone as an indication that another stage had occurred in spiritual
metamorphosis. Another butterfly event
in the process. There is so much being
taught in this event. First, the past is
not in conflict with the present, it is in fact the very support for the
present to have occurred. Jesus rested
upon the shoulders of Moses and Elijah and they are happy to see him and affirm
him. Second, the event happened a
mountain; the site where heaven meets earth; the site where inner space meets
outer space; the site where the collective unconscious marks life by coming
into events of word and language so that spiritual orientation is given. Third, the disciples are clumsy and
fidgety. We don't always know what to do
with the truly holy event in our lives; it can make us feel awkward because it
is new territory. It is so fascinating
we want to stay in the exhilaration of the event. We often only want to be in the butterfly
phase of metamorphosis; we don't want to be the fuzzy caterpillars and the
cocoons of spiritual process. But we
cannot stay anywhere, we must submit continuously to the process of spiritual
metamorphosis. Lastly, the event of the
metamorphosis of Jesus is an event of clarity and insight. It is a spiritual high. Jesus is declared to be a very Unique Son of
God, and we are privileged to witness this, even as we in those moments humbly
accept our basic familial identity, as sons and daughters of God, unique in our
own quirky ways but not as Unique as Jesus Christ.
Let us accept today that we have been initiated into baptismal life of
Jesus Christ. The risen Christ has been
born within us by the power of the Spirit and we are in this conical widening
upward spiral of spiritual metamorphosis.
We are being changed from glory to glory. We are ever being challenged to live up to
and integrate the insights from our moments of profound awakening. We are ever challenged to accept all of the terrain
of life's journey....on the glorious mountain top today; tomorrow in the
demon-possessed valley in being vulnerable to some of the worst events in
life. We are ever challenged to love
butterflies, tiny little eggs, larvae, fuzzy or slimy caterpillars and silken
and dead cocoons. And the Gospel challenges us to have faith to accept and
integrate all of the phases and states of spiritual metamorphosis.
You and I are on this continuous cycle of spiritual metamorphosis. Hang on for the ride and let us remember
today, that we have seen Jesus in such a shiny and unique way, that we can be
sustained by this wonderful insight of the Light of Christ in our hearts. Amen.