The Mountain of Transfiguration

The Mountain of Transfiguration
The Rev. Carol Luther
February 6, 2005

Readings:

Exodus 24:12(13-14)15-18
Philippians 3:7-14
Matthew 17:1-9
Psalm 99

Mt. Tam Long ago, on a mountain overlooking the Promised Land, Moses looked at his people and said, "Choose life, that you and your children might live." 3200 years later, I heard these words read at Congregation Kol Shofar and they changed my life forever.

When I was a child, I had three very distinct images of Jesus. The first was Jesus the morals teacher. This was the easiest one. Jesus was sent from God to teach human beings how to behave. He was kind of like the ultimate yard monitor, gently turning us away from idle play toward a practice of virtue. To my childish mind, this was pure pomposity, for I was looking for something better than what I foolishly perceived as mere "self-improvement." Thomas Jefferson was very taken with this side of Jesus. As you may know, he went through the Gospels and cut out everything but this ethical Jesus. The Jefferson Bible is the soul of reason, but it is also inexpressibly sad. If you've ever read it, you know that it ends with the moral teacher being laid in the tomb and everyone going away. He died like all men and that was that. Everyone went away. In the Jefferson Bible, death is the end, and the best we can do is live with it.

The second Jesus, while a little more difficult to comprehend than the first, still lived within the realm of reasonable explanation. This was Jesus the healer. This Jesus could touch sick, blind, deaf, epileptic and other broken folk and make them well. Of course, in our age of medical science, we assume that all those problems were only psychological, and if Jesus could offer relief, so much the better.

But there was also a third Jesus, an impossible Jesus, the one that alarmed Thomas Jefferson, which means of course that this Jesus captured my childish heart completely from the moment I met him and made me wonder about all kinds of forbidden things: miracles and inexplicable beauty. This is the Jesus who could read the world of nature like a book, who walked on water, stilled storms at sea with a single rebuke, turned water into wine, raised Lazarus out of a stinking tomb (and we get that perfectly impossible story a mere five weeks from now) and was transfigured on a mountaintop so that he shone like pure light. Impossible! People scramble for natural explanations of these stories, but somehow they pale next to the story itself. Transfiguration, How can this be so?

And yet, among the spiritually mature, it appears to be rather ordinary. Here's but a single example from the 4th century. (I could give you many more from the lives of the saints)

"Abbott Lot came to Abbott Joseph and said: Father, according as I am able, I keep my little rule, and my little fast, my prayer, meditation and contemplative silence; and according as I am able I strive to cleanse my heart of thoughts: now what more should I do? The elder rose in reply and stretched out his hands to heaven , and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire. He said: why not be totally changed into fire?"

St. Paul saw this world of pure light, was blinded by it, was so overcome by its beauty and truth that he dedicated the rest of his life to practicing it. (These experiences are not something we can hold onto, any more than Jesus, James and John were able to stay up the mountain.) Or as Paul says, Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. The key is Jesus. Jesus has made him his own. It is Jesus who leads us to that place our hearts long for.

Have you ever beheld something so very wonderful that it has changed your life forever?

On the mountain of the transfiguration, Peter, James and John became Jesus' own in a purely spiritual way, beyond flesh, beyond time, beyond death. Jesus became light and the impenetrable wall of time dissolved and there were Moses, the lawgiver, and Elijah, the prophet standing beside him, and they were alive.

And then they heard the voice of God, and "they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear."

Transfiguration literally means to change shape. In the world of fantasy novels, it's about such completely off the wall events as turning animals into drinking goblets. In the world of spirituality, it is no less radical. Transfiguration means being changed so completely that though you may look the same, you have become someone totally different. The children and I got to talking about this in our Harry Potter group, and one of them, as he was looking for an example suggested that transfiguration was like "turning a sick person into a well person." I then asked, "Which of the two is the real person, the sick one or the well one?" The answer, of course, was "both." Which reminds us that transfiguration shows us that nothing is purely what it seems on the surface. We are many things. You, dull creature of flesh, might in fact be a magical being of light, able to heal a broken world, if you can but break through the spell that holds you fast. Spiritual practice is designed to break the spell.

Moses was held under a spell of political power. Killed. Went into the desert and a burning bush showed him that death was not the answer. His transfiguration experience gave him the courage not to defeat Pharaoh, but to lead his people out of Egypt.

Elijah, on the other hand, defeated Ahab with the power of the spirit. When wealth blinded the people of God to the presence of God, Elijah brought down fire from heaven and called upon God to return.

Jesus' Transfiguration builds upon the other two, and shows us how to return to God. It is the sign that Jesus will be raised from the dead. All time is contained within this single moment: Moses, Elijah, Peter, James, John, you and me. Flesh may change and die, says this experience, in which the flesh of Jesus seems to dissolve, but spirit is forever, and to give yourself to God is to practice being spirit. Transfiguration is the gateway between the worlds. We find this gateway because, as St. Paul said, Jesus has made us his own. Jesus comes precisely for us. He is no prince or scholar, but an ordinary man. He does not leave the world for a monastery, but lives in the heart of the world, just as we live in the heart of the world. He has no preconceived notions of who is in and who is out, who is worthy, who is unworthy. He does not turn away from women, nor does he reject the poor who can't get it together, nor the stranger. By emptying himself to do the will of God, he becomes the will of God. This is a daily practice which begins with ethics, moves to healing, blooms as miracle.

The story of the Transfiguration is read every year on the last Sunday before we enter Lent. It is read for the obvious reason that just as Jesus took his disciples up the mountain to prepare them for his death and rising again, so do we go there to prepare for our own experience of death and resurrection during Lent and Easter. But there's more. We are called to a 40 day season of self-reflection and practice because what we think and do matters. No matter what things seem in our frail envelope of flesh, we are powerful beings. Everything we do matters. Everything we think matters. Everything we say matters. Repentance has nothing to do with guilt trips or breast beating. Repentance is the call to seek deeper truths, not settle for shallow excuses or easy answers. The call to Lent, like the invitation to ascend the mountain with Jesus, is an invitation to transfiguration. Or shall I say, it begins there. You can't stay up the mountain forever. When Jesus, James and John came down, it was to heal a person who was so lost within his own mind that he cast himself into the flames. All attempts to heal him had failed until Jesus showed them the centering, stilling power of prayer. Prayer is where we return after we have seen the face of God. Prayer is that intimate place where we choose.

At a dinner party recently, I had a fascinating conversation about how we make ethical choices. In the end, all values decisions must be based upon some kind of principle. As I pondered this, I began to realize that my own transfiguring moment had begun on a mountain, with Moses' great commandment: "Choose Life." (Deut 30:19-20) From then on, things began to change in my spiritual world. My own neurons were rearranged, no less than those of the boy who threw himself into the fire. The fires of killing ceased to be an option in my spiritual world. To choose life was a call to work with nature, not against it. It was the animals and the natives who saw the tsunami coming, who went to the mountains and were saved.