conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

sermon, transfiguration sunday

Well, no title this week. Alas.

Sermon: Transfiguration Sunday
Community Church of Wilmette
February 18, 2007
Luke 9:28-36

Have you ever had one of those experiences where time seems to stand still? Do you know what I mean? Maybe for you it was when you were lying under the stars one summer night. You were completely relaxed. And then you felt it, the turn of the planets, the will behind creation and your small, small place within it.

Maybe you are one of those people who heard a voice. Maybe you were sitting in a pew one Sunday morning and you distinctly heard God tell you something like “Follow me.”

Maybe you saw a light…a bright, all-consuming glow. It had no point of origin, but seemed to emanate from everywhere all at once.

Perhaps you were singing…and the music and the words transformed your heart and you finally understood what it means to be in the arms of Jesus.

Perhaps you have not had one of these experiences. That’s okay, too. You see, not all the disciples were on the mountaintop with Jesus that day. Those of us who have never been to the mountain have the story. And that in itself is a great gift. There is more than one way to experience the presence of God.

This morning’s passage from Luke is known as The Transfiguration. You will find versions of this same story in the gospels of Matthew and Mark. It’s a strange story. A few of the disciples follow Jesus up the mountain to pray. What they experience leaves them awestruck. The encounter they have with the divine is more than they can measure and manage. They have gone to the mountain and encountered Christ in his fullness. And when they return they are silent.

Well, they cannot have been silent about it forever. We have the story, don’t we? Somewhere along the line someone spilled the beans and said, “You know, one day I was up on the mountain with Jesus and a couple of the guys and this amazing thing happened.” But for now, we have to trust that Peter, James and John keep this thing under their hats for a while.

There’s so much to say about this story. It’s a lot like those experiences some of us have had…seeming to defy definition. Even it’s place in the larger story of Jesus’ ministry is curious. Why is this story in the middle of the Gospel? This is only the ninth chapter of Luke. There’s plenty more that has to happen and yet here we are on the mountaintop with Jesus.

And he’s glowing. Glowing! There are clouds and a voice and Moses and Elijah are there. This is the climax to any good story, don’t you think? But this is not the end. It’s the middle.

It’s in the middle.
And there it is…

Many interpreters like to remind us that the writer of Luke was crafty. He wasn’t sneaky, but he was very particular about how he wrote about Jesus and the church. So when something like this pops up, it’s a good idea for us to pay attention.

Immediately before this story in Luke Jesus had been trying to tell his disciples about the eventual end of his ministry, how he would have to go to Jerusalem and be turned over to the authorities.

He sternly ordered and commanded them not to tell anyone, saying, ‘The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.’

And the disciples were confused. In other Gospel accounts the disciples even try to dissuade Jesus from this mission. There they are enjoying the miracles and the teaching and their friendship with Jesus and he says something like “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” There’s no context for this. There is no precedent. No one really understands what he means. And by the end of the story, there in Jerusalem, Judas will turn him over to the authorities, Peter will deny him three times and many of the others will run off to the hills in fear.

The disciples needed the Transfiguration. The Transfiguration is in the middle of the story, serving as a touchstone, because it foreshadows Easter. It proclaims the resurrection. But it is only a glimpse. After this mountaintop experience, Jesus, Peter, James and John will go back to work healing and preaching.

How many of us have ever been to a concert where the music and its performance were so sublime that we were transported somewhere else? Has this ever happened to you? Abraham Maslow, the famed psychologist, calls this a peak experience. There are many kinds of peak experiences. Some are more dramatic than others. One of the common reactions to a peak experience is to try to make it happen again…to try to re-enter that space…to go back in to the concert hall. The disciples are no different.

Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah" -- not knowing what he said.

The other gospel accounts have Jesus correcting Peter for even suggesting such a thing. But in Luke’s account Jesus simply keeps on walking and let’s God speak. And the clouds descend and a voice is heard. “This is my son.”

And they say nothing. The curious thing about a peak experience is that they cannot be described. We cannot discuss them, we can only talk around them, about them. But they cannot be described. They are about encounter…about meeting something other than ourselves in some unfathomable way. Beauty. Divinity. Perfection. Nature. We use words like “wow,” “amazing,” or “unbelievable.” The experience the disciples have leaves them utterly speechless. This was an experience beyond beauty…

The most powerful peak experiences are relatively rare. For Maslow, the highest peaks include "feelings of limitless horizons opening up to the vision, the feeling of being. Simultaneously more powerful and also more helpless than one ever was before, the feeling of great ecstasy and wonder and awe, the loss of placing in time and space" (1970, p. 164). They have been portrayed by poets as moments of ecstasy; by the religious, as deep mystical experiences. This is the nature of our story this morning.

So, it’s in the middle. Why? Well, one possible reason, and it’s the one I want us to consider this morning, is that Luke is providing a hint to the reader about what is to come in the end. The Transfiguration is the foreshadowing of Easter… “and on the third day be raised.” This experience of the disciples is a glimpse of the Kingdom, a bit of hope.

Sometimes I wonder if the disciples just tucked the experience of that day away somewhere in their minds…like we may sometimes do with our own experiences. We put it in the “strange and inexplicable” file in our minds. But when Jesus came to them after his crucifixion, Peter, James and John remembered that day on the mountain. And then they told their friends.

The liturgy of the church year holds on to that possible answer. Next Sunday is the First Sunday of Lent. This Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, Lent begins. And like the disciples, there is work still to be done before we get to Easter. We have to leave the mountaintop of the Transfiguration. We must go down to the valley. There will be more healing and preaching and works of wonder. There will also be suffering and struggle and Jesus will be handed over. But on the third day…

…on Easter...
…On Easter we will encounter God again. Our visions of the divine, of beauty, or perfection, will be given context. They will finally have their purpose revealed.

The Transfiguration is God’s gift to us, the disciples. It is the promise of the resurrection. All things in Christ point to the resurrection, which is the fulfillment of God’s will for humanity. All Christian life is this encounter, the mountaintop. Whether it is work and prayer, Christian life is about this encounter.

Abraham Maslow said, "We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves.” My hope for us this approaching season of Lent is that, as we walk the valley, we will remember the mountain.

May God grant you courage…and give you light.

Amen.

A wee bibliography:
Maslow, A. (1970). Motivation and personality (rev. ed.). New York: Harper & Row.

Posted by tripp at February 18, 2007 06:58 AM