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Hillside Street, Bennington, Vermont (802) 442-2559
"resolutely inclusive, spiritually alive, and empowered for ministry in the world." |
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“Changed from Glory into Glory” -- February 14, 2010 2 Cor. 3:17-4:2, Luke 9:28-36
Posted: February 16th, 2010 @ 5:25pm
"Glory” is in the air these days, as athletes from around the world have converged on Vancouver, seeking “glory.” Last Sunday’s Super Bowl was just such a quest, and how appropriate that “the Saints” achieved it! Friday night’s opening ceremonies from Vancouver were full of pageantry and eye-popping special effects, with light literally creating mountains and prairies, whales in the sea and birds in the air. It was like the first chapter of Genesis–God said Let there be light, and there was light, and from that all the rest of creation is formed. Glory!
For all the spectacle and wonder of the Olympics and the Super Bowl, what Peter and James and John experienced on the mountaintop with Jesus was even more mind-blowing, more life-changing; it seemed to rearrange the molecules inside them. In all three gospels where this story is told, it follows immediately upon Jesus’ telling his disciples, who have just identified him as messiah, what lies ahead for him–he will be arrested and rejected, he will suffer and be crucified, and three days later he will be raised-- and his invitation to all who would follow him is to take up their own crosses and follow him. Some Messiah this is!
And then this story of the Transfiguration, literally the changing of Jesus’ face into blinding light. Clearly the early Christian community of the gospel writers, looking back on the events of Jesus’ life and trying to make sense of what was going on in their own lives, saw this all as a predictable progression of events–the 20-20 vision of hindsight. Jesus knew that he was going to be killed, even though we thought it was a horrible mistake, even a horrible failure. He told us we’d have to suffer too if we wanted to follow him, which is why we’re suffering now. But listen to this story–all along he was God’s beloved Son, shot through with light, in the same line as Moses and Elijah, and we’re connected to Him. Talk about glory!
“Since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry,” Paul wrote, “we do not lose heart...And all of us, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.” “The true light that enlightens everyone was coming into the world,” John writes in the opening hymn of his gospel. John doesn’t tell this story of the transfiguration; he just talks about light and glory and our blindness to that glory all throughout his gospel.
Peter babbles on in this story for all of us–“Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”–and Luke apologizes for him, explaining, “for he didn’t know what he was saying.” One commentator writes, “All that is missing is the cosmic hand, reaching down to give Peter a good ‘you-are-missing-the-point’ slap upside the head.” (Lori Brandt Hale, cited by Kate Huey in Weekly Seeds, 2/14/10) We all want those moments of bliss or brilliance to last forever and, in fact, maybe we think that’s the point of life after all–to bask in the glory.
But another observer writes, “Don’t you just love the precious parental presence that does not smite nor embarrass Peter? God simply envelops the entire community in a blanket of glorious unknowing which renders all our best building plans facile [or silly].” (Peter Woods, “I am listening” blog, 2/14/10) “This is my son, my Beloved,” the voice from the cloud says. “Listen to him.” Just be quiet. Be still and know that I am God, as the psalmist says.
Jesus’ appearance was changed up there on the mountaintop–or at least the way the disciples saw Jesus changed up there on the mountaintop. “We see because light breaks open when it shines on objects,” one writer explains.
“Light reflects and refracts and absorbs in ways that allow us to discern shapes and movement. God created light first because without light the rest of creation would have no definition or vibrancy. We humans see only a tiny fraction of all the light that God made, yet we persist in the presumptuous notion that only what we see exists–that only a 300-nanometer piece of the spectrum is real.
Jesus negates this presumption when he ascends the mountain with Peter, James and John. In the moment of the transfiguration, Jesus doesn’t change his form or shape or hue, but he does change the disciples’ perception of his appearance. Jesus gives the disciples the gift of seeing him as God sees him–a glorious being of dazzling white light. Instead of reflecting the blues and reds and yellows of the visible spectrum, Jesus reflects God and shows himself to be luminous.”
(Adam Thomas, in The Christian Century, Feb. 9, 2010, p. 18)
“The heart of all life is the light of God,” the ancient teacher Eringena said, “and it is to the light that we are called to be reconnected, both within ourselves and in all things.” (Cited by Huey, op cit.) “Abwun,” Jesus taught his disciples to begin their prayer, “Our Father,” or as it also means in Jesus’ native language of Aramaic, “Source of the Radiance...” The disciples saw Jesus as filled with that radiance on the mountaintop, as Moses and Elijah were too. “Listen to him,” the Voice said. “Pray like this,” Jesus had told them. “Our Father....” “Source of the Radiance in all of us...” Reconnect to this light, the ancient teacher says. “All of us are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another,” Paul wrote.
When they had had time to let it all soak in, when all their natterings and mumblings had ceased, the cloud disappeared and there they were alone with Jesus. At last they were silent. And Jesus led them back down into the valley, where another father cried out for his only child, his beloved, to be healed and released from his demons. And the Light that had transfigured Jesus’ face flowed into the body of the boy possessed, and freed him. “Don’t you get it,” Jesus said to his disciples and to the crowd. “You should be able to do this. How long do you think I’m going to be with you?”
While we may crave experiences of glory, of God’s glory, this story reminds us that those experiences not only connect us to the Light but also to the sufferings of the world. We become more vulnerable to the pain of others, of the whole world. “If you would follow me, you must take up your cross and follow,” Jesus said. We also become more attuned to the Light that is in others, our perception of others is changed. “When you do this – feed, or clothe, or house, or heal – one of the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you do it to me,” Jesus said. You see more of the spectrum of Light.
We too are made to shine. “Over the years, however,” Adam Thomas writes, “our luminosity tends to fade. Every inhospitable word spoken, every neighbor mistreated and every resource hoarded layers grime over our radiance.” We may try to add shine on from the outside–with this gloss or this shiny car or this glittering bauble, but those just add to the layers. God made us to shine, and, praise God, God has not forgotten who we really are. “With God’s help, we can become radiant again.” (Thomas, ibid.) We can practice transfiguration, by going to mountaintops, say, which is just a way of talking about prayer. We can build “altars in the world,” as the title of Barbara Brown Taylor’s latest book suggests. Paul says that we are called to a life of continuous transfiguration, as we seek to embody the spirit of Christ. We can pray for eyes to see ourselves and others as “luminous beings,” though perhaps in need of a good scrubbing. (Thomas).
But again, know that such eyes may see more than we want to see, more, certainly, than is comfortable. At the end of Herman Wouk’s very long saga, written in his 2 books, Winds of War and Remembrance of War, “a long story of indescribable suffering a loss,” he tells of a young mother named Natalie who is at last reunited with her child, Louis, after their terrible ordeal in a concentration camp. When the child who has refused to speak slowly begins to sing along with his mother’s lullaby, the two men watching this mother-and-child reunion ‘each put a hand over his eyes, as though dazzled by an unbearable sudden light.’” (Huey, op cit.) Do you want to see? Jesus always asks the blind who come to him for healing.
Late have I loved you, O Beauty, [St. Augustine writes in his memoir] so ancient and so new, late have I loved you. For behold you were within me, and I outside; and I sought you outside and in my unloveliness fell upon those lovely things which you have made. You were with me, and I was not with you. I was kept from you by those things, yet had they not been in you, they would not have been at all. You called and cried to me to break open my deafness and you sent forth your beams and you shone upon me and chased away my blindness. You breathed fragrance upon me, and I drew in my breath and now do pant for you...(City of God)
In her memoir, Lit, author Mary Karr tells of her descent into the depths of alcoholism and her gradual spiritual rebirth. At one point at the beginning of her rebirth, she cynically wonders what possible power or light could enable the Christians in the Roman colliseums to be able to sing as they are being torn apart by lions. She eventually comes to experience some of that Light and Power, and at last is able to write,
Every now and then we enter the presence of the numinous and deduce for an instant how we’re formed, in what detail the force that infuses every petal might specifically run through us, wishing only to lure us into our full potential. Usually, the closest we get is when we love, or when some beloved beams back, which can galvanize you like steel and make resilient what had heretofore only been soft flesh....It can start you singing as the lion pads over to you, its jaws hinging open, its hot breath on you. Even unto death. (Mary Karr, Lit, pp. 385-6)
As we begin this journey with Jesus toward death this week, may we have the grace to have eyes to see the Light within ourselves and the Light within others and all of creation, and so may the singing begin. Amen, and amen.
Mary H. Lee-Clark
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