Transfiguration Sunday

Last Sunday in Epiphany

February 18, 2007

NUCC

Exodus 34:29-35

2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2

Luke 9:28-36

            Think back to a time when you were fast asleep.  It was good to be snuggled under those covers because you had gone through a full day.  But then you are awakened by a light coming into your room.  You slowly open your eyes and you groggily recall that you have to get up early to head out on a trip.  For a while you feel like you are half asleep and half awake.  You were having quite a dream, and parts of it are still in your mind.  But what is this?  Is this a dream or is this reality?  What are you seeing?  What is that noise you’re hearing?  Gradually you come to the realization that you really are awake and slowly you put one foot in front of another to begin preparations for the new day.

            I wonder if these were the kinds of thoughts and feelings going through the heads of Peter, James and John as Jesus rousted them from their sleep to trudge up the mountain with him.  They made it to the top of that mountain, only to once again sit in a sort of semi-slumber while Jesus became lost in prayer.  Then it happened.  Jesus’ face looked different, and his clothing became dazzling white.  And there they were:  none other than Moses, the hero of the Exodus from Egypt, and Elijah, the great prophet who himself once was caught on a mountain top.  What was all of this?  Light.  Voices.  A great cloud!  And then this booming voice from the cloud:  “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”  ……And then silence…..

What are we to make of all this?  I would suggest that we do two things.  Look and Listen.  That is what the three disciples did as they emerged from the sleepiness.  They looked at the spectacle before them.  They listened to the pointed words directed at them.

LOOK

            The three disciples were looking at something mysterious and mystical.  One commentator calls this “one of the most elusive and evocative scenes in the Gospel.”  Other commentators are not agreed on exactly what happened.

            What we can certainly say is that we are looking at something which plain eyesight cannot explain.  20-20 vision will not be adequate.  In such a circumstance we have to see with the heart and soul as well as with the eyes.  Sometimes we speak of “being in a cloud.”  It is like driving through a dense fog like I did early one morning on the way to the airport.

            The past two Sundays a small group has gathered with me in the youth room to explore “spirituality.”  Among other things we learned that there is a great line of Christian spiritual and mystical writers.  Among them is an anonymous 14^th century English monk, who wrote The Cloud of Unknowing in which he counseled a young student to seek God not through knowledge but through love.

"Our intense need to understand will always be a powerful stumbling block to our attempts to reach God in simple love [...] and must always be overcome. For if you do not overcome this need to understand, it will undermine your quest. It will replace the darkness which you have pierced to reach God with clear images of something which, however good, however beautiful, however Godlike, is not God."

            This monk would advise us to accept the cloud in which we are sometimes blinded and to look with the eyes of faith and love upon God ----- not trying to explain everything, but simply to live everything.

            Perhaps when people of faith look with such eyes they too will be changed.  In our Old Testament lesson we learn that Moses had a very different look about him when he came down from Mt. Sinai.  He was a changed man.  He had been in the presence of God, which made him a different man.  Perhaps this could be true for you and for me.  If we were to live in God’s presence, it would also make a difference that others notice.

            I think of the time I was at Taizé, an ecumenical community in France which attracts young people from throughout the world, who live in simplicity and quiet contemplation for a week.  This place was founded by a man named Roger Schutz, a man with a certain peace and tranquility about him which was visible.  One picture shows him walking through a garbage dump with poor children of the Philippines.  Somehow one could see God’s presence in Brother Roger’s face, and this presence made a positive difference for countless pilgrims and paupers.

LISTEN

            “Listen to him!”  Listen to Jesus.  This is what the voice commanded the three disciples to do.  How do we listen to Jesus?  How do we listen for God’s good word?

            First of all we have to be silent.  Think once again of our friend chatty Peter.  In the Gospel accounts it is often Peter who is speaking.  Sometimes he speaks wisely, but often he speaks foolishly or too much.  In our lesson today Peter is the one who speaks.  Perhaps Peter would have been better off simply shutting his mouth and listening.

            I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating.  Too often in our encounters with God we speak too much.  We are chatting away at God, speaking to God and asking God for this or that.  Our minds are full.  A better way might be the way of the mystics like the 14^th century English monk I mentioned earlier.  Their way was to become silent, empty their minds, and allow God to fill them in whatever way God saw fit ----- be it with a vision or with emptiness.

            The challenge for Peter and for us is to empty ourselves of all thoughts and concerns, of all prejudices and pre-conceptions ---- and to sit silently in God’s presence. Then the challenge for Peter and for us is to trust that “God is still speaking” and move beyond our time of mystery and quiet to allow God to take us to places we never knew.

            Like some modern day people who have had a “spiritual experience,” Peter wanted to “freeze the moment and commemorate the place” where this wonderful event of the Transfiguration had occurred.  But God had other plans for Peter.  He was to march on with Jesus, down the mountain and into the valley, and then up to another mountain where a cross stood.  Fittingly the mountain of transfiguration is still undetermined, but the mountain of crucifixion is well known as Golgotha.  If we listen to Jesus we will keep moving and growing even to the end of our days.

            Even though this spiritual journey up the mountain and back down is often shrouded in fog and blinded by light, there are some very simple and practical ways of looking and listening and sensing God’s presence.  Among them are reading and singing.

            A number of years ago a little girl named Jessica McClure was trapped in a well.  Her rescuers feared for her life, but they gained hope when they heard the two-year old singing Sunday school songs.  Little Jessica must have been listening in church, even if she was only 18 months old.  She listened to the songs and then sang them herself even if she didn’t completely understand them.

            Sometimes we even listen to the scripture lesson and then find use for it in our lives.  At the time of President Gerald R. Ford’s funeral in recent months we heard how important a certain Bible verse was to him.  He recalled this when he spoke at his own son’s seminary graduation in 1977 and told about his sudden and unexpected elevation to the presidency when Richard Nixon resigned.  Gerald Ford said this: 

 “In the few hours before the presidency was suddenly thrust upon me, one of my aides asked what verse I wanted the Bible opened to when I took the oath of office. I turned to the Bible which Mike had given me when I became vice-president, and opened it to the Book of Proverbs. Ever since I was a little boy I have used a very special verse from Proverbs as a kind of personal prayer. On that August morning nearly three years ago that verse took on a new significance in my life. It says: "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding: in all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." That was the verse I placed my hand on when I took the oath of office as president. It was the same verse I would turn to more than two years later on a Wednesday morning in November, the day after the election.”

Gerald Ford had learned to listen.  He listened to scripture and he tried as best he could to listen to the “still speaking God.”  Gerald Ford has been described as a plain Midwesterner.  He was not known for his ecstatic visions or mystical experiences, but he could look and listen.

            On this last Sunday of Epiphany as we now get ready for Lent we might also look and listen.  Looking at the wonder and majesty of God.  Listening to God rather than speaking to God.  And perhaps in the process following in the path of the Savior.

Amen.