Transfiguration Sunday Sunday, February 22, 2009 St. David's Episcopal Church, DeWitt NY The Rev. James C. Bresnahan, Interim Rector “Listening to Him”
Mark 9:2-9 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, "This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!" Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.
We stand near the portals of Lent. Ash Wednesday beckons. But still we stand within the Epiphany season - at its culmination on this Sunday of the Transfiguration.
We have heard Mark's Story of the Transfiguration read aloud - how on a high mountain, Jesus, standing alongside Elijah and Moses, was bathed in dazzling light before the eyes of astounded disciples.
Now I need to say right off that stories like this in Scripture are hard to understand if you have no appreciation for metaphor, if you insist on taking whatever you read in Scripture literally. For large parts of the Bible are metaphor and meant to be read and interpreted as metaphor.
Fundamentalist believers don't get it. They literalize metaphor and then defend those literalizations as true, all science and reason to the contrary. And then they want science or history to be taught so as to conform with their literal notions.
Then there are non-believers, many of whom are simply dismissive of Scripture and think of Biblical stories as rank superstition. They argue against fundamentalists. But in a way they are like fundamentalists, because they too read Scripture literally.
But while fundamentalists and nonbelievers are disagreeing with each other over historical and scientific truths, others go about listening to Scripture in a softer way, a metaphorical way, a searching way, which I believe, was the intended way.
A word about metaphor: When my wife says to me, “Jim, I'm going to kill you,” I don't call 911; I understand metaphor. I don't take her literally. But that does not mean I don't take her words seriously, and stop what I'm doing and start listening. Metaphorical language is not literal language, but it sure does covey real and serious meaning.
When you say to your spouse, “You're a peach,” that does mean something doesn't it, even though your spouse is a not a fruit with a nut inside.
One of the nice things about metaphor is that it allows for imagination; it creates wonderment, precisely because a metaphor is not intended concretely. We come back to the same metaphors again and again, because what they reveal in our interaction with them is never fixed and never exhausted.
The Gospel of John abounds in metaphor. “I am the bread of life,” Jesus said. “I the light of the world.” “I am the Good Shepherd.” Metaphors like those keep inviting us into deep reflection, to look through them to what is behind them.
Now I have said all this as prelude to today's Gospel reading – which is a story that not only contains metaphors but is wholly metaphor.
Fundamentalist literalists will try to figure out on which mountain the Transfiguration took place and look for it on a map, while non-believing literalists simply will pooh-pooh the story and dismiss it as superstition, but we listen for the metaphors.
The metaphor, first, of ‘mountain.' Jesus and his disciples, we are told, go up on a high mountain. When Scripture wants to write about a new revelation, a break-through experience and new understanding that a community of people has come to, it will locate it on a mountain. Because mountains are places one sees far and wide, see what one could not see on flat ground. Where was Moses said to go to receive the Ten Commandments? Atop Mount Sinai! Where was that Israel's God through Elijah showed himself more powerful than the gods of the Canaanites? On top of Mt. Carmel! Where in Matthew's Gospel did Jesus reveal to his disciples that they should go into all the world to proclaim the Gospel to the nations? Atop a mountain! Read about a mountain in the Bible, you can be sure something transformative is being talked about.
So, when we read that Jesus' disciples went atop a mountain, you can be sure that the author is about to tell you of some revelatory experience that followers of Jesus experienced. But don't look to locate the mountain on a map. You won't find it there.
The revelation unfolds with a flow of metaphors. Jesus clothes turn dazzling white and the glory of God shines on him and from him. The disciples begin to see him in a way they had not before, in an illumined way.
Next, Moses and Elijah appear. The disciples see them. They see dead people. Again, metaphor!
Moses, the lawgiver, is metaphor the first five books of Jewish tradition, the Torah. Elijah, the prophet, represents all the prophetic writings of the Old Testament. Together they are the tradition – the Law and the Prophets.
Next to them stands Jesus who is speaking with them. His words in conversation with their words. The church is thinking how Jesus' words relate to the words of the tradition. They do not glow like Jesus.
Next, a great cloud then descends on them all, veiling them for a moment while a voice from above says, This is My Son. Listen to him! The cloud lifts.
Who is standing there to listen to? Who is there for the disciples, the church, to listen to? Jesus. Moses is gone. Elijah is gone.
The entire scene, then, is a grand metaphor for how the Christian church came to find in Jesus' words and ways a deeper revelation of God than in the Scriptures before his time, how they came not to treasures his words and his life above all else, above the Law and the Prophets.
The entire story is a metaphorical invitation for us to be listening to Jesus' words and to see and hear Jesus as the revelation of God.
But, we're only halfway to where we need to be.
Because a menu is not a meal. Talking about listening is not listening.
Now, we turn to listen to his words. Which is what the disciples did after the story of the Transfiguration is told. They walked back down the mountain, and there below they listened to Jesus. He said, and I paraphrase:
If you want to play it safe in life, save your life, preserve it as it is, not be transformed, you will lose it. But If you letting go of your life as it is, letting go and letting God, you will be saving it.
What good is acquiring more and more, even everything, if you lose your soul in the process? What can you give to get back your lost soul?
You know that throughout the world those in charge lord it over their subjects, and great leaders are tyrants over their people. It's not to be that way among you: whoever wishes to become great among you must everyone's servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be everyone's slave.
Follow me. I came not to be served but to serve.
What do we hear when we listen to Jesus?
We hear that, as church, we are not to be like any business, or organization, or government. We're here to listen to Jesus, to learn from Jesus, that we might live like Jesus.
We are taught that leadership of any kind does not mean privilege but mean service. We learn that having more and more of the same – accumulating - does not enhance life, it destroys our life. We learn not to give in order to get, but to give, because God is giving. We learn to show mercy and compassion, to pray for others and not curse. We learn to forgive, as we have been forgiven. And we learn to fear less and trust more.
And so each Sunday we stand when the Gospel is read. We stand to listen at attention. We stand to learn. We stand for Jesus' words and his death and resurrection to bring light into the darkness of our hearts and minds and to guide our feet in the paths of peace. Amen. |