February 26, 2017 Transfiguration of Jesus

Sermons by Hamilton

Scripture: MATTHEW 17:1-9
Just over a hundred years ago, Franz Kafka wrote a short novel whose German title means “Metamorphosis.” It’s the story of Gregor Samsa, who wakes up one morning to discover that overnight he has become a gigantic, monstrous bug. I picture an enormous cockroach. I remember reading the story in high school and being both entranced and repulsed by it. Along with others of Kafka’s works, it seemed to be a commentary on how easily life can metamorphose and come to seem out of control. Figuratively speaking, we wake up one morning to cancer or a pink slip or divorce papers, and nothing is as it was before.
When Jesus takes three of his disciples to a mountaintop for some time apart, he experiences a metamorphosis of his own, an alteration very different from Kafka’s. We typically use the word “transfiguration” to title this story, but the Greek word is “metamorphosis,” and I suspect it may be more useful for us to use that word today, because, for many of us, the word transfiguration is dulled by its familiarity.
A metamorphosis is a transformation. It’s a noticeable change in a person’s character or appearance. Picture a caterpillar turning into a pupa turning into a butterfly. Our story this morning says Jesus’ “appearance changed from the inside out, right before [the disciples’] eyes. Sunlight poured from his face. His clothes were filled with light” (Matthew 17:2, The Message). A radical change. Metamorphosis.
And while it’s Jesus to whom this change ostensibly happens, the story isn’t really about his changes at all. It’s fair to say, I think, that, at the deepest level, Jesus doesn’t really change on the mountaintop. He’s just revealed for who he already is. This isn’t about some odd sorcery, in other words, some magical event that temporarily changes Jesus. Instead, it’s much more about a change that happens in the disciples who accompany him.
As Matthew’s story has unfolded, Jesus has been pushing the disciples pretty hard, challenging them and making their lives much more difficult than they were before. He’s been telling them that following him isn’t going to be all peaches and cream. Just before today’s scene, in fact, he has reminded them that soon he will suffer and die, and that, if they’re going to be his followers, they will suffer for it and die, as well. “If any want to become my followers,” Jesus tells them, “let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (16:24). Not at all what they had in mind. Ease and prosperity are apparently not on the agenda for Jesus’ followers.
You can imagine how discouraged the disciples must have been to hear this. ‘Messiah, victorious ruler, savior: that’s who we thought we were following. And now you tell us it’s going to be a pretty grim journey? Thanks a lot.’ Wouldn’t you want to get off that train? I’m quite sure I would. It seems too hard, too unpleasant.
So before the disciples can sink totally into the doldrums, Jesus evidently senses that they could use a boost. Off he leads three of them up the mountain. ‘What’s the point of this?’ I can hear them grumbling. ‘One more hard thing to do.’ But then I remember: when Mary and I visit Vermont, we love to climb a relatively short mountain called Stowe Pinnacle. Up and up through winding, tree-lined paths we go, with little but the immediately surrounding forest visible. When we finally reach the summit, though, suddenly what opens up before us is a stunningly magnificent view. You can see the Green Mountains stretching all around you, and you feel as though you’re on top of the world. It is absolutely spectacular.
If you’re struggling through a rough patch, a pinnacle like that is a pretty fantastic place to be. It gives you a fresh and beautiful look at the world. That re-framed view, infinitely deepened by their sudden recognition of who Jesus really is, are precisely what the put-upon, bedraggled disciples need at this point in their wearying journey. They’re tired, they’re discouraged, they’re probably wondering what they’ve gotten themselves into. And what this mountaintop encounter gives them is a new and hopeful glimpse of who they are and what they’re meant for.
I suspect more than a few of us gathered here this morning are weary in our own way. You may have been struggling with a persistent work issue that seems never to be resolved. You may have an apparently intractable family problem: a child who never seems settled or well, a spouse who seems increasingly distant, a parent fading away. You may wonder if you’ll ever feel really happy again, or if you’ll find your way out of a persistent lethargy, or if you’ll ever feel as though you’re really good at something. Many of us put on a brave face, while just under the surface lurks pain or sorrow or a profound sense of unworthiness.
And it’s then, just then, that Jesus comes to soothe and comfort and offer the deepest peace.
This story is full of idiosyncratic details that convey its richness. I find it odd, for example, that, once Moses and Elijah show up to join Jesus on the mountaintop, Peter says to Jesus, “it is good for us to be here” (17:4), as though he’s going to be of some help to Jesus. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for Peter to say, “it is good for you to be here”—good, in other words, that Jesus anchors their lives? But no, Peter evidently thinks he will be the useful one to Jesus, able to build the Messiah some tents to capture the moment forever. Now it’s unquestionably true that we all play a vital role in building the dominion of God. But it doesn’t begin with us. We’re not the ones to make Jesus’ life easier. That, though, is not uncommonly the self-centered spin we put on things: it’s all about us and what we do, rather than, in the first place, being about the grace and love that stem from Jesus.
Equally odd and striking is the fear that arises in Peter, James and John. Now it’s not at all that I belittle fear, or criticize it. I don’t, and I know you don’t either. I’m afraid of all sorts of things: environmental catastrophe, war, failure in my work, the decline of the global church, the death of my children and spouse and mother. I have lots of fears. I have to say, though, that my fears are generally about things that are destructive and crushing.
So it’s really odd, to me, that Peter, James, and John fall down in utter terror, not at the imminent death of Jesus, or at the prospect of their own deaths, or at the struggle that lies ahead of them, but at the soothing voice of God. They don’t fall down at something horrendous. They fall down in dread at the most wonderful thing that could possibly happen to them. God comes to them, speaks to them, brings them a message of comfort and hope and affirmation. And what do they do? They go down in a fright. Huh?
I suspect their lives have become so hard, so much of a struggle, so much of a repetitive and dulling routine, that when something bright and holy actually comes along, they haven’t the foggiest idea what to make of it. They’ve been in the dark for so long that a candle seems blindingly bright. They’ve been in the mud for so long that a shower seems irritatingly clean. They’ve come to accept the dull routine as all there is. So they’re frightened because they’ve forgotten the truth about life, the truth that lies underneath the rubble and mess.
In my last church, when one of its revered long-time members died, her daughter said about her that she “shimmered like a glittering gem.” When Jesus metamorphoses on the mountaintop, I think that’s what’s being conveyed to us: that life is a shimmering, glittering gem; that our time on earth is a fleeting but radiant comet; that no matter what’s going on for us now, sublime beauty and grace can transform each moment. As Julian of Norwich centuries ago so tellingly put it, “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
It’s Jesus’ changed face and appearance that signals this to weary disciples. And yet still they are afraid. So the last telling detail of the story is the simplest. Right in the midst of their disabling fear, what is it that makes the difference and begins to set things right? It’s that Jesus comes to them and touches them (17:7). His decisive and calming gesture is to approach them and lay his hand upon them. Strangely, Matthew’s is the only one of the Bible’s three mountaintop stories of metamorphosis that even mentions this (cf. Mark 9:2-8, Luke 9:28-36).
On Tuesday night, Mary and I watched the latest episode of the NBC-TV drama “This Is Us.” In it, Randall, the only adopted child in a family of three children, suffers from acute anxiety. Though it’s not made entirely clear in the episode, we’re left to suppose that Randall suffers from a sense of his own inadequacy and unworthiness. And at one point, we see how his remarkable adoptive father responds to this anxiety of his. When Randall gets wound way too tight, his father comes to him, gently places his hands on the sides of the boy’s face, and says tenderly to him, “Breathe with me, Randall.” And while his face is being held, Randall and his father breathe until peace descends. Jesus comes to them and touches them.
Later in that same episode, we see Randall now as an adult. He has found his birth father, William, and reconnected with him. But William is now dying. And as William lies on his death bed, Randall comes to him, and takes his father’s face in his hands, and says, “Breathe with me, Dad.” Jesus comes to them and touches them.
The Trappist monk James Finley reminds us that this sort of openness to the always-coming Jesus is something we can make a part of our daily prayer life. He invites us to meditate in this way: just focus on your breath. Notice it going in and out. Then with each breath, “pair breath-awareness with the phrase, ‘I love you.’
“As you inhale, listen to the incoming breath so intently that you can hear in it God’s silent ‘I love you.’ In this moment, God is flowing into you as the source and reality of your very being. As you exhale, breathe out a silent ‘I love you’ back to God. As you inhale, be aware of the air as being God flowing into you, as the divine gift of your very being. As you exhale, allow your silent ‘I love you’ to be your very being flowing back into the depths of God.
“Simply sit, open to God breathing divine love into the depths of your being, as you breathe your whole being, as a gift of love, back into God” (in Richard Rohr’s “Center for Action and Contemplation” daily email, Feb. 25, 2017).
Because this part of the story is so important, this account of Jesus coming and touching those whom he loves, I’m going to invite you now to go with me on a journey, a guided meditative encounter with the Jesus who comes to you and reminds you that you’re beloved. Close your eyes, if you wish. Take a moment to settle yourself . . . Then picture whatever it is that’s in the way for you now. What is it that scares you, that impedes you, that keeps you from wholeness? Dwell with that for a time. Don’t be afraid of it . . .
Now picture Jesus coming to you. No matter how scared or frustrated or overwhelmed you might feel, here he comes . . . And he’s smiling at you . . . And when he comes to you, in the gentlest way, he puts his hand on your arm, or on your face, or around your shoulders . . . And no matter how grim things may have seemed, Jesus is there for you. You can talk to Jesus. You can pour out your heart . . . And no matter what you say or do, the deepest love imaginable embraces and holds you. “I love you,” he says . . . You are at peace. There is nothing you can do to undo that peace. There is nothing you can do to thwart it. Pure love and light are there for you . . .
Now come back to this moment. And as you bask in the richness of the affection given to you, be strengthened to share that awesome love with everyone you meet this day and in the days to come. God’s love is yours. And through you, it is everyone’s. Thanks be to God!