February 10, 2002
Exodus 24: 12-18
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Matthew 17: 1 -9
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“A PREVIEW OF COMING ATTRACTIONS”

There is a wonderful play entitled “Quilters.”  This play chronicles stories of pioneer families moving west.  Often, life was very harsh-living on the Great Plains, and the hardships were felt deeply by the women who walked and worked with their husbands, as they also tried to care for children and create a living atmosphere.

One story tells of a woman who was homesteading a piece of property with her husband, who was a worker on the railroad.  One day, while he was away working, she heard horses approaching her place of residence.  She went out to meet them and immediately recognized them as railroad co-workers of her husband.  Her eyes fixed on a large basket they were carrying, and she barely heard their voices as they told her of a terrible accident on the railroad.  They didn’t know what else to do, so they brought the body back to her. She thanked them, and they helped her, as they all took the body to the family plot.

As they rode away, she walked as a widow into the house where she had been a wife.  She went directly to the back bedroom, sat down on a rocker, and slowly rocked, without any other movement.

The next day, having heard the tragic news, a relative came to sit with her and found the woman still rocking in the back bedroom.  Silently, she lifted the woman’s hands and placed a few quilting squares on her lap, a threaded needle in her hand, and in the silence of this great pain, her hands remembered what her mind could not.

Today, in the life of our Church, we close out the season of epiphany with an epiphany called Transfiguration Sunday.  In the impending shadow of the cross, we recall that three of the disciples were given a glimpse of God’s glory.

Preaching on this topic challenges the preacher.  How does one take the image presented by all three of the gospel writers and put it into meaning for the person sitting in the pew?  Listen to what one suggestion was, from a magazine on preaching, on how to present this topic.

 “The preacher of the morning should rent a dry- ice machine; obtain slides of Moses, Elijah and Jesus; get a projector and a large white sheet and suspend it behind the communion table; rent a portable sound system; and secure a person to dim the chancel lights; operate the fog machine; the projector and the sound system.

“As the text is read, at the appropriate moment, turn off the slides of Elijah and Moses, so that Jesus is left standing alone.  Turn on the fog machine –– (I’m not making this up!) –– in sufficient time for the fog to thicken behind the communion table.  Then, the voice of the lay reader booms out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is my son, my chosen; listen to him.’  Then finally, turn off the fog machine!”

… And the instruction adds, “This is important.”

Well, I was not aware that photographers who could make slides were present when Elijah and Moses were around, let alone Jesus … and I didn’t have the nerve to ask Bill Edens to run the machine or Jim La Belle to boom out the statement, so you’re left with the spoken word.

This story occurs at a time when the disciples are greatly distressed.  Jesus has made the decision to leave the Galilee and travel south to Jerusalem.  The disciples are upset because they cannot figure out why Jesus would leave the Galilee, where crowds were increasing, and when the ministry was going extremely well.  They knew that he spiritual interpretation which Jesus was giving to Judaism would clash with the legalism of the religious authorities in Jerusalem and that there would probably be trouble.

Early in their trek, they come to the town of Caesera Phillipi.  It is the town where the Jordan River comes out of the ground from the drainage of Mt. Hebron.  It is now named Nablus, an Arab name.  Here, one can still see a likeness of the Greek Goddess, Pam, carved into the rock’s hillside.  This is the location where, tradition says, Jesus stood with his disciples and asked the question posed in the previous Chapter 16 of Matthew, “Who do men say that the Son of Man is?”

They said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah and other Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”  He said to them, “Who do you say that I am?”  Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the son of the living God,” and Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.  And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my Church, and the powers of death shall prevail against it.”

Now our scripture of today begins: “After six days, Jesus took with him Peter, James, and John, his brother, and led them up a high mountain, and he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his garments became white as light.  And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah talking with him.”

What does it all mean?  Moses and Elijah, two of the powering leaders of the Hebrew faith: one the giver of the law and the author of the Torah, the other the greatest of the Hebrew prophets and the one who was to usher in the messiah and the messianic age –– talking with Jesus.  What a vision!

Here is a validation, in the writer’s eye, of the progressive nature of religion and the fact that Jesus comes in the line of true religious greatness.  He follows in the leadership position of Moses and Elijah.  Then, just so that we don’t miss the point, clouds come and cover the mountain, and out of the clouds comes a voice saying, “This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”  These are the same words that came at the time of Jesus’ baptism and again after he had successfully countered all of the temptations that came upon him during his 40 days stay in the wilderness, prior to the start of his ministry in the Galilee –– and, as we heard in the scripture, God spoke to Moses out of a cloud.  This is all rehearsed in this passage.

This caused the disciples who were present, to fall on their knees in awe.  This was something they have never experienced before. This is a powerful image –– so powerful that Matthew, Mark and Luke all write it in their gospels.  They are saying, “Don’t miss the point!”  Here is a view of Jesus never before seen or realized by these disciples.  This Jesus is identified with Moses and Elijah and receives the personal commendation of God.  Surely, that is evidence enough that he is worthy of being their Lord.

The sad thing, as we shall see in the weeks ahead, is that the disciples never “got it.”  They bought into the Hebrew idea of Messiah, identified Jesus with that concept, and were thus doomed to disappointment –– a fact that is not cleared up with understanding, until the day of Pentecost.

Transfiguration, in my dictionary, is a change of form or appearance, or a spiritual change.  Transfiguration may be physical or spiritual. In the play, “Les Miserables,” near the end of the play, a light severs the darkness and settles on the face of Jean Valjean, the one who was thrown into prison for stealing a loaf of bread during the depression times prior to the French Revolution.  Instantly, we see the cruelty of Inspector Javert, who pursued and jailed Jean Valjean.  We remember the kindly Bishop who expressed trust in Jean Valjean and gave him the faith to go on and be exonerated.  Even Colette, his daughter, now knows the truth about her father, and then, Jean Valjean, redeemed and extolled, dies happily.

Or “Beauty and the Beast.” The Prince, unwilling to aid a disguised Princess, turns into a beast.  It is through the love of a young maiden, who sees beyond and behind the façade, who is able to transform –– or transfigure –– the beast into a lovable lover.

But transfiguration can also happen quietly and when you least expect it.  I remember, as if it was yesterday, sitting in the front room of my friend Dick in Orange, California.  Dick was a sound expert, who had worked on the sound system of the satellite that is still in space, probing the outer limits of the universe and sending back signals . . . or at least was.  Dick was a good musician and a collector of great music.  He had been the bass soloist at the Church I served in Pomona, California.

We were sitting there, having a cocktail, talking to each other, and listening to music on his superb sound system.  Dick wanted to play a piece he had received, by the French composer, Olivier Messaien.  To that point, every time I had heard Messaien, it had sounded like a mess, with discordant noise.  I never liked it.  This piece is called “The Coming of the Spirit.”  It was about the coming of the spirit at Pentecost, and Dick explained that the superb organist, Michael Murray, was playing this on the new Raffati organ that had been installed in the San Francisco Opera House.

As I listened, all-of-a-sudden, I broke into tears, and I could not stop crying.  I had never experienced emotions of that intensity through music, before or since.  It was like a transfiguration, and the spirit came.  In Toronto, I always had Michael Bloss, the organist there, play that piece each Pentecost morning.  In its weird and wonderful way, it always deeply moves me with its power.

In the scripture story, Peter’s first inclination is blurted out.  Mark has Peter saying, “Lord, this is great.  Let’s stay right here.  We’ve never felt this religious before.  We can make three booths: one for you, one for Elijah, and one for Moses.  In his wisdom, Jesus knows this is not how life is.  To stay with the great and glorious times when our faith is renewed, and we are convinced of the greatness of God, is not possible, nor even wise.  We must, as Jesus did, leave the mountain and go to the valley.

Only when we go into the valleys –– of despair and problems, of want and need –– are we able to translate and live the true greatness of God that we have experienced in those transfiguring moments.  There is no way that the true Christian can live his or her faith isolated from the trials and temptations of life.  That is the attempt of the monastic houses and the cloistered nuns.  Jesus never lived or advocated such a life approach.

In the scripture, Jesus interjects a somber note we have heard before.  In verse nine, he says, “Tell no one the vision, until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.”  That must have been perplexing to Peter, James and John.  Right on the heels of this exhilarating and moving experience, the note of death is delivered.  Jesus is so committed to the proclamation of the Kingdom of God that he is telling them that he will be put to death for what he believes and teaches.  They do not hear what is saying, perhaps because they choose not to.  How, at such a high moment, can one talk about death?  Their reaction is that “this can’t take place; this is the Messiah.”

They continue their walk down the mountain; their minds are racing.  We heard him say, “Your sins are forgiven.”  Did that ever infuriate the Pharisees!  “How can he say that?  How can he do that?”

We heard him say, “Judge not, lest you be judged by the same standard you judge others.”  We heard that.  We heard him say, “Don’t hate in your heart, because if you do not hate in your heart, you will not harm another.”

We heard him say, “Do not think lust in your heart, because if you do not think lust, you will not fornicate or commit adultery.  If you do not lust in your heart you will be true to your spouse.”

We heard him say, “You shall have no other Gods than God,” and he said that we were to love God with all our heart and with all our soul and with our entire mind, and that we were to love our neighbor as ourselves.  Can we do that?

Imagine what was going through their minds.  Never had they thought so deeply.  They had been transformed, themselves, and now, these questions were taking on added meaning for them as they left this high and holy place to go back to their merry group of 12.

We heard him say, “Love one another as I have loved you.”  Wow!  That means Judas, and Thaddeus and Thomas.  This is tough!

There, on the mount of transfiguration, in this moment of great power and witness, Jesus commits himself to a path that will lead to his death.  That, when it is truly grasped, is the power that drives the Kingdom of God.

There, on the mountain all the powerful voices and symbols were gathered: Moses, Elijah, the Disciples, and Jesus.  And God said, “This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased.  Listen to him.”

So, my dear people: listen to Him, love Him, serve Him –– because He loves you.  Enough to die.