Transparency
First Congregational Church – Wauwatosa, Wisconsin
Communion Meditation for Transfiguration Sunday – February 3, 2008
Rev. Steven A. Peay, Ph.D.
[Texts: 2 Peter 1: 16-21/Matthew 17:1-9]

And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. [Matthew 17:2]

Transparency is “the quality of being transparent.” Seems straightforward enough, doesn’t it? To be transparent, the dictionary tells us, comes from the Latin for “show through” or to “show one’s self.” It means having the ability to transmit light and also to be free from pretense of deceit. Transparency is a quality that is sorely lacking in our world, I’m afraid.

Look through any series of news stories and you’ll see that in the last week there have been a number of calls for transparency. The leaders of the four major players of the European Economic Union have called for transparency in economics – remarkable what a bank losing seven billion dollars will do. Mr. Brown, the British Prime Minister, has been looking for increased transparency in government. And in Nigeria there are calls for transparency in various dealings with the UN concerning restoration and restitution. Before long we’ll be hearing similar calls from US politicians, for ‘tis the season and hardly the one to go “ho, ho, ho” or to be jolly, the primaries are upon us!

Transparency, see-through, open honesty is something that appeals to all of us and at our deepest level. I like to think that it’s a remnant of the Divine image in which we were made. One thing is for certain, it can make for good business. A parishioner sent me a link to ‘You Tube’ and a snippet on innovation by Guy Kawasaki, formerly of Apple. Kawasaki seems to be advocating transparency as one goes about starting a company. He says that the core, the essence of entrepreneurship is “to make meaning.” Kawasaki notes that companies that seek to make a difference, to make meaning, tend to end up successful and, also making money. Those that don’t, the quick turn-around, etc. ones, tend to fail. He says there are three ways a company can make meaning: increase the quality of life; right a wrong; or prevent the end of something good. Wow, that’s transparency and it sounds a great deal like what Christianity, when it’s lived, is supposed to be doing!

The Transfiguration, and our celebration of it always marks the transition from Epiphany-tide to the observance of Lent – is God’s exercise in transparency. It’s an exercise God does to remind the disciples – and us – that God is really with us and that in Jesus the Christ, God has identified completely with us. We see that identification in Jesus’ willingness to experience and endure everything that we humans go through, every aspect of life including temptation, suffering and death.

When Jesus told this to Peter, that the way of Divine exaltation lay through suffering, he just couldn’t accept it. Jesus rebuked him. This moment of transparency, then, on the mountain of Transfiguration, was God’s way of telling Jesus’ disciples, and us, that the identification, the love and care for creation was/is real, deep and ongoing. Jesus embraced the hard parts of our life, the worst parts, including facing one’s own inevitable end so that we could do so in a new and meaningful way. Life may be difficult, but it is an opportunity now for transformation and for us to be ‘oned’, brought into union, with God.

One of the things I liked about Scott Peck’s book The Road Less Traveled was the opening premise: “Life is difficult.” I remember reading that during my parish internship, now 26 years ago, and I marveled at his honesty. Most self-help people want to tell us the get-it-quick, get-it-painlessly way of living. There are those who would do the same with the Christian faith and with spirituality (they shall remain nameless – at least from the pulpit, for charity’s sake). The way they proffer rarely succeeds; just as Kawasaki points out that the quick turn-around, make-a-buck companies rarely do either. The Scripture we read together today from Matthew and 2 Peter points us along that difficult path, the path of reality and, yes, spiritual struggle.

Peter, having seen the vision on the mountain, now wants to make the experience he’s had permanent. Permanence, however, is never the point to a spiritual experience. This transparent moment is designed to do one thing – keep them on the road to Jerusalem, to the cross and the resurrection. This isn’t self-help; it’s about growth and maturity; to which the Gospel calls all Christ-followers. Spiritual experiences come to us not for the sake of the experience, but so that we are renewed and recommitted to the task at hand – growing in grace, growing in faith, growing in service to God and to others.

In short, my spiritual journey isn’t about me or finding my spiritual fulfillment or my own personal nirvana. Rather, it’s about becoming what God intended us to become when God made us, when we were created in God’s image and likeness –we are meant to be one with God. We won’t be happy until we are. I’ve talked before about Blaise Pascal and his description of a God-shaped void, it’s true. Moreover, we are also meant in that oneness with God to come to oneness with others similarly made. We are to be other-focused and not self-focused; that’s how we’re made.

Much of modern spirituality would seem to point otherwise. Most generic writings on spirituality – like the plethora of “chicken soups” for a variety of souls – focus on finding the self. Jesus teaches us that we only find ourselves when we go about losing ourselves in loving service of God and neighbor. It’s a life that he modeled from beginning to end. This viewpoint runs right at the attitude parodied in this week’s New Yorker, which shows a woman walking along, talking on a cell phone, saying, “She got amazing swag on her spiritual journey.” [February 4, 2008, p. 34]

Peter’s Letter reminds us that we’re to lose the swag, the baggage, if the journey is to be authentic. He says that didn’t depend on “cleverly devised myths,” but on their own eye-witness experience, confirmed by others. The truth of God’s identification with us calls us to be attentive “as to a lamp shining in a dark place.” Even our individual interpretation of scripture has to be called into question, since the ultimate goal is to draw us into the oneness of the Body of Christ. As author Edith Humphrey writes in her book Ecstasy and Intimacy “Whatever our experience, it is only significant if it points to the common knowledge that the body of Christ has been given, the open heart that together we share, because we are in Christ.” [quoted in Synthesis vol. 21, no. 2]

Transparency, then, is to show forth to the world that we are “in Christ.” Our attitudes and actions in this difficult life are then to reflect those of Christ, who was other and not self-focused. Any spiritual experience we have is, in the end, given to us not for the experience itself, but so that keep on pursuing the good, the “high calling of God in Christ Jesus” that Paul talks about.

We may be fed through worship, but that’s not the point; it’s a side benefit. The point is that the reason we exist is to give God glory – period. The church’s normative act of worship – communion or the Lord’s Supper – is properly called Eucharist, thanksgiving, because it is a reminder of what God has done for us and is doing for us, for which we should be thankful. Each time we come to this table with the eyes of our bodies and our hearts open wide, we become a bit more transparent and so, too, does our faith – and we behold God and others, witnessing our lives and our actions, do, too; that’s the point. Transparency . . . the quality of living life toward God and others.