“Ongoing
Transfiguration”
Matthew
17:1-9
Allen Huff
Jonesborough
Presbyterian Church
2/26/17
The Lord is my
shepherd. (Ps. 23)
The Lord
is my refuge and strength. (Ps.
46)
You make the clouds
your chariot…you make the winds your messengers. (Ps. 104)
The kingdom of heaven
is like a mustard seed…yeast…treasure hidden in a field…a net thrown into the
sea. (Mt. 13)
If God is the soul of biblical stories, metaphors are their
flesh and bone. Metaphors work differently than facts. Speaking poetically out
of and into human experience, metaphors invite and enlighten. They tease and
transform.
The story of the Transfiguration provides a splendid
example. Jesus takes Peter, James, and John “up a high mountain.” In scripture,
holy moments often happen on mountains. Abraham and Isaac have a disturbing
father/son experience on Mt. Moriah. Moses receives the commandments on Mt. Sinai. Elijah defeats the
prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel. Jesus constantly goes up mountains to pray and
to teach.
In biblical literature, when someone climbs a mountain, that
means watch out! Something wild and
holy is building.
When sharing “mountain top” stories, people of faith are
giving voice and vision to memories of some palpable presence in their lives, moments
when they heard a still, small voice speak out of the uproar. Times when they
felt energized and purposed through something commonplace. The experience
transformed them into some new version of themselves.
Up there with Jesus on that mountain, Peter, James, and John
have just such a moment. They witness a light so revealing that it illuminates
past, present, and future. Moses who was, Jesus who is, and Elijah who, to
these devout Jews, was and is to come, all these prophets of God are distilled
into one vision, one reality.
The effect of this experience seems a little dubious. Instead
of creating confident faith and bold action, hope gets twisted into the
delusion that all has been finally and fully accomplished.
“Let’s stay here!” says Peter, who, six days earlier, had identified
Jesus as the Christ. “I’ll build each of you a comfortable little hut, and we
won’t go back down there. We won’t go back to where people suffer, where
nations kill, where children die, and where everything is mystery and suggestion.
Let’s stay here, where seeing is believing.”
“Hush!” says the cloud. “This is my Son. Listen to him!”
The three disciples fall to the ground quivering in terror.
“Get up,” says a voice. When the disciples raise their eyes,
they see only Jesus.
“It’s
okay,” he says. “But we are not staying here. We’re going back down.
“And listen to me,” he says. “You’ve seen something
remarkable today. I want you to remember it. But that’s it. Just remember it. Don’t
mention it to anyone until…well, until it makes sense. And trust me; you’ll
know when that is.”
Maybe one reason Jesus tells the disciples not to mention
what happens, is that they need time to let this exciting, terrifying
experience become more than some event to report. It has to become a real story,
because transfiguration is something that
has happened to all of them. More to the point, transfiguration has just
begun. Since Jesus creates time for that story to evolve into something more
than a singular event, that is to say, into a metaphor, transfiguration never stops
happening.
With every new teaching, with every new act of humility and
strength, Jesus of Nazareth has been living into and revealing his messianic
identity. He shatters and transfigures the metaphor itself. He reveals an
unanticipated Christ. Because of this, the disciples must wait. Transfiguration
of the metaphor must continue before they share it.
An experience really becomes a transfiguring story when the
person who lived it re-lives it by reflecting on it and sharing it – over and
over. And it becomes transfiguring for hearers when the storyteller gives the listeners
room to experience it for themselves. Once we tell the stories of our
experiences of God, they become witnesses to something beyond us, metaphors available
to everyone. And that’s why we re-live them as ceremony and ritual, and why
they take on lives of their own.
Christmas, Epiphany, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost – all the
key days of the church year revolve around ancient stories. They are times for
re-telling those stories. Re-hearing them with new ears and grateful wonder. We
wrestle with the metaphors – birth, giftedness, surrender, death, resurrection,
re-birth, and spiritual community. We re-enact them with intention and generosity.
And they renew us.
The sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper – these two
sacred celebrations in the life of the church remember and proclaim not one
memory, but the totality of the story. They remember and proclaim the grace at
work within the creation, and God who initiates that grace. God’s grace stories us. It comes to us, perhaps most
compellingly, through our own experiences, as it does to Moses, Elijah, and
Jesus, as it does to Peter, James, and John. Grace is revealed to us through
things we can see, feel, smell, taste, and hear. That’s why physical elements,
water, bread, and wine are the central metaphors in the sacramental dramas. We
are transformed and transfigured not by theology convincingly argued. We are transformed
and transfigured by human life faithfully lived and lovingly shared.
Now, while the story of the Transfiguration breaks brand new
ground, that new ground is being tilled by old stories, by traditions that have
been recorded and handed down, traditions that have been shaping faith and practice
for generations. Our present context is new, uncharted, full of dangers and
possibilities our ancestors never imagined. You and I, we hear those lively old
stories with 21st century ears and issues. And they keep shaping us,
calling us forward, not back.
We are keepers of a flame we did not light. We have received
it from those who came before us. Each person, each generation, each tradition
has its own candle. And each candle is itself a story, with its own physical realities.
Each candle will burn only so long. So, we pass along the flame, not the
candle. In each new context, people, generations, traditions hold their own
candles. But it is the same flame. The candles change, and we give thanks for
each of them, but we trust the flame. We trust its light.
There is empowering Love and challenging purpose in all of
this. When Pharaohs, Jezebels, Caesars, Herods, and other tyrants arise, and
even when they do their damage, seeking, as all of them do, to force and to
control the narrative of Creation, we are not their servants. We are not minions
of power and fear. We are servants of the Living God. We are followers and
bearers of the Light of the World. That’s why we leave the mountain tops and
return to all the messiness of people and relationships, advocacy and dissent, life
and death.
“You…make
fire and flame your ministers,” says the psalmist (Ps. 104).
What
are you seeing and hearing?
What
is your story illuminating?
How
will you share it?
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