Optional Illuminations

The story of Jesus’ transfiguration has a lot to teach us, even if we are discomforted by the mysterious details. (The original title of this sermon was “Optical Illuminations,” but you’ll see why I changed it.)

Optical Illuminations

Exodus 34:29-35; Luke 9:28-36 

I thought a lot about the title of this sermon. Early this week I settled on “Optical Illuminations,” because I wasn’t sure I wanted to go out on a limb with the title that was really in my head – “Optional Illuminations.” But that’s the question that wouldn’t leave me alone these last few days: Do I have to believe this story about mysterious lights, ghostly appearances, and words from heaven?

Do I have to believe this really happened to be a Christian? Or is this particular illumination an optional part of our faith?

I don’t want to keep you in suspense! I do not think you have to believe that this event happened in precisely the way it is reported in the New Testament in order to be a Christian; I do believe that your Christian faith will be deepened if you acknowledge that this story was preserved for us in the gospels because it is important.

If you stop to think about it, God does not appear in person very often in the New Testament. We heard a voice from heaven when Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan; we heard a voice from heaven during the Transfiguration; and we heard a voice speaking to Paul when he was struck blind on the road to Damascus. There are some messengers: angels who spoke to Zechariah and Mary and the shepherds “abiding in the fields and keeping watch over their flocks by night;” and whatever spoke to Joseph and the Magi in their dreams. That’s about it.

And if you stop to think about it, one of the chief reasons that people join religious communities and undertake spiritual practices and study theological ideas is because they want to be in touch with God. So we can’t help being a little surprised that the New Testament not only doesn’t tell us how to do that, it doesn’t even give us very many examples of people who do it. There is surprisingly little mysticism in the Bible.

I am using the word “mysticism” in a general way here, to describe those experiences that individuals have so much difficulty in describing and explaining. From time to time for most of us (and fairly often for a few of us), we encounter the holy in some way. One of my own experiences of this is the realization that a thought or belief has come into my consciousness that I did not generate. I have done a lot of thinking in my life, and I know what it feels like to think up something, so I feel pretty confident in saying that these mysterious thoughts are coming from somewhere – or someone – else. But I am as incoherent as the rest of you in naming the source. I am inclined to name them (when I do name them) as coming from the Holy Spirit; somehow that sounds less outlandish than saying they come from God.

I expect that most of you have had mystical experiences – moments of transcendence, moments of great holiness, moment when you are in the presence of the sacred. It is sad, I think, that we don’t talk much about them, even in church (or perhaps, especially in church …) Mystical experiences feed our faith in a variety of ways. For me, these experiences give the feeling of being remembered and loved by God. Other people are moved to acts of compassion, inspired to create works of art, reminded of their deepest values, or refreshed in their human relationships.

Still, most of us are not full-time mystics. Most of our days are spent immersed in the here-and-now, sustained by memories of those holy moments, or resting on the sacred stories told in scripture and by those whose books we read and words we listen to, and those who share with us the adventure of their faith journeys.

I said a moment ago that God does not often appear in person in the New Testament. And while that is true in the literal sense, I don’t want leave the impression that God is not present in these texts. On the contrary; God presence is heard in the teachings of Jesus, is seen in the healings and miracles of the gospels, is attested to by the writers of the epistles, and is described in vivid and strange images in the book of Revelation. One way to understand all of these manifestations of God’s presence is to think of them all as kinds of prophesy – not of fortune telling or predictions, but of truth-telling. The bible reveals truths to us that would otherwise remain hidden in plain sight.

Consider the story of Jesus going to the mountain with Peter, James, and John. These three disciples had known and followed Jesus for some time by the day this story takes place, and we might imagine that they have pondered and discussed among themselves the remarkable way that he was connected to God. They surely must have noticed his habits of study and prayer, and the assurance with which he preached the good news of God’s mercy and justice.

But they hadn’t imagined anything like what they saw on the mountain that day. They hadn’t imagined Jesus in the company of Moses and Elijah; they hadn’t imagined Jesus physically changed so that he appeared to be made up of light; they hadn’t imagined hearing a voice from heaven claiming Jesus as son. Even though he had been right in front of their eyes all along, they didn’t see all of his holiness, or his connection with the great men of the history of the Jewish people, until that moment.

One of the traditional interpretations of this story is that the presence of Moses symbolized the Law and the presence of Elijah symbolized the prophets. That’s fine as far as it goes – but it ignores altogether the remarkable fact that they appeared on a mountaintop centuries after their physical deaths. This interpretation ignores the fact that Moses was about much more than just the tablets with the Ten Commandments – the fact that he was all about God’s justice in delivering the people from slavery. This stale interpretation ignores the fact that justice ran smack into mysticism that day, and religion hasn’t been the same since.

So here’s why I think this story is so important: it instructs us that a fully faithful life is grounded in justice and mysticism. Every religious community must give due attention to both to have vitality and direction. And every spiritually seeking person must give due attention to both to mature in the faith. All too often these two are put in opposition to one another – as though people committed to justice were way too busy to give any time to spiritual practice, meditation, or prayer, and as though people with spiritual depth and mystical experience were too unworldly to care about justice.

I want to insist that these two are not alternative ways of faith; they are complementary ways of faith. If we want to keep our commitment to justice lively and vibrant, we must attend to the spiritual practices that open us to mystic moments and anchor our faith. If we want to mystically experience God’s presence directly and powerfully, we have to stay engaged with the works of justice that are close to God’s heart.

Communities of faith and persons of faith are always engaged in this tension – between the reflective and the active, between the piety and the praxis, between the prophetic and the mystical. Because it is a tension, we are often pulled to one side or the other by our personalities, or by the customs of our time and place, or by the demands of the challenges that face us. And because it is a tension, we often need reminders to attend to the side that is less comfortable, less conventional, and more difficult.

So it is an important story, this odd tale of mountains and light and heavenly presence. It is the drama that forces us to acknowledge our potential for mysticism (even if that is rare or disconcerting) and our potential for prophesy (even if that is rare or disconcerting). And if the story were less strange, less laden with symbolism, less woven into the fabric of history, it would not command our attention in the way it needs to. So there it is. The details are optional, but the illumination is not.

Amen.