Transfigured Vision
Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
March 6, 2011; Last Epiphany, Year A
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary
(Matthew 17:1-9) B Six days after Peter had acknowledged Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!" When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, "Get up and do not be afraid."
And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, "Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead."
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If you were here a couple of weeks ago, you heard Suzanne tell a story about her mother-in-law, who was very hard to love, and that’s expressing it generously. Suzanne described a pretty awful person. In response to Suzanne’s desperate prayer that she might see something of God’s love for this person, for Suzanne had none, something happened. Suzanne said, “The entire room was suddenly bathed in light, transfigured by Love, an indiscriminate brilliance that fell everywhere. And there in the center of it was my mother-in-law completely suffused with its radiance, something I might have expected to see only at the bedside of a truly great saint.” [1]
The story of Jesus’ transfiguration, as an anticipation of the story of the resurrection, is a clue to the reality of what Suzanne saw. For a moment, she saw the deeper, truer reality of her mother-in-law – a beloved child of God, created in the image and likeness of God, infinitely loved and filled with eternal light and life.
It is a good thing to get such glimpses of reality transfigured. It is a good thing to hold on to such glimpses as true visions, a peek into God’s reality, rather than mere hallucination or fantasy. We can choose either.
Tuesday morning I attended the “Light of Hope” breakfast event for CASA of Northwest Arkansas. CASA assigns volunteers to be Court Appointed Special Advocates for abused or neglected children. A CASA volunteer gets to know the children, observes their living circumstances, and brings their observations to the court to help judges make decisions in the best interests of each child.
Among the presenters was a lovely family who had learned about two little boys through their CASA volunteer. The CASA volunteer told them of the behavioral challenges these boys poised. She also saw a loving potential within them. The family took the boys into their home as foster parents. They said that the elder child, when he arrived, was going to break anything that could be broken in any room where he might have a melt-down tantrum. With steadfast love and good boundaries, he gradually relaxed. The younger one, they said, was brilliant. He could learn anything, as long as he was running.
They have now adopted these two children, and they are a happy, wholesome family. And two little boys who were on a path toward disaster, are living into their potential, through love. A CASA volunteer saw potential, where others saw disaster and she inspired a family to live into that vision.
Many of our great leaders have been people who could see an impossible possibility and inspire others to join their vision. Nelson Mandela lived as a political prisoner, mostly on Robben Island, for twenty-seven years. Twenty-seven years, while an ugly, racist apartheid regime ruled South Africa. On Robben Island, he was allowed one letter and one visitor every six months. Daily he and his fellow prisoners chipped away at rocks in a lime quarry where the brightness of the sun on the white marble permanently damaged their eyes.
In the prison, Mandela organized the inmates into small groups. As they worked or as they waited, they took turns teaching one another whatever they knew – political science, biology, accounting, and so forth. Some fellow prisoners were bothered because the white Afrikaner guards began eavesdropping on their classes. Mandela said the guards should learn too. One day they would be colleagues in governing South Africa, and they will need to know the things the prisoners were learning.
Even while segregation separated blacks in our American South from access to schools, restrooms, water fountains, restaurants, waiting rooms and voting booths, Martin Luther King was composing the compelling words and images that would inspire millions when he spoke, “I have a Dream.”
Jesus’ teaching that we “love one another” invites us to see loveableness in every human being and to act on that transfiguring vision. Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom of God invites us to dream of a good and just society and to act on that transfiguring vision.
There is an old, oft repeated story of a monastic order that, after many centuries, had fallen on hard times. Only one house remained, with an abbot and five brothers, all over seventy years in age.
Their friend the town rabbi came to visit, and they commiserated together. “I know how it is. The spirit has gone out of the people,” he said. “Almost no one comes to the synagogue anymore.” They wept, read Torah together, and spoke of sad, deep things.
Toward the end of the night, the rabbi said, “I am sorry. I have no advice to give you. The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you.”
In the days that followed, the old monks pondered these words. Could it be? If so, which one? Probably Father Abbot. He has led us for a generation. Or maybe Brother Thomas. Everyone knows Thomas is a man of light. Certainly not Brother Elred. He gets so crotchety. Such a thorn in the side. But, when you look back, he is almost always right. Often very right. Maybe Brother Elred. Surely not Brother Phillip. He is so passive. A real nobody. But mysteriously, he seems to show up whenever you need him. Of course the rabbi didn’t mean me. I’m just an ordinary person. Not me. Yet, supposing he did? Suppose I am the Messiah. O God, how could it be?
As they contemplated in this way, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect, on the off chance that one among them might be the Messiah. And on the off-off chance that each monk himself might be the Messiah, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary respect.
The monastery was situated in a beautiful forest, and occasionally people would wander near or into its old places. As they did so, without being conscious of it, they sensed the aura of extraordinary respect that now began to surround the five old monks and seemed to radiate out from them and permeate the atmosphere of the place. There was something strangely attractive, even compelling, about it. Hardly knowing why, they began to come back to the monastery more frequently to picnic, to play, to pray. They began to bring their friends to show them this special place. And their friends brought their friends.
Then it happened that some of the younger men who came to visit the monastery started to talk more and more with the old monks. After a while one asked if he could join them. Then another. And another. So within a few years the monastery had once again become a thriving order and, thanks to the rabbi's gift, a vibrant center of light and spirituality in the realm. [2]
How might each of our lives be transfigured if we chose to see the image of God in ourselves and in each other? To know each person to be a beloved child of God, created in the image and likeness of God, infinitely loved and filled with eternal light and life. How might our culture and world be transfigured if we lived by the Messiah’s values – that we love one another as he has loved us?
[1] Suzanne Stoner, sermon for 7 Epiphany, 2/20/11: http://stpaulsfay.org/sermon7epiphany2011.pdf
[2] A version of The Rabbi’s Gift, taken from Scott Peck’s book A Different Drum, accessed at http://www.community4me.com/rabbisgift.html
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posted by Lowell @ 3/05/2011 02:36:00 PM
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