March 2, 2014

Clay Nelson

Last Sunday in Epiphany     Exodus 24:12-18     Matthew 17:1-9

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By way of introduction for those of you who may be visiting this Sunday this congregation is in the midst of a transition in leadership.  There is both celebration and disappointment amongst us.  What we share in common is uncertainty.

Within that context, I some times think God, the Divine Comedian, has an impish sense of humour.  Asking me just at this time to preach on mountaintop experiences seems mean, if not a wee bit cruel.  But I am trusting that it is exactly at such times that we are invited into the holy.  

Right now I can’t go with Moses up Mount Horeb where hidden by a cloud Yahweh reveals his backside to him.  I am down below with the Israelites wondering what could possibly be going on over the next forty days and nights up in the cloud.  Nor am I in a place where I can accompany Jesus with Peter, James and John, the leaders of the early church, up to the top of Mount Tabor to see the transfiguration of their master and the appearance of Moses and Elijah at his side or to hear the divine voice spoken from a cloud.  I am down at the foot of the mountain with the rest of the disciples wondering why we weren’t invited along and annoyed they aren’t telling us anything about what happened there.

Of course, that is the nature of mountaintops: real life is down below.  Down in the valley or on the plain that look so picturesque and perfect from above, real pain is happening.  Sickness, injustice, betrayal, broken relationships, rejection, grief, fear and anxiety litter the landscape of our lives.  The mountain in the distance seems to taunt us with what might be.

I have had many opportunities to reflect on the Transfiguration over the years as it is always the last Sunday of Epiphany and it has its own feast day as well, on August 6.  It is always celebrated on the Sunday before Lent because it is the perfect bookend to the beginning of Epiphany with three wise men visiting Jesus, like three apostles viewing his transfiguration, followed the next Sunday with his baptism and the same words echoed today. “This is my son, my beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him.” But each time I encounter the mystery of this story, it is from a different perspective.  I listen, but hear different things each time. In part it depends on how I approach the story.

Sometimes I have approached this story with historical questions: How did this happen? Where did it happen?  Did it happen?  Other times I have approached it with solely theological questions:  What connections can we make to this story? What does it say about God?  But there is a third way to approach it.  It is the way of the poet and artist, who approach it with their imagination.

The last painting Raphael, the High Renaissance Italian painter, did before his death in 1520 was of the Transfiguration. I saw it at the Vatican.  He thought it was his best and it lay at his head during his wake.  It captures the glory of the mountaintop and the pain of those on the plain.  In the upper portion of the painting Jesus is hanging in the air in front of a luminescent cloud.  Moses is to Jesus’ right and Elijah to his left floating up to meet him for a chat.  On the ground prostrate before him are James, Peter and John dressed in colours that symbolise faith, hope and love. 

The church commissioned the painting and to appease them Raphael shows Jesus presiding over humankind.  Below the mountaintop experience he painted a cave. It is a dark and chaotic scene.  The apostles are trying in vain to cure a lunatic.  A lunatic in this case was an epileptic.  An epileptic in Raphael’s times terrified people.  They thought she or he was possessed by demons.  The only cure was to burn them at the stake.

In the foreground is a woman, painted as brightly as the transfigured Christ, who is looking St Matthew in the eye and pointing at the epileptic being protected by his father.  She appears to ask the question: Aren’t you going to do something?  Is he to be condemned for his condition?

Certainly the church at the time would say yes, we all are, for only through the Risen Christ portrayed above can we be saved.  This was a very convenient answer as it enhanced the power of the church, the body of Christ, over society.  I can’t really go there: Too much power in the hands of those on high.  This answer leaves us in the valley, victims of despair.

I look at the painting and see a different answer.  The season of Epiphany is all about light.  It begins with a star glimmering on the plain and ends in a blaze of glory on the mountaintop.  This imagery speaks to my understanding of Jesus.  As the painting portrays he had something in common with Moses.  They were both lawgivers.  While Moses gave us ten, he gave us only one: “Love one another as I have loved you.”  He also had something in common with Elijah the prophet.  Like Elijah he spoke truth to power.

But he was more.  He is the still small voice within us Elijah heard in his cave speaking truth to us. 

Jesus was more than a lawgiver and prophet. He was an Eastern mystic leading us to enlightenment.  This is something we who see and think through an exclusive Western filter often miss.  I agree with Cynthia Bourgeault who in The Wisdom Jesus makes the case that the church got him wrong from the start, so we miss what he was up to.  She argues persuasively that his purpose was to bring us to higher levels of enlightenment until our beings were fully integrated; one with our selves, our neighbours, nature and the divine.  His was a path up this mountain of enlightenment.  His path seeks to lead us to that alternate reality.  It is the one Psalm 46 hints at: “Be still and know that I am God.”

Once we see that reality, we can’t un-see it.  Once we experience it we, too, are transfigured -- spiritually changed -- a new being.  No longer will we reside in the dark cave of Raphael’s painting. No longer do we have to cling in hope of being rescued by external power. Jesus is beckoning us to come to the mountain and begin the climb.

Lent begins this Wednesday, Ash Wednesday. It is the beginning of a forty-day journey.  May it end on Easter Day with us in the clouds with Moses and Jesus where we will hear that we, too, are Beloved.  I know I’m eager to leave the valley.  Anyone care to join me?