EXODUS 34:29-35
2 PETER 1:13-21
PSALM 99
LUKE 9:28-36

Questions are interesting things. I wonder whether the first thing that Adam and Eve said to each other was, "What's that?" Whatever they said, I'd be willing to bet their first words WERE questions, though. That's how people learn. You discovered who the person was at the next desk to you in Kindergarten by asking, "Who are you?" You learned to share what you liked - or disliked - at lunch time by asking, "What do YOU have?" Later on, as you and I worked towards maturity, we may have learned to ask slightly more sophisticated questions, like "What's for dinner?" or "Where are we going tonight?"

Maybe as we move through the years we progress to something like, "Eh? What did you say? Can you speak a bit louder?" And if we're REALLY inquisitive, we may even be used to asking "How did that happen? Or "What is that for?"

But sometimes, no matter how classy we get, we continue to ask the wrong questions. Take the Gospel story this morning, for instance. Our twenty-first century minds may be inquisitive, but I don't think the most important question about the Transfiguration is "How did that happen?" I think it may be of far greater consequence and importance for us if we ask instead, "Why did it happen?" with its corollary, "Who is Jesus?" There most definitely ARE some good occasions to ask the "how" question, but "why" and "who" are nearly always more useful.

Let me turn aside from this for a moment. I have several pet peeves - and I call them that rather than full-blown frustrations, or anything stronger than that, because I suppose I can live with them, for the time being, at any rate, even if they ARE annoying.

One of these peeves is the way people treat the credits at the end of a movie. Whatever their level of engagement with the actual movie or story, it seems that the vast majority of the audience can't wait to get out to their cars - or to the bathroom or the refrigerator, which ever is more pressing. Maybe that's why people behave as they do.

Mind you, the controllers of TV movies actually seem to encourage this. As soon as the first few names come up at the end of the film, the rest are dropped down to a small bar at the foot of the screen, or else scrunched over to one side and distorted so much that no one can possibly tell who did what to bring the artistic rendition to you. And all of this, on TV at least, is so that thousands more dollars can be squeezed out of advertisers before the audience realizes that the movie is over.

I wonder if that's why Jesus was transfigured in the presence of James, and John, and Peter some weeks before the crucifixion. God wanted to try to catch the disciples' attention, no matter how tired or distracted they were. Maybe that's why Moses' face glowed whenever he'd been chatting intently with God. Maybe God was trying to say something to the disciples' predecessors. And - come to think of it - how often was JESUS transfigured? I mean, Moses had to cover his face after every time he talked with God, and shared his frustrations and fears about the people and what was happening in his life. Maybe Jesus experienced the same sort of glow that the great law-mediator did, only the disciples weren't there to se it. Jesus had snuck off before the others awoke, or, as we heard last week, He'd sent them off on their boat while He and God chatted about what had been happening and what should be done over the next twenty-four hours or so. Or maybe they were simply not paying attention. If you're arguing about seniority within the small group, and who gets to choose what to do, or trying to police everyone else's behaviour and thinking it CAN be hard to pay attention and engage in the things which the leader had suggested the night before and to which a majority of the folks had assented.

All of this raises any number of questions, for me at least. I don't know about you, and it invites comparisons with what goes on in our own lives.

Obviously, something enabled Moses to be able to talk to God one-on-one. He wasn't troubled by what it did to him, maybe because he was making a conscious effort. He didn't allow himself to be distracted by all those feelings about the strife-tom bunch at the foot of the mountain. Even as he brought his frustrations to God and asked for guidance, he was able to step back from everything that was going on to enable him to try to see things from God's perspective.

When it came to Jesus perhaps there was only a difference in degree. Moses' face shone - Jesus' whole being was filled with radiant light. He was able to allow His humanity to look through divine ears at what God was saying, through divine lenses at what God was doing. As His will and His Father's will were seen to be more and more synchronised; as He saw more and more clearly the outcome and the responsibility of His ministry, all those impurities which are part of humanity and which by their very nature prevent total intimacy and understanding were set aside, thus allowing Him to be seen in all His true Glory.

The interesting thing about this interaction between Jesus and God, however, is that the disciples were allowed to experience it too. For a brief moment, even with incomplete understanding, they were able to see Jesus with unfettered eyes. Perhaps it was in that instant at which they came out of sleep when they were less conscious of all the demands of the human body and mind that there was nothing between them and God in Christ Jesus, so much so that they were almost drawn into that same state themselves. Almost - not quite - they were so close, but the brilliance of that joyful light was invaded by the calculating human mind, trying to figure out what to do next, rather than let God speak through that vision for a moment. And maybe that's our downfall. We don't wait long enough. We can't bear the brilliance of the light or the thunderous nature of the silence. We have to try to inject our own thoughts, argue our own opinions. And this is one time when what is called for is awe - silent laughter and pleasure, if you will - but wonder at the incredible beauty and majesty of God.

Why Peter and James and John were allowed to be part of this - just as the same three were made privy to Jesus' wrestling with the temptation of side-stepping the cross before His arrest - why these three were allowed to be part of this at this particular moment is open for debate. But one reason for it that struck me last week was because of the potential for us to ignore those closing credits at the end of the story.

Possibly the intensity of pain, the fear, the uncertainty, the destruction of Jesus and the seeming disaster caused by the arrest and crucifixion were anticipated that God offered this glimpse of what Love really looks like - a preview of the resurrection and the ascension, if you will. In the transfiguration of Jesus, God offers us the ability to begin to understand what can happen when we change our way of looking at things.

And, if there's one thing Jesus wanted to get across to us is that we must all change. No matter how well we do something, no matter how much He compliments us, no matter how good we feel about a relationship, change is something that should be a basic component of our spiritual and emotional makeup.

The other day Robin Williams was interviewed on a radio programme and I was a little surprised to hear him make the profound theological point that "Change isn't a hobby." ¹ I shouldn't have been surprised by this. Robin Williams, for all his zany talk, has some impressively profound things to say and points to get across - and maybe his humour allows him to reach people when their defences are down, thus they can absorb the point more fully. But his comment was precisely that Jesus laboured to get His friends and His casual listeners to understand. And that should be what we're about, too. As evangelists of the Gospel, everything we do should reflect our need to change, not to conform to the world's standards and expectations, but to move closer and closer to assuming the attitude and pattern of Jesus as He moved through the market and across the countryside.

The transfiguration, then, may be seen as a sign from God to all of humanity that change IS possible, that we too can and will be transfigured the closer and closer we learn to make the priorities of Love, and Compassion, and Sensitivity to the Justice of God the guiding principles of our lives.

I can't help but wonder about so much of the conflict being waged just now, whether we can learn from today's Gospel, and work to bring about some sort of transformation of the way in which we do interact with one another. If we went about theological, and political, and economic, and even recreational business in such a way that we learned to step back, or step to the side for a moment, to see our personal whims and desires from a broader perspective, as part of the whole created order, then we might find ourselves experiencing enlightenment with the glimmer of transfiguration.

Instead of using the standards of competition, of rapacious possessiveness, of accumulation as the guide for our behaviour, we're called to be transfigured by identification with the other - starting with Jesus, but not stopping until we've considered absolutely everyone else who may be impacted by every decision we make and every action we take. And it seems that the episodes of Moses on Mt. Sinai and Jesus on His mountain are to be taken as the templates against which we measure our interaction with others. Does what we do transform us and the people we meet and the world in which we live into a closer approximation of the way in which Jesus taught and acted? Or does it produce some other kind of a picture?

There's been an interesting move within the ranks of what some people label "conservative evangelical" Churches recently. It's a change that doesn't sit comfortably with everyone, of course. Seldom is everyone ecstatic about change! One pastor was reported last week as underlining our attitude towards change and behaviour by saying to his congregation, "`When the church wins the culture wars, it inevitably loses,' (the Rev'd. Gregory. Boyd of Maplewood, Minnesota] preached. `When it conquers the world, it becomes the world. When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross.'" ² And the cross was what the Transfiguration was all about.

The Transfiguration shows us that Jesus wasn't on earth as a joke. He didn't assume human flesh and endure exactly the sort of hardships, and ridicule, and temptation that you and I face simply because He was bored in heaven and needed something against which to contrast the balance of His existence. One of the things we can learn from this episode is that Jesus lived through change. He tasted how much it extends us and enriches our experience as humans. And He rejoiced in discovering the ways in which God and humans can draw closer to one another right at those points where there's tension and the space between us is stretched thin.

And this stretching, this discovery of how thin is the actual difference between human individuals, between nations, indeed between us and God, is what the process of change is all about. In the understanding that transfiguration awaits each one of us on this planet, then, does it not make sense that we do everything we can to work together, with all of our differences, our disagreements, our discomfort? After all, Jesus' calls us to be transfigured in THIS life - not merely the next. Being a follower, then, being a Church member, by virtue of our Baptism, calls us to accept responsibilities, not only insist on certain rights.

In a challenging editorial in this weekend's "British Medical Journal", Fiona Godlee wrote about how most people have been pleased by the way that citizens' rights for good, and prompt, and thorough medical care have been addressed. But in a comment I found complementary to the vows we take at Baptisms I found myself considering this as a transfiguration issue, especially when Godlee asked, "Why are responsibilities important? Because the patient is central to health care." Apparently some people had used as a model for medical treatment the analogy of being a passenger on a plane. However, the editor argued, "Patients should not be seen simply as passengers, entirely dependent for their safety on others. They can actively influence the outcome of care, both for good and bad." ³ And that's EXACTLY how Jesus' Transfiguration hits me - with its implied invitation for us to become transfigured also.

Maybe we should take Robin Williams' comment to heart, then, and resolve never to make change a hobby, something to take on and then lay down whenever the mood strikes us. Possibly as a motto for ourselves and for the Church, we should consider the parting words of Lane Denson, my Tennessee friend. He said, simply, "Go transfigure."

After all - isn't that what we're supposed to be all about?

NOTES:

1 "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross. National Public Radio. Friday 4th. August, 2006.

2 "Disowning Conservative Politics, Evangelical Pastor Rattles Flock" by Laurie Goldstein. New York Times: July 30, 2006.

3 "Rites of Passage". Fiona Godlee. British Medical Journal. Saturday 05 August 2006 http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/333/7562/0-f