 |
 |
| 106 North Bench Street, Galena, IL 61036 Phone: (815) 777-0229 (voice & fax) |
|
Transfiguration Sunday
by Jim McCrea Luke 9:28-36; Exodus 34:29-35
In the movie "The Man With Two Brains," Steve Martin plays a brain surgeon, who has fallen in love with an evil and conniving temptress. As he's wrestling internally about what to do, he stands in front of a painting of his late wife and talks to her. He says, "Just show me a sign. Should I marry her or not? Please show me just a little sign." Instantaneously, a cold, gale-force wind sweeps through the room and a disembodied voice moans out the words, "Nooo, nooo, don't do it..." Then the wall cracks and the late wife's portrait spins eerily around, going faster and faster and faster, while the furnishings in the room crash all around the Steve Martin character and the disembodied voice continues to wail, "Nooo, nooo." Finally, the room becomes still. Steve Martin slowly picks himself up off the floor and says, "Since you won't show me a sign, I guess it's okay to marry her." That's not exactly subtle humor, but then many of us have difficulties picking up subtle cues even when - unlike Steve Martin's character - we're actually looking for them. And that's really the point of the strange little incident in our gospel lesson today. Jesus leads three of his disciples up a mountain for a brief spiritual retreat. While they are up there, something incredible happens. Jesus is seen talking with Moses and Elijah and he suddenly begins radiating blinding light as if he were an organic sun. Clearly, this was a highly unusual event and yet the three disciples instantly had at least an inkling of what it meant. Throughout the Old Testament, bright light is a symbol of the presence of God. You see it in the glowing pillar of cloud that led the people of Israel through the wilderness by day and the pillar of fire which led them by night. You see it in Isaiah's vision of heaven in which he sees a brilliant light sitting on throne of heaven. And, of course, you see it in our Old Testament lesson today when Moses comes down from Mount Sinai where his encounter with God has been so intense and so direct that Moses' face literally glows with God's reflected glory. So it's no surprise that Moses is one of those who appears with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. They're joined by the prophet Elijah who had his own mountain top experience in which he learned to hear God in the soft stillness of life. And yet there is a difference between those two giants of the Old Testament on one hand and Jesus on the other because, while Moses glowed with the reflected glory of God, Jesus shines from within. He literally radiates the glory of God, even though that isn't normally visually apparent. It's as if the disciples are momentarily allowed to peek behind the veil of this world's reality to see the deeper truth and, like the humor of that Steve Martin movie, it's done in an unsubtle way so that they can't possibly miss the meaning. That was important to give them courage to face the pain of the crucifixion to come. Peter's suggestion that he build three booths - one for Jesus, one for Moses and one for Elijah - sounds very odd to us, but it really means that he understands what's going on. Those booths were an ancient reminder of how God took care of the people of Israel in the wilderness and remained a symbol of the Israelites' trust that God would continue to care for them throughout all generations. I don't know about you, but there are times in my life when I could have used an unsubtle reminder of God's presence in the world and in my own life. God is present with us in all times and all places, but, of course, we rarely see the signs of that presence even though those signs are there. Carolyn Futter describes that phenomenon in her poem, "God, Are You Real?" It says: The little child whispered,
So the child yelled,
The child looked around and said,
And the child shouted,
So the child cried out in despair,
How many times have we missed the signs of God's presence in the world today because we don't recognize it for what it is? A good example of that was shown in an episode of the "ER" television show. It featured a doctor from Eastern Europe named Luca. He had lost his family to the violence in his home country and he lost his faith as a result. He tries to put his past behind him, by moving to Chicago, where he works in the hospital where the show is set. In this particular episode, one of his patients is a saintly bishop, who keeps asking him questions about his relationship with God. Although he initially doesn't want to talk about it, Luca finally tells the bishop that both his wife and daughter had been seriously injured in a bombing attack. Acting as their doctor, he was forced to choose whom he should save. So he worked on his daughter, struggling unsuccessfully to keep her alive while his wife bled to death. He felt responsible for both deaths and so he carried around an enormous burden of guilt. The bishop listens to this story as he himself is dying. He helps Luca to see that he isn't to blame and that he can't hold God responsible for their deaths either. Instead, he simply has to accept what has happened and move on with his life. Then, with his dying breath, the bishop absolves Luca of the guilt he has been carrying. What a wonderful example of grace and new life coming even in the face of death. In a less dramatic way, I've had a similar experience in my own life. At one time, I worked with a woman who was so totally work-driven and so lacking in the grace of human relational skills that she went through a new assistant every six months on average. When I took the job, it became very clear in a very short time why the turnover rate was so high. She placed incredibly high demands on production and on the use of personal time to do work and then responded to that work with high levels of criticism and very little in the way of positive feedback. That office was the most highly-stressful place I've ever seen and it really didn't have to be. It was very tempting for me to just resign and return to some type of normal life like all my predecessors had done, but I decided that I would do my best to stick it out by modeling for her the kind of treatment I thought I should receive and by trying to visualize her as a child of God who was reacting to pressures I knew nothing about. It certainly wasn't easy. Although probably I shouldn't tell you this, I remember one time she was in a busy lobby area, publicly berating me for some minor infraction - or perhaps no infraction at all - and as I listened, my gaze wandered to the edge of the balcony behind her and I wondered what would happen if I ran past her and jumped. Fortunately, I didn't do that, but that thought clearly shows the intense pressure I was under. Even so, I was given the strength to endure. That strength clearly came from beyond myself and for me it became a sign of the presence of God in the most trying of circumstances. Ultimately, my boss retired after I'd been there a little less than two years. I felt a little relieved that I'd outlasted her, but much more importantly, I felt grateful because, in the end, she softened to a degree I couldn't have imagined possible when I first started with that company. It seemed as if I had had an impact on her and that made all the struggle more worthwhile. At the same time, I came to recognize God's presence in that struggle and that was a very empowering awareness. Ralph Olson tells of a mission trip he helped lead to Tanzania. There were some youth in the group and Ralph says that one of the most powerful moments of the trip came when those kids got together with their Tanzanian counterparts. The Tanzanian kids asked the Americans, "What miracles did you see today?" As you might imagine, the American kids didn't really know what to say to that. They didn't think they had seen any miracles. But the kids from Tanzania shared all kinds of stories about miracles. They talked about beautiful things they'd seen in nature. They told how God had given them strength to face a difficult situation. They told about someone who had offered them a word of encouragement and how helpful that had been to them. Of course, those things happen in our lives also, but we don't think of them as being miracles. Maybe we should. Maybe they provide more of a clue to the presence of God in our lives than we think. One day the renowned ancient theologian Augustine had an encounter with a non-Christian. This person showed Augustine an idol and said, "Here is my god. Show me yours." Augustine replied, "I can't show you my God, not because there is no God, but because you have no eyes to see him." God is all around us. Do we have the eyes to see him? Amen.
|
|
|