The transfiguration is an interesting moment in the Scriptures, particularly as we link it to the transition point between Elijah and Elisha. The Transfiguration for all intents and purposes, becomes that moment in time when the Holy breaks through the ordinary and the mundane and we are left wondering what to do … The response from Peter to build shelters for the celestial or heavenly visitors is a typical human response.
We’re confronted with the holy and we haven’t got a clue of what to do … we want to contain things and relate to them in comfortable and familiar ways. The phrase – “thinking outside the box” has always come to mind for me when I read the story of the Transfiguration.
One afternoon Jesus and his disciples went up on to a mountain top and suddenly Jesus clothes are dazzling white, two others - Moses and Elijah join them, they are enveloped in a thick cloud, and then a voice from heaven booms and announces Jesus is the beloved of God ... the heavens seem to open … it is a startling moment …
The HOLY – the very presence of God has broken through … and the moment becomes more than just unpredictable – it is off the scale …
So, what do we do with this story … if some one came to us today, breathless from a visit to Riding Mountain, or Turtle Mountain or even Delta marsh and started telling us a tale like this, we would be wanting to pack them off to Selkirk for professional help … The very thought of heavenly visions and voices and so on makes us extremely uncomfortable. And yet out Scriptures – this very book – is full of such moments and there is a remarkable propensity in the Church to accept this (…) at face value, while dismissing those among us who have similar experiences …
Where are the Holy Moments in our world today?
If not flashing lights, booming voices, and heavenly visitors? Where then do we find and encounter God and the fullness of the Holy?
In the modern church – the scientific, post-modern Church wherein we are members, it’s an interesting challenge to live out. If tomorrow a student stepped up before Presbytery and offered an experience like either the Old Testament Reading or the Gospel reading and said – “I feel called by God into Ministry …” Our very first response would be an exam and evaluation by a professional – or preferably a team of professionals. And yet, if one of our esteemed elders said – “I’ve been praying to God for you …” and told us of a deep and committed ministry of prayer, we wouldn’t bat and eye.
The problem is that we are so far removed from the Holy – we’ve compartmentalized it – we’ve built our little shelter and locked it in … Shelter ?? Sound familiar ??
We ARE Peter. We’ve encountered the Holy and instead of embracing it in its infinite fullness, we’ve built our little shelters and boxed it in … The Holy Belongs here (communion table) when we break bread and share the cup …The Holy Belongs here (Baptismal Font) when we pour out the water and remember our promises of faith … The Holy belongs here (the sanctuary) when we gather for an hour or so every week and pray and sing and be faithful …
The Holy belongs here … (the sanctuary) … but NOT out there … If we take the Holy out there we might lose control … We might lose power … we might not be able to predict what will happen and we’ll be very uncomfortable …
So like Peter, we build our shelters and we try to put the HOLY in them …
AND IT DOESN’T WORK … God breaks through … the Holy will not be contained in a building … or in a time and space of our choosing … The Holy will come when God wants it to come …
Isn’t that the WHOLE point of the Christmas story?
AND IT DOESN’T WORK … God breaks through … the Holy will not be contained in a building … or in a time and space of our choosing … The Holy will come when God wants it to come …
Isn’t that the WHOLE point of the Christmas story?
God’s chosen one – the Messiah – the son of God – comes, not in a palace, or a sanctuary or in a place of power – but in a humble tiny stable in a forgotten corner of vast empire … and The World took notice.
The world took notice …
The world took notice when Elijah passed the mantle of leadership to Elisha … The world took notice when Jesus and his disciples, walked to the top of a mountain and something wondrous happened … The world took notice when our God broke through the mundane and allowed something truly extra-ordinary – something truly breath-taking to happen …
The world took notice in those moments … and yet we want to lock the holy in a little box and contain it …
What ever happened to thinking outside the box and being open to whatever God offers ??
Somewhere along the line I read that the Holiest moment in ALL of creation is when a child utters the word – “wow” in response to learning something new and startling … It’s a remarkable moment when a child learns something new for the very very first time … Watching a toddler discover the world and utter “WOW” – something I’ve enjoyed thoroughly with my children – it is hard not to see the Holiness in that moment.
Yet as adults we hem that enthusiasm in … we SHUSH the WOW ...
The other day, I was talking with a friend and I said – “why is it we take such pains to teach our children to play fair, to share, to be a good friend …and then as adults, one of the common complaints we hear, and live and encounter is the simple LACK of such civilities in our society?”
I have been a Beaver leader in the past, and we taught our children the motto – “sharing, sharing, sharing” – we stressed the need for the kids to share scissors when doing a craft – it was in the leaders manual that we were to SHORT the kids on craft items like scissors and crayons so “they would have to learn to cooperate with one another by ASKING politely for the item”.
Could you imagine doing that amongst adults? Even adults in a Church?
The howls of outrage would be thick and fast and deafening …
Yet, we persist in trying to teach our children to share and cooperate when we are sometimes lousy role models in doing the same thing …
So to step back – perhaps wewould do well to learn from our children. Maybe the Holiness of WOW, is a good place to enter into a dialogue with our children wherein they teach us … they teach us to see the world through their eyes rather than through our old and jaded outlook …
Didn’t Jesus say – “to enter the Kingdom of Heaven you must become like a child …” Maybe that’s what he meant … to live present to the Holiness around us and to be open to the WOW moments when not only do we learn something new and expand our experience and our understanding of the cosmos, but when and where we encounter the LIVING GOD – present and real in our world …
Maybe we are to live present to the moment by doing more than just saying the words – “sharing, sharing, sharing,” but by (heaven forbid) LIVING those words …
One of the harshest, and perhaps most accurate complaints about the modern church is its inherent hypocrisy … People look at our history and our actions and say – “is this Christian?”
They once asked Gandhi what he thought of western Christian civilization and culture and he quipped – “it seems like a good idea that is worth trying …”
We’ve so compartmentalized the Holy and what it represents – our faith and what it values – our beliefs and what we should be doing – from the rest of our lives, that they are disconnected …
This past week I attended a food conference in Winnipeg and over and over and over we heard presenters say that we are disconnected from the source of our food – somewhere along the line we got the idea that our food comes from Co-op or Safeway, Even in a place like Manitoba where farming continues to be a way of life – there is a disconnect.
And that disconnect is what is bridged in the moment when, standing on a mountain top we suddenly encounter the holy … we can chose to respond like Peter – the comfortable option, and build out shelters and lock the holy away safely … or we can be open to the Holy in its infinite fullness and have the courage to say the words – WOW … and see where it will lead us …
The process of evangelism – the work that we as a community have before us demands the WOW response … because rather than inviting people to come and have a glimpse of the Holy in the shelters we build, we are to GO OUT INTO THE WORLD and tell the story of where and how we’ve met and encountered the Holy … we need to go into the world and re-connect with the Holy where we find it … and celebrate the awe and wonder that comes when we stand enveloped by the Holy presence of God.
We invite people to join the circle of Awe that SHOULD be the Church and join in the experience … The transfiguration is about stopping and being wholly present to the Holy in our lives as we find it – in the enthusiasm of the child who can see wonder all around them – in a sunrise or sunset – in the beauty of nature – in the subtlety of a flower – in the birth of a child – in the smell of fresh baking – in the visit with a friend over coffee … it is about finding the HOLY in THIS moment.
That’s the heart of evangelism – to share our stories – our experiences – to share ourselves … our real selves … to make God and our faith real and relevant by stepping outside our comfortable little boxes and sharing our WOW moments …
May it be so – thanks be to God – let us pray …
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