August 6, 2023 Rev. Betsy Scott
Transfiguration Sunday
August 6, 2023
This is Transfiguration Sunday, it celebrates one of the most profound moments that ever took place on this earth. The scriptures record the moment of great holiness, intimacy and love between God the father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. The son prays to the father up on the mountain with his disciples present, Elijah and Moses appear, the prophet and the law, and the son’s face shines with light and his clothes become a brilliant white. Light has always symbolized love, goodness, wisdom, hope, grace and in this case divinity. This is a mystical event, a direct and personal experience of the divine in a temporal setting. Mystical events have been recorded and known throughout the ages but this transfiguration is the penultimate mystical event. William James in his book Varieties of Religious Experience explains mystical experience: James said mystical experiences are ineffable or inexpressible, noetic, or great wisdom, transient, not lasting and passive, it happens to you. You cannot make it happen. They are always a surprise.
The Transfiguration is also one of the five most important events in Christ’s life and many writers say the transfiguration has language that leads back to the Exodus and language that is a preview of the glorified body of Christ following His resurrection. The transfiguration took place 40 days before His passion.
For me to plumb the depths of this extraordinary text, penultimate happening, in just a few minutes is a herculean task.
I decided to explore just one aspect of this great even given to me in a couplet by a pastoral counselor:
“ Divinity was Revealed to Humanity in the Transfiguraion
and
Humanity was illuminated by Divinity in the Transfiguration.
Christ said: “ I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness.”
The Transfiguration text is certainly a declaration of the divinity of Christ and it has been interpreted thus throughout the ages but it is also interpreted as a declaration of the way we can change, the way we can draw nearer to the Knowledge and love of God and be transformed into the image of God., to be in touch with the Kingdom of God that is within us.
We have been talking about the Kingdom of God within us for a number of Sundays here at St. George’s Chapel and today we are going to be talking about the process of getting in touch with this Kingdom of God within. To repeat: Christ said in 1 John 1 that : I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows me won’t walk in darkness but will have the light and fellowship with one another.” This is crucial, life changing! It means we are not stuck in whatever state of heart, mind and spirit that we find ourselves in but that we can change to become closer to the image of Christ, the Kingdom Within. Notice that it is Christ that changed and in turn others changed in relation to Christ. In other words, the only person we can change is ourselves but if we change, others will change in relation to us.
The transfiguration of Christ shows the process by which we can change. Obviously Christ is divinity but we can change to become closer to the image of Christ. The process described is a description of the process of love. Christ draws close to the father, they are present one to the other. The Father affirms the Son. This is my son in Whom I am Well pleased. They are united in this love. So what is love and how do we able to learn to love? Drawing from my seminary years, Love was described to me by the great Dr. Russell Davis, as a presence, an affirmation and a union. I have found this a very helpful definition of love. It is one way to describe what happened on that Mountain as Christ was present with the father in prayer, the father affirmed Christ, this is my son, listen to him, and the light was the divine light of Holy love, the union.
St. Paul expressed this thought in
2 Corinthians 3:18 where Paul wrote:
“And we all, who with unveiled faces, contemplate the Lord’s Glory, are being transformed into His image with ever increasing glory which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord.”
In order to come close to the Lord , we must have an unveiled face. What does that mean? With a veil, we are hiding ourselves and we can’t see others clearly. With an unveiled face, we can see more clearly ourselves and others, we are enabled to contemplate the Glory of God. As we unveil ourselves, we become more compassionate on ourselves and on others.
To understand what the Scriptures are talking about, let’s think of figures and stories in literature where the main character has either been unveiled or refused to unveil themselves and what happens to them. The two examples that came to me are Don Juan and Prince Andre. I’m sure you can think of others.
Don Juan is the great libertine in the Mozart opera Don Giovanni who ruins the life of many women and at the end of the opera, he is asked to repent, he refuses and disappears, going to hell.
My favorite transformation in literature is in WAR And Peace when Prince Andre transforms. The story is that Prince Andre was engaged to Natasha and then went off to war. While he was gone, Natasha almost ran off with another man, as it turns out a scoundrel. Subsequently, Prince Andre is wounded in battle, perhaps his unveiling as he comes in touch with his own pain. He then sees clearly. He looks up to the heavens and realizes how small he is compared to the universe and suddenly sees Natasha as the young girl that she is and how he is the one who left her by going off to war. Tolstoy has another beautiful scene where Natasha comes to Prince Andre while he is mortally wounded and begs for forgiveness. Prince Andre answers: “ While there is nothing to forgive. I love you now more than I have ever loved you before.” I am quite sure Prince Andre’s face was radiating in love.
What happened to these figures when they transformed?
In Christian theology transformation is understood as a change of heart. One is filled with compassion and gratitude , increased awareness, greater sense of purpose and meaning, deeper connection with divine energy expanded consciousness and understanding , enhanced intuition and inner guidance positive change in life relationships and life. This is what happened to Prince Andre and the Scripture promise it will happens to you and me when we draw closer to the Lord.
Many people have written about this process of transformation, but one of my favorites is Ken Wilber who describes the unveiling very well: Clean up, grow-up, wake-up and show up.
In this process, one learns to love oneself which in turn enables one to love another.
This is the life long journey to which we all are called, the journey home to our true selves, the Kingdom of God Within. It has been written about forever. Many interpret the Odyssey as the journey home.
I thought you would be interested to know that in the field of the teaching of parenting, there is now a big movement away from behavior modification of the children and towards what is called parent centric parenting. What this means is that the parents are taught to unveil, to tune into their own emotions, the unveiling: to feel their own emotions, to understand where their own emotions have come from, to finally find their own center of peace and joy. When the parents are in their own state of peace and joy, they will have their eyes unveiled to see their own children more clearly. The parent will be enabled to listen to their children, to try to understand what is bothering their children, what are their current needs etc, You know that listening is one of the greatest gifts we can give one to another. To really listen without immediately chiming in to say who we are. In this way, the children will feel understood and loved and can truly blossom into their own God given natures. So this process of the amazing transfiguration of Christ is also the path we are called to follow to become more loving in our everyday lives.
As Irenaeus wrote in the 2nde Century: “The glory of God is a live human being and a truly human life is the vision of God.”
Christ went up on the mountain with his disciples to a place of quiet and refuge and strength and a place where he drew close to the Holy Spirit, and he prayed. Christ went to the meeting place for the temporal and the eternal. He devoted himself to drawing nearer to the Holy Spirit. It was during that praying that his face shone and his garments became dazzling white. We are all exhorted in our unveiled state to climb our own mountain, find the quiet places, draw closer and listen to our inner most selves, to meditate, to pray, to draw closer to the Holy Spirit, and in the process we ourselves become more loving and whole.
To close, I want to read to you what Thomas Keating wrote in his book Open Mind and Open Heart about what is was like to be in the presence of the Holy Spirit or in the presence of pure unconditional love.
This presence is so immense, yet so humble; awe-inspiring yet so gentle; limitless yet so intimate, tender and personal. I know that I am known. Everything in my life is transparent in this Presence. It knows everything about me—all my weaknesses, brokenness, sinfulness—and still loves me infinitely. This presence is healing, strengthening. Refreshing, just by its Presence. It is non-judgmental, self-giving, seeing no reward, boundless in compassion. It is like coming home to a place I should never have left, to an awareness that was somehow always there, but which I did not recognize.
This is the kind of love which we can find with the Holy Spirit and which we in turn can offer to our children, our loved ones, our friends, all the people. The Transfiguration of Christ shows us the way the Holy Spirit interacts with us here on earth. May we all follow this light and become a light.
Amen
This is a very big and important topic so I am happy we will now have a time for the audience’s reflection, questions and discussion.