Is anyone here confused about the story of the transfiguration, wondering exactly what it means?... or even just what is going on?
I hope so. I mean, I hope I’m not the only one.
To be transfigured means to have a non-earthly experience. In Jesus’ case, his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.
Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been anywhere but on earth, so all this is a bit hard for me to imagine.
It all seems a bit too much like James Cameron’s movie Avatar. Let’s say there is a high-tech, computerized homebase – call it heaven – where God enters this chamber. There, God’s mind is connected to his avatar in human form: Jesus.
On earth, people see God mainly through his avatar form. They see God in Jesus.
But one day, on a high mountain, three humans – Peter, James, and John – catch a glimpse of the divine Spirit, the divine mind. It’s like there’s a glitch or a short in the program; the human Jesus disappears. Maybe there’s a snowy/static ghost image in his place, filling his human outline, for just a second, as if the receiver is caught between stations momentarily; and then the divine image appears in its place, that dazzling white, non-earthly image.
I know; this makes the transfiguration sound like a mistake, like a bug in the program that needs to be worked out. But guess what? Peter himself – who saw this take place – wondered if maybe it was, in fact, a mistake.
How do I know? Well, ancient Greek can be a very tricky language to translate. For one thing, there is no punctuation – and punctuation can be extremely important in figuring out meaning.
Perhaps you’ve read or heard the story about the English professor who wrote the following words on the board – “A woman without her man is nothing – and asked the class to add punctuation.
All the men wrote: “A woman, without her man, is nothing.”
All the women wrote: “A woman: without her, man is nothing.”
Well, the translation we have has Peter saying: “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here (period).” But this could just as easily be a question: “Rabbi, is it good for us to be here (question mark)?”
Peter knows, I’m sure, that humans are not supposed to look upon the divine image. It’s too much for them. It’s too overwhelming. Humans who see God face-to-face would shrivel up and die from the awesomeness of it.
“Rabbi, is it good for us to be here? Is it okay that we are seeing this? Perhaps I should build some dwellings, put up some tents, for you, so that we do not have to gaze upon your glory.”
Peter did not know what he was saying. All he knew was that he was in the presence of the awesome glory of God, and it was too much for him. It was too overwhelming. He wanted to build three dwellings to contain it, confine it, manage it, control it; but God cannot be contained, confined, managed, or controlled.
God is non-earthly. We humans are earthly.
But this does not mean that what is earthly is not of God. Everything earthly is a part of God. All of creation is a part of God. Every life-form is a part of God.
You are a part of God.
But God is so much more.
Now the only way that we earthly beings can know, understand, or describe God is with earthly language. Human language. That’s all we have.
So the challenge before us is this: How do we understand and describe the awesomeness of God’s glory, if all we have is earthly, human language?
There are many different ways that Christians have tried to meet this challenge; but for the sake of simplicity, one could divide them into two groups.
For most of Christian history, the majority of Christians recognized that there is so much more to God’s unearthly self than we will ever know or understand. These Christians recognized that God cannot be contained, confined, managed, and controlled. God cannot fit into a dwelling place of our own construction. We cannot keep God in a tent of our own making.
God’s true nature is far more mysterious and wonderful and awesome than we can ever comprehend.
So: generation after generation, from one century to the next, stories about God were told by parents and elders to their children and grandchildren. Stories of creation, a great flood, bondage and freedom, and a journey to a promised land. Stories of kings and prophets. Stories of the messiah.
Each story helped fill out the picture of who God is, and – more importantly – how God calls us to live. By itself, each story presents an inadequate picture of God, and even taken together, there is still a lot of room for mystery and wonder.
After all, these stories were all told using earthly, human language, which could do nothing more than describe God by way of metaphor and analogy.
For most of Christian history, this is how these stories were heard and understood.
Then, around the 1600s, things began to change. The printing press allowed for numerous copies of scripture to be printed; soon people were reading scripture rather than hearing it.
This time period also included the birth of modern science. Humanity became interested in answers, facts, and solving the mysteries of the universe. It was the age of Copernicus, Galileo, Isaac Newton, and others, who greatly enhanced our understanding of the world.
However, these changes led to a 2nd way of reading the Bible and understanding the faith. Some Christians in this dawning age of science thought that the Bible should be read scientifically, as a book of historical and scientific facts rather than as a guide to a certain way of life.
So for them, the Biblical stories of creation (for example) came to be seen as scientific explanations of how the universe was formed. In an age of science, they searched the Bible for proof; they sought to defend its literal details (which often contradicted those being discovered by science), rather than allowing its stories to serve as literary devices meant only to help humans understand deeper truths about God or about how they are to live.
It is somewhat ironic that today, those who read the Bible in this more recent way are called conservative Christians, while those who favor the more ancient way of hearing the stories of scripture are often called progressive Christians.
At this point I should probably tell you – not that it will come as a surprise to most of you – that I tend to read the Bible from a progressive Christian viewpoint. In fact, it seems that the older I get – and the more I study scripture and learn about the ways Christians have read and understood these ancient stories from one generation to the next – the more progressive I become.
I don’t want to contain, confine, manage, or control God. I don’t want to try to fit God into a dwelling of my own making. I don’t want to make God in my image or in the image of my society. Anne Lamott has said that you can be pretty sure that you’ve created God in your own image when God hates all the same people you hate. I don’t want to be like that.
God is mysterious and wonderful; more mysterious and wonderful than I will ever understand.
And I’m okay with that.
I want to hear the stories without the punctuation marks that we have placed into them, making them conform to our understanding of God. I want to let the stories be heard as they were intended: painting a portrait of God and God’s love. I want to find a truth that is much deeper than that sought by modern, scientific questions. I want to experience the mystery and wonder of God.
For progressive Christians, the point of the creation story isn’t that God created the world in six 24-hour periods; the point is that “the earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.”
The point of the story of Noah and the flood isn’t that the waters literally rose above the highest point on earth, or that all the animals fit on an ark that was so many cubits long and so many cubits wide, but that God’s passion is for a world of compassion, kindness and love, a world where humans worship God and get along with one another.
The point of the exodus story isn’t that God caused the sea to part so that the waters stood up in a wall on their left and a wall on their right; the point is that God is passionate about bringing justice, liberation and freedom to his people.
The point of the story of Job isn’t in figuring out how God can keep a man alive in the belly of a fish for three days; the point is that God’s presence is everywhere, that God will be with you even if you try to run away from God, all the way to the ends of the earth.
The point of scripture, and of Christianity itself, isn’t about getting folks to agree with certain doctrinal statements; the point is learning how God wants us to live: with love, kindness, compassion, and a commitment to justice for all of God’s people.
This is the ancient way of hearing and understanding the stories of scripture, although for many Christians today, it is, in fact, new and different. I guess that’s why it’s called progressive.
For some people, hearing and understanding the stories this way is challenging, difficult, even terrifying. It changes everything.
For others, it comes as a breath of fresh air, as it allows their faith to come out of a confining dwelling place that cannot possibly contain it.
I can’t tell you how many people have told me that they just can’t go to church because so much of what the church expects them to believe, they find simply unbelievable.
Others have said to me that they don’t believe in God at all, but when I ask them to describe to me this God they don’t believe in, I find myself responding that I don’t believe in that God, either. God as he is often described today is confined to a dwelling place of human origin; but God is much bigger than that.
For the next six weeks, throughout the season of Lent, I’ll be sharing with you what it means to have a more ancient understanding of God, faith, and scripture; a more progressive way of understanding. You can decide for yourself if that is how you believe, or how you’d like to believe, or if it’s just not for you. We are, after all, a church that embraces all kinds of diversity.
But if you or someone you know struggles with faith, or would like to believe but have certain “issues” with the church; if you or someone you know likes to be described as “spiritual but not religious,” or if you agree with Gandhi that “I love Christ; it’s his followers I can’t stand,” then I think these next few weeks will be very helpful to you.
I hope you will invite someone to join you in worship next week. And in this coming season of Lent, may you find a deeper, more holy communion with God.
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