I’ve always been a bit bothered by this gospel. I can understand transformation – when one thing gets changed into another – and in the spiritual life we constantly seek to be transformed into the Christlike beings we were created to be. But transfiguration has seemed fairly pointless. Why would God go to the trouble of changing Jesus’ appearance for a brief time with only three witnesses who were later sworn to secrecy?
This year it makes more sense to me. I don’t know whether Jesus knew what was going to happen when he headed off with three disciples or whether this was his normal practice – to go away for prayer, and sometimes to take a few of his companions with him. But for whatever reason, on this particular occasion Jesus had an experience of himself as the Cosmic Christ. And it gives us a reminder that the reign of God is right here, right now.
The shift of perception brought about on that mountaintop is a shift of perception that we can make at any time. Because while we are going about our daily lives, doing the things that need to be done, there is a much bigger and more glorious drama unfolding. There is a parallel universe – the universe of the reign of God – and it is both here among us and on the other side of the veil of knowing.
Most of the time we are oblivious to that other reality but from time to time we get glimpses. For many of us those glimpses come in nature, in an exceptionally beautiful sunset or in the unfolding wings of a newly transformed butterfly. At other times, something synchronistic occurs and we wonder, was that a coincidence or could it have been a God moment? Did that just really happen? And the more we train ourselves to notice and be grateful for the moments when the reign of God breaks through, the more they happen.
And when they do, we too can know the unconditional love of God. In those special moments it is as if God is saying to us personally, “You are my beloved child.”
I had a moment like that this morning. Despite my best intentions I was late. It takes from 5 to 7 minutes to get here from home. It was 2 minutes before 8 when I got into the car to get here for the 8 o’clock service. I was hurried, flustered and annoyed with myself. As I turned the key in the ignition the radio came on to the Bach Collegium from Japan singing the Hallelujah Chorus. My day was transfigured.
The change of perception from the mundane to the glory of God is one which we can practice in our prayer lives. We can turn our inner eye to the glory of God and lose ourselves in praise and worship. As I said last week when I talked about the Prayer of Assent, this kind of prayer is not about us, it’s about God. It trains us to see the glory of God shining through our lives and surrounding us with love.
Brother Lawrence, a 17th century Carmelite monk, practiced finding God in everything he did, especially in the kitchen where he worked. His writings and conversations were recorded in a small book, “Practicing the Presence of God.” Brother Lawrence wrote, “ “That in order to form a habit of conversing with God continually, and referring all we do to Him; we must at first apply to Him with some diligence: but that after a little care we should find His love inwardly excite us to it without any difficulty.”
How differently would be view our work and the activities of daily life if we saw them as an opportunity to practice the presence of God, and if we found God’s love “inwardly exciting” us to it. This practice of seeing God and God’s reign takes conscious effort and yet the Holy Spirit is always willing to work with us to change our sight. We know that God’s purpose, God’s great work, is to bring all things into reconciliation with Godself. And we know that we are part of it. So the way we do everything that we do becomes important. When we act as if God’s reign is here and now, it is. When we act with unconditional love we are demonstrating the reign of God in our world, we are straddling the two worlds.
Now, why did Jesus tell the disciples not to tell anyone? I don’t know but I know that when something very special happens, something intimate or intense, we don’t always want to talk about it, we want to hold it close to ourselves and savor it.
There is a paradox here. In order to increase our awareness of God’s activity in our lives, it is really helpful to talk about what we see and the inklings we have of God’s presence. By talking about it we focus on those moments and help ourselves to become more aware of them, but by over-talking we can dissipate the energy of our connection with the divine.
I am sure that the disciples wanted to talk about everything that had happened. “We saw Elijah”, “We saw Moses,” “We heard a voice out of a cloud, and you’ll never believe what Peter said…” but Jesus asked them not to. Perhaps he needed time to work out what it was all about for himself. He didn’t want their excitement to get in the way of his process, and really it was his news to tell, not theirs.
This can be challenging in faith community. I’m not always sure whether something you told me was confidential to me, or whether in telling me you thought you had told the prayer chain and/or the Parish Council. It is important for us to share with one another our concerns and difficulties as well as our God moments. But it is important that we keep those as sacred communications not things to be broadcast to all and sundry.
That’s part of our participation in the reign of God, understanding that some things are precious and sacred and need to be held close to the heart. It is acknowledging the Christ in one another to hold our shared experiences and our shared thoughts in a sacred trust. Especially our mountain top and our deep valley experiences.
Yet the more we use our transfiguration lenses to see the glory of God and the purpose of God shining through the darkness of our world, the more those around us will see it too, whether or not we talk about it.
These are difficult times for us as a nation. The difficulty is constantly amplified by the media which looks for conflict and stress to keep our attention. We have the opportunity to change our own perception to see God at work here, to see the glory of God shining out of the darkness. Because God’s glory is there, just behind the veil. Waiting for us to see it.
I’m going to close with a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins:
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
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