It’s a Vision Thing

18 February 2007
Carolyn L Roberts
Luke 9.18-26

The scripture this Sunday is the text that’s always used at the end of the season of epiphany. It’s one of those that wouldn’t make for a good documentary. It’s too Cecil B. DeMill-ish – lots of theatrics. And way too multi-layered. The disciples are so tired they have trouble staying awake—perhaps Luke’s way of anticipating the night in the garden of Gethsemane before Jesus’ crucifixion. But on this night, they manage to stay awake while Jesus goes up on the mountain to pray. A mountain, of course, brings you closer to God in a three-tiered universe where heaven and God are ‘up there.’ And as Jesus is praying, his face is transfigured as he enters more fully into the loving presence of God. Then his clothes become bright white. I love the way the Gullah language describes it. “E cloes change too. Dey ton pure white an beena shine like shaap lightnin.”[1]

Today’s story is a vision—a vision of those who are very close to Jesus, a vision of followers whose own ‘aha! moment’ was a shared experience. I love the detail Luke slips in about Peter and his companions being weighed down with sleep, but managing to stay awake. Visions are often captured most easily in that halfway state between waking and sleeping. It’s in this semi-conscious state that Jesus’ followers catch an extraordinary vision of Jesus. You can almost hear them, “Did you see what I saw? Did you hear what I heard?” For that brief, shining, Camelot moment, Peter, James and John see something of the essence of Jesus that even goes beyond Jesus’ teaching and his healing, something that puts him in company with Elijah, the great prophet who cheats death itself by being taken directly to heaven in a chariot of fire. And Jesus is in company with Moses, giver of the law, leader of the Exodus. If we are known by the company we keep, Jesus keeps impressive company! Especially for a known companion of tax collectors, fishers, and prostitutes. Luke can’t resist a de Mill touch. Alone among the gospel writers, he tells us what Jesus, Moses, and Elijah are talking about. They are talking about the exodus Jesus will begin at Jerusalem. Jesus may be the new kid on the block when it comes to Elijah and Moses,[2] but he adds to the story in a way that pulls the vision of liberation and speaking prophetic truth to power in a new and profound direction.

That mountaintop is already crowded with Jesus, Peter, James, John, Moses, and Elijah, when another player enters the scene. The disciples’ vision of Jesus is no longer on center stage. Like a story within a story, the disciples are included in God’s vision of Jesus. This is my son, my beloved. Listen up. He has some important things for you to hear. Luke doesn’t say, “This is my son, my chosen, he has some important things to say.” The emphasis is on God’s expectation of the disciples. They need to listen.

Not twenty-five miles from here, Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke to a vast crowd gathered at the Mall. He gave voice to a dream, a vision, and the words he spoke were among the most moving of our time. That vision had legs when it connected with the hearts of the hearers. When it tapped into the dreams and visions they had of a future that brought out the best of who they are, when it meshed with the vision that had been shared already in the stories of America’s founding. Of freedom. And liberty. Of the pursuit of happiness. Of equality and justice.

Last Tuesday noon, the Rev. Naim Ateek, a Palestinian Christian, spoke to a group of about 150 clergy, as well as those with a particular interest in the Middle East. He talked about how his own vision of Jesus has changed. In the Middle East, most Christians are Orthodox, and even those who come from another part of the Christian tradition are influenced heavily by Orthodox theology. Orthodox theology places tremendous emphasis on the trinity, and therefore on the divinity of Jesus.

In his own reading of the gospels, the Rev. Ateek became increasingly impressed with the humanity of Jesus. That Palestine was the place of birth, ministry and death for Jesus. That Jesus never lived a day outside of foreign occupation, the occupation of Rome. A Rome that could be so brutal in its maintenance of power that the uprights for crucifixes were often left by the side of the road, warning any who might consider transgressing the Pax Romana. It’s within the harsh reality of that setting, that Jesus lifts up a vision of another reality of self and relationships. A reality that refuses to play victim, but instead empowers the abused with blessings, and with a counter-intuitive command: love your enemies.

In the contemporary reality of the occupation and new apartheid of Palestine, Rev. Ateek speaks passionately to his people of a Jesus who is not in his glory on some mountaintop, but of a Jesus who lived much as they live. And, he says, they are listening, finding new resolve in that non-violent command to love their enemies, because they know it was field-tested right there on their home turf. At the same time, Rev. Ateek implores Americans, especially American Christians, to bring the same pressure to bear against Israel’s rendition of apartheid that we brought against South Africa’s. He called upon those of us present to speak out, to help transform the increasingly negative image of this great nation in the Arab world. When one of the people attending the lecture asked the inevitable “how?” you could hear murmurs across the room. Pensions. Divestment. Re-investment in companies other than Caterpillar, for example, which makes the huge earth-movers tearing down Palestinian homes, and erecting that monstrous wall that creates ghettos of two nations.

I am moved by Rev. Ateek’s personal witness, and by his challenge to the body of Christ. And I am sobered by the amazing parallel in our gospel. We read the story of Jesus’ transfiguration—the radiant transformation of Jesus’ face and person as it is infused with the light of God. But this story is nestled between Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Messiah and Jesus’ return to the ministry of healing as he sets his face toward Jerusalem and crucifixion. It is part of a whole, not an isolated incident.

In other words, Jesus’ transfiguration doesn’t begin on the mountaintop. It begins with Peter’s confession, in that flash of insight, when Peter proclaims Jesus as the messiah, God’s chosen one. In the same way, our own transfigurations begin when others remind us of who we are. They continue in those cloud-filled, disorienting, sometimes-frightening periods when we turn to God in prayer, asking for enough light to find our next best step forward. And sometimes, they are such thorough transfigurations that others—like Peter, James and John, or like Rev. Ateek’s Palestinian Christians—catch sight of the change and are compelled by it.

Today is the last Sunday of Epiphany, a season characterized by light in the depths of the darkest time of the Earth’s year. This Tuesday we ring out the old with our wonderful pancake supper, balloons and silly masks in UCCSV’s highly subdued version of Mardi Gras. Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent with its somber imposition of ashes and call for repentance. The stage is set for our own journey to Jerusalem, our own walk with Jesus. The transfiguration story prepares us for that journey. It reminds us that we need to listen to voice of Jesus to help us remember who we are and who we are called to be. It reminds us that we are not in this alone—other disciples walk with us too. And it reminds us that even Jesus does not stay on the mountaintop, but returns to the community to be an agent of healing. As we come down from the mountaintop of prayer and worship, we also re-enter the broader community, we are called to do no less. We may be called to repair fractured relationships; we may be called to take a stand against apartheid; we may be called to re-commit ourselves to do our part in addressing global warming. But we are called to do our part as agents of healing. And to know that the same Light which transfigured Jesus shines within and upon each of us as well. Thanks be to God!

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