San Williams, Presenter
Luke 9:28-36
Okay, so it’s a strange story. A mystical story. A transcendent moment when Jesus shines in heavenly light. A moment in which two figures from the ancient past suddenly appear, like holograms before the stunned disciples. Then a voice from on high pierces the cloud of unknowing and reveals the true identity of Jesus. “This is my Son, the chosen. Listen to him.”
Why don’t we begin by admitting that we post-moderns have some special difficulties listening to only one spiritual voice. Clearly Christianity is not the only channel on our spiritual screen. In fact, there are more spiritual offerings to listen to these days than there are channels on cable television. Oprah Winfrey now has a daily segment called, “Remembering Your Spirit.” Watch a few of these segments and you’ll quickly see that the potential paths to spiritual enlightenment seem endless and confusing. You can try eastern meditation. Join a Twelve Step program. Do an ennneagram. Get in touch with your inner-child. Participate in a small group. Get in sync with the wolf inside you. Visit a Shaman. Spend time in an ashram.
Some of you saw the movie, Contact, a few years ago. In this movie, a young astronomer, played by Jodie Foster, devotes herself totally to searching for extraterrestrial life in the cosmos. She sends radio messages into deep space and waits anxiously for any hint of response. Her love interest, played by Matthew McConaghey, is something of a New Age theologian. He believes in a deity of sorts. Foster’s character, however, believes only in scientific proofs and mathematical precision. Then one day, surprisingly, the universe speaks back to her. What ultimately follows is a powerful personal experience that defies proof and precision. What happened to her? Whom did she contact? Was it a “close encounter?” Was it God? Was it some sort of bizarre dream or hallucination? The movie concludes with this young astronomer struggling to explain her mysterious experience to a skeptical congressional committee. I wonder if many folks today wouldn’t identify with the Jodie Foster character-longing for contact with something beyond ourselves. Yearning to hear a transcendent voice. The theme of the television series X-files declares, “The truth is out there.” Yes, the truth may well be out there but, let’s face it, in our day the search for truth takes many forms
Well, in the midst of this spiritual cacophony, Luke reports in his Gospel that Jesus is God’s way of making contact with us. Jesus, the Gospels report, is the one, quintessential communication from God to human beings. The transfiguration story that we heard this morning reveals Jesus as the fulfillment of the law, the prophets and of all human longings. In this transfiguration story, the two great figures of Israel’s faith, Moses, to whom God gave the Ten Commandments and Elijah, the great prophet, are wondrously present with Jesus. The three talk as equals. Then there is a voice from on high, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” When the disciples look up, Moses and Elijah-these great representatives of Israel-disappear, leaving only Jesus. The Christian claim is that in this Jew from Nazareth, in this vulnerable human being, in this suffering servant, we have seen as much of God as any of us will ever see. Yes, surely God speaks to us in a number of ways; through nature, through the good works of other people, in all that is good and wonderful about this world. But God’s singular self-communication, the epiphany of all epiphanies, is Jesus.
But some are going to feel that this sounds way too exclusive. Most of us want very much to be open-minded and tolerant. In the interest of all getting along, we hear people say things like “There are many pathways to God,” or “We all have different concepts of God,” or “All religions are basically the same.” At the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago in 1993, Diana Eck of Harvard University introduced the opening plenary session by noting that religious pluralism is increasing all around us. “The global village is in our backyard,” she said. Eck complained that the God of Israel and the church is far too “exclusive” to be helpful in enabling all the diverse religions and cultures to live together in some kind of harmony. Well we, too, are interested in fostering harmony, and in getting along with our neighbors. Just a few years ago, the neighborhood in which our church stands was a quaint, university community populated with mainline Protestant and Catholic churches. Now, within shouting distance of where we sit, there are religious establishments for Mormons, the Church of Scientology, Jews, the Ba’hi faith, a Hindu school, an Islamic mosque just to name a few. Given this growing diversity, we might be inclined to follow Diana Eck’s suggestion that we find those elements in our faith that are useful for getting along together, and edit out any portions of our faith that sound too exclusive. For example, today’s revealing of Jesus as God’s Son, the chosen, the One we are to follow, may strike many as too restrictive.
But there is, I believe, a more faithful way to express our faith amidst the pluralism in which we live. It’s possible to be open-minded and single-minded at the same time. We can’t be Christians and evade what Soren Kierkegaard kept calling “the scandal of particularity.” A couple of weeks ago our scripture suggested the catholicity of God-the breath of God’s love for all people. But the wideness of God’s mercy has come to us in a particular form. We celebrated this not too many weeks ago when we gathered around the manger at Bethlehem. There we discovered that God has a face, a name, a family. Our God is not some aloof, abstract principle, not some vague amalgam of what we think God should be. The Transfiguration is another biblical account of the delightful scandal that God comes to the world in, of all places, Nazareth. As of all things, a Jew who gathers up into the divine promise, of all people, us Gentiles. If we rob our faith, or other faiths, for that matter, of its particular witness to God, we end up sputtering about some limp virtue like tolerance. Don’t misunderstand me, tolerance is a good thing, but just to believe in tolerance has its limitations. Imagine a newly married couple celebrating their first Valentine’s Day dinner together–candlelight, wine. And in the midst of this romantic moment, the husband looks her in the eye and says, “Honey, I’m going to tolerate you forever.” We want to love and to be loved. We want to be loved with a mutual love, a servant love, a Christ-like love. As Christians, we are empowered to love others-all others-because God first loved us in a very particular and transforming way.
And that’s why we’re in church this morning. To listen to Jesus so that we can follow Jesus as his disciples in the world today. Yes, we can and should listen to people of other faiths, learn from them and, most importantly, always love them. But if we listen to Jesus above all others, we learn how to love others more fully. To follow Jesus alone is to be in constant contact with God. It is to be changed from one degree of glory to another until we share the likeness of Christ. He is the one who was hated, but he hated no one; who was met by anger, but did not respond in anger; and who was killed by jealousy, but was jealous of and hurt no one. He was on the receiving end of murderous anger, jealousy, and hatred, but he never passed these on to others. Rather he was able to transform them into gifts of forgiveness, compassion, and love. Jesus alone reveals to us the ultimate truth and absolute goodness of God. So listen to him. Cling to him. Follow him. He is as close to God as any of us will ever be.
Discussion
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