Dead Guys on a Camping Trip?
Durrell Watkins, Sunshine Cathedral
Transfiguration Sunday 2012

The gospel story today is not particularly easy to talk about, mostly because it is just so strange. At least at first glance.

I mean, as Rev. Guzman pointed out in a meeting earlier in the week, how did Peter, James and John know they were looking at Elijah and Moses? It’s not as if Elijah had been named Time Magazine’s Prophet of the Year, or that Moses made the cover of People magazine as the world’s sexiest liberator. There were no photos of these long gone heroes. They see some ghostly figures in the distant and just know who they are? That’s odd (and maybe a weak spot in Mark’s otherwise brilliant storytelling).

And, it could be that the story is actually misplaced. The story actually reads like a resurrection narrative. It could be that it was meant to be added to the end of the gospel, but in the process of hand copying, was accidentally placed in the middle of the story. It could be that the Transfigured Jesus was meant to be imagined as a Resurrection experience demonstrating that Jesus’ significance did not end at Golgotha.

But even if the story is misplaced in the narrative as we’ve inherited it, and even if Mark didn’t think through that people would not have been able to recognized two apparitions as Elijah and Moses whom they had never seen, it still could be that as we look at the text a little more closely, it will start to make a bit more sense to us.

In verse 1 of Mark chapter 9, Mark has Jesus say, “Some who are standing HERE will not taste death before they see that the Realm of God has come with power.”

Jesus was executed in the year 29. If he said those words and was referring to the literal end of the world or to his literal, physical return to earthly life, then quite simply, Jesus was mistaken. Obviously, there were people in the year 29 who did not live to see the world literally end or Jesus literally return from the afterlife.

However, Mark is writing in the year 70. Maybe Jesus never said those words, but Mark is saying them and putting them in Jesus’ mouth to give them more impact, more gravitas. But again, there were people alive in the year 70 that did not live to see the world literally end or Jesus literally return from the afterlife. So, if that is what Mark meant, then Mark was mistaken.

But what if none of this is about factual, literalism? What if this is about the way we choose to see things? What if Mark is saying that Jesus would have seen God in everyday life and followers of Jesus also can see God in everyday life? If that sort of imaginative, creative thinking is part of Mark’s plan, then while his words did not prove to be literally factual, they can all the same prove to be spiritually true.

As we read the bible carefully, we find that much of it isn’t factual, but neither dry facts nor creative fiction can limit the power of truth. The spiritual experience of Truth can’t be adequately communicated with mere words, but when we try to point to Truth with our words, the words that serve best are the words that are used creatively, even fictitiously. That’s why myth, fable, and parable are so often employed in spiritual teaching.

Verse 2 of Mark 9 picks up with, “Six days after that…” That is, 6 days after Mark imagines Jesus saying that the Realm of God would come powerfully before the audience he was addressing had passed from this life. He says that, and then six days later we pick up with the story we heard read today. It’s starting to come together, isn’t it?

Mark, a creative artist and storyteller, begins to weave a familiar tale. You see, in Exodus chapter 24 there is a story where Moses is told by God to take three companions, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu and go to a sacred mountain.

Before Moses ascends the mountain, he builds an altar to God and performs a ritual reaffirming the covenant between God and the Israelites.

He then sets out to climb the mountain, but of course, only Moses himself can go to the peak of the mountain where he will encounter the power and presence of God. But even though only Moses can have the face to face meeting with the deity, the companions from a distance see a great cloud covering the mountain for six days. And then on the seventh, divine glory begins to shine like an enormous fire.

That story is right from the Torah, and every devout person of the Jewish faith would be familiar with it. And Mark is telling this familiar story, but is modernizing it by changing the characters to people a bit closer to where Mark and his community actually live.

We’ve seen that trick ourselves dozens of times…We saw Scrooge McDuck as Ebenezer Scrooge in Mickey’s Christmas Carol in 1983. We also saw Vanessa Williams play the Scrooge character in A Diva’s Christmas Carol in 2000.

A carton duck, a singing superstar, changing the venue and the scenery and the names and even the gender or species of the characters doesn’t change the intent of Dickens’ story, a sort of morality play, about a miserly and miserable lonely person who values his wealth more than people, and cares more for his own success than for the empowerment of his neighbors and community. In the course of the story, Scrooge is haunted by his pettiness and learns that if he wants to be loved he must offer love, no strings attached.

If he wants to not be alone, he can’t demand people do things his way, but he must offer himself generously and accept what people can offer him without his making demands on them.

If he wants to be remembered fondly, he must be generous not only with his resources but also with his time and with his spirit.

The power of that story can be communicated whether the miser character is a Victorian English businessman, a Scottish American talking duck, or a former Miss America turned recording artist and Broadway star.

And that’s what Mark is doing. He is retelling the story of a leader entering the divine presence and allowing himself to be so changed that the world around him changes as well. Old story. New twist. We’ve been doing it for millennia.

Notice how the Moses story and Mark’s story are parallel:

In Exodus, the covenant is reaffirmed. The children of Israel are the children of God. For Mark, Jesus is affirmed as God’s child, and by extension then, the followers of Jesus are also affirmed as God’s children. The relational covenant between God and humanity is affirmed in both stories.

The cloud of God’s presence lasts 6 days in Moses’ story, Jesus encounters the cloud of God’s presence 6 days after saying the Realm of God would be almost immediately experienced.

Moses takes companions on his spiritual quest, and Jesus takes companions on his. Spirituality is most powerful as a shared, communal experience.

Moses builds an altar. Peter wants to build a shrine. Peter doesn’t really know what to do or what to say, but knows he’s experiencing something holy and he wants to acknowledge that in some way. Of course, Peter’s shrine isn’t an altar but a tent, something meant to house or contain or trap the experience. He wants to freeze time and not move beyond that moment, and that is a mistake. Mark even says that Peter doesn’t know what he’s saying.

Moses’ companions see divine light as a consuming fire. Jesus’ companions see Jesus transfigured into a being of light. In both cases, divinity is described not as things but as light…light can’t be touched or molded, but even though it isn’t a thing, it can be powerfully experienced and one is better for experiencing it. Both stories point beyond idolatry to a spiritual experience beyond any trappings whatsoever.

Now, Mark adds to the original story as well. He has people from history showing up in his revamped account. And the added characters probably represent something in particular.

Moses represents law, but Jesus has shown a tendency to be a liberal interpreter of religious law. In fact, Jesus makes it clear that religion is made for us; we were not made for religion. So, rather than being bound by ancient traditions, Jesus suggests that we should use our own creativity and intelligence to apply inherited religion in new, affirming, and life-giving ways. Moses may have been the law-giver, but Jesus is the law interpreter, and his interpretation is always on the side of helping people live with joy.

Elijah represents the prophetic tradition. But the prophets aren’t just in the past; Jesus shows that the prophetic ministry of challenging injustice is still needed and we are still called to work for peace and justice for all people.

A legend suggested that Elijah would one day return. Mark imagines that Elijah has returned in spirit on this occasion. Not to fix things, but to recognize the prophetic work that still needed to be done.

Mark adds something else. Mark imagines God saying, “this is my chosen one, listen to him.” Mark is saying that there is wisdom beyond the ancient texts. Religion isn’t a monument to history; it’s a tool for living in the present. You’ve read Moses. You’ve read Elijah. Now listen to Jesus. And to Mark. And to Paul. And to James. And to Peter. And to John. And to Thomas. And to Mary Magdalene. And to the Samaritan woman. And the Canaanite woman seeking healing for her daughter. Listen for the voice of God in the arts, in nature, in poetry, in your own thoughts, in the outcry of the oppressed, in the painful moaning of those who suffer. Listen for the voice of God where you actually live today. Listen to the divine voice urging you to share hope and compassion and healing in the world.

And then, they no longer saw Moses and Elijah. They were just with themselves, and Jesus, and the present moment. No more worshiping the past. It’s time to fully live in the present and make a difference in the here and now.

Maybe it’s not such a bizarre story after all. It’s not just about Jesus developing a healthy glow, nor is it about his friends holding a mountain top séance and seeing the dead return from the great beyond. It’s about remembering that we are the children of God, we, just as we are, have sacred valued, and as the children of God we have work to do to bring hope and healing to our world. That’s the truth of this retelling of an older tale, and this is the good news. Amen.

© Durrell Watkins 2012

Affirmations
My hands are God’s hands.
Through me, God is touching the world.
God is blessing my life and my world.
Alleluia!
Amen.

Final Word
“Light gives of itself freely, filling all available space. It does not seek anything in return; it asks not whether you are friend or foe. It gives of itself and is not thereby diminished.” ~Michael Strassfeld