Sunday, February 25, 2001
Rev. Dale Ostrander

"Delving Deeper"

Exodus 34:29-35
2 Corinthians 3:12-18
Luke 9:28-36

Today is the last Sunday after Epiphany, that season when the Christian Church celebrates the revelation of Jesus as the Christ, the light that has come into the world, shining forth in our lives and lighting our path. And, this Sunday, Transfiguration Sunday, is about seeing Jesus more clearly and what this means for those who would follow him. It’s about going deeper within ourselves, in our relationships and spiritually.

This is about those "mountaintop" experiences that throw light on our lives and on life itself.

I think transfiguration is about transformation.

Today’s scriptures are stories of such mysterious but revealing experiences.

In his account of the transfiguration, Luke, writing sometime between 80 and 90 AD, understands this experience as transforming the understanding of the three disciples – Peter, James and John – of who Jesus is. It’s a confirmation of his messiahship.

Some biblical scholars think this story is really a resurrection experience narrative of an appearance of the risen Christ to these three, and it has been inserted earlier as an experience of these disciples during the lifetime of Jesus before his journey to Jerusalem and his death.

Where did this take place? On a mountaintop, of course – the traditional site for holy encounters, similar to Moses on Mt. Sinai. In fact, Matthew, Mark and Luke all draw upon the older stories of Moses and Elijah, the two earlier prophetic heroes who had been associated with the messiahship in Jewish belief.

As we’ve discussed in the Adult Class, John Spong refers to this as engaging in the process of Midrash – expanding sacred scripture by borrowing from and reworking older themes in a new context.

Luke has Moses and Elijah appearing with, acknowledging and affirming Jesus as a fellow prophet and speaking of that which he was to accomplish in Jerusalem.

The gospel writers all see Jesus as the long-awaited one, completing the Old Testament prophecies. But while affirming Jesus’ identity as God’s Chosen One, Luke is also clarifying for followers that the life of this man, Jesus, has to be seen in a different light than that of a gloriously triumphant Messiah-King. And Luke is calling attention to what it really means to be followers of that Way which Jesus revealed.

Peter, being very caught up in this experience, wants to hold on to it and proposes building dwellings there – perhaps like a retreat house or vacation place. But the voice of God interrupts him and says, "This is my Chosen, listen to him."

Listening to him means setting aside their own images of messiahship, and their own wishes and visions of glory. Following Jesus would involve a journey of transformation, delving deeper into a relationship with the Spirit of God; an opening of the heart and a reorienting of one’s life. It would be a way less traveled and in contrast to the conventions of the tradition and the cultural messages of the time.

This was a transfigured and transforming moment for these disciples. But this isn’t so rare, really. Most of us have had the experience of coming to see things from a new perspective, when the true significance of something breaks in upon us, revealing something more and deeper. We speak of these as "epiphanies" or "mountaintop experiences."

We read today also from the letter of Paul to the church at Corinth. He speaks of the experience for Christians where we behold in Jesus Christ the glory of the Lord, and are "transformed into the likeness of Christ from one degree to another."

But following Jesus, life in the Spirit, is not easy, according to Luke: Love your enemies; pray for those who abuse you; give to everyone who begs from you; do not judge; forgive; and expect nothing in return. This is why, as Paul says, it’s a journey of transformation from one degree to another – a deepening relationship with God as we go along.

And it’s not about beliefs. In fact, the root meaning for the word, "believe" in both Greek and Latin means "to give one’s heart to." And the German word "belieben" the root of the English word "believe" really means "to belove" – giving one’s heart or self to at the deepest level. So, believing in Jesus means giving one’s heart to him, being in relationship to the Spirit of Christ, and serving God’s realm of love as Jesus has revealed it in his inclusive ministry of compassion and healing.

Well, what does this mean for us? How do we delve deeper? I believe it involves opening our hearts even more to the new covenant of which Paul speaks – to that new way of being in relationship with God, replacing the old way of externals; a heart opened to one another and opened into a wider community of being; finding ourselves transformed and reoriented at a deeper level of feeling, thinking and being. It means finding our way more and more into the journey of love.

Delving deeper involves getting beyond the externals we present to others.

Stephen Gilligan, now a therapist himself, writes about a time when as a psychology student he participated in a workshop with the master therapist, Milton Erickson, who had a unique ability to reach down through the layers of a person’s public self and touch a deeper core of that person – the yearnings, the fears, the disappointments and hopes. Stephen speaks of being nervous in his presence and determined that Erickson should like him and accept him as one of his students. So he stayed up nights working on a strategy to gain his favor. And because Erickson often used stories and metaphors in his work, Stephen concocted an elaborate fable of his own to present on the last day of the workshop.

That day he mustered his courage and stood up and presented the story. The response was silence and Erickson going on to something else. Stephen was devastated, but as the others were filing out of the room he managed to gather his last shreds of hope and courage and asked Erickson if he could come back and study with him. Erickson broke into a smile and with fatherly affection said, "Of course, why didn’t you just ask?"

For Stephen this was a transforming lesson of going deeper beneath his pretensions and pose and experiencing acceptance and movement into more authentic relationship.

I’ve been there! Stephen’s experience sounds like some I’ve had over the years. I imagine we all can point to some of these. In our eagerness to please and be loved we end up hiding and shielding ourselves from others. We need to go deeper, discovering those sealed-off places, those defenses and survival strategies that have become a way of life, but, really, are no longer working for us. This is not easy, but it’s transforming, lifting us out of dullness of spirit, loneliness and self-absorption, and makes it possible for us to go deeper with one another.

Delving deeper also means seeking to get even more beyond the externals of our society’s pre-occupation with producing and consuming and embracing money, status and power. When the Frenchman, Alexis de Toqueville toured the United States in 1830, he was impressed with the level of democracy, but he also saw how ambitious and acquisitive Americans were. And he saw how their appetites bred a materialism, which far from satisfying them, seemed to make them more anxious and feverish in the pursuit of well-being. And he worried that our obsession with individuality might become self-defeating and isolating.

But the sacred is discovered at a deeper level!

Going deeper and increasing our knowledge of God also means being attentive to the preciousness of our lives and our life together. What is really beautiful in your life?

Isn’t it your friends, your children, your wife or husband or life partner? How do you acknowledge and affirm and cherish their beauty and the beauty they bring to your life?

Going deeper in our relationships involves an open heart and more listening. God’s voice to Peter and to us says, "Listen!"

Did you read the article in Tuesday’s Washington Post about listening research by the International Listening Association?

· We listen at 125-250 words/minute, but think at 1000-3000/minute.

· About 85% of what we know we have learned by listening.

· We spend about 45% of the time listening.

· We are distracted, pre-occupied or forgetful about 75% of the time.

· Immediately after listening to someone we usually recall only about half of what we heard. And beyond that, we remember about 20% of what we hear.

· Men and women tend to have different listening habits. That’s apparently why men don’t appear to be good listeners while their wives are talking. And apparently why men do not get credit for good listening when they’re also reading the newspaper. It’s not full-face listening. You need to show you are listening and look at her (or the other person), and look receptively. If you do this you will get more credit, and in fact develop better listening habits and more life-promoting relationships.

And finally, like Peter, James and John, going deeper and being open to deeper truths transforms us and leads us into a deeper sense of purpose and meaning in our lives.

It opens us up to that wider community of being, to find ways to give and enhance life, and to work and to love, and to care for the earth. It’s never too late to revise our perceptions about people and life and why we are here. Elie Wiesel speaks in his memoir of his grandfather as " a man whose presence had sanctified a small piece of the universe."

Last Sunday Linda Carder mentioned the parents of Amy Biehl, who was slain in South Africa while working in a voter education project there. Linda spoke of her parents’ willingness to forgive and befriend those who took her life. I too was deeply moved by the story. Their daughter’s death was a transforming event for them. They walked away from what they described as their walled-off life in a California suburb because it suddenly seemed so unbearably unimportant. Now they live and work in South Africa raising money and developing projects that will hire and train people for jobs there. They speak of their daughter’s death as changing them, and of moving them from the deepest hurt to a peace and a sense of purpose. Her mother says, "This is one place Amy feels most alive to us." No mention here of religious beliefs. But this is a transformation story, and a resurrection story!

This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent in which we will remember those last days of Jesus’ life, his death, and his resurrection – a story that has transformed our lives as Christians. Lent is a time of going deeper and of re-centering in the God in whom we live and move and have our being. It’s a time of introspection and self-examination when we probe deeply and respond honestly to how we are getting on with that process of transformation into the likeness of Christ. It’s not in our striving that this happens. Rather it’s in our response to the experience of God’s grace – a life response; a change of focus; attention to our relationships; and an alignment of our whole being with what God is doing in the world.

In the weeks ahead let us open our hearts and ask God to give us ears to hear and eyes to see, so that in our listening and seeing we may be more open to discovering the ways in which the sacred expresses itself. Amen

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