Why do I balk? Marcus Borg wrote a book titled Taking the Bible Seriously but not Literally. In it he argues all of us raised and educated in modern Western societies have, whether we like it or not, been indoctrinated with generally Enlightenment views. As Borg puts it, we are "fact fundamentalists." We learn early on that statements of truth must be factually verifiable: any statement that doesn't correspond to "the facts" cannot be true. Not factually true, it is false, or, worse, simply nonsense As Borg explains it, Bible literalists, unbeknownst to themselves, have been made pawns of the very Enlightenment culture we are in that they struggle against. How could this be? It is a result of the pervasiveness of Enlightenment views of reality and how we ground our knowledge of reality.
Considering that, how does someone, indoctrinated like we are, understand or take seriously the Transfiguration, the Resurrection and the Ascension stories. One way of faith that Borg details in another book, is through his own journey of faith, starting with his childhood's trusting belief through young adult skepticism to mature apprehension that "a Christian is one who lives out his or her relationship to God within the framework of the Christian tradition.". The tradition calls upon Christians to follow Jesus "from life under the lordship of culture to the life of companionship with God" and from belief not in fixed doctrines but in giving one's heart to the "living Lord, the side of God turned toward us."
The Transfiguration is holy and contains many "beyond everyday" facts. The heart of this holiness is the mystery of Jesus and the Triune God. In the last blog entry I talked about how I am always struck with how down-to-earth and at the same time radical the words of Jesus appear whenever he is teaching Here, in contrast, we don't have an identified narrator, Jesus only speaks after the Transfiguration, many details are written to correspond to the scripture, and very little of the event is down-to-earth.
This is a story of heaven touching earth and God revealing God . God remains hidden in the cloud while Jesus physically reveals his power. If relegated to a myth, a legend, a fairy tale.or simply using language to express the inexpressible; then the Transfiguration as a true miracle may not be addressed or considered. There is a danger of not giving our hearts to "the living Lord, the side of God turned toward us".
One approach to the Gospel today is to consider Micah 6:8 - He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?
Opening our minds to reading the Transfiguration narrative seriously and wrestling, if we need to, with our enlightenment indoctrination may be just a lesson that we need to walk humbly with our God. We may pray and admit that the more we know about God and Jesus, the less we may know. And, as Peter said, "Lord, it is good for us to be here".
Reading these verses with this in mind changed much in what I took away from the Transfiguration before. This was six days after Peter declared that Jesus is the messiah but misunderstood the nature of his messianic mission. Peter, in his actions, might seem to continue to misunderstand by his three denials before the cock crowed but, perhaps, it was not yet his time to rise up as Jesus commanded.
Pastor Ray preached about three commands that are recorded in Matthew's Transfiguration. The voice from the cloud saying "Listen to him." and Jesus commanding Peter, James and John "Get up." which could be translated as "Rise up" and "Do not be afraid." Also there is Jesus ordering them "Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead."
Peter's words to Jesus are "Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." I have always thought, following other preaching on this story, that this was not an appropriate response to what Peter was witnessing. Today I see there is nothing in this Matthew reading that says that explicitly.
Lent can be about giving up something we are comfortable with but may want to change within us. The Transfiguration helped my letting go of certain conceptions of God I have grown too comfortable with in my faith life. It is a challenge to live into new understandings and to ponder the mystery of God and Jesus going forward in this Lenten season.
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