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Sermon - February 18th, 2007
Living With Mystery
Rev. Gwen Drake
Scripture: Luke 9:28-36
Who can talk about the Transfiguration? Jesus certainly did not talk about it, and neither did the three disciples who were with him, according to Luke. “They kept silent and told no one.” Do you wonder, then, how the author of Luke heard about it? I don’t really wonder about that so much, but I do wonder whether Luke questioned the wisdom of writing the experience of the Transfiguration down. Because when he did, that experience became public property. Scholars, priests, preachers, lay people, all kinds of people started examining it for significance, explaining why Moses and Elijah were there, why Peter said what he said, and the voice said what it said. It is an experience that does not fit into the usual categories. So we just keep handling it until we wear it down to where it feels safe to us. We just keep analyzing it until we think we have something intelligent to say about it.
The truth is, this is a story about an intensely private moment between Jesus and God, so private that much of it happened in a cloud. Yes, there were witnesses. But, it was all those witnesses could do to stay awake. It was as if God had protected them from the things they were not equipped to see. And then what they did see, they misunderstood. They were terrified by it, which may be why they kept silent, in those days.
So, can I really talk about it? No, not really, because it would seem disrespectful. What I can do is talk about our fascination with such other worldly events. The Bible is full of them. Moses and the burning bush, Jacob and the ladder of angels, Job and the voice out of the whirlwind, to mention three big ones. These experiences are all experiences of a cracked open door between this world and some other world—the world where God is a very real presence.
It just doesn’t seem like the world works that way anymore. Most bushes do not give off heat, most ladders do not have the footprints of angels, and most whirlwinds only say “whoosh.” And a lot of people are wondering, well, where is God, anyway. Many of them in hot pursuit of seeking the holy everywhere, but in church. They go to the mountains, they beat drums, they go on their own pilgrimage, some follow ancient spiritual traditions, others make things up as they go along, some go to India, some go to seminary or a Bible college. All are trying to find a way to experience the holy, the living God. They have had enough of explanations! They want to come face to face with the real thing.
Three summers ago, I was given a gift of a three month all expense paid leave through a grant called the Clergy Renewal Grant, given by the Lilly Foundation. One place I decided to go for spiritual renewal was to Scotland and the Island of Iona. I went there because it is known as one of those “thin places,” a place where the veil between this world and the spirit world is so sheer that it is easy to step through. If you have been in Ireland or Scotland, you probably understand. It’s beautiful country. It’s got castles and green sheep pastures and crystal clear water. If you can stop all the racket in your own mind and body, you can sometimes feel it for yourself—a freshness that drenches you as thoroughly as a shower. How it works is a complete mystery, but there is no denying the effect.
Now, I’m a farm girl through and through. I have to have my feet firmly planted on the ground. I’m pretty down-to-earth. Going to Scotland was a retreat time for me. Stopping all the racket going on in my mind was very difficult that summer—right after my divorce. I spent a lot of time journaling, walking, observing, reflecting, listening, noticing. I was in a setting where I was not a tourist. I was living and working in a community where I was taken care of in terms of food, water, shelter, transportation. There were opportunities for meditation and worship and sharing. So, for two weeks I was open to whatever I was ready to see, hear, experience.
It would be a wonderful story to share if I had experienced first hand, with my own eyes, the glory of God, a transfiguration, a mountaintop experience like the disciples did with Jesus. I didn’t. I did experience that cracked open door, however, where enough light came through to illuminate what teaching I need to hear, what experience I needed to learn. It was not an experience that took my breath away, but there were a few time when I felt shivers up and down my spine. The first time that happened in Scotland was when one of the facilitators of the retreat said something very simple about silence. She said silence was a sign of intimacy, or closeness. She invited a group of us to listen to the silence. She said there was something that we need to hear when there is silence. It is not necessarily something that needed to be filled with our voices. I had come out of a very clutter, noisy marriage. It had been a long time for me to feel okay when I didn’t feel like talking or didn’t have any words in me. The facilitator said, I was saying something when I was silent. I just wasn’t saying it out loud. Not that I’m going to stand before you silent and expect you to get the message. But in close relationships, sometimes words are not enough, and then silence can speak. If others are willing to listen, to listen to the silence.
And that’s what the whole two weeks were about…an affirmation of who I was as a pastor, a mother, a friend, and human being who was no longer married. I felt God’s love wrapped around me the whole time I was there. Every message I received was another affirmation. That’s what I needed. That was the transfiguration, the mountaintop experience. It was a reminder of everything I had forgotten. Of course, with me, nothing is an instant transformation. I seem to take one step forward and then two back. But for those two weeks, I let the love of God, the amazing grace of God wash over me. I threw a rock into a muddy river to release my anger and resentment. I threw a rock into a bay on the Island of Iona to release the burden of a failed marriage. Those were my “thin moments” where the veil between this world and the spirit world was ever so thin. And Scotland as a thin place did its work and sent me home to continue the work.
Jesus, the disciples, you and I can’t stay on the mountaintop forever. Peter wanted to. He wanted to build tents for everyone and fix the moment for all time, nail it down, so to speak. But a voice said, “Put down your tent pegs. Don’t do anything. Don’t talk, don’t plan, don’t analyze, just listen. Listen to the silence.” And they did. They returned to the valley. We have to return to the valley. I had to return home, not really knowing what to do next, what to say, or where to go. But the experience in Scotland did change me, it led me gradually beyond what I had thought of myself to another road, a road that has brought me here to this moment.
When we follow Jesus, we may have dreams or visions, wonderful, mystical, baffling, frightening moments when God gives us the gift of sight, when the veil separating us from God is very thin, when the fogs lifts, even for a split second, and we see, we know, we experience the holy! I hope you have had such times. I hope you will have them. John Newton had to have had such a moment when the words of Amazing Grace came to him. They are moments of epiphany. And there is no shortage of epiphanies in this world. They are moments that transform us, causing us to turn and listen and follow Jesus. Just as the disciples did, all the way to Jerusalem.
Amen.