Henrietta United Church of Christ

Scripture: [transfiguration] Luke 9:28-36

Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” —not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.

Sermon:

Let’s join Jesus, Peter, James and John as they climb up that mountain. We have to pick our way around large boulders, pull ourselves up by roots and rocks when the going is steep, and wonder why Jesus couldn’t find a nice shady tree down below to pray under, for Pete’s sake–and John and James’ sake too. By the time we reach the summit, all of us are out of breath, caked with sweaty dust, and smelling pretty ripe. “Okay, Jesus, this better be a pretty good prayer,” we’re thinking, as we longingly remember the feel of cool water spraying over the bow of our fishing boat.

We kick some loose rocks aside and flop down on the ground, while Jesus walks away a few paces, heaves a heavy sigh, kneels down, and begins to pray. Our heavy eyes are transfixed on him, because he is praying with such fervor. He seems to be struggling with something very hard for him, and we find our heart going out to this man who is so totally devoted to serving God and giving to others. What could he be struggling with? As we gaze at his face half covered by sweaty hair, our eyes soften and something deeper than his face comes into focus. It’s like we’re looking, into his soul. Even his dirtied clothes are glowing with a radiance that’s not coming from his clothes but maybe through his clothes...or is it coming from the way we’re looking at them? Now we can see that it’s Moses and Elijah that Jesus is talking to. We don’t know how we know; we just know. They’re talking together about the suffering and death Jesus will be facing in Jerusalem. We sense how huge his mission is--cosmic even–and we see that he was chosen by God for this mission and that he is choosing this mission.

Though they couldn’t find words to try to explain this to anyone, the disciples who witnessed this “transfiguration” saw Jesus in a new light after that.

I wonder if you’ve ever seen anyone in a new spiritual light, when they seemed transfigured to you. It doesn’t happen to me very often, but it happened a little bit to me twice this past week. One person shared things from the depths of her struggles and pain. Another one shared things from the depths of his own soul-expanding search for God. In both cases, I found my eyes softening, bringing into focus something deeper than their physical appearance and deeper than my labels or judgments or mental commentary on their lives. As my heart and soul were opened, I saw their heart and soul, and beheld them as a daughter of God and son of God who were struggling to live out their life’s spiritual mission. Just beholding them like this brought tears to my eyes.

We might call this way of seeing “4-dimensional vision,” because we see a new dimension to people than normally meets our eyes. Maybe you’ve experienced it a little bit too--maybe as you looked into the eyes of someone you deeply love or opened your heart to them, maybe with someone who was dying, maybe with a child, maybe even with someone you’ve been butting heads with until you really opened to them and listened to them and finally saw them with your heart and soul. When you see someone that way, you feel a channel of love or spiritual energy open up between you. Maybe that’s a little wisp of a spiritually charged cloud the disciples experienced that filled them with awe.

This is a rarity in our culture. Our culture flattens us four-dimensional beings into three-dimensional beings. I’m a me; you’re a you; I do my thing, you do you’re thing. And it flattens four-dimensional beings into two-dimensional its–into lifeless labels–“human resources,” “suit,” “broad,” “weird”, “jerk”, “right winger”, “left winger”. Any label flattens people that way.

And don’t we flatten ourselves that way too? “I’m such an idiot.” “I’m a misfit.” “I’ll never amount to anything.” How different that is from beholding each other and ourselves as the awesome, unique, unfolding creatures of God that we are–all of us.

I received a poem this week from local poet Richard Wehrman, titled “Whose Name I Cannot Say.” Listen carefully–he’s talking about us.

That’s 4-D vision.

Today is Valentine’s Day. According to the legend about St. Valentine, he was imprisoned around the year 290 for marrying Christians, and it was illegal to help the Christians under the Roman Emperor Claudius II. When Valentine tried to convert Claudius to Christianity, Claudius sentenced him to death. But before he was brutally executed, he restored sight and hearing to the daughter of his jailer. Valentine beheld every person as God’s beloved child, and refused to flatten any soul by labels or judgments or resentments. He had 4-D vision.

Sometimes it’s the people who are closest to us whom we flatten the most: “I know just what you’re going to say.” “If only you weren’t so....” “There you go again.” Starting today, try being a Valentine–a St. Valentine. Soften your eyes, so all your labels and judgements and defenses go out of focus. See if you can behold the beautiful heart and soul that lives hidden underneath their oh-so-familiar self. They may have lost touch with that heart and soul too, so maybe you have to help them find it by seeing it yourself. It is labels and judgments, pain and the fear of pain, that keep a heart and soul in hiding–theirs and ours. Even if you just make the effort to see them with 4-D vision, it will certainly change you, it will almost as certainly change the dynamics of your relationship, and it might well eventually change them too.

Of course it’s not just people that we flatten with our blindness to their inherent beauty and worth. We do that to the world and all its creatures. We flatten the portion of creation that isn’t enclosed by walls into the “outdoors” that we have to drive to on the way to work or the store. We flatten ancient forests into board feet of lumber. We flatten majestic mountains into coal deposits which justifies our blowing their tops off and filling their lush valley with toxic sludge. We flatten rivers and oceans into waste disposal repositories. We flatten all of creation into natural resources to fuel our materialism.

How many of you have seen the movie Avatar? I could hardly recommend a movie more highly. It’s designed to be seen in 3-D, but it’s also designed to help us see the world in 4-D. The Na’vi are blue 10-foot human-like creatures who inhabit a lush forest on Pandora, a moon in another solar system. When the Na’vi greet each other, they often say “I see you,” which means “I behold you, I perceive your essence, I revere and appreciate who you are.” They use this same kind of 4-D vision to see all the plants and animals around them as part of an interconnected web of life. They call the sacred Source of all life energy Eywa, their spiritual Mother.

The story takes place in the year 2154, and earth has been denuded by humans. A large corporation has established a colony of humans on Pandora to mine its precious mineral, “unobtainium.” In the humans’ mind, this verdent, vibrant planet is nothing more than a repository of natural resources, a rich deposit of which happens to lie under the Na’vis’ habitat. And so the conflict ensues. And in the middle of it is an ex-Marine named Jake, who, through the wizardry of 22^nd-Century genetic engineering, technology and mental telepathy, remotely controls an “avatar,” a human-Na’vi hybrid that looks just like a Na’vi and lives among them as a secret agent for the corporation. As Jake learns their ways, begins to see the world with this kind of 4-D vision, and falls in love with a Na’vi maiden, whose side will he be on when the corporation’s need to make a profit requires that they take whatever steps are necessary to obtain the unobtainium?

We, as a human species, are right with Jake. We come from a world that tends to flatten everything into resources to exploit and commodities to make profits from, even when it means destroying the very ecosystem that not only sustains us, but that we are as much a part of as the turtles and the trees.

But like Jake, we are beginning to see our world through 4-D vision. We’re starting to see that we’re all part of an interconnected web of life. Each part of creation is not just a thing, but an expression of the Creator who brings forth all things, is in all things, and helps all things unfold into higher levels of creativity and order.

We’re not the first people besides indigenous peoples to recognize this. Hildegard of Bingen was a 12^th-Century abbess, composer, scientist, and mystic. Let’s look at the world through her eyes. In this poem she is speaking as with God’s voice:

[I am the invisible] life that sustains ALL,

I awaken to life everything

in every waft of air.

The air is life,

greening and blossoming.

The waters flow with life. The sun is lit with life.

The moon, when waning, is again

rekindled by the sun,

waxing with life once more.

The stars shine, radiating with life-light.¹

And here’s how Hildegard saw the place of us humans:

Humankind

full of all creative possibilities, is God's work.

Humankind alone,

is called to assist God.

Humankind is called to co-create.

With nature's help,

humankind can set into creation

all that is necessary and life sustaining.

God's majesty is glorified

in the manifestation of every manner

of nature's fruitfulness.

This is possible,

possible through the right and holy

utilization of the earth,

the earth in which humankind has its source.

The sum total of heaven and earth, everything in nature,

is thus won to use and purpose.

It becomes a temple and altar for the

service of God.2

Isn’t that a prophetic 4-D vision of how life can flourish, that’s timely over 700 years after it was written? How is your vision becoming transfigured? Can you see Jesus, not flattened into just another human or a distant deity, but as a living, struggling human so filled with God that through him, we can hear and see who God is, and even see visions of who we can reach toward becoming as God’s own sons and daughters, chosen and called for missions of our own?

Are we trying to see each other, not through our labels and judgements, our fears and defenses, but through softened eyes that allow us to behold each other as the awesome, unique, unfolding creatures of God that we are–all of us?

Can we behold the world around us, not just as resources to be exploited, but as a sacred web of life that continually unfolds out of God’s creative, life-giving power?

And can we see our high calling as being co-creators with God, so that as Hildegard said, through “the right and holy utilization of the earth,” we “set into creation all that is necessary and life sustaining,” and make what we create “a temple and altar for the service of God,” whose will is for life to flourish?

“What we see is what we get, and what we get is what we see. How’s your vision?