Evolution (Transfiguration) Sunday

Text: Exodus 34:29-35; 1st Cor. 15:35-58; 2nd Cor. 3:12-4:2; Luke 9:28-36

This is the first year since the Clergy Letter Project began that Evolution Sunday and Transfiguration Sunday (last Sunday in Epiphany) are the same.  The theological implications, as the “pre-theos” at Albion College used to say, are noteworthy. 

The transfiguration of Jesus undoubtedly ranks right up there with the virgin birth and the resurrection for eye-rolling among atheists, Unitarians, scientists, and those former “pre-theos,” now liberal Christian clergy, who follow the Revised Common Lectionary.  Traditional Christianity teaches that the story of Jesus, Moses, and Elijah on the Mountain with Peter, James, and John is a pivotal moment for Jesus.  John the Baptist (who baptized him, according to Mark and Matthew – Luke fudges it) is now dead.  This is a new incarnation, demonstrating that Jesus is the new Moses.  In Luke’s scene, Elijah and Moses are conferring with Jesus about his “imminent departure which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem.”  Elijah’s presence confirms that God’s final judgment is imminent.

Throw in Paul’s circular language about resurrection from 1st Corinthians and the eyes are not only rolling, they are glazed over.  Add the implication of anti-Semitism in 2nd Corinthians 3:15-16, and the justification for abandoning the Transfiguration as metaphor (what else could it be?) is complete.

But “transfiguration,” whether it is Moses on Mt. Sinai or Jesus on a Galilean hill, means a profound change in form or appearance.  For the apostle Paul, the transformation of human life on earth had begun with the resurrection of Jesus.  In Paul’s view, it was an ongoing process of deliverance from the injustice of Rome’s Empire to the distributive justice-compassion of God’s Kingdom that would be complete within his lifetime.  So in 1st Cor. 15:50, he sets up his discussion of what the spiritual body might be like when the process is complete.  “What I am saying . . . is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God . . .[but] Listen, I will tell you a mystery!  We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye . . .”

Transfiguration happens whenever anyone comes into his or her inheritance in the kingdom of God.  To come down from that lofty theological mountain peak for a moment, in 21st Century language, transfiguration is what happens once anyone chooses to participate in the ongoing, evolving struggle to establish God’s realm of distributive justice-compassion on earth.

Paul’s argument is that if Jesus was not resurrected, then the general resurrection that Pharisees like Paul believed in could not be happening.  For post-modern Christians, Paul’s argument means that if Jesus had not died in defiance of the Roman Empire, and if Paul had not interpreted that death as a counter to the divinity of Cesar, who would stand against the normalcy of civilization?  Just as Jesus said, the Kingdom of God is here, now, within you, if you will only open your eyes and ears and look and listen, the trumpet sounds, and we realize that we can choose to live and participate in that Kingdom, which has nothing to do with Cesar’s empire, and everything to do with non-violent distributive justice-compassion.

Violence is anything that results in the invalidation of life.  Empire is what keeps that invalidation in place.  Whenever a child is prevented from asking questions, or pursuing her natural talent, because of governmental or social rules about what is necessary to be mastered in a classroom, empire prevails.  Whenever another life form – whether an intimate family member or a portion of an ecosystem – is used or abused for a purpose other than its own, it is subjected to violence.  All human systems are prone to violent empire.  That is the struggle.  That is what is meant in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians – who apparently did not get it the first time around – when Paul says, “We have renounced the shameful things that one hides; we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word . . . And even if our gospel is veiled [it is because] the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

Who is the god of this world?  Not so-called “Satan,” and certainly not the interventionist, exclusive "god" of triumphalist Christianity.  Who are the unbelievers?  Emphatically and unequivocally not “the Jews” – which is inferred by cherry-picking Bible verses out of context.  “The god of this world” is commercial and social normalcy:  Meister Eckhart’s “merchant mentality,” which cannot participate in the Kingdom because justice-compassion is bad for business and a detriment to political power.  “The sting of death is sin,” writes Paul, “and the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” To sin is to not participate in God’s justice-compassion, and therefore to be dead to God’s Kingdom.  It is not physical death, but the law of Empire that cuts us off from justice-compassion.

Readings for Transfiguration Sunday may stray far from any possibility of meaning for 21st Century, post-modern Christians.  In years when the Revised Common Lectionary uses Matthew’s version of the story, the accompanying Old Testament reading is from Exodus 24:12-18.  Moses is summoned to the mountain to receive the 10 Commandments.  At the end of the suggested reading, the narrator tells us, “Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel.”  That is either a non-sequitur (as usual, with the Elves), or it reminds us of the pillar of fire that guarded the Hebrew people in the wilderness by night.

But the scene we never read, which sets up that image, is primal – archetypal (Exodus 24:1-8).  The Hebrew people agree to abide by God’s law by first sharing a sacrificial meal of roasted bulls; then God’s High Priest Moses seals the deal by throwing the bulls’ blood first over the altar representing God and then over the people.  This kind of commitment is incomprehensible to sophisticated 21st Century folk who have trouble keeping New Year’s Resolutions.  This God is not going to listen to lawyers’ arguments about how the contract becomes invalid as soon as things get tough.

Nevertheless, the new Covenant is indeed validated in blood.  In the 21st Century, with God reduced to an epithet, and Jesus seriously dead and unlikely to come again, transfiguration has little to do with auras of holy light and basso-profundo pronouncements from fog-shrouded mountains conferring supernatural powers on God’s chosen one.  Power is not supernatural magic conferred by an interventionist god; nor is Power to be appropriated or claimed through deliberate, ego-driven action.  Despite the messianic claims of world leaders – political or religious – Power is a true Covenant, consummated in the life blood of each individual, which comes from the realization of each person’s life purpose.  Transfiguration is the change in appearance and form that allows us to recognize that Power, and it comes about in two ways: 1) through a pivotal experience such as surviving something against all odds; or 2) a long evolutionary slog through the difficulties of letting go of who we think we are, and what we think we are supposed to do – i.e., Life.

Because of the often truncated liturgical year caused by the Roman method of determining the date of Easter, this last Sunday before Ash Wednesday often falls at a time that is full of applicable metaphor.  Scientifically, this is the time of year in the northern hemisphere when enough light has returned to cause chickens to begin laying again.  The first hoofed animals are born and there is milk again.  Some of the birds have remembered their spring songs – even in the midst of blizzarding snows.

Astronomically, the Sun reached 15 Degrees Aquarius on Thursday February 4.  The Planet has made one-half of one-quarter of the return trip around the Sun.  This year, the New Moon will rise the day before Evolution Sunday, just a few days before Ash Wednesday.  The month began with St. Brigid’s Feast Day, February 1; Candlemas (the purification of the Virgin, 40 days after giving birth), February 2; and the Celtic celebration of the return of the light at Imbolc (which means “pregnant belly”), also on February 2 (the original feast time appropriated by the Roman church); not to mention the corruption of all this in Ground Hog Day, when the shadow prompted Punxsutawney Phil  to scurry back into his den, leaving us with six more weeks of Winter.

Transfiguration as holy light is inevitable in the natural world, where the kenotic God  rules wherever there is justice and life.  Only humans seem to prefer the unnatural world, where God is dead and injustice holds sway.  Jesus was forever reminding everyone he talked to that the Kingdom of God – God’s Imperial Rule – God’s Realm – is within us, and all around us.  All we have to do is look and listen.  God’s Covenant of non-violent justice-compassion may have originally been consummated in the flesh and blood of the best of the herd, eaten in a meal shared with God through a roasting, consuming fire – an elemental meaning that repels post-modern people.  But Matthew’s story makes two points that still resonate despite our post-modern divorce from God’s natural world.  The first is that God says, “This is my Son.  Listen to him.”  The second is that Matthew’s Jesus says to his freaked-out disciples, “Get up.  Do not be afraid.”

Like the Groundhog, who is frightened by his own shadow – so much that he dives back into his safe home, leaving the rest of the world to the deprivations of winter – we are terrorized by the shadow: the spectres of war, famine, disease, and death, and also by our own shadow selves, whose purpose eludes us, and whose nature we are afraid to look at.  But Jesus tells us to get up – don’t be afraid.  Have the trust in the rhythms of the natural world that the grass has – which is here today and tomorrow is tossed into the oven.  Get up – don’t be afraid.  Those who hunger and thirst for justice will have a feast.  Get up – don’t be afraid to do what you know you are supposed to do.

The human spirit evolves.  Life in all its forms is delivered from darkness into light.  God’s Realm – as always – offers yet again the free gift, charis – grace – another chance to renew the Covenant.

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