Sermon - March 6, 2011

Transfiguration Sunday Year A
Matthew 17:1-9

Transfigured Lives


It is sometimes said that you shouldn’t ask questions for which you don’t know the answer. So what I am about to do might be a bit chancy. But if I am right, your answers will prove that what I am thinking is true.

Turn to the person next to you and share a one or two sentence summary of last Sunday’s sermon. If you weren’t here last Sunday, refer to the most recent Sunday you were. Only move back in time as many weeks as you need to arrive at a Sunday when you were in worship. It doesn’t count if you share the content of a sermon which impressed you or deeply moved you. Turn to someone next to you and offer the summary.

How did it go? Were you able to remember what the preacher said? Now, this is the test. Turn back to that same person and share one experience from that same Sunday. It might be a conversation at the coffee pot, or who you sat next to, or something you observed. It might even be the liturgy that was used. … Wasn’t this a bit easier? It was for me. Sorry, Danielle, it took me a while to remember the sermon. But I remembered immediately the liturgy that we sang, or my attempts to get the LCM Praise Band to smile while they were singing, or the Girl Scouts out on the front lawn selling cookies. We remember a lot more of what we experience than what we think or what we hear. Experience is the best teacher; until we experience something, we are unlikely to remember, much less act, on what we are intended to learn.

The disciples had been told that this preacher they are following is something out of the ordinary. They had been instructed as to his purpose and goal. They had seen his glory, manifested in so many ways. But until they go up on that mountain, and his presence is transfigured before them, they still didn’t quite get it.

Say what you want, teach what you may, a faith journey doesn't begin until one experiences. Something has to happen, something must be observed, before faith begins and we put the pieces together in a cohesive whole.

Today is the Sunday of the Transfiguration. This feast is one of my favorite because it plays such an important role in the unfolding of the Church year. There is much to be learned and appreciated about this day and the events we recall through our readings. I looked back through my old sermons and realized that this is exactly the approach I have taken for most of the last twenty-eight years. On this day, I preach a lot of heady stuff. On Transfiguration Sunday, I speak as much wisdom as possible. Countless hours have been devoted to analyzing and retelling the mysteries of the Transfiguration.

But I am never completely sure all this information makes it through, or that it makes a whole heck of a lot of difference. And I realize that there may be something wrong with over analyzing an experience. There is a lot of information and meaning contained in the story of Jesus' Transfiguration, but it is primarily an experience. It may not be as important to consider what Jesus and the disciples learned through all of this. Rather the significance of this story may lie in what they experienced and how it changed their lives.

Matthew, in writing the gospel, tries to tell us that this is the approach to be taken. The story of Jesus' transfiguration is in the 17th chapter, verses 1-9. Just before this story, we have two paragraphs in which Jesus tells the disciples that he will be traveling to Jerusalem. Once there, he is to experience the rejection of the priests and scribes, and be condemned to death. Those two paragraphs are introduced with these words: From that time Jesus began to show his disciples. He began to tell them what was going to happen. For the first time, he revealed these things to them. The story of the Transfiguration comes immediately upon the heels of Jesus beginning to try and teach the disciples who he really was and what he had to do.

What happens as a result of his efforts? They don't understand. Those two paragraphs also contain the exchange between Jesus and Peter in which Peter's refusal to accept what Jesus is saying ends with Jesus telling him, "Get behind me Satan!" Jesus tries to tell them, but no¬body understands. It just doesn't make any sense to them.

So what does the gospel writer do? He follows this worthless attempt at sharing information with an experience. They don't understand when Jesus tells them, but when they see his appearance transfigured they know that something about him is worthy of their devotion. The experience accomplished what no amount of teaching ever could - it started them on their journey of faith.

Interesting to note that as the four of them are making their way down the mountain, Jesus tells the three disciples to tell no one the vision, until he is raised from the dead. Matthew continues to drive home the point - until others have also shared in the experience they will not be able to understand the words. "Wait", Jesus tells them, "until a time when the words will serve to elucidate the experience." Then, and only then, will the words make sense.

Every now and then we need to drop all our doctrinal statements about Jesus and admit that we believe because something has convinced us that this stuff makes a difference in our lives. We must acknowledge that while we have many good reasons for believing, we believe because we have experienced something too profound to ignore.

This Wednesday we begin our Lenten pilgrimage. During those 40 days, we follow the path of Jesus' route to the cross. It is a time to set aside insight and knowledge and formulas. It is a time to experience. To encounter the love of a God who cares enough to take on our suffering. Identify a Lenten discipline which will make it possible for you to experience the love of God. You can think your way into action – action which is likely to result in experiences capable of re-shaping your faith journey.

Others may try to tell you what that means - but it won't do any good. You must experience it for yourself. Until you do, nothing about your life will change. But when that experience does come, nothing is ever the same again.

Will you “remember” this point? Will you be able, next Sunday, to repeat what has been preached? I doubt it. But if you take action this afternoon, you might be able to remember and more faithfully make use of the Lenten season. And then, maybe in there, there will be an experience too precious to ever forget.

AMEN.