You Only See What You Know

(Uriel Presbyterian Church )

 Sermon

“You Only See What You Know”

6 March, 2011

Transfiguration Sunday A

 There’s a lot of truth in that African proverb...

Text: Matthew 17.1-13

Matt. 17:1   Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves.  2  And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.  3  Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.  4  Then Peter said to Jesus, “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.”  5  While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”  6  When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear.  7  But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.”  8  And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. 

Matt. 17:9   As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”  10  And the disciples asked him, “Why, then, do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?”  11  He replied, “Elijah is indeed coming and will restore all things;  12  but I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but they did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of Man is about to suffer at their hands.”  13  Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them about John the Baptist. 

  An old African saying goes “You only see what you know”, meaning that the world is shaped by the kind of knowlege and perception you have.  And perception is everything. Seeing the bread and juice laid on this table a buddhist would simply see food, but to a Catholic Christian, for example, these represent something so sacred that only a consecrated, deeply holy person  is allowed to touch them and to lose a single fragment would be to desecrate God’s very self. 

You only see what you know.

 In Barbara Kingsolver’s novel “The Poisonwood Bible” a conservative american missionary family comes to live in the jungles of the Congo, where they see much, but understand almost nothing, with disasterous consqueneces. One of the daughters tries to bridge the gap by striking up a friendship with a boy her own age, and as they are talking, he is puzzled that white people make distinctions between live people, dead people, people yet to be born and  gods who live beyond all life....to him they are all the same..they are “muntu”-- personhood. Muntu persists through all these--forelife, life, afterlife, paranormal life,-- unchanged. Muntu resides in all these conditions, peering out through the eyeholes of the body, waiting for what ever happens next. “That is muntu”, the boy says... “but trees are also muntu”.

 “Trees?”, his new American friend asks... “how are trees muntu? “Well, look at them: they have both have roots and a head...” 1 the little missionary suddenly realizes the enormity of the life of the African world surrounding her that she doesn’t even understand the slightest bit.

 In the same way the apostles only see what they know in the miracle of the tranfiguration. They are taken by Jesus to the top of a mountain where something very odd happens, marvelous and maybe terrifying, but deeply odd. On top of this mountain Jesus is suddenly met by two mysterious figures that Peter addresses as Moses and Elijah. Then just as suddenly they disappear and Jesus is left alone.  The men know there were two other figures there. They know that they had to be something really really important and they know that the three were talking with each other and then they  know that the other two disappeared and all three disciples heard a voice speaking about Jesus. So what did they SEE? For Peter it is the two greatest figures in God’s history come to the mountain, and for two thousand years, no one has questioned that. 

We see what we know. 

In the past few years as I reread this story in all three gospels I continue to wonder and my wondering pushes me out onto the thin ice of understanding. What if these two dazzling figures weren’t Elijah and Moses after all? Were the disciples were privileged to briefly witness the mystery of the Trinity made manifest? What would make Peter call them Moses and Elijah, and what were the three talking about?

I believe that  Peter and James and John saw the perichoresis. Perichoresis is a fancy and beautiful word that means to dance in and out of a circle. And in modern language it tries to describe the relationship between the creator-god, the redeemer-god (Jesus) and the Holy spirit, the sustaining-God. Think of a circle of three dancers arms joined, weaving in and out of the light, completely connected together yet fluid, distict yet one. They have “Muntu”, to borrow that African word, and this muntu moves and shifts and changes, peering from the eyeholes of mystery with a brightness that dazzles and confuses.

I think that what the disciples saw was  the God of the ages, the “Eternal Law” that Moses tried to put into babbling tricky words, I think they saw the Christ, the incarnate one, the one who lived and moved and had being with us, and finally I think they saw the fiery Spirit of God that moves in the essence of wind like Elijah’s chariot of fire.  I think Peter and James and John saw what they knew and not knowing the concept of the trinity, put the pegs of their understanding into holes that they could see. 

 Like the disciples who first witnessed the Transfiguration, the church isn’t really sure what it’s seeing and what it all means, what its purpose is, and what it calls Christians to do today. In short, the church all these centuries later, is still not sure if the Transfiguration is at heart a celebration of who Jesus is, or should be recognized as the somber Lenten beginning of Jesus' journey to Jerusalem and crucifixion.

Because this is where the story leads. As the disciples come down the mountain, the conversation isn’t at all about what they’ve just lived through. It’s about John the Baptist and what “muntu” is peering out from behind his life and preaching.

And likewise, as we gather at this table today, we are looking for a transformation in our lives,  in closing our eyes and being with God and each other, we want to know beyond our seeing, to slide off the edge of our experience into the pool of God’s unknowableness. In this bread and this cup we want to taste grace and feel the healing touch of God throughout this week, to stir things within us that will grow and change. As we approach this table-mountain of transformation and throughout this Lenten season, may you meet Jesus and go away with more than you thought possible. Taste and know the goodness of God, 

to whom be the glory now and forever, 

Amen