Mark 9:2-9
Lent 2 - Year B
"Transfiguration" - Year B
It is not really amazing that keeping secrets leads to future difficulties within a system.
Peter, James, and John are keeping a secret for Jesus.
At the end of Chapter 1 we heard about a healed leper not keeping Jesus secret and its supposed negative results.
Later in Chapter 9, after the above three are sworn to secrecy, we will hear about the disciples arguing about who is the greatest. Here we can look to two secrets that might well have led to such dissension within the troops. Three had an experience they knew set them apart as the greatest and began to act that way. No one knew what this resurrection secret was that Jesus kept referring to and they argued about who had the best explanation of this secret.
A Messianic secret is wonderful initiation stuff for those in the know. Whether a secret is Messiah's or yours or mine may not make all that much difference. Secrets still breed breed division, "I know a secret and you don't; nyah, nyah, nyah!"
So how do we justify our secrets? I am still remembering a speech on the floor of General Conference where it was proposed that clergy not tell laity about the information they learned at seminary because it would upset the laity (cause them to question their past thinking) and the laity would retaliate by withholding their money. I couldn't believe it then and still have a hard time doing so, but there it is. The speaker advocated keeping G*D secrets for Mammon's sake. We still have a great information divide within the church and continue to argue about who is the greatest.
Secrets divulged have a moment of discomfiture (the beginning of Chapter 2 has Jesus back in town). Secrets kept set-up long-term difficulties. Relating one's experience of the holy also has its drawback - the limitation of language to contain experience and the attendant misrepresentation and misinterpretation of such experiences. Nonetheless, it seems the struggle to relate has an edge on segregating experiences into secrets.
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Dave (Reader)
In our weekly lectionary group someone suggested that what we would do with the transfiguration, would be to want to build a Theme Park for God!
What seemed to be asked by Jesus was to listen????????
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Wesley (Blogger)
Thanks, Dave, for the theme park image.
Another image is that of a nested doll. There is Jesus and if you look inside you'll find Moses and Elijah. And if you look further you'll get back to Eve and before her the Word, "Let there be light." All of this comes together in a moment so overwhelming that the response is sheer silliness. Let's build a hut or two.
And isn't that what huts and temples do, concretize everything up to that moment.
Unfortunately, once things are in place it is difficult to move beyond them. So Jesus leads beyond the temptation to end here. He leads back into the risk of cross bearing. He leads back into the risk of having no where to lay a head. He leads back into the risk of healings gone awry because they were technologized and failed to appreciate the way the wind blows in prayer. He leads the disciples toward us.
So, here we are. "We?" Will folks experience our drawing on our experiences of Jesus and Moses and Elijah and Eve and Light and Baptism when all they see is us? All around us there is a hardening of traditions into huts and temples. All around the literal denotative hardens into fundamental laws. In the face of hardness, we join Jesus in moving back into real life and all the attendant risks that we call crosses.
Give thanks that you are filled to overflowing with alternative voices. Give thanks that, being so filled, you are able to leave a transfigured moment behind and live again the risk and the resolution, the cross and the empty grave.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/march2003.html
In a conversation last night we tried to get away from a mechanistic approach to faith of "making disciples". This simply doesn't accord with our experience of forgiveness and grace. As we looked at the dynamics of our faith journey we found. oh, so many, temptations to constrain the presence of G*D, whether through Jesus or not. One of the biggest temptations we acknowledged is a sense of control or entitlement to "make" someone.
A shorthand way of articulating a dynamic vision statement that would call us into a better future turned out, for this evening, to be, "revealing Christ".
"Making disciples" has a feel of the blood and gore approach to atonement. "Revealing Christ" moves us to a creation centered, liberation energized attunement to Christ already present in the best and worst of times and folks. We are not called to create out of whole cloth the next generation of Christians, but to model the presence of G*D-with-us in our own lives. The healing and teaching needed is already present, it needs to be released as we travel with our Eastern Orthodox sisters and brothers toward divinization ( theosis as the backdrop for the Wesleyan tradition of "going on to wholeness") and community (having all things in common). Perhaps just a longer way of living a love with G*D and neighbor and self and enemy.
Try on this "releasing," instead of "making," language for yourself and see how you would complete these sentences:
Christ is released for . . . .
and
Christ is released from . . . .
Was this exercise transfiguring for you?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/february2006.html
Transfiguring moments come in the midst of being kneaded by the experiences of life and the presence of G*D that moves beyond those experiences. I thought the derivation of the word from an image of "kneading" is one that could be played with.
I have kneaded bread. There is a stretching and turning and folding and refolding that is very much like a midlife crisis that comes to re-orient past experiences and future dreams and present circumstances. They get stirred around, moved past one another, placed in different relationships.
Here is Jesus hearkening back to creation's goodness and baptism's belovedness. Here is Jesus continuing to ask a question recently on his mind, "what can be given in return for life?" Here is Jesus anticipating the distance of anonymity of death (whirlwinds and who knows where he lies) and the prophetic condemnation to loneliness, forsakenness, and betrayal. Where do belovedness and forsakenness come together? How can any of this be spoken of.
Unlike some whose kneading takes place over years as we muddle through to rise again, Jesus seems to bring these together and to have that shine of risen dough that says its time to go to the oven to see what we're made of. Shine, Jesus, shine. So what, Jesus, so what? Back to living, Jesus, back to living.
Transfiguration is a lovely, shining moment that confirms a direction in life. For some of us our transfigurements confirms a new direction in life, while other are confirmed in continuation. What began as proofing (activating yeast) now has been proved by kneading dough and will soon enough become the bread of life, the staff of life, the stuff of life.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/february2006.html
So what are we to say or not say about the locus of our faith or life. Apparently we talk differently among ourselves than with others. Though, some folks don't seem to be able to make that distinction and have only one speed or one message. Internally we say extravagant things. Here we speak of Messiah and Satan on a first name basis. Externally we don't get ahead of their experience unless we want to sow destructive seeds.
A frustration is that on the inside of too many congregations we no longer talk the extravagant talk. We are so easily hurt, so spiritually fragile that we dare not talk about the emperor being naked or a text being evocative.
Check out what you talk about and with whom. Where do you press points? Where do you push the boundaries?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/march2006.html
Get behind me, Satan!
Come alongside me, Moses and Elijah!
The disciples refuse to hear of difficulties and get flustered to the point of gibbering. This is the response of the Satan in any religious tradition -- taking statements to the extreme and limiting the glory of clarity. We find this in any imperial, authoritarian, or fascist system.
Getting caught between "civilization and backwardness" is not a new story. You may want to watch this video of Dr. Wafa Sultan. Do you see Jesus in a teaching moment in this clip?
How might we call the great reformers to our side to be willing to "look toward Jerusalem" and say what needs to be said even if it leads to suffering and death? How can we be quiet about the consequences of violent systems without taking on an irrelevant martyr-complex?
Satan, Moses, Elijah, or Jesus -- lets say what needs to be said as clearly as we can. It probably takes more than cryptic little snippets such as these reflections. Where in the world do we speak beyond ourselves?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/march2006.html
A whirlwind - horses of fire, a chariot of fire - fire before and tempest around. These images call to let light shine out of darkness. They hearken back to the energy of creation - and let there be light (as though that were an easy, instantaneous event leaving no cosmological trace over time). There is judgment in these images, there is death and inheritance. We find here markers of transition from one generation to the next and a separation of the past from the future. All-in-all, blind violence is very much present.
Listen for another light, perhaps an energy saving compact fluorescent rather than a strobing spotlight, with the mystery of a floating cloud rather than a known tempestuous whirlwind. This comes with a message different than separation and doubling, different than judging and perishing. A message here is that of belovedness that can bridge the gap between what has been and what might yet be.
If we were to compare it with what might otherwise have been the pericopes of the seventh Sunday after Epiphany: Mark 2:1-12 we find a new thing springing forth. A whirlwind of fire becomes a whirlwind of mutual care as a roof is blown off that a paralytic, one already judged and found wanting, might find a healing of forgiveness and walk forth. A way will be found in the wilderness that is as refreshing as a river in a desert. There is an opening up, not a closing down to one transitional moment - every moment of opening leads us onward and reveals the Yes of life. We find a life to be a first or next installment of Life, not a final culmination. We don't need to build more houses to separate us, but an opening of the houses already present that belovedness might enter and go forth.
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a double portion of spirit
so cries the religious capitalist
making a profit off the prophet
to build more and bigger
dwellings to be franchised
of course this is intended for good
the veiled, the perishing
will be left behind
those who work hard
and persevere will triumph
equally true is the way
this keeps us separated
one profiteer from another
claiming a quadruple spirit
or a hundredfold
eventually we return
no prophetic profit
only a gentle quiet
a light-dimming cloud
murmuring a beloved lullaby
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Thomas (Reader) said...
re: Isaiah 43:18-25, Psalm 41, 2 Corinthians 1:18-22, Mark 2:1-12
... We find a life to be a first or next installment of Life, not a final culmination. We don't need to build more houses to separate us, but an opening of the houses already present that belovedness might enter and go forth.
perhaps
we do need
to build more houses
for those
who do not even have as much,
that they may know
appropriate separation
(boundaries, shelter, privacy)
and at the same time
invite those
whose houses have become prisons
to turn from their barred prison window
and walk through
the door
that has always been open
(wisdom, compassion, love)
what is this belovedness
in the presence/context of which
both the whirlwind
and the quiet lullaby
find home?
Wesley (Blogger) said...
Yep. I do appreciate your ability to see the more that yet needs to be said. I might have gotten to this in another year.
I am reminded of an op-ed piece in today's NY Times,
though you may need to a free signup to read it. Being a Yeats fan, I enjoyed it.
The closing was "Yeats, who grew up feeling "sort of ecstasy at the contemplation of ruin," did not just welcome whatever new order his rough beast was ushering in. He believed the only way it could plausibly be spoken of was in the form of a question."
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html
We last left Jesus, having changed places with a leper, wilderness wandering. He has quietly returned to Capernaum. Eventually word leaked out that he was back and a crowd re-gathers to hear teaching, not receive healing. At this point, one of the folks who was either not present during Jesus' extended healing the last time he was in town or had contracted some paralytic condition between then and now was brought by faith-full, faith-active friends.
Emboldened by unnamed friends, Jesus asks us to hear beyond our words to the action of life. A better question than whether it is shorter or easier to say, "You're forgiven" or "Stand; walk" is whether you can hear and see and experience each in the other. This is astounding work.
You may be led to practice this new way of listening and speaking this week. It will be a translational challenge for you and those you interact with to speak divinely in regular life and to speak commonly in ritualistic situations. There will be those who will respond that you are taking a larger jump than they are able to do and, one way or another, label you a blasphemer or just crazy. You may get scared of the possibilities and back away. There will be those who will be thankfully amazed at being able to reframe their life. You may find a rebirth of action in your own faith.
Here are two additional thoughts:
For whom will you make a new backdoor to fuller life? For whom will you activate your intentions? Having identified someone or someones, what is your plan to participate in their healing and the blessing of those who are witnesses to it?
Contrast this scene with that of Job and his friends. On a scale of Job's Friends to the Paralytic's Friends, where do you fall?
- - - - - - -
At this point it dawned on your frail blogger that we are not on the story of the Paralytic's Friends, but the Friends of Jesus (Moses and Elijah) who come to him to say the easy thing, "Stand up; Head to Jerusalem."
In the first story, the crowd is transfigured – amazed and glorifying G*D. In the second story, Jesus is glorified.
Now we have a three-way scale between Job's Friends, the Paralytic's Friends, and Jesus' Friends. Oh, it was so much easier when I was dealing with only one layer instead of trying this three-dimensional scale. Wouldn't it be easier to just have to deal with one pericope or the other and forget all this trying to hold them together in a both/and approach? I suppose, but not nearly as fun.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html
The NRSV has it that Jesus was transfigured “before” Peter, James, and John. While meaning “in front of” or “in the presence of”, there is also a time factor meaning available - “in advance of”. Imagine for a moment that Jesus is simply transfigured/changed in advance of your transfiguration or changed energy level, not as something unique.
What would you do differently if you were to begin to understand that your transfiguration is already in process? Would you press on to analyze how to get on with it, or get in your own way?
Jesus was between times, like you - prophets, saints, good folk had gone before him and were available as advisors. There was a task ahead that was large enough to simply be done, regardless of any consequences - any.
With good examples of those who preceded, anyway and everyway, and something to apply that to, you, too, would be transfigured. No more waiting until you grow up or out or dead.
What these days needs more justice? More kindness? More G*D? There you go. Listen to those important voices in your life and move on. No more utopias. No more guarantees of result. Just energy and purpose. Blessings to you and Blessings expected from you.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/02/mark-92-10.html