Do we realise the power within us?

Transfiguration 6^th August 2023

[Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14; 2 Peter 1:16-19, Matthew17:1-9]

The earliest human beings must have wondered at the power of the sun’s everlasting fire, shining on them year after year. Those ancestors harnessed some of that fire, probably at first from lightning-struck trees. Perhaps a million years after we had become thinking animals, we learned to use fire to make steam to work our engines, then drew electric power from wires and magnets, and light far brighter than from spluttering wicks. In 1945, we took the huge leap of tearing open uranium atoms to release forces that in seconds could wipe out our million years of working, learning, loving and creating beauty.

One of our ancient stories tells of Prometheus, endlessly punished for stealing fire from the gods. Another tells of Moses, who heard God speak from a flaming bush. Today’s gospel tells of three friends of Jesus of Nazareth, who saw him, while praying, transfigured and shining like the sun. His brightness is telling us, Matthew suggests, that we are seeing a glimpse of the divine. Like most encounters with God this happened on the margins: in a remote place, on a mountain. The disciples heard a voice telling, as at Jesus’ baptism: “This is my beloved son. Listen to him”. We are reminded of the prophecy of Isaiah, where a mysterious figure, the “beloved son”, suffers for the benefit of all people.

The disciples saw Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah, ancient prophets who on Mount Sinai / Horeb were each re-empowered for their task of leading God’s people, challenging and opposing the status quo. The task would bring them suffering, as it brought Jesus to a terrible death for showing the world that we build God’s Empire by giving justice and love to all.

But such reassuring glimpses of the Transcendent are not the goal of our lives. We would like to cling to them, setting up camp as Peter suggested. But they are only pointers to guide us; we cannot build our home there; we have work to do. We live now at a time when every living thing on our planet: coral, bees, fish, forest dwellers and humans, is threatened by imminent ecological disaster. We are just a technician’s mistake away from nuclear accident and holocaust. Will we, like the stunned disciples, feel Jesus touch us, saying: “Get up; do not be afraid.”

Was it just a curious coincidence that on the 6^th of August 1945, while Christians in churches around the world were honouring the Transfiguration of Jesus, our world witnessed another transfiguration? On that morning an atomic bomb was dropped on a city for the first time, by choice of the US government. It killed more than 200,000 of Hiroshima’s residents. This unspeakable destruction was not a military necessity, but a weapons test, for Japan had already been asking to surrender, though not “unconditionally” as the US demanded. A different bomb was tested three days later, at Nagasaki.

The Australian government also share in nuclear guilt. It allowed Britain to test twelve nuclear bombs in this country, without proper precautions. The experiments poisoned many Indigenous people and military personnel, and large tracts of land were permanently polluted. Will we learn – before it is too late – to listen to the Transcendent light within each of us, “the true light that gives light to everyone”? (John 1:9)

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We too are being transfigured

Lent Sunday 2C 13.3.22

                                                        [Port Fairy Folk Festival Mass] 

[Genesis 15:5-18, Philippians 3:17-4:1, Luke 9:28-36]

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus taught that everything is in flux, all is changing. Was he right? Before you step into the river a second time, he said. it has radically changed. Heraclitus had a point. Not only does the water change constantly. a few billion years ago there were no rivers, and no planet earth!

Everything, including you and I, is very temporary. Some kinds of change we enjoy… like the music we have come to hear this weekend: a delightful sequence of changing notes and rhythms. Yet other change can be terrifying. In Queensland and Lismore these last weeks, the storms brought unprecedented change, and ruin for many homes and businesses. And then there is the war in Ukraine!

Deep down, we fear change: concerned about our future we need our superannuation and pension schemes. We fear sickness, growing old; death. Nostalgia is the pain and sadness we feel when we recall the past. The other day I picked up a funeral booklet: on the cover there was a picture of a handsome young man. He had died at 95, no longer fit or handsome. Other photos showed him as a baby; a toddler; young boy in football jersey; his wedding day; then with his adult children. Funerals are sad.

May I share with you a huge discovery about change that has come to me in these later years? I suppose this breakthrough had been hatching for years, like a slow egg; but it became much clearer during a serious illness. I saw more deeply the meaning of the ‘Good News’ that Jesus went about preaching, and sent others to preach. He said: ‘The Reign of God has arrived: repent and believe the Good News’. We have usually taken this word repent to mean ‘change your hearts from being bad. Stop sinning!’ But the Greek word is meta-noia: ‘see beyond; see the bigger picture’. Expand your horizon. This is the change that we constantly need to make. Sickness expanded my mind. I saw more than before that at every moment we live and move in the presence of God.

We are always in the presence of the mysterious Holy One who pulled Abraham away from his ancestral home. That ancient myth is a symbolic story about you and me: pulled from the security of our childhood – as I was pulled away from comfortable good health – towards the next stage of our growth. God made a permanent contract with Abraham. In that eerie ritual, animals were cut in half, and the two contracting parties passed between the bloody halves. ‘If we break the covenant, let us be slaughtered like these. After dark, a mysterious fire passed through. Abraham was terrified. God is a terrifying and fascinating mystery.

But we know that God came amongst us, as Jesus, saying: I will die for you! This is my blood, of the New Covenant. Where will it take us? Abraham was promised as many descendants as there are stars. We mightn’t want to be father or mother to a vast tribe, but the number can teach us. Even in the desert, Abraham couldn’t see more than 10,000 stars, but we now know that there are 200 billion stars in our local Milky Way galaxy. And there are a trillion galaxies. The One who made those knows us personally; is our friend; will love us always. This friendship changes us; transfigures us. And when we see that every person is a beloved child of God, we see them with deeper compassion.

This is the bigger picture. The Holy One promised Abraham a homeland. St Paul said: ‘Our homeland is in heaven’, because like all the ancients he thought God lived above the sky. What do you think eternity is like?Is it, as the Buddhists think, supreme consciousness? After death, are our minds somehow perfected? Or is it also our relationships? Will we be able to meet and share with our ancestors and all who have gone before? Could perfect human love be a foretaste? Being loved by the God who moves a trillion galaxies.

Christians believe in the ‘resurrection of the body’. ‘Christ will transfigure this body we have, to be like his’. Peter, James and John saw Jesus’ briefly transfigured, bright as lightning, while he was praying. They saw him speaking with Moses and Elijah, key prophets of God’s first covenant. Jesus is God’s ultimate spokesperson, for as we heard at his baptism, we hear again: This is my son: Listen to him! Jesus was talking with Moses and Elijah about his Exodus, his final transformation through death and resurrection. And the biblical myth of Exodus is another symbol of our transformation-journey, towards our promised land: resurrection.

We get hints of resurrection in the Near Death Experience, a phenomenon that I have been studying for forty years now. They are reported by millions of people who were ‘clinically dead’ but were later revived. About thirty percent of them describe being out of their body, while perfectly conscious and peaceful. Some report seeing an amazing Light. Some of them speak with that light, and go into it. These These Near Death Experiences change people’s lives, but are beyond comprehension and can be described only in metaphors. Our faith tells us of this transcendent state. We do not need to spend our lives trying to cling to our ‘permanent’ suburban home, our achievements, our children’s successful careers; or our ‘secure’ retirement. These things are all good and worth striving for; but they are all temporary.

And look around! We are currently changing our planet so that today’s children will inherit a devastated world: our governments refuse to stop burning coal and gas, heating up our planet and making the sea level rise. New struggles for resources will produce millions more refugees. Nothing stands still. Not even the church, although many people are seduced by the fantasy that it is unchanging. They try to turn it into a timeless cult. But we must admit its enormous human mistakes. The wisdom of the Vatican Council tells us that we Christians share this changing planet with the rest of humanity. We are all part of God’s bigger picture, whose Infinite Love we trust to heal us all, eventually?

Thy kingdom come! The three men on that mountain saw God’s Glory, which is our future. As we accept this, we too are transfigured, and at every moment can be deeply hopeful and profoundly joyous, whatever happens. But let’s not be like the ever-bumbling Peter, and try to make this moment permanent. This beautiful place is not our final destination.

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