Transfiguration 2003 | Luke 9:28-36

*Preached at Grace North Church March 30, 2003.*

In the Hindu scriptures there is a marvelous story of Krishna when he was a a very small boy. He was playing in the fields near his home, when some of his friends went to his mother to tattle on him. "We saw Krishna eating dirt," they told her. Now, unlike the baby Jesus, Krishna was quite a mischievous little sprite, so that he would be eating dirt came as no shock to his mother. She wiped the flour from her hands and went in search of her little imp. When she found him, she sat down and lifted him into her lap.

"Krishna," she said, "your friends told me you have been eating dirt. Is that true?"

"They are lying," he told her.

"Open your mouth, Krishna," his mother ordered.

He obeyed. She stuck her finger in and held it open for a good look. Sure enough, there was dirt-lots of it. In fact, there were whole planets in there. More than that, when she looked closely, the whole universe seemed to be residing in her little boy's mouth. "Well, I'll be," she must've said to herself. She decided against punishing him-this time, and to borrow a line from the Gospels, she pondered these things in her heart.

Now, you may be saying, "What a pleasant myth." But I would like to suggest that it is not myth at all. Perhaps this story never happened to Krishna, but it is a story nonetheless that happens all the time. Parents will know what I mean. Perhaps it's the way your child's hair catches the light, or when they've said something innocently profound, or in those frequent moments when love for your child swells up in your breast to the point when you think it must burst or you will die. And in that moment you see your child not as just a little boy or a little girl but as a being of cosmic significance, as if divinity were radiating through him or her, and why could you not see a moment ago what has become so obvious now? Your child, for a moment, becomes transfigured, worlds swirl in their mouths, light shines from their heads, and for a moment you bow in your heart in awe before them--and then the moment is gone, and there are sticky fingers to be washed and scraped knees that need band aids.

What is the reality-normal perception, or these theophanies that arrived unbidden and disapppear just as fast? According to Zen Buddhism, all beings possess Buddha nature, all beings shine with divinity, but most human beings are blind to this most of the time. The Buddha himself was blind to it for many years. He knew he was searching, but he did not know for what. He tried to be a good Hindu holy man, he starved himself until he said he could see his spine straight through his tummy, held his breath until he passed out, and a whole host of crazy austerities he was told would bring him to enlightenment. Finally, he realized that if he killed himself, he would have to wait for a whole 'nother life before he could become enlightened. So, he took care of his body, and after much study, he sat down beneath the Bodhi Tree, and an amazing thing happened.

The many veils that governed his perception of the world were stripped away. His cultural conditioning, his high-caste assumptions, his selfish quest for achievement, all the filters and lenses granted him by society and experience fell like scales from his eyes, and for a flash, he saw the universe as it really is. He saw that no being was insignificant, that all shone with glory. In that moment, the entire universe was transfigured, and it changed his life-and the world-forever.

Such glimpses are few and far between. Theravada Buddhists tell us that it may take many lifetimes of effort to achieve it. Parents know better, although their child-centered theophanies are usually of smaller scope; but they are not of less import, and they can be just as impactful. I believe such moments of insight happen frequently in moments of great danger, as well. What is the impulse that moves a soldier on the battlefield to throw himself on a grenade to save his comrades? Or a parent to sacrifice him or herself for their child? Perhaps it is in these moments of high adrenaline that the veils that cloud our perception are swept away, and for a fleeting moment we see the world as it really is, the preciousness of that other life, the divinity radiating all around, and losing oneself suddenly seems the most natural thing in the world. Perhaps in that moment of danger, we also have a moment of enlightenment, and we for that moment see everything the way God does, and in the transfiguration of that vision, we act as God acts.

I'd like to read you a poem, titled "Jesus and the Carrion Path," written by the same Jewish German man who also wrote THE SONG OF BERNADETTE, Franz Werfel. I warn you that it is not pretty, but I think you can take it:

Jesus and the Carrion Path

And when we'd put the dead dog behind-
Upon its teeth the Lord had lectured lightly-
He spurred us from this ocean- sound up
The mountain. Gasping, we crawled after.

And once he'd reached the peak
And we'd come up some steps in back,
He pointed out the paths at our feet
That shot in a storm to the plain below.

We each thought one of them especially soft.
Didn't it fly down the fastest?
So when Jesus turned around to ask us,
We all shouted, "Take that!"

He only nodded. Then off he went.
We shivered with joy to be alive,
To be touched by air melting green into green,
In eddies of olive and almond.

Suddenly crumbling walls loomed in our path.
In the middle, a dark tower.
The Savior pushed open the gate.
He waited while we stepped through.

And then something happened that slammed our eyes shut,
That stuck us like trees to the spot.
Before us was a flood of dead stuff.
The sun danced on its sucking surge

Half-chewed rats swam in a tangle
Of snakes, themselves half gnawed away
Putrid deer and donkeys and a shiny cloud
Of plague and flies.

Such a sulphurous stink
Bubbled up from the stew
That we heaved forward on the yellow grass
To vomit in fear and disgust.

But the Savior straightened up,
Crying to heaven again and again,
"My God and father, hear me.
Save me From my loathing. Bless this horror!

"I call myself Love.
Then why does my stomach turn too?
Oh, I'm emptier than a used-up whore,
More packed with sterile nonsense than a fool.

"My father-if you are my father-you
Let me somehow love these rotten things.
Let me read your mercy in this carrion.
Can there be love whe're there's still disgust?"

And see! Suddenly his face exploded
In those familiar surges,
And then light on light tangled at the top of his head
So that dazzled, we turned away.

Then-kneeling he buried his hands
In the reeking slop of rats and mice.
Then-from his whiteness
We smelt something deeper than roses.

He wove his hair with rotten pieces
And crowned himself with crawling things.
He hung a hundred little corpses from his belt
And from his shoulders draped dead bats.

The day was dark. But as he stood,
The mountains split,
Lions wept at his feet,
And wild geese swooped down to him in streams.

Four dark suns danced above.
From behind, a steady, broader ray.
The heavens opened. God's dove hovered,
Lifted by the blue universal breeze.

The end of the poem. To see, for just a moment, as God sees? Oh yeah, you'd be transfigured, too. Let us pray.

Jesus, it is hard to know exactly what happened on that mountain when your disciples were struck dumb, and you shone in glory. But we do know that there was nothing you possessed when you walked on earth that is not also present here and now. Help us to pierce these veils of cultural conditioning, to discard the mantras that tell us that magic is but a fantasy, and for a few tender, fleeting moments, see, as William Blake did, "the universe in a grain of sand, and eternity in an hour." For we know that we do not see even a fraction of the truth, and we cry to you, Son of David, to spit on our eyes, that we may see the glory shining all around, and for just a moment, see the world as you do. Amen.