The Transfiguration 2004

*Preached at Grace North Church by John R. Mabry on February 15, 2004.*

In Hindu mythology there is the story of Shiva and Parvati's son, Ganesha. According to one story, Parvati was disturbed because Shiva was always entering her rooms without knocking. No amount of persuasion seemed to convince him that she deserved her privacy. He was the lord of the universe, and he would walk into her chambers any time he pleased.

So Parvati rubbed some skin from her own body, and formed a being she called her son, Ganesha. She trained Ganesha to guard her door, so that she would no longer be disturbed when she was napping or bathing. When Shiva tried to enter, Ganesha forbid him, so Shiva sent some henchmen in and cut his head off.

No, Parvati had become pretty attached to her new son and bodyguard, and was extremely upset by this act of violence by her husband, and she threw herself on the ground and began sobbing.

When Shiva saw how distraught his wife had become, he was taken aback. He was, after all, the lord of death as well, and decapitations, disembowelments, and dismemberments were commonplace in the Shiva household. But when he beheld Parvati's sorrow, his heart melted, and he vowed to himself that he would make it right. So Shiva set out into the forest, and took the head off of the first being he met, and brought it back to the house. There he carefully fitted the head onto the little boy's body, which magically was restored to life.

Unfortunately for little Ganesha, the first animal Shiva came across in the forest was an elephant. So Ganesha had the body of a little boy and the head of an elephant for the rest of his rather unnatural life.

The Shiva Purana says "Parvati saw her son Ganesha alive again, and embraced him with great joy. She put new clothes on him, and after kissing him, she said, 'Genesha, you have had great tribulation since your birth. But now you are blessed and content. You will receive worship before all the gods, and will be free of distress.' Shiva, Brahma, and Vishnu declared in unison, 'O great gods, just as we three are worshipped in all the three worlds, so also Ganesha shall be worshipped by all of you. He is the remover of obstacles and the bestower of the fruits of all rites.'" (Shiva Purana, Rudrasamhita 18).

He also became the scribe of the gods, probably because of his Elephant-headed good memory, and traditionally he is the amanuensis of Vyasa, the great poet who wrote the Mahabharata.

Ganesha's transfiguration is a foreshadowing of Christ's in our gospel reading today. Just as Jesus was flanked by the apparitions of Elijah, Moses, and the voice of the creator, so Ganesha is flanked by Shiva, the destroyer, Vishnu, the preserver, and Brahma, the creator.

It is no accident that the recipient of such a transfiguration as Ganesha's should go on to be the patron god of scribes and scholars, for that, too, foreshadows our Gospel scene. Being Unitarians, essentially, Jews could not have received a vision of a trinity, but look who it is that appears with Jesus in this vision. There is God, of course, in the form of the voice from heaven, but also with him are two of the greatest figures in Jewish history: Moses and Elijah. Tradition ascribes to Moses the authorship of the largest chunk of the Hebrew Scriptures: the Torah, the first five books of the bible. And Elijah, as the greatest prophet in Israel's history, is metonymous for those who interpret the scriptures. He is, to use a Christian term, the patron saint of theologians.

Ganesha's transfiguration resulted in the invention of scholarship, while Jesus' transfiguration celebrates the fruits of it. Moses' scholarship paves the way for Jesus, Elijah's prophecy foreshadows him. Together the scripture and the interpreter bear witness to this man. They made him what he was, it was their shoulders upon which he climbed. Jesus would have been impossible without them. The writer, the theologian, and the Holy Spirit find their culmination in this, the divine man.

This is a mysterious alchemy indeed, but it is far from unique. Because the third figure in this triptych of transfigurations is you--or in my case, me.

I have always been a voracious reader. I read the usual stuff that boys read-ghost stories, adventure, comic books, mysteries. But when I discovered fantasy, I realized I had discovered a whole different level of ecstasy. It began with Greek mythology, then Madeline L'Engle's A WRINKLE IN TIME. Then Jules Verne. And then I read the first book of the Chronicles of Narnia, and my friends, it was all over. My life would never be the same.

This was fourth grade. I read all seven of C.S. Lewis' amazing allegories, and went right back to the beginning and read them all over again. I was entranced, edified, indeed transfigured by them. It also began for me a bit of a cult of C.S. Lewis, and I read everything by him I could get my hands on. The space trilogy was the obvious next step, then THE GREAT DIVORCE, and THE PILGRIM'S REGRESS. Then, having exhausted Lewis' canon of fantasy, I dove into his many theological treatises.

Now imagine a fifth grader reading theology by an Oxford don. Not only reading it, but understanding a good bit of it, being excited by it, loving it, and wanting more. I was, if you have not guessed by now, a very weird child.

C.S. Lewis had a close circle of friends and fellow authors with whom he used to meet a couple of times a week. He and his friends would read from whatever books they were writing at the time, and they would enjoy, critique, and razz one another as their projects progressed. This little circle of literary friends called themselves, "The Inklings" and it consisted of Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Dorothy Sayers, and others throughout the years. It was in this circle that the Narnia books were first read aloud, that THE HOBBIT and THE LORD OF THE RINGS were first unveiled.

I knew about the Inklings of course, from my readings about Lewis, and I had enjoyed THE LORD OF THE RINGS very much indeed. But it wasn't until college that I first decided to give one of Charles Williams' novels a try.

I began with his final, and best novel, ALL HALLOW'S EVE. The book shook me to my very core. As the book opens, the reader understands that there has been a terrible accident, and the main characters are already dead. But it is the choices they make in the first few days after their death that determine their eternal fate. The book was a revelation, not only because it was gripping fiction but because it took the spiritual life seriously and at the same time posited creative answers for theological dilemmas which never would have flown in my Sunday school classes.

Each of Williams' novels are based on precisely the same outline: you take a very ordinary group of people, and thrust into their lives some element of the divine, and then sit back and for the rest of the novel watch them spin towards heaven or hell. And Williams' definitions of heaven and hell are also very creative: heaven is community, hell is isolation, pure and simple.

ALL HALLOW'S EVE tore my soul inside out. I have said in the past that this book is the shout that began the avalanche that brought me HERE. It was Lewis the writer who led me to him, but it was Williams the theologian, with the help of the Holy Spirit, who has formed and transfigured me into the person of faith I am today.

This is the story of my own transfiguration. It is not as shiny or surreal as Jesus' but it does bear amazing resemblances to it. I learned early in my preaching career that there is not a single story in the bible that is not also happening to ME, right NOW, if I but have the eyes to see it. Because if its not happening to me, if the Bible isn't happening to us right now, then it is a relatively useless assemblage of fairy tales. The genius of scripture is that it is full of stories that did not just happen a long time ago, but are archetypal, they are always happening, and they are always happening TO US.

The transfiguration is not just a story about something that happened to Jesus, or Ganesha for that matter, but it is something that occurs to all of us. Who are the literary mentors who have shaped your spiritual journey? Who are the interpreters that have made sense of it all for you? You may find that the list is longer than a simple trinity.

Instead of celebrating a confounding and surreal episode in the life of Christ today as good Christians the world over are supposed to do, I ask you to reflect upon your own transfiguration. In the silence that follows this sermon, I invite you to rummage through the trunks of your early reading. Who were the authors that cracked open the world like an eggshell for you? Take a moment to breath a simple prayer of thanks for each of them. Then think of those who have helped you understand just what it all means. It might have been another author, it might have been a living person that you knew and loved. Who mentored you in your critical thinking, who encouraged you to make the Word flesh, and taught you how to live out your ideas in a way that changed both you and the world? I invite you to breath a prayer of thanks for this person as well.

And then as we listen to the special music, I invite you to close your eyes and imagine a little mystery play. Imagine yourself on the top of this mountain, shining with the glory of the divinity that is in truth within you. Then imagine conversing with those writers and mentors who have brought you to this mountain, who have made you the person you are. Then hear the voice from the heavens saying, "this is my beloved, my child."

Thomas Carlyle said, "In books lies the soul of the whole past time: the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream." But in us, books are transfigured into living words, indeed, the very word of God. And you, my friends, you are that word.

Let us pray

Think back to those authors who first excited your imaginations.thank them.
Thank back to those mentors who taught you how to live out your ideas with passion and integrity..thank them.

Holy and living God, you have given us the gift of words, words that have made us who we are, words that change us and through us the world. Help us to see ourselves as part of the chain of writers and mentors through whom you are remaking and restoring the world. Help us to know and to feel that we are your beloved, and that we have something to say to the world, for there are still so many in need of mentors. As we have received, help us to give in turn. As we have been transfigured, help us to bear witness to the transformation of souls in other. For we ask this in the name of that crazy shining guy up on the mountain, even Jesus Christ. Amen.