Emily Schaming
I
was quite disappointed the other day when a friend told me that they no longer
teach children to, "Stop, Drop and Roll" if they find themselves on
fire. Sadly, I have now lost the only useful thing I still remember from my days
as a Girl Guide. Apparently, some children did not know that this was a
principle that applied only when one's clothing catches fire, not one's home.
The new slogan, in case you were wondering, is "Stay low and go."
However, I was happy to find out that the tried and trusted method I learned of
crossing the street is still the same. "Stop, Look and Listen". The
stop, look and listen message was effectively and permanently planted in my mind
in kindergarten when we watched a rather traumatic video of a clown who failed
to do these things and was hit by a bus.
Traffic
clowns and fires aside, these are three elements that emanate strongly from
today's scripture readings. Stop. Look. Listen. The stories of transfiguration
are not always ones that are easy to relate to, most of us don't climb up
mountains and come down with glowing faces. But all of us do have the
opportunity to take time from our lives, to stop, to look at what God wants for
us in our lives and to truly strive to listen to Jesus' teachings.
A man once challenged another to an all-day wood chopping contest. The challenger worked very hard, stopping only for a brief lunch break. The other man had a leisurely lunch and took several breaks during the day. At the end of the day, the challenger was surprised and annoyed to find that the other man had chopped substantially more wood than he had.
"I
don't get it," he said. "Every time I checked, you were taking a rest,
yet you chopped more wood than I did."
"But
you didn't notice," said the winning woodsman, "that I was sharpening
my ax when I sat down to rest."
The
first challenge of this lesson is for us to see and understand why busy people
who are in community leadership positions would bother to stop what they were
doing and head up a mountain to pray. Certainly, I can't think of a better place
than a mountaintop to get perspective. It is quiet, there is nothing pressing to
do at the top of a mountain. Cell phone service isn't very good, wireless
internet is nowhere to be found, there isn't much to do but stop and rest.
Moses
knew this. He was always dealing with a fickle, cantankerous bunch of people who
would start worshipping idols whenever he left the camp. I can imagine that this
was not the calmest encampment, with kids and camels and
disagreements over what their mission was and where the next day's meal
would come from. It's no wonder he needed to leave and go up the mountain to
speak with God.
Jesus
too, went up the mountain to pray. There is nothing in the reading to indicate
that his purpose was anything other than simple retreat and prayer, but the
result was his transfiguration, a shining tribute to his communion with God.
We can be
like the woodcutter who chopped and chopped until he was exhausted with little
to show for his efforts. Or we can take breaks, rest, sharpen ourselves for the
challenges of life and come out ahead. Moses knew the value of this and so did
Jesus.
So
here we are on the mountain. We have made time to spend with God. Celtic peoples
talk of the 'thin places', places where the distance between heaven and earth
seems thin. When we find ourselves in one of these places, what do we do? If we
have the courage to look into God's face, what do we see?
Sometimes
it is not what we want to see. In a speech in Memphis on April 3rd,
1968, Martin Luther King Jr. described what he had seen, he said,
"
We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now,
because I've been to the mountaintop.
And
I don't mind.
Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!
And so I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man!"
He
was shot and killed the next day. But he had looked at God in the face and in
doing so had understood what was to come for his life.
Can we too, allow ourselves
to go up the mountain, to encounter God, to seek out what purpose there is in
our lives? I truly believe that this is how we can live our lives without fear
and filled with love and compassion.
Writer Charles Swindoll once found himself with too many commitments in too few days. He got nervous and tense about it. "I was snapping at my wife and our children, choking down my food at mealtimes, and feeling irritated at those unexpected interruptions through the day," he recalled in his book Stress Fractures. "Before long, things around our home started reflecting the patter of my hurry-up style. It was becoming unbearable.
"I
distinctly remember after supper one evening, the words of our younger daughter,
Colleen. She wanted to tell me something important that had happened to her at
school that day. She began hurriedly, 'Daddy, I wanna tell you somethin' and
I'll tell you really fast.'
"Suddenly
realizing her frustration, I answered, 'Honey, you can tell me -- and you don't
have to tell me really fast. Say it slowly.' I'll never forget her answer: 'Then
listen slowly.'"
Listen
slowly. Peter is caught up in the excitement of the moment. He is awed by the
immensity of the situation. He is delighted with the circumstance. This is no
small thing. Moses is there, Elijah is there. Heroes of history are coming to
life right before his eyes! This is like nothing he has ever seen. Peter wants
to build them houses, to honour them, maybe give tours! But instead, he is
forced to listen as a voice from the cloud says, "This is my Son, my Chosen;
listen to him!" When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they
kept silent…" They kept silent? Can you imagine going up onto a mountain
for a retreat and finding there important religious figures of the past
consulting with your teacher as he is transformed and glowing and then saying
nothing about it? I can barely do anything without telling half the world about
it let alone keeping quiet about an encounter with God. But the instruction was
to listen. And they did.
Be Transformed
When
we stop, look and listen to God we can experience things about which we had
never dreamed. But we don't need to be on a literal mountaintop. In Beyond
Words Frederick Buechner talks about how we might be transformed by our
encounters with God. He compares the transfiguration story with our own lives
saying, "Even with us something like this happens once in a while. The face of
the man walking with his child in the park, of a woman baking bread, of
sometimes even the most unlikely person listening to a concert or standing
barefoot in the sand watching the waves roll in, or just have a beer at a
Saturday baseball game in July. Every once and so often, something so touching,
so incandescent, so alive transfigures the human face that it's almost beyond
bearing."
In
the reading from Corinthians Paul gives his analysis of the transformational
mountaintop experiences. He compares the experience of Moses who had to cover
his face with a veil to prevent the light of God shining on the people. He says
that same veil is still covering our faces, that there is a veil on our minds.
However, he adds that, "when one turns to the Lord, the veil is
removed." He adds, "…the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of
the Lord is, there is freedom. And
all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected
in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory
to another; for this comes from the Lord".
Is
it possible to look into the face of God and not be transfigured? Is it possible
to look and not be afraid? The suggested response in the Catholic liturgy to
today's Psalm is, "The Lord reigns, let the people tremble."
In The
Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, the talking beavers prepare the children in
the story for their encounter with Aslan the lion. The girls are naturally
afraid of this encounter. "Ooh," said Susan, "I though he was a
man. Is he - quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."
"That you will, dearie." said Mrs. Beaver. "And make no mistake,
if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking,
they're either braver than most or else just silly."
"Then isn't he
safe?" said Lucy. "Safe?" said Mr. Beaver. "Don't you hear
what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn't
safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."
To stop, look and listen is a
lesson in safety when we are dealing with traffic, but stopping to look into the
face of God, taking time to truly listen, is anything but safe. We may, either
by pure intention or pure chance at any time experience the lifting of the veil,
however briefly. And those are the moments we must use to sustain our hope and
our trust that God's will and purpose for our lives is at once terrifying,
wonderful and real.