Beyond Shiny
Exodus 24:12-18; Mark 9:2-8
Rev. Dr. Deborah L. Clark
February 11, 2018
It is a shining moment. Jesus is radiant. His clothes, normally as dusty and grimy as everyone else’s, are dazzling white. He stands with Moses–the one who brought the law to the people–and Elijah–the prophet who ascended into heaven. It cannot be any clearer–this is God’s chosen one, sent to save God’s people.
Peter, Mark tells us, is terrified. His words suggest that he is also ecstatic. “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here.” This is what Peter has been waiting for. Finally, all that he and his friends have been working for is coming to fruition. God’s kin-dom–God’s realm–is established on on this mountain in shimmering brilliance. Finally, Peter thinks, I don’t have to struggle with my doubts, for now I see exactly who Jesus is.
In awe, Peter offers to do what he thinks a good disciple should do. I’ll make three dwellings, he says, so you and Moses and Elijah can stay here forever, so you can shine forever, so I can revel in this brilliance forever. I’ll take this moment, he thinks, this perfect seashell, and shellac it with nail polish so it will shine for all eternity.
What happens next suggests that Peter has missed the point. As soon as he makes his offer to build booths, a cloud overshadows the mountain. When the cloud lifts, there is Jesus, standing alone, looking dusty and grimy and all too ordinary. I cannot imagine how disappointed Peter must be. He has been thinking that this moment is the grand culmination of Jesus’ ministry. It is not. Instead, it is a wake-up call to help him understand what is coming, which is far more important. When the cloud descends, there is a voice: “This is my son, the Beloved. Listen to him.” The point of the transfiguration is not to show that life with Jesus is shiny and bright; the point is to get Peter–to get us–to listen to what Jesus says next.
As Jesus, Peter, James and John leave the mountain, they come upon a crowd. A father is there with his young son, who is possessed by a horrible spirit that convulses him so he falls into the fire and burns himself. How awful! The rest of the disciples are standing around looking hapless. A crowd has gathered to see if anyone is going to help. From the shimmering beauty of the mountaintop, Jesus descends into the valley of human struggle and suffering.
With frustration seeping out of his pores, Jesus speaks, lashing out at his disciples who can’t figure out how to help. With compassion and sadness, he hears the father’s anguished plea and speaks words of comfort. With determination and anger at the power of evil, he rebukes the demon. The child is healed.
This story is the antithesis of that glorious moment on the mountaintop. Instead of dazzling us with a shiny tunic, Jesus, I imagine, appears all too human–frustration in his voice, his heart exposed, exhaustion in his eyes after an intense battle with a demon.
From there, Jesus and the disciples pass through Galilee. Along the way, he tells them that he will be betrayed, that he will suffer and die, and that ultimately he will rise again. He goes on to explain that, if they want to be the greatest, they must become like servants. He blesses little children, proclaiming that the weakest and the most vulnerable come first in the realm of God. He tells a rich man to give away all his possessions. And then, in case we didn’t hear it the first time, he predicts his suffering and death yet again.
“This is my child, my beloved,” the voice in the cloud said to Peter, “Listen to him.” Peter is trying to listen–but this is not what he wants to hear. He yearns to go back to that shiny mountaintop moment. Jesus, though, did not come to stand on a mountaintop and shine, a beacon of light to distract from the suffering of the world. Jesus came to dwell among us, to share in our frustration and our sadness, our torment and our hope. He does not stay on the mountaintop but comes back to the valley, where he will be broken apart by storms of hatred and jealousy and fear, where his inner anguish will be exposed and his inner beauty revealed, where his compassion will get him into trouble over and over again.
If the mountaintop moment reveals to Peter and James and John that Jesus is the Messiah–the savior sent by God–, then what happens in the valley reveals what kind of Messiah he is. Jesus does not come to save us from being human, but to teach us to savor our humanity. He comes to show us that God is at work in our ordinary, broken, struggling lives, that we too are holy, beloved, gifted. The kingdom–the realm, the kin-dom–he proclaims is not one where pain and loss are destroyed, but rather one where we do what we can to ease one another’s suffering, where we share each other’s burdens, where we try to love even when we can’t figure out exactly what that means.
This story is about who Jesus is–God’s child, God’s beloved, God’s Messiah, sent not to rescue us but to become one of us, to show us the power of love and the way of compassion. This story is about who we are–also God’s children, also God’s beloved, disciples like Peter who yearn for shimmering mountaintops but live most of our lives in the dusty, grimy valley, where things are not nearly as clear.
And this story is about who God is–or maybe where God is. Yes, God is on the mountaintop, in those glorious moments of wonder and clarity, love that shimmers. I believe, though, that God actually prefers the valley, for God sees the beauty in our broken lives, for God treasures the tender depths of our complicated souls, for God revels in our caring for one another. God is with us in the valley, holiness revealed in our ordinary, imperfect lives.
Hopefully, by now, each of you has selected a seashell. If you have tucked yours away somewhere, I invite you to take it out and hold it in your hand. If you picked one of those that seems to be a fragment, you might finger the edges as you imagine the original shell battered against a rock in a storm, as you envision the years of gentle waves on the sand, smoothing out the edges. Take a moment to appreciate the new shape this fragment has taken, the subtle combination of colors.
If you selected one of those spiraling shells where the insides are exposed, take a moment to imagine the shell in its original form. The outside of the shell might have been shiny and bright; the insides that are now revealed are even more amazing.
If you chose a shell that has other shells or barnacles attached to it, feel the places where they have become attached. Notice the new shape that has been created. Let go for a moment of your expectations of symmetry and smoothness and appreciate the beauty of this unique, hybrid shape.
Whatever shell you have, hold it tenderly and treasure its beauty. This is how God holds us–tenderly, with appreciation for our unique beauty. God knows we have been battered by storms, and God is in the gentle waves of compassion and healing that are slowly softening our jagged edges and reshaping us into new beauty. God sees deeper than our surface, to the complex spiral inside us–our needs, our longings, our hopes, our dreams–and treasures all of who we are. God celebrates every time we allow our lives to be shaped by caring for another person, even and especially when that means we end up somehow oddly asymmetrical. God may smile at the shiny perfect shell–but God rejoices in the wonder and beauty of the broken, exposed, barnacle-laden shells that are our lives.
This, for me, is the message of the Transfiguration. Sure, Jesus was shiny on the mountaintop, but that was just to wake us up. Jesus came to teach–through his life and his healings and his words–that God loves us in all our broken, complicated asymmetrical humanity. Jesus came to call forth our beauty and holiness so we may share it with the world. Jesus came to challenge us to treasure the unique beauty and holiness of every person we meet.
May we revel in the holy beauty of our lives. May we be bold to offer that beauty to our world. May we call forth and celebrate the sacred beauty of each person we meet. Thanks be to God. Amen.