Martin
Luther King, Jr., in one of his great speeches said, “I have been to the
mountaintop.” There with God’s help, he
could see what most people could not—how America might become a nation where
justice was available to all.[1]
In
our Gospel reading Peter, James and John are on a mountaintop where, with Gods
help, they see with blinding clarity just who Jesus is. Yet it wasn’t Jesus who was transfigured on
that mountain, it was the apostles who were!
For just a moment they saw beyond ordinary appearances to the life and
truth and beauty that are really there.[2]
Like
the Eucharist! For many the bread and
wine are just that, bread and wine. But
to those who believe we can see beyond the vail of bread and wine, to a vision
of God’s love, to enter into the Paschal Mystery of Jesus, his passion, death,
and resurrection, to a hope of everlasting life with Him, the Real Presence!
You
see the Transfiguration isn’t a spectacular special effect. It is an integral affect, a sweet glimpse of
heaven that comes when we’re not looking for it. It’s about vision where we can see beyond the
ordinary. But what prevents us from experiencing
a mountaintop vision? Abram gives us a
clue to the answer.
Just
before our reading from Genesis, Abram is lamenting that he has grown old and
is without an heir. Yet, God tells Abram, “Look up at the sky and count the
stars if you can. Just so … shall your
descendants be.” (Gen 15:5) Not only this, but God promised Abram the
Promised Land. From that point Abram believed
and “lived-as-if” it were already true and “…the Lord credited it to him as an
act of righteousness.”
This
is where it becomes interesting. Abram
does ask, “how will I know…?” (Gen 15:8)
and God directs him to bring him a heifer, a she-goat, a ram, a turtledove, and
a young pigeon. God did not direct Abram
to cut them in two, but that’s what Abram did!
Why? God simply requested the
presence of the animals, Creation’s witnesses, just as there will be a
tradition of Jesus born in a manger with the witness of animals. It was Abram who proceeded to sacrifice the
animals out of routine covenant ritual practices.[3] That’s what they always did, when two men made
covenant with each other. They would
split a heifer or goat in two and walk between them. If one of them broke the covenant, what
happened to the animal would happen to the one who broke the covenant
agreement.
Have
you ever gotten into your vehicle with the intent of going to the store, but your
mind is so conditioned to going to church you turn the wrong way or drive right
by the store? Ok, maybe it wasn’t
church, but work. We can get so lost or blinded
by our personal and cultural baggage/habits, our daily routines that we tend to
mis-hear God’s direction—it’s been going on since Adam.
Paul
invites the Philippians to, “join in being imitators of me … and … those who
thus conduct themselves according to the model you have in us.” (Phil 3:17) Paul is asking us to be co-imitators with him
of Christ. So what is the model, what
are we imitating? Prayer, obedience,
sacrifice, love, forgiveness, mercy, and service, always mindful of the widow,
the orphan and the poor.
We
have to be “living-as-if” God’s promises already are true. We need to break away from our personal and
cultural norms that blind us from hearing God so clearly that we are open to
the mountaintop visions that Martin Luther King, Jr. and the apostles
experienced. When we can embrace the
model of obedient self-giving love and service that Paul is encouraging, it’s
then, that we will have the awareness that we live and move and have our being
in God.
Jesus
gave his close friends a glimpse of his glory to help them through the hard
times he knew was ahead of them. He does
this sometimes for us, in the course of our ordinary life. These special moments are a blessing, but
they’re out of the ordinary. Most of the
time, we have to plod along without vision, without peak experiences, even without
warm feelings.
[1] James DiGiacomo, SJ. Sundays with Jesus,
reflections for the year of Luke. © 2006. Paulist Press, Mahwah, NJ.
[2] Jim Knipper. Deacon, Hungry, and You Fed Me, “While he was praying, his face changed in
appearance and his clothing became dazzling white.” by Michael Leach. © 2012. Clear Vision Publishing, Manalapan, NJ.
[3] Wesley White. Wrestling
Year C, Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience. © 2015. In Medias Res, LLC, Onalaska, WI.
