The Transformers
John Shuck
Southminster
Presbyterian Church
Beaverton, Oregon
February 15, 2015
Bhagavad Gita XI
Sri Krishna, Master of all yogis, revealed to Arjuna his transcendent,
divine Form, speaking from innumerable mouths, seeing with a myriad eyes, of
many marvelous aspects, adorned with countless divine ornaments, brandishing
all kinds of heavenly weapons, wearing celestial garlands and the raiment of
paradise, anointed with perfumes of heavenly fragrance, full of revelations,
resplendent, boundless, of ubiquitous regard.
Suppose a thousand suns should rise together into the sky: such is the glory of the Shape of Infinite
God.
Then the son of Pandu beheld the entire universe, in all its
multitudinous diversity, lodged as one being within the body of the God of
gods.
Mark
9:2-8 (Scholars’ Version)
Six days later, Jesus takes Peter and James and John along and leads
them off by themselves to a lofty
mountain. He was transformed in front of them, and his clothes became an
intensely brilliant white, whiter than any laundry on earth could make them.
Elijah appeared to them, with Moses, and they were conversing with Jesus. Peter responds by saying to Jesus, “Rabbi, it’s
a good thing we’re here. In fact, why
not set up three tents, one for you, and one for Moses, and one for
Elijah!” (You see, he didn’t know how
else to respond, since they were terrified).”
And a cloud moved in and cast a shadow over them, and voice came out of
the cloud: “This my favored son, listen to him!” Suddenly, as they looked
around, they saw no one, but were alone with Jesus.
For those who keep track of liturgical matters, today is
Transfiguration of the Lord Sunday on the church calendar. It is a pivot Sunday. It is in between the Christmas and Epiphany
cycle and the Lent and Easter cycle.
Last Sunday was the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany. Next Sunday is the First Sunday of Lent.
This parable of the transfiguration is found in Mark,
Matthew, and Luke. It is likely a
creation of the Gospel of Mark that was copied by both Matthew and Luke. This story serves as a pivot within the
narrative of the three gospels. Before
this story Jesus wanders around doing healing and so forth. After this story, the focus is Jerusalem and
his impending death. After this
Transfiguration he tells his disciples what is really going on:
“The son of Adam is
being turned over to his enemies, and they will end up killing him. And three
days after he is killed he will rise!”
(Mark 9:31)
It is Mark’s gospel that the martyrdom tradition (the death
of Jesus at the hands of his enemies and his vindication by God through the
resurrection) is put in a narrative form.
Before Jesus takes off for Jerusalem and his passion, passion as mission
and passion as suffering, he reveals to his closest disciples, his inner
circle, who he really is. He is the
fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets symbolized by Moses and Elijah. He is as the voice from the cloud announces,
the “favored son.” So pay
attention. “Listen to him,” says the
cloud.
That is pay attention to his martyrdom. That is what will happen to him and to those
who follow him. Want to see God? Want to see God in all of God’s glory? Want to have a mystical, spiritual experience
with the Divine? There it is. God is on the cross suffering from the
violence of humanity. It is a stark
vision. It is a dark vision. It is a vision that comes from those who
know violence and the human propensity for evil.
That would certainly be Mark’s community. Scholarly consensus places the Gospel of Mark
around the year 70 when Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed by the
Romans. Horrific violence. That experience is the frame that the author
of Mark used to create the parable of Jesus.
Life is violent and short. You keep your integrity or achieve salvation
by holding fast to what you value even if you suffer. But God will vindicate steadfastness.
There were other visions.
Jesus never wrote anything. We
don’t have any first hand objective knowledge about him. We have portraits created decades later. These portraits reflect the artist who
created them as much as the figure of Jesus. The Gospel
of Thomas portrays Jesus as a teacher of wisdom. The goal for Thomas’ Jesus is to find
yourself. It was a vision of Jesus
written in a different time and in a different place. Neither
vision is right or wrong. They come from
the various experiences of life.
Back to the Transfiguration story. Mark tells this story to show that the
disciples, Peter, James, and John, saw Jesus in his glory. Jesus was and is the real thing. Thus he is worth following, even his path
leads to suffering.
I would just say personally that I find this vision of Jesus
to be compelling, challenging, and comforting.
Life does require us at times to take the harder path, the rocky
path. When I am tempted to look away
from the suffering of my brothers and sisters, this vision of Jesus reminds me,
“No, this is the face of God.” This is
the ultimate concern. When I feel I
don’t have the strength, courage, or whatever other virtue is needed to respond
to my own dis-ease and my own failures, I find in this vision of Jesus the
trust to carry on at least for another day.
I know this is going to sound funny coming from a minister,
but I don’t know anything about God. I
don’t even know what the word means.
But I do have a heart for Jesus.
If the theology is right that it is in the mystery of Jesus that we glimpse
God, then I am OK with that. Ask me
about God and I fumble around. My eyes
glaze over. Ask me about Jesus and there
is a lot to say from a many angles.
Mark’s vision of Jesus is one I hold close. I am terrified by it at times. “Can
you drink the cup?” says Jesus in Mark.
I don’t know. I don’t know. Help my unbelief. Give me the heart to trust in other
words.
In this parable of the transfiguration of Jesus, Mark shows
us that Jesus is the real thing. His
mission, his passion to care for the least of these even if this caring is met
with great resistance is the way to the heart of God. When we see the homeless or the victims of
violence or the perpetrators of violence or our own complicity in violence, we
have a vision before us to remind us who we are and where we need to
stand. That is the Jesus that calls me
out. “Will you follow me?” That is the voice from the cloud about
Jesus: “Listen to him.”
This story of the Transfiguration of Jesus has an echo in
the Bhagavad Gita. Bhagavad Gita
literally means “song of God.” The story is about Arjuna, son of Pandu, who
is about to go into battle. He is
having doubts. Krishna comes to him. Krishna is kind of like Jesus. These stories arise in different
philosophical systems, but there are enticing parallels between Jesus and
Krishna. Krishna is an avatar, a
personification, a revelation, an incarnation of God. Again, God, what is that?
The Bhagavad Gita is classic spiritual literature. It isn’t very long. It is about the length of the New
Testament. It provides a fascinating
insight into a particular vision of life.
In this conversation, Krishna is explaining to Arjuna what life is about
and the nature of who we are and how to go about living it. In the course of this conversation, Arjuna
wants to know more about Krishna. He
doesn’t want to be impolite, but how can he trust that Krishna is the real
thing. He asks to see him as he really
is. So Krishna reveals himself to
Arjuna:
Sri Krishna, Master of
all yogis, revealed to Arjuna his transcendent, divine Form, speaking from
innumerable mouths, seeing with a myriad eyes, of many marvelous aspects,
adorned with countless divine ornaments, brandishing all kinds of heavenly
weapons, wearing celestial garlands and the raiment of paradise, anointed with
perfumes of heavenly fragrance, full of revelations, resplendent, boundless, of
ubiquitous regard.
Suppose a thousand
suns should rise together into the sky:
such is the glory of the Shape of Infinite God.
Then the son of Pandu
beheld the entire universe, in all its multitudinous diversity, lodged as one
being within the body of the God of gods.
In both stories, Jesus and Krishna, reveal their true
natures. They do so to show the human
beings who witness this, Peter, James, and John, and Arjuna, respectively, that
these teachers are the real thing and that their teachings can be trusted and
should be followed. That is one
takeaway.
But as I read these stories side by side I think of
something else. The stories of the gods
in all mythological literature are stories not just about gods but they are
also stories about us. Our ancestors
told stories about gods as a way to tell stories about themselves. For example, Jesus dying on the cross and
rising on the third day is not something that just happened to him, but it is a
spiritual path. We die to an old way of
being and we rise to a new way of being. Life is filled with deaths and
resurrections. The spiritual path is to courageously enter
them. We participate in them.
How might we look at the Transfiguration story in that
way? These transfiguration stories tell
us that both Jesus and Krishna are more than how they appear. What the disciples saw in Jesus and what
Arjuna saw in Krishna was not all there was to see. They got a glimpse into “the more” than what
they appeared to be.
The key prefix is trans. Border crossing. Boundary shattering. Category “fuzzying.” In this ancient literature the boundary
between the human and the divine was made fuzzy. Some call that a thin place. That veil between the human and the divine
worlds is thin, translucent.
Thomas Merton writes about an experience he had on a street
corner. He was watching people and as
he was watching all of the people go by, busy, all doing different things and
going different places he had a feeling, a revelation, an experience, a
something that was beautiful. He saw all
of these people as connected in a seamless whole. A feeling of bliss came over him. He felt a great deal of compassion and
connection to this human family. He
found a thin place on a street corner.
There is more to it, there is more to this life, more to you and to me
than what we see on the surface. Yes we
are biological beings doing what we have evolved to do but also we are also…
the entire universe,
in all its multitudinous diversity, lodged as one being within the body of the
God of gods.
Yes we are bodies.
But we are stardust, too. Transfiguration.
There are other ways of being trans. One of the great trans scriptures is
Galatians 3:28:
There is neither Jew
nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are
all one in Christ Jesus.
Paul had an awareness of humankind transformed, transcending,
transfigured beyond categories of ethnicity, social status and gender. He had
a dream of making a trans community.
He was frustrated when the old categories reasserted themselves. “You
foolish Galatians!” he said. Going back
to your old ways. Paul understood the
gospel as transcending all categories, all power structures, all ways of being
that dehumanized. This trans community
would embrace a new unity, as he put it, “all one in Christ Jesus.” He saw Christ Jesus as the unifying figure,
not simply a founder of another religion.
He was gracious and patient and allowed me to ask some naïve
questions about his experience of being transgender. At the time of the interview he was closer
to the beginning of the process of transitioning from female to male. I asked him,
“Do you feel male?”
He was very gracious.
He said, “That is an interesting question.” He said something along the lines of, “I
don’t know if you can feel a particular gender, but I feel that I am
myself.” He described being female for
him as wearing a set of ill-fitting clothes that were kind of scratchy. As he transitioned to male, he found
himself.
Transgender individuals such as Alex have much to teach us
about what it means to be human.
Categories of gender are socially constructed and often unjust in the
way they play out in society. The
supposed roles for men and women are taught and learned early and those with
the courage to break those boundaries provide all of us with a great gift. Rather than being constrained by arbitrary
categories of this or that, we are discovering in part through trans people
that we are quite diverse.
As I spoke with Alex I realized that there was more to him,
but not only him, to all of us than what we see. I started to think about Jesus a little
differently as well. He not only
transcended the human and divine divide, he transcended other categories,
too. The categories of rich and poor,
of Jew and Gentile, perhaps male and female to some degree as well.
And what of our community?
What might it mean to be a trans community? The world is remarkably diverse. But we musn’t be divided. Nor must we be uniform. The challenge for humanity is to discover
our unity through our diversity. It is
the people on the margins who are our teachers.
Those in between. They reveal to us, as did Krishna and Jesus, that we are more than what we appear to be. I think the
great challenge is to listen to those in the margins, to listen to those who
stretch those boundaries and challenge the categories rather than judge or
dismiss them as being weird or irrelevant.
I will close with two open questions:
What categories need to be transfigured, transcended, and
transformed?
Who in our larger community are our teachers?
I will invite you to finish the sermon.
Amen.
