Transfiguration Sunday Morning Sermon

For lack of a better place to put it, here's the manuscript that I preached from yesterday morning:

February 18, 2007
Luke 9:28-45
“Seeing the Elephant With New Eyes”

A few months ago Bill [Starr, our Senior Pastor] talked about the old story of the blind men and the elephant – how six men, blind from birth, are brought to experience and elephant and each touching one part of the elephant concludes that he knows all of what an elephant is by that one part – the one who touches the side decides that elephants are like walls, the ear, like a fan, the tusk, like a spear, the trunk, like a snake, the leg, like a tree and the one who grabs the tail concludes that an elephant is very much like a rope.
John Godfrey Saxe wrote the most famous Western version of this story and ends his poem with these stanzas:

And so these men of Indostan, disputed loud and long,

each in his own opinion, exceeding stiff and strong,

Though each was partly in the right, and all were in the wrong!

So, oft in theologic wars, the disputants, I ween,

tread on in utter ignorance, of what each other mean,

and prate about the elephant, not one of them has seen!

There’s so much we think we know because we have just the tiniest bit of experience, but in reality we have only a glimpse of the truth. I can’t tell you that I know what it’s like to be an African American in the inner city in Pittsburgh because I go down to the Pittsburgh Project once a year and spend a few hours in that kind of context. I can tell you about my experiences, I can tell you what I see, hear, smell, how it makes me feel… But that’s only a tiny part of the truth…
So, we get glimpses of the truth – but we can’t assume that we’ve seen the whole of it. I think the disciples were in that situation following Jesus. They’d seen Jesus heal so many people, drive out evil spirits, calm a storm, raise a girl from the dead and feed five thousand with five loaves and a couple of fish. They’d heard Him teach about blessings for the fringe people and love for your enemy, about judging others and about the kingdom of God.
Little pieces of the reality of who this wandering Rabbi Jesus was. And then Jesus gave them a test: “Who do people say I am?”
They answer “John the Baptist, Elijah, a prophet.” The people have little bits of who you are Jesus – one sees miracles and says Elijah, one hears you talk about the kingdom and they think of the Baptist, one hears you speak with authority from God and says a prophet.
But he asks, “Who do YOU say that I am?”
And Peter says, “The Christ of God.”
Now, all of this is immediately preceding our reading this morning and I think it’s crucial and I think it IS a test. This is Jesus putting the disciples in the room with the elephant and asking them, “What is an elephant?” And Peter gets it a least a little more right – he’s got a bigger picture than just miracle worker or teacher or prophet – you are Messiah, the Christ.
And so – just a week later (and the very next paragraph in Luke’s narrative), Jesus takes Peter – as well as James and John – up to this mountain to pray.
Notice verse 29: “As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning.” His appearance changed – he looked different. Might I suggest that it may not have been so much an actual change in Jesus, but a change in perception on the part of the disciples? That suddenly they see Jesus for who He really is – as Peter had said, “The Christ of God.” The reality of Who Jesus is hasn’t changed – but up on that mountain, seeing this vision of Moses and Elijah talking with Him – the disciples’ perception of Jesus is changed – it’s refined, it’s cleared up. And God speaks to them, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.”
It’s an epiphany for them. A sudden realization that Jesus is way more than they thought He was. We’ve sung here a couple of times – and we sing at Breakthrough pretty regularly – a song that says,

Open the eyes of my heart, Lord, Open the eyes of my heart
I want to see You, I want to see You…

THAT is what the disciples experienced on that mountaintop – the eyes of their hearts opened up to the reality of who Jesus is. They had seen bits and pieces – but now they’ve seen Him with new eyes.
Take a look, if you will, at the bulletin cover today. This is the central part of a painting done in 1994 by an artist in Singapore by the name of Lim Ah Lee. It’s called Elephants Bathing. When you first saw it as the bulletin cover, what did you think of it? It’s not that spectacular a painting, really. I mean, it’s a nice elephant and all, but I’m not sure it’s really all that special, is it?
Well, let me tell you about Lim Ah Lee. He was a little boy during WW 2. When Lim Ah Lee was ten years old his family was just getting back to normal after the war, and he began to notice that there was something wrong with his body. He was in a lot of pain, but he hid it from everyone as long as he could. But eventually he couldn’t hide it any longer and his family took him to a doctor where he was diagnosed with what he already knew he had: Hansen’s Disease – or, leprosy. He was confined to a hospital from that day on, watching his body rot away before his very eyes. Sometime in the first year at the hospital, his mother visited him, bringing him some toys – including a stuffed elephant. She promised that she’d come back soon to visit, but then his family moved away and he hasn’t had contact with them since – almost 60 years.
At 22, his legs were amputated because of the progression of the disease and he has had over 30 surgeries battling his leprosy.
In his fifties, Lee took up painting to pass time and alleviate the pain of his disability. Now, when he paints, he holds the brush between the stumps of his thumb and fingers – lost to his disease. Sometime in the early 1990s, so the story goes, Lee saw a little boy with a stuffed toy elephant and he remembered the toy he had been given by his mother, who had abandoned him. That, it seems, was part of the inspiration for the painting that you have on the cover of your bulletin this morning. This painting was chosen in 1995 to be displayed at the U N building for the celebration of the International Day of Disabled Persons. As I understand it, today Lim Ah Lee is a “Former Leper” – but he still suffers from the effects of sixty years of the progression of the disease on his body.
Do you see the painting differently, now? Can you see in this elephant a little boy abandoned by his mother, his family? Can you see a man in his fifties, suffering from a terrible disease, picking up a paintbrush for the first time and saying, “This disability does not define me. I am more than a leper.” Can you see more than just an elephant here? Has this painting been transfigured for you?
That’s what the disciples experienced up on that mountaintop. Not so much a change in who Jesus IS – but a change in how they see Him.
We all have to have that transfiguring experience. You know, the head knowledge can only go so far: we can read about Jesus, we can hear about how other people experience Jesus, we can know all the facts and recall all the stories. But we have to allow the eyes of our hearts to be opened to who Jesus really is. Too many days I find myself reading this like it’s History – but it’s not history – this is the LIVING WORD OF GOD – this not just stories about Jesus and the good stuff God does, but this is the TRANSFOMING POWER OF GOD.
Luke tells us that the next day they came down off the mountain – Jesus, Peter, James and John – and the very first thing that happens is they encounter a man whose son is demon possessed and the nine disciples who stayed at the bottom of the mountain couldn’t do anything for him.
And this is an important moment in the Gospel story. Have the eyes of the disciples been opened? More importantly, do you and I see Jesus differently? Is He going to heal this boy because he’s a miracle worker or is there more to it than that? Is this just another story of Jesus driving out the demon, or does it go deeper than that?
Has Jesus “changed in appearance” before our eyes? The disciples, it is clear, even after having this amazing moment on the mountaintop with Jesus, they still don’t see the whole elephant. “O unbelieving and perverse generation, how long shall I stay with you and put up with you?” How little they see – how hard it is to really allow ourselves to open up to who Jesus is – God incarnate. Jesus tells them he is going to be betrayed, but they don’t understand – they’re afraid to ask him about it. They see, and yet they don’t really see. Right after this they argue about who will be the greatest in the kingdom. Back to part of the elephant…
But…eventually they really do get it – and it changes them and these few guys turn the world upside down.
I had a transfiguring experience that I want to share with you. You know, there are people that I’ve looked down on – people that I’ve scorned and called, in my heart at least, worthless or beneath me or…well, worse things, really. I don’t like admitting that, but I will because I’m afraid that it isn’t unique to me. I would see a homeless guy and think “probably too lazy to get a job” or I’d see some actress make headlines with too much alcohol and too few clothes and think…well, some pretty ugly thoughts. I’d look around at the world around me and evaluate the worth of people by how they look, act, speak… But I heard this guy on the radio and he was talking about how men will often objectify women and how that degrades women – treating them as a commodity instead of as a person… And he said four words that broke my heart the moment I heard them, “She’s somebody’s little girl.” That woman who sells herself for the tabloid headlines, she’s somebody’s little girl. That girl in high school who bounces from one boy to the next, she’s somebody’s little girl. And maybe it’s because I have two little girls, I don’t know, but that phrase caught me and my prejudices and my self-righteous spirit and all in a rush, I can’t look at people the same way anymore. They’re somebody’s little girls and boys. They may have made some of the worst mistakes a human being could make, but at some point a mom or a dad held this little baby with joy and hope and saw the whole world laid out before them. And, even more important, they’re children of God. And I don’t know why it took those four words to change how I see the people around me, but I know that now I see them a little more like Jesus sees them – as His children…

See the elephant with new eyes – with God healed eyes. Allow your heart and mind to be transfigured by the power of God in Jesus Christ and that will transfigure how you look at the world around you.