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| Icon of the Transfiguration of Jesus |
The story of the transfiguration of Jesus is recorded in all
three of the synoptic gospels: Mark,
Matthew and Luke. The placement of this story in the synoptic gospels, and
especially in Luke’s Gospel, is significant.
In all three gospels, the transfiguration follows closely on Jesus’
question to his disciples, “Who do people say that I am,” followed by Jesus’
first prediction of his crucifixion and resurrection.[1] The transfiguration also marks a turning
point in the gospel narratives, from Jesus’ ministry in the Galilee region near
his hometown to his journey to Jerusalem, where this prediction will be
fulfilled.[2] In other words, the transfiguration is set in
relationship to the questions of identity and destiny: Who am I and what is my purpose?
These are the big questions, aren’t they? In the gospels, the story of the
transfiguration serves to deepen our engagement with these questions. It does not provide an answer; at least not
directly. It is a story filled with
evocative images and allusions to other stories that invite us to live into the
questions, to love the questions themselves, and to discover their meaning in
our life’s journey.
In approaching this story, we do well to recall the advice
the poet, Rilke, gave to a friend. “Be patient toward all that
is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked
rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now
seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to
live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.
Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant
day into the answer.”[3]
I
want to consider these questions as addressed to us and about us – not only to
and about Jesus. Normally, we read the gospels to help us understand better the
identity and destiny of Jesus. That is a
legitimate project, no doubt. But the
purpose of that project is to hold up Jesus as a mirror in which we can see
more clearly our own identity and destiny.
St. Paul makes this quite clear: “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, the Spirit.”[4] Let us look at the transfiguration story as
in a mirror, to see what it tells us about our identity and our destiny.
The
first question is “Who am I?”
Interestingly, Jesus actually poses the question slightly differently,
“Who do people say that I am?” The
disciples give various answers: John the
Baptist, Elijah, one of the prophets.
Peter confesses, “You are the Anointed One of God.” Jesus responds by telling them not to tell
anyone who he is, and then says he will undergo suffering, rejection, murder
and resurrection.
There
are several tantalizing clues about the question of identity in this brief
exchange. Notice first that we receive
our identity through the eyes of others.
Who do people say that I am?
Identity is relational all the way down.
It is not something fixed, stable, internal to myself. It is always being negotiated in relationship
to others, to their perceptions and my perception of their perceptions. I am who I am in relationship to others. And their perception of me is always colored
by the lens of their experience. We are
always identifying one thing in relationship to other things.
A
woman in a coma was dying. She suddenly
had a feeling that she was taken up into heaven and stood before the Judgment
Seat. “Who are you?” a Voice said to
her. “I am the wife of the mayor,” she
replied. “I did not ask you whose wife
you are but who you are.” “I am the
mother of four children.” “I did not ask
you whose mother you are, but who you are.”
“I’m a school teacher.” “I did
not ask what your profession is but who you are.” And so it went. No matter what she replied, she did not seem
to give a satisfactory answer to the question, “Who are you?” “I’m a Christian.” “I did not ask what your religion is but who
you are.” “I’m the one who went to
church every day and always helped the poor and needy.” “I did not ask you what you did but who you
are.” She evidently failed the
examination, for she was sent back to earth.
When she recovered from her illness, she was determined to find out who
she was. And that made all the
difference.[5]
Who
are you? Jesus resisted the disciples
attempts to identity him in relationship to their own cultural conditioning,
roles, and expectations. We are not who
others think we are, and so we are not who we think we are either! It takes some real effort on our part to live
into this question because we think we know who we are, confusing our identity
with our cultural conditioning.
In
St. Paul’s metaphor, our perception of reality, including ourselves, is
distorted by the lens of our cultural conditioning. Moses wasn’t the only one wearing a
veil. Such distortions aren’t just a
Jewish problem; though, because St. Paul was a Jew, he describes the problem in
terms of his own cultural conditioning.[6] All religion, all cultural conditioning gives
us a distorted sense of identity.
We
see each other and our “self” through the veil of our conditioning. This veil limits our perception by fixing an
identity that we internalize, and then use as a lens that both focuses and
occludes our vision. Becoming a “self”
in this way is how we lose our freedom.
A
student walked up to the clerk at the language laboratory and said, “May I have
a blank tape, please?” “What language
are you studying?” asked the clerk.
“French” said the student.
“Sorry, we don’t have any blank tapes in French.” “Well do you have any blank tapes in
English?” “Yes, we do.” “Good.
I’ll take one of those.”
Anthony
De Mello comments on this story, “It makes as much sense to speak of a blank
tape being French or English as it does to speak of a person being French or
English. French or English is your
conditioning, not you.”[7]
The
transfiguration of Jesus points to another possibility – that we can receive
our identity from God, rather than from our cultural conditioning. Jesus was
not Elijah, or Moses, or one of the prophets, though on the mountaintop he is
seen together with them. They are part
of the relational matrix of life held in being by God. He was not even the Anointed One, the
Messiah, in any conventional sense. God
said, “You are my son, by Chosen One, my Beloved.”[8] This identity too, is relational all the way
down, but it is open to the experience of reality unveiled, moment by moment,
and to the discovery of our freedom in being present to what is given, trusting
that what is given is held in love.
In
the transfiguration experience, we are given an image of identity as a dynamic,
evolving response to love that is continually emerging from the heart of
reality; not a static fixed entity somewhere in me. I am who I am becoming. I am never a finished project, but rather an
evolving response to love, being transformed into Love’s image from one degree
of glory to another.
In
the cloud of God’s glory, Jesus speaks with Moses and Elijah of his impending
“departure,” literally, his “exodus.”[9] Jesus’ identity is revealed in the context of
a journey of liberation. Just as the
Israelites journeyed from Egypt to the promised land, leaving behind slavery to
become the people of God, Jesus realizes his identity in leaving behind his
cultural conditioning to become God’s beloved child. He drops the “self” of his conditioning and receives
his identity from God instead, being transformed from one degree of glory to
another, until he becomes all love.
This
is real freedom, as St. Paul understood.
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there
is freedom.”[10] When we receive our identity from God, then
we become free. Free to love. This is a radically de-centering experience. In the dialogues of St. Catherine of Siena,
God is reported to have said to her, “I am He who is; you are she who is
not.” Liberation is the experience of
our “is-not-ness,” freedom from the veil of our cultural conditioning so that
we can flow with reality.[11] When we are free to respond to love’s
invitations, then we discover our destiny.
We will intuitively know how to respond to people and situations as they
arise in each moment. It is much easier
to love people when we no longer need to receive our identity from them.
We never stop having to drop our illusions, shake off our
conditioning. We keep falling asleep and
must wake up again and again. We are
tempted, like Peter, who saw Jesus transfigured on the mountain top with eyes
unveiled, to want to grow a little bit, to experience a little bit more freedom,
and then try to fix a new identity into place.
Peter wanted to build a tabernacle, create a new religious
identity. He wanted to replace one veil
with another.
So how do we begin to drop our illusions, our “self,” and
receive our identity from God? Here, I
would just note that in Luke’s gospel, the questions of identity and destiny
are raised and explored in the context of prayer. Jesus is praying when he asks his disciples,
“Who do people say that I am?” It is
while praying on the mountain that this question is lived more deeply. It is through the radically de-centering
experience of prayer and meditation that we begin to live the question, not
only on our knees or our meditation cushion, but in daily life.
Who am I? What is my
destiny? Am I willing to be transformed
from one degree of glory to another?
These are questions that must be lived.
Let me leave you with one last image: that of the dancer and the dance. God is the dancer and creation is God’s dance. It is not that God is the big dancer and we
are the little dancer. We are being
danced by God! When we understand this,
when we trust this, then we are free.[12]
[1]
For example, Luke 9:18-22.
[2]
Luke 9:51.
[3]
Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young
Poet (Letter 4, 16 July 1903).
[4]
II Corinthians 3:18.
[5]
Anthony De Mello, Taking Flight: A Book of Story Meditations (New
York: Image Books, 1990), p. 140.
[6]
II Corinthians 3:12-16.
[7]
De Mello, Taking Flight, p. 141.
[8]
Luke 9:35, cf. Matthew 17:5.
[9]
Luke 9:30-31.
[10]
II Corinthians 3:17.
[11]
Anthony De Mello, Awareness: The Perils
and Opportunities of Reality (New York:
Image Books, 1992), p. 105.
[12]
De Mello, Awareness, p. 105.
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