August 6, 2023
Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, August 6, 2023 – Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14; 2 Peter 1:16-19; Matthew 17:1-9
So, did you spot the things in the first reading and the gospel that were similar images? If you didn’t, it’s likely because our minds don’t go in the direction of imagery when we’re reading scripture, but it’s there all the time. The two images that match, in the two readings, are “something clothed in brightness and light” and “someone who is an ordinary human being.” In Hebrew terminology, the expression Son of Man simply is a circumlocution for human being or man in the sense of a member of the human race. And it’s the Ancient of Days that is clothed with light, sitting on a throne of fire. Everything is all brilliance and dazzling to the eye. In today’s gospel, it is Jesus Himself who is clothed in light and dazzling to the eye. But at the end of the story, it’s just good old everyday Jesus, a man like all other men, who speaks to his frightened disciples.
We don’t really know if Daniel was a historical human being. What we do know is that the Book of Daniel is made up of two different parts. The first part has what you might want to call “The Adventures of Young Daniel.” He is part superhero, part advisor/counselor, part political dealmaker. And, in each of the stories, there is either a moral lesson or a happy ending thanks to the work of Daniel. Then, suddenly, in the middle, the book changes and Daniel becomes the interpreter of and the spokesman for various revelations.
What our Scripture scholars tell us is that the revelations are a reflection, after the fact, of the history of the Mediterranean Basin, as it affected the Jewish people, from the time of the Babylonian captivity, when the Medes and then the Persians were in power, to the conquest of the whole Basin by Alexander the Great, to the rule of Antiochus IV, who was a Greek leader but, unlike the farseeing Alexander, was a despot, and almost destroyed the Israelite culture.
Sometimes the history of the Book of Daniel is a little bit off center. Most of the time it follows very carefully what secular history tells us. Because the role of the writer was to invite the Hebrew people to understand history through the lens of salvation history. The workings of God among men to the advantage of those whom He had chosen.
When we get to the gospel, we have a very different story here. The story of the Transfiguration appears in Matthew, Mark and Luke, but not in John. But Mark’s was the first gospel. And, as the story of the Transfiguration moves from gospel to gospel, it changes a little bit. For example, in Mark’s gospel, Peter, James and John are not afraid, they are in awe. A similar emotion, but a different one. They are in awe. In Luke’s g\Gospel, they become afraid, but what are they afraid of? They’re afraid of the cloud. Very strange. They’re afraid of the cloud. When we get to Matthew’s gospel, the one we heard this morning, Peter, James and John are not afraid of the cloud. They’re afraid of the voice within the cloud. How come?
Because, for Luke, a Pagan Christian writing for Pagan Christians, all sorts of mysterious phenomenon were reason for fear. But, for Matthew, a Jewish Christian writing for Jewish Christians, there was something about clouds that was very important in their tradition. According to the Book of Exodus, the presence of Yahweh followed the Jewish people on their journey through the desert as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. And so, they would not have been afraid of a cloud connected with the mysterious presence of the Divine. But, when they heard the voice, it was the same voice that they had heard at the Jordan, when Jesus was baptized. And that’s what terrified them.
The other interesting thing is that, only in Matthew’s gospel does Jesus speak. In the other gospels, when the apparition is gone, Jesus leads them back down the mountain. But in Matthew’s gospel, very gently, He comes up to these three frightened men and puts His hand on each of their shoulders and says, “Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. It’s only Me.”
During my lifetime, I have known, I am guessing, about six people whom I considered to be mystics. I don’t know if they really were, but that’s what they seemed to me. And they were just like everybody else I knew, in many ways. They had their crotchets, their blind spots, their moods, but there was something about them. Even though, just like everybody else, they had their little sins and had to go to confession now and then. And what it seems to me was different about them is that, at some point in their lives, they changed their relationship, or their view of their relationship, with God, from being someone in whose presence they were not what they should be, to simply being in the presence of God. And once they stopped being the person they were not, vis á vie God, and started being the person whose presence God stood, everything changed.
And that’s what’s very difficult for us to understand, isn’t it? For two reasons really. It is very hard for us to switch horses that way because, among other things, we were raised to examine our conscience all the time. “These are the things that keep me at a distance from God. These are the things about which I must apologize all the time. These are the things that draw from me an act of contrition. These are the things I have to go to Confession for.” And so, I’m always on the verge of making up to God. One step forward, three steps back. One step forward, three steps back.
The thing about that, though - and this is the other problem with switching horses - is that that kind of attitude toward God is a subtle form of egotism. We don’t see it that way because we’re diminishing ourselves. But we are placing ourselves in the center of a two person relationship. We are the important ones in the relationship, because we are the ones we think we need to fix. We are the ones we keep worrying about. We are the ones we keep praying over. The important one in the relationship needs to be God. We need to move ourselves out of the center of the relationship in order to allow God into the center.
These people that I knew, were very different. Two were religious sisters, but with very different callings. Two were Franciscan priests who spent their lives in very different ministries. Two were lay people. There may have been more. But the thing about them is that they moved themselves out of the center of their relationship with the Mysterious Other to allow that Mysterious Other to be in the center of the relationship.
What does Jesus say? Don’t be afraid, it’s only Me.