Becoming Who You Already Are

The big three took a hike with Jesus up a mountain. Peter, John and James. These were the leaders among Jesus’ disciples. At least, these were the three whom Jesus was grooming for leadership. One day Jesus said to the three of them, “Let’s go for a walk,” and in their usual clueless state they followed him. Up the mountain. And when they got to the top, Jesus was transfigured. He was transformed into a creature of light, right before their eyes. I mean, you want to talk about a mountaintop experience! Sometimes we speak of a moment which transforms our lives as a mountaintop experience, or (with Abraham Maslow) as a peak experience. Well, this was the mother of all mountaintop experiences. Jesus was transformed and I think, to some degree, Peter, James and John were transformed as well. I mean, not only did they see the transformation of Jesus; they also saw Moses and Elijah – the greatest of the Hebrew prophets – return from the dead. Hard to imagine how they could’ve witnessed all of this without being transformed!

Maybe the significant word here is “they.” Peter, John and James witness this event together. The three disciples witness the Transfiguration as a community. My friend and colleague Helen Enari notes that community is one of the critical elements in this story. I mean, can you imagine what it might’ve been like if Peter had witnessed it alone? Peter comes down from the mountain and he says, “Hey guys, my rabbi just transformed himself into a creature of light!” And the folks might’ve said, “What the heck has this dude been smoking?!” But that’s not the way it happened. Peter and the others witnessed the Transfiguration as a community. And when they returned to the other disciples, there was a community with whom they could talk about the experience. It was not just the seemingly wacko experience of an individual; no, it was the shared experience of a community. And it became the story of an even wider community. As Enari says, within that community of friends they could process the story, they could tell it and retell it, they could make sense of that story and then they could use it to make sense of other experiences and other stories as they continued their journey in community with Jesus.

Community is crucial to the life of faith. It is within community that we also have life-transforming experiences. Just to name a recent one: I was blown away by the power of the singing at our celebration of the life of Bob Munro two weeks ago. I was lifted up by the Spirit which moved within this place that evening. I mean, that was worship! Full of life and joy and celebration and power, and we experienced it together! As a community!! Without even watching the clock!!!

Community is crucial to the life of faith. And not only as shared experience, but as a place where we can share our experiences; where we can talk about our experiences. My guess is that a lot of us have had profound spiritual experiences. A lot of us have experienced the Holy in ways not unlike that mountaintop experience of the three disciples. Some of us have had the experience of a mysterious light shining in our midst. Some of us have had the experience of loved ones who have passed away touching us somehow with their presence. Some of us have had the experience of being mystically drawn together with all of those around us. But we don’t talk about these things. We don’t talk about them because we don’t want other people to think that we’re crazy. We don’t want other people to think that we’ve been smoking weird cigarettes. And the more that we don’t talk about them, the greater the perception that these really are abnormal experiences. In fact, they’re not abnormal at all! They happen to all sorts of people, all the time. But we need to talk about them. We need a safe place to share them. Like Peter, we need a community of faith where we can process them and they can become part of the shared story of the community.

It’s kind of like the old Methodist practice of sharing one’s testimony within small groups. 200 years ago our Methodist forbearers would get together in what they called “class meetings,” which were really small groups of maybe six to twelve people, but no one had invented that term yet. They’d get together in these class meetings, and part of their weekly routine was to talk about how they’d experienced God in the past week. How had the Holy One been present in their lives in the past week? I mean, those early Methodists had no doubt about the reality of God. They had no doubt about the presence of God. They had no doubt about the power of God because they talked about it. It became part of the data of their lives, no less than Friday’s snow storm is part of the data of our lives; no less than the people sitting around you are part of the data of your life. Shared experience becomes real experience. The only reason why God doesn’t seem as real as the air that we breath or the money that we spend is that we don’t talk about our experiences of God. It’s hard to believe in something that we haven’t experienced. So if you haven’t had a spiritual experience, you need to hear other people talk about their experiences. And if you have had a spiritual experience, you need it to be validated by people whom you trust. And that will only happen if you talk about it. Social psychology says that what becomes real for us is that which is verified by the community around us. A baby learns that a smile is a good thing because when he contorts his mouth into something that those around him recognize as a smile, they smile back. And he figures, “Hey, if everyone else is going to do that, I guess I should too.” A child learns that helping others is an important part of life because she sees her parents and her older siblings helping others. What becomes real and important for us is what is verified by the community around us. So if you haven’t been directly touched by the presence of God, how is God going to be real for you unless the people around you who have experienced the Holy talk about it? And if you have experienced the Holy, how are you going to know that that was a real experience and not just an hallucination unless it is confirmed by the people around you? We need to talk about these experiences in community. We need to listen to these experiences in community. It is the community of faith which helps us to be transformed by those experiences. It is the community of faith which helps us to become fully the people whom God created us to be; the people who, deep down inside, we already are: creatures of light; spiritual beings having a physical experience.

It is in community that we are transfigured. It is in community that we are transformed. Frederick Buechner writes:

"It was by speaking his creative word into the primordial darkness that God on the first day brought forth light, and it is by speaking and listening to each other that out of the darkness of our separate mysteries is brought to light the truth of who we are."


Community is a blessing. There’s something good and warm about a tight community. But what happens when a community gets too tight? That’s what Peter wanted to do; he wanted to create a community up there on the mountain which would’ve been too tight. He said to the transfigured Christ, “Lord, it is good for us to be here…I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” (Matthew 17:4). Peter wanted to create this tight little community up there just for the six of them: the three prophets and the three disciples. In fact, the early church did try to become a tight little community: the Jewish Christians who dominated those first Christian communities – the folks who were the power people in those first Christian communities – they thought that new converts had to become Jews before they could become Christians. “We want you to become like us; then you can join us.” To use Jungian language, this is the shadow of community: it’s so good just the way it is that we’re tempted to make it exclusive. We’re tempted to draw a tight circle and let in only the people who are like us. Probably all communities are tempted to do this. Like the secret clubs that we use to form when we were kids. We allowed only certain people to join, and they had to learn the secret handshake or the secret word or whatever it was that was known by only the initiated. I did this; perhaps you did this. It was part of our childhood. But there’s something to be said for the wisdom of St. Paul: “When I became an adult, I gave up childish ways” (1 Corinthians 13:11). If, as children, we drew the circle tight, as adults we need to draw the circle wide. But it’s often hard for especially tight communities to do this. Sometimes it’s hard to welcome people who don’t look like us. Sometimes it’s hard to welcome people who don’t talk like us. When new folks come into our midst, sometimes it’s hard to honour their gifts, to respect their gifts, to welcome their gifts. Maybe we’re afraid that they won’t do it the right way, so we’re reluctant to ask them to help out at all. Or maybe we do open up the circle a little bit – maybe we do ask some of our newcomers to help out, but then, when they show up to help, we tell them that they’re not needed. Or we’ve already done it. You know, if you ask me to help out, then I’ll try to help out. But if you don’t welcome my assistance when I show up – if you don’t respect my gifts – then don’t expect me to say yes when you ask again; in fact, don’t expect me to remain part of your community. And I can tell you, this has happened in this community of faith. This has probably happened in every established community of faith. When you’ve drawn the circle tight, it’s hard to then draw the circle wide.

And it’s a shame, really, when we allow this to happen. We diminish ourselves as individuals, and we diminish ourselves as a community. You see, I am enriched when I allow you – someone who is very different from me – the opportunity to freely share with me who you really are. I mean, I am a richer person because of the conversations that I’ve had with some of our guests on Friday nights at Out of the Cold. I am enriched by their wisdom, by their warmth, by their sense of humour. But I have to force myself to talk with someone or to work alongside someone whom I’m tempted to view as the other – as the different one – before I can be enriched by them. The good news is that when I do sit down with them, when I do work alongside them, I’m given the opportunity to become more than I am. When we draw the circle wide and welcome the other into our community, we all can become more than we are; we all can move closer to becoming our truest, fullest selves.

The danger of community is that people get excluded. The shadow of community is that people aren’t allowed to be themselves. That was the road that Peter was tempted to go down, both on the Mount of Transfiguration and later as one of the leaders of the early church. Thank God that others followed Paul’s lead and put away childish things. As the church matured into the second and third generations, it was open to a variety of spiritual experiences, a variety of understandings of Jesus, a variety of approaches to God. Which is why we have four different gospels – four different stories of Jesus – and the fourth one (the gospel of John) is especially different.

Whoever you are, you are welcome here. There’s no secret handshake; there’s no secret word. You come as you are. We will do our best to honour you as you are. Perhaps that should be our pledge as we move further into this year of 2008: we will do our best to honour our newcomers as they are. And in so doing, each of us individually and all of us collectively can become the people whom God made us to be – the person whom God made you to be – the person who, deep down inside, you already are; and he or she is just waiting to break free and experience the fresh air of a new day. Amen.


Text: Matthew 17:1-2

Preached by Bruce D. Ervin

Transfiguration Sunday

3 February 2008