Feast of the Transfiguration
2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a – Luke 9:28-36
Transfiguration Part II: Hiroshima
I wish I did not have to preach this sermon. But as Jeremiah
says, it is like a fire shut up in my bones. Webster’s Dictionary tells us
transfiguration means:
n. 1.Radical transformation of figure or appearance:
metamorphosis. 2. The sudden emanation of radiance from Jesus’ person that
occurred on the mountain.
August 6 – The Feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord
Jesus Christ – The Anniversary of our United States dropping an Atomic Bomb on
Hiroshima. Both events, curiously, revolve around images of blinding white
light, clouds, and feelings of dread and fear - two events evoking radical
transformation.
From our perspective, looking back 61 years it is possible
for us to recognize the various ways in which such radical transformation took
place in Japan: an entire modern city was reduced to dust and ash in the blink
of an eye; people who populated that city were instantly incinerated, or
dramatically and radically changed in appearance; the spirit of the human
community was radically transformed; the nature of modern warfare was
restructured; whole generations of people lived under a new specter of fear,
fear of a mushroom shaped cloud.
On the positive side, a devastating World War was brought to
an end; out of a deep human desire for world peace the United Nations was born;
many people abandoned a view of security based in military might for a view of
security based in peaceful co-existence; and the Right Reverend Bennett Sims,
recently deceased Bishop of Atlanta and former rector of Church of the
Redeemer, Baltimore, developed a theology of Servanthood. This theology might
be summed up by saying that our future depends on how we take care of the Earth
and how we take care of one another – all others.
You see, Bishop Sims visited Nagasaki
eleven weeks after our military instantly incinerated 39,000 civilian
non-combatants, a death toll that eventually reached 64,000 in Nagasaki alone, 250,000 altogether in both
cities - what we sometimes refer to as “collateral damage.” We might compare
this quarter of a million civilian non-combatant deaths with the only two
civilian casualties wrought from the carnage at Gettysburg. After viewing the nuclear
wasteland, Bishop Sims was returning to his naval destroyer by way of coal-fired
steam train across Japan.
A young man of fifteen was the conductor, cheerfully roaming the aisle,
punching tickets in his badly worn and patched conductors jacket and cap. He
sat down opposite Bennett and in sign language asked for a cigarette. Bennett
offered up one of his Old Golds. Then the lad gestured for a light. Writes
Sims,
“The act of lighting another’s cigarette, with wind blowing
through the open windows of a moving train, brings people’s faces very close.
His eyes and mine met only scant inches apart. Unbidden in that moment tears
welled up, for both of us. Until a few minutes before we were total strangers.
Until a few weeks before, we were sworn enemies, separated by war, propaganda,
language differences, and distant geography. But in one swift removal of all
barriers, two human beings drew close in a meeting of souls. On August 14th
of that fateful year the war ended.
Better still, on October 25th peace came to two
of us.” Servanthood (Cowley
Publications, Cambridge, MA:1997), p.170.
From this experience, Bennett Sims drew several conclusions
that would shape his life and ministry until his death two weeks ago: 1)
humanity is created to be a community of kinship in peace, 2) the best things
in life come by surprise, 3) the planet will support the human enterprise only
as the human enterprise supports the planet, and 4) new life arises from the
death of the old. “The human odyssey cannot continue without a quantum advance
in consciousness that will build new structures of care for the earth and for
one another across all boundaries.” Ibid, p.168
Bishop Sims’ life was a life of prophetic ministry, grounded
in such Biblical characters as Elijah, Isaiah, John the Baptist, and of course
in our scripture today, Nathan. Nathan confronting David with the tragic truth
of his transgression with Bathsheba, and writing the order taking her husband
Uriah to his death on the field of battle, gives us a glimpse of the very
origins of the crucial idea of separation of church and state. God’s
independent prophet, heeded by the monarch of temporal power and authority,
sets a pattern for the delicate balance between earthly and heavenly powers
that has challenged and bedeviled nations for all of the 3,000 years that have
passed since Nathan says, “You are the man!”
David has attempted to cover-up his sinful behavior with a
military diversion and solution. It has been suggested that Israel’s demand
for a monarchy came in part to provide leadership for national security against
a Philistine threat. It has been further suggested that this was really a cover
for those who had monopolized wealth and who wanted a strong central government
in order to protect and legitimate their considerable economic and political
advantage and privilege, so that the Philistine threat was really offered as an
external cover story to pursue this internal consolidation of power. Even a
casual reading of history reveals that this is not the last time the
“Philistine threat” has been used to warrant internal political manipulation. Walter
Brueggemann, Theology of the Old
Testament (Fortress, Philadelphia:1997) p.601.
How that may or may not relate to current events at home and
abroad is for others to decide. It is interesting for us to note, however, that
God feels it is necessary to provide checks and balances on the monarchy/temporal
authority through the person of Nathan and others like Nathan who are called
upon to reveal and speak Truth to Power in every generation. We might also note
how Nathan cleverly appeals to David’s best qualities leading David to convict
himself. And we might finally note that David accepts public responsibility for
the wrong he has done, so utterly unlike any single similar situation in recent
U.S.
and World history.
One might strain to identify who the Nathans are in any given
generation, but we can rely upon the truth and promise of such narratives that
God does provide us with one Nathan after another. It is our job to hear them,
listen to them and act accordingly. Their voices may come from the church, the
synagogue or the mosque. Their voices may be found on opinion and editorial
pages. Their voices may be on the front page quoting “unnamed sources”: how
else would we ever know of what goes on in places like Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Haditha and
elsewhere. And since most of the Biblical prophets wrote in Hebrew poetry,
modern day Nathans often come in the form of poets and song writers like these:
It fed our kids and it paid our bills
But they turned us out and they closed the doors
We can't make it here anymore
Some have maxed out all their credit cards
Some are working two jobs and living in cars
Minimum wage won't pay for a roof, won't pay for a drink
If you gotta have proof just try it yourself Mr. CEO
See how far 5.15 an hour will go
Take a part time job at one of your stores
Bet you can't make it here anymore…Music and lyrics © 2004 by James McMurtry
Men of anger, men of war
My heart is filled with love
Tell me what you are fighting
for
My heart is filled with love
The death I see won’t make me
numb
My heart is filled with love
Every boy a mother’s son
My heart is filled with love
Raise your voices, spread the
news…
Buddhist, Christian, Muslim,
Jew…
They all teach the golden
rule…
Do unto others as you’d have
them do….(Joyce Anderson, Joyscream
Music ASCAP)
God knows that without Nathans in every generation we would
be blind to the machinations of the David’s in this world. Yet, it is safe to
assume that in that moment of realization as David utters the words, “I have
sinned against the Lord,” that he too is radically transformed or transfigured,
and thereby utterly different from most of his successors. His life from that moment
is changed and influenced by such transfiguration. Just as Bennett Sims and the
young Japanese man on the train were transformed and transfigured in the blink
of an eye. Just as Peter, James and John were transfigured before Jesus on the
mountain top, their lives changed forever.
On the Feast of our Lord’s Transfiguration I believe we are
meant to stop everything we are doing and reflect on such questions as: What
will it take to transfigure our church? Our nation? The World? Do we as a
people have the courage to utter the words, “I am the man,”? “We are the nation,”?
Where do the cycles of violence end? In
what can National Security truly be based? Are we open to listening to the
Nathans speaking Truth to Power?
On another mountain top, on another day, Jesus says,
“Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God.” Bennett
Sims concludes that the Transfiguration of Christ and the World is based in a kind
of servanthood in which “great power functions as an exchange of power, never
as coercion by superior forces. The universe is built this way. As the revealer
of the Power that blew the cosmos into being and keeps it evolving, Jesus never
coerces. Instead, it is his concise insistence by word and deed that greatness
lies in giving – that superiority is embodied in serving. Persuasion is the
posture of God.” Ibid, p. 173
The history of the past few generations on Earth has given
us ample images of Transfiguration, both tragic and good. Jesus stands up on
the mountain issuing the invitation to be transfigured for the good of the
world into his servant people – to care for our planet and one another across
all boundaries. To recall the last verse of one still sadly relevant song, “When will we ever learn, when will we ever
learn….” (Where
have all the flowers gone?,Pete Seeger, Joe Hickerson – Fall River Music, Inc.) Amen.
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