Faith and the Longing for Magic

A sermon on Luke 9:28-43a

[for an audio recording of this sermon, click here. Photo of Transfiguration Window of the Durham Cathedral, Durham England.]

I think most of you know that I took a trip with Quinn last month to visit some of his university options in the U.K.

Our itinerary included the beautiful and historic city of Durham, home to not only a top-notch university, but also to a stunning cathedral dating back to the 11th Century.

The Cathedral was awe-inspiring! And I say that as someone who has visited a fair number of Europe’s grandest houses of worship.

It is physically massive, with a footprint substantially larger than the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, and a mix of gothic and Romanesque architecture, featuring soaring arches and individual support columns as wide in diameter than my arm span.

It is clearly designed to stun worshippers with a sense of grandeur and power that we mere mortals can barely comprehend.

If I’m honest, though… that’s not usually the kind of awe that grabs me.

I see massive stones and impossibly-tall towers and I just think of the peasants who must have slaved away and possibly died to construct an edifice that was probably, when it comes down to it, designed more to glorify the patrons who funded it that to glorify God.

I, personally, am much more receptive to more gentle beauty and contemplative spirituality than to displays of wealth and power…

but the Cathedral offered that kind of inspiration as well, in art, and stories, and especially in stunning stained-glass windows, including the one that I photographed and used as today’s bulleting cover, which is – fittingly – the Transfiguration Window.

The window itself is beautiful, but the impact in the space is particularly stunning, because the interior of the Cathedral is mostly pretty dark from all the grey stone…

and to get the window you have to walk along this narrow side-aisle created by the dark wood choir wall, which feels really closed in for such a massive building…

And then you reach this soaring south-facing window that is mostly darker shades of blue and brown glass except for the central column of white that honestly does seem to shine with unearthly brightness when illuminated by the midday sun.

And you see the figure of Jesus illuminated near the top… and the figures of the three disciples, just on the edge of the shining light but depicted in brown glass themselves, reaching toward the light… and, along the bottom panes of the window, are scenes of suffering and of people looking toward the light for hope…

And I feel like I understand this story of today’s gospel in ways I never did before.

I understand Peter’s desire to hold on to the experience of transcendence.

To build something more permanent than just light (that can be covered with a cloud)… to construct houses on the mountain top that might stop Moses and Elijah from leaving, so that Peter won’t have to go back down the mountain either, to all that waits below.

And, in the light of that window (and even in its memory), I feel a little less cynical about the massive stone cathedral … because I can empathize with the longing for a symbol of the indisputable permanence of God’s presence with us when the world has so little hope to offer.

This longing is, I think, part of what is going on in the story of the transfiguration.

There was another feature of the Cathedral complex that also sparked an insight for me about the transfiguration, although that association was – I am certain – entirely unintentional, and possibly a bit irreverent.

You see, the picturesque nature of gothic and medieval architecture makes it an ideal backdrop for a certain kind of film set.

And the Cathedral’s cloister has been used for exactly that… including some scenes from the Harry Potter franchise, of which one is Professor McGonagall’s transfiguration classroom

That kind of “transfiguration” is, of course, completely unrelated to the gospel story we read today, but I’m a word nerd, so I could not help the association.

And once the link was lodged in my brain, it got me thinking about the nearly universal human longing for “magic”, for the power to change the nature of reality itself, with all of its natural limitations.

That longing very much is in today’s transfiguration story. It’s a key element of the reading’s second scene:

It’s the reason the crowd comes flocking to Jesus once he returns from the mountain.

It’s the desperate plea from the father whose son is being tormented by an evil spirit.

It might even be part of the reason Peter wants to stay up on the mountain, because he knows there is something “missing” about the power the disciples wield in Jesus’ name, and maybe up on the mountain, with the shining light, he will access something greater.

And I empathize with this longing too.

Because there are some elements of reality that I would very much like the power to “transfigure.”

I have issued some of my own desperate pleas to Jesus, on behalf of my children and the world they have to live in.

And that ache in my heart doesn’t know quite what to do with Jesus’s response to the clamoring crowd and the desperate parent.  

It’s so… scathing… so impatient with human weakness and confusion.

It’s so unlike Jesus!

Sure, he ultimately heals the child, but not in a way that clearly communicates love and compassion.  

And I can only find one explanation for Jesus’s out-of-character response in this moment.

I think he must be frustrated at being seen and wanted only as a conduit for magic when he knows the fullness of what his ministry is there to accomplish.

Think of the progression of this story from Jesus’ perspective:

Jesus reveals to his disciples that his road is leading him toward death…

And then he takes his three closest friends up the mountain to pray, because he needs the strength and encouragement of dedicated time with God to do what he is preparing to do…

And God sends him the two greatest prophets of his people, Moses and Elijah, and they understand where Jesus is heading; they talk with him about “what he is about to accomplish in Jerusalem”…

But all Peter and the others seem able to comprehend is the “magic” of it all, and the desire to hold onto the transcendence which would, of course, interfere with continuing on Jesus’ ordained path…

And then GOD interrupts them, and tells them, “This is my Son, my Chosen, listen to him”…

And… I have to believe that Jesus hoped that would finally be the thing that would cut through all the noise of expectations, and fear, and fascination with the miracles… that this clear, audible, focused instruction for GOD would help those closest to Jesus to understand why he was really there.

But in response they are silent…

And when Jesus comes back down the mountain there again is the clamoring crowd, and a desperate cry for healing, and no one sees Jesus for who he is or what he is preparing to do. Because all they want is the magic.

And that is the challenge in this story for me… because I can see myself in that crowd; I can recognize the longings of the people in this story that blind them to the truth of who Jesus is, even when he is literally shining with it.

Between the magic, and the path of suffering, my instinct is to choose the magic too.

I want Jesus to be the one who glows with evidence of his power, not the one covered in a cloud while God tells me to just listen to him.

I want Jesus to be the one who can fix problems no one else can fix with just a word, not the one who tells me to take up my cross and follow him in on the path of death and resurrection.

For all that I can get up on my high horse about the waste and exploitation represented by massive cathedrals… I feel the pull of the theology of glory as opposed to the theology of the cross.

But I had one final experience in Durham Cathedral that wasn’t about grandeur or glory and was nevertheless the most powerful thing I experienced there.

Every day at 12:30, the Cathedral offers a service of Holy Communion open to all who wish to receive.

It was held in a small side chapel, lacking the more ornate embellishments found in much of the building.

Its primary decoration was a handmade banner celebrating a cooperative ministry between Durham and a community in Lesotho, Africa.

We shared a simple liturgy from the Book of Common Prayer, with no sermon or song.

And I stood in a place where people have been taking communion for over 1,000 years and heard these precious words: “the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, given for thee; the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, shed for thee.”

And I know it’s not magic… but it still changes everything.

To remember that that transformation Jesus came to bring was not about one shining moment or one desperate need, but rather about eternal hope.

To confront the evidence of the depth of God’s love, and the lengths God would go to erase the power of death and grief forever.

To receive in my body the real presence of Christ that may not transfigure the circumstances of my world but does mean I will never face any challenge alone.

Well. I think that truth is better than magic.

Thanks be to God.