BEYOND REASON
Mark 9:2-9

A sermon given by the Reverend Beverley F. Edwards
February 26, 2006 / Last Sunday after the Epiphany

"Two hundred years ago, Thomas Jefferson took a pair of scissors to the King James version of the Bible.... He literally cut out the virgin birth and all the miracles—including the most important one, the resurrection—then pasted together what was left and called it "The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth." So writes Erik Reece in a December 2005 Harper's Magazine article entitled "Jesus Without the Miracles–Thomas Jefferson's Bible and the Gospel of Thomas."

Jefferson's argument, with which Reece agrees, is that little or nothing can be proved of the facts of Jesus' life, certainly not his resurrection appearances. We have no tangible evidence of Jesus' continued divine presence or his saving grace for our personal lives on earth, let alone for our life everlasting in God's heavenly kingdom. Reece joins John Dominic Crosson and the many other recent scholars who have scoured scripture, ancient texts, archaeology and other sources, all trying to separate facts that can be empirically proved about Jesus, from the Gospel accounts and other early Christian sources which are so frustratingly incompatible with one another.

Thomas Jefferson's edition of the Bible presents Jesus as a profound teacher who preached the benefits of a life of personal morality and compassion for others. Crosson and others who have analyzed Jesus' sayings have concluded that almost none of them can be conclusively attributed as original with him, so even Jesus' teachings are diminished.

The arguments remind me of those passionate late night college discussions we used to have about whether "man" is merely the sum of bone, sinew, blood-flow and brain energy or whether the intangibles of spirit, soul, and emotion have a reality that affects how those physical parts function and flourish...or not.

These days, scientists have instruments that can, in fact, measure the calming influence of prayer on pain. They can monitor the endorphin released by a loving touch. Through Neuro-linguistic programming, they affirm the inter-connectedness of mind, body and spirit into the whole that makes each human being unique in all the world. Yet, there will always be limits to what can be measured and there will always be skeptics who refuse to accept any concepts that cannot. Sometimes I think scientists and mathematicians, with their willingness to hypothesize, practice more faith than do many superficially religious people.

To some extent there is good reason for that. Those of us who didn't subscribe to the "man" is just matter theory, often found ourselves captive in churches—whether fundamentalist Protestant or Catholic, or Pentecostal or even Christian Science --that held to specific interpretations of scripture. Too often if we questioned the authorities and the received belief systems we were deemed a sinner, shamed and even outcast.

One way or another most of us have walked a winding path of convictions—challenged and doubts—unanswered to get to this Meeting House this morning. And this is merely the base camp. We have yet to climb the daunting mountain of faith that awaits our pilgrim's progress. All of which puts us squarely in the company of Peter, James and John in today's scripture.

Mark's Gospel tells us the disciples had been traveling with Jesus for quite some time. They had watched him heal cripples and lepers. They had heard him command demons to depart. They had cringed as he challenged the religious authorities on matters of ritual and law. They had experienced a personal calling so compelling they had left home, and family, and work to follow this prophet and soak up his teachings and his power.

Yet, Jesus' transfiguration on the mountaintop literally opened their eyes to an entirely new perception of their friend. With dazzled eyes they beheld Jesus as the Christ, a luminous, superhuman figure. There he stood in the company of Moses, the liberator of the Jewish people, and Elijah, the prophet who was to return before the messiah appeared. With their own ears they heard a voice from heaven saying, "This is my beloved Son; listen to him."

The disciples were overwhelmed and terrified by this numinous experience for which they had no precedent, no rational understanding, no language. Desperately, they wanted somehow, anyhow, to normalize the situation. "Let us make three booths" is Peter's touching response to the transcendent revelation. What he means is "Let us contain the moment so we can humanize it and begin to make sense of it."

Scripture continues: "And as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus charged them to tell no one what they had seen, until the Son of man should have risen from the dead." This makes me wonder if even Jesus himself felt overwhelmed by the experience and needed time to absorb and reflect on the meaning of this revelation. Certainly he realized that what had happened on the mountaintop couldn't be reported in a way that made sense until after the trajectory of his life on earth was complete.

So it's not surprising that, two thousand years later, the attempt to provide a rational explanation for the transfiguration is as hopelessly futile as it ever was. To attempt to build little booths around mystical experience or to explain such miracles as the feeding of the five thousand as some form of mass hallucination is to miss the point entirely.

I often wonder what motivates scholars to go to such remarkable lengths to prove that there is no proof for the Gospel stories, no evidence for Jesus' divinity, no certainty even for the existence of God. It reminds me of the curmudgeon, Jack Nicholson in the movie, "As Good As It Gets" who adamantly refuses to believe he could be loved and is terrified to admit that he, himself feels affection.

So, are the scholars right...is this arid factuality all there is? Is this as good as it gets? Of course not. We who have faith know better even if we cannot prove it rationally. Reason is only one mode of knowledge and we speak of some profound experiences as "mind-blowing." Our physical bodies contain a wisdom our consciousness knows nothing of. We recognize the life--changing effects of emotion – either rage or love--on our perceptions of the world around us. At one time or another many of us have been "struck" by a insight "so out of the blue" that we immediately perceived a whole other dimension of reality, an entirely new understanding that literally transfigured our lives.

We, who are not literalists, respond spiritually to sunsets and oceans, to poetry, to rhythms. We accept humbly that there are more dimensions to life than can be measured and proved. We admit we are capable of imagining worlds we cannot see, and dreaming of freedoms we have never known. Some of us have even experienced such a sense of "other" that we know there is communication across the dimensions that seem to separate our world from the next.

In The Power of Myth, Bill Moyers quotes Joseph Campbell as saying, "The guiding idea is to find "the commonality of themes in world myths that point to a constant requirement in the human psyche for a centering in terms of deep principles." Bill Moyers asks, "You're talking about the search for the meaning of life?" "No, no, no, Campbell says, "For the experience of being alive."

Myths are the archetypal language of all human beings in all cultures "for the experience of being alive". But to make "meaning" of experience is necessarily to limit it, to begin to put a "booth" around it, to put it in the context of what we can understand. By psychic necessity, raw experience cannot be comprehended until we somehow begin to name it. Our holy story, our sacred truth is that God, named our world and all its creatures into being, and found them good and cares for them still.

Our Bible is our sacred story of how our ancestors experienced being alive in relationship to the God who revealed more and more of truth and love as they evolved and grew in trust and understanding. The stories, the psalms, the miracles, the resurrection are true, profound evocations of human experience. They resonate deep in our individual psyche and shape our personal lives profoundly.

The disciples experienced Jesus as holy. He offered them insight into a realm beyond reason, one where truth and love and wholeness could be understood in ways far deeper than words can express. The transfiguration places Jesus in the context of Moses, our liberating ancestor, and Elijah, our future hope. With the eyes of faith, we see that Jesus is the Christ, the center, the one who holds the world together, and alpha and omega.

The Gospel story of Jesus is the language we use to tell the truth of our human existence, the reality of divine love, the unquenchableness of hope, the power of community, the communication of prayer.

Of course it's humanly possible to cut up the Bible anyway you want. It does no harm to lift up the profound teachings of Jesus. But to limit ourselves to only those "words in red" is to leave out the best part, the connection to the deepest, highest, widest and most thrilling of experiences. It is certainly true our scripture has been and still is used to abuse, batter, and oppress. But, in its entirety, it is The Holy One's sacred word to each of us, to all God's children, "You are my beloved....Listen to my wisdom and be free."

So, this day, as we begin our Lenten pilgrimage, let us trust our God to reveal new visions as we follow Jesus toward the mountaintop of faith.

SHALOM