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St. Andrew's Church
An Anglican Church • Grimsby, Ontario, Canada
Preached by
Stuart Pike
Rector
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Transfiguration Sunday
2006 17 February 2007
Exodus 34: 29-35
Luke 9: 28-36
Perhaps you have heard of the term, "Thin Places." The Celts believed that there were certain places where heaven touched earth, where the barrier between this world and the next/other was very thin. These were often high places (mountain tops) or edge places (coastal or island places).
Mindie Burgoyne writes "Thin Places are ports in the storm of life, where the pilgrims can move closer to the God they seek, where one leaves that which is familiar and journeys into the Divine Presence. They are stopping places where men and women are given pause to wonder about what lies beyond the mundane rituals, the grief, trials and boredom of our day-to-day life."
Perhaps some of you have experienced a thin place. Many people find a thin place which becomes for them a place of pilgrimage. They return often in their lives, and find the same sense of the holy each time that they visit.
When I read today's Gospel Lesson, I think of thin places and I remember some which I have experienced.
When I was eighteen my parents moved to Colorado Springs for three years and my brother and I would visit them every Christmas and summer when we could get the chance. One of the most exciting features of Colorado Springs is its proximity to the Rocky Mountains and its most famous Peak is Pikes Peak. We used to call it our Peak, and, being Pikes, my brother and father and I just had to climb it. Of course you can get to the top by a cog railroad, or even by a dirt road, but what would be the fun in that?
To climb it you have to take the Barr trail which is 12 miles each way. Keep in mind that your altitude at the beginning of the trail is about one mile high and at the top of the trail you're over 14 thousand feet high or at about 2.7 miles of altitude. About three quarters of the way up you reach the tree-line. No trees can grow above that point because there isn't enough oxygen. The last way up is a steep switchback which uses up your reserves.
I have climbed it six times and each time I felt a sense of the awesome power of our creator. God is great. God made all the mountains, and God made me to experience this one!
There is a clarity which comes at the top of mountains. Your sense of proportion is shifted. I feel both so much more insignificant and so privileged at the same time. It is the sense of being exalted and humbled all at once.
I experienced another thin place when I went with several other students to Peru on a course in Liberation Theology. The course took us to several places in Peru, including to Cusco in the Andes mountains and on to Machu Pichu which was a Capital of the Incan empire. There, above the ancient ruins of the the city is a narrow pathway which hugs the side of a mountain on its steep journey to the pinnacle of the mountain, where there had been a temple. The way is dangerous, with sheer cliffs at many points.
I discovered this place, where the ancient Incans worshipped God, to be a thin place.
Why does it seem to be that getting to a thin place involves so much effort? However, even harder than the effort to get to these places, is the effort to describe them. Such is the way of spiritual experiences. And that is why today's reading, like many other Gospel texts seems to be vaguely unsatisfactory. Some people, upon hearing the story are stuck at the level of the physical descriptions. Just how bright did Jesus' face get? Were his clothes actually glowing?
A common characteristic of religious experiences is that the people experiencing them cannot find words to adequately describe the experience. It is ineffable. When one finds oneself in the presence of the divine, words stop. I think that is the reason that the story of Jesus' transfiguration in the Gospel reading seems to fall short. The evangelist is trying to capture the experience in words, which can only point towards the experience, but can never capture it.
Because the story seems to fall short, it is too easy for us to dismiss the story as unrealistic or as only something which might have happened back then when Jesus walked the earth. The days of God's visitation are over, many people think. People don't really experience Divine things these days, they might think. It is too easy to miss the point of the Gospel story. We don't have to match up facts with the Evangelist's description of the Transfiguration. The point is: they were having a religious experience: they were in the presence of God. At the end of the Gospel lesson it says that they "kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things that had seen." They didn't have the words to tell anyone.
Samuel Candler speaks of thin places: "These thin places were sacred spots where the earthly world and divine world seemed very close to one another. Indeed, at a thin place, the divine and spiritual world might suddenly break into one's life, revealing grace and glory."
That is what the disciples experienced. The divine burst through and they were captivated by the God's grace. They felt as though they were in a cloud as they heard God's voice: "This is my Son, my Chosen..."
Peter wants to set up camp in this experience. Beyond sense, he wants to build a place to stay. Why should we ever want to leave our mountain-top experiences?
And yet we only get such experiences occasionally in our lives. And even though we love the mountain-tops, we actually live in the valleys. The disciples must return to the valley and the hard way that Jesus has chosen - a way that even leads to violence and death.
Transfiguration Sunday is for us but a glimpse of a mountaintop experience. It might encourage us to make the effort to be diligent through the season of Lent which is upon us; to continue on the path of faith even when the way is steep and difficult. Keep moving in your faith and you will experience God's ineffable grace. Amen.
