Transfiguration

27
Feb

Scripture, Luke 9: 28-36 Transfiguration Nigel Bunce

The Transfiguration story is very other-worldly. Unlike modern writers, Biblical authors wrote imaginatively. This fits with present-day ideas about the divided brain.

 

Transfiguration: a mountain top experience

The Transfiguration tells, literally and metaphorically, about a mountain top experience. Jesus takes his closest disciples, Peter, James, and John up a high mountain for prayer. While they are there, a mist descends. Jesus appears to them bathed in a radiant light.

The three disciples see the two greatest characters in all of Judaism together with Jesus. Moses, who gave the Israelites the Law. And Elijah, the greatest Hebrew prophet. So, the disciples see that Jesus must be of equal status to them – in other words, divine.

They exclaim, “Let’s make three shrines – one each for Moses, Elijah, and you.” Inevitably, the moment passes. The cloud dissipates. Jesus and the disciples trek back down the mountain into the ordinary world.

Peter, James, and John had a mountain-top experience. A life-altering moment. But then it was back to reality. They had to come back to the ordinary world. As our gradual hymn had it, “The mount for vision, but below the paths of daily duty go.”

A dramatic scene but other-worldly

We ask, “Could it really have happened that way?” It’s the same problem with all the defining moments of the Gospel story. Jesus’ miraculous birth. The announcement by the heavenly voice at his baptism. The Resurrection. The Ascension.

These are all other-worldly, miraculous events. But, we live in the humdrum world: 21st century Canada, where everything has a literal, prosaic explanation. We can argue that 1st century people had a different world-view to us. Theirs was a world of miracles. They accepted unworldly events. We don’t.

But, by itself, that, the explanation is unsatisfying. Because it leaves us doubting the truth of all the major Christian stories. Modern sceptics call ancient people primitive, naiive, We, by contrast, are sophisticated. We know better. Perhaps. But perhaps not.

The divided brain

These days, people are familiar with the idea that the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body, and vice versa. But newer research indicates that the left and right divisions of the brain also control different brain functions.

Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist and neuroscientist. He proposes that the left half of the brain is works well to create technologies, procedures and systems. It thrives on literal thinking, intellectual ideas, and reason.

Conversely, the right half is more concerned with the “bigger picture”. Art, beauty, and understanding Synthesizing the implications of these technologies.  McGilchrist argues that Western civilization has promoted the development of the left side of the brain. The right atrophies, like an unused muscle. Our brains’ functions are out of balance. He calls this The Divided Brain.

My interpretation of how this plays out

Blame me, not Dr. McGilchrist, for this example. Think of the recent trend in popular songs. Rap, for example, is very intellectual. Left brain. The message is almost entirely in the words, which are chanted in a particular way.

Older musical styles were more melodic. The right brain had more involvement. It synthesized the words of a song with a complex melodic line. This explains why I, being older, prefer Some enchanted evening to Drake’s Know yourself.

Applying this idea to religious belief

We 21st century Canadians expect what we read to be factual. Literally correct. Our Bibles confront us with stories about Jesus that we find hard to accept. Some of us scratch about mentally trying to find “rational explanations” for what we don’t understand.

Some Christians take this to the extreme of Biblical literalism. The Bible is the Word of God, so everything in it must be true. Despite obvious contradictions. One example. Did Jesus’ Crucifixion happen on the day of Passover (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), or on the day before (John)?

But the Bible, including the Gospels, reflect much earlier times. Its authors wrote in a way that included their own literary devices. Parables, metaphors, myth-making. Think how a 21st century Canadian author might have described the events that we read this morning.

A 21st century imagination of the Transfiguration

“The week after Jesus told the disciples that he would be put to death, he took Peter, James, and John with him up a mountain. While they prayed together, his words spoke to them so profoundly that he seemed to be the equal of Moses and Elijah, the ‘greats’ of the Jewish religion.”

It’s prosaic. It takes away the wonder of what Peter, James, and John experienced. Luke was trying to capture their sense of awe when he wrote about the Transfiguration. The word for this is ‘numinous’. Numinous means “arousing spiritual or religious emotion; mysterious or awe-inspiring.” Not an everyday experience.

Ancient writers weren’t naiive

They weren’t simpletons. They viewed the world differently from us. And in some ways, they had a much more rounded approach. We have let our left brain do too much of the work. It has pushed aside the imaginative ability of the right brain.

We hear a lot today about Indigenous or traditional ways of thinking, that are different from Canadian norms. However, perhaps our Indigenous neighbours have not forgotten the power of myth, like we have.

Let’s set aside our 21st century thinking about the Transfiguration

Before we leave the mountain this morning, let’s join Peter and company. We can watch the mist come down. And through it, we’ll see two ghostly figures with Jesus. Maybe they really are Moses and Elijah. It’s unworldly, awe-inspiring. Numinous. It tells us that Jesus is the Messiah.

As I’ve quoted before, in another context, the Lakota Black Elk famously said, “This they tell, and whether it happened that way I do not know. But if you think about it, you can see that it’s true.” Amen.