Text — Mark 9:2-9

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.  And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus.   Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”  He did not know what to say, for they were terrified.  Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”  Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.  As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

What we believe changes what we see.  This is true for life itself.  It’s true for anything in our lives.  It’s true for Jesus Christ.  I used to think simply that what we see determines what we believe.  Now I also see that what we believe affects profoundly what we perceive, and how we experience life.  This is the idea behind the Transfiguration.

If you believe that Jesus Christ is “from God” in some sense, if you believe there is something to him, then your attention to him will lead you in a different direction, and he, and your life, and the world will look different, than if you don’t believe him, or if you believe he has nothing to do with God.  We are all believers, one way or another.  Even disbelief is, at bottom, another kind of belief. 

Jesus Christ has appeared to me many times in my life.  Some of them I recognized at the time; some I recognized only later.  I’m sure many of them by me unrecognized.

One time was when I was a freshman in college.  Every freshman at my college had to take English 10 — Rhetoric, a writing class.  The format was:student papers were projected onto the wall and critiqued by the class.  The writer’s name was blocked out, but there was always a moment of sober silence as we all waited to see whose turn it was to have one’s paper ripped apart on any particular day.  The course also involved meetings with the professor in the professor’s office.

I didn’t feel like a typical student — whatever that was — when I was eighteen, but over the years I’ve learned by comparing notes with former classmates that I was very typical in two ways.  I was awed by the competition.  I hid my awe behind a mask of self-confidence.  I even hid it from myself. 

So when the day came for my first conference with the professor, whose name was Vernon Bailey, I felt secure.  I felt that I was a decent writer.  But the main reason I felt safe was because Vern Bailey was one of the most gentle, kind, and humble teachers I’d ever had.  Certainly in college, he was #1 in this respect.  He talked softly.  There wasn’t anything arrogant about him — not that college professors have a reputation for arrogance.  I would never suggest that, here on the border of Wesleyan.  Vern Bailey seemed to care about and respect his students — even the smug ones like me.  So, as I went up the steps to his office, I wasn’t worried.  I expected him to confirm that I was a decent writer. 

I have no memory of anything Vern Bailey said to me that day about my writing.  What I do remember him saying in his gentle soft voice was this:  “I would encourage you to try to be a little more open, a little less rigid, in the way you think about the world.  Things aren’t as clear-cut as you seem to want them to be.”  That’s all.  That’s what I remember.

Up to this moment in my life, I’d already received a fair amount of constructive criticism, feedback, coaching, correction, in how I did things — long division, swimming, writing, and things like that.  This was the first time anyone told me that there was something wrong with the way I was thinking.  Since I’ve been married, of course, I’ve gained more experience of this kind.  But this was my initiation to receiving such feedback.

Vern Bailey, as I said, was the most kind-hearted teacher. He would never want to hurt anyone.  But this hurt — what he said to me that day.  Not real bad.  It wasn’t a blow to the stomach.  But it wasn’t what I wanted to hear.  Or what I expected to hear. 

But here’s my point.  Because I trusted him, because of who he was, because of what I saw as his integrity and compassion, I was inclined to believe him.  Because I believed in him, I could see what he meant.  I could see that he was right.

Something was wrong with the way I was thinking.  It wasn’t that my ideas were wrong, per se.  But there was some inadequate, something shallow, about the way I was seeing the world.  Having inadequate thinking — at eighteen or at any other age — isn’t the unforgivable sin.  But at the time, this was a big deal.  My mask was off.  I was exposed.  There was something rigid about my thinking. 

Wow.  What do you do with that at eighteen?  I wasn’t sure what to do with it.  How do you start to think differently?

What Vern Bailey told me that day had a greater impact, reached deeper into me and my life than any other single thing that anyone else ever told me.  I want you teachers to know what an impact you can have on your students, even in one short conversation.

What does this have to with Jesus’ transfiguration?  Jesus Christ appeared to me that day through the person of Vern Bailey.  Because I was inclined to believe him, my way of seeing the world changed. 

So on Transfiguration Sunday, or any Sunday, we all have this question before us.  Could there be something wrong, something inadequate, with our thinking, with the way we see the world, and the way we see Jesus Christ?”

We all — not just college freshmen — spend a lot of time looking not for new ideas, but for confirmation of the ideas we already have.  We want evidence and ammunition to defend our belief that we think the right way; that we see the world as it really is.  Deeper down, though, we all know that our way of seeing is not really adequate.  The older I get the stupider I feel.  I used to think I understood a lot.  Now I’m mystified by almost everything.  I still wear the mask of confidence but really, there is a lot we don’t know.

And this applies to Jesus Christ himself — the focus of this transfiguration story.  There’s a lot about this person, this presence, this spirit, this mystery that we will never figure out.  But believing in him, being inclined to believe him, changes how we see him.  And it changes how we see everything else.

I’m not proposing any stock, pat, canned way of understanding Jesus Christ.  He is way beyond that.  The question is, how do we approach him?  And how open are we to all the ways he appears to us and speaks to us in our lives? 

Are we looking for ways to dismiss him?  Would we like to put him on trial and declare him a fraud?  That itself is a faith perspective; in fact, it’s a very trendy one on many campuses today.  Or are we inclined to be open to his presence, however it comes to us?  I believe that our answer to that question makes a huge difference in how we experience this life we are given.