Luke 9:28-43
Sermon: The Bodhisattva smiled, and
Jesus went down from the mountain.
In today’s scripture reading, Jesus goes up on the mountain to pray. He is accompanied by his three disciples, who will be the witnesses to what is going to happen. While Jesus is praying, the story tells us, that “the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white.” Before today, I have preached on this scripture text more than two times (over the last 5 years) and read some commentaries and sermons about it, and of course, prayers written to commemorate Jesus’ transfiguration. I have seen many illustrations of the glory demonstrated in “dazzling white” (actually his clothes became dazzling white), but few mentions of his face. People used to say, “Clothes make the man”, but now we agree that it’s what inside that counts; so today’s story draws me to pause and recollect (through my imagination) the face of Jesus. Can you see with me what Jesus’ face could be like in the moment of transfiguration? (In this case, I believe the practice of the millennia old Eastern Orthodox Church tradition really may help us with Icons.)
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| Jesus as illustrated in Ethiopian Church, c.1500 |
The face of Jesus always showed who he truly was, matching face and heart, matching humanity and divinity, matching heaven and earth. I hope that if we were the disciples who were with Jesus in the moment of transfiguration, we would not lose the moment to truly encounter the face of Jesus, rather than being overwhelmed by the splendid, intimidating, dazzling white that he was wearing.
This week, I smiled when I came up with the title I chose for this Sunday’s reflection:
“The Bodhisattva smiled, and
Jesus went down from the mountain.”
Some years ago, when I was in my twenties, I had a dream about an extraordinarily beautiful being. In those years I studied Buddhism, with an experienced and distinguished scholar as my teacher. So, it was natural for me to think that the exceptionally beautiful being I saw in my dream was Bodhisattva. I am very thankful that we, and many animals, including birds, have this subconscious activity called REM sleep, dreaming, which we do not control, because dreams can sometimes deliver a very important message. This exquisitely beautiful being, Bodhisattva, who appeared in my dream stood surrounded by mountains and yet was taller than all the mountains. Their clothes didn’t shine in blinding, dazzling white but their whole being was full of various warm colours we see in the spring — all harmonious, with pink as their primary colour, like a flower.
They seemed gender-neutral (very feminine to be masculine, more masculine than could be perceived as purely feminine.) If you saw this Bodhisattva, you might wonder if you had just seen a pregnant body, implying the future of the cosmos. Yet, what was the most distinguished in the Bodhisattva’s entire appearance was the face, the inexplicably beautiful and warm face with an unforgettable smile. The most mysterious and warm smile, the kind you want to see one more time, and wonder how a being can smile like that. This completely enlightened being smiled, which showed who they truly were – a being of distinguishing humbleness. In all the years since I had the dream, every once in a while, I would recollect it. That dream inspired me to pause in today’s reading to wonder and recollect the face of Jesus which always shows who he truly is. I think of characteristics like compassion, human humbleness, exceptional divine beauty in human flesh, The Dharma Body (teaching body) of prajna (understanding) and love who is pregnant with all humanity and living beings in the entire cosmos. The cosmic Christ who was also the shepherd, who was also the woman who swept her entire house to find her lost coin, who was also the teacher, healer and the Messiah whose glory was on the cross, who rose again and met his friends in Galilee, the small village where everything began. The son of a carpenter and everyone else a fisher, the start of a revolution of spirit and mind.
Only a few weeks ago, while I was reading Living Buddha and Living Christ, by Thich Nhat Hanh, I had a sudden realization. For a long time, I identified the extraordinary and beautiful being as Bodhisattva, but I missed the other important truth which Buddhism teaches: non-duality. As is the relation of the wave and the water - the phenomena and its substance - Buddhism teaches the true nature of ourselves is Buddha. I was surprised, thinking, “How haven’t I ever thought that the beautiful recollection of Buddha/Bodhisattva I saw in my dream is also my own Buddha Nature, my own Christ-like nature, the true beautiful nature in me. It is a mirror to the true, whole, beautiful nature of all of us, of all human beings, of all mammals, birds, water, all that crawls and all that swims. (If I were an artist, like Luba, I would draw and paint the beautiful Bodhisattva I saw in my dream and show it to you!)
But that’s not the end. I could also see the parallel between Bodhisattva and the Christ. A Bodhisattva is Buddha yet not Buddha; there’s a slight distinction between them. A Bodhisattva refers to the Enlightened being who could enter Nirvana but refuses to do so in order to go back to the Samsara world where people live and suffer, the messy, hurting, suffering world. In Buddhism, there are many beloved Bodhisattvas, in all different names, many of whom are devoted to mercy and compassion. In history, more lower-class people, women, the exploited, the uneducated, the illiterate found peace in their deep devotion to these beings, and believed that simply saying their names as prayer could save them or help them to enter Nirvana (even without education.) Jesus is, in many aspects, like a Bodhisattva. His followers claimed him to be the Messiah who would save them from the Roman Empire, end every suffering and illness, bring the glorious Davidic dynastic back, even, perhaps, bring his own people power and prestige. But no. His own Messiahship took a totally different path. The Cross is certainly not the Nirvana place which people would ascribe to their King.
In today’s scripture, we do not have the description of what the changed appearance of his face was exactly like, but we learn from the text that Jesus, on the next day of transfiguration, “came down from the mountain, to the great crowd” who met him; the first thing he did was to heal a suffering child. Jesus came down and acted, while Peter wanted to build three dwellings to live on the mountain top, away from the messy Samsara world.
There is an important lesson we can learn from the stories of Bodhisattva and Jesus on the mountaintop. Being enlightened, yet not claiming their earned status, Bodhisattva returns to the messy, suffering world. Transfigured in a glory of dazzling white, yet not claiming his status, Jesus comes down from the mountain to heal the hurting world. I am thinking we must do the same. What matters and what may be more important is not in claiming what the Christian identity is, what our denominational position or boundary should be - what matter lies in what work we do in our faith and what work we can do with others of all faith and without faith. Work matters. What we do tells others more than what we say we are! But - we must let go of the familiar habit of supposing that we Christians are the centre of the moral universe when, for example, this past week, Jody Wilson-Raybould said no to corruption, Kim and Trump said no to an anti-nuclear deal, United Methodists voted no to LGBTQ inclusion and same-sex marriage. How shall we come down from the mountain and meet the crowd who are the face of Jesus?
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