Sermon: Transfiguration and Emptiness (Matthew 17:1-9), Feb 11, 2024

Sermon: Transfiguration and Emptiness

Ha Na Park (Broad View United, Victoria, BC)

I heard this story from the Reverend Doctor Otis Moss III, currently serving at Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, who espouses black theology in his sermons. 

One day, Otis noticed that every time this one artist did an interview, he always carried a small cup. One of the interviewers asked this artist, “Why do you carry a cup everywhere you go?” And he said this: “My mama taught me this: Carry this cup, boy, to always remind you to be careful who pours into you. 

Carry this cup everywhere you go, and if they pour what is wrong into you, always know you can pour it out.” And then she said this: “Now if someone pours what’s wrong into you, don’t forget that you got to clean the cup, because there will be residue of what they have left, which will infect what is poured into you later on.” And so, this artist held a vessel to remind him of the wisdom that came from his mother. This anecdote is so profound, because the reality is that we are vessels, and we have to be careful of what the world attempts to pour into us; it can leave a residue that will affect the way we embrace ourselves, which we should always do with gentleness, compassion and understanding.

Otis continued on, saying, “And I would even submit that we’ve got to be careful of even what the church pours into us because we are to honour the body, the body that God created. This body that holds 31 trillion cells in it. One grain of human DNA has information that would be equivalent to 215 gigabytes of information. Our bodies are magnificent, and neurologists have yet to figure it out.”

Traditionally, the church has taught there is a separation between our body and spirit. The body was seen as a source of all kinds of problems: pleasure, sin, food, violence. And the body is not permanent. 

But a deeper understanding of each scripture passage about our body would let us know that God’s true invitation is to honour God holistically, with everything that is in us, and that includes our body. 

We have come to this place to worship, with our body. We live our lives out there at our workplace, at our home, with our family, with our friends, with strangers — with our body. And the question I would like to submit to you is, what do you do when your body-spirit (which is also the same as to say spirit-body) is wounded? When the world pours into you what is not right about you and what is not intended by God in God’s creation of you, how do you pour it out and how do you clean your cup, the sacred vessel, the holistic oneness of spirit-body/body-spirit? Trans body. Queer body. Disabled, or differently abled body. Neurodivergent body. Asian Body. Female body. Young body. Old body. Sick body. Addicted body. Homeless body. These spirit-bodies among us are more often than not wounded by what is wrong but nevertheless poured into them, by the “epidemic of polarization”.

We can discuss polarization from many different perspectives, and I am far from being an expert. However, one clear way I experienced how polarization functions was during the Covid-19 pandemic. While the world was gradually shifting from complete isolation to limited, permitted visits and interactions, people started to host parties, visit coffee shops, and behave as if, as long as protection for themselves and for their social bubble is guaranteed, they did not have the responsibility to think about the situations of others who did not have the same promise of health and safety.

Disabled bodies and sick bodies requested a continued mask requirement for a longer period. Were these voices heard and listened to, enough? For the sake of returning to a seemingly inevitable and eagerly-awaited normalcy? In that moment, we observed the widening and deepening divide between the two demands of freedom and responsibility. How have we who sat on that divide felt the groaning of those spirit-bodies who advocated for their lives? The rationale that someone else’s spirit-body is less important than my own creates, broadens and deepens any crack of polarization. 

 

And there, on that polarized divide, Jesus stands, or sits, and even transfigures himself, in today’s scripture. In his life, some said Jesus came to the world as the second Moses, while others said he is the second Elijah. Both Moses and Elijah were prominent prophets for Hebrew people, and when each person proclaimed how they see Jesus as the revival of traditions and the legacy they follow, Moses or Elijah, they projected their expectations and disappointments on to Jesus, praise and criticize how much he is like or not like Moses or Elijah. Can you picture with me how Jesus could have been wounded, tired, hurt, and grieving? Some said he’s a glutton, a drunkard, a lover of food and pleasure. He’s the advocate of tax collectors and lover of the sinners. Moreover, blasphemously, he’s a self-proclaimed king. If Jesus wanted a cup to pour out what was wrong, he would have needed to rinse 1095 times to clean his spirit-body vessel, a daily routine. (365 X 3 as his ministry years). 

 

Today’s scripture depicts what transfiguration was like for him and is for us. It says “And Jesus was transfigured before the disciples, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.” 

 

Every year when Transfiguration Sunday approaches, I think about what this transfiguration thing is, really? Why does transfiguration come on the Sunday before Lent begins? Especially for a contemporary Christian, the message of transfiguration is not really about believing that Jesus’ body and his skin and his garment suddenly changed to supernatural materials and shone like the sun, dazzling white. Would you come to church just to figure out how that unbelievable phenomenon could possibly happen? It’s not about the material changes. Even it’s not a miracle, it’s about how Jesus walks on that polarized tightrope - Jesus vs Elijah vs Moses. It’s about how Jesus pours out his cup and cleans his vessel from the influence of polarization. Jesus empties their self. You know, when you are wounded by something wrong that’s been poured into your cup, it’s confusing, it’s devastating. That action, and its residue, makes us burn out quickly. It pushes us into a corner. It creates deep, deep disappointment about life and the world. Don’t let the wrong things cling to you. When wrong things are poured into me, I know that it’s helpful to know that I can figure out how and why all of this nonsense is happening. My suggestion for people of faith is that, for your own well-being, for the sake of your cup, the holy vessel, (we are to honour the Creator with our body), learn how to empty yourself in the moment.  Someone pours a wrong thing into you, spill it out. Don’t pour it into anyone else’s cup; leave it on the ground. Emptying is a powerful spiritual practice that supports us even as we walk through the polarization that can affect us and leave its residue. The first thing to live through polarization: Just as Jesus says in today’s reading, “Do not be afraid.” Preserve your holistic self. Preserve who you are. Preserve your cup. Preserve your chalice.

 

The Buddhist tradition teaches emptiness, even Nothingness. Emptiness or emptying is pronounced as Gong in Korean. (Show the character). It means the universe and the holistic self is like emptiness. It is empty. Because there is no such thing that we can say exists separately from others and is independent as a single, fixed, permanent entity. Our body, which God has created, holds 31 trillion cells in it. And these are interconnected, in dazzling relationships of energy, chi, moving in the body, just like the chi things move and change everything in the universe even in this split-second moment. 

 

Christ-body is just like that. Where is Christ? Who is Jesus? Who are we talking about? One historical figure? A Divine saviour? What if Christ is like a glittering energy exchange of all the brilliant and lively things in the universe that is moving, changing and interconnecting 31 trillion things with 31 trillion other things? So you cannot say what Christ is, and who Jesus is, because it’s the brilliant emptiness which is profound nothingness. Why was Jesus’ transfiguration dazzling and why did it shine like the sun? Because there was nothing to inhibit the true form of Christ. Just as the universe is not a single entity, but empty, in the transfiguration moment, Jesus shows that Christ is not a single entity but empty too. There is no residue left in his boundless cup. Imagine with me: if the universe, our self, Jesus can empty itself of all the clinging residue, that moment can instantly manifest the true picture of God: the light bulbs of 31 trillion x 31 trillion x 31 trillion are turned on all at once and enlightened, which is truly what is going on in God’s world.

We are to honour the Creator with our bodies. 

We are to learn how to preserve our body/spirit and spirit/body and give glory to those who still need a lot of support from society to preserve themselves and to walk on and above the divide of woundedness with their bodies. Empty you. Shining you. Let yourself shine like the sun and let your and other voices dazzle the world. Where are you? Who are you? You are brilliant, glowing and glittering emptiness. Emptiness cannot fall in the cracks, because it’s empty of all that would cling and drag you down.