The Impossible Self-Transfiguration of Fryer Michael

Resources and things to ponder for group leaders…

The Transfiguration

Moses on the mountain – Exodus 34:29-35
Jesus on the mountain (with Peter, James and John) in the Gospel according to Matthew 17:1-9
(note this has parallels in Luke and Mark)

Question: Jesus tells Peter, James and John – the witnesses to the transfiguration – to keep it a secret until after the resurrection. Why do you think this is?

How do you react to this call to secrecy?  How did Michael react to his ‘holy glow’ experience in the story?

Imagine: Peter, James and John have been with Jesus the longest of all the disciples. They are his chosen witnesses to his transfiguration. In the story, Michael chooses his closest friend Luke to share his ‘transfiguration’ experience with. Michael fails to keep his experience a secret though. What would it feel like to have been Luke? Michael? Or one of Jesus’ three close friends?

Poem: A poetic reflection on the Bible’s account of the Transfiguration, and especially on this ‘keep it a secret’ aspect, can be read on the Pastoral Sympathy blog

Sharing experiences: Are there people you have encountered who have had a spiritual glow about them? Or you sensed that they had experienced some kind of transformational encounter? How could you tell?

Shadows

What things cast shade into our lives?

• Things of our own making?
• Things others do?
• Society and culture around us?

How does that fit with our idea of sin? Moral debt?
See the quote from Luke’s Gospel at the end of the story. How would the world look if we never kept a record of what we owe people (in terms not only of money and possessions, but socially – “giving people their due”, showing deference, considering ourselves better / worse that others in the pecking order, being socially indebted to people etc)?

Forgiveness

How powerful is forgiveness? Share experiences.

Is it possible to live as completely forgiving and forgiven people? Is this an attractive vision of how to live?

Battered and deep fried?

Can we deal with our shadows ourselves? How do we try to run away from them? How do we try to shine light on them to dispel them, only to find it hasn’t really sent them away?

In the story, Michael rids himself of his shadow by doing something weird: battering and deep frying it, and then experiences profound forgiveness and the ability to forgive once a communal act of sharing the shadow has happened.

Discuss parallels between the story and the Christian concepts of

• confession and forgiveness of wrongs / sins, either expressed in church services, or the rite of Confession
• Holy Communion / Mass / Eucharist (different traditions’ names for the same service)

Further discussion idea on this: note the three different service names each emphasize a different aspect (though all three aspects are present in every such service)…

Holy Communion – focus on the sense of a shared, communal act (from the Latin communio meaning ‘fellowship, mutual participation, a sharing’) i.e. this is something done together with others and with Jesus being present as well. The focus is not on our personal salvation, but on shared life, in Christ whom we meet in bread and wine.

Eucharist – focus on celebration (from the Greek eukharistia meaning ‘thanksgiving’). The celebration is of Jesus’ death and resurrection as the source of our shared new life as citizens of God’s Kingdom.

Mass – focus on mission (from Late Latin missa meaning “dismissal,” from the verb mittere “to let go, send”). Holy Communion is missional because it involves participants in becoming what they have received in the Eucharist: becoming the Body of Christ. This carries with it an expectation that, without relying on our own resources but on God’s grace, through regular meeting with Jesus in the Sacrament of Holy Communion, we are equipped by the Holy Spirit to participate in the mission of God.

Moses and Jesus

St Paul riffs on the transfiguration theme in his second letter to the Corinthians. You might like to have a discussion on 2 Corinthians 3:7-18 where Moses and Jesus are contrasted.

The Transfiguration of Jesus is presented as a model for the transformation of his followers: removing the ‘veil of Moses’ so we can see the glory of God as if in a mirror (i.e. in how we ourselves are being transformed by the Holy Spirit. The Christian Faith is about following Jesus and allowing the Holy Spirit to transform us into a more perfect, holy version of ourselves – a version where God lives in us and we live in God and so we become more like God ourselves.