Readings for the Day:
Sermon:
Original Manuscript:
This is an interactive manuscript. To follow links, click the highlighted words below.
My favorite television show, perhaps the greatest television show of all time, is Patrick McGoohan’s 1967 classic The Prisoner.
What makes this show great is the attention it gives to the individual. It thoughtfully explores what it means to be an individual, a true individual, in the context of society. It does this all in the realm and guise of the sci-fi, spy thriller genres with a touch of the surreal.
Like with anything great, there’s a desire in Hollywood to repackage in order to take full advantage of addictive quality nostalgia has on us all. With The Prisoner, this occurred back in 2009 with a star-studded remake of the series.
Now if you are a fan of the original and didn’t even realize there was a remake, count yourself as fortunate. While time has maybe softened my critique, this show didn’t deserve the title “remake”. Taken on it’s own, it had a decent enough story, though not as original as McGoohan’s The Prisoner. If it had been dressed up as it’s own thing with maybe a few “easter eggs” for The Prisoner fans, I probably would have been more forgiven.
The problem with calling itself a “remake”, though, is that it didn’t understand what the original show was trying to say. It didn’t have the same nuance, or the same focus on the trials of the individual living in a society. Because of it’s lack of understanding of this great work, the 2009 “remake” fell flat when faced with, and compared to, the original.
Unfortunately, The Prisoner is not the only thing, the only work, to be misunderstood. God’s working in the world is often misunderstood as well. Take the event of the Transfiguration that we are celebrating today.
As this miraculous and mysterious event is occurring, and Jesus, suddenly garbed in sparkling and dazzling white, confers with Moses and Elijah, Simon Peter, one of the only three witnesses for this event, suggests erecting three dwellings for each of them.
We are told in Luke that Peter did not know what he said. What that really means is that Peter didn’t understand. He thought Moses and Elijah were there to stay. He thought he knew what Jesus’ earthly ministry was really about.
We know from Scripture, particularly with the Ascension, that the Disciples thought Jesus was bringing the Kingdom of Heaven to earth right now. We know from that account, from Jesus’ appearance on the Road to Emmaus, and others that Jesus spent a lot of times explaining to His Disciples what He was really doing there with them. He did so because they didn’t quite get it.
It maybe that Peter thought Moses and Elijah were there to begin an assault on the Romans and needed a place to stay and prepare. He might simply have thought they needed dwelling places because it was finally time for them to come home as the Kingdom of God was finally and fully established in Israel. Whatever the reason, Peter is taking such a particular stance on what is going and missing out on the depth of meaning for the Transfiguration. This is not unlike the stance of 2009’s “remake” to the original Prisoner show.
The Transfiguration is poetry. It is art. Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams spent time describing it, and from his words we might even call it a living Icon. It is God’s living piece to convey the Truth of who Jesus is in the world and what His work is really all about.
Moses is there as the representative of the Law. Elijah is there as a representative as the greatest of the Prophets. In fact, our Jewish brethren still lay out a place for Elijah each year at the Passover Seder.
Jesus is flanked by the Law and the Prophets, the very ones who He, in His own words, has come to fulfill. This is what it means for Jesus to be the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One. He’s there to fulfill all that has come before and in doing so bring God’s plan and work in this world to a conclusion.
Why did the Transfiguration happen the way that it did? Who, aside from God, knows? Yet for all the creative juices God gave us to create art, why can’t the Creator of All-that-Is make something too?
The Transfiguration is a mystery and that is okay because of the depth of what it is trying to tell us. It is a living and physical Icon for who Jesus is. We shouldn’t try to dumb that down, or bring it to our level. We shouldn’t look at it in any sort of way that tries to confine God’s work to our simple, and often wrong, understanding. Instead, we should be okay with the mystery of the “how” as we live into the truth of the “why”. In this way, we can come to realize that God’s ways are not our own and that what God is working in this world is greater than we can even conceive or imagine.