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Exodus 34:29-35
Psalm 99
2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2
Luke 9:28-43

A child in my congregation recently asked, “why doesn’t God talk to people now like God did in the Bible?” As his pastor and as a theology professor, I took his question seriously. Certainly, to quote Karl Barth, mystical experiences and theophanies (appearances of God to mortals) are essential to the “strange world of the Bible.”

Just like of a few of the the life-transforming encounters – Abraham and Sarah and their angelic hosts, Jacob’s and Joseph’s dreams, Moses and the burning bush and Moses’ encounter with God on Mount Sinai, Mary and the angel Gabriel, Paul on the road to Damascus, Peter’s dream, and John’s vision on Patmos. While I suspect that most of the time Biblical characters like Moses tended flocks and Peter set up evangelistic meetings and dealt with the challenges of quotidian life just like ourselves, the ancients saw the world as “permeable,” as a “thin place” in which God’s presence could become transparent at any given moment. God was alive and communicated with humankind, and we can see and hear the divine presence in our lives. Many of us today neither expect nor desire encounters with God, even in light of our Christian experience. Despite the growing interest in auric readings, channeled spirits, and near death experiences, most mainstream Christians still agree with Lily Tomlin’s joke, “if you speak with God, they call it prayer; but if God speaks to you, they think your crazy.”*

My denomination, the United Church of Christ, has as its motto, “God is still speaking.” These words say more than this mainstream, rationalistic denomination can fully fathom. “What if God is still speaking? What if revelations are still ahead of us? What if God can show up in our lives and change our world in unexpected and surprising ways?”

Now, as process-relational theologians, we see divine activity as naturalistic, working through the world’s events, rather than supernatural, breaking into our world apart from the interdependent world of cause and effect. But, many process-relational thinkers remain under the influence of the Enlightenment’s domestication of divine revelation and human response. In a process-relational world in which God is at the heart of every moment of experience, providing aims, ideals, intuitions, and energy, surprising and unexpected things can happen. Though they are filtered through our experiences, our human experience is much deeper than we can imagine. We can experience the holy, receive divine guidance, intuit energies and wisdom at a distance, and channel God’s healing energy. We can become “process Pentecostals,” that is, persons for whom God is alive, real, life-transforming, and energetic; persons who experience God’s presence in our hearts, minds, and encounters. If God is truly dynamic and omnipresent, then every moment is a potential theophany, a “thin place,” in which the Holy Adventure and our holy adventure are intertwined and transparent to one another.

One of the great challenges for today’s mainstream and progressive Christians is to articulate and nurture experiences of God that can be integrated with the best scientific, medical, and theological thinking. Persons need not only to hear about God, they need to “taste and see” God’s lively goodness in their lives.

According to Hebraic lore, rabbis debated the question, “why was the bush burning and not consumed?” One answer was that the bush continued to burn “so that eventually as Moses walked by, he would notice it!” In today’s reading, many years have passed since Moses’ first dramatic encounter with the Divine. Moses has become transparent to God. God speaks through all Moses’ senses and Moses listens for God’s every revelation. Moses even boldly confronts the untamed and often unpredictable God in order to save the people from the divine wrath. Despite the people’s idolatry, Moses implores God to give them one more chance, and Moses is once again summoned to Mount Sinai to receive the tablets of the law. As he comes down the mountain, the people are afraid, for Moses’ face is shining. Moses’ mystical experience is so life-transforming that he must veil his face, except in those moments when he enters God’s presence in private. Encountering God, through a nocturnal revelation (dream or vision) or mystical experience, changes everything, and calls us to new behaviors. We may even have to veil our encounter through subtle and indirect communication so that others can understand what we have experienced. We should not be ashamed by such experiences, though they may initially inspire fear and awe, but are called to find communities of persons who can help us understand and interpret what we have experienced. Sadly, the impact of the Enlightenment and narrow understandings of the scientific method have made the church a place where people seldom share their near-death experiences, visions, encounters with God, synchronous experiences, or healing dreams.

The transfiguration of Jesus parallels Moses’ experience on Mount Sinai. During his prayer time, Jesus is transformed – the divine energy of the universe shines through him, Moses and Elijah join him in conversation and the voice of God thunders through a cloud. While some scholars see the transfiguration as a literary device aimed at establishing Jesus’ authority as the primary interpreter of the Hebraic tradition, superseding even Moses and Elijah, what if this event really happened? Surely, persons do make up stories that exaggerate their encounters with God and tall tales have been told about Washington and Lincoln. But, given the world of the gospels in which divine energy and revelation were always on the horizon on experience, we may let our own imaginations wander and honor the experiences of first century believers. In a quantum, energetic universe, God’s presence may excite and inspire the primary elements of our bodies and minds, and we may shine!  

As many scholars and preachers have noted, Peter (and the perhaps the others) want to preserve this experience forever. They do not want to leave the fullness of God’s presence and return to the challenges of daily life. But, they must go down the mountain. Our spiritual experiences are not static, but must grow in dialogue with the concreteness of our world. Indeed, the theophany is followed by an encounter with a child whose disease is incurable. Jesus restores the boy to health, and “all were astounded at the greatness of God.” Theophany leads to transformation of bodies, minds, and spirits. Our encounters with God are not private experiences to be accumulated and horded, but gifts to the wider world. In the rhythm of the inner and outer journeys, our times of prayer and meditation, of experiencing God’s nearness, drive us – like Jesus - into the complexities of the world and toward the crosses of personal and social injustice and conflict. Our mystical experiences are tested in every day life, but they give us perspective on the challenges of each day. Indeed, as we “shine” in every day life, the world is transformed.

In the film “Grand Canyon,” an East Los Angeles tow truck driver travels to the Grand Canyon every year in order to feast his eyes on its grandeur. The every day struggles find their proper place as he ponders the wonder of the canyon and the immensity of the planetary journey. Mystical experiences and the imaginative encounter with scripture give us a larger viewpoint and greater stature and invite us to experience the peace that comes from identified our journey with the larger planetary and cosmic journey.

Stripped of its implicit anti-Judaism, the passage from Corinthians reminds us that authentic encounters with God expand rather than contract our experiences of freedom and creativity. We are not bound by lifeless laws, but inspired by a living spirit, who invites us to share in the fullness of God’s adventure in our time. Open to God’s spirit, we will have surprising adventures and do unexpected things. We will encounter divine wisdom and energy everywhere and incarnate that energy in our personal lives and in the life of the church. In light of today’s passages, the pastor may ask her or himself and the congregation, “where are we experiencing God today? Where are we putting up obstacles to God’s freedom and surprise in our lives? How can we cultivate an awareness of God in our daily lives? What would happen if we expected God to show up whenever we prayed and whenever we gathered for worship?”

Bruce Epperly is Professor of Practical Theology and Director of Continuing Education and co-pastor of Disciples United Community Church in Lancaster, PA. Ordained in the United Church of Christ and Disciples of Christ, he is the author of sixteen books. He can be reached at bepperly@lancasterseminary.edu

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