Excerpt from Mark 9:1-13 

"And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them."

Reflection by Christina Villa

My grandmother had a small reproduction of Raphael's painting of the Transfiguration in her house. Apart from family photos, and a picture of Pope Pius (not a family member), there weren't many pictures in that house, so as a child I used to like to look at this one.  It had Jesus in a white robe floating amid illuminated clouds in the top half of the picture.  In the bottom half, there was a knot of distressed-looking people, all pointing in different directions, some of them kneeling or lying on the ground. It looked like the immediate aftermath of a hit-and-run accident.  Perhaps Jesus was floating down to take care of this mess, I thought.  On the other hand, he might be floating up to get away from it.
 
What would Jesus do? Surely both options were open to him.  As it turns out if you look it up in the Bible, Jesus does come down from on high and instantly heals a stricken boy on the ground, to everyone's relief.  One problem with asking ourselves "What would Jesus do?" is that quite often what Jesus did was perform a miracle, which we think we can't do.  But more often than I choose to recognize, there probably is something I can do, even though it's almost always  something I'd really prefer not to do, something inconvenient or unappetizing or dull, something I won't even get any credit for.  Or I can float somewhere above the mess on the ground, let somebody else deal with it, which Jesus did not do. 

Prayer

Dear God, don't let it take a miracle for me to notice when I should go out of my way and pay attention to something I'd rather leave to someone else.  Amen.

About the Author Christina Villa is on the staff of the United Church of Christ in Cleveland, Ohio.

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