PRACTICING TRANSFIGURATION
Exodus 24:12-18; Matthew 17:1-9
Transfiguration of Our Lord, February 19, 2023
The Rev. Dr. Ritva H. Williams
The Rev. Dr. Aphonetta Wines, a retired Methodist pastor, begins her commentary on this morning’s readings as follows:
Like a real estate agent who knows that location, location, location is the key to a successful business enterprise, in matters of faith, relationship, relationship, relationship is of utmost importance.
Jesus affirmed this … when he said: You shall love the Lord your God… You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 23:37b-40).
If good communication is the key to good relationships, what might that look like in the divine/human relationship? How might God connect with human beings?
Our scripture readings describe humans encounters with God. God invites Moses to meet them on Mount Sinai where God’s glory/radiance has settled like a cloud. Moses waits six days on the mountainside — six days of preparation kind of like the six days of creation. The seventh day marks an end and a new beginning, as Moses is finally called to enter the fiery cloud where he stays for 40 days and 40 nights. God gives Moses the stone tablets with the commandments and teaches him that they are the blueprint for healthy relationships between humans and God, and among human beings — the foundation for a community centered on love of God and love of neighbor.
So much of God’s teaching was and is counter-cultural and contrary to our basest human nature. We should not be surprised that it took 40 days and 40 nights for Moses to get it. And it's no wonder that the freed Israelites spent 40 years in the wilderness practicing how to live together in community, messing up, and having to start over again. The commandments and accompanying teachings were and are intended to form, reform, and ultimately transform us from sinners to saints, from judgers to learners.
Our first scripture reading shows us that God communicates with humans directly in mountaintop experiences, in lengthy retreats from everyday life. God also communicates with humans indirectly through the teaching of persons like Moses. For almost a thousand years, the commandments and accompanying traditions were passed on orally. The invention of writing preserved those teachings, making it possible for us, three thousand years later, to be formed, reformed and transformed by God’s dream for communities centered on love for God and neighbor.
Our gospel reading is similar but goes a step further. We hear that six days later Jesus took Peter, James and John up a high mountain where the disciples see Jesus’ face shining like the sun and robed in dazzling white. (Did you know that white light is a mixture of all colors of light?) The disciples see Moses and Elijah in conversation with Jesus. Peter begins to babble about erecting tents, but is cut off by a voice from a bright cloud: “This is my Son, the Beloved in whom I delight; listen to him!” The disciples fall to the ground in fear. Then Jesus touches them: “get up, don’t be afraid." As they go down the mountain, Jesus says, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”
Did you notice the first words of this reading, “six days later”? Six days after what? In the previous chapter Jesus is at Caesarea Philippi with his disciples. He asks them, “Who do you say that I am?” When Peter answers, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” Jesus responds with praise and affirmation:
Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father in heaven … you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven … (Matthew 16:15-18).
A literalistic reading of Jesus’ words has resulted in images of St Peter as the gatekeeper to heaven, which is not what Jesus meant at all — but that’s for another day. Jesus explains: he must go to Jerusalem where he will suffer greatly and be killed, before being raised up on the third day. Peter protests vehemently only to have Jesus rebuke him:
“Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me … If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:21-24)
Jesus blesses and rebukes Peter, then waits six days before leading Peter, James and John up the mountain. The six days hearken back to Moses’ period of preparation, and the six days of creation. It is now the 7th day. This sequence makes me wonder if this event is not so much about Jesus, as it is about Peter and his comrades. Jesus’ rebuke of Peter suggests the disciples understanding of Jesus and his mission needs a serious reformation. On the mountaintop something must and something new begin.
The disciples experience a vision in which Jesus is transfigured, or as the original Greek says, metamorphosed. Metamorphosis is a process of transformation and change. Think of a caterpillar metamorphizing into a butterfly. In this vision the disciples see their very human friend and mentor revealed as his true self — the beloved Child who delights God. God speaks directly to them, "Listen to him."
Now, in the Bible Jesus is not the only person who is transfigured. Moses comes down from Mount Sinai shining with light. The apostle Paul urges us not to be conformed to the patterns of this world, but to be metamorphosed — transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2); and proclaims that the Holy Spirit is incrementally metamorphosing — transforming us into the same radiant image of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18). In other words, transfiguration into a glorious, radiant true child-of-God self is not just for Jesus, but for all of us.
Here again, God communicates directly with human beings in mountaintop experiences, empowering them to see and hear with the eyes and ears of spirit and soul. The disciples are told to listen to Jesus, to take his words to heart, to do what Jesus tells them to do, to live the way Jesus shows them to live, to die the way Jesus shows them to die, trusting in God’s unbreakable love and mercy. They did, and they told the story, so that we too could follow in Jesus’ footsteps.
Father Richard Rohr asserts that “unless we know where it all came from and where it is all going, we tend to be anxious, incoherent, and as changeable as the weather vane.” The vision of the resurrected Christ shining in glory shows us where all our lives are headed. That vision empowered the disciples to take up their crosses and follow Jesus down the mountain into a world of pain and sorrow, and finally through the valley of the shadow of death. As they did, the told the story and had it written down so we could follow too.
An excerpt from “Dazzling” a blessing by Jan Richardson
This blessing is for coming down the mountain.
This blessing wants to be in motion,
to travel with you as you return to level ground.
It will seem strange how quiet this blessing becomes
when it returns to earth.
It is not shy. It is not afraid.
It simply knows how to bide its time,
to watch and wait, to discern and pray
until the moment comes when it will reveal
everything it knows,
when it will shine forth with all it has seen,
when it will dazzle with the unforgettable light
you have carried all this way. Amen.
