TRANSFIGURATION SUNDAY (A) - Feb. 19, 2023

Preliminary

Exodus: Moses had to be patient, really patient for God’s appearance - he was intensely waiting on the Lord to receive the Torah.

2 Peter: Jesus was confirmed by God - it is a fact - Peter

Gospel: God is making sure that Pater and James know what’s what - they can be a little daft, of course. Perhaps they have more integrative idea of Moses, Elijah, and Jesus - they are not entirely wrong, but ultimately the spotlight is on Jesus right now. One thing is clear - some important stuff is happening on top of mountains! Jesus’ legacy is connected to those before him , but God is saying - focus on this one! However, we must take care not to turn it into patting on the back and Judaism bashing - Jesus wasn’t making a new religion at the time!

Audio recording:

https://recorder.google.com/d0cbf990-06d5-4b61-b0bd-ff106c7b0690

Good morning,

What a week? Sun, rain, sun…the weather cannot quite decide! And I do notice, because I had some bad headaches. At least we worry less about flying objects in the sky. But I digress…sermon, right!

Today we are jumping ahead quite a bit…startlingly so, 12 chapters! It is one of those points in the lectionary that are fixed, of course…we gotta cover Transfiguration before we head into Ash Wednesday and beyond! Transfiguration happens in the synoptic gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke), but not in John, which fosters much less mystery about the identity of Jesus in the story. On one side we have Mark that is not allowing the story to reveal Jesus in his fullness for most of the gospel, making the big exposé after his crucifixion and then we have John that pretty much exposes everything theologically early on. Matthew and Luke are somewhere in between that - in Matthew, there is more than enough story cues that Jesus is the Son of God, the messiah, the Christ, but…as we know by now, the disciples can be a little slow to catch on. Sometimes you have something right in front of you and you just don’t see it - science does tell us that people see what they expect to see and there is a lot of filtration of reality going on. So perhaps that is why God really picks up the right in your face, can’t ignore approach - let’s just look at the scene. Jesus, Peter, James, and John went up a high mountain and Jesus was “was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. 3 Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.”

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Mt 17:2–3.

And then...suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved;c with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” 6 When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. 7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” 8 And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone. “

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Mt 17:5–8.

Oh boy, some strong stuff…not much left for imagination, for these three! And because we are still in the synoptic tradition of somewhat keeping things mysterious (look conspiratioally around), he says after that “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Mt 17:9.

Shh.... Can you imagine, Jesus shows them all THIS and then he is like…but don’t tell anybody, deal?

However, let’s take a step back for a bit and admit that the word and concept of transfiguration is increasingly obscure in today’s society. Even in the church, how often do we talk about it? Well, about once a year, really....today! Transfiguration describes the transformed appearance of Jesus on a mountain in front of three disciples and it translates the word metamorphoo, which you may know as metamorphosis. In popular culture, perhaps you have seen it used in some fantasy worlds as a type of magic for morphing/transforming objects into other objects.

As many things that God do, it is mostly for us - Jesus did not need to be transfigured in such a dramatic vision on top of a high mountain, but God knows that people need a little bit of spectacle to take things seriously. It is similar with our story from Exodus today, where Moses is about receive the tablets with Ten Commandments:

15 Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. 16 The glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the cloud. 17 Now the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. 18 Moses entered the cloud, and went up on the mountain. Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Ex 24:15–18.

Another powerful vision and let’s be real - God, our Creator, can make anything happen really and we might never know about it, because effects are not needed for the creation work, no lightnings, no poofs, no loud bangs, no Hollywood explosions. But God is being didactic - whoever has done any teaching at all knows that you gotta attend to people’s attention spans, keep them interested, and the more senses you engage, the better.

And also, there is mystery in the gospels, the Bible, and our faith… but it is not a worldly secrecy that more often than not is about holding onto power and privilege. We have a good example of that this month, when a transportation company Norfolk Southern have done a lot of gaslighting and questionable actions around the derailment of a freight train carrying vinyl chloride, butyl acrylate, ethylhexyl acrylate and ethylene glycol monobutyl ether near East Palestine, Ohio. You don’t have to be a chemist to know that these substances do not sound good. I looked them all up and all kinds of recurring themes emerged- carcinogens, toxicity, irritation of eyes and respiratory tract, dangerous to inhale. And the company is like after a few days - it’s all good, just return home. Some things never change, it took a loong time before people living around Tchornobyl learnt the truth about the radiation they have been exposed to. Luckily, we now have more information channels that ever, so being secretive is increasingly difficult.

So true, God is sometimes playing hard to get, mostly for us to better understand what God has to show and tell us, but God is not secretive to hold onto power. Even early Christians recognized that and refused the theology of the gnostics that were trying to make Christianity into some kind of a secret society, where the select few can gain the secret knowledge (gnosis). No, from the beginning, Christianity was meant to be public. Sure, Christians sometimes do have to hide because of persecution, to this day in places like China or some Arabic nations, but it is not what is asked of us - we are to be as public about our faith as we can. As missiologist Pavol Bargar reminds us, “Christianity is a public religion, openly admitting to bold theological claims for Jesus the Christ[, which then leads to a] Christian witness to their faith [that is] is expected to have a public, political dimension.” (F-Word Pseudorleigion, 39). Because Christian remain human and as such are political beings, that is, creatures who “form and exist in the framework of social relations and entities of various kinds” (ibid). To be Christian is to be human: “Ultimately, ‘Christian is never more than an adjective: it is applied to one and the same integral human subject who, on becoming a believer, can be considered and named from the perspective of faith.” Or as theologian Ivana Noble says, “we do not come towards God despite our humanity but because of it, through it. (41)

Well, maybe a little sidebar - I am not sure that putting out an ad during Superbowl is necessarily an expression of “public religion” - I think engaging in the public square through love, kindness, and service is better outreach than multi-million flashy ads next to Budweiser and Carl Jr’s.

The point is, God is sometimes a little extra and the transfiguration is no different. The closest disciples obviously needed something extra to hold onto and reach for, when Jesus Christ was arrested, condemned, crucified, died, and then was missing from the tomb. No matter how you count the timeline of Easter, there is a lot of time to doubt and fear. And I believe God is extra for us as well, showing us love and care in grandiose ways, through the creation, other people, our communities we belong to, through Word and sacraments…you name it. Perhaps not all of us need the extraness of transfiguration, but some do. And perhaps let us think how we can be a little extra for others in the world as Christians, political beings that form and maintain relationships to people, communities, and systems. Not to be extra opinionated, extra judgmental, or extra loud about our beliefs, but rather be a little extra with our love, patience, and kindness for others - just like God is towards us when we need it. Perhaps like former president Jimmy Carter, who dedicated his life to building affordable housing through Habitat for Humanity even up until he entered hospice recently. Let’s be a little extra for God and others! Amen.