"TRANSFIGURING THE MANAGEABLE"

Matthew 17:1-7; 2 Peter 1:16-21

This story

that the church has come to refer to as "The Transfiguration"

is one of the most formative episodes

of the Christian faith.

It gets written up in three of the four gospels.

Compare that with the story of Jesus' birth,

which we probably think of as a lot more formational,

but is covered in only two of the gospels.

It's a lot easier for us

to get our heads around the idea of a baby,

and a mom and a dad,

and a variety of barnyard animals //

than it is for us to begin to fathom

Jesus glowing like a lightbulb

and having a conversation

with two guys back from the grave.

But when you think about it,

everybody gets born.

Anybody could have been born in a manger.

Not everybody has their holiness revealed to the faithful

and gets to have God confirm it.

Theologians have argued for the last two thousand years

about whether Jesus was fully human,

or fully divine,

or a combination of both.

The Christmas story by itself

can't give us the answer.

The Transfiguration is one of those moments in scripture

where we first get to see

that Jesus is so much more than just some really good human,

or a trickster who can use sleight-of-hand

or even just some old fashioned good luck

to cure people and turn water into wine.

It's the first time since Jesus' baptism

that the curtain between heaven and earth is parted

and the lights come on, as it were,

and God speaks,

and we get to see Jesus

in a way that we have never seen him before.

Usually we pair this reading up

with a reading from Exodus chapter twelve,

where Moses goes to the mountain for a meeting with God

and comes down with his very own shiny face.

That makes for an interesting Old Testament tie-in

to help us understand some of the tradition.

But when you pair this story up

with our reading from Second Peter,

it gives the transfiguration a whole ?nother dimension.

Peter testifies that he was a witness,

that the saw the whole thing

with his own two eyes.

But then he goes on to say something very puzzling:

"[N]o prophecy of scripture

is a matter of one's own interpretation,

because no prophecy ever came by human will,

but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit

spoken from God."

Is Peter reflecting on his own actions when he says that?

Or maybe he's saying to us

that we can't just make whatever we want to

out of what God brings to pass through the Holy Spirit.

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"Transfiguration" is not one of those words

that we come across in our regular vocabulary.

It's too long a word for Scrabble,

and it's not exactly something that happens every day.

Maybe you remember from reading the Harry Potter books

that Harry and the other students

who go to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

have to take a course in "Transfiguration."

That's the course that teaches them

how to change teacups into rats

or flowers into candles.

And that's probably not far off

from what most of us think when we hear that word.

We think of "transfiguration"

as a change of state from one thing into another.

The Greek word for it

is the same one that gives us the word "metamorphosis."

And that's a word that also conjures up the idea

of caterpillars turning into butterflies,

or, for those of you who enjoy reading Franz Kafka,

the idea of waking up one day

to discover that you've been turned into a giant beetle.

But what sets the transfiguration of Jesus apart

from fictional fantasy

or even from quantifiable biology

is this:

Jesus didn't really change, did he?

That two thousand years of theology //

has taught us that the humanness of Jesus

coexisted right alongside his divine nature.

It wasn't like he could toggle between the two

whenever he felt like it.

It was more the case

that something that was a part of who Jesus had been all along

was displayed that day in a different way.

That's important for us to remember.

Because in those times when Jesus said things like

"If you have seen me, you have seen the Father."

he wasn't just talking about this one particular

and rather showy episode in his life.

He meant that his divinity

was on display every day of his life.

When he spoke kindly

to ostracized women and outcast lepers,

when he wept over a dead friend,

and when he smiled

at a misguided but earnest rich young ruler,

he was God in the flesh the whole time.

What this also tells us, on the verge of Lent,

is that the glory of God the Creator

and the fullness of God in three persons

was on display when Jesus was given a crown of thorns

and hoisted onto a cross.

Maybe that's why Transfiguration Sunday

is always on the Sunday before we go into Lent -

to remind us that the One transfigured

was also the One crucified

and the One risen.

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But to borrow a favorite word of my friend John Williams,

even knowing and realizing

that fine but important theological point

doesn't make this story any less funky.

Our first inclination

is to try and crack the mystery,

to figure out the exact meaning of what happened,

to break it down into something that we can understand.

You know, though,

sometimes the best thing to do with mystery

is just to be in the presence of it

without trying to do anything.

Sometimes, maybe our first mode of action

should be to try and make ourselves the anti-Peter.

Our first instinct

is usually to try and tame something that we can't understand,

in this case to manage the transfiguration.

We are prone to continue our same old patterned behaviors

even when holiness is breaking in on us.

We want Jesus to be "our" Jesus -

the one we think we already know,

the one who fits neatly

into a booth that we are able to make.

When this is the way we approach the transfiguration,

it lets all the air out of the tires

and we can write this off as just a curious story.

Nothing changes,

nothing happens,

and we get to keep rocking along,

living the same predictable way

with the same predictable faith.

But what if,

what if we decided just to be in the presence

of the glory of this day?

What if we decided,

instead of trying to manage the transfiguration,

that we let the holiness of God

transform what we believe to be manageable?

What if we did away with that cautious distance

that we usually keep between ourselves and God?

What if,

to borrow a phrase from Peter,

we let the dark places inside of ourselves

be lit up with the glory of this day?

What if we decided

not to see what we could make of this story,

but to see instead

what this story might make of us?

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What if?

We'd be scared to death.

The letter to the Hebrews comes right out and says it:

"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands

of the living God."  (Hebrews 10:31)

Real encounters with God

can be deeply moving.

But they can be as threateningly fearful

as they can be life transforming.

Jesus revealed himself to the disciples

on the mountaintop that day.

But he also did something more.

He demanded that they follow him,

that they walk the same path that he walks.

No wonder the disciples fell on the ground!

And no wonder Jesus tells them

to get up and not be afraid!

There's a lot of research out there right now

that tells us that Americans are on a spiritual search.

But the research shows

that they're not as interested in being involved with a church

and walking the walk of discipleship with others

as they are in seeking the solitary spiritual high.

Maybe they're on to something.

It's a lot more pleasant and a lot less demanding

to seek for God in an individual way,

in a way that one is freer to shape and form

as one sees fit,

than it is to give oneself over

to be formed instead

in a way over which they have no control.

It's like Annie Dillard says:

if we had the foggiest idea of what sort of power we invoke

when we worship and pray to God,

we'd be wearing crash helmets.

The ushers would be issuing life preservers

and adding seat belts to the pews.

Why is it that more people aren't here this morning?

You know all the standard reasons.

Some people will say that they can't sing all those old hymns.

Some will say that they don't like all the new hymns, either!

Or they might say they don't know why we live in the past

and insist on telling the old, old story.

Some might say that we're unfriendly;

they would be few in number,

but they're going to say that anyway.

Or they say that we use a bunch of strange words,

or do odd things together,

or they find the Bible impossible to understand.

They don't get it

that being a disciple of Christ

takes a long time,

even a lifetime of training,

and discipline, and formation.

I suggest, though,

that lots of people avoid church

not because they misunderstand what we are about,

but that they understand all too well.

Church is about God.

Church is about the possibility

of an encounter with the risen Christ.

sometimes threatening,

but always life-changing,

Church is about seeing God's way and God's will

in the world -

a way that is very different from the ways we are used to -

and then having to say "yes" or "no"

to walking that way.

Church is about all that.

And knowing that scares a lot of people to death.

But look at you!

You have gathered here today

because you've encountered Jesus,

and you have some of that healthy fear of life.

Jesus has appeared to you

in all of his radiant glory.

He has reassured you,

told you to rise and follow him,

promised to be with you every step of the way,

no matter what the journey holds.

And you followed.

And so, given that,

you must be ready for a little transfiguration.

Where are the places in your life,

where God would come in and blow the fresh wind of the Spirit,

but we are more interested in making memorials?

What would happen

if we held on tight to those promises Jesus has made to us

while we air out the house

and let God's wind blow where it will?

Jesus is challenging you and me and all of us this day

to put the fear behind us,

to take those things which we consider to be manageable

and let God transfigure them.

It's a risky proposition, to be sure.

No one has promised us otherwise.

But we ARE promised,

through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,

the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,

that we will be given all the courage and strength we need. 

Let's give it a try.

Amen.

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The idea from Annie Dillard can be found in her now-classic work Teaching a Stone to Talk.