Sermon for Last Sunday after Epiphany - Transfiguration - The Rev. Jeffrey W. Mello - February 27th, 2022

To view a video of the Rev. Jeffrey W. Mello’s Sermon, click HERE.

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

In his letter to the church at Corinth, St. Paul draws for his readers an image of the Jewish people as still having a veil between them and the truth of the love of God. Cutting Paul the greatest slack possible, he is guilty of tearing another group down in an attempt to build his own people up.  It is very problematic.  And it is dangerous.  It is this language we hear in our church that, left unexamined, feeds the idea that our Jewish siblings are “less than” and in need of conversion at our sometimes threatening and too often violent hands.

There is a desire by many to have readings like this stricken from our lectionary cycle.  It is exhausting to have to unpack these readings every time they appear, and it is lethal to our Jewish siblings not to.

If we hide these readings, and others like it, away, they are still there, part of our sacred book.  By ignoring them, we become ill equipped to address them, to critique them and, as appropriate, to condemn them.  Our sacred story is filled with images that we, as children of a loving God and followers of Jesus, must face head on, engage with and argue over in an unending pursuit of the Truth that reveals to us God’s dream for the world God has made.

And today’s Gospel story from Luke provides a very different relationship between Jesus’ followers and the Jewish faith they practice.  This final epiphany in the season of Epiphanies tells the story we know as the Transfiguration; the revelation of Jesus as God’s chosen one on top of a mountain standing with Moses and Elijah.  In this story, in which Peter and James and John learn who Jesus is, Jesus is not above the Jewish faith, he is not beyond it.  He is surrounded by it, immersed in it, literally in conversation with it, as he is seen talking to Elijah and Moses.

So, please, listen to Paul, but do so with, as the academics call it, a “hermeneutic of suspicion.”

As I wrote this preamble of sorts to my sermon, it occurred to me that my desire to write it, and my ability to preach it here, and my hope that you will hear it comes only as a result of an Epiphany of my own, a Transfiguration experience in my own life.

There is an popular axiom on the internet that goes, “I can’t un-see that.”  It is used in reference to bizarre or disturbing images.  After watching your priest tap dance at a talent show, you might turn to the person sitting next to you and say, “Well, I can’t un-see that.”  P.S.  That is not happening this morning at our talent show.

In researching that phrase, “I can’t un-see that, '' I found what is believed to be one of the earliest expressions of that phrase on the internet.  Canadian cartoonist David Sim wrote, 

“Once a profound truth has been seen, it cannot be 'unseen'. There's no 'going back' to the person you were. Even if such a possibility did exist... why would you want to?” Dave Sim

That quote is the essence of what I understand the Transfiguration to mean for Peter, John, James, for Jesus, and for us.

“Once a profound truth has been seen, it cannot be 'unseen'. There's no 'going back' to the person you were. Even if such a possibility did exist... why would you want to?” Dave Sim

Having journeyed up the mountain with Jesus and having experienced this supernatural event of seeing the prophets, and Jesus glowing like Moses had before him, the cloud covering them and the voice from heaven declaring Jesus God’s beloved, it is all gone as quickly as it had arrived.

But what they had seen could not be unseen.  What they now know could never be unknown.  And they would never be the same.

The world into which they descend from the mountain top is, of course the same one that they had left to go up.  It was the same world, and it was completely different; completely different for them, and completely different for Jesus.

The scene into which they descend tells of a man who asks Jesus to heal his child, after having asked his followers to, and they could not.

Jesus is exasperated, frustrated with the crowds inability to do the work of God without him present having to do it on their behalf.

The world was the same.  The very same scene might have happened before the mountain.  But maybe they walked right by it.  Perhaps they didn’t notice the ill child or the desperate father.  But what they saw on the mountain they couldn’t unsee.  And they would never be the same.

Jesus’ ministry takes a drastic turn at the mountaintop.  From here on in, the road Jesus is on leads right to the cross.

Once the glory of God is seen it cannot be un-seen.  Once the shining light and resounding voice of God’s justice and peace and love has been seen and heard and felt, the world in which we have always lived our lives often looks a lot different to us.  What was once bearable becomes somehow unbearable, what might have been tolerable becomes intolerable, what had been invisible is now as bright as the face of God.

We only feel for the suffering of the world because we know that it can be different.  We only hear the cries of the poor and the oppressed because we have heard the voice of love and justice.  We only see the injustice of the world because we have an idea of the justice and peace God desperately longs for us to receive.

Which leads me back to my preface to this sermon.  I have heard that reading from Corinthians at least once every three years for 53 years.  So probably 17 times.  And how many of those times that I heard it, or even read it, was I unable to hear the danger in Paul’s words?  Over the past decade or so, though, I have intentionally learned and listened to my Jewish siblings and colleagues, to academics and theologians, to friends and family, and now I cannot un-see what I have seen, unhear what I have heard, or un-know what I now know.  The reading hasn’t changed.  But I have.  

My son goes to Curry College.  You may have read in the news that Curry College has had a series of racist and anti-semitic graffiti and threatening language found on bathroom stalls and walls on campus.  It resulted in the College going fully online for classes two days in the past few weeks.  They have sent out notices to all students and families every single time they have found something.  

I commented that I wished they wouldn’t let people know every single time.  I wondered why they didn’t just clean the wall and move on.  “Imagine,” I said, “If our parents got an email every time there was hate language on a bathroom stall in high school.  Every time there was a swastika drawn, or racist or homophobic slur scrawled.

And then I let myself wonder just that.  What if they had, 35 years ago, treated these cowardly acts of hate the way they were treating them now.  

35 years ago, those words struck terror in my heart whenever I saw them on a bathroom mirror or someone’s locker.  But I didn’t know then that it didn’t need to be an acceptable part of the life of a teenager and young adult.

35 years ago, the horrors of war were veiled to me.  Now, the images of Ukrainians hiding in subway stations and Russians marching for Peace grip my heart and bring me to my knees.

If you are wondering what is happening in the world, where God is in all of this; if things seem like they are getting worse rather than better, well, maybe that is what is happening.  

Or maybe, your heart knows something it hasn’t before known.  Maybe your eyes can see now what they had not before been able to see, your ears now hearing what had always been spoken but remained unheard by too many of us for far too long.

Maybe the world hasn’t changed.  Maybe you have.  Maybe we are.  Perhaps we are witnessing a world post Transfiguration.  A world in which anything short of the kingdom of God on earth is simply not acceptable.  

This reading of Jesus’ transfiguration is chosen as the reading for the the last Sunday of Epiphany because it serves as the tipping point between the Epiphanies of this season and the call to repentance and renewal we are offered in the season of Lent.

Between the mountaintop and the empty tomb on Easter morning, there is a great deal of pain to be witnessed.  There are tables to be turned and there are thieves to forgive.  There is betrayal and there is denial.  There is desert and there is temptation.  

For forty days we will walk with Jesus down from the mountaintop toward the cross, all the while begging Lord, have mercy upon us.  Christ have mercy upon us.  Lord have mercy upon us.

The world in which we live is the same world in which we have always lived.  The “good ol’ days” weren’t good for everyone.  

We are not called simply to get things back to the way they were before, but to make them better.  To make the world more loving, more filled with the Peace of God, more ruled by God’s justice than human’s greed and fear and senseless hate.

God in Jesus has shown us what is possible when we let God rule our hearts.

Jesus has shown us what is possible.

And we cannot un-see what has been seen.

“Once a profound truth has been seen, it cannot be 'unseen'. There's no 'going back' to the person you were. Even if such a possibility did exist... why would you want to?” Dave Sim

For the love of God and God’s children, why would you want to?

AMEN.

© 2022 The Reverend Jeffrey W. Mello