Sermon for February 23, 2020 - Last Sunday after the Epiphany - Year A - The Rev'd Jeffrey W. Mello

This morning we remember the Transfiguration, when Jesus ascends the mountain with three of his followers, is transfigured before them, and stands with Moses and Elijah, representing the Law and the Prophets. This morning we remember Peter, whose impulse it is to build places for Jesus and Moses and Elijah to stay.  We remember God’s voice again proclaiming Jesus God’s beloved child.  And we remember that all of this disappeared as quickly as it arrived, as Jesus and his followers go back down the mountain, toward Jerusalem and all that waits for them there.

This morning, we are invited to consider how we might “practice Transfiguration”[1]in our own lives, today.

Chances are that most of you are here this morning because, at some point in your life, you experienced a transfiguration of your own, though you may not have used that language.

But you may have had an experience of God that planted a seed within you that would keep you seeking that experience for the remainder of your lifetime; a word spoken by an elder; knowing the unconditional love of another, or offering it yourself.

I know I have had mine.  The reason I find myself ordained and leading a congregation is due to a deep desire I have for others to know what I have known in my life about the transformative love of God in Christ, and to experience those moments of Transfiguration again for myself.

I wonder what transformative, if not transfigurative, experiences are being held in your heart that have sustained you in your lives.

Or maybe you are here because you have heard someone talk about an experience of God they have had in their life and you long for a mountain-top experience like that for yourself. 

Whatever longing you have in your heart, God has placed it there, and it’s all there in this story from Matthew’s Gospel.  Though it seems ancient and maybe a little sci-fi, I love this story because it strikes at a basic truth for all of us who strive to follow Jesus.  

And that truth is that we might glimpse God on a mountaintop, and that glimpse might leave us certain of the presence of God in our life, but we are always led, from those experiences, back into the “real” world where we are to serve God, no matter how unsure of the presence of God we might again become.

We keep trying to climb mountaintops, and God keeps sending us into hard work of the world.

Peter wants things to stay like they were at the peak, up in the clouds.  He offers to build tents for Jesus and Moses and Elijah.  Set apart from the world, basking in the certainty of God’s voice and Jesus’ glow, Peter wants things to stay just like that.  And who can blame him? Peter, quite literally, has his head in the clouds.

But Jesus knows that the Kingdom of God is not on that mountain peak. It is back down the mountain and toward Jerusalem where he is certain of the task in front of him. The path down the mountain will lead him to the cross.

We climb the mountain with Jesus, Peter, James and John this morning as we do every year on the last Sunday after the Epiphany, the last Sunday before Lent.

 This feast is, in our liturgical calendar, the moment we descend the mountain top seasons of Christmas and Epiphany and head into the forty days of Lent that leads us to Jerusalem and to the cross. 

 We will turn our attention from the radiant experiences of God’s revelations among us; as an infant, as one worshipped by the Magi, presented in the temple, and baptized in the River Jordan. For weeks we have heard the stories of our faith that center on the revelation of God to the world, weeks reminded of where God is in the world and how God is moving.  Weeks of mountaintop experiences.

 But we cannot stay there.  We cannot build tents and live in Christmas or Epiphany.  We must head into the world where the Kingdom of God lives.

 We must practice Transfiguration.

To consider how we might practice Transfiguration in our own lives, we might ask ourselves how we are intentionally creating time and space to climb the mountain with Jesus as our guide.  How might you place yourself in the presence of God? What feeds your relationship with God and how intentional are you about practicing it?  

Maybe it is weekly worship, or daily prayer.  A time of intentional silence or a long quiet walk along the Muddy river.  Where is God waiting to meet you, to show you the radiance of God’s glory that you might be fed and sustained for the work ahead of you?

That is practicing Transfiguration.

Practicing Transfiguration is also asking ourselves what tents we have built in our lives to keep God from slipping through our grasp.  Is it hard to see Christ in the world because we have left him back up on the mountaintop?

The tents we build have power over us.  Nostalgia tricks us into thinking God was more present “back then” or “back there.” We invent the “good old days” and we place God in a place and time not our own.  Remember back when Sunday schools were overflowing, back when churches were packed, back life was easier and people were nicer.

More than shining faces and voices from clouds, the real myths of the Transfiguration are the tents we have built for God in our lives.  These tents do nothing but rob us from God’s presence in the here and now and they ignore the reality that, while some might have been living on the mountaintops of the “Good Old Days,” it was only because countless others were living out their lives on Calvary.

We are not meant to live out our lives on the mountaintop. They are but momentary and fleeting glimpses of the Divine.  These glimpses serve to nourish us for the journey back into the world where we see the face of Christ in everyone we see.  Down the mountain and in the world where we clothe the body of Christ, liberate the prisoner Christ, free the slave Christ, feed the hungry Christ, soothe the suffering Christ, and heal the broken Christ.  We do all this, sustained by the power of the Risen Christ who is always waiting to greet us at the empty tomb.

So, come.  Hear the Good News. 

Receive the Peace of Christ and hear that you are God’s beloved. 

Share with us in the Breaking of Bread where we know the Lord Jesus. 

Experience the healing power of Christ’s Love. 

Bask in the radiance of God’s glory sung in joyful voices. 

Be transformed, and maybe even transfigured. 

Enjoy this time on the mountain, for there is a world of Jerusalems waiting for you, needing you, just on the other side of those doors. 

© 2020 The Reverend Jeffrey W. Mello[2]

[1] Many thanks to Carl Greg for his ideas on “practicing transfiguration.”  https://www.patheos.com/blogs/carlgregg/2011/02/lectionary-commentary-practicing-transfiguration-for-march-6-2011/

[2] While all direct and indirect quotes are always cited, there are sources I read regularly in preparation for sermon writing.  Chances are thoughts have been spurred by these sources and so I list the usual suspects here:  David Lose, In the Meantime, The New Interpreters Bible, Sacra Pagina .