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At the Transfiguration: A “No!” and a “Yes!” (The Last Sunday after the Epiphany, 2/15/2026)

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Readings

In today’s Gospel we encounter a “no” and a “yes.”

The “no” is to Peter’s apparently quite reasonable proposal: “if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Jesus’ glory revealed, Jesus with Moses and Elijah, the “dream team” of Jewish piety: who could ask for more? Why not stay here…permanently? Down below so many needs…and the Pharisees…and the Roman occupation. Here, peace and glory.

Why the divine “no”? What’s at stake here? Perhaps the issue is the temptation to reduce discipleship or faith to the search for religious experiences. It doesn’t get more sublime or spectacular than what Peter, James, and John were witnessing.

But no. “This is my Son…listen to him!” And listening to and following Jesus means descending from the mountain, not hanging on to even the best of spiritual experiences, because Jesus is already down below; ahead of us.

Having said that, among us Episcopalians the more common temptation is to write off these moments on the mountain. Jesus knew that Peter, James, and John needed to be there. Jesus knows that perhaps most of us need some moments on the mountain.

But perhaps the “no” is about something else, the temptation to idolize a particular moment in the church’s history or in a parish’s history. “If only we were back in the 1st Century!” “If only it could be like it was under Father X.” And the text encourages us not to get stuck: we may even get the three dwellings built, but by then Jesus will be a considerable way down the mountain.

The glory of God on the mountain and the descent. That’s one of the rhythms of life, a rhythm this text encourages us to appreciate and fall in with. The “no” may help us appreciate that.

The “yes.” To focus the “yes” we need to wonder about what happened on the mountain. Why Moses and Elijah? That was important information for the disciples, for as good Jews they knew who Moses and Elijah were, but were still trying to figure out who Jesus was. Moses: giver of the Law; Elijah: representative of the entire prophetic tradition; Jesus? How does Jesus fit with Moses and Elijah? The Voice: “Listen to Jesus!” That is, when push comes to shove, let Jesus show us what Moses and Elijah; the institutions of law and prophecy, are about.

Now, once we recognize that the text is also about how Jesus relates to institutions, Jesus’ primacy over institutions, the text can really open up. That issue is our issue. How does Jesus relate to our institutions? The human being, Aristotle observed, is a political animal: we’re born into them, live, move, and have our being in them. Nations, the economy, custom: in their own way they’re as real as anything. Many cultures treat them as gods. Our culture says it doesn’t, but I wonder. We say, “The economy’s healthy.” “The economy’s sick.” More ominously: “The economy demands sacrifices.” TV and the internet give us instant access to competing priesthoods of the economy, a.k.a., the economists, with their competing prescriptions for what will make the economy happy.

As gentiles, our issue isn’t how Jesus relates to Moses and Elijah. Heirs of the Graeco-Roman world, it usually is how Jesus relates to Venus, goddess of love; Mars, god of war; Pluto, god of wealth, Athena, goddess of wisdom, etc.

So…picture Jesus together with whichever of these gods or goddesses are relevant to you. They’re talking. Imagine what they might be saying. Now comes the cloud and the Voice from the cloud: “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”

All of these authorities, institutions, etc. depend on and will be transformed by Jesus. This is one of the points of the Transfiguration, with Moses and Elijah as representative authorities. It is Paul’s point as he speaks of Jesus: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers [here we might say “systems, institutions, customs”]– all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:15-17)

It doesn’t matter much which gods seem to be most important to us. Without Jesus they’d blink out of existence; in the end they’ll be visibly in submission to Jesus. In the light of this future, a future prefigured in the Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah as stand-ins for the many possible authorities, our challenge is our ongoing relationship with them today.

This is some of the hardest work we do as Christians. When we get it right, it’s wonderful (the abolition of slavery in the British Empire comes to mind, the non-violent end to apartheid in South Africa). When we don’t… Today we’re badly divided on any number of issues. What today’s Gospel tells us is that Jesus needs to be in our conversations about these issues from the start. Jesus—not my picture of Jesus. That’s an important distinction. If my engagement with these issues isn’t pushing me to encounter Jesus afresh through Word and Sacrament and through my sisters and brothers, then there’s a problem.

Friends, the issues the Transfiguration raises for us are not the sort that lend themselves to individual resolution. They, like so many challenges in the Christian life, demand a corporate response. They demand that we get better at listening to each other, talking with each other. I’m probably not better at hearing Jesus than I am at hearing the brother or sister with whom I disagree.

Deep breath. The Transfiguration: also an invitation to us to use our imaginations. Pluto, Venus, Mars, etc: what are the gods that claim turf in our lives? What will their visible submission to Jesus look like? How do we live that future now?

One Wild Ride (Epiphany, 1/6/2026)

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Readings

The readings for our celebration of the Epiphany take us on one wild ride. We think we’re headed to Jerusalem. Then there’s a small detour to Bethlehem. Then the itinerary explodes, with multi-colored sparks flying in all directions like a giant peony-shaped firework.

In our reading from Isaiah the “you” addressed is, grammatically, feminine singular, so, in context, Jerusalem. The promised divine light and glory contrast with the present reality: Jerusalem being simply a small impoverished bit of the Persian Empire. But “the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you,” and kings and nations will respond. Towards the end of the reading it sounds like the script for Matthew’s magi, and if we picture the magi arriving on camels, we have Isaiah to thank.

Today’s psalm is a prayer for the king that focuses on the ideal king’s priorities. And almost all of that focus is on his initiatives for the poor (“For he shall deliver the poor who cries out in distress, / and the oppressed who has no helper. / He shall have pity on the lowly and poor; / he shall preserve the lives of the needy.”). That’s its edge, for most kings had quite different priorities. Few kings had an egalitarian vision in which the blood of the poor mattered. The psalm was always an expression of hope. When the kingdom falls, it becomes an expression of messianic hope. It’s included in today’s readings probably because of the mention of the kings bringing gifts (vv.10-11). If we think of the magi as kings, we can thank this psalm.

Both Isaiah and the psalm direct our attention to Jerusalem. So it’s no surprise that the magi show up there. “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?” The capital does seem like the logical place to look. A consultation with the chief priests and scribes reroutes them to Bethlehem, and there they deliver their gifts.

Would Isaiah have been disappointed that those gifts didn’t end up in the temple? Perhaps Matthew thinks they did: a temple is defined by its occupant, and Matthew has already identified Jesus as Emmanuel (“God is with us”).

But how do we understand the magi’s gifts: tribute to someone else’s king, or to a king as much theirs as the Jews’? Perhaps they don’t know. But it’s one of the questions at the heart of whether Jesus is the Messiah/Christ, and what being the Messiah/Christ means: what to do about Israel’s enemies? What to do about or with the Gentiles? Even the apostles after the resurrection: “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Act 1:6) Or, to broaden the question, our first two readings: texts supporting a nationalistic (chauvinistic) agenda, or fleshing out that promise to Abraham “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen 12:3)?

It took Pentecost and the mini-Pentecost at the gentile Cornelius’ home to discern the answer, to discern what the magi’s gifts were about, and Paul lays it out in our reading from Ephesians: God’s mystery/secret now revealed: “the Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise.”

And this is playing out not only in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, but across the known world. That glory of the LORD Isaiah awaits? Recall Jesus’ promise: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Mat 18:20), also in Rome, also in Ripon. A giant peony-shaped firework.

And as Jesus’ brother James reminds us, it’s not a matter of special effects, but of living out today’s psalm’s egalitarian vision, Jesus’ vision. James: “My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in…” (2:1-2). Our readings have us focusing on Jew and Gentile; James reminds us that this isn’t the only division belief in our glorious Lord calls us to transcend.

The Gentiles: “fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise.” Very good news for us Gentiles. Good news for the Jews? That’s more ambiguous. On the one hand, it points to the fulfillment of that promise to Abraham: “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” On the other hand, it was easy to read the Bible (our Old Testament) in nationalistic/chauvinistic ways, and learning new ways of reading, thinking, behaving—that’s never easy. We like to think “your kingdom come” and “our kingdom come” point in the same direction; it’s unsettling when we discover they don’t. Both the Jews and Gentiles in these mixed house churches have hard work to do, which is why the New Testament writers give so much attention to their common life. Jews and Gentiles together: that’s by no means a done deal.

There’s an apocryphal story about Henry Kissinger visiting a zoo in Jerusalem where the centerpiece is a cage containing lions and lambs. Kissinger, astounded, corners the zookeeper: How do you do it? The zookeeper: you just have to keep adding lambs.

And in the “no pressure” department, we hear “so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” Where Paul talks of rulers and authorities—and he does so repeatedly in this letter—we talk of institutions, identities, “the powers that be,” what seems plausible or possible. Think of how we talk about the economy: the economy is healthy; the economy is nervous; the economy demands sacrifices.

These rulers and authorities are not necessarily evil, but they do tend to be overly jealous of their own turf, to keep us divided, suspicious, fearful.

One commentator puts it this way:

“[T]he Church provides hostile cosmic powers with a tangible reminder that their authority has been decisively broken and that all things are subject to Christ. The overcoming of the barriers between Jews and Gentiles, as they are united through Christ in the Church, is a pledge of the overcoming of all divisions when the universe will be restored to harmony in Christ.” From the beginning of the book Paul’s been talking about that divine plan “to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (1:10).

In Paul’s vision, God’s intention is that if you want to see where world history is headed, look at the Church. And that, of course, is the challenge, for too often our churches simply replicate existing divisions.

The magi. In God’s providence they were guided to the One in whom God is gathering all things, “things in heaven and things on earth.” To celebrate Epiphany is to recommit ourselves to their not having made that long trip for nothing.

Armor for the struggle (14th Sunday after Pentecost, 8/25/2024)

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Readings (Track 1)

Last week’s sermon was on the long side; this week’s on the short side, focusing on the Epistle and Gospel.

Paul writes “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” In our generation perhaps no one has unpacked this better than Martin Luther King Jr. The following is from something he wrote in 1957 for the Christian Century, talking about non-violence.

“A third characteristic of this method is that the attack is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who are caught in those forces. It is evil we are seeking to defeat, not the persons victimized by evil. Those of us who struggle against racial injustice must come to see that the basic tension is not between races. As I like to say to the people in Montgomery, Alabama: ‘The tension in this city is not between white people and Negro people. The tension is at bottom between justice and injustice, between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. And if there is a victory it will be a victory not merely for fifty thousand Negroes, but a victory for justice and the forces of light. We are out to defeat injustice and not white persons who may happen to be unjust.’”

Good words to remember during an election year. Good words to remember any year, a clear example of what Paul’s list (“the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places”) is about. In King’s case, the cultural assumption that the blacks were less than the whites, an assumption reflected in customs and laws. But oppression takes many forms, and the spiritual forces of evil are happy to help us understand why it’s best left unchallenged.

But when Paul describes the armor for that struggle, it can begin to sound dicey. Weaponize truth, righteousness, the Word of God? We have the scars to remind us of how that often ends up. Recall Lincoln’s response to someone’s confident affirmation of God being on the Union’s side: “Sir, my concern is not whether God is on my side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side.”

And if we wonder what being on God’s side looks like, we have today’s Gospel. In response to Jesus’ teaching regarding his flesh and blood, the narrator records the reaction of many of the disciples: “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” So Jesus asks the Twelve: “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter: “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” It’s not that the Twelve find the teaching any less difficult, but they understand that they need to keep listening to Jesus.

This gives us, I think, a useful way of talking about belief and unbelief. Neither the believers nor the unbelievers understand Jesus; the believers are still trying to learn from him, still trying to follow him.

And this stance, this spirituality if you will, is what keeps the armor in our Epistle from becoming destructive. The truth, righteousness, faith, word of God: that’s what we need for our continuing learning, what—if we let it—gets us, as the text puts it, “ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.” Put another way, as Paul says, this armor isn’t for enemies of flesh and blood. If we find ourselves assuming that these enemies of flesh and blood are  the ones who really need the truth, righteousness, etc. we should be prepared to discover that the spiritual forces of evil are happy to welcome us as fellow travelers, useful idiots. And that we do want to avoid.