Tag Archives: Transfiguration

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?

“This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” (Last Sunday after the Epiphany, 3/2/2025)

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Readings

The eyes and the ears: what happens if we attend to these while reading today’s lessons?

The eyes are the easy part: Moses’ face shining, Jesus’ face and clothing really shining, Paul’s promise that his hearers, having turned to Jesus, will themselves shine. Not hard to get a decent sermon out of that. And attention to the eyes can speak powerfully to us in two ways.

First within the text and—for that matter—the Church calendar. Three days from now is Ash Wednesday, when we’ll begin to walk with Jesus to his death. That’s an important walk. But as we do it, it’s easy to start thinking that Jesus went to his death because he didn’t have any choice: too many enemies, no place to hide. And that’s when we need to remember today’s reading. The Jesus whom we’ll join as he walks to his death is the same Jesus we saw dazzling white on the mountain. If he dies, it’s not because he’s run out of choices.

Second, so the light show’s over? No; here’s where we come in. St. Paul tells us that as we look to Jesus some of that light, some of that glory, starts to rub off: “all of us…are being transformed…from one degree of glory to another.” No. The light show’s not over. “The God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’” will shine in and through us as we consent to it.

And Paul’s writing this to the Christians in Corinth. Corinth was a boisterous, rowdy seaport, and from Paul’s letters it looks like the Christians there fit right in. Paul repeatedly struggles to make himself understood. There are factions. It’s one body, but the eye is saying to the hand “I don’t need you” and the head to the foot “I don’t need you.” And precisely in that unpromising context Paul hopes for light, transformation, glory. And if Paul can hope for light, transformation and glory there, how much more can we hope for it even in our parishes in Wisconsin.

What about the ears? Let’s look at the Gospel again.

Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. 31 They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.

Jesus goes up the mountain to pray. Prayer: Luke emphasizes this practice, making it explicit where the other gospels don’t. So preparing this sermon I wondered what my devoting more time and energy to prayer might mean. (It’s a real nuisance when the text turns around and bites the preacher!)

Then there’s Luke’s summary of the conversation between Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, speaking of his departure (Greek ἔξοδος) “which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.” ‘Exodus’: while the Greek word is common enough, Luke’s using it here to point toward Jesus’ decision to time his passion with the Passover celebration, perhaps Jesus’ most important interpretation of his own death: an exodus, a liberation more radical than the one in Moses’ time.

How do you free Israel—or any nation, for that matter—from the various forms of interlocking economic, ideological, and political oppression? Flee to the wilderness like the Essenes? Continue to assassinate Romans and Roman stooges like the Zealots? Encourage meticulous observance of selected portions of the law and shun the non-observers like the Pharisees? Journey to Jerusalem for a new exodus like Jesus? Notice that the Essenes, the Zealots, the Pharisees, and Jesus are responding to the same question. It’s not a specifically religious question. It’s one of the most basic human questions: how do we maintain/create/regain (choose your verb) a way of living together that doesn’t self-destruct?

And here’s where the ears again become important. A few verses later, partly in response to Peter’s suggestion, the divine voice says “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” Listen to him. What might that mean?

Well, let’s recall what we’ve heard Jesus say. Back in the Nazareth synagogue: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.…” The Gospel writers thematize this as announcing the kingdom of God, the kingdom that this morning’s psalm celebrated (Ps 99). “O mighty King, lover of justice, / you have established equity; */ you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.” Magnificent. And then Jesus spoils it all with his examples: the widow at Zarephath in Sidon, Naaman the Syrian, warning us that God’s generosity extends to our enemies. Worse, Jesus’ conduct matches his words: sharing a table with tax collectors and sinners, healing the servant of a Roman centurion. That, Jesus would have us understand, is what God’s justice and righteousness look like: the Good Shepherd abandoning the ninety nine to seek out the one who’s strayed.

Perhaps you’ve seen the cartoon based on this story. Jesus shows up with the lost sheep on his shoulders and the rest of the sheep respond, “No, Lord. You don’t know how much effort it took to get rid of her!”

Turns out that while listening to Jesus is sometimes easy, it’s sometimes not so easy. How do we build a world that’s sustainable, that doesn’t self-destruct? That’s what Jesus is talking about. And we really need to hear Him, in the midst of so many voices that urge some form of identity politics. And anyone can play this game. We’re for inclusivity? Then we need to stand against those who don’t share our vision of inclusivity! (Thank goodness Lent is coming!) So, it’s not simply that Jesus came proclaiming the kingdom of God, but proclaiming that kingdom and a particular way in which He and His followers were to live on the threshold of that kingdom: forgiving, mirroring God’s generosity even to their enemies, abstaining from violence in word and deed. “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”