Transfiguration - February 26, 2017

Last Epiphany 2017 - February 26, 2017

Feast of the Transfiguration

Today is the last day of the season of Epiphany.  It seems so long ago that we celebrated the coming of the wise men, and Jesus’ baptism. Actually, we celebrated Jesus baptism in a nearly empty church on a very very snowy and icy day in early January.  So here we sit, nearly 50 days later, still celebrating Epiphany, or Epiphanies. Because it was so long ago, here’s a brief reminder of what and why we celebrate Epiphany for so very long. 

Epiphany is this time after the nativity, where the wise people who put together the church calendar pack in a lot of readings designed to reveal something to us about Jesus.  Every year the readings change, repeating every three years, and this year, we spent much of Epiphany focusing on what the Gospel of Matthew reveals to us about Jesus. We started Epiphany hearing about Jesus’ baptism, where God descends of Jesus like a dove, and says this is my son, my beloved.  Through this lesson, we learn who Jesus is by his family relations, by who is Father is, and the claim God makes about Jesus.   

Then we spend much Epiphany reading through the Sermon on the Mount, kicking it off with the Beatitudes.  Blessed are the poor, the peacemakers, the hungry, the persecuted.  With this, we begin to see what Jesus, God’s son, values. We learn who Jesus is based on what he values.

Those values were as startling and counter-cultural back in his time as they are today. People have always wanted power and prestige and wealth. Jesus was telling the people that no, that’s not what makes you blessed. He goes further to clarify that this isn’t against the law of the time, but rather an extension of or clarification of the law. He needed to say this, because he was a good Jew talking to good Jews. He wasn’t trying to dismantle those teachings, but rather clarify.  For example, don’t just promise to abstain from murder; most of us can do that. No, abstain from the hate in your heart that leads to murder.  We learn who Jesus is based on how he understands the laws and expectations of the time.

We heard that not only are we to love our neighbors, we are to pray for those who persecute you.  Turn the other cheek. Give them your coat. For God, he continued, causes the sun to rise on the righteous and unrighteous.  This is really tough stuff. Now Jesus is taking on not only the culture, its norms, literalism, but also the dark parts of my heart. Where I want to hold a grudge. Where I feel I’m allowed to hold a grudge. Righteous indignation.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen plenty of that behavior in the past three months. We learn who Jesus is based on his stark calling-out of our deepest, darkest tightly-held convictions of superiority and righteousness.

Digressing a little bit, I want to share what happened and what was said at a memorial service I attended a few weeks ago. The memorial was for Carrie Miller, a well known member of the Eugene community, although I suspect few here knew here. Raised in Oklahoma, she had a difficult childhood and a dysfunctional family.  She was in the Navy reserves, and moved to Eugene 20 years ago. She was an advocate for people less fortunate, cooking meals for the homeless.  She served as a mother-figure to many of the younger homeless people on the streets. She was 58 when she died, and she died alone outside, on the steps of the local drug and alcohol treatment center on January 10. Carrie was a chronic alcoholic, and had been homeless for the 20 years she lived in Eugene. 

At her memorial, one of the local pastors Dan Bryant, shared that in our community, we see people with big hearts, helping people, serving food, providing shelter. The problem, he continued, is that we also attach a sense of justified worthiness. We help children in need because they deserve it. They’re innocent. On the other hand, the same good-hearted helpers don’t help people on the streets because we’ve decided they aren’t worthy. We decide because of some action, illness, behavior or appearance we are justified in not being compassionate. Not helping.

Worthiness, however, is not ours to determine.  It’s God’s, and God’s alone.   Whether it’s judging the homeless on the street, or those who voted differently than you did in the last election, I’ll finish this digression with a quote from Samuel Johnson.  “God does not propose to judge a man until his life is over. Why should you and I?”

So through Epiphany, we’ve learned about Jesus through his familial relations, his values, has understanding of the law, and his conviction of our deep-seated self-righteousness and judgement of others.

During this season Epiphany we’ve also seen how others respond to him and how they understand Jesus. The Pharisees and Seduces wanted proof. I’ve been there.  I want some demonstrable proof, some indication that my faith and belief isn’t wasted on fantasy. We’ve seen the disciples hem and haw, not knowing how to respond when Jesus asked, “Who do people say I am,”.  Um, some say Elijah.  Um.  I’ve been there too.  Unsure and unable to respond intelligibly.  We’ve seen Peter respond clearly and definitively respond that Jesus was the Messiah, only to deny knowing him and deserting him as he was dying.  I’ve done that too. Responded blindly, emphatically, and then been unable to hold on to that when the going got tough.  Through the responses Jesus gets from others, we see reflected how we respond.

So today, we conclude Epiphany with the transfiguration, where Jesus is illumined before Peter, James and John.  

What does this Transfiguration tell us about Jesus, and what does the response of others tell us about ourselves?  Jesus takes a small group up a mountain and is lit up. Again, a voice says, “this is my Son, my beloved, listen to him”, similar to the account of Jesus’ baptism that started our Epiphany. So again we are reminded of Jesus’ divinity.

This is an example of “theophany”, or an experience of God with the senses we have – sight and sound.  If any of you have ever had an experience that you can’t explain, that seemed like God, it might have been.  I have had one and only one such experience.  After coming home and telling my husband, he said that if he didn’t know me, he’d think I was crazy.  My priest at the time explained that it was an experience between God and me, invisible and unknowable to anyone else. I had two choices in response.  I could put it on the shelf as a really neat woo-woo experience.  Or, I could try to figure out why then, why there, why that.  What was God trying to tell me at that moment.  Eventually, my searching led me to pursue being an ordained deacon.  If you ever have a theophany, you aren’t crazy, despite what your husband might say, and please don’t lock it away as a neat experience. But I digress. 

After the disciples’ experience this, they fall to their knees in fear.  To this, Jesus responds with the most common words of Jesus, “do not be afraid”.  Matthew also tells us that Jesus touches them.  What an intimate, compassionate response, from Jesus – fully divine and fully human. Jesus tells them to not be afraid, and then physically consoles them with touch. 

When they experience this illumined Jesus in the presence of Elijah and Moses, the disciples respond a pretty mundane and almost absurd response.  It is good you are here. We will build three houses.  I’m pretty sure that if two long-dead people appeared to me, along with someone lit up like the sun, they probably don’t really need dwellings. And yet what was happening was so far out of the realm of anything they’d experienced, they tried to make sense of it with what they knew, human dwellings. 

This is a familiar trait – trying to make sense of the unimaginable.  About 10 years ago, I was awoken from a sound sleep to crackling sound outside.  I pulled back the curtains, and the yard was blazing bright with fire.  I thought what any reasonable person would think, having been awoken.  Clearly, a meteor had fallen in to my back yard.  Amazing, huh?  But when I got outside, it wasn’t a meteor after all. It was my chicken coop which was totally engulfed in flames.  The disciples see the prophets, and Jesus illumined, and respond with what they know… Um, we’ll build you three houses.  But perhaps, silence would have been a better response, because in the face of the incomprehensible, our little brains try to fit things in to our experiences. 

So what do we learn from this last of the Epiphany readings?  From his illumination and from the voice from the clouds, we see Jesus’ divinity – how much Jesus was not the same as you and me.  From his words and actions, we see his humanity – how much Jesus was just like you and me.  And from the reaction of the disciples, we see how hard it is to encounter Jesus and God without reducing the encounter to something we can understand or explain away.  To try to build a dwelling when our response should be so much more.

As we head in to Lent, I think this Transfiguration story can help us.  Lent is a time when we are to think about who Jesus is and what he means to us. From Epiphany, we get a picture of who Scripture says Jesus is, who is family is, what he values, how he understands the law.  Think on that as we enter the dry period of Lent.  As Jesus asked, “Who do you say I am?”

Throughout Epiphany, we’ve learned about Jesus’ humanity, his love and response to the disciples. Through Lent, think about what it means that God came to Earth, fully human.  Fully able to understand our ups and downs, because Jesus experienced the best and worst humanity has to offer. 

And finally, we learned through Epiphany of our reaction to God incarnate through the reaction of people in Scripture to Jesus.  Through our simple lives and experiences, we could make the error of trying to seek proof, get legalistic, be overly simplistic, or fearful to God’s presence in our lives.  As the collect succinctly states, “Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory.”  By faith.  Strengthened by the light.  To bear our cross.  Changed into his likeness.  Armed with this, we head into Lent. 

Amen.