Transfiguration

The Gospel reading for tomorrow is known as the Transfiguration as when Jesus takes Peter, James and John up on a high mountain he is metamorphosized before their eyes. That's the Greek of the passage. Jesus goes through a metamorphosis, a transfiguration, "and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white." Then Elijah and Moses appear to speak with Jesus. Peter says "Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." It is such a special effects scene that it is hard to picture.

Thomas Merton wrote of something similar happening to him that was more down to earth in his Confessions of a Guilty Bystander:

I was in Louisville, Kentucky, in the shopping mall, when I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people around me, even though they were complete strangers. It felt like waking from a dream. It was as if I could see the secret beauty in their hearts, the deep self where sin and ego can't reach, the core of their reality, the person that each is in God's eyes. I couldn't explain it. How can you go up to people and tell them they're walking around shining like the sun? If only they could see themselves as they truly are. If only we could all see each other that way all the time. I suppose the problem would be that we'd fall down and worship each other.

The Rev. Dr. Michael battle preached about it this way,

...religious people often get in the way of the living God. When witnessing the transfiguration, Peter, James and John got in the way by trying to build shrines. St. Paul knew he got in the way when he asked, “‘Who are you, Lord?' The Lord answered, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting'” (Acts 26:15).

We may think we're doing good by defending orthodoxy. We may think we're doing good by declaring a prophetic utterance of justice. The problem for us religious folks, however, is that our good may in fact be evil because our only frame of reference is a violent world. If God's strangeness unfolded before us, wouldn't we also be afraid?

So, how do we know? How can we tell the difference between God and me? How do we know if it is of God or simply indigestion? Paul gives us the answer: “‘The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy.' And they glorified God because of me” (Galatians 1:23-24). Paul's answer to help us distinguish God from ourselves is the humility of confessing that our religion often gets in the way of God. Religion becomes faith through humility.

The full text of his sermon is here: Conversion of Light.