Matthew 17:1-9 Transfiguration
Transfiguration Sunday Sermon Feb. 3, 2008: the Rev. Dan Griggs
Have you ever wished you could be transformed into somebody else? or to somewhere else? or back to an earlier time in your life so you could do something all over again but better? or into the future so you can just skip over something you're facing right now? Have you ever wished you could be transformed like that? Let's talk about that for a few minutes, in relation to the story of Transfiguration Sunday.
I want to take the viewpoint of the three disciples in this story today: Peter James and John went up the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus. Three people: each one unique, different; each one knows his own sins and weak point and the way he comes across to other people. And Jesus invites us to go up the mountain with him anyway.
Peter is a natural leader, a little brash, but very enthusiastic; and yet he always manages in the end to blurt out the wrong thing.
Then there's James, the older of the ben-Zebed boys—in Hebrew ZeBHaD means "gifted," and James is gifted. As the oldest child in the family he sort of takes life in his stride—the only person he ever argues with is his brother, and that's why their father nicknamed them "the sons of thunder." James is intelligent, but also a man of few words; and what he does say comes across as ordering people around, as "you should" statements—a little bossy.
And the third disciple in the group is John, the younger ben-Zebed boy; and you know second children are always politicians, trying to get ahead of the older one. John knew how to get his calm older brother into a rage; but of course he has to cover up his part in the fuss, so he talks a lot about friendship, which he calls "love."
Here are three people, each different; and each one is a part of my own life—and yours. You can find yourself right here inside these people. So this is me and you that Jesus invites to go up the mountain with him. But going up, step by step, we feel our unworthiness to be on the mountain. We feel apprehensive about what will happen when we get to the top. We want religion, but we don't want too much religion: one or two mountain-top experiences in a lifetime would be enough. I’m not ready for too much.
Now this mountain is your life. It's always a pull. You can only stop and rest for a little while, and then you've got to go some more—going along our life, wishing for a transformation. Remember, this is a sermon about Transfiguration Sunday.
Might it not be easier if Jesus would just go ahead and zap me into another reality, transmogrify me into somebody else? Maybe I could start all over and rear the children right this time, knowing what I know now! choose a better career! pick better friends! save more money!
Maybe you could choose a husband who clips his toenails in private, or a wife whose voice doesn't grow piercing during the evening news: make a better choice—if there is such a thing. And what if there isn't? At least in the other life we've been zapped to, this theoretical opportunity to get beamed up higher, a person could at least lay the foundations for a better relation with the one that is. Or find one. Or lose one!
Transfiguration is such a wonderful daydream—to know Arnold Schwarzenegger! to drive a Jaguar. to be Barbara Walters, or Scarlett O'Hara. Bill Moyers once said that "We all do what we are second best at." Does that idea resonate with a younger you and the dreams you had?
Or maybe you are young, and you dream but you also doubt. What if by climbing this mountain with Jesus you could be changed just enough—just enough to be popular, to date that one very interesting person, to make the squad, to know you'll graduate instead of having to work for it and wait and worry. Wouldn't transfiguration be great! Ah, what wouldn't be possible!
Back to the text. At the top of the mountain they all sat down, and Jesus prayed—well, of course! He often prayed alone on some mountain. Peter James and John were willing, but the flesh was weak: they began to snore. I can't help thinking of that "Three Stooges" film that begins with Larry, Moe and Curley all asleep, snoring in different ways. Here are Peter James and John—that's us, sleeping through a mountain-top experience (we can only stand so many in one lifetime!).
There were voices. Peter cocked open an eye to see what was going on; and then with eyes wide and jaw slack he was shaking James and John: "Look at this! Pinch me!" We don't know the exact nature of what Peter saw—whether to take it literally, or figuratively, whether it was the dream he was dreaming or a vision like the one he had on the roof-top in the Book of Acts. I think this is a vision of some kind which the Gospel writer has fleshed out and interpreted so we, the readers, can understand it. Anyway, what Peter "saw" was transfiguration fulfilled. And do you know what? It wasn't anything like what he had wished for!
You already know this. God has this maddening way of dealing with us for what is good and beautiful and true, not for what we daydream about. And just like Peter James and John, it always catches us by surprise, and we have to figure out what it means.
What Peter saw was Jesus transfigured, not himself. It was Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah! not me talking with Angelina Jolie. And then Moses and Elijah disappeared as a cloud moved through, and God said: "This, this is my beloved Son: listen to HIM!"
Remember I suggested that Peter James and John are different aspects of myself/ yourself? Now the Peter-aspect of my personality will blurt out something dumb. And the James-part of me will make up some standards to assess the situation. And the John-side of me will be jealous that Peter had the vision instead of John. But the word of God cuts through all the jabbering going on in my mind: "This, Jesus is my beloved Son: listen to HIM."
Here is the reality of the situation: I am not in charge: God is. And transfiguration is not the daydream come true: it's Jesus Christ, my Redeemer, at the center. And what does this change for me? What gets transformed in me?
It means as a parent I pray, I do the best I know how; but the children already belong to God, and God will deal with them the way God wants to—which is about the same way God deals with me. So, Christian parent, the transfiguration is to let God have the last word. "Listen to him."
It means as a husband I pray, I keep my marriage vows, and I do the hard work of learning how to share life with someone who is a very different person and who is also growing and changing. This isn't just common sense, it's a spiritual discipline that John, later, when he began to understand, called "love."
This "transfiguration" means that as a student I pray, I study, I show up and do my best; but my life doesn't depend on it—my life depends on God. And if I don't make the squad, or if my skin is embarrassing to me, or if my brother or sister always seems to come out above me, it means that God still sees me, and has a path for me, and a place and work and hope for me. Transfiguration means "Listen to him."
And if I am old, if my joints don't bend with ease, or my eyes don't see so well, or my enthusiasm for living sags: still, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that God is able to keep what I have committed to him for that Day"—because, it's true, I'm not the one transfigured on the mountain: Jesus is transfigured, and that comes through to me as a promise that there is more for me, too.
So who is the story of the Transfiguration about? It's about Jesus, of course; and Peter who saw it, and James and John—all parts of the foibles of our own humanity. But the story of the Transfiguration is also about me and about you: and it says that our plodding up-hill life is not for nothing: there really is more. Believe it!
AMEN
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