It's a world of hurt for this Lutheran who attended a Methodist seminary and a Lutheran seminary with a large number of students in the Methodist Studies program.
But I AM Lutheran and that is how I read this week's lectionary texts. Transfiguration is a week for transformation and I hold out the certain hope that transformation will come to each of us and that some day - if not here on earth, then in eternity - all people will be encouraged to let their light shine out bright.
The lectionary texts for this Transfiguration week are:
Exodus 34:29-35
Psalm 99
2 Corinthians 3:12 - 4:2
Luke 9:28-43a
Come Lord Jesus. Come Holy Spirit. Come God of all creation. Shine in us and through us, and keep us from being afraid of that shine. Amen
THE FIRST THING THAT HAPPENED IS… Moses went up Mount Sinai. He got some tablets written in God’s own hand but that did not work out. So he went back up the mountain, got another set of tablets, and came back down the mountain. All that time had gotten under Moses’ skin (LITERALLY) and this time, since he wasn’t infuriated at the people, they saw it. They saw his face shining, and it scared the people. I can imagine all that light from Moses face was WAY scarier than his earlier anger had been. After all, they had messed up earlier but they could also point back to Moses and say YOU BROKE THE TABLETS GOD WROTE!
But this time? Something was shining through Moses’s face and the Israelites could not stand it. Moses had to wear a veil. The veil was not to protect Moses, because when he would go talk to God he took it off. The veil was to protect the people, because they could not handle the shine.
Move forward many centuries and Jesus is walking with and among the people. He had a lot in common with Moses:
* Moses brought the law down the mountain – Jesus fulfilled that law
* Moses brought God’s Word to show the people how to live in community – Jesus was God and showed the people first hand how to live rightly in community
* Moses was a shepherd to the children of Israel– Jesus was a shepherd to the people
And today… we see that Jesus was shining too. Elijah and Moses, whose face had shone with God’s glory, stood next to Jesus, whose entire body glowed with brilliant whiteness in a Transfiguration from human to divine.
This Very Big Transfiguration came “about eight days” after a very busy time for Jesus. At the beginning of this chapter of Luke, Jesus sent the disciples out two by two, and they cured and healed and ministered to the people. The disciples had seen 5000 people be fed with a little bread and a few fish.
And in the most surprising thing off all (at least to me) Jesus had very clearly and specifically told his disciples that he would die and rise again. They couldn’t hear it – they just did not have the mental space for it. Peter did seem to have a dim idea in declaring that Jesus was the Messiah… but it was a lot to absorb!
And then 8 days passed. I wonder what happened during that week-plus? Did they hang out and eat and talk? Did Jesus keep trying to get them to understand what was coming? Or was it a quiet time, with everybody resting up? Or did they just keep dealing with the masses? We do not know – all Luke tells us is that 8 days passed.
And then Jesus took his pals Peter, John, and James up on a mountain. It had been a wild time with all that healing and feeding. They were sleepy, but they were there. And all of a sudden – so was Shining-faced Moses! And Elijah!
And Jesus did SHINE. Full on. Brilliant white. DAZZLING. A glow that woke up Peter, James, and John, and it seems, scared them. James and John didn’t speak. Peter, who ALWAYS had something to say, spoke though. And what he suggested was that they build some dwellings. In the face of all that dazzle, he wanted to box them up, keep them in place, put them somewhere “safe.”
How exhausting must that have been? They were sleepy and then completely astonished. It seems like they might need another week off after that! But did they get a break?
No.
Despite the fact that just a short time before the disciples went out and healed people, this time they couldn’t do it. That seemed to irritate Jesus, who did the healing and declared … someone … a faithless and perverse generation. It’s not clear to me who was faithless and perverse, but I can imagine it was pretty much everybody. And Peter, James, and John certainly did not do the healing.
Jesus told them again that he was going to be betrayed, but they didn’t understand and they were too scared to ask about it.
Then the same James and John who had been up on the mountain got into a fight about who would be the most powerful in the kingdom that they clearly thought Jesus would bring!
And finally… a man who DID manage to cast out demons scared them even further. They wanted Jesus to say he wasn’t doing it right because “he does not follow with us.”
They had seen Jesus in all his divine glory… and they responded over and over and over by trying to shut the door, trying to keep Jesus for themselves, trying to get Jesus to admit that THEY were the only ones who could be right.
But Jesus WOULD. NOT. DO. IT.
They were faithless, and perverse, and selfish…
All the things that we all are.
Why would seeing Jesus in all his glory make them lose everything they had gained in all their years of walking with Jesus?
What on earth was behind that dazzle?
Well, obviously I was not there and I cannot speak with the authority of an eyewitness. I can, however, speak with the authority of someone who has experienced what God offers, and I believe that the thing that made Moses’ face shine, and the thing that made Jesus dazzle was…
LOVE.
Pure, perfect, utterly complete, unshadowed, unedited, freely offered love. The nature of God. The very being that makes God who God is.
The love that Moses displaced on his first trip down the mountain, as he was so angry at the people. The love that remained on his face and was replenished every time Moses spoke face to face with God.
And none of them could stand it – not the Israelites, not Aaron and Miriam, not Peter, James, and John. I mean… what if somebody SAW? And so Moses wore a veil.
How were they going to explain this???
Well, as it turns out, they didn’t. When Peter and John and James could not put all that shining love away, when they could not box it up and keep it for themselves, they got quiet. They didn’t tell a soul.
They turned off and in turning off they lost their capacity to provide healing – because healing comes from God’s love.
They turned off and instead of rejoicing that someone else had figured out how to love without having to be individually tutored by Jesus, they said BUT HE’S NOT ONE OF US.
And how did Jesus respond? Did he chastise them? Of course not. He loved them. He said it’s ok, whoever is not against you is for you. Because that man doing exorcism was not doing any harm to you, Peter, or James, or John. That man is healing and showing my love… reflecting the love of Jesus, the divine God-man.
Mind-boggling stuff.
Have you noticed in all this that nothing has changed? Today, each person who sees this and all the people who don’t, are just like the Israelites and Peter and James and John. We simply do not know what to do with God’s elaborate, shining, astounding glorious love.
We want the veils and dwellings:
* We ask some people to not shine quite so brightly – often people with black or brown skin, women, gay and transgender people, poor people, powerless people. Shining forth with all the love God gives can be a big problem so we ask (or require by practice and legislation) that those people wear veils, reduce their shine so that others are not so uncomfortable in their own brokenness.
* We set up systems that try SO HARD to decide who God will or will not, has or has not called into ministry.
o Years ago the UMC put up a veil, keeping out members of the LGBTQ population who might have a call to ministry and who might be shining forth with God’s love. And when questioned, they made the veil thicker with enforcement.
o The ELCA acknowledges that anyone might receive a call from God but then puts up a veil in the form of a narrative of “pastor shortage” rather than doing the hard work of helping congregations see – and not be afraid – when God’s love shines forth in places they do not expect to see it.
o Episcopalians (and so many other groups) over and over declare that unity means leaving someone out, even when those who are left out are reflecting the love of God.
* And there are so, so many other examples. The veil of Scripture itself, used to dampen God’s outrageous love for all people instead of proclaiming how radical and outside of human behaviors and principles God’s ways are.
* Naked grasping at power and money, in which veils turn into big walls with one purpose: to keep out people that God loves.
* Putting people into boxes and then labeling those boxes in ways that completely ignore the complexity and belovedness of every single human being.
God’s love, shining so brightly, makes us nervous whether we identify as conservative or progressive, Catholic or Protestant, Jewish or Muslim, male or female, gay, straight, or anywhere else on the continua of identities.
But Paul tells the Corinthians, and therefore us, that when we look to Jesus the veil is taken off. Moses protected the Israelites from God’s loving glory but in Jesus, we no longer have to be protected. We can’t see fully or clearly, but in the Resurrection of Jesus, the need for veils and dwellings is removed. We do not have to hide from God’s dazzling glory. The law has been fulfilled and we can be transformed in the Jesus who showed us how to live, lived to fulfill the Law, died for his living, and was raised again, defeating the fear and sin and death and evil once and FOR ALL. All. We are all transformed.
Transformed as we acknowledge our privilege or anxiety or brokenness and decline to let them block the love of God.
Transformed as we keep our gaze on Jesus and reflect the dazzling perfect love of God in whatever ways we can manage.
Transformed so that the image of Jesus becomes so burned into our hearts that we see Jesus everywhere we look.
So look at the shining love of God, regardless of where it comes from. In the words that Jesus used over and over and over – fear not!
Don’t be afraid!
Let the shine radiate from you and don’t let you or your shining self be put under a veil – even as you resist dulling anyone else’s shine.
Decline to be put into a tent so that only a select few can experience who you were created to be – and refuse to put others in tents.
Open yourself to see the light in others – even the ones that seem to be putting a veil over the way you are called to share God’s love.
Remember that while the road to resurrection did lead through crucifixion for Jesus, it does not have to lead through crucifixion for everyone. In the Transfiguration, and death, and resurrection of Jesus we are ALL set free.
We are all called – and the world is in desperate need of the light from every single one of us.
So step out. Be the mirror of God’s love that only you can be. Be transformed in Jesus. Be transformed into one of the shining people.
Amen.
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