Transfiguration Sunday – George Yandell
It’s fascinating to me- the growing number of home repair shows on TV. Once This Old House stood alone, now every station seems to have home make-over shows, contests between families to re-do each other’s houses, and craftspeople of all types showing the world how tools work. There’s even a DYI network. How many of you like to watch those shows?// Why do we like them so much? For me it’s a simple answer- I, for one, love to watch other people work. I get a vicarious sense of accomplishment in watching others work. I often learn some tricks of the trades from the workers, and marvel at the finesse of skilled craftspeople.
Jesus liked to watch other people work. He was drawn to watching fishermen ply their craft on the Sea of Galilee. He watched as a widow put her gift into the temple tax collection box. And he was a student of farming practices – he often crafted parables about farming and tending vines. He wasn’t afriad to coach people who weren’t doing their jobs too well, especially the schcolars and temple leaders who fell short of doing God’s justice.
Watching Jesus work must have fascinated his followers. As he toured Galilee and Judea, Jesus taught, healed, cast out demons, preached and shared meals with a motley assortment of Jewish peasants. Some think that Jesus himself was a craftsman, a wood-worker.
Work as I’m describing it is public activity. Often there are critical distinctions made in the gospels between the public ministry of Jesus and his private relationships with his followers and friends. The same is true today for us. In public relationships, we go for respect. In private, we go for intimacy. There’s a blending of public and private relationships in our gospel today, all around the work of Jesus.
Some scholars suggest that today’s gospel story, the Transfiguration of Jesus on the mountaintop, was a moment of shared vision and prayer for Peter, John, and James. Luke’s gospel, adding some items not in the gospel of Mark, has Jesus taking his closest colleagues up on a mountain to pray.
Watching people pray is in itself hard work. Not real exciting, because we can’t see much happening, unless the prayer is ecstatic, like Sufi whirling dancers. Is it any wonder that when the gospels report times when Jesus took some close friends off with him to pray, they fall asleep? Pretty boring stuff, especially in the middle of the night, when Jesus seemed most to enjoy praying to his Father in heaven.
This time they weren’t sleepy- watching Jesus bathed in heavenly light, joined by Elijah and Moses who talked to him- this got their attention like nothing ever had. The wonder worked in front of them made the friends of Jesus quake with fear. Peter started babbling about making tents for each of their faith-heroes – what was Peter thinking? That’s when Mark reports a cloud overshadowed them all and voice boomed out, “This is my favored Son- listen to him!” Every time the cloud of God’s presence appeared in Hebrew scripture, its center held an envelope of brilliant light. That envelope of light was called “the glory.” This cloud always had, literally, a shining silver lining.
The transfiguring of Jesus is found in Mark, Matthew and Luke, and in two extracanonical Christian writings, the Acts of John and the Apocalypse of Peter. The other-worldliness and terrifying beauty of Jesus wrapped in God’s glory has been the subject of countless works of art through the centuries. Why? What does this event offer us today?
In a word, Fullness. Jesus joined by Moses and Elijah who stand for the law and the prophets. Their presence suggests Jesus is fulfilling all the law and the prophets. They speak with Jesus at this critical moment in his ministry- for Mark, the work of Jesus moves him from this mountaintop down to Jerusalem and his confrontation with the rulers who execute him. Jesus is full of God’s glory, revealed to the chosen 3 followers. And even though Jesus orders them to silence until after his resurrection, they don’t stay quiet for long – just like the healed leper who couldn’t keep quiet– the secret of their seeing Jesus bathed in God’s glory and hearing God’s endorsement of Jesus was too much to contain.
Intimacy of such brilliance is a public display of God’s powerful presence. The glory makes full the message of God’s dwelling in Jesus. The disciples couldn’t miss it, and neither can we. Paul got it. “We are being transformed into God’s likeness from one degree of glory to another” was the way he put it (2 Corinthians 3:18). There is within each of us the potential to reflect the envelope of light that shone so brightly around Jesus. The glory of God is within us, within our fellowship. That’s what Jesus meant when he taught his followers: “You are the light of the world. You must shed light among your fellows, so that they will see the good you do, and give glory to God in heaven.” (Matthew 5: 14 –16)
Do you hear the transaction, the work described here? The light within us is shed among others, so that they in turn will give glory, reflect God’s light by acting as light-bearers right now in our world. It’s a circle, a cycle of light-sharing. It’s amazing isn’t it, that the work of Jesus continued after his death and resurrection in the work of the disciples? This is the work of Jesus- displaying God’s glory, living in the glory in such a way that Christ’s love encompasses us all. If you use mystic vision, you can see all of your fellows here with halos wreathing their heads with light. That’s what halos are- the glory of Chris’s light dancing around our heads like a nimbus. And it is a secret- the more you talk about it, you diminish the glory- it’s listening to God and then doing the work we’ve seen Jesus do. It means living the presence of light that communicates the glory of this life. As Jesus lived full his humanness and did his work of glorifying God, so we are to do as well.