He's changed, we're changed

Transfiguration 2009
Exodus 34: 29-35; Ps 99: 5=9; 2 Peter 1: 13-21; Luke 9: 28-36


A tired, discouraged people gathered at the foot of the mountain. They had been abused, demeaned, and hunted. They had run from their enemies into the desert, the one place where their enemies would not want to follow.

They had almost died from starvation and thirst. They had to trust that their survival was not due to luck, but was a gift from an unseen, nameless God. This God spoke through the mouth of a man with a speech impediment. This man led them to an isolated mountain, told them to wait for him, and disappeared on the mountain for days at a time.

What passed through their heads, what words passed their lips, while they were waiting? Did they speak about how crazy this whole trip was? Did they talk about the absent leader as a religious fanatic, a dreamer? Did the practical ones among them say that they should return to where they had come from, where there was food and shelter and where they knew their place? Did they want to trade uncertainty for certitude, return to a world that was small and safe?

But they were given a gift. They were shown the deep truth about who they were and who was speaking to them. When he returned the man’s face shown with dazzling divine light. As they saw the light and heard his words, they too were changed—changed from frightened individuals into a people-- a just people, a people bonded to one another and to their God. They knew who they really were and who they were empowered to be. And they could take the next step on their pilgrimage, the next step with their pilgrim God.

Who are we as we hear this story today? Are we also tired, hungry, thirsty, looking? Do we wish we could turn back the clock and go back to what we knew or thought we knew?

The brilliance of God shines forth today as it shone from the face of Moses. Today we too know that we are chosen, loved, and are never alone. We know that God is glory and that we too are filled with glory. The curtain is pushed aside, and we know that we are called and empowered to be a glorious people, to be a people bonded to one another and to God.

Tired men stressed out from constant contact with needy people, weary from travel, filled with wonder and questions, climbed another mountain. Their teacher was with them, the teacher who fascinated them—they did not know why. Their wonder and their questions did not vanish that day of mountain glory—they deepened and were changed. Glory, light and transformation, long-dead prophets alive. And the voice—“My son, I love him, listen to him.”

They lifted their eyes and they saw Jesus alone. But he had been changed, and so had they. Their questions—who is this? Who are we called to be? How does God give us hope?—were all changed. The question was not “will God free us?” Instead, it was “how will God free us, and how shall we follow?” Peter and John and James had been changed as their Master had been changed.

We are them—Peter and John and James. We climb the mountain today and see God’s glory in the face of Jesus. We have heard the story and the story brings us to the light. And today, the questions do not go away, but they too are different. Not “where is God?” but “where do I find this God most deeply?” Not “does anything mean anything?” but “what do I do with Meaning itself—how does it make my own life shine with meaning?” Not “do I have any power?” but “how does God’s power shine forth in me?”

We are bonded as a people and we are changed.