[Propertalk] Transfiguration 2017 - homily - Part 1

[Robert P Morrison]

Here's my draft for tomorrow.
Bob

	THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY  THE TRANSFIGURATION OF OUR
LORD JESUS CHRIST 

	EXODUS 34:29-35   6th AUGUST, 2017 

	2 PETER 1:13-21      PSALM 99 

	LUKE 9:28-36 

	 “Who, for us and for our salvation, came to earth.” 

	 We say this, in a slightly different form, every week, if not more
frequently. 

	 There are several, indeed many, things within our faith that seem to
be irrational and are so difficult to accept, and the human Jesus
being recognized as God’s Son is one of them. It makes little sense.
Why on earth would God become present on earth in all its frail
conditions? Why would God take on so much that is, at best, prone to
apparent mediocrity and, at worst, plain ugly? Why would God accept
the possibility of the pain that we bear and that we inflict? Why, if
not to transform it; to transfigure it; just as God in Jesus was
transfigured. 

	 It’s an interesting word – “transfigured”. A couple of
sources which I checked agreed on one of the meanings, a meaning which
took me by surprise. These sources both said that to transfigure means
to beautify, so the word, and the action described in this morning’s
Gospel passage, implies a transformation that can be quite radical.
The mundane appearance of Jesus, which barely distinguished Him from
anyone else in the country, if it did at all; Jesus’ mundane
appearance was made incredibly glorious, incredibly beautiful. In
fact, Jesus’ appearance, not only physical, but also spiritual and
emotional, took the disciples’ breath away. Jesus, in the act of
being transformed by His unity with God the Father, gave to the
physical flesh and blood that makes up every human a wonderful beauty,
a beauty which signifies the transformation that is working within us
at this very moment, and will continue to work within us until we
stand before the Trinity and share in that beauty. The power of God in
Jesus is not only for Jesus. It’s for each of us, and the
transfiguration, the beauty that He experienced, is ours too, as His
followers. 

	 It’s more than likely that we won’t recognize this beauty in
ourselves. Most people, when told of their beauty, will try to brush
off the description as hyperbole or blindness. Jesus didn’t dwell on
it either. He accepted thanks, of course. He was really pleased when
folks were grateful, because that’s how God acts. But He never dwelt
on His looks. For that matter, He never dwelt on other peoples’
looks either … at least, their physicality. He was far more
interested in what the person or the community thought, or said, as
opposed to how these acted. In fact, He had a few choice words for
those whom He called “whited sepulchers”! 

	  Many years ago, the British writer and pundit, Malcolm Muggeridge,
never known for his willingness to gloss over something or someone
whom he considered dense, or lazy, or, on occasion, even ordinary;
many years ago, Malcolm Muggeridge wrote a wonderful little book which
he entitled “Something Beautiful for God”. 

	 It’s an intriguing sounding title, catchy enough to make one pick
it up, at least. But the fact that it is a biography of Mother Teresa
made it all the more fascinating – and astute. 

	 Taken on today’s standards, Mother Teresa would never win any
beauty pageants. She’d be the first to admit this. But that’s why
the book title is so apt. Beauty doesn’t stop at the external
appearance, and yet this transfigurative power of God DOES flow out of
the person to give her or him a marvelously magnetic and radiant
personality and visage. The beauty, the transfiguration, which the
disciples observed in Jesus high on the mountain came about first of
all when Jesus engaged in direct and intense conversation with God. 

	 We don’t have a record of all those other times when the Father
and the Son had such intimate exchanges. Perhaps Jesus was transformed
then, just as Moses had been after his experience of contact with God
on the mountain. The one time we DO hear of this happening to Moses
was, like Jesus, when he was away from the distractions of his family,
of all the people crowding around him, asking for this and that. When
Moses concentrated on what God wanted to discuss with him, THAT was
when Moses’ face became overwhelmingly beautiful, so much so that he
had to cover it for a while so as not to interfere with the work he
had to do for and with the people. 

	 Similarly, Jesus’ appearance took on that intensity when His
attention was focused directly on God. But the second thing to note
about both Moses and Jesus was that this interaction with God drew
from each of them the ineluctable grace that was already within them.
The grace, the joy, the love, the passion brought about by such
merging identification of their wills, such delight in sharing in the
Love which is God the Father; these are not only what Moses and Jesus
lived, but they are also what draws from us the wonder of looking at
someone and seeing such intense beauty. 

	 It’s not that the person’s appearance or action was,
necessarily, a whole lot different than it is at other times. It’s
more that, as in Malcolm Muggeridge’s discovery about Mother Teresa,
God’s longing is to reach people in such a way that they are able to
present themselves, to behave, to speak, to listen as God‘s Son on
earth did. God showed the disciples how Jesus was, who Jesus was, if
only they were able to absorb that on a day-to-day basis. But they too
needed to be away from distractions long enough to see it and to
process it. And we know that the processing took them a long time! The
disciples’ breath had been taken away when they saw Jesus, when God
in Christ became apparent. 

	 This makes me wonder just how we should look as we see the Bread and
the Wine of the Altar, the Consecrated Body and Blood of Jesus. In
God’s grace, there ARE times when we too are transformed,
transfigured, beautified as we see the endlessness and the strength of
Jesus’ love for us as He comes to meet us when we walk forward to
the Altar. 

	  There’s a famous sixteenth century icon of the Transfiguration
which shows the three disciples absolutely bowled over by the beauty
of Jesus. 1 The curious thing about that icon, however, is that one of
the disciples has his socks knocked off. Actually, it’s his slipper,
but the meaning is the same. Such was, and is, the beauty of the
situation. 


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://stsams.org/pipermail/propertalk_stsams.org/attachments/20170805/8664b8df/attachment.htm>