Photo by Tina Hartung on Unsplash
A helluva week.
War. Sanctions. Scenes of fleeing civilians. Uprisings around the world. We feel like we’ve been here before. Afghanistan. Syria. Iraq. Untold suffering. But this time, it feels like a slide toward oblivion. And we’re not out of a global pandemic. There’s still massive injustice to reckon with and heal. And the environment is becoming less and less hospitable to human life.
What can religion offer that’s not just some form of spiritual bypassing? Is there anything religion can do to transfigure this apparently damned world? In this mediation, I explore all that. And on Transfiguration Sunday in the Christian year, we ponder the meaning of an ancient story for modern life and the turbulent days we’re living through.
“Transfigure Us” is based on the Gospel of Luke 9.28-36. Transfiguration Sunday, February 27, 2022.
1.
While Jesus was praying—
while Jesus opened up to feel the fullness
of God who is above us and beside us all—
while Jesus dove down deep
into the divine that’s within us all—
while Jesus was praying—
the appearance of Jesus’ face changed,
the clothes of Jesus danced with divine radiance,
the body of Jesus shimmered with sacred light.
While Jesus was praying, we’re told,
Jesus was transfigured.
That means something can happen when we pray.
Something can happen outside us because,
when we pray, something happens inside us.
The spiritual truth most religions know
is that when things change inside us,
there’s hope things can change outside us.
We all know we all need to change
what’s happening in our world.
That means we need to change
what’s happening inside us.
The Transfiguration of Jesus is a symbol
of the change that is possible outside us
when we pray—
that is when we allow what’s holy
to change us from the inside, out.
The word the Bible uses here for such a change
is the word, Transfiguration.
Trans—the prefix means “across”
in the ancient tongue.
Trans—the word means to tell us
that something has crossed over,
something has changed,
something’s been
altered.
And so, in English
we have words like:
Transport.
Transmute.
Transform.
Transfer.
Translate.
Transplant.
Transgender.
You get the picture.
Jesus was transfigured . . .
as Jesus prayed.
Figure—the word means “shape” or “form”
in the ancient tongue.
Figure—the word refers to things like
bodies and buildings and structures.
Figure—another word for persons
and puppies
and planets.
A figure is a thing of
substance,
solidness,
sturdiness.
Trans plus figure.
Transfigure.
A shape or form,
a body or building or substance,
changed from one form to another.
A shape or form—
a person, a puppy, a planet—
that has crossed over from one state to another,
altered, not merely spiritually but physically,
not only conceptually, but concretely.
There are things and people and places
that need to be transfigured today.
2.
Jesus was transfigured
while Jesus prayed.
Not only was Jesus changed
on a mountain top in the Middle East
a long, long time ago,
but so was the arc of history.
History itself changed,
transfigured.
We’re told that as Jesus prayed—
there beside him,
but dwarfed by him,
were Moses and Elijah—
the two great figures of Jesus’ Jewish identity.
Moses—
the great liberator, organizer, and political leader.
Elijah—
the great prophet, truth-teller, and spiritual leader.
While Jesus was praying,
when Jesus was transfigured,
Moses and Elijah—
once big,
solid,
sturdy
political and religious figures
appeared beside Jesus,
but were changed.
They who once were so large,
were now small—
overshadowed by Jesus.
Jesus was transfigured
as Jesus prayed,
and so was history—
what was once
solid,
sturdy,
assumed unchanging—
was transfigured.
The past, altered.
History transfigured.
A new epoch unfolding.
The Transfiguration of Jesus
was more than a sign of a change inside Jesus,
more than a mystical moment
for a few Galilean fisherman
who had a mountaintop experience
seeing Jesus transfigured when he prayed.
The Transfiguration is a sign
of a Great Turning in the world.
Some have said that we
are living through a Great Turning.
Some, maybe many, worry that
the wheel of change
is not turning toward the beauty
and goodness
and justice
many of us crave.
That may be true.
It feels like a dangerous moment.
We could give-in to fear and cynicism,
despair and self-protection.
We could give-in to anger and violence,
greed and cruelty.
But we who gather around
this story of the Transfiguration
might be brave enough to see things differently;
we might become desperate enough to pray in such a way
that we behold a Transfiguration—
the Transfiguration of the face of Christ
shining in the face of everyone we meet,
the Transfiguration of the clothes of Christ,
who hides beneath the garments of everyone we meet,
the Transfiguration of the body of Christ,
the Earth itself and all that forms
the figure of this wounded
yet wonderful planet.
Jesus, we’re told, was transfigured
while he prayed.
What’s true for Jesus
can be true for us as well.
We need a Transfiguration today,
but it cannot happen outside us
without a Transfiguration happening inside us.
It’s a universal and perennial truth
that what happens in society outside us,
is a direct reflection of what’s happening inside us.
An abused child, a neglected child, a fearful child,
who is unable to heal the trauma inside them
will only project that trauma on the world outside them.
How many killers, abusers, mob bosses, gang leaders,
dictators and tyrants have never healed what hurts them inside?
One hundred percent.
If we don’t transfigure our pain, we’ll transmit it.
This is what’s happening
all over our world today.
The pain outside us—
the aggression and violence,
the bigotry and injustice,
the divisiveness and cruelty—
is an outer sign of unhealed inner pain.
Our global problems are essentially spiritual.
As religion’s influence wanes in our world,
and as the mystical experience of religion
is co-opted by materialist and political agendas,
we are losing what it means to heal our souls.
3.
Now that might sound hopelessly pious in a world like ours where piety and appeals to the soul seem like a puny response to terrifying things like this new war in Europe, the assaults on democracy around the world, and our reckoning with the systemic injustices of racism in our country and the incredible denial of its reality.
Piety seems too inward, escapist, and safe when we look at the dangers of our world.
But piety isn’t escapism.
The word, “piety” comes to us from Latin, that ancient tongue. It means “duty,” “loyalty,” “steadfastness,” “faithfulness.”
Could it be that piety could transfigure our politics?
Could it be that intentionality about our inner lives could transfigure the brutality we experience in the outer world?
Could the durable witness of the world’s historic religions—those assumptions, and attitudes and actions that have endured other epochs of collapse—could religious practice help us cultivate the courage to transfigure the world toward what’s beautiful and good and just once again?
Could this story of Jesus at prayer, Jesus transfigured from the inside out, point the way toward our own transfigurations—which in turn, and when combined with the transfigurations of other lives—work together for the transfiguration of the world at this time of such undeniable need?
4.
This last week, one of you came to me for help. You’re facing a number of issues in your life. Those issues alone would be challenging enough. But there’s also the political climate in our country and the ongoing pandemic. And then came the news of war in Europe this week. You told me that this war feels like the straw that could break the camel’s back. You’re feeling anxious, afraid, and angry.
As a pastor, what I found remarkable is that you’re not just throwing up your hands in despair. You could have. You didn’t come in to rant in anger. You could have. You weren’t curled up in a ball of fear, though you said you’ve felt like you wanted to. Instead, you came to me and said, “Look, pastor, I don’t see any way I can lighten the load. That’s just not going to happen. So, if I’m going to be a camel, I’ve got to strengthen my spiritual back. I’ve got to do something for my soul before it rots.”
“I’ve got to strengthen my spiritual back,” you said. “I’ve got to do something for my soul before it rots”
Thank you for permission to share your story. It’s an important and inspiring witness for all of us.
You and I went on to explore what Lent could mean for you this year, how Lent can be more than a ho-hum season of Sundays that you barely notice. Instead, you’re going to take on Lent as a way to strengthen your spiritual back, to do something for your soul, to face the rot. Prayer for you isn’t mere pious escapism; it’s an act of desperate piety—piety in the true sense of the word as “duty,” “loyalty,” “faithfulness” to what could transfigure your life, a willingness to face the rot within so that you don’t inflict that rot on others.
And so, I taught you a simple contemplative way to pray, a way to spend a few minutes each day, not asking God for things, but stilling the mind, letting go of what worries you for just a few minutes, creating some inner spaciousness so that anxiety and fear and anger don’t consume you, resting in God, being with God.
There’s no guarantee you’ll help turn the wheel of change toward the Great Transfiguration we all need. But it’s likely you’ll become a better person, less likely to inflict your anxiety and fear and anger on others, more likely to gain insight and wisdom, a stability of soul—more likely you’ll not only experience a depth of divine love that transfigures you, but, because you are being transfigured by love, you’re more likely to extend that love to others. And that is what Transfiguration—life altering, and world changing—is all about . . . if enough of us will be transfigured too.
5.
“God places us in the world,”
said Archbishop Desmond Tutu—
that feisty and fiery,
loving and laughing
Christian gadfly.
Tutu never shrank from a struggle,
especially that massive struggle
for human rights in South Africa—
even facing the great and frightening
juggernaut of white supremacy
known as Apartheid.
But Tutu never became embittered.
Never cruel.
Never callous.
And never cowardly.
In the face of withering challenges,
Desmond Tutu prayed in such a way
that his life kept changing, from the inside, out;
he prayed so that he would not become
what he was fighting against.
“God places us in the world,” he said, “as God’s fellow workers-agents of transfiguration. We work with God so that injustice is transfigured into justice, so there will be more compassion and caring, so that there will be more laughter and joy, so that there will be more togetherness in God's world.”
Lent comes every year.
It’s our annual renewal of Christian spiritual practices
that are meant to change our lives for the better.
But this year our desperation
could cause us to practice Lent in ways
that could have a profound effect on our lives
and the life of our world.
On this Transfiguration Sunday,
I call you to prayer—
not the kind of prayer
where you ask God for things—
but the kind of prayer
where you get quiet,
and listen,
and realize how busy you are inside,
how noisy inside,
how angry,
confused,
afraid,
restless,
hurt,
driven,
or depressed
you may be inside.
And then stop.
Just stop.
And let God love you—
especially the stuff inside you
that you want to ignore or hate or get rid of.
Let God’s compassion come to you.
And heal you.
And Transfigure you.
It’ll change you.
And, changed by love,
you just might help change the world.