It’s transfiguration Sunday. The Sunday of change. Jesus is changed into a being of light and purpose and our church calendar changes from Epiphany to Lent.

Transfigurations are big business today. I don't know anybody who doesn't want one, including me. And many of us work hard and spend a lot of money to get one -- a new face, a new look, a changed appearance. Transfigurations are not the exception. They are the rule. We are all being altered in the appearance of our face, our countenance. We are all changing. To live is to be continually transfigured. So who are we becoming?

I have to tell you, I am not a fan of change. This started at an early age for me. When I was two, I refused to turn three. I just wasn’t going to do it. I thought that two was good enough and I had no need to change. Nope. Not me. Not going to do it.

Well, as you can see, I obviously turned three any way. And then four and five and so on. Change will happen. You will change, like it or not. The only choice you have is how you will change. What will influence your change?

In his commentary on Matthew, William Barclay says “It is one of the supreme differences between Jesus and us, that Jesus always asked: ‘What does God wish me to do?’; we nearly always ask: ‘What do I wish to do?’ We often say that the unique characteristic of Jesus was that he was sinless. What do we mean by that? We mean precisely this, that Jesus had no will but the will of God . . . When Jesus had a problem, he did not seek to solve it only by the power of his own thought; he did not take it to others for human advice; he took it to the lonely place and to God.”

How often to you take your changes to God?

The change is hard. Painful at times. It’s not something we want to do. Sometimes its easier to change the way society calls then to follow God’s way. But only God’s transformation leads us towards being light.

When God does the changing, we should take on the qualities of Jesus. We should live life with grace and tranquility. We should radiate love and kindness. We should be overflowing with exuberance and excitement. Because those are the very things that Jesus displayed.

This is a good thing! It is a joyous thing! So often, we focus our lives on those things we want to deny ourselves, to resist, to exclude. We live life as if it’s a funeral wake rather than a celebration. We are God’s creation. He has made us. He has made us to enjoy the good things of life. So we mustn’t abuse God’s gift. We mustn’t hide God’s gift. We mustn’t ignore God’s gift.

We are being transformed. Just by living our lives in this chaotic world, we are constantly changing who we are. But who is influencing who we are becoming?

We must be transformed. We must be changed. And we cannot look at the loving face of God and not take on his appearance, his countenance, his grace.

We must get alongside those who walk the journey with us, to share their pain, their sorrow, their frustrations, their joys, their happiness, their lives. To share something of our understanding of God’s love, and to learn lessons ourselves. Transfiguration might be about learning to see ordinary things in extraordinary ways

As we move between the extraordinary accounts of Transfiguration in today’s readings and the ordinary events of seeing in our own lives, we do not need to separate the two. But we can remember, with Peter, that the light of God is not so hidden that we cannot seek it in ordinary life. The Logos lives, enlivens, infuses, illuminates even the ordinary.

I wonder if Peter's real sense of call didn't happened here, when the voice interrupts all his plots and plans and announces that this Jesus is none other than God's beloved Son and so the most important thing Peter can do is simply listen to him. In that moment everything for Peter, I suspect, was still...and clear...and made sense.

But of course it didn't last. Peter needs to be pulled up off the ground, perhaps wondering if anything had actually happened or whether he had imagined it all. And then on the way down the mountain Jesus will again intimate of his impending death and destiny. Peter will struggle to listen, to follow, to be faithful. Actually, he will more than struggle, he will fail. And Jesus will reach out, raise him up again, and send him forth. I have a hunch that each time Peter fell down and got up again, he would look back on this day and recall those words, "Just listen to him!"

That's what I mean by saying that this is the moment when Peter's transfiguration begins – when he fails, falls, and is lifted up again and realizes that above and beyond everything else, he is called to listen to Jesus. This pattern, I think, shapes the life of every Christian. We, too, of course, try our best, sometimes succeeding and sometimes coming up short. We, too, have moments of insight and moments of denial. We, too, fall down in fear and are raised up again to go forth in confidence. We, too, that is, are called to listen, called to discern God's way in the world, called to partner with God and in this way be transformed.

On any given Sunday, many of us are surrounded by visions of God’s glory.  We worship in resplendent sanctuaries adorned with breathtaking stained glass windows and shining brass candlesticks.  We glorify God in the highest, singing hymns of resounding triumph and praise.  These are important moments. We need to have the times on the mountaintop. The trouble comes when we separate between the visually pleasing world of glory and the extremely challenging and chaotic world of service.  The danger is that we might get lost on the mountaintop, and forget our way down.

Fred Craddock states, "There is value in referring to this story as one about Jesus' mountaintop experience, which is followed by his return to the valley where he ministered to human need. To such a presentation we can add recitations of mountaintop experiences we have known, followed by exhortations to return to the valley ready to serve. The connections can not only be clear but also encouraging and challenging" (The Christian Century, February 21, 1990).

We do tend to get lost up there, I think.  There are times when the distance between Sunday and Monday seems to be about a million miles, and the path from the mountaintop to the dark valley is very difficult to find.  Yet, we follow a Savior who leads us down and out: down from the mountaintop, out of the clouds, and into the valley to meet those who are in need. We have to go and do.

Yet, Lent, which begins this coming Wednesday, calls us to rediscover our spirituality, to be, to quit our frantic babbling, and to pay attention, to consider who we are as dust apart from whose we are in our baptism, God's precious children, forgiven, loved, held, and only from that identity, gifted and called and sent to do God's work in the world. If we don't get the "being" part, then the doing will only be chaotic, frustrated attempts at self-justification or else grounded in fear and devoid of any joy. If all your doing seems madness and pointless, learn again to behold the mystery, to enter a quiet place of awe. There will be more than ample opportunity and compulsion for living out our call to discipleship, to taking up the cross.

The trick, as in most things, is balance. Knowing when to "do" and when and how to just "be." Learning to take our calling and our work seriously, but not too seriously! To let go of our needs to control, to listen for the voice of God so that our actions aren't merely the proverbial running around like a chicken with its head cut off but, instead, are true acts of discipleship that flow from a being that is formed in the awe and wonder of God's gracious love for us. We need the mountaintop and the valley. Both alongside each other.

That, I think, is the real moment of transfiguration.  It’s the moment in which all those people around us, wherever we may be, become beautiful, and precious, and lovely in our sight.  If we follow Jesus long enough through the valleys of this world, those around us will become transfigured.  Peter, James, and John, though they just wanted to stay at the top of the mountain, would one day be the ones touching the demon-possessed child and welcoming the outcasts and forgiving the sinners.

The real transfiguration happens not on the top of a mountain, but down in the valleys, out in the painful places of the world.  Let us pray this morning that as Jesus goes on ahead of us, we would have the vision, the courage, and the faith to follow him wherever he leads us.  Then we might see the glory – and the greatness – of God.

No matter how much we may want to stay the same, just by living our lives will be transformed, changed, and altered. And not just in some minimalist ways. We will be transfigured in our lives and some of us will be changed many times. But the question is, will you let God do the changing?

Rev. Cara Gee

March 6^th 2011