Sermon preached by the Rev. John Elliott Lein at St. Thomas à Becket Episcopal Church on Feb 23, 2020 on the following texts (Last Sunday after Epiphany, Year A): Exodus 24:12-18, Psalm 99, 2 Peter 1:16-21, and Matthew 17:1-9.

We have reached another transition point, both in our Gospel readings and in our church year. The cycle of seasons in the church year is probably so familiar to some here that it’s taken for granted; for others coming from a non-liturgical tradition it may be all new and a little confusing.

So here’s a little reminder: today is the last Sunday of the third season of seven. We began in December with Advent as we faced the darkness of the world and yearned for the coming light. That light was revealed to us during the twelve days of Christmas, capped with the Epiphany to the Magi. For the last six weeks we have been moving through the season after the Epiphany, during which we have been reflecting on how the light has continued to be revealed through the actions and teachings of Jesus the Christ. This season culminates in the Feast of the Transfiguration today, before we shift into the second major period of darkness with the observance of Ash Wednesday in a few days and the following season of Lent. Lent’s 40 days of reflection, penitence, fasting, and stillness is then the preamble to the high point of the church year with Holy Week and the Easter Vigil.

Throughout this time marked by the Epiphany we have been exploring the coming light as the concept of enlightenment or wisdom in sermons and formation discussions. We’ve talked about this being a growth process, a gradual transformation built up of regular spiritual practice, which also contains moments of sudden vision.

And today we celebrate the end of the season with a complementary and concluding account of a second epiphany.

* * *

The Transfiguration is recorded in three of our Gospels, the Synoptics Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In each of them this story comes at roughly the half-way point, and follows another key moment as Peter becomes the first to confess the identity of Jesus as the Christ, the Annointed/Appointed One.

After this confession, Jesus takes three of his followers up a mountain. Peter, James, and John trudge up the ascent (both literally and figuratively!), arriving finally at the summit. I can imagine a scene of Jesus striding confidently and strongly upward with the three falling behind a little, so that when they round that final boulder, panting and out of breath, he’s already there awaiting their arrival.

But instead of their eyes resting comfortably on the familiar rough and worn visage of the homeless peasant teacher they love, they are overwhelmed by a blinding light pouring out from every pore of skin and fold of cloth.

Instead of a solitary individual, they see one reflected in two more: Moses the Law-giver and Elijah the great Prophet. In this vision the Law, the Prophets, and the New Covenant are shown as a single Word given.

* * *

I would like to suggest that there's a key question about the Transfiguration which may not be immediately obvious. That is, is this primarily about the transfiguration of Jesus' appearance, or is it about the transformation of the disciples' vision?

I believe both are valid. But if we think only in terms of the first we're missing a lot, and we might find more depth and application for our own spiritual journeys in the latter. So that’s what I want to focus on today.

* * *

To illustrate this point, I’d like to share an experience of one of the great Christian saints of the 20th century which happened 61 years ago come March.

Thomas Merton was a complex figure. He grew up overseas without much interest in God or connection to religion. Both his artist parents died before he went to college. His early ambition was in literature and he distinguished himself in studies at Cambridge and Columbia. But in pursuit of culture he ended up in Rome, and there he encountered church and Bible in a way that seemed to offer something to fill a sense of emptiness in his life.

After graduating from university he was confirmed into the Catholic Church. From there he felt a call to be a priest, and explored a vocation with various monastic orders before eventually becoming a Trappist in a monastery in Kentucky in 1941. His early years there were filled with the exuberance of a new convert, certain that he had found the one truth and eager to convince others of this rightness. But over time in the strict silence and discipline of the Cistercian Order, his inward sight was opened and his perspective expanded.

Then, 17 years after entering the monastery, this key event occured. Significantly it did not occur in a church, or even on the grounds of the monastery, but in the busy surroundings of 1958 Louisville. He wrote this account [1]:

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers.

“It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness… This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud…

“I have the immense joy of being [human], a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained.

“There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

* * *

Thomas’ vision had been transfigured through his long devotion to Christ, and for this moment his eyes were opened to see the reality already existing all around him, just as the three disciples on the mountain with Jesus had experienced.

It is this experience that our Eastern Orthodox Christian colleagues have for centuries called the “transfiguration of the believer.” [2] It is also related to the concept of theoria, from which Greek term meaning “to look at” whether with eyes or the mind, our modern ideas of theory, theater, and contemplation are derived. It is considered a deep form of receptive knowledge, complementary with but distinct from the active investigation that we modern Westerners first think of these days.

As we have been talking about all this last season, epiphanies such as this come as an unearned gift and yet they also are typically preceded by diligent spiritual discipline and practice. It is through our regular prayer life, sacred reading, meditation, communal participation in the sacraments, and service to others that the foundation is laid and inner muscles strengthened so that we can withstand this sudden revelation of the true nature of reality.

* * *

And so, on this celebration of the Transfiguration two thousand and ten years after the original, my prayer for us is that we might remember the true meaning of the Incarnation:

That in Jesus, God revealed his identification with humanity;
that through Christ, we are called to see everyone in their image-bearing of God;
that through discipleship and reception we are all inheritors of that great gift:
adoption as children of light and promised transformation into putting on the mind of Christ.

AMEN.

1. From Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander by Thomas Merton, quoted at https://www.spiritualtravels.info/spiritual-sites-around-the-world/north-america/kentucky-a-thomas-merton-tour/thomas-mertons-mystical-vision-in-louisville/

2. See Saint Maximus the Confessor, 7th century, and Saint Gregory Palmas, 13th century.