Sermon 2/22/2020: Transfigured + Glorious (Seminarian Reed Fowler)

Seminarian Reed Fowler

The Transfiguration of Our Lord

February 22, 2020

Transfigured + Glorious

“Jesus was transfigured in front of them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzlingly bright.” Jesus is fully himself in this moment, on the mountaintop, and it is glorious. He is human, embodied, flesh; and Divine, reflecting the sun; and in communion with the prophetic ancestors of his faith. He is blessed and named beloved by God. He is with his friends, his disciples, Peter, James, and John, and he knows where his path is inevitably leading – towards the Cross. It is a moment of transformation, and vulnerability, and risk.

It’s risky to be our full selves with people, to share our joys, our strengths, our mistakes, our desires. Our full, genuine selves are powerful, and full of brilliance, and that can invoke a response of fear or hesitation from others. It can also invoke a response of longing or joy. Each of the disciples responded differently to Jesus’ transfiguration. Peter said that it was good to be with Jesus in this moment, good for them to be present with him. He wanted to build dwelling-places for the Divine figures before him. Peter sometimes gets a lot of flack for this reaction – for trying to preserve a moment that is temporary and removed from daily life up on the mountain. A Working Preacher commentary re-frames Peter’s act to one of hospitality – he is trying to provide a space of welcome and refuge for these prophets. I also read Peter’s desire to build dwelling places as one of protection – trying to keep them safe in their brilliant communion. He doesn’t want anything bad to happen in this moment when Jesus is embodying his full self.

God interrupts Peter, and blesses Jesus, calling him beloved, and commanding the disciples to listen to Jesus. The combination of witnessing Jesus transformed, in the company of Elijah and Moses, with God’s voice rattling their very bones, is too much for the disciples, and they fall down in awe, in wonder, in worship, in fear. Fear can be another response when we are confronted with someone being fully themselves – not knowing what to do with the Divine that we are witnessing.

I think the disciples are afraid, not just for their lives in the face of God, but also about what Jesus’ transfiguration means for them. What God’s blessing, “you are my beloved”, “I am well pleased”, and what the presence of Moses and Elijah, means for how they are living their lives. How are they responding to the presence of God? When they are confronted with a moment to be fully themselves, do they take that risk?

Because beloveds, in this world, it is a risk to be fully yourself. It was true in Jesus’ time and it is true now. The story of the transfiguration, this festival day where Jesus is transformed, always resonates so strongly with me, and that has to do with one of the identities I hold – nonbinary, and trans. When I think about the times I have witnessed someone so fully themselves that they are radiant, it is often in moments of transition. When someone whispers their name for the first time, when they paint their nails a sparkly gold and go to work, or when they set a boundary with their family about how they want to be treated. These moments of full embodiment – even fleeting, even momentary – are so powerful. They are holy moments, like the moment of Jesus transfigured on the mountaintop. And we know how the structures of the world react to power that they are not in control of – often with a destructive fear.

As of the 2020 legislative session, 12 states, including Illinois, have (or are about to) introduce bills to limit or ban appropriate medical services for transgender and gender non-conforming youth. Usually criminalizing the doctors for providing care that is scientifically backed. There are a few bills that would require doctors or counselors to report trans kids to their families, whether or not those spaces are safe for them. Others still would criminalize the parents, falsely equating supporting a trans kid with the sin of abuse. When we support trans kids in affirming their identities, God is well pleased, because it helps them not just survive, but thrive in their flesh. These bills are born from fear, not valid scientific or ethical research.

When trans and gender non-conforming youth name who they are, and what they need in terms of support, they are being so fully, gloriously themselves that it holds up a mirror to everyone else, challenging, asking – what would make you more fully yourself in the world, and why are you scared to live into that truth? And, can I help you let go of some of that fear, and hold your truth?

I feel so tenderly towards the ways the disciples respond to the embodied transfiguration of Jesus, to the prophets, to God. They want to hold on to the moment, to protect it, to keep the pain of the world from following them up the mountain. They want to provide hospitality, welcome. And all they can do is fall down, feeling the dirt of Creation under their palms, because it is so glorious and so much.

And Jesus tells them to not be afraid. To get up. He touches them, a physical moment of connection, and when they look up, Jesus is alone, in his dust-covered clothes, the transfiguration an image of memory. I have to think the disciples are changed by this moment, by witnessing Jesus being so fully himself. That this image, this glimpse, of Jesus fully himself follows them down the mountain, and on the road to Jerusalem. That the disciples hold onto the image of the transfigured Christ and see that even when the world refuses to.

The world often refuses to embrace or even acknowledge our full, transfigured selves, and we aren’t always in mountaintop spaces, with our chosen friends and ancestors. Most of the time we are in the valley, navigating conflicting forces and powers, trying to live well while holding on to a sense of the sacred. Existing in spaces that want to erase us, or assimilate us, or boil us down to one identity, when many folks live at intersections of race, gender, class, ability - - And still, in the valley, we can hold on to our own experiences of transfiguration and transformation, knowing that God has named us beloved.

These experiences are holy, and tools of resistance. The 2020 legislative bills? So far, when it comes to a final vote, they have all been voted down, because people are willing to risk telling their stories, willing to risk being their full selves in public, to testify, in these cases, to the ways access to affirming medical care saves lives. And just as Jesus was joined by Moses, and Elijah, Peter, and James, and John, we are more able to be ourselves in community. It was good for the disciples to be there, to be with Jesus as he was fully himself, as he was reminded of his baptism, blessed as the Beloved of God, with whom God is well pleased. These are blessings God bestows on us as well, and we carry them from the mountaintop, into the valley where it often feels like fear runs rampant.

Lean into these moments of transfiguration – where we are so fully ourselves we shine. Where Jesus reaches out and tells us not to be afraid. To embrace our radiance, and the transformative effect it can have on the world.

And in those moments, I pray that God is a dwelling-place for you. That your community – this community, holds you, and reminds you that you are beloved, and God is well-pleased, especially when the world doesn’t remember that. Or when you don’t remember that. Amen, and thanks be to God.