Transformation
Sermon by Pr. Michelle Sevig on the Transfiguration of Our Lord + Sunday, March 2, 2025.
Transformers, transfusion, transportation, translation, transcendent, transfix, transaction, transfer, trans fat, transubstantiation..that’s one I won’t even begin to try and explain. Have you ever noticed how many words begin with trans? In my trusty old Webster’s Dictionary, 111 “trans” words fill up nearly four pages.
The word “trans” referring to people who identify as transgender has been in the news a lot lately. The governor of Iowa signed a new law just this week, removing civil rights protections for transgender Iowans. Because of a decree from the president, people who are transgender are now unable to get passports that match their gender identity. The negative rhetoric about trans athletes has increased dramatically in the past month. Our transgender siblings–friends, family, and members of this church are experiencing a heightened sense of fear and intimidation, and are worried their identities are being erased.
My heart has been aching for many reasons recently, but especially so for my colleague, my brother’s children, and many friends who identify as “trans.” And then, we come to “Transfiguration Sunday” and I can’t help but make the connection.
Trans comes from the Greek word metemorpho, as in metamorphosis, meaning change. Jesus was transformed on that mountain—changed somehow—though it’s not exactly clear what was changed, besides his dazzling white clothing
A number of years ago I asked a friend who identifies as transgender to reflect with me about the transition from a female identity to male. For much of his life people referred to him as a girl and his outward appearance reflected what people expected for girls–he wore dresses and pigtails, played with dolls, dated boys. As an adult he began to change his outward appearance to reflect what people expect for men. He changed his name, grew facial hair, and began using male pronouns. When I asked him about these changes and what the prefix trans means to him he simply said, “The thing is, I don’t feel like I’ve changed at all. The transitioning let my true self be known and seen by others. This is who I have always been all along.” Then he said, “Transitioning affected the people around me much more than it affected me. They were the ones who changed their ideas, assumptions and prejudices about gender.”
This dramatic change and powerful transformation for him were about revealing his true identity, not changing it; and in turn the people around him were changed. We had our assumptions about him challenged and readjusted. Some were able to stay with him through the revelation and change, and others couldn’t make sense of it all. They were afraid because everything they thought they knew about him had changed.
Imagine now, Peter, James and John climbing up the mountain with Jesus, their friend and teacher, talking about life and what the future might hold for them, when suddenly he is transfigured—changed. And they were terrified.
Traditionally, this transfiguration event is understood as the moment when Jesus reveals his divinity. He’s not changed from human to divine, but the disciples see for the first time that Jesus is both human and divine. Jesus’ true self was now known and seen by others, perhaps for the first time. Everything they thought they knew about him had changed in that moment. Assumptions about him and about their future were challenged and readjusted. No wonder they were terrified! Most of us don’t like change, do we? But their lives and their understanding of Jesus were transformed on that mountaintop, too.
They didn’t stay on the mountaintop (though the disciples wanted to), but transitioned back down the mountain into the mundane nature of everyday life, down into the nitty-gritty details of misunderstanding, squabbling, and disbelieving. They entered back into the religious and political quarrels of the day. Back down to the poverty and pain that are part and parcel of our life in this world. And we remember that as Jesus comes back down the mountain, ready to enter our gritty world on our behalf, he also enters into our brokenness and fear, our disappointment and loss.
The very heart of the Christian faith is that the Holy One revealed on the mountaintop is also the Human One with us in the plains and valleys. Christ is with us and for us in the midst of the suffering and fears experienced in the valleys of life. Christ is with us and for us, so that we might not simply persist, but flourish, not simply have life, but have it abundantly, that we might understand that the God who created us and sustains the cosmos, not only knows that we exist, but cares. Cares about our ups and downs, cares about our hopes and disappointments, cares about our dreams; cares about our despair. Cares about all things we care about, promising to be with us, to walk alongside us and to never let us go.
Just as the voice from heaven announced Jesus as the beloved one, we too are transformed and named beloved in our baptism. We are made new in the light and love of Christ and we are invited to let the light of Christ shine through us in our prayers, in our giving, through our acts of mercy, compassion, justice and resistance, so that others, too, may see that we are changed by the glory of God in us.
Bishop Desmund Tutu, from South Africa, admonishes us to live a transformed life, saying, “God places us in the world as his fellow workers-agents of transfiguration. We work with God so that injustice is transfigured into justice, so there will be more compassion and caring, that there will be more laughter and joy, that there will be more togetherness in God’s world.”
In this meal and in the waters of baptism we are transformed to live life anew, confident in the One who transforms us from the inside out.
Cover art: “Transformation” - Joyce Huntington
