The Transfiguration, Fr. John Giuliani
Glory Into Glory
The Feast of the Transfiguration
6 August 2017; 8 am Spoken Mass; 10 am Sung Mass
Homily Delivered at Trinity Parish Church
6 August 2017; 8 am Spoken Mass; 10 am Sung Mass
Homily Delivered at Trinity Parish Church
Ashland, Oregon
God, take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of
flesh. Amen.
Today is the Feast of the
Transfiguration of Our Lord, the subject of our Gospel reading. On Mount Tabor, light and brilliance burst
forth from the face of Jesus, Moses and Elijah stand beside him in the cloud,
and the voice of God declares who Jesus really is. The Hebrew Scripture lesson tells
of Moses coming down from meeting God on the Holy Mountain with the brightness
of God still on him. The epistle has Peter tell us that his faith is
based on this moment of clarity about Jesus.
The glory of God reflecting in the
face of Jesus is a revolutionary fact: it challenges Peter's
assumptions. He confuses things, and thinks somehow that Jesus is getting
his authority or endorsement from the appearance of the ancient
prophets. That’s why he calls Jesus Rabbi (“Master”) and wants to
build those three Succoth, booths or temporary shelters showing God’s care and
end-time promises. But God intervenes
and sets Peter straight. A light-filled cloud appears and covers
everything. A voice identifies Jesus as the first thing, the real item. ‘This
is my Son, the Beloved; listen to what
he says!’ The cloud
disappears, and all that remains is Jesus
himself. Moses and Elijah are not longer around.
The transfiguration is a moment of
sudden clarity for the disciples that they don’t fully “get” until after the
resurrection. This is what we read in
that epistle passage: Peter has grown in
understanding, and has been changed by looking at Jesus in glory. He realizes, in the words of John’s Gospel,
“Whoever has seen [Jesus] has seen the Father.”
St. Paul in 2 Corinthians says that
Christ is the image of God, and that we all, beholding the glory of God in the
face of Christ, “are being transformed into the same image from one degree of
glory to another” (2 Cor 3:18).
Looking upon Jesus’s beauty and glory changes us. It takes us from where we are, with whatever amount of God’s glory is already shining forth in us, and pushes us beyond. It drives out the darkness. We ourselves are transfigured, are metamorphosed.
How is it that we can "gaze
upon the glory" of our Lord? How can we “listen to what he
says” rather than build tents on the hillside, memorials to our own pre-conceptions?
It is important to reflect on our Lord and Savior often and regularly. That is why daily prayer and scripture reading is an essential part of any Christian’s effective spiritual discipline. Regular Church attendance helps, but in gazing upon the Lord's glory, we must be the Church, not simply attend Church. It is not just a passive act of admiration. Following Jesus in doing corporeal acts of mercy, in loving and serving the least of these, members of Jesus’ family, in standing with the outcast, the downtrodden, and the sick, in not giving up in any of this when results don’t seem to appear as we would have them—these give us an experience of who Jesus is and what he does.
Given the stresses of life, it is easy to lose heart. It is easy to believe that people cannot change. It is all too easy to believe we cannot change. But the miracle and mystery of our faith is this—we can change because God changes us. In the Apostles’ Creed we affirm that we believe in “the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.” This makes no sense at all if you don’t believe that God is at work transforming us, and that we shall be changed.
It is important to reflect on our Lord and Savior often and regularly. That is why daily prayer and scripture reading is an essential part of any Christian’s effective spiritual discipline. Regular Church attendance helps, but in gazing upon the Lord's glory, we must be the Church, not simply attend Church. It is not just a passive act of admiration. Following Jesus in doing corporeal acts of mercy, in loving and serving the least of these, members of Jesus’ family, in standing with the outcast, the downtrodden, and the sick, in not giving up in any of this when results don’t seem to appear as we would have them—these give us an experience of who Jesus is and what he does.
Given the stresses of life, it is easy to lose heart. It is easy to believe that people cannot change. It is all too easy to believe we cannot change. But the miracle and mystery of our faith is this—we can change because God changes us. In the Apostles’ Creed we affirm that we believe in “the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.” This makes no sense at all if you don’t believe that God is at work transforming us, and that we shall be changed.
Just as God sent that shining cloud
to drive away Peter’s silly preconceptions and plans, God works with us as we
look into the glorious face of Jesus and try to hear his voice.
The faith that we are being changed from one glory to another in the direction of the image of Jesus is reflected in the classic line from African-American preaching quoted often by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "Lord, I know I ain't what I outta be. And I know I ain't what I'm gonna be. But thank God Almighty, I ain't what I was!"
Such change is sometimes hard, so hard that at times we do not know whether we will be able to bear it. At other times it is easy, a refreshment and a relief: finally kicking that habit and getting that monkey off our back.
The faith that we are being changed from one glory to another in the direction of the image of Jesus is reflected in the classic line from African-American preaching quoted often by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "Lord, I know I ain't what I outta be. And I know I ain't what I'm gonna be. But thank God Almighty, I ain't what I was!"
Such change is sometimes hard, so hard that at times we do not know whether we will be able to bear it. At other times it is easy, a refreshment and a relief: finally kicking that habit and getting that monkey off our back.
When Paul says this turns us into
"the image of Christ" he is not saying it removes our
individuality. What he describes is a transformation into our true
selves, the individual people God intended when He created each of us, with all
that makes us who we are, but absent the brokenness that we so often mistake for
what makes us who we are.
One of the greatest foundation
stones of my personal faith is the experience of seeing transformed brothers
and sisters around us, and seeing ourselves over the years as God works with us
and changes us. It doesn’t mean we are perfect, only that God is making
progress in finishing his creation in us.
Charles Wesley in one of his hymns summed it up this way--
Charles Wesley in one of his hymns summed it up this way--
Finish then, thy new creation,
Pure and spotless let us be;
Let us see thy great salvation perfectly restored in Thee:
Changed from glory into glory,
'Till in heaven we take our place.
'Till we cast our crowns before thee,
Lost in wonder, love, and praise.
It is not just in heaven when all of God's creation is done that this happens. As we are transformed here and now, quickly or slowly, it makes us look around us in amazement of these tokens of God's love and then gaze all the more, "lost in wonder, love, and praise," on the author and pioneer of it all.
As we look upon Christ's glory, may
God so work with us all and change us, from glory into glory.
In the name of Christ, Amen.
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