Be
More
By
Griff Martin
A Sermon on Transfiguration for Transfiguration
Sunday
From Matthew 17:1-9
On February 23, 2020
For the Beloved’s of First Austin: a baptist
community of faith
Incarnate
God, we ask that you once again take the Word and transform it into a living
and breathing reality we can all together experience. Be present here in this
space and in these words God, for if you are present here then nothing else
will matter, but if you are not present here then nothing else will matter. In
the name of the Creator, the Christ and the Comforter.
It happened a few weeks ago – Blake and I were at Hello,
Dolly with some friends. Everything was going well; we were having a great
night and the show was great and then it came time for intermission. Now, the
friend I was sitting next to does not have children (and please know I hate
when people are identified this way but this is a very important element here),
and as soon as intermission began, this friend got up to go to the restroom. I
caught Blake’s eyes and realized she too needed to do the same. So, without
thinking I called out, “Tracy, are you going to use the potty?”
And she looked back at me with the most confused
eyes in the whole world, really, quite taken aback, and finally after a very
long second, she said, “Yes Griff, I am going to the restroom.” And then I said,
“Oh do you mind taking Blake?” Which she was great with.
As Blake left, she looked at me and said, “Potty?
Really Dad,” with the eyes that I fear are a pretty parental constant for the
next few years.
This embarrassing and absurd moment happens to
parents; we get trapped in using our parental language and we don’t realize
that not everyone else uses the same language. It happens when you are on your way
home and your mind is already halfway there and home with your kids, thus when
you end a phone conversation with, let’s just say the Governing Board chair,
and you say, “I love you,” and things get real weird. Or you are out with
someone who is not your child and you offer, “do you need help cutting that
up?" Or you shoosh someone who is not yours to shoosh or fix their hair or
tie their shoelace which has come untied or use the word ‘potty.’ Or at least,
I do.
We get so trapped in this way of thinking and this
mindset and this doing that we forget that the rest of the world is not
thinking and doing like us.
This happens here in church, too. Often with our
vocabulary.
We use a lot of words that no one else uses and we
just expect everyone else to get it. Some examples: sin, incarnation, saved,
redeemed, spirit, atonement, narthex, altar, chalice, chancel, Advent, Lent,
Holy Week, ascension, transfiguration. It’s a lot of insider speak that serves
little to no purpose outside of these walls. And sometimes I wonder if it even
speaks to us today. Some words and terms have become so heavy and thick they
get stuck in our throats; ‘sin’ being a perfect example. Others have been said
so much that we have forgotten what they really mean; ‘saved’ being a perfect
example.
And language and vocabulary really matter; it’s why
we need to watch our words and be clear about what our words mean, or our words
could vanish. Linguists estimate the world loses around 25 languages a year as
a generation dies and new generations choose which language and terms to carry
forward, which words matter today. And the ones that are antiquated, where we
have passed on words without meaning, they get lost. So church, we must make
sure the weight and worthiness of our vocabulary is understood.
Today is a great example, Transfiguration Sunday.
What does this mean? If you are at the gym or out to lunch with a friend
tomorrow and this friend is not a churchgoer and they ask you what you did this
weekend and then they are courteous enough to ask, ‘how was church?’ And you
reply, ‘it was Transfiguration Sunday,’… what in the world are they going to
think happened here? This is a question that has been problematic for us.
In the Pastor’s Class on Church History we learned
that early on folks thought we were “out there” because of what happened in our
worship services because of our language. Remember, when the church began our
services were for baptized Christians only and the only things people knew was
that we had what was known as a “love feast,” we called each other brother and
sister, and we dined on flesh and blood. You figure out what they thought we
were doing… But let me assure you, it was far more scandalous than what we were
actually doing.
Back to Transfiguration Sunday – how do we explain
this? Most likely we would say something like ‘this is the Sunday we celebrate
Jesus being transfigured,’ which would certainly lead to more questions.
Questions like, what does it mean to be transfigured? Transfigured into what? Why,
of all the things Jesus did, is that so important? You believe what? How does
one even celebrate such a thing? To which you probably just change the
conversation, “yeah I don’t know… I have told you our church is weird, what did
you do this weekend?”
So why do we celebrate this? I mean, we don’t have a
Loaves and Fishes Sunday or a Resurrection of Lazarus Sunday, and despite it
being a very good idea, we don’t yet have a Water to Wine Sunday (although, I
think combine that with stewardship Sunday and we are onto something). So why
this one?
And how are we really supposed to talk about it? I
mean even in this very story Jesus seems to make it clear, don’t talk about
this.
And what is Transfiguration? The dictionary defines
this simply as “a complete change of form or appearance into a more beautiful
or spiritual state.” And I think that definition is quite good and a huge clue
to us about this Sunday, so hang onto it… a complete change of form or
appearance into a more beautiful or spiritual state.
According to Matthew, this event takes place exactly
six days after Jesus offers some hard lessons on his own death and resurrection
and our call to follow Jesus. The disciples are struggling to catch either
lesson, what to do with Jesus’ death and the call to follow him. I imagine that
they have been talking about it, verbally processing what in the world he could
mean. I think they did that all the time because we are still doing that.
They think that Jesus just needs a break. Jesus
often disappears to the mountains; it’s his version of Calgon take me away
bubble bath or of a man cave, a place he can just simply be. But this time he
invites three disciples to go with him: Peter, James and John, the inner
circle. Now, we often think of these as the three star pupils, but as a teacher
reminded me once, you know what small groups I have in my class – those who are
ahead of the class and need more challenge, and then those who are behind the
class and need special attention. These 3 disciples could easily be either
group.
The four of them climb the mountain and then
suddenly up top is when all the magic begins. Scripture gives us very little
build up; we go straight there, according to Matthew’s elegant description,
“and he was transfigured before them.” And then we get Moses and Elijah, we get
the request to build the tents up here and the voice of God once again, “this
is my son, the one I love, and I am well pleased.”
But let’s sit for a moment on Matthew’s explanation,
“and he was transfigured.” Because I think Matthew is wrong here. I don’t think
this is something that happens once Jesus gets up on the mountain. I think
Jesus has been in the process of being transfigured in front of them the entire
time he has known them because that is what his whole life was about, changing
form into something more beautiful and more spiritual. Everything Jesus has
done is about this movement into something more beautiful and spiritual.
And I don’t think Jesus brings these three up to the
mountain top to razzle-dazzle them with this display of glory. If this was
about that then I think it would have been a much more public display, like an
empty tomb. I think this was to remind them that this is their calling, too,
which means it is our calling, as well.
This was performance art of our very calling. It
demonstrated what Jesus was doing and in turn what we are supposed to do.
You all know that all my theology is ground up – it
starts here and moves up. I think that Jesus Christ was very human, perhaps the
model human. My theology is that if Jesus did it, we can do it, too, because
Jesus did not call us to something that was impossible. Jesus called us to live
life with the exact same material he had to live his life: flesh and bone and
faith and bravery and kindness and the promise of being God’s beloved. Thus, I
think the transfiguration is a calling of what we are all supposed to be doing
all the time: changing form into something more beautiful and more spiritual.
The transfiguration is our reminder that we can be
more, that we are called to be more, that we are called to be more and more
Christ-like, which is to say God-like, each and every day. This transfiguration
is not a onetime event, it’s the very movement each of us are called to make
with our very lives.
And this text gives us a wonderful promise: God
believes we can do it. God believes in us. It’s the word pleased; you
don’t use that when you are surprised, you use pleased when someone does
something you knew was possible and have been cheering them on to finally do.
It’s the same word you use if your 3rd grader passes a spelling test; you are
pleased because you knew this was possible. If they get a perfect SAT score at
3rd grade, pleased is not enough; there you use surprised, shocked,
dumbfounded, awed.
But God is pleased. God shows favor and satisfaction
at what God knew we were capable of doing and becoming if we were brave and
loving and faithful.
God is just waiting for us to do it, not so God can
respond with a surprise, “I didn’t think that was possible,” but so that God
can look at us and smile and say, "I knew that was possible. They lived up
to all they were called to live up to and they are my beloved and in them I am
very pleased.”
The transfiguration is first a calling. Our lives
should be the exact same, shifting and changing form into something so
beautiful; so spiritual. And second, it’s a reminder that God believes in us,
often more than we believe in ourselves.
We start with our just wonderful messy human self
and then through the hard work of forgiveness, acceptance and grace we become
More. Through the callings of justice and equality and prophesy we become More.
Through every small act of Love we do and every brave truth we face and share
we become More. Through every prayer and every hymn and every moment of silence
we become More. We learn to grow all that is good that God has placed inside us
into all that it can be, like a small acorn working its way into the ground and
becoming a huge tree that gives solace and life to all. That is the work of
transfiguration and that is our work.
We can transform into More because that is our very
calling.
And then, keep reading the story, they disappear
back down the mountain and they go right into a scene where the other disciples
and religious leaders are fighting. There is a young boy whose life is on the
line and a distraught father and a crowd that is overwhelmed by it all. Which
is to say, they walk straight back into our broken world, where there is so
much arguing and fighting, where there are children’s lives on the line, where
there is distress, where so many are just overwhelmed by it all.
It’s for that very purpose Jesus was transfigured. This
is why Jesus became More, not for anything to do with heaven, but everything to
do with earth, with this immediate world surrounding him.
The transfiguration is how God saved the world and
it’s how God is saving the world – by us becoming more so that we can make the
world More.
Richard Rohr wrote one of the most profound
statements of his brilliant career this year: “We actually need fewer
reformations and more transformations.” The transfiguration is about
transformation, becoming the More God believes is possible in each one of us,
and this is how God will save our world. Not with one life, but with all lives,
with us all following the path of Jesus Christ.
This Sunday reminds us of the incredible truth that
God believes we can be More and how desperately our world needs it.
So take the risk. Be filled with all the light God
desires to shine on you, radiate goodness and grace so brightly it hurts our
eyes, live in such a way that people want to live around you, use your life to
create spaces so holy folks want to stay there, live for something beyond
yourself, be filled so you can go and overflow into the world. God believes in
you and that is all that matters.
Amen and Amen.
*artwork: Transfiguration, Painting by Paulo Medina, absolutearts.com/portfolios/t/trajano
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