Homily, Transfiguring Fear
Feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord, Year A, 2023
Good Shepherd Episcopal Church
Tequesta, FL
The Rev. Derek M Larson, TSSF
Today’s Lectionary Readings:
In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
The best stories told all contain an element of fear. I don’t mean they are necessarily horror stories or ghost stories, but that in almost all of the stories we tell one another there is an underlying sense of fear somewhere, and the best stories are those stories where the characters come face to face with their fear. Sometimes that means that despite their fear they muster the courage to act. Sometimes that means they come to find that their fears were misplaced. Sometimes that means they learn to live with their fear without letting it control them. But all the best stories have something to do with facing fear. After all, fear is part of what it means to be human.
I’m wondering if, perhaps, the story of Jesus’ transfiguration we hear today in the Gospel of Luke is one of those stories that at it’s heart has to do with fear.
You may have noticed today that despite being well into the green season, or Ordinary Time in the Church, today the liturgical color is white. And that’s because here in the middle of the long green season, we are celebrating a major feast day, The Feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord, which happens every year on August 6th, but only once in a while falls on a Sunday.
And just as our long green season is interrupted today by a moment of white, in our gospel story Jesus’ ordinary ministry is interrupted by a moment of transfiguration. Day-by-day Jesus is exercising his ministry with the disciples, but in today’s story he pauses and takes three of his disciples—Peter, John, and James—up a mountain to pray. And while on that mountain, the Jesus they’ve come to know and love is suddenly changed before their eyes. They see him as they have never seen him before. He is bathed in a bright, white light and accompanied by Moses and Elijah, two of Israel’s greatest prophets. In his puzzlement, Peter hurriedly offers to build a shelter for each of them, but just as he finishes speaking a cloud descends upon them and a great voice speaks to them calling Jesus “Son” and the “Chosen” with a command to listen to him, and suddenly Moses, Elijah, and the cloud are gone, Jesus is back to his regular self, and they journey down the mountain and back into their ordinary rhythm of following Jesus.
It is a story that reveals something about the nature of Jesus. It is a moment when God’s presence is manifested in a special way. For Peter, John, and James, it is a once in a lifetime experience when they catch a glimpse of who Jesus really is.
Now often when we talk about this story, we talk about it as this amazing mountain-top experience. The kind of wonderful, life-changing experience you don’t want to end. In fact, most of the time we interpret Peter’s sort of odd suggestion to set up shelters for Jesus and the two prophets as a signal of exactly that—that Peter wants to preserve this moment. That he wants it to last for as long as possible. But alas, they have to go back down the mountain into their ordinary, everyday rhythms of life.
But reading this passage again, I’m wondering if there is something else happening here. As amazing and powerful as this experience must have been for these three disciples, I’m wondering if it was more terrifying than enchanting.
The passage says that Jesus’ clothes became dazzling white. The word for “dazzling” here in Greek is more like “a flash of lightning.” And then SUDDENLY two men appeared, a word jarring in connotation. A cloud overshadowed them and the text says explicitly, “they were terrified.” And they did not speak a word of it for a long time to come.
I’m wondering if Peter offered to build three shelters not because he wanted the experience to last but because he kind of wanted it to end, or at least turn down the volume on it. I’m wondering if Peter was so overwhelmed and terrified by these three figures standing in glory like lightning before him that he wanted to tone it down. To contain it. To domesticate it. To control it. Rather than wanting to set up camp in the moment, perhaps Peter wanted to build three shelters to put some distance between him and this encounter. After all he only offers shelters for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, not himself and the other disciples. Maybe Peter doesn’t want to stay in the moment, maybe Peter wants some distance from the moment.
Which is exactly the response we see from Aaron and the Israelites in our first reading today when Moses came down from the mountain with a face shining from the presence of God. And yet it was in what they feared that God’s presence was manifested.
I wonder if there are things we fear that could actually be showing us God’s presence. I wonder if there are places in our lives where we are trying to set up tents to contain or cover up that which we fear, but where God is trying to show us something. To teach us something. To reveal to us something.
It’s easy to notice to God’s presence in those experiences of profound beauty which give us comfort and assurance, but where in our lives are we missing God’s presence—missing what God is trying to show us—because we are too busy avoiding that which we fear?
For me, this story is not only about the transfiguration of Jesus, but the transfiguration of Peter’s fear. It is a story in which Peter finds that in facing his fear he is facing God. And that is the invitation for us this morning.
Every good story features a character who faces their fear, and this is a great story. What kind of story are we living? What things are we afraid of, that God is inviting us to face? Where is God showing up in the midst of our fear?
If we can be honest with ourselves about that question, and if we can resist the temptation to hide that which we fear under tents or coverings, than we may just find God transfigured before us. Amen.
Thoughts on Faith 