[Sermon delivered for Solemn Morning Prayer at St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Phoenix, Arizona on the Feast of the Transfiguration, August 6, 2023.]
✠ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, one in Essence and Undivided. Amen.
Today we come again to our annual celebration of the mystery of Christ’s Transfiguration. This is the actual, historical day of the Feast, the last Sunday of Epiphanytide coming about only with the adoption of the Revised Common Lectionary.[1] Various churches are named for this Feast, and one Anglican religious order takes its name and charism from it.[2] It is now in Anglicanism considered a Major Feast of Our Lord, whose commemoration has the privilege of overriding Sunday observances. Its position is similar in the Roman and Byzantine Rites, and how could it not since three of the four Gospels mention it in distinct detail, each one taking turns in the three year lectionary cycle.
This year’s account of the mystery is from St. Luke’s Gospel. It reads similarly to the other accounts with a few minor differences introduced no doubt by the nature of the transmission and the point which the writer/editor/compiler wished to make. For instance, while the story is in all three Synoptic Gospels, only St. Luke tells us that Jesus went onto that mountain to pray.[3] While all three tell us that Jesus, Moses, and Elijah had a discussion, only St. Luke has the topic.[4] In contrast, all three accounts have Our Lord transfigured and taking on a dazzling aspect, making it hard to focus on Him. All three have Moses and Elijah appear and take counsel with Him. All three have the bright cloud with the voice of the Father declaring Jesus to be His beloved Son and that the disciples are to listen to Jesus. And, somewhat amusingly, all three have St. Peter run off at the mouth not understanding what he is saying.
I wish to turn our attention for a moment to St. Peter’s response to this event. It pains us to admit it, but St. Peter’s example is typical of our responses to our receiving of revelation from God. Like him, we are eager to put our own spin on it, perhaps react to it inappropriately, and definitely misunderstand it.
Before we dig into St. Peter’s gaffe on Mt. Tabor, I believe we should give him a little context for his manifesting foot-in-mouth disease. In each account of the Transfiguration, it is prefaced by several important passages, all in which he plays either a major or minor role:
St. Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Messiah foretold by the Prophets.[5]
Jesus’ instruction to St. Peter and to the other disciples that He as Messiah was to suffer and die.[6]
Jesus’ disclosure to St Peter and to the other disciples that the cost of discipleship is high, and those that would follow Him must take up their cross, some literally.[7]
In two of these accounts, St. Matthew’s and St. Mark’s, St. Peter, after he had just confessed Jesus to be the Messiah, actually has the chutzpah to tear the Lord a new one after hearing Jesus declare the Messiah was to suffer and die.[8] So therefore on the mountain St. Peter goes on about making temporary shelters for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, a suggestion based still on St. Peter’s view of what the Messiah’s ministry should be, “…Not knowing what he said,”[9] an action completely in line with his actions to date.
Now, for those of us reading or listening to this passage, there is a temptation to regard the disciples, and St. Peter in particular, with some degree of self-righteous smugness, thinking, “Oh, we’d never make that mistake.” However, in these situations St. Peter stands in for all of us, as the archetype of fallen and fallible mankind, expecting one thing of God, but completely missing the mark. Even if we recognize Jesus to be the Chosen One, the One Anointed for our deliverance, we still often make the mistake of trying to cram that deliverance into our own preconceived notions of how that should appear and how it should come about, leading us either to say or do something colossally stupid, or to contradict directly what the Lord has revealed to us. In short, we simply are not listening.
This leads to another point common to all three accounts of the Transfiguration. Amid all the flash and sizzle of a stunning transcendent cross-dimensional event, in fact, almost lost among the wonder and excitement, comes a very short, clear, and concise instruction from none other than God, the Father Almighty: “Listen to Him!”[10] The accounts have the Father addressing Jesus as Son, whether Chosen or Beloved,[11] but they all carry this admonition. Up to now, St. Peter had not really been listening, the disciples really had not been listening, we had not really been listening, and we all were missing the message that Jesus, the Beloved and Chosen Son of God was not here to meet our expectations but to do the truly unexpected and even, to some, the inadvisable: “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”[12] No one wanted to hear that. No one wanted to listen to their best hope ever say that instead of kicking the enemy to the kerb He would be betrayed and killed by the same people expecting His offer of deliverance. Never mind that this is coming directly from the acknowledged Messiah. Never mind that this was the subject of conversation between Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, never mind the approbation of God the Father from on high without a shadow of a doubt. Never mind that Our Lord also added, at the end, “be raised.” St. Peter, the disciples, and we ourselves, just are not listening!
“Listen to Him.” We hear words, but like St. Peter we have no understanding. The accounts state that the disciples really do not get the import of what has happened to this point until after the Passion and the Resurrection of the Lord.[13] It is not until they are confronted with the stark horror and despair of the Passion and Crucifixion that both they and we finally begin to process what we hear, truly to listen to the words of Our Saviour. It is not until the truly ineffable joy of the Resurrection that both they and we begin to understand what we hear, truly to listen to the words of Jesus the Lord. Had they listened they would not have succumbed to such bleak despair in the darkness of the Passion, we on our first hearing would not be confronted with our own despair at the great tragedy unfolding.
They were warned. WE were warned. In both the Law, represented by Moses, and the Prophets, represented by Elijah, we have a foretelling of what Jesus said was to come. Indeed, the meeting between Jesus, Moses, and Elijah was finally to tie together all the loose ends of what had slowly been developing over the history of Israel. Yet despite all this we and the disciples missed the message.
At this point I wish to bring up the other item that St. Luke mentions about the event that the other two accounts do not. This account clearly states that Jesus ascended the mountain to pray, but I will point out that it said nothing about the disciples praying.[14] This is not the only place where Jesus prays, and the disciples are asleep on the job. In fact, in all the Synoptic Gospels, the disciples literally sleep while the Lord pours Himself out in prayer.[15] For me, this raises the question: would the disciples had been more attuned were they in constant prayer like Jesus? Would we increase in our understanding were we to spend more time in prayer? Otherwise, would we then have had the ears but not heard because we would not let God get a word in edgewise? Would our hearts have remained hard because we focused more on us and our agenda, asking when God would restore the Kingship to our own private Israels[16] rather than be silent in His presence and hear His will?
Again, I come back to the Father’s command, “Listen to Him.” That meant that the disciples had to be ready to stop their chatter, still their hearts, put aside their expectations, and in prayer and in contemplation of His holy Word listen carefully for what the Lord told them. He walked among them for three years, teaching them not only by sermon and parable but by carefully explaining not to ignore the Law and the Prophets. He showed Ss. Peter, James, and John the glory of His eternal being in the presence of the two representing the great tradition of the Law and the Prophets, only finally to stand alone in their place. When they finally stopped to pray, to listen to Him, they were finally able to hear His message, passing it on as the witness of the Apostles, both in Holy Tradition and the Epistles. It is all there, and as the Father had invited them, so they invite us to listen to the Lord.
How then do we heed the mandate and listen to what Our Lord says? We should always start with prayer. We should humbly pray for understanding, for the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, and the guidance of those who have themselves listened for what God the Word has to say. We then should pick up the Holy Scriptures and begin to regularly read them prayerfully. Regardless of how frightful they seem in places, the Scriptures are a conversation between us and God amidst our brokenness. Like the Ethiopian Eunuch,[17] we should also be humble enough to ask for assistance in understanding what is before us. We have seen more grief in Christendom when we have abandoned Holy Tradition for idiosyncratic readings of Holy Scripture, assuming in our pride that our individual reason is sufficient for knowing Scripture, that we are enough attuned to the Holy Spirit to listen. Finally, we should contemplate in prayer what we have read and learned and listen to what God tells us.
“This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to Him!”[18]
✠ Through the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, Holy Dominic, and all the saints, Saviour save us. Amen.
[1] Its importance was diminished in the Sarum Rite and had spotty commemoration in the Anglican Communion until early 20th Century efforts to restore it to its dignity, therefore its hold on August 6 is not as tight as it is in the Roman and Byzantine Rites. The Last Sunday of Epiphany is adopted from the Lutheran and Presbyterian Rites. See “The Feast of the Transfiguration” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_the_Transfiguration) for a short discussion of the celebration of the Feast through various Christian traditions. [2] This being the Community of the Transfiguration, a coenobitic women’s order whose Mother House is in Glendale, Ohio (https://www.ctsisters.org/). [3] Lk. 9.28 [4] Lk. 9.31 [5] Mt. 16.16, Mk. 8.29, Lk. 9.20 [6] Mt. 16.21, Mk. 8.31, Lk. 9.22 [7] Mt. 16.24-28, Mk. 8.34-38, Lk. 9.23-27 [8] Mt. 16.23, Mk. 8.33 [9] Mk. 9.6, Lk. 8.33; for some reason St. Matthew spares St. Peter some of his embarrassment in the moment. [10] Mt. 17.5, Mk. 9.7, Lk. 9.35 [11] Ibid. [12] Lk. 9.22 [13] Mk. 9.10, implied in Lk. 9.36 [14] Lk. 9.28 [15] Mt. 26.40, Mk. 14.37, Lk. 22.45 [16] Cf. Acts 1.6 [17] Acts 8.31 [18] Lk. 9.35