In the midst of the ordinariness of summer, as our vacations end and we begin to prepare to return to school, we have an opportunity in the liturgical life of the Church to celebrate something special—a feast day Sunday in the middle of the mundane of the year.
As we look at today’s feast, and the scripture readings for it, let’s consider their significance for us. For me, the transfiguration has always been one of the most awe-inspiring narratives in the New Testament. When I was a young Christian in my early 20s, long before I became a Catholic, I was part of an evangelical community and I took a literal approach to the bible. What I saw in the transfiguration narrative was the dazzling brilliance in the imagery of the event. It was hard to see beyond it.
About that time in my life I considered myself to be something of a painter, though I had no formal art training. Looking back I think my dad might have thought that my talent would have best been spent painting eaves and overhangs. So, I wasn’t that great but I was inspired. I had read the story of the transfiguration in the three synoptic gospels and I felt moved to do an artistic interpretation of it. I gave the painting to a friend at church and a couple weeks later went to his house hoping to find the painting occupying a place of honor. I actually found it in his closet with his big, orange bulldog lying on top of it. Obviously he had a different interpretation of the transfiguration event, at least as I had depicted it. So this says something about what we see, what we value, and how we interpret things. My friend went on in life to become a smuggler. He smuggled bibles into the Soviet Union and years later returned to Russia as an evangelical missionary. The point is that God has placed something special in each of us, something we may not always see in ourselves and others, and it’s up to us to reveal it to the world.
For me, in my youth, the transfiguration was something that I understood only on the level of a mystical experience. Not that I was having mystical experiences, but what the transfiguration story meant in terms of day-to-day life escaped my grasp. At that time in my life the transfiguration pointed me only to the revealed divinity of Jesus, and not anything beyond that. It was a heavenly-minded narrative and my community at that time supported a heavenly-minded interpretation. The light of light of divinity was such that it blinded me to everything else. I think of this as something of a cautionary experience because too often we miss what is most important because of what stands out first. Too often we refuse to look deeper at the things that may challenge us where we need challenged most.
So although the transfiguration story may be a christological narrative—having to do with asserting the divinity of Christ—that’s not all it ought to say to us, and it may even have something more important to say to us in terms of how we live our lives. Our feast days and readings should always ask us what we are going to do, and better what we ought to do.
The story of the transfiguration is a story of transformation as well. I don’t think it’s incorrect to see the transfiguration as one of the great biblical symbols of transformation. In that there is also a eucharistic dimension because it concerns becoming something other than what first appears. If the transfiguration reveals the divinity of Jesus in his humanity, then it also reveals the potential for divinity in our humanity which we share with Jesus, and this gives us an imperative for our actions. It places moral demands on us. Sure, we can take the transfiguration narrative as a symbol of personal and individual transformation, but at the same time it urges us in an unparalleled way to look beyond ourselves and the things that stand as strongholds in our personal lives to greater societal concerns.
Clearly there are many challenging issues that we face, and not just as a church or a nation, but as the whole of humanity. Frankly, I believe that we live in the most decisive time in history, and I’m not saying this as an overstatement to make a point. We live in a time now like no other ever before because of the potential that exists for destruction.
In many ways it would be wrong not to mention where August 6 stands in history. It was on the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, August 6, 1945, seventy-two years ago that the United States unleashed nuclear destruction on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later we also destroyed the city of Nagasaki, an important center of Japanese Catholicism. For me, I can’t allow August 6 to pass without mentioning these events because, in ways that surpass other challenges we face in our times, they inform us concerning our moral imperative as a transfigured and transformed people.
In our world today is there not plenty to cause doubt or to inspire fear? Not that we should live in fear, but have not many of the old cold-war threats returned? However, even more, do we not far too easily find great crimes perpetrated against peace and justice around the world? Is there not a pervasive attitude that holds the poor, the migrant and refugee, and any others who are different in contempt? Do we not still separate and segregate? These are important questions because if it is true that God has revealed divinity in the humanity of Jesus Christ, in the humanity that we share with Jesus, then the responsibility for allowing his transfigured glory to be visible to the world rests upon our willing cooperation. It is our task to allow the light that has arisen in our hearts to be revealed. Our task is nothing less than to be peacemakers upon the earth, and to reveal the transfigured presence of God in the world today.
As daunting as it may seem the worst thing we can do is resign to the attitude that there is nothing anyone can do. In this case stoic acceptance is not of value. The exact opposite is true, and each and every one of us must be determined to be a peacemaker in the world today. Each one of us has the potential to go out and transform the face of the earth.
Just as a word of summary, the Letter of Peter tells us that we have received a prophetic message and that we will do well to be attentive to it. In our world today it is the duty of religion to be prophetic. All of us, not just the clergy, owe it to the world to be courageous about the issues we face, but the bravest thing that any of us can do is to take strong stands on a broad spectrum of issues with peacemaking as our guiding principle. No doubt, the Transfiguration is a heavenly-minded celebration in the Church, but what it calls us to do has everything to do with life in the here and now.
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