PROPERS: LAST SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY, YEAR A
TEXT: MATTHEW 17:1-9
PREACHED AT ST. PAUL’S CHAPEL, MAGNOLIA SPRINGS, ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2023.
ONE SENTENCE: A goal in life is to become “like” – a metaphor for the Gospel.
A good friend of mine during my thirty years of service in the Diocese of Mississippi was the Reverend James Beauregard Roberts. He went by “Bo.”
Bo is an icon in Mississippi. He was rector of what was tiny St. Mark’s Church in a portion of Gulfport known as Mississippi City. He arrived there a couple of months before Hurricane Camille destroyed the church – rebuilt it, and saw it grow.
He was rector there at St. Mark’s for 45 years – through four bishops. He led the rebuilding of the church after Camille and Hurricane Katrina. It grew to be one of the largest parishes in the diocese.
Bo is a noted raconteur. His stories are legend. His humor is memorable. There is no short conversation with Bo.
Conversations with Bo always begin with “It’s like this…” He compares one situation to another. All situations have an analogy. Bo tells the truth through images. He speaks in metaphors.
Metaphors can be defined simply as “the quality or truth of one thing being carried over to another.” Bo is a master of that. Metaphors – truth pointed toward something else.
Which brings me to scripture.
There are many levels of truth in scripture. Don’t get sucked into that argument of primarily literal truth. That understanding removes so many layers of meaning to scripture. For example, is the important truth of the creation narrative in Genesis 1 the understanding that God created the world, the cosmos, and all that has ever existed in seven, 24-hour days? Or is a different understanding – that God is the source of everything – that is most important?
Jesus spoke in metaphors – the Good Samaritan, the Wheat and Tares, the Prodigal Son, the Mustard Seed, the City on a Hill, the Pearl of Great Value, the Lost Coin – all great examples.
As you might have noticed, I find great value in the metaphorical meaning of scripture. I find it a most instructive way to find the truth in scripture. The passage means this. To hear the metaphorical meaning is to access the scripture’s meaning for us today. At least 2,000 years later.
So, it is with today’s gospel. This passage is known as the Transfiguration. We hear the story each year on the Last Sunday after the Epiphany – as we prepare to enter Lent. And we hear it, too, on one of the primary feast days of the Church – August 6, the Feast of the Transfiguration. It draws us again and again to God’s movement among people.
In the passage, Jesus climbs a high mountain with what I call his Executive Committee, Peter, James, and John. There he is transfigured before their eyes; as one translation describes it, “whiter than any fuller could bleach them.” Mysteriously and miraculously, he is joined by two prominent Jewish sages from hundreds of years before – Moses and Elijah.
The message seems to be that Jesus is on par… equal to… these great figures so revered by the Jewish people. To many, that emphasizes Jesus’ status as messiah, and it does.
But to me, more meaning can be found in the message that God transforms. God can take our limited, finite being and transform us into people that are able to manifest his renewing, redeeming power despite our human nature. We can bear witness to his redeeming power.
When our lives are so transformed – when we turn back from destructive, alienating ways, ways that are as unique as each one of us – we, too, become metaphors. We become someone or something that points toward a power which alters, changes, renews, and makes whole something which was previously self-defeating and limited.
We become like Jesus. A metaphor.
We have all known someone who we described as godly… as holy… as pointing toward what we would aspire to. A message of the Transfiguration is that God can do that. The power on that mountaintop is available to you and me.
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