Dazzling Brilliance

Sermon for Last Sunday After Epiphany

Church of St. Paul & St. James | New Haven, CT

Luke 9:28-36

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If you want to experience dazzling transformation, find a milkweed plant.

Milkweed is the only food the monarch butterfly eats. For this reason, monarchs lay their eggs on a leaf from this plant. Eventually, when the eggs hatch, the newborn caterpillars are supplied with the food they need to live.

Then, the caterpillar settles into its new home, which has been conveniently pre- equipped with a crawl-up, all-you-can-eat milkweed bar. They eat, and they grow.

But shortly after settling into this Milkweed Haven, a new guideline comes along and alters things. Even though it's only been about two weeks into their short lives, the caterpillar has grown sufficiently, and it is now time to enter a new phase.

So, they retreat. Their skin turns into a silk-like sleeping bag called a ‘chrysalis.’ And there, even while wrapped inside this protective case that resembles a coffin, they continue to live.

As a child, in the late summer months, I visited my grandma in Michigan. We would wander through the woods while keeping our eyes peeled for some kind of natural wonder. Eventually, we would find it: a milkweed plant—and dangling from a leaf, a chrysalis. We’d carefully trim off the branch, place it in a jar, and bring it home with us.

Each day, with anxious anticipation, my siblings and I would check the jar. Patiently waiting for what we knew was to come, and often not so patiently. Before long, the chrysalis would break open—and into the world a new creature would slowly emerge. Not all at once, it took its time—adjusting, resting.

And then... we dazzled in orange brilliance. When the new monarch butterfly would unfold its wings—glory was unveiled before us. Wings spread wide, bright and dazzling orange—ready for flight. This morning we recall the story of The Transfiguration. With three of his disciples, Jesus retreats to a mountain to pray. They ascend to the mountaintop, and later they descend from the mountaintop.

For most of the accounts of Jesus’ ministry, this is a key pivot point. It is a place of transition in the gospel narrative. Jesus has been teaching, traveling, healing, and then he retreats to the mountain.

Throughout the Gospels, we see this pattern repeated over and over; Just as things start heating up, Jesus retreats.

This pattern reminds me of an African proverb that goes like this: “When the roots are deep, there is no reason to fear the wind.” Jesus knows he needs deep roots. And it is precisely when the stakes are high that remaining rooted is most important.

When the critical moments make demands of his life, Jesus sinks deep into his roots. In retreating, Jesus chooses to cultivates life—even when many demands swirl around him. Now, something shifts on that mountaintop with the disciples. It is almost as though time stops—and it isn’t just because of the higher altitude. A thin space has been created between ascending and descending the mountain, and into this liminality breaks the reality of God.

And then... the disciples are dazzled in glory. Jesus is transfigured—and the fullness of God’s grandeur rests upon him. The reality of his glory now plainly emerges and is cast out onto all who behold it, and those disciples see Jesus in dazzling clothes— bright and glorious.

Unlike a butterfly though, this unveiling is but a foretaste of Jesus’ even greater glory to come. These days, is can be all-too-easy to think that the only thing that remains constant it is transition. So-often, in this season when “transition is the new normal,” it can be tempting to grab hold of whatever we can latch onto. Amid the many changes and chances of our lives, it doesn’t take much to get tangled up in uncertainties— grasping for stability.

This would seem to be the case for Peter. In the scene that unfolds, Peter wants to linger in the mountaintop moment. As the Message Bible says, Peter exclaims “‘Master, this is a great moment! Let’s build three memorials: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ He blurted this out without thinking.”

Okay, but in Peter’s defense, he has just beheld the glorious unfolding of The Eternal. Who could blame him for getting swept up in it all? In transition, he has discovered something life-giving, and his response is to shelter in place. But, as we’re told, he evidently doesn’t quite get it.

But the time of transition often isn’t so dazzling. As butterflies know, alongside anyone who has gone through puberty, even when expected transition can be quite uncomfortable.

Studies of caterpillars have made startling discoveries. In one study of the metamorphosis process, a team of researchers placed highly sensitive microphones next to a chrysalis. And with those microphones they recorded noises coming from inside. Though faint, they picked up an audible sound—and it was like crying.

So, before those monarch butterflies unfold their dazzling wings, it would seem there is also a time of pain. Other studies have even found that butterflies retain memories from when they were caterpillars, suggesting the possibility of also remembering their time of metamorphosis.

Indeed, we are in transition: in our world, in the Church, and in our lives. As the invasion of Ukraine this past week makes evident, and surely the Ukrainian people know all-too-well, we are in transition.

Though we may be tempted to cling to fleeting security, in faith we claim hope in all that is revealed in The Transfiguration. In the moment before Peter’s outburst of enthusiasm, we are told Jesus was discussing his “departure.” He considers with Moses and Elijah the completion of his earthly work. And as we know and surely Jesus did there on the mountaintop, all of this means his death is drawing close. But somehow, he continues to cultivate life.

Jesus knows he must retreat in prayer—and he also knows he cannot remain on the mountaintop. His mission is still before him: to proclaim life—that all might know life, and have life in abundance. So, Jesus retreats—and Jesus returns.

Settling into the place of transition would prematurely cut off the possibilities of transformation. The promise of new life that transformation brings is inseparable from living faithfully in and through the transition.

The Franciscan mystic and theologian, Richard Rohr, says it like this, “We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.” Wherever we may be desiring the promise of new life, knowing the knowing and having that abundant life begins with living into its promise.

Even when the wind blows, and we sway back and forth, in faith we live into the promise of new life. In rooting ourselves to the source of life and cultivating life together, we will weather the storm. Now, perhaps you may be thinking, we are not trees...neither are we butterflies, nor are we Jesus on a mountaintop...so what exactly is relevant here, David? In just a few days, Ash Wednesday will begin the season of Lent. It is a time of pilgrimage; it is a time of transition leading to the promise of resurrection. With all that swirls around us, how might we enter into this season of Lent through this story of Transfiguration?

As we enter Lent, I wonder... ...what would it really look like to behold the living God? ...what might our world be like if like Jesus we retreated and returned? ...what is possible for this community if each of us were to cultivate life?

Maybe this looks like nourishing ourselves in spiritual disciplines—like coming to the Eucharist table, as we will in just a moment...

Perhaps it is choosing to read that novel collecting dust on your nightside, long neglected because “living” is just too busy...

Or maybe cultivating life this Lent is as simple beginning each morning with a full glass of water...

And we might commit ourselves to rigorous practices, too. Like, for instance, practicing childlike wonder by pausing to delight each time we hear a child’s laughter—or maybe each day for lunch we make for ourselves a PB&J with the crusts prepared exactly as they once were, the cut of course being just right... (the benefit of this being that if it backfires and we grow sick and tired of PB&J, it then only becomes increasingly penitential)

As we continue and enter into more transition, and if we do so transfigured by a new normal of living and cultivating life... well, I wonder...