Transfiguration Sunday is a strange festival in the Church calendar. The story of the Transfiguration is the story of Jesus climbing a mountain with his closest friends. On the mountaintop they have a profound experience. There is a dazzling light, a cloud that overshadowed them, and the cloud terrified them.
That same cloud appeared generations earlier and overshadowed one of the fathers of the Jewish people.
That same cloud appeared generations later and overshadowed the father of the people of Islam.
As we read of that cloud today, we should do so with the same fear and trembling of our ancestors who over the generations have encountered that cloud.
Transfiguration Sunday may be a festival of the church, but its history is steeped in the political and religious intolerance of the world. Before the fifteenth century, only a few Christian communities kept the feast of the Transfiguration. The festival hadn’t caught on like other festivals. In all of Christendom only a handful of congregations marked the day and we would not be celebrating it today if it was not for a terrible battle.
On 29 July 1456 news was announced in Rome that Hungarian General John Hunyadi had defeated the Turks after the siege of Belgrade and the bells of churches rang out in celebration of the slaughter of some 50,000 Muslims. Overjoyed, Pope Callixtus III ordered the whole church to commemorate the victory against the infidels by celebrating the feast of the Transfiguration annually on August 6th.
For generations the church commemorated the battle by celebrating Transfiguration Sunday on August 6th. Some churches still celebrate Transfiguration on this date. However, shortly after the end of World War II Protestant churches discretely decided to move the festival of Transfiguration to the last day of Epiphany.
In 1945 a slaughter of a different sort was inflicted on a different people.
On August 6th 1945, someone climbed not a holy mountain, but into the cockpit of a plane—a machine of war. The Allies had a new secret weapon and they wanted to use it with the maximum psychological effect. They had prepared three atomic bombs. On the 16th of July, the first bomb was tested in New Mexico.
As a terrifying cloud rose up from the earth, the father of the atomic bomb J. Robert Oppenheim quoted from the Hindu Scriptures, a line from the Bhagavad-Gita: “Now, I am become death the destroyer of worlds.” On August 6 the second bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and three days later the third one was dropped on Nagasaki. 150,000 people lay dead. Thousands more died later from the effect of atomic radiation. 75,000 buildings were destroyed. Two cities were devastated. The world will never be the same. The date for the festival of Transfiguration was moved.
The shape of that awful cloud hangs now forever in our sky. If you close your eyes, you will see that cloud; rising up from the earth; a mushroom more poisonous than anything created by God. It is the new tree of knowledge of good and evil. We have eaten of its fruit and we shall never be the same.
We live in fear of everything that emanates from that terrible cloud.
Has the memory of that poisonous cloud obliterated from our minds the memory of another cloud? Do we no longer remember the story of another climb, another light, another voice, another cloud?
In this story, Jesus speaks of his departure, that will come soon in Jerusalem. Do we not meet on Transfiguration Sunday to proclaim the victory of Christ’s death over every evil, even the total annihilation by human evil?
Friends, I trust that we will be led out of this of fear and hatred by a pillar of cloud; a cloud that transformed Moses and a band of refugees in the desert into a people; a cloud that rested upon Jesus declaring Jesus to be the embodiment of all that God had tried to say for generations; the same cloud that carried on Mohammad into the heavens, leaving behind a people who would take on the name Islam, which itself means peace.
In his book, God Has a Dream: A Vision of Home for Our Time, Desmond Tutu talks about a transfiguration experience that he will never forget. It occurred when apartheid was still in full swing. Tutu and other church leaders were preparing for a meeting with the prime minister of South Africa to discuss the troubles that were destroying their nation. They met at a theological college that had closed down because of the white government’s racist policies. During a break from the proceedings, Tutu walked into the college’s garden for some quiet time. In the midst of the garden was a huge wooden cross. As Tutu looked at the barren cross, he realized that it was winter, a time when the grass was pale and dry, a time when almost no one could imagine that in a few short weeks it would be lush, green, and beautiful again. In a few short weeks, the grass and all the surrounding world would be transfigured. As the archbishop sat there and pondered, he obtained a new insight into the power of transfiguration, of God’s ability to transform our world. Tutu concluded that transfiguration means that no one and no situation is “untransfigurable.” The time will eventually come when the whole world will be released from its current bondage and brought to share in the glorious liberty that God intends.
I’d like to read back to you the words of Desmond Tutu: “The images that we have of God are odd because God—this omnipotent one—is actually weak. As a parent I understand this. You watch your child going wrong and there’s not very much you can do to stop them. You have tried to teach them what is right, but now it is their life and they are mucking it up. There are many moments when you cry for your child, and that’s exactly what happens with God. All of us are God’s children.”
I frequently say, I’m so glad I’m not God! Can you imagine having to say: “Bin Laden is my child. Saddam Hussein is my child. George Bush is my child.” Oh! All of them, including me. Can you imagine what God must have felt watching the Holocaust? Watching Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Watching Rwanda? Can you imagine God watching Darfur? Watching Iran, Gaza, Ukraine, watching the destruction of humanity and creation. Imagine God watching and saying, “These are my children here, and they are killing my other children. And I can’t do anything because I have said to them, ‘I give you the space to be you and that space enables you to make choices. And I can’t stop you when you make the wrong choices. All I can do is sit here and cry.’” And God cries until God sees beautiful people who care, even if they may not do earth-shattering things.
It was transfiguring something ugly, letting something beautiful in. When God sees that, a smile breaks forth on God’s face and God smiles through the tears. It’s like when the sun shines through the rain. The world may never know about these little transfigurations, but these little acts of love are potent. They are moving our universe so that it will become the kind of place God wants it to be. And so, yes, you wipe the tears from God’s eyes. And God smiles. You people have transfigured the face of God on more than a few occasions. By following Jesus out into the world, to reach out to your sisters and brothers, you have transfigured the face of God.
So, on this Transfiguration Sunday, let us be reminded of God’s ability to transform the world precisely because God dwells in, with and through you! Do not give up hope: no one and no situation is “untransfigurable”. The time will eventually come when the whole world will be released from its current bondage and brought to share in the glorious liberty that God intends. Continue to give hope to the hopeless, reach out and love the world that God loves, and always remember that you have the power to transfigure the face of God!
References:
The Story of Christianity: Volume 1: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation Justo L. Gonzalez
God Has a Dream: A Vision of Home for Our Time, Desmond Tutu