Transfiguration Sunday, March 2, 2025

Today’s readings invite us to become mystics, or mystics in the making. Around each corner is a burning bush, a divine whisper, or a transfiguration. God’s light shines in our souls and cells, if we but open our senses. As William Blake says, “If we purify the doors of perception, we will see everything as it is – infinite.” Whether or not you are aware of it, you are a mystic!
Another insightful comment for today’s scriptures comes from poet, Mary Oliver, “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” Open to the mystic and then live out loud, sharing the inspiration that you have received.
The cornerstone passage for today’s lectionary readings is the Transfiguration of Jesus. The disciples and Jesus climb to the top of a hill. Perhaps, the disciples that came with Jesus thought it would just be a retreat or special instruction from their Teacher. But, then the heavens open, Moses and Elijah appear, and Jesus and his ancient companions glow with the light of God. The disciples are gob-smacked or perhaps God-smacked. Light abounds. A love supreme permeates all creation. Jesus is more than Jesus the man. He channels the energy of divine creation in human form.
The disciples want to stay on the mountaintop…forever. And who wouldn’t? In my years as a university chaplain, I often took students on retreat in the Virginia woodlands, far from their studies and the storm and stress of Washington DC. Many expressed regret at having to return to term papers, tests, and work-study employment. But return they must to fulfill the promise of retreat. Mysticism inspires mission, Contemplation leads to challenge. Prayer finds voice in protest.
As the come down the mountain, they meet a man, desperate for his son’s healing. Try as they might, Jesus’ disciples are ineffective in exorcising the spirit that possesses his son. In a manner we can’t fully understand, Jesus rebukes the dominating spirit, setting the boy free to live and love. Jesus’ mystical experience opens him to the world’s needs and enlarges his empathy. In similar fashion, authentic worship may widen our empathy: we may feel more intimately the pain of the world and be driven by God’s Spirit to respond in acts of healing, companionship, allying, protest, and prayerful resistance. (The passage invites the congregation to ponder: what “evil spirits” are we called to rebuke whether in our personal lives or in the present darkness of our nation? How do we as Christians live out our prophetic mandate without further polarizing our divisive social and political context?)
We need both transfiguration and action. We need moments in which everything makes sense, in which we see the big picture of life, and claim our mystic spirit. Yet, for most of us, we must leave the monastic mountain, or the privacy of Jesus and me, to follow in the footsteps of Jesus in confronting the evils of our time. Dorothy days prays and pickets. Thich Nhat Hanh promotes “engaged Buddhism.” Thomas Merton condemns the Vietnam War. The Berrigan brothers disrupt the Selective Service process. There is a place for the mysticism of the monastery, and monastic mysticism can be world transforming. There is also a place for what Rufus Jones describes as “affirmative mysticism,” embodied spirituality as a force for social transformation.
Still, not all of us are activists. Paul reminds us that “where the Spirit of God is present, there is freedom.” Filled with God’s Spirit, and experiencing the glow of God’s presence, “we do not lose heart,” despite the forces arrayed against us. We can face this present darkness, enlivened and enlightened by moments of transfiguration.
Today’s scripture invites the preacher and congregation to ponder contemplative activism and prophetic and prayerful witness. There are many ways to witness. In her later years, when her health prevented her from protesting, Dorothy Day commented that she could still pray. We need to let the light of transfiguration shine in the way God calls us given our personality, life experience, responsibilities, and context. “This little light of mine…I’m gonna let it shine.” Transfiguration is about today and also about tomorrow and the impact we have on the world beyond ourselves. The world is healed one act at a time, and a process-relational vision invites us to commit ourselves to be people of transfiguration, God’s companions in Tikkun, repairing the world.
(For process resources in the area of joining mysticism and mission, I commend Jay McDaniel’s “Living from the Center,” Patricia Adams Farmer’s “Embracing a Beautiful God” and “Beauty and Process Theology” along with my texts “Praying with Process Theology,” “Taking a Walk with Whitehead,” “Process Theology and Mysticism,” “Homegrown Mystics,” “The Mystic in You,” “Prophetic Healing: Howard Thurman’s Vision of Contemplative Activism,” and “Mystics in Action,”)