Listen to Him, and He Will Tell You Who You Are
August 6th is the Feast of the Transfiguration in the church’s calendar. It also happens to be the anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood seven years ago. Because it is celebrated on a fixed date, august 6th, it does not always fall on a Sunday, but in the Episcopal church, when it does fall on a Sunday, it takes precedence over the other readings and prayers for that day. In the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, it is designated as a “Feast of our Lord,” Which gives this day its place in the hierarchy of feasts. It is so designated, presumably because it reveals theological depth and mystery through the person and work of Jesus. That is to say, it tells us something about God and humanity through a seminal event in Jesus’ life.
It should also be noted that the story of the Transfiguration is read every year either before (as in the Episcopal Church calendar) or during (as in the Roman calendar) the season of Lent, the forty days spent in preparation for the celebration of resurrection at Easter.
As I consider this reading and the anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood, I am assisted by the writing of Eugene F. Rogers in his book After the Spirit. Rogers points out that the story as it is told in the gospel of Luke begins by noting that Jesus’ transfiguration is preceded by his prayer: “And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white.” This gospel often notes Jesus’ discipline of prayer, and Rogers connects this discipline on Tabor with both the revelation of divine glory in human flesh and the presence of the Holy Spirit resting on the body of Jesus.
While the Holy Spirit is not mentioned (as in the baptism, where similar words of divine pleasure are spoken over the Son), Rogers notes that the appearance of the cloud has long been interpreted as the presence of the Spirit (NB: this is one meaning and benefit of incense in liturgy and prayer - a material, sensory indicator of the unseen Spirit). In prayer, Jesus is enveloped by the Holy Spirit and reveals the glory of the Father to the present disciples and, notably, Moses and Elijah.
As a priest, I am struck by this image. To lead people in worship and take my place in the liturgy is to participate in this union with God. The dazzling raiment of Jesus Is a twofold revelation of the glory of God who is fully present in Jesus and the capacity of humanity realized in the flesh of Jesus. The former is likely easy for us to swallow if we are orthodox Christians, but the latter might be a little more difficult with its suggestion that human beings have the capacity to reveal the glory of God. It is, of course, a well-known piece of Christian tradition to claim that “the glory of God is the human being fully alive,” but I don't know that I have often considered it in the terms given by this story.
Yet, as Rogers argues, prayer is not something proper to human creatures, but rather something proper to the divine life of the Trinity. He says:
[The testimony of Romans 8 and Luke's account of the Transfiguration] do not imply that only humans can pray to God. They imply that only God can pray to God, so that when human beings pray, they are caught up into the triune activity of the Persons praying one to another. That is why the Spirit has to “pray for us,” as Romans so clearly puts it. On this account, prayer is what the Trinity does…
What we see in the Transfiguration is the human creature fully alive because the person (hypostasis), Jesus, is participating in the eternal life of the Trinity through prayer as the proprietary mode of dialogue between the three Persons of the Trinity. The glory of God is revealed when the life of God is received by the human creature, making that one “fully alive.” Prayer is an entrance into a life that is not proper to our nature, but is eternally given by grace.
In many ways this collapses our ideas of progress in sanctification and the gift of grace because the so-called “progress” in sanctification or, in the terms set by the ancient church, “divinization” does not progress as we move toward God. Rather it progresses from God toward us. That is to say, our sanctification is a gift given through the kenosis of God – a stooping, outpouring, humbling movement toward the human creature by the Spirit to be drawn into eternity, yet still in time.
Perhaps this sounds esoteric, and that would not be the first time I am accused of such a crime. It can certainly be an abstract thing, but it is important to look at the body of Jesus in the transfiguration, a body that is enveloped by the spirit of God to reveal the glory of God in communion with God through prayer, as God's desire for our own human flesh, and therefore the deepest truth of our identity.
When we gather together to pray, especially when that prayer includes the offering of the Eucharist, we enter into a life that is not proper to us but that is given nonetheless. We enter into the narration of our identity as God fills us with the Divine Spirit, the same Spirit that animated the life of the Jesus, the Son, and the same spirit that reveals and communicates the love between the Father and the Son.
As I approach my 7th anniversary of ordination to the priesthood, my discipline of prayer has been slack, to say the least. It is perhaps no coincidence, then, that I feel a deep need, now more than ever, to communicate the source of our identity in the life and love of God, poured out in excess through the Spirit. It has been an underlying theme of my preaching of late, perhaps because I am in need of the message more than most. If the Transfiguration of Jesus reveals anything, it reveals that who and what we are is found when we open ourselves in prayer, in silence, and listen to the one whose Word pours into us a story, a life, an identity that begins and ends in God.