The Feast of the Transfiguration 2009

A sermon preached by the Right Reverend David Hope
former Bishop of London and Archbishop of York

'Peter said to Jesus, Master it is good for us to be here' (Lk: 9.33)

One of the high points - quite literally too - of any pilgrimage to the Holy Land, is the visit to Mount Tabor, the Mount of Transfiguration. It's actually quite a hair raising journey, as having abandoned the bus and queued quite some time, you are crammed into an altogether smaller taxi and begin the corkscrew like journey to the top of the mountain. And then having survived numerous z bends and near misses with taxis coming the other way you finally arrive at the top of the mountain - and what a mountain top experience it is! As in Peter's words to Jesus you can hardly restrain yourself from saying - ' it is good Lord to be here'.

For there you are with Jesus on the mountain top - the lovely basilica church - the breathtaking views - and in spite of the thronging crowds it is still possible to find a quiet place to savour the stillness of the cool air and there to 'be' - to contemplate and to reflect on the extraordinary vision which the disciples experienced as Jesus is transfigured before their very eyes.

For a moment the veil is lifted and He who but a few days before had been warning them of His forthcoming betrayal, suffering and death is now standing before them gleaming and glistening - His whole body suffused with the divine light of God's glory - just as Moses' face had shone on Sinai. Here truly in this moment, the Old Covenant of God's grace and mercy is fulfilled and transformed in the person of Jesus Christ - the Mediator of the New Covenant - that same Covenant celebrated this very night and every time we 'do this' in remembrance of Him.

'Peter said to Jesus, Master it is good for us to be here'

So what then does this Feast of the Transfiguration have to say to us today - a Feast it has to be said celebrated with much more solemnity in the Eastern Church than the Western, and where it has been so celebrated for far longer too. And maybe that gives us something of a clue as to both an understanding and the relevance of this day.

One of the things I have tended to do over the years and experiencing all manner of church services is to apply what I call the 'transfiguration test'. In other words does this act of worship in which I am now participating enable me to experience something of the wonder, the splendour, the mystery, and the glory of the eternal and everlasting God - the God who in Christ shines out in glory on the holy mount? Can I in all honesty say at the conclusion of the service in those words of Peter to Jesus - 'Lord it is good to be here' - and yes of course there have been such transfigurative and transformative occasions and moments in worship, but all too often I must confess that I have thought to myself quite the contrary - 'Its good Lord to get out of here'.

Of course we cannot be on a high all the time, but that does not mean to say that the prime object in the worship that we offer is that those present might be able to experience some glimpse of God's glory. All too often worship - it's just the usual service - turns out to be the most unusual service with the emphasis more on the somewhat more banal attempts to mirror the distractions of the world of entertainment than to reflect the compelling attractions of the sheer beauty and wonder of heaven. We may well ask where has all the mystery gone?

For one thing our worship is altogether too wordy; where is the silence of the mountain top - that silence which is not borne of the vicar loosing his way, but rather a silence which enables us simply to 'be' in the presence of the great mystery in our midst - that silence in which we contemplate in the words of the ancient Eastern Liturgy 'Rank on rank the host of heaven, Spreads its vanguard on the way, As the Light of Light descendeth From the realms of endless day' - a silence in which already we hear on the distant ear the sound of the song of heaven to which we are invited to join our earthly voices with angels and archangels and the whole company of heaven in the praise of the Triune God.

Today's feast then is a challenge to us and to the whole church about the nature and style of our worship not that it be so conformed to the ways of this world but rather that it be both transforming and transformative so that we and all who participate may be caught up and the worship itself in the words of the Puritan poet John Milton, that it 'may with sweetness, through mine ear, dissolve me into ecstasies, and bring all heaven before mine eyes'.

'Peter said to Jesus, Master it is good for us to be here'.

The gospel tells us that Jesus' face glistened and gleamed with the divine light of God's glory, and here surely is a further dimension of the Transfiguration for today's church and the priority for its mission, namely that we turn our attention out and away from ourselves and the pettiness and irrelevance of so many of our time-wasting agendas to the addressing of the needs of the world and its people. It was the great fourth/fifth century archbishop of Constantinople John Chrysostom who once wrote 'God has no need of golden vessels but of golden hearts'. So the question is how is it possible for those of us transformed in and through the liturgy of this night might be the more enabled to effect that fullness of life and living which Christ wills for all - Christ's glistening and gleaming face reflected in the glistening and gleaming faces of all humanity ? And no it's not about the social gospel, but it is about the social dimension of the Gospel which we neglect at our peril.

After all that was one of the great strengths of the Catholic Movement in the nineteenth century - liturgy and life were inseparably interconnected - such was and continues to be the 'incarnational' principle on which the movement was founded and grounded - the very dignity of each and every person made in the image and likeness of God. People living in the most squalid of situations and circumstances were not only given a vision of God's beauty in worship - they experienced at the same time the actuality, the reality, of better living conditions, a better quality of life -lives changed, transformed through the advocacy and sheer slog of both priests and people. That priority for mission - that 'bias to the poor' as it has been called, yet remains not only in our own land but throughout the world, and we cannot rest until that glistening and gleaming face of the transfigured Christ is reflected in glistening and gleaming faces everywhere.

And a third and final consideration is that in almost every representation of this days feast and not least in the icons of the eastern Churches - the beams of God's glory extend over the whole of the mountain top and beyond - a sign that the whole earth is to be caught up in the process of transformation and redemption. Such is the very basis of our commitment to the ensuring of the sustainability of that which in creation God has entrusted to us as 'Priests for Creation'.

The vision of the mountain top swathed in the light of the divine presence is a recalling of that first morning of creation, when, pristine and perfect, God looked upon all that he had made and 'behold it was very good'. The responsibility which is ours today is not simply a jumping on the latest environmental band wagon. The care for creation springs from the very heart of God and the nature of our relationship with the Creator who has not given it to us to lord it over the created order to pillage and to plunder, but has entrusted all that He has made to us as responsible stewards who will see to it that the delicate and precarious balance of life on earth and throughout the cosmos is not only maintained but also further sustained. What a terrible reproach it is for us that today also marks one of humankind's worst atrocities - the destruction wrought by the atom bomb of Hiroshima - the black destruction and devastation in utter contrast to the light and life which God in Christ wills for His world.

'Peter said to Jesus, "Master it is good for us to be here".'

So then this much neglected celebration of the Transfiguration in the Western church generally, turns out to be both central and crucial in directing us to the very heart of the mission entrusted to the church in every age, namely the transformation in Jesus Christ of the world and its peoples.

For here on the mountain top the disciples Peter and James and John are given a glimpse of that glory which is yet to be revealed in us, in the church and in the world - the glory which amidst all the sufferings of this present time gives us hope not just for the future but for this present - for here this very night in and through the celebration of these holy and sacred mysteries you and I are invited to participate in this 'sacred banquet wherein Christ is received, the memorial of His passion renewed, the soul filled with grace and a pledge of future glory is given us'. In the Eucharistic presence of the glorified Lord then, with Peter, we can surely restrain ourselves no longer but simply yet profoundly and overwhelmingly respond - 'Lord. It is good that we are here'.