Transfigured by Love – Valentines Day/Transfiguration Sunday
(Luke 9:28-37)

Rev. Christine Ng

A few weeks ago my family and I went to see the movie Avatar – in IMAX 3D. Okay, so story wasn’t anything startlingly new – kind of Dances With Wolves on the planet Pandora, with large blue aliens instead of Native Americans. But it worked, and the world director James Cameron created was amazing, stunning, almost magical.

When it was over, and the lights came on, and the screen went dark, I was in no hurry to return to the everyday world waiting outside. As always happens when I see a good movie in the theater, I had been transported to another place and time, and then suddenly dropped back into the real world. But that is life. All I can do is collect my belongings, put on my coat, and head for the exit, perhaps with one last wistful look at the screen, dropping my popcorn box in the trash on my way out so it doesn’t end up on the floor.

So I really can’t blame Peter for wanting to stay up on the mountain with Jesus. Peter, with John and James, had followed Jesus up the mountain to pray, and just when he was about to fall asleep, he saw something amazing, stunning, magical – Jesus transfigured – his appearance changed, face shining, his clothes a dazzling white. And then Moses and Elijah appeared and spoke to Jesus about what was to come – which I am sure Peter didn’t understand at all.

But for just a moment, Peter was transported to another, brighter, world, and he said “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He wanted to make that time last forever, but he couldn’t, any more than I could stay on Pandora.

And as he was saying this the brilliance and glory was gone, hidden by a cloud. And a voice came from the cloud saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” Or more correctly, it says “keep listening to him.” Then the three disciples followed Jesus back down the mountain. In the valley was another crowd to be taught, another child to be healed, more work to do. It was back to the “real world” – to the ordinary, to business as usual for Jesus and his disciples.

But that is life. We spend most of it in the valley – in the everyday world, in ordinary time. Only occasionally do we get a chance to see the mountaintop – experience something transcendent that touches us so deeply it takes our breath away, something that transfigures us – a moment almost out of time, when everything seems right, when we connect with something beyond ourselves. It’s euphoric.

But when the moment passes it can be a bit of a let down. And it’s easy to get disillusioned if we don’t realize that this has to be so, that both mountains and valleys are part of the journey. Not only that, but as Christians we are called to follow Jesus back down the mountain to serve and minister to others.

So all we can do is try to hold onto the memory, carry it with us as we come back down the mountain again. Because things can get rough down here in the valley. It can be hard to continue the journey, hard to carry our crosses, hard to stay on the road. And sometimes we get stuck, bored with our everyday tasks, weighed down with sleep like Peter, John and James. But then suddenly, if we keep watching and listening, we get invited back to the mountaintop and catch another glimpse of something divine to carry with us for the next leg of our journey.

Whether or not it happened just the way Luke, or Mark or Matthew describes it – the story of the Transfiguration teaches important truths about the nature of the journeys we take in life. Our spiritual journeys as individual Christians and as a community of faith. But also other important life journeys – like marriage – the journey of being in a committed relationship with another person.

Weddings are mountaintop experiences. Beautiful, powerfully moving, sometimes even transcendent, euphoric. For a brief moment in time, we are transfigured by love. Our appearance changed, out of the ordinary – dressed in our finest, special clothes, the bride’s a dazzling white.

But too soon the wedding and honeymoon are over – and we have to come back to the real, everyday world of jobs and house payments and taking out the trash. And we have to learn to live daily with the promises we have made.

In that way, marriage is very much a spiritual journey, and a model of Christian faith, of our relationship with God – because what is it to be a Christian except to learn, everyday, how to live out our commitment to God? And like any relation there are ups and downs, successes and failures.

In the words of Stanley Hauerwas, “Love doesn’t create and marriage; marriage teaches us what a costly adventure love is.” Both marriage and faith require us to give a loving relationship everything we have, everything we are. And in the process more than our appearance is changed — we are not just transfigured but transformed by the love lived out, everyday, in that relationship.

Renita Weems is an African American minister and author who is married to another minister. After 10 years of marriage, she wrote about her experience, and what it taught her about her relationship with God. I’d like to conclude by reading excerpts from that essay – which is a remarkable window into marriage lived out in the context of Christian faith. I think those who have been in committed loving relationships, with another person or with God, can identify with her words. She writes:

I’m convinced that almost ten years ago, on a fine candlelit evening in August, God was setting me up. Probably fed up with my whining that God wasn’t as responsive as I’d expected, and disappointed that I blamed most of that on God rather than on myself, God ‘gave’ me to my husband, sure of what would happen. As usual, God was right.

I’ve never been so serious about renewing a relationship with God as I have been for almost a decade of marriage. I’ve learned things about love, fidelity, commitment, gentleness, and forgiveness that simply weren’t possible when I was single. There was no reason to. But now that I’m smack in the middle of matrimony, trying daily to learn how to love this one man, to do it right (and if not right, at least decently), wedlock has driven me straight back to God.

Marriage stripped me of the luxury of hiding who I really am. I can no longer hide from myself, from God, and from another human being. It’s strange – the push and pull of intimacy, the wanting to be close but not that close, needing to be near but not so near. I understand now why the Hebrew prophets used marriage to symbolize the joys and struggles of the relationship between God and human beings.

I ran away from God because I couldn’t bear the intimacy, the living under God’s constant gaze. And now I find myself scurrying back to God because I know I need a power greater than my own to stay in this marriage.

No one would ever marry if they really knew what awaited them around the corner, down the way, or at the bend in the road.

When we got marriage, we wrote our own ceremony. The minister said: Renita comes to you this day saying that she believes that you deserve her faith and trust and she is willing to walk with you through the remainder of her life. I challenge you to be worthy of that trust.

The poor man didn’t have a chance. He didn’t know what hit him. How could he know that with my faith, my trust, and my willingness to walk with him came my fears, my demons, my bruises, my temper, my moody ways, and my long feet.

How could I be so blind as to stand behind those words? What was I thinking? And to think that I vowed to take on his fears, demons, demanding ways – it’s hard to believe.

What an incredible risk the two of us took. Because to be married is to live stark naked before another human being. It’s living completely stripped of pretenses, wide open. It’s the kind of nakedness that leaves you defenseless and scared out of your mind. We risked that we wouldn’t laugh at each other’s nakedness. We risked that when the truth about us came out, we wouldn’t despise each other. We risked that even if we were disappointed that the other was not what we’d imagined, we would not walk away.

A few months into the marriage we’d already broken our vows a hundred times. Not by sleeping with someone else. No. We chose a crueler route. We’ve fallen in and out of love with each other over and over. We’ve walked away from each other many times in our hearts. We’ve called each other names; cursed each other for not recording checks; been grossed out when the other was sick; and have fantasized about marrying, buying homes, and having children with someone “better” – all of this we’ve done zillions of times.

And we’ve returned to each other again and again, remarkably, mysteriously, wondrously, begging each other’s forgiveness. We keep coming back to each other.

To keep a vow is not to keep from breaking it, but to keep trying to discover its meaning. It takes only a few moments to make the vow, but a lifetime to live it.

We will marry and remarry each other every year for the rest of our lives. That is the nature of marriage, to marry and remarry this one person again and again, to renegotiate the marriage in light of the changes in each of us, to adjust in light of circumstances beyond our control.

Talk is cheap, and we’re both fickle. So we need vows. They won’t keep us if we don’t want to be kept. But if we want them to, they’ll succeed in keeping us lying down and waking up next to each other, passing the salt to each other, picking up each other’s clothes and trimming each other’s hair—until the love returns.

God and the community who heard our vows will help us in the meantime – by reminding us of what we promised, and by teaching us what really is fidelity, grace, mercy, and love.

Amen.