So may I speak in the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.
Last week when we gathered, we spoke about the conference that has started in Canterbury, the Lambeth conference, which only takes place once every 10 years, but it’s been 14 years since the last Lambeth conference.
I spoke to my son last night and he had quite a funny take on Lambeth conference because the last time Lambeth Conference happened was in 2008. Of course we went into a major recession.
And now it is 2022 and the archbishops and bishops of the Anglican Communion are meeting again, and there is threat of recession and so David said perhaps the Exchequer of England will be writing to the Archbishop of Canterbury and asking him to cancel these meetings in future because the world economy can’t cope with them.
We have this gospel passage today about the transfiguration. The reality of the Transfiguration is not that Jesus is not already a heavenly being, Jesus is God. But in the transfiguration the earthly flesh (if you want) that is hiding his divinity is stripped away and he is seen in his full glory. And there, just for a moment, Moses and Elijah come and meet with him and discuss.
In the collect for this morning we prayed:
Before Your son suffered and died on the cross he was revealed in glory in this transfiguration.
And so maybe we can speculate what the discussions were. Maybe Moses and Elijah was speaking to Jesus about the coming crucifixion. Maybe they were speaking to Jesus about “You don’t have to go through with it – The Father has said you don’t have to go through with it”. And Jesus in love continued. All of this, of course, is conjecture. But what we do know is that the disciples were profoundly influenced by what they saw there, Peter?
A bumbling mess but but but, uh, let us build tents for you, one for you and one for Moses, and one for Elijah and the Gospel writer says he didn’t know what he was saying. One of the the theories that we have about Luke’s gospel is that it was in fact Peter who dictated the Gospel to Luke, and one of the reasons why we say that is because we have lines like this where Peter isn’t shown in a very good light, and we presume it’s because Peter remembers and tells Luke to write that down.
The other thing that happens after the transfiguration is that the disciples tell no one. Nowhere is it recorded that Jesus told them “now when we go down the mountain, keep quiet, don’t tell anybody about this.” No, the disciples just tell nobody. They are too frightened. You know when you start talking about, well, you know we went up the mountain and we had a chat with Moses and Elijah was there. And you know, Jesus shown in all his glory?
Yeah, right? And there were some magic mushrooms up there too?
They keep quiet about this. And they experienced Jesus’ Transfigured in glory.
What is the teaching for us about Transfiguration? Maybe the teaching for us about Transfiguration is that within each of us is that divine, that is waiting to break out.
The greeting that they use in India – Namaste – says the God in me recognises the God in you. Quite profound. The God in me recognises the God in you and within each of us is the divine because we are created in the image and likeness of God. So the divine in each of us. Is waiting to break out. From the clothing, this flesh that hides the divinity within each of us. And so bit by bit in this life we are seeking the transformation that allows us to be most fully who God has created us to be.
The college that I attended in Grahamstown is called the College of the Transfiguration, and it’s a name that was given to the college by the late Archbishop Desmon Tutu. It had previously been called Saint Paul’s college. We had a second theological College in South Africa as well called St Bedes. Historically, St. Paul College had been for white students and St Bedes for black students. But those two colleges were closed down and a new college was opened. On the site of Saint Paul’s College, Archbishop Desmond Tutu named the New College and he named it the College of the Transfiguration. Because the brokenness of us as the Anglican church had been transformed, transfigured into something different, and we worshipped, and we studied together in ways that we hadn’t previously.
In this current Lambeth conference, the topic of sexuality has been at the forefront of many people’s minds, and there was a threat that we could have a division within the Anglican Church coming out of this Lambeth conference, but somehow a transfiguration has happened within the Anglican church too. Those who believe in affirming people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and those who see it as an abominable evil. Both can sit at the same table and say:
“I recognise that the position that you have come to has been reached by deep prayer and study of Scripture”, not that the one is ignoring Scripture and the other not.
But that both have been wrestling with this issue where they are in their contexts. And as much as the church in South Sudan could close its doors if tomorrow they said we will now be ordaining gay people and having same sex marriage, because in that context they would then be seen as irrelevant. The same would happen if the church in the United States or in Canada or in the many other parts of the world like New Zealand, where the ordination of people who are of sexual diversity and even the marriage of their bishops to same-sex partners is not allowed, but celebrated. Both of those positions must be because the societies within which they are currently demand position.
And within Lambeth this transfiguration if you like, has happened where people with such vastly different views can still sit around the same table and say:
I recognise that you are a person of faith. I recognise that you have searched Scripture and reflected theologically and prayerfully, and that the position that you hold is informed in your context by the Holy Spirit.
How do we go forward? Well, you and I are called to be most fully those people who God has called us to be, and so within each of us the divine must be given this space to break out. To break free. And I pray for you as I pray for myself that this day we will find a new way of living, who it is that God has created us to be?
So that the transfiguration of JP and the transfiguration of Alan and Paul and Jenny and Mary and everybody else is an ongoing process. That will reach its fruition when we cross the threshold into heaven.
Archbishop Michael Curry from the The Episcopal Church of the United States challenged the bishops at Lambeth with these words.
We are not called to make people Churchians, we are called to help them live as Christians.
God bless you as you seek that truth in your own life.
Amen
