Above you'll find a video of my homily based on today's gospel and below you'll find the text of my homily:
Do you remember that scene near the end of the Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Lion, finally encounter the Wizard - whose booming voice they hear amidst all kinds of special effects? And then Dorothy's little dog, Toto, scoots over and pulls back a green curtain, exposing the man and the machinery behind the wizard's voice. And now, revealed for who he is, the Wizard shouts out, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”
Remember that? Well, the story of the transfiguration of Jesus is something like that – except the exact opposite.
Bear with me here…
Something I love about this gospel is the place to which it brings us - and I don't mean the top of a mountain, the mountain Peter, James, and John, and Jesus climb together.
In the gospel here, Jesus takes his friends up Mount Tabor - but the message of the transfiguration brings us not so much UP and AWAY and APART from... as it does draw us NEAR and UP CLOSE to
- to a presence we often ignore
- to a light from which we sometimes turn away
- to a voice whose word we often miss in the noise of our daily lives.
Near and up close to: a presence, a light, and a voice…
• The presence that I can so easily miss or ignore isn't far away, up on a mountaintop. Rather, it lives and breathes in the depths of my soul - and your soul – and in the lives and the circumstances, in which we live - and in all the people around us.
• The light from which I turn away is the light that reveals the reality of things as they are: be they right or wrong, beautiful or tawdry, true or false, healthy or harmful, of God or not of God. I sometimes turn from the light that shows me what is right before me.
• And the voice I fail to hear speaks a word that comforts me in my pain and distress – and - challenges me in my laziness and my apathy.
Most of us will willingly acknowledge that God is everywhere. But if that's true - and it is - then God is in my life and in your life 24/7.
God is in my mind and in my every thought. God is in my heart and my soul.
God is in all of my relationships.
God is in my joys, and my sorrows, and my hopes and my dreams, and my plans and my schemes.
God is not just sitting up in heaven, or on some mountain top - not even just sitting here in church - waiting for us to come see him.
Our God is everywhere. Everywhere in my life and yours.
God has been present to you and me since we opened our eyes in bed this morning. And before that, all through the night.
We might like to think or pretend that God lives in heaven - and we live down here - in relative obscurity. Or we might like to imagine that we are clever enough to HIDE from God.
But we can't.
What water is to a fish, so is the presence of God to our existence - yours and mine.
We live in the presence of God.
We swim in the presence of God.
We breathe in the presence of God.
We are bathed in the presence of God.
Like water for the fish, the presence of God IS our world.
And apart from it - we perish.
When Jesus is transfigured before his friends - the curtain, the veil of his humanity, is pulled aside for a moment, and the fullness of his divinity is exposed.
Peter James and John are invited to experience with their human senses, what we are invited to experience in faith: the presence, the beauty, and the light, and the voice of God - revealed in Jesus.
But unlike the curtain pulled back in the Wizard of Oz, what's revealed here is not pretense - it is the TRUTH.
The Wizard told Dorothy and her friends, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”
Jesus invites us to do exactly the opposite.
On the mountaintop with his friends, he pulls back the curtain that veils his divinity, and he invites them to pay very much attention to him.
Jesus is transfigured and revealed precisely so that his friends can see him, so that they can pay attention to him as he is - the whole of who he is: God and man, human and divine.
And he is transfigured precisely so that WE will pay attention to who he is. Who he is in our minds and our thoughts, in our hearts, our souls, our loves, our lives.
But... how do you and I see? Where might we go to see Jesus transfigured before us? Well, we don't have to go very far. We don't have to go up the mountain. We can stay right where we are - because the Lord is everywhere! And because he DESIRES to reveal himself to us: in all places, in all times, in all circumstances, in all people.
But HOW will we see him? Well, we won't see him with the eyes with which we see each other. But we can, and we WILL see him through the eyes of our FAITH, The eyes of our hearts.
And keep this in mind… I see more through the eyes of my heart, through the eyes of my faith, than I can see with my own two eyes.
Think about the people you love. Do you not see more of that love through faith and in your heart than through your eyes? If your eyes are closed, if you were to go blind, would you no longer see whom you love? Of course not. With the eyes of faith and love, I can see more, I can see deeper, I can see REALITIES that are invisible to the naked eye.
With the eyes of my heart, I can see through the curtain veiling the divinity in each one of us. What I might do then is to pray, to ask the Lord, to open the eyes of my heart, to open the eyes of my faith.
Now, what if we prayed that, and what if Jesus DID do that? What if Jesus opened our eyes to his presence everywhere?
Suppose Jesus opened our eyes to see him transfigured in the people we live and work with, right in our own homes. at our own jobs. In the strangers we pass by every day whom we never meet.
Suppose Jesus opened my eyes to see him in the person I find most difficult to love, the one who annoys me, who hurts me, who has forgotten me, or abandoned me.
Suppose we began to see the transfigured Jesus in the neighbors we don't like, the ones we ignore, the ones we talk about.
Suppose we began to see Jesus transfigured in everyone we see in the news every day – everyone!
Suppose we began to see him transfigured
- in the lives and stories of the undocumented
- in those who are victims of violence in our streets and in our homes…
Suppose we began to see Jesus
- in the wholeness and the hungry
- in the innocent victims of war, in Ukraine, in Iran, in so many other places to the world…
Suppose we were to see the transfigured face of Jesus
- in the politician we most dislike?
Suppose we began to see the transfigured Jesus
- in people who don't look like us
- who don't talk like us
- or vote like us
- or dress like us
- or love like us
- or think like us
- or believe as we believe…
Suppose we began to see Jesus transfigured everywhere, in everyone, all the time…
If we envy Peter, James, and John for their walk up that mountain, and their experiencing seeing Jesus in all his glory - then it falls to us to pray that our eyes of faith might be opened wider and wider, our hearts’ vision become clearer and clearer, that we might see Jesus all the time in everyone, in every situation.
In just a few moments, we will go to the Lord's table, where, with eyes of faith, we will see in bread and wine, the Body and Blood of Jesus.
If our faith allows us to see Jesus in the sacrament of the altar, let's pray that that same faith will help us see Jesus – transfigured - in all our sisters and brothers.
