I have often viewed Transfiguration Sunday, coming as it does just before Lent, as a time to think about transfiguration on the personal level: What disciplines and practices can I do to bring me closer to God and make me gleam with that mountaintop glow?
But what if we approach the Transfiguration from a different angle? What if we looked to this story for guidance in transfiguring the church?
The part of the story that has always fascinated me most is Peter’s response. He says, “Master, it is well that we are here; let us make three booths, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah” (Mark 9: 5).
Why did he say this? Simple babbling in fear? A desire to stay on the mountain, basking in the glow as long as possible? Did he have some sort of capitalist plan? Was it a yearning for shelter? Was it an early vision of a church building?
On the move
As I think about the Transfiguration story in terms of changing the church, I’m struck by how Jesus didn’t come to build new physical structures. He was a man on the move, a man who never stayed on the mountaintop — or anywhere else — for very long.
Many of us are bound so tightly to our buildings that the physical structures force us to behave in certain ways. In our older buildings, we have trouble being fully accessible to those with wheelchairs and walkers; church architects never anticipated those devices.
Many of us have buildings that need constant infusions of money, which means that our church leaders spend time figuring out how to pay for both the unexpected bills and the utility costs that can suck us dry. Time spent figuring out finances means less time to figure out how to be truly welcoming.
What would happen if we left these booths behind?
I do understand that most of us are not willing to sell our buildings and be a church in a radically different way. I know that many congregations are experimenting with ways to make the resource that is the building work in different ways: sharing the space, rethinking the space, using our church buildings in ways that transfigure our communities.
Transformed by the experience
In an ideal world, our church building would be that place where we come to experience Transfiguration so that we can go out into the world to transform it. Many of us spend most of our time with people who do not go to church and who do not know many Christians.
If we are out as Christians, those people will be watching everything we do. Do our lives show people a path to God? Do people want to linger in our presence because they sense a more profound presence?
How can our congregations transfigure us so that we will be a living light? Are we the agents of God’s transfiguring power?
The answers will be as varied as the humanity of our congregations. If we did nothing else, it would be enough for us to gather to hear the stories and sing the songs and to be reminded each week that we are called to a different vision than the one that the world offers us.
But we can do so much more.
Limitless possibilities
Some congregations offer a way to harness our collective power to work for social justice, whether that be in creating a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter or pressuring our legislators to make a more humane community.
Some of us gather because of the artistic groups that we find in our churches, creative communities that are willing to let us explore the intersections of faith and creativity. We may sing in choirs, but in many congregations, there are so many more possibilities: quilting, writing groups, drama teams, bread making, butterfly gardening, painting … the list continues to grow.
Some groups are more contemplative; they offer a sanctuary from the increasingly noisy world that intrudes more and more. Some congregations offer a variety of ways to get our physical selves involved in both worship and leisure time: yoga, liturgical dance, prayer that moves us in all sorts of ways.
What does church look like?
I am transfigured by a vision of church that contains all sorts of bodies, from the elderly woman who finds a place to stash her walker to the transgender person who is between sexes, from the man scarred by his latest heart surgery to the pregnant woman.
I am left breathless by this vision of bodies in a variety of colors from a variety of backgrounds. I am inspired by a vision of church that welcomes both the arts of the banner makers and choir members and the arts of the impressionistic painters and mystical poets. I cheer for a church that offers sanctuary from the pointless noise that assaults us in the outside world.
I am transfigured by a vision of a church that flings wide open the doors, both to welcome the stranger with more than just a visitor name tag and to send transformed members out “to heal what is split in the world” (in the words of Gail Godwin).
