Gospel
THE HOLY GOSPEL OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST
ACCORDING TO LUKE
Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah " - not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!" When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.
LUKE 9:28-36
Sermon: The Rev. Dr. Maryann Amor
The image on the screen is called Theophania, painted in 2020 by Glasgow artist Peter Howson as part of his Lockdown series. The painting is complicated and difficult to make out in detail, especially from a distance — which is why I’ve included a QR code on your order of service that you can scan so you can view it more closely.
Howson’s painting mirrors the chaos of the pandemic and its aftermath: bodies contorted and broken, ravaged by disease, the scene filled with suffering. This resonates with our present context, where war, climate change, and rising costs of living weigh heavily on our hearts and minds.
Howson’s perspective is bleak. He writes, “We are decadent in the West and have lost the ability to really change. We are losing our religion and idolizing our humanity — which is always a mistake.” For Howson, humans alone cannot save themselves. Instead, he says, “We should all be turning to God. That is our only answer.”
I discovered Howson’s painting and words while reading Alison Milbank’s The Once and Future Parish. Despite dwindling attendance and financial struggles, she argues that the parish church remains a beacon of hope, capable of blessing its community — and by extension, the world.
In Theophania, this role of the church is symbolized by a lighthouse, just visible on the left of the painting. The parish church, like a lighthouse, shines God’s light into suffering, offering a glimpse of God’s salvation. This is only possible because we know God — we’ve experienced God in our lives, been changed by God, and can share that experience with others. The painting’s title, Theophania, is actually derived from the Greek word theophany, meaning a divine encounter that transforms those who experience it. Each of us has encountered God in some way, small or large, we know God, and our theophanies, no matter what they look like, turn us and our church into a lighthouse, the light of what we know breaking through chaos, bringing hope to the suffering and brokenness around us.
Today, our church calendar invites us to reflect on this exact point as we mark the Transfiguration. When we hear of transfiguration maybe we only think of Jesus' shining face and dazzling clothes, but transfiguration is not just about divine glory — it’s about how knowing God transfigures us and equips us to transform the world. When we view transfiguration this way, its connection to Howson’s painting and the church’s role becomes clear.
The precedent for this view is found in our first reading from Exodus. Moses descends from Mount Sinai with the Law, his face transformed, transfigured, by his encounter with God. Some translations say he glows; others suggest his face becomes hardened or hornlike. Either way, the change marks how profoundly he’s been shaped by being in God’s presence. Moses carries God’s words to the people, hoping to lead them toward transformation too — to move them from worshiping a foreign god to worshiping the God of Israel alone.
In the Gospel, Peter, James, and John witness Jesus transfigured on the mountaintop — his face shining like the sun, his clothes dazzling white. Moses and Elijah appear, and Peter, overwhelmed, wants to build dwellings to hold onto the holy moment. But the vision fades, and the disciples descend the mountain, returning to the ordinary world with the extraordinary memory of what they witnessed etched deep inside them.
In both stories, the theophanies do not remove people permanently from the world. Neither Moses nor the disciples could remain in God’s presence indefinitely — they had to descend the mountain and return to a broken world. But they returned as different people. After witnessing God, they were transformed, their encounters equipping them with the hope they needed to transfigure the world around them.
Like the disciples, we may wish to linger in moments of encounter with God. I know that when I have a particularly meaningful experience, whether in worship or elsewhere, I wish it would last forever. But at some point, we all must return to the world.
Our call is to become living theophanies — walking encounters with God — so that the world might glimpse divine light through us. This means our faith can’t be, as I recently heard in a lecture, a “Sunday hobby” where we come for joy and relaxation, volunteer occasionally, then go home unchanged. If our lives outside of Sundays look no different from the lives of those people without faith, something is missing. Instead, our lives must be so shaped by our awareness of who God is that the light of God beams out of every aspect of who we are — every ordinary moment, every interaction, every choice. All we do needs to shine with God’s light, offering the potential for transfiguration.
As we leave worship today, we will step out of this sacred space where, perhaps, we’ve glimpsed God. It might feel safer to stay here, avoiding the harsh realities of the world — the very realities Howson portrays in Theophania. But our call is to return, as Moses, Peter, James, and John did. Yet, we return knowing that God is alive, that God is with us, and that we’ve been changed by this knowledge.
So, we carry the light of our faith. We, the parish church, becomes like the lighthouse in Theophania — light-bearers in a world aching for transfiguration.
Amen.
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