A homily for the Feast of the Transfiguration, August 6, 2023
Dn 7:9-10, 13-14, 2 Pt 1:16-19, Mt 17:1-9
I always wanted a time machine. Between the H.G. Wells novel and the cheesy but omnipresent sci-fi shows of the 1960s (thank you, Irwin Allen), the notion of traveling to the future to see what humankind would do and design and build was irrepressible.
When anyone asked me the standard adult-to-child question — “What do you want to be when you grow up?” — I usually answered with some variation of “somebody who’s concerned with the future.”
And I still am. Deeply, almost desperately so.
But the passages from Scripture for today’s feast make me wish not only for a time machine to go back to the first century but also for a way to forget my 21st-century perspective, though only temporarily. And likewise get amnesiac about what I learned during my 20th-century childhood.
Here’s where I’m going with this:
As long ago as October 1956, movie magic made Charlton Heston’s face glow and his perfectly coiffed hair shimmer as Moses in “The Ten Commandments.”
Since 2007, computer-generated images have filled the handheld supercomputers we know as smartphones, transporting us to imaginary places that seem even more real than dusty ol’ Earth. Especially as we continue to level up in massive role-playing games.
Holograms and 8K images plus note-perfect sound systems bring deceased or retired performers back on tour.
Today’s AI can make any image we describe, including a glowing Moses, in mere seconds.
And we take all of these steady advances in technology and artistry for granted. Yeah. Uh huh. That’s cool; what’s next?
Simply put, we’re not easily impressed in 2023.
So, with all our microchip-infused knowledge, how would we react if we shared the Apostles’ experience of seeing Jesus transfigured, communing with Moses and Elijah?
Would we be dumbstruck? Or would we chalk it up to CGI?
Would we be so busy looking for the projector and speakers that we miss the significance — that not only is Jesus definitely the Son of God, but he is the fulfillment of the Law (Moses) and the Prophets (Elijah)?
Would we check Rotten Tomatoes to see if anybody had given it a rating?
Now, if we had the same perspectives as Peter, James and John — simpler men, living in a simpler time — it’s likely we’d have been flattened, too. In their lives, Nature dazzled them, and supernatural or hypernatural events whacked them upside their heads. Lightning, eclipses, even sandstorms left their mouths agape.
So a glimpse of the Almighty, a preview of the ultimate reality, a look into the divine certainly must have overloaded them.
The Transfiguration was impressive enough back then that we continue to celebrate this annual feast two millennia later.
Are we allowing ourselves to be impressed?
Are we allowing ourselves to be impressed in a time and place chock-full of shiny, noisy things that all are competing for our attention? Or are we camping out in front of the Apple Store?
Here’s a contrarian thought: Maybe, just maybe, this 2023 remembrance could have kind of the opposite effect.
Maybe, instead of looking for the next big thing, the next blockbuster, the next influencer, the next Hemi-powered tire-smoker, we can be excited by God’s command from the heavens:
“Listen to him.”
We can listen to the radically transformative message of our Messiah, who challenges us to love everyone.
Because God.
Loves.
Everyone.
We’re challenged to love everyone the way God does: with care for their well-being, physically, emotionally and spiritually. With care for God’s Creation, which humankind shares not only with each other but with all living creatures, flora and fauna.
For each of us to listen, though, we need to immerse ourselves in a simple quiet, because God speaks clearest in whispers (just ask Elijah).
And like the Transfiguration, the times we hear and choose to act will be truly impressive.
