While in a small group as part of a Lenten spirituality program a participant asked, “Who is God for you?” Most people began to answer the question by saying, “I think that God is …” Thinking about God, thinking about the image we have of God, is very different than sharing our experience of God. Unfortunately, as people shared what they thought about God, it revealed very negative beliefs about God.
Many of the people’s answers that evening were perhaps much the same as people’s answers have been throughout the centuries. The answers reflected thinking about God as a judge. God was imagined as the ultimate judge. God lays down laws for us to obey. God responds wrathfully should we disobey them. Ultimately, God threatens us with punishment – the death penalty of hell. Moses and Elijah, primary characters of the Old Testament, presented such an image of God. Their image included the threat of a coming Day of Judgment. It would be a day when Yahweh’s wrath would punish all the disobedient people and save all the righteous ones. Moses and Elijah were predicted as appearing on that day. What then is to be made of Moses and Elijah appearing during Jesus’ Transfiguration, today’s Gospel. Could it be for the purpose of transfiguring both men and their image of God? Thus it is not only the transfiguration of Jesus Christ that happens. It is as well the transfiguration of Moses and Elijah and all of us who have been influenced by the image of the judgmental deity both men helped construct.
The revelation of God has been transfigured from a projected wrathful deity executing justice into the revelation of God’s loving presence . God’s way in the world is not the threat of promised vengeance but present illumination.
Prayer: Dear Jesus, may I be transfigured so that my life too may illumine love.
Question: How can I open myself this Lent so as to be transfigured more and more as a loving being?
March 16, 2104 Gospel Matthew 17:1-9 Second Sunday of Lent