A Sermon in Memory of Josie Martins on the Feast of the Transfiguration
The Rev. Patricia Gillespie
Exodus 34:29-35
Psalm 99
2 Peter 1:13-21
Luke 9:28-36
Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord. "Transfiguration" has become a rather popular word these days. Because in the Harry Potter books, "Transfiguration" is a required class at Hogwarts, a school for young wizards and witches. Hogwarts' Professor McGonagall says that "Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic." Then she proceeds to change her desk into a pig and back again.
Well, maybe that's a bit different from what happens to Jesus on the mountaintop. But there's certainly something unusual going on when transfiguration happens, whether its changing a pig into a table or a making a rabbi glow.
The Greek word is the bible uses "metamorphosis" – a change in the shape of something. We still use that word when we talk of caterpillars becoming butterflies. The implication is not so much that one thing or person becomes something else (like desk becoming a pig) but that the true being or self of the original thing or person is revealed.
That's what happens to Moses. Having faced God, Moses becomes not someone different, but "more himself" – more evidently God's chosen spokesperson. The "same old Moses" was radiant with God's message.
That's what happens to Jesus. Jesus prayed and became radiant. As he prays the remembered past becomes present and Moses and Elijah stand with him. God's glory shines through.
Transfiguration is what happens when God's glory is revealed in a person. Transfiguration happens when Christ is revealed in someone's life. That person becomes radiant. They glow.
Josie did that. Our beloved fourth-Sunday priest was radiant with God's love. God's love transfigured her. Now maybe there wasn't a mountaintop voice telling us, "This is my daughter, my chosen one, listen to her." But we saw the radiance, got the message, and did listen.
And Josie came to us, just being herself, no fuss and formality. Perhaps, like Moses, she didn't even know that her face was shining on us. Josie came to us, like Moses, carrying the covenant – carrying God's love for us.
The love and the laughter and the life and the light radiated out from her.
Everyone who met her could see Christ shining through her. It's a funny thing about that kind of radiant transfiguration. The love and laughter and life and light are reflected in others. The glow is contagious.
No wonder Jesus' friends were terrified and kept silent. No wonder Moses covered his face with a veil. Transfiguration is dangerous. It might happen to you next. That thought is full of the hope and the fear that we, too, might love like God.
But of course, transfiguration doesn't happen to ordinary folks, right? Ordinary folks are safe from mysterious transfiguration and magical changes.
Part of what makes the Harry Potter stories so appealing is what it hints at about ordinary folks. Harry Potter, a seemingly ordinary, skinny kid with glasses and messy hair, is a wizard. In the midst of an ordinary world, magical things are happening unseen. And if Harry is magic .... there's just that possibility that any other kid might be, too.
And that's the blessing we have from Josie. The radiant glory of God's love transfigured Jesus, a real human being. But, of course, we believe that Jesus was also divine, somehow different from us. Yet Jesus' radiant love transfigured our own Josie, one of the most real human beings you'd ever hope to meet. And in all her wonderful human uniqueness, Jesus's love made an ordinary woman so holy she glowed. And then Josie shined that love on you.
Just as Jesus' friends didn't stay make those three dwellings and stay on the mountain, and Josie didn't stay here to shine on us, we don't need to stay here and make a memorial for Josie. Josie and Jesus shined their love and laughter, life and light on us. And now we can take those gifts "down the mountain" to shine on others.
Transfiguration is contagious. Do you know that you are glowing?