Transformed

 Luke 9:28-43a

Have you ever seen the movie A Bug’s Life? In it a preying mantis who is part of a circus bug show has a magic act and supposedly transforms the fat caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly (these are all different bugs though), and his incantation is “Transformation, transformation, transformation” (Build this louder and louder each time with a bit of mystery and you have how he speaks it.) Transformation is exactly what the disciples experience today: a mystery. They become afraid, they encounter boredom (sleepiness), they don’t want things to change and yet, they will and because they don’t understand, they don’t talk about it until after Jesus is gone.

Transformation is given to us in the scripture with Moses today as well. It’s not about his face being transformed, it is more about how this people will be transformed. They have just left off from worshipping the idol of the golden calf. They once again think God has left them since Moses leaves them to go up the mountain. Because they can’t face the transformation of Moses face, they wander into the desert to transform themselves from the people always desiring to go back to Egypt, to the people desiring to follow God and go into a promised land.

It is the same with the church. We hear about change, and we want to talk about the past, the caterpillar instead of the butterfly. We become afraid of what the change will do to us and so we shut down and don’t try new things. We don’t understand God’s leading, and we don’t follow. This is a good thing to consider on the cusp of Lent. How have we engaged transformation and are we even really engaging in it at all.

We don’t want transformation and yet in Christ our minds are to be transformed, as written in Paul in Ephesians so we put on an entirely new self. Now this takes time so wouldn’t you think as the church this would be our goal? Transformation is hard though, but not so hard that we shouldn’t approach it or try it. Transformation involves digging into the harder things Christ is trying to teach us.

Today this is in the scripture of Luke. In this story Jesus comes down and heals a boy the disciples can’t seem to heal. This is the part of transforming these followers from the ones who cannot see, cannot accomplish, cannot do to the ones who can. It is a much longer narrative than just this one story after all we are only in chapter nine and Luke has twenty-four chapters. And the influence of the transformation must be in the stories which follow. Stories we will encounter in this year of reading this gospel.

Have you ever watched a butterfly escape from its cocoon? One year our children for school had to get the caterpillar’s and watch them as they ate, then spun their cocoons, and then hatch. They say if you open the cocoon for the butterfly, it’s chances of survival are less. They struggle, they must keep moving and scrape forward, until finally they are free. Then they rest as their wings dry and you watch them flap until they are finally ready to fly. This struggle is part of why they can fly on to a different life of gathering pollen and being a part of the creation.

We too must engage in the struggle. Israel did not come out of Egypt and just go to the promised land, they had to struggle.  They wandered in the wilderness, trying to find food, water, a safe place to shelter and finally they came out a new people. We too must wander and maybe the place where we will find our answers is in asking new and different questions instead of the old longing for what was and what isn’t now.

Some of these might be framed this way. What is vital to us right now as we are? Where are we seeing signs of new life? What can we do to renew our energy and believe we are vital and life giving as we are right now? How might we engage our community to see what is at the center of our way of following Jesus? How might this give life to the community?

For too long we have been stuck in the visions of the past church and what it was. We need to engage in the transformative work of what is our vision now, what can we become, and how will we do the work which is ours to get there? Be curious. Think of how Peter asked to freeze the moment in time. We have been frozen in a past which does not fit, and we have wanted to idolize it. Make it what the church is now and it’s not working. The thing is we are called to come down the mountain and get to work in the daily life we are seeing right now in front of us.

Believe we can make a difference for this community. Believe we have things to offer no one else has. Believe we are called to be this expression of the Jesus movement in this place. Stepping out in faith is hard. It is the work we have been called to.

So, before we start our Lent let us give thanks for what has been and stop building the tent or buildings which keep us on the mountain of things past. Let us look ahead to the journey down from the top and see where we might grow and become transformed. Let us see where we are stuck in our approach to this: are we afraid, do we not trust, do we not understand. Let us leave this place and find the places where there has been provision, where we are renewed, and how might we share this with a world which is in need of transformation. Don’t be afraid to join Jesus in coming down the mountain. Follow Him.