Transfiguration Sunday

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Today is Transfiguration Sunday. This special feast commemorates the miraculous change in Jesus’ appearance when he unveiled his glory on the Mount of Transfiguration. As the fulfillment of Epiphany’s longing, the transfiguration reveals not only the glory of Jesus’ way of life in the world, but it also casts vision for all that we can become, in the midst of what we are.

The Light of Transfiguration

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Throughout the Season After the Epiphany the church basks in the light of Christ revealed to us. Yet simultaneously we live in a world divided by religious difference. To our surprise, the light of God shines upon us from the other, as God is made manifest through a diversity of mediums. 

This sermon series situates us as attentive listeners to other religious traditions. After declaring the light of God upon all people and laying a theological framework for particularity amidst plurality, we will train our attention on three particular sacred stories—Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism. Each sacred story will be expressed by a religious leader who will speak to us out of their own tradition while making connections to values we at Pearl hold dear—gratitude, inclusion, integration, peace, renewal, and transformation. Our hope for this series is to encourage understanding, empathy, appreciation, and connection to our religious neighbors who, alongside us, seek out the light of the Divine. 

Jesus & Peter, James, and John

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Jesus conversed with tax collectors late at night, he visited the homes of those that the religious called “sinners,” and around a table on the night he was betrayed he broke bread and poured wine while declaring, “This is me, for you.” Sharing at Jesus’ common table reminds us that God sustains everything, includes everyone, and is drawing us all together to feast as one. This sermon series therefore intends to elevate our Christian vision of hospitality by pondering ancient stories that cast anti-hospitality and hospitality narratives. Our hope is that these stories awaken in us divine love that facilitates a way of living that recognizes God’s sustenance, makes room for others, and urges us toward generosity and self-giving.

Transfiguration: Pied Divinity

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In Epiphany the church basks in the light of Christ revealed to us. Yet simultaneously we live in a world divided by difference, riven by power structures that alienate and marginalize. To our surprise, the light of God shines upon us from the other, as God listens attentively to the voice of cries from the wilderness. In showing his mercy to the oppressed, God is revealed to them in ways the powerful do not know, so that our salvation is wrapped up into listening to their voices.

This sermon series situates us as attentive listeners to theological voices that cry out from the wildernesses of oppression and injustice in our society. After laying a theological groundwork for attentive, non-reactive listening to marginal experiences of God, we will train our attention on three voices that are too often diminished at the table in American Christianity. Across the power-divide of race, we will hear the witness of black theology to the God who liberates. Across the power-divide of gender, we will hear from feminist and queer theologians who witness to the God who overcomes binaries. And across the power-divide of class, we will listen to Latin American theologians who discover the preference of God for the poor.