[RCL] Exodus 34:29-35; Psalm 99 or 99:5-9; 2 Peter 1:13-21; Luke 9:28-36 Many a faithful summer church attendee might be surprised to arrive to worship today, supposing that the green vestments and paraments must have gotten stuck at the dry cleaner’s, only to realize that the Feast of the Transfiguration, which is fixed on August…

[RCL] Exodus 34:29-35; Psalm 99 or 99:5-9; 2 Peter 1:13-21; Luke 9:28-36 [God] spoke to them out of the pillar of cloud; they kept his testimonies and the decree that he gave them. O Lord our God, you answered them indeed (Psalm 99). Amen. The setting of today’s reading from Luke, the Transfiguration, is visually balanced, the…

[RCL]: Exodus 34:29-35; Psalm 99 or 99:5-9; 2 Peter 1:13-21; Luke 9:28-36 Transfiguration! Metamorphosis. We recognize metamorphosis, the Greek word that means to change shape or to move from having one image to another, because of the process most of us encountered in school—the marvelous metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. The word with…

[RCL]: Exodus 34:29-35; Psalm 99 or 99:5-9; 2 Peter 1:13-21; Luke 9:28-36 This day we celebrate the Transfiguration of our Lord. During this season after Pentecost—often labeled the “Green Season”— we are awoken on this feast day by a mountaintop experience. We are invited to stand with Peter, James, and John to witness a profound…

Today we’re celebrating the Feast of the Transfiguration, so we get to hear, again, this familiar story. In fact, since we also hear the same story every year on the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, this is probably one of the most frequent Gospel readings in the Church’s calendar. We get it a lot. As…

We should be observing the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost today, but this year, there is a break in the pattern. Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration, which always falls on August 6th, and this Feast outranks Pentecost 9. In fact, there are only a handful of feast days so important that they take precedence…

Each year, we hear the story of the Transfiguration twice – once on the Last Sunday After Epiphany and again on August 6, the Feast of the Transfiguration. It is a narrative common to all three synoptic gospels: Matthew, Mark and Luke. Moses and Elijah, long-deceased prophets of Israel, appear on a mountain with Jesus,…

Immediately leading into this story of the Transfiguration is Peter’s confession, followed by Jesus telling the disciples he is going to Jerusalem where he will die, and an important teaching on what it means to be a disciple of Jesus: Pick up your cross and follow me. If we were watching a movie of Luke’s…

In the Transfiguration, Peter, James, and John saw Jesus a little more for who he is – as we say in the Creed: “God from God, Light from Light.” The letter to Peter’s church and the Gospel of Luke both describe what the disciples saw, because it is important for us as the church, as…