February 20, 2004
Appearances
Epiphany last, Lk 9.28-36
DNA and anthropology have joined forces now to throw out the notion of “race” as altogether arbitrary. Our puzzlement about “sexual orientation” and “gender” are probably not all that far behind.
The more we know about ourselves, the more we discover not only how drastically we’ve allowed appearances to deceive us, how indeed foolish has been our behavior — our laws, our politics, our religion, our educational systems, maybe, as well, the way we treat chimpanzees. All important to order our lives, but not to define them. Now that we know these things, the new problem is what will we do about it, indeed, will we do anything?
Appearances were also deceptive for the three who went walking in the mountains with their leader. Even when they saw him in a totally different light, they still didn’t get the point. But then, the Voice — “This is my beloved son, my Chosen. Listen to him” Paul got it — “We are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another” was the way he put it.
Such a perspective seems altogether missing in the way we continue to fall for appearances, to lay so much stock by them. Whether we are gay or straight matters for our own personal identity, for who we are. But the more fundamental fact is that whatever, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for [we] are all one in Christ Jesus” [Gal 3.28]. This is where our true identity resides, and as we grow into our vocation in becoming human beings — which is God’s image for us — we are to reveal the Light behind all things.
Appearances are deceptive. There are no ordinary people. We are all on the way to being glorified — if we will have it. Transfiguration reveals in Jesus the uncreated light of God as it does potentially in ourselves and our neighbors in a totally new and different way. Whoever we are, we are called to be transparent to the light of God which flooded through in Christ and “to seek and serve him in all persons” [BCP, p 305].