Transfiguration of Our Lord
Matthew 17:1-9
Pastor Andrew Courtney
We are very good at understanding stories where power works the way power has always worked. Someone hurts someone we love. The hero suffers. Then the hero comes back — stronger, angrier, better armed. And when the bad guy finally gets what’s coming to them, we lean back in our seats and think, “Yeah. That’s how it’s supposed to go.”
Now this is all over Hollywood, but one of the clearest examples of this is the movie John Wick. This came out over a decade ago, so there are no spoiler alerts.
In the movie, they kill his dog — the last gift from his late wife — and the whole audience immediately agrees:
“Well. Everyone involved is dead now.”
The movie never asks whether violence will heal the grief.
It just asks whether it will be thorough enough.
That’s what theologians call reciprocal violence:
If you hurt me → I hurt you back → but harder → and call it justice.
We don’t just accept that logic.
We love it.
It feels clean.
It feels fair.
It feels like order and justice being restored.
The band Flobots had a hit song in the mid-2000s titled Handlebars. They concluded their album with a song called Rise. The whole album entitled Fight with Tools, plays into some great storytelling with the dramatic conclusion capturing the sentiment of today's message, it starts, “So much pain, we don’t know how to be but angry, feel infected like we got gangrene. Please don’t let anyone try to change me.” The singer is saying, hurting people want to turn that pain outward and inflict it on other people.
And here’s the uncomfortable truth:
Peter grew up believing this story too.
And just like Peter, we see it all over the place and tend to believe it as well.
In our gospel lesson today, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up the mountain.
Jesus shines.
Moses appears.
Elijah appears.
This is not subtle.
This is the kind of moment where you think,
“Okay — the revolution has started.”
And Peter does exactly what you would expect a faithful, oppressed person to do:
He wants to build booths.
He wants to mark the moment.
He wants to lock it in.
Because Peter isn’t just saying,
“This is beautiful.”
He’s saying,
“This is finally our turn.”
Peter thinks Jesus is about to replace empire with a better version of empire —
same power, same logic,
just with God on their side.
Rome had power.
Now we have power.
Rome hurt us.
Now we get to hurt Rome back — righteously.
Same story.
Different boss.
And honestly?
That story tends to makes sense to us.
Peter is still talking when the cloud rolls in.
The voice doesn’t say,
“Yes, Peter. This is the moment we strike.”
The voice says:
“This is my Son, the Beloved.
Listen to him.”
Not watch what he does.
Not see who he defeats.
It is saying, Listen. Just Listen to him.
Because Jesus has been saying something very different.
He’s been talking about enemies.
About forgiveness.
About losing your life to find it.
About power that looks like service.
Which is not how John Wick works.
Not how empire works.
Not how most of us expect salvation to work.
Peter wants Jesus to beat the system by mastering it.
But, Jesus wants to beat the system
by refusing it altogether.
The song Rise continues to crescendo:
“Me, just me, In the middle of a sea, full of faces,
full of faces
Some laugh, some salivate
What's in your alleyway, recycling bins or bullet cases?”
That line highlights the difference between Peter’s instinct and Jesus’ calling. Will we choose the same old story and retaliate with violence, or will we find redemption in a more creative, illuminating force?
This is where theology helps us see some hard truths.
The Reverend Doctor John J. Thaw-tuh-MAH-nil, a professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York says:
“When Christianity is working, what we care about is neighbour.
When Christianity is not working, what we care about is Christianity.”
Peter is caring about the movement.
The moment.
The power.
Jesus is caring about the world.
And Dietrich Bonhoeffer puts it even more starkly:
“The Church is the Church only when it exists for others.”
Not for survival.
Not for dominance.
Not for winning.
When Christianity stops existing for others,
it starts craving power.
And when it craves power, it gets less creative and it starts borrowing the empire’s tools —
violence, exclusion, fear, retaliation.
Jesus sees that temptation coming.
That’s why he refuses to stay on the mountain.
The most radical thing in this story
is not that Jesus shines.
It’s that he comes back down the mountain.
He walks into sickness.
Into poverty.
Into occupied villages.
Into people who will betray him,
abandon him,
and kill him.
And he does not return violence for violence.
That’s the transfiguration.
Not glowing power.
But a transformed imagination about what power is.
Jesus does not save the world by killing the right people.
He saves it by loving in a way that absorbs violence without passing it on.
Transfiguration Sunday is not about admiring Jesus.
It’s about being changed.
Lent is the season where we ask:
What in me still believes that power has to hurt back?
Here are a few very practical ways
the love of God might transfigure us this Lent:
First notice, and interrupt the reflex to retaliate.
When someone cuts you off — in traffic or conversation —
notice the urge to strike back. Pause.
Choose curiosity over escalation.
“I wonder why they did that. What could be going on in their lives that caused this?”
I have a shirt from the Til Valhalla project, a veteran suicide prevention program that says, “Be Kind. Everyone you know is fighting a battle you know nothing about.”
That’s not weakness.
That’s resurrection practice.
Redirect anger toward repair
Anger isn’t the problem.
Anger that only wants punishment is.
This Lent, ask: “How could this energy be used to protect someone else?”
You could also Choose proximity over victory
Instead of winning arguments,
move closer to people you don’t understand.
Listen longer than feels efficient. You might start to see the pain that causes the cycle to continue.
Then Practice being there for someone
Volunteer.
Write a note.
Show up consistently.
Bonhoeffer was right:
the church only becomes the church
when it exists for others.
Lastly, Fast from stories that feed retaliation.
Maybe take a break from movies, news cycles, or media
that train your imagination to expect violence as resolution.
Let Jesus re-write the ending. Imagine what love looks like as a response.
Because Peter wanted booths.
Jesus wanted followers.
Peter wanted a Messiah who could win the fight.
Jesus wanted disciples who could change the story.
Peter wanted the system flipped.
Jesus wanted the system undone.
So as we move into Lent, here is the invitation:
Not to rise above others.
Not to rise by crushing enemies.
Not to rise by finally getting our turn at power.
But to rise by becoming neighbors.
Because if redemption is just revenge with better branding,
it’s not redemption.
If salvation looks like empire with a cross stamped on it,
it’s not salvation.
And the song ends saying:
“If you believe in redemption…
I’m calling to you from another dimension.”
This means: Not another regime.
Not another Caesar.
Not another throne.
Another imagination.
Another way of being human.
Another way of being powerful.
Empire says: Win.
Jesus says: Love.
Empire says: Take control.
Jesus says: Take up your cross.
Empire says: Strike back.
Jesus says: Forgive.
Empire says: Rise alone.
And the refrain of the songs answers:
“Rise — together.
We rise — together, we rise, together, we rise…”
That is the power revealed on the mountain.
Not domination.
Not retaliation.
Not spectacle.
But love — together.
When Christianity is working, we care about the neighbor.
The Church is the Church only when it exists for others.
If we care more about protecting Christianity than loving neighbors,
we are still building booths.
But if we care about the neighbor —
even the difficult neighbor —
then we are already walking down the mountain with Jesus.
So as we head into Lent, may we have the courage and creativity to leave the booths behind, go down the mountain,
and rise — together.
Amen.