METAMORPHOSIS

It's one of our earliest assignments in elementary science: metamorphosis, from caterpillar to butterfly. Sunday's lection is also about metamorphosis although most English Bibles use "transfiguration."

If we read our Bibles then we know that Moses, Elijah, and Jesus all experience mountain-top encounters with God. All three went through very trying and challenging times in their lives and their encounter with God enabled them to complete the tasks that God has called them to do. The three went up caterpillars, they came down butterflies.

Metamorphosis.

But not everyone who encounters God come back as butterflies. Like Peter. In the mountain Peter experienced something so special, so unique that we expected him to come out as a butterfly. He does not. He opposes Jesus’s journey to Jerusalem. He denies Jesus. Three times!

Everyone who encounters God in God’s mountain needs to come down. When Moses came down he led in the birthing of a people whose love for Yahweh was expressed in love for neighbor, especially the poor, the orphans, the widows, and the strangers. When Elijah came down he continued the struggle against Israel’s oppressive kings and began a prophetic tradition that ended with John the Baptizer. When Jesus came down he followed the path that led to Jerusalem and eventually to the cross.

My friends, do catterpillars know they will turn into butterflies?

To believe in God's power to effect metamorphosis is to believe that goodness will always triumph over evil; that hope is stronger than despair; that faith conquers fear; that love is greater than indifference; that life will always, always, conquer death! To believe in metamorphosis is to believe in God's power to transform catterpillars into butterflies. Yes, eventually even Peter. And, yes, even you and me!

*art, "The Transfiguration," JESUS MAFA, Cameroon 1973 (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives)