Becoming Who You Already Are

Woody Allen began his autobiography with the confession: "My only regret in life is that I'm not someone else." It's exactly the sort of thing we would expect from a writer and filmmaker who's been able to turn his angst into an art form. But the sentiment he expresses would be more amusing were it not also the start to so many of our own stories. I read his book many years ago, but his lament has stuck with me because then, as now, I think it strikes through the heart of our identities, our concepts of who we are, and that is - if only, if only, I were someone else. If only I were taller, thinner, richer, smarter. If only I meditated or worked out more often, then I would be the person I really want to be. And it's not just our own 'if onlys' about who we are, those standards we impose on ourselves from within. There are the ones that come from our parents, our teachers, our bosses and even from the church, the ones that say, "If only you fit the neat packages that we have designed for you to fit into."

But the thing that always strikes me about Jesus is how comfortable he seems to be in his own skin, how he seems to move through his world with grace and direction and purpose. He says all the right things at all the right times. He knows when to answer a question with a question and knows when to keep silent. He knows when to go out into the crowds and he knows when to go off by himself and be alone. He always seems to know who he is and where he is going. And he does so in spite of opposition from those who are clearly uncomfortable with how comfortable he seems to be.

Maybe Jesus can't help but have a clear sense of his identity. He can't help but know who he is with all that light shining upon him, that Epiphany light that began with the stars and has been following him around almost like a spotlight. The stars lighting up the night sky for him as an infant. The light from the heavens torn open to shine upon his baptism in the Jordan River. That spotlight ever focused on Jesus and following him through the gospels as he heals and teaches and moves through the crowds. And that light, that Epiphany light is almost blinding tonight in the scene we know in scripture as the transfiguration. The scene high upon the mountain where Jesus has brought Peter, James and John that they might see that all the lights of epiphany converge on transfiguration. They converge on that moment of revelation when they get to see the hand behind creation and the disciples get a momentary glimpse of how God sees Jesus all the time.

Transfiguration is an uncommon word in scripture but it describes a process of becoming that is ever common to human beings and nature and all of creation. Richard Berryman, an Anglican priest, describes transfiguration this familiar way: "An ugly green worm crawls along a tree branch and spins a cocoon. Sometime later the little tomb cracks open and shimmering wings emerge, stretch and dry. Soon, floating free on a summer breeze, is the startling fragile beauty of a butterfly. The form and freedom of the butterfly were always potential but captive within the caterpillar. What had to happen was metamorphosis, transfiguration, of hidden form into visible being."

To understand the transfiguration of Jesus is to see what happened on the mountaintop that day and, also, to see what didn't happen. Mark's account is typically terse and to the point. Up a high mountain, apart by themselves, Jesus is transfigured before Peter, James and John and his clothes become dazzling white. Elijah and Moses appear and converse with Jesus and whatever they were saying to one another we never get to know because the only voice we hear about is the one proclaiming, "This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him."

The bright light, the cloud, the voice, the vision - all of these serve to reveal who Jesus is. They serve to reveal his essential nature and being. That's what happens on the mountain. But what doesn't happen is this - Jesus does not become the beloved Son on the mountaintop. The transfiguration reveals who Jesus already is.

The heavenly voice says, "Listen to him!" But not just that, we are to become like him. Bishops in the early church would greet the newly baptized, "You are Christ" because our transfiguration journey is to become like Jesus.

And who Jesus is reveals who is behind the stars and the torn heavens, who is behind the cloud and the vision and the voice that proclaims him and all of us as beloved. Rowan Williams, the newly enthroned Archbishop of Canterbury, once described God as the generosity of self-communication, as the God who holds nothing back. God's generosity comes to us in a person who meets us in our world so that we can know something of God in the day to day circumstances that shape our lives. So that we too can become who we already are and we can grow to see ourselves as God's beloved. When St. Augustine baptized catechumens, he said to them, "Go... become who you are."

For us, transfiguration is the process of becoming who we are. It is the process of setting free the potential that is hidden and captive within us. Yet who we are has always been known to God who knew us in the womb and who still knows us better than we know ourselves. In the process of becoming, we allow the veil to be removed to reveal what is hidden. As St. Paul writes, "When we turn to the Lord, all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another."

For a moment on the mountaintop, the disciples see the hidden glory of God, not as in a glass dimly but in bright, dazzling light. But that moment of recognition wouldn't even endure for the descent down the mountain. Their mountain top epiphany lay captive and hidden within them until the resurrection - until the resurrection cracked open the disciples' cocooned faith

so they could become the disciples Jesus always knew them to be. And their discipleship could be visible and manifest in the world.

So it is with us because there's more than enough transfiguration light to spill over onto us. There's a teaching in the Talmud: "We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are." Transfiguration light is not meant to blind - it is meant to illumine. It is meant to show us things as they are, to show us how God sees us all the time and to help us to see the world as God sees the world and to let that illumination change both the world and us.

We belong to a church that so often sees the diversity of God's beloved people as through a glass, dimly. Take, for example, the church's approach to the mystery of human sexuality. Some see this as a mystery, others as a dividing line, but what's apparent to me is that we can always count on the gospels to correct what the church gets wrong. We can always count on the gospels to give us the news that unites and heals, the good news that needs to be told from the mountaintop for all the people to hear. The hidden glory of God is revealed in Christ but it doesn't stop with him. It is also revealed in all of us who follow him and it begs to bring to light all that is hidden and captive within us and all that is beautiful and beloved to God which is already there.

In a few days, on Ash Wednesday, we follow Jesus from this mountaintop through Jerusalem to another hill in Golgotha. But the transfigured glory of Jesus assures us that suffering and death are not the final destination. It assures us that God is with us in all the difficult and anxious circumstances of our lives because the transfiguration light shines ever brighter on the other side of resurrection where we live.

In a lifetime, we claim many identities as our own - we are students, professors, athletes, artists, we are young, old, straight, gay, perhaps we are unsure about what or who we are. But in the end, only one identity really matters - we are God's beloved children. And there's nothing we need to do because we already are who God created us to be.

Become who you already are. And let there be light - transfiguration light - within you. And God, beholding a new creation, lovingly replies, "It is good!"