Transfiguration is one of those words that was coined to translate exactly what is happening in this week's Gospel story. There is certainly a before and after moment for Jesus on the mountain. Naming it is another matter. His face is like the sun. His clothes are like light. Jesus sounds more like he's been through photosynthesis than anything else, but of course science hadn't caught up to experience when our great saints were articulating this miracle. What happened up there, to make him shine so bright? 

Tradition hands us the word "transfiguration" to capture the moment on the mountaintop. The first half of the word, trans, describes the before and after, the unmistakable change that takes place, but the second half, figure, attempts to describe the WHAT of the change. The Latin root, figura, describes both shape or form, but also the verb to shape or to form. We use both senses of the word commonly, applying "figure" to describe the curves of our bodies, and also to the crafty work of our minds when we say that we have "figured out" an idea. Jesus has changed, but the emphasis on what has changed--his figure, his shape, his form--calls our attention not to the dazzling divinity that is revealed in the change, but to the marvel of how that change takes place through flesh and blood, bone and breath. 

While it's undeniably tempting to celebrate the glory of God on this Transfiguration Sunday, the dazzling divinity of this moment on the mountain, the true miracle, as it always is with Jesus, is that this glory and power are created out of human ingredients. When God calls out for our attention in this story, it's not to show off crazy tricks. God doesn't throw down comet dust or volcanic lava from heaven to dance around Jesus, no silver cloud vapor or pure gold particles glitter in the air. Instead, through sun and light God calls our attention to a parent's pride: This is my Son! God proclaims! My beloved child, whose wisdom you can hear with your own ears if you listen. Listen?! Words! Yet another common human ingredient lurks in this spectacular story. How could it be that God is changing the world using elements we've had all along? 

In his work, Art + Faith, Christian maker Makoto Fujimura celebrates the way that God invites us into God's work in creation. Fujimura proposes that operatic moments like the Transfiguration of Jesus actually invite us to discover something about how Creation is always working all the time. He writes that here we can see how, "The New Creation fills the cracks and fissures of our broken, splintered lives, and a golden light shines through, even if only for a moment, reminding us of the abundance of the world that God created, and that God is yet to create through us." God creates through us! Again and again, Jesus tries to invite us into this creative work. In two short weeks, we'll be back again, gathered at the table. And Jesus will hand us his body and blood, in bread kneaded by loving bakers and milled from laboring farmer's wheat. Wine pressed hand and foot from tender grapes and stored in clay vessels. Even this most profound sacrament of holy communion requires our intimate involvement. Long hours of human labor. A succulent feast. 

The systems of the world in which we live dare us every day to forget the power of our hands and feet, our eyes and ears to change the world, to reveal God's new creation. But the Transfiguration demands we reframe. Bodies, births, beloveds, words. The kingdom of heaven is embodied in us. Icon-makers, who spend long hours invoking the truth of God in the egg and pigment tempera paint, know this well. In the face of Jesus, rendered faithfully, every one of us can see our own face reflected. 

At a vigil I attended in early January, where we honored the names of 26 immigrants who were killed while being held in ICE custody, I heard a Catholic priest reflect on some things he had learned about persisting in God's creative work in the face of evil. During an early chapter of his career, he was serving in a mission in the Dominican Republic. The mission sat in the midst of rainforest, which the authoritarian government had determined should be raised in favor of industrial development. The beautiful forest, with the frightening speed of a dictator's decree, became a wasteland. But the brothers living on the mission were not tempted to change their point of view about where true power resides. They continued to see the power that God had given them to create the kingdom of heaven, right there with their own bodies, their worn hands and feet. Every day I lived on that mission, the priest said, I helped plant trees. Dictators may destroy what is human, he cautioned, but every tree planted affirms human life. Mango trees, and avocado trees, each one is a creator of incredible abundance. Each one is an affront to scarcity and hunger. We did not stop planting trees. 

Creation is in crisis. In an era of rapid climate change, we don't need the transfiguration story to remind us of the radiant power of the sun. We need it to remind us of the power of our own humanity. These very bodies, these hands and feet and eyes and ears we have, can create God's new reality. When our great ancestor Martin Luther was asked what he would do if the world ended tomorrow, he replied, "I would plant an apple tree today." And the prophet Muhammud is also known to have said, “Even if the Resurrection were established upon one of you while he has in his hand a sapling, let him plant it.” The seeds of the kingdom of heaven are in our hands. Our feet are on the soul of the new creation. Let us not forget to plant. God is still yet to create through us.