The story of the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 16:24-17:8) calls on the silent, white church to risk its life by reentering the fray, struggling for justice for the poor and the marginalized.

As the story goes, Jesus took his disciples Peter, James, and John with him and climbed a high mountain where he was “transfigured before them” (17:2). The Greek verb metamorphao, translated by the NRSV as “transfigured,” is the root of the English words metamorphosis. It connotes a change of form, here in a physical sense, as Jesus is said to be bathed in dazzling light so bright that nothing on earth could match it.

As Jesus is transfigured into a brightly glowing form, the two great figures of the Hebrew Scriptures appear with him—Moses and Elijah. On the one hand, Moses and Elijah represent the two great traditions of the Hebrew Bible, Moses being associated with the Torah and Elijah with prophecy.

But there is more than that. Moses and Elijah, like Jesus, also had mountaintop encounters with God. Moses encountered God first on Sinai, where God spoke to him from a burning bush (Exodus 3). Elijah likewise encountered God on Sinai (called Horeb in 1 Kings 19), where he fled to escape from persecution by the Israelite rulers Ahab and Jezebel. The great figures of the Bible meet God on mountains, and Jesus is no exception.

You Can’t Stay on the Mountain

What is different about the Jesus story is that he has brought his disciples with him. Where Moses and Elijah encountered God by themselves, Jesus brought Peter and James and John. It’s no surprise that the disciples were “overcome by fear” (17:6). Meeting God on the mountaintop is not for the faint of heart.

However, though he is frightened, it turns out that Peter rather likes being on the mountaintop with the three great figures of the tradition, and he suggests that they should settle down there. “Lord, it is good for us to be here,” he says. “If you wish, I will make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” (17:4).

But as anyone familiar with the tradition knows, one is not meant to stay on the mountain.

Moses didn’t stay on the mountain. When he encountered God in the transfigured bush, he took off his shoes for a holy moment, then grabbed his staff to head into the heart Egypt to set the enslaved Israelites free. The mountain experience called him back into the fray (Exodus 3:1–10).

Elijah didn’t stay on the mountain. When he fled to Horeb to escape government authorities that were seeking to kill him, the voice of God whispered to him from the stillness, returning him to the struggle (1 Kings 19:15-18).

Nor were Jesus and the disciples to stay on the mountain. Just a week earlier Jesus had explained to his disciples that he had to be willing to risk his life in order to defeat the power of death in the world (Matthew 16:21-23). As with Moses and Elijah, the mountaintop prepared Jesus to return to the ground, to put his life on the line in the struggle for justice. But Peter wanted to remain above the fray, to dwell with God on top of the mountain rather than returning to the struggle where he belonged.

No More Lingering Above the Fray

It seems to me that the white church, like Peter, has likewise gotten confused about where we are supposed to be. We climbed the mountain, seeking to dwell with God. And once we got to the mountaintop, we didn’t want to come back down.

And so we stayed. We tarried on the mountain until we thought we belonged there. We lingered in the rarified air until we couldn’t imagine ourselves anywhere else. We pitched our tents, then built our houses, then erected our churches, then installed our alarm systems—so far above the struggle that it seemed to no longer affect us.

Racism did not affect us. Misogyny did not affect us. Poverty did not affect us. Environmental devastation did not affect us. So high up on the mountain, we felt we were above it all. We became the power brokers. We became the authorities. We became so deeply invested in the structures that kept us above the fray that we could no longer fathom descending the mountain to risk our institutional lives (let alone our physical lives) in the struggle against the powers of death running rampant in the world.

Transforming the Church

But we were never meant to be on the mountain. We were never meant to be above the fray. The very essence of the Christian life is precisely in the struggle for justice. The very core of the faith is the willingness to lose one’s life in solidarity with those who struggle against the death-dealing powers that oppress them. What else can “let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (16:24) possibly mean?

As we wrestle this week with the Transfiguration, the good news is that it’s not too late for us. All it would take is for us to turn off our alarms, walk out the doors of our churches, venture out of our houses, pack up our tents, and return to struggle where we belong. Coming down from the mountain may feel like death to us, we have been up there for so long. But it isn’t death. It is new life. It is renewal. It is transformation.

The word that Mark uses of Jesus’s transfiguration (metamorpho) can also mean “transformation.” Paul uses it in Romans 12:2 to describe the renewal of the church that is made possible in Jesus Christ. Paul instructs the church at Rome, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed (metamorpho) by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

It is beyond time to undertake the transformation of the silent, white church. It is time to come down from the mountain to reenter the fray. It is time to cease conforming to the powers of this world, and to seek instead the transformation of the church in the struggle for justice. It’s time to come down from the mountain.

For Discussion

(1) Do you agree that the white church has tried to remain “above the fray” by failing to engage in the struggle for justice? Why or why not?

(2) In what way(s) does your identity (race, gender, sexuality, income, etc.) to remain disengaged from the struggle for justice?

(3) What concrete steps might your church take to “take up its cross,” risking its life on behalf of the poor and marginalized?

(4) What concrete steps could you take, personally?