To Become Like God

Last Sunday After Epiphany - March 2, 2025

Rev Sarah Colvin

You can find this week's readings here.

“Seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, [we] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.” Amen

This week I spent a couple of days at a small meeting in DC with a few members of other Christian denominations. At the same time, the events of the world always serve as a backdrop alongside sermon preparation; let me say that the current administration continues to throw curve balls, even if anticipated from project 2025, alongside the president’s known admiration of dictators that he sees as strong men.

With (at least) these two things (different denominations and the world’s events) rumbling around in my mind, I turned to think about the scriptures.

Now you may say to yourself, self, where is she going? What can this Gospel and other readings give me to help make sense of my world? How can I see and help enact the Gospel of Christ in this world? Well, it was primarily differences among denominations which brought to mind the rich differences in interpretation that the churches bring in the reading of Scripture. And in thinking about this gospel of the Transfiguration, I got to thinking about one Eastern Orthodox view of what our lives are to become in God.

One of the beliefs that the Orthodox Christian church holds about salvation, which you will understand why I thought of it in response to the readings, is the process of divinization.

Divinization is a central teaching in the Orthodox Church and is considered the purpose of human life. It's a transformative process that involves purification, illumination, and union with God. Theosis is based on the idea that God became human in Jesus so that humans could become divine. It's a process that happens throughout a person's life, including both their earthly life and their eternal life.

Now theosis does not mean that we become God in the sense of replacing God or ceasing to be creatures. Theosis is brought about by divine grace and the active presence of the Holy Spirit. The term theosis refers to the complete participation of the human person in the life of God --not so hard for Anglicans to hold that belief. Although theosis has not been emphasized in Anglican theology of salvation, it is in some ways compatible with our understanding of humanity’s destined union with God through the saving process of divine grace. Early Anglican theologian Richard Hooker also emphasized the theological significance of sacramental participation, in other words that we participate in the life of God through the sacraments.

And trust me, I know that this Gospel reading that we have this Sunday, which is what we call the story of the Transfiguration, can seem somewhat removed from daily life, even in the best of times. We might even say that it is very, very removed from what is going on in our world now.

But imagine if you will for a few moments: what if, more so than how Teresa of Avila stated that we are to be Jesus Christ’s hands and feet in the world, what if instead we are actively to become like God, what if this is the end point? What if our lives are to be so wrapped up in God’s life that one cannot see where a life begins and another ends, what if this is the point? Much like the vision of the transfigured Jesus on the mountain….

We may or may not be able to cast out demons scientifically, but what if living the life you have been given in the best possible way you can live your life is the point?, so that any who are evil want to be far away from you? Or maybe even they see the good in you and want to leave behind being evil?

What if we are to grow in faith so that in a sense we are to glow with the glory of God? Like Moses, definitely like Jesus, And like pretty much every saint ever described?

What if “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 this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.”

What if “since it is by God's mercy that we are engaged in this ministry” that even in this time and place and whatever is happening in our country, “we do not lose heart. We have renounced the shameful things that one hides; we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God's word…” Instead, we by speaking the “open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God.”

What if we can take a couple of days break in the news listening, even if when we do catch up, we might be mortified, and instead we rest in the glory of God? And by that I mean either we take a couple of days and rest in the glory of God and then return to the news, to the world OR maybe we take a couple of days break and when we return, we read the news while resting in the glory of God,---- one way may speak more so to you.

What if we mean it when we pray, “Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

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JESUS MAFA. Transfiguration, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48307 [retrieved March 24, 2025]. Original source: http://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr (contact page: https://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr/contact).