Recording of Sermon for Transfiguration Sunday, with Discursive Ramble about Giving Up Badmouthing for Lent

I went a bit off-manuscript with my sermon yesterday, adding some background about Lenten disciplines--if we decide to do something special for Lent, do we give up something or add something?  I did a bit of thinking-in-real-time about giving up saying anything bad about anyone:  people we know, famous people, everyone.  That part of the sermon felt most electric as I was giving it, and it's very near the end.

To see what I mean, you can view the recording here on my YouTube page.  You can read the manuscript by going to yesterday's post.

Sermon for Sunday, February 15, 2026

February 15, 2026

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



Matthew 17:1-9






In Protestant churches, Transfiguration Sunday is always the Sunday before Ash Wednesday. Because we’re on a three year lectionary cycle, we get the story from all three Synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, one per year. There is no transfiguration story in John, but the fact that the other three Gospel writers include this story tells us how important the story was to the earliest believers.


In all three versions of the story, the disciples do as they are instructed and keep quiet about what they’ve seen, at least at first. We celebrate this festival thousands of years later, so at some point they told someone. Some stories are just too good to keep quiet, after all. Church scholars think this is the kind of story that makes sense and is more helpful in retrospect, in those post-resurrection years when everyone is trying to make sense of what they have experienced.


The Transfiguration story comes in the middle of the story of the life of Jesus, yet it may feel familiar, like some elements of an earlier story have been transfigured into this one. With the heavens opening again and the voice declaring the worth of Jesus again, the Transfiguration echoes the baptism of Jesus, which we celebrated a month ago. At his baptism, Jesus hasn’t yet started his ministry, and God is pleased. Now, 14 chapters later, God is still pleased.


So why does Jesus command silence? Why not have the disciples go out and tell what they have seen? In this text, we see the tension between knowing when to keep God’s glory hidden and when to reveal it. If you’re like me, you may remember last week’s Gospel passage that told us not to keep our light hidden away—and yet, here is Jesus, seeming to tell us to wait a bit. Ancient lamps were more like candles than modern lamps, and we know that sometimes, flames need to be protected or they will go out. Maybe that’s why Jesus asks for silence, at least for a little bit.


Throughout the life of Jesus, we see that God’s way is not the world’s way. In the transfiguration story, we see this tension operating in ways that we might recognize. Peter’s reaction is the same across all of the transfiguration stories in each Gospel: “Let’s stay here longer! I’ll put up a tent for each of you.” This word tent is sometimes translated as booth.


The actual word in Greek is not tent or booth but tabernacle. A tabernacle is a sort of tent, designed to be a movable temple, the very first type of worship space the Jews had when Moses led them, the design of which would also be the foundation of the design of the Temple.


I’ve often been suspicious of Peter in this story, as if he’s some sort of modern influence peddler. What’s next? Will they sell souvenirs? Charge admission? But there’s nothing in the text to support my view of Peter. What’s more likely is that he wants to make the moment more permanent. Let seekers come up the mountain to them, if they’re so eager. And meanwhile, Peter gets to be part of the conversation with Jesus, Elijah and Moses.


It’s understandable that Peter wants to make this time of togetherness last. Who among us has not had a similar mountain top experience? In fact, I’d say that’s one of the big issues believers face, the tension between wanting to be away from it all, learning from wise ones in a small, supportive community, and the requirement to be with strangers in the world. It’s most striking, for me at least, when I’ve been part of a great retreat, and I find myself weeping as I’m driving home because I don’t want a great retreat to end. However, one of the purposes of a retreat is to give us space to strengthen our faith, so that we can live in the world, meeting strangers, sharing the truth with them when the time is right. We can’t stay permanently at the retreat center, although it is so very tempting. We strengthen our faith so that it stays a strong fortress as we go about our lives in the non-retreat world.


So, it’s easy to understand Peter wanting to stay on the mountain top. But why are the disciples so afraid when the cloud descends and they hear the voice proclaiming Christ’s glory? They’re fine with Elijah and Moses appearing and Jesus shining in a new way, but a voice from the cloud makes them fall down in fear?


Notice what it takes to restore them. The Gospel of Matthew is the only Transfiguration story across the three Gospels that has Jesus touch the disciples and tell them not to be afraid. Here is where we see the human side of Jesus, after seeing the holy side of Jesus in the Transfiguration. It’s his touch that calms their fear, and this detail is reminiscent of other ways that Jesus shows that God is not remote, but that we serve a God who is intimately involved in our lives. This detail reminds me of the post-resurrection stories, where Jesus lets Thomas touch his wounds, his wounds which are very human, still bloody, but also holy. By touching the wounds, Thomas believes.


At the point where the disciples hear the voice come to them from the cloud, do they know who Jesus is? Just a chapter earlier in the Gospel of Matthew, Peter has declared that Jesus is the Messiah—but what does he mean when he uses the word messiah? It’s a question that threads its way across all of the Gospels as we see everyone asking it: the crowds that follow, the tax collectors, the wounded and sick, the Pharisees and religious leaders, and soon, other types of leaders too, Roman rulers ask—who is this guy Jesus? And in this chapter, we have an answer from God: “my son, the beloved.”


The larger question is one that believers have contemplated since the time of Jesus—what does it mean that Jesus was the son of God? The Gospel of Matthew grounds the answer in the ancient Covenant, with echoes back to Moses in today’s Gospel reading. We have God speaking to humans out of a cloud in both stories, God both revealed and hidden. Throughout the Gospel of Matthew, we are reminded that God is not doing something brand new with Jesus—Jesus says again and again that Jesus did not come to do away with the law and the prophets, but to fulfill what is revealed to Moses on a different mountain, where Moses receives the law, the law that generations of prophets will call the people back to when they stray.


Jesus tells his disciples to tell no one yet, because he knows that there are difficult days ahead, days where God’s glory will be obscured. Surely he must hope that the disciples will remember, that during the darkness, the memory of Jesus transfigured will give them strength to survive.

On Wednesday, the season of Lent begins. In the ancient church, Lent was supposed to be a time when Christians remembered Jesus and his decision to go to Jerusalem, to battle all the forces of evil there, and earliest Christians remembered by waging their own battles against the forces that would lead them astray. In our modern times, this might be translated as giving up chocolate or caffeine, but early Christians were much more rigorous in their fasting. Lent is supposed to be the most difficult seasons of the church year, a time of penitence and fasting, a wilderness time where we test ourselves to get ready for the celebration season of Easter and Pentecost. The idea of having Lenten disciplines should also strengthen us for our own times of trial and tribulation, even though we can’t be sure when they will come our way or what they will look like.


It’s easy to lose sight of what’s important. It’s easy to lose track of God, particularly during times of chaos, as one season shifts to the next. On this Transfiguration Sunday, let us resolve to let Jesus touch our lives with his transforming power. May our Lenten disciplines reveal Christ’s glory to us and fortify to leave the mountain top, ready to do the work that is ours to do.

The Feast Day of Saint Valentine

Here's one of those strange feast days, a feast day that's more popular in the general culture than it is in the church culture that pays attention to saints and their days. 

Those of us in religious circles might spend some time thinking about this feast day and the ways we celebrate it, both within our religious cultures and in popular culture.  I've often thought that marriage at its best is sacramental:  it demonstrates to me in a way that few other things can how deeply God loves me.  If my spouse's love for me is but a pale shadow of the way God loves me, then I am rich in love indeed.

I use the word marriage cautiously.  I don't mean it the way that some Christians do.  I mean simply a love relationship between adults that is covenantal and permanent in nature, as permanent as humans are capable of being.

I realize that this day is fraught with sadness and frustration for many people. I went to elementary school in the 1970's, before we worried about children's self esteem. If you wanted to bring Valentines for only your favorite five fellow students, you were allowed to do that. So, some people wound up with a shoebox/mailbox full of greetings and treats, and some wound up with very little.  I was in the middle, but instead of focusing on how lucky I was to have love notes at all, I compared my haul to those of my prettier friends.  I'm still working on remembering the wisdom a yoga teacher told me once:  "Don't compare yourself to others.  It won't help your balance."

I still worry about how this day might make people feel excluded.  I worry that as with baptism, we don't support people in their covenantal relationships in all the ways that we could.  I worry that a day that celebrates love in this way makes people who don't have a romantic relationship feel doomed.

To me, this feast day is essentially a manufactured holiday, yet another one, designed to make us feel like we must spend gobs and gobs of money to demonstrate our love.

Every day, ideally, should be Valentine's Day, a day in which we try to remind our loved ones how much we care--and not by buying flowers, dinners out, candy, and jewelry.  We show that we love by our actions:  our care, our putting our own needs in the backseat, our concern, our gentle touch, our loving remarks, our forgiveness over and over again.

And sustained by the love that sustains in our homes, we can go out to be a light that shines evidence of God's love to the dark corners of the world.  Every week, we are reminded of the darkness, and some weeks it intrudes more than others.  We must be the light that beats back the darkness.

On this Valentine's Day, let us go out into the world, living sacraments, to be Valentines to one another, to show a weary world the wonders of God's love.

A Creed Is Not a Pledge of Allegiance

Yesterday in my Lutheran Foundations class, we had a great discussion about the 3 creeds that are so important to the Church:  the Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed.  We talked about how they've been used, and they've been used as part of worship, primarily.  In Luther's time, and perhaps ours, most people had at least one creed memorized, along with the Lord's Prayer.

We talked about how the creeds can be a stumbling block for 21st century believers.  Is it lying to say a creed in worship if we don't believe in certain concepts?  My professor said that it's an interesting starting point for a conversation, but it's not a reason to reject a believer or a seeker.

My professor said, "A creed is not a pledge of allegiance."  I loved this way of conceptualizing a creed, so I wanted to make sure that I noted it here.  My professor said that a creed is one of our anchors that keeps us connected to the ancient church.  It's more about church history and what we've agreed is important as a Church.  It's not about what we say that we must believe to be part of the congregation or to make it to Heaven, the way many people use both the creeds and scripture.

My professor is president of one of our Lutheran seminaries, United Lutheran Seminary, so I'm glad to be reassured of this Lutheran approach to the creeds.  As we closed our class, he referenced our former bishop, Elizabeth Eaton, who said we didn't need new creeds, that our old creeds give us plenty to work with, without adding anything new.

I love this perspective on the creeds that I got from the class, which is a different one from the church history classes that I took.  I feel lucky to have had this opportunity. 

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

 The readings for Sunday, February 15, 2026:

First Reading: Exodus 24:12-18

Psalm: Psalm 2

Psalm (Alt.): Psalm 99

Second Reading: 2 Peter 1:16-21

Gospel: Matthew 17:1-9


Here we are at Transfiguration Sunday again. We celebrate this festival on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday, and it's such a familiar story that we may feel that we can get nothing new from it. But it's a story that bears repeating.

When I read the Gospel again, I'm not surprised by Peter's offer to build booths and celebrate the Transfiguration in a commercial way. Christ's command to tell no one makes me pause. Why can't we share this amazing moment?

Christ says this often. Go and tell no one--that seems to be a constant command. And it seems antithetical to the task of the Church.

In just a few months, we'll get a very different Pentecost message. Aren't we supposed to go and witness? Spread the good news? If Jesus is our role model, what do we make of his command to stay silent?

In some ways, perhaps Jesus knew the times he lived in. He knew that early fame would undo his purpose. He knew that people would focus on the physical plane--"This man can heal my blindness"--but not the spiritual plane, the one where we need healing the most.

He also knew that people who see visions, who catch a glimpse of something otherworldly, are often shunned by the community. What would have happened if James and John and Peter came down from the mountain and proclaimed what they had seen? How would the community have responded?

Jesus knew that he couldn't appear too threatening to the status quo too early. In the verses that follow, the ones not included in this Gospel, Jesus makes clear that persecution follows those who see visions. And that persecution still persists today. Our culture tolerates those of us who pray. It's less tolerant of those of us who claim that God replies to our prayers.

The life of the believer is tough, and one measure of its difficulty is knowing when to speak, and knowing when to hold our tongues. Sometimes we should keep our counsel. Sometimes we should testify verbally. Always we should let our lives be our testimony.

Christ also might have been wary of the human tendency to rush towards transfiguration. We yearn to be different, but so often, we shun the hard work involved. We might embrace transformation before we stop to consider the cost.

Like Peter, we might want to turn Christ into Carnival: build booths, charge admission, harness holiness. Jesus reminds us again and again that the true work comes not from telling people what we’ve seen, but by letting what we’ve seen change the way that we live. Our true calling is not to be carnival barker, but to get on with the work of repair and building of the communities in which we find ourselves.

Teaching from the Buddhist Monks Who Are Walking for Peace

Like many, I've been moved by the Buddhist monks who are walking from Texas to D.C. for peace.  I even talked about them in a sermon in early January, as something giving me hope.

Today they'll be at the National Cathedral, and I'm not sure of their time in D.C. beyond that.  It's hard for me to imagine any officials from the federal government meeting with them, the way that state governing people along the way have, but I'm willing to be happily surprised.

In this post on Diana Butler Bass's Substack, she gives the monks' answer to why they are walking.  I want to make sure I have this, should I want to find the words later, so let me post them here:

"Some people may doubt that our walk can bring peace to the world — and we understand that doubt completely. But everything that has ever mattered began with something impossibly small. A single seed. A first mindful breath. A quiet decision to take one step, then another.

Our walking itself cannot create peace. But when someone encounters us — whether by the roadside, online, or through a friend — when our message touches something deep within them, when it awakens the peace that has always lived quietly in their own heart — something sacred begins to unfold.

That person carries something forward they didn’t have before, or perhaps something they had forgotten was there. They become more mindful in their daily life — more present with each breath, more aware of each moment. They speak a little more gently to their child. They listen more patiently to their partner. They extend kindness to a stranger who needed it desperately.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

And that stranger, touched by unexpected compassion, carries it forward to someone else. And it continues — ripple by ripple, heart by heart, moment by moment — spreading outward in ways none of us will ever fully witness, creating more peace in the world than we could possibly measure.

This is our contribution — not to force peace upon the world, but to help nurture it, one awakened heart at a time. Not the Walk for Peace alone can do this, but all of us together — everyone who has been walking with us in spirit, everyone who feels something stir within them when they encounter this journey, everyone who decides that cultivating peace within themselves matters.

One step becomes two. Two become a thousand. A thousand become countless. And slowly, gently, persistently — not through grand gestures but through ten thousand small acts of love — we can help make the world more peaceful.

This is our hope. This is our offering. This is why we walk.

May you and all beings be well, happy, and at peace."

Sunday and Salt

I was pleased with my sermon yesterday--it was a tighter composition than I'm always able to pull together.  And I feel like both sermons went well.  I preached on Matthew 5:  12-20, and I decided to focus on salt alone.  The believer as light metaphor is fairly easy to understand, and I feel like I've done that several times before.  But I didn't see any references to salt in my past sermons.

Yesterday morning, for the youth sermon, I made a big bowl of popcorn.  I left some of it unsalted and put it in sandwich bags.  I salted the rest and made more bags of popcorn.  

I'm not crazy about all the sandwich bags, but it's the easiest way for me to do my youth sermon on salt without getting popcorn all over the place, the way we would if I just passed around two big bowls.  Plus it minimizes germ spreading--no hands in the same bowl of popcorn.

As I divided the popcorn, I thought about seminary, about my Foundations of Preaching class.  In that class, we had a lot to do in a very short time, so I don't fault the professor for not talking about children's sermons much.  I'm glad that I'm old enough to have seen plenty of examples of both good and bad children's sermons through the years.

I did check with the parents before giving out popcorn--no allergies to popcorn or salt.  If I preach on this passage in the future, I might do the same for the adults.

To read a manuscript of my adult sermon, see this blog post.  To see the recording, I uploaded it here on my YouTube channel.