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If you would describe yourself as a devout Christian and you attend church nearly every week, I’d like to ask a few questions. If a local church, within your community, were to completely embody the blueprint that Jesus describes for his Church, replete with every gift of the Spirit, signs and wonders, and limited structure, would you leave your present church in order to be a part of it?

If you answered “yes,” it means that you can perceive a gap between what your church is and what Jesus’ Church is. The question is, how big is that gap? And what is required to close that gap? What are you willing to do to help close it for others?

“You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! (Mark 7:9)

Jesus encountered this gap regularly with the religious minded and the biblical revelation is that his disposition toward tradition was not as favorable as those in power. Likewise, Paul in Galatians 1:11-18, describes how he stepped away from his religious traditions in order to follow the revelation of Christ and proclaim his Good News to non religious people.

When I read texts like this I can’t help but place them into the modern context of contemporary religion. Clearly Christ following was a true revolution, it was dynamism, not stagnation. Where are the pastors, priests, or imams of religious systems who would be willing to walk away from such stagnant systems of power and their economic engines? What would it take for small denominational community churches reignite the revolution which questions the traditions and subverts what they believe is true about their religious system, for the sake of recapturing the revolutionary heart of Christ?

The answer I keep coming back to is: The Transfiguration.

As we regain the architecture for the Church Jesus said he’d build, knowing now that it wasn’t Catholicism (yes as “universal“, not as we know it), it was’t Protestantism, it wasn’t denominational, it wasn’t institutional. It was to be a gathering of two or more, centered around the confession of Christ, and placed in the midst of the ubiquitous living hell whose gates are not able to keep people in any longer. Jesus’ Church is not an economic, nor political force, and the kingdom to which we have the keys, is so close, so proximate, that whatever we tie or untie here on earth, is tied or untied in it as well. This Church is the living, physical body of Christ, it is the transducer which allows people to see this kingdom, and as they do, become free from the endless institutional overreaches which imprison so many of us.

The traditional Jesus, given to us by religion and tradition, won’t get us back to this. We need Christ to become transfigured before us. Religion wants our belief, but Christ cares very little for that. As James says, “even the demons believe …and tremble.” (James 2:19) Faith, on the other hand begins where or belief ends off. Faith emerges in life as we experience Christ in and as our very life. Thus, a transfigured Christ, is our path back into his body.

Transfiguration, not tradition.

Metamorphosis, not doctrine.

Perpetual revolution, not institution.

Experientially knowledge, not conformity.

Christ as our story, not history.

“And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.” (Matthew 17:3)

Scholars believe this high mountain where Jesus was transfigured was either Mt. Tabor or Mt. Horeb. Since they were in the area of Caesarea Philippi, most favor Mt. Horeb. Scholars also believe Mt. Horeb is the historical Mt. Sinai, or the Mountain of God from Hebrew scripture. This is significant because both Moses and Elijah had been here before to meet with God, and now Jesus is there with Peter, James and John. The same cloud that overshadowed Moses and made his face shine is there making Jesus shine. The voice that spoke to Moses and Elijah, be it thunder or a whisper, was there telling all to “listen to him.”

The integral foundation of the people being built by Christ is that all are to “Listen to him.” Christ is the cornerstone. Christ is the head of the church, and his revolution was not a world institution with a thousand denominations…it was the cross.

The Cloud and the Voice did not say, “Listen to tradition.” The voice didn’t say anything that modern religion likes to say. While the conversation is not shared in the pages of scripture, my assumption is that Jesus is being revealed to Moses and Elijah as the “Rock” which both unknowingly hid within. This vision or “moment”, since God was there, was not a mere point in time, it was timelessness, the eternal now. This meant that both Moses and Elijah were not only pulled into this moment as alive (not dead), but that this moment went back with them to their lives and times. Paul later says this Rock, that flowed water, was Christ (1 Corinthians 10:4). Yes Peter was there, but Peter is not the Rock of transfiguration. Christ is that Rock, and he is the solid rock upon which his Church is built. If Christ can be a literal rock for Moses, Elijah or the Hebrew people, then as Richard Rohr says, Christ is another name for everything.

The church Jesus is assembling upholds a cosmic Christology, transfigured as the revelation of God in and through all things.

Transfiguration is an experience. The Church that Jesus is building is a people who like him, are transformed by experience. This is not emotional experience, nor is it the experience of knowledge, but both are aspects of transfiguration. Jesus, to whom we are to listen, told the disciples with him two things:

1. Do not be afraid.
2. Do not tell anyone about the vision until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.

When Christ is transfigured for us, fear is cast out. Religion likes to scare us. That’s how it controls us. Religion sells us proximity to God through imitation and emulation, and perhaps there is something valuable in starting there. It puts God into it bite size boxes for our consumption. This becomes a new recipe for others, a framework where the group agrees. Then a leader is appointed to oversee that the framework upholds the recipe again and again, and the revolution is lost, the building becomes insular, exclusive, and dies when Christ is no longer transfigured, but transacted.

The revolution is that Christ displaces belief with faith, as Christ inhabits us. Theology and doctrine are vital to our understanding, but are not ultimate in authority. We are to “Listen to him.” Christ is our authority. He is the Word of God. Thus, the question for the modern hearer is: “Where is He that I might listen to Him?” The voice of Christ is embedded in thousands of years of Church history and tradition, and this has historically been the place to start. But this voice has been obscured and can be lost or distorted by those wielding power, so caution must be used. The voice of Christ is also within as we each are awakened. So which do we trust? My advice is to not break faith with your awakened heart. That is the real you, hidden in Christ, who is like Lazarus being invited to “come forth.”

My offering to you is to trust the Transfigured Christ. The Christ who emerges as our own humiliation, sorrow, suffering, rejection, and low stature…the one on the way to the cross, whose death becomes our destination too, if we are to rise with him to new life. Transfiguration leads us to our transformation and that is the primary tradition I suggest we entertain. If you are the same person you were six months ago, you probably need a new church.

Do we want a Church that teaches all the biblically oriented cliché life hacks for successful living, where we can be comfortable, and told that our religious false selves are a long way from hell? Or do we want a Church where our pseudonyms and fake ID’s go to die, where we can authentically emerge within our lives and show a dead world the true way to life is under a cross?

May we all take seriously the gap between this and our Sunday experience?