Year A, Transfiguration
Matthew 17:1-9
Sometimes
we get asked if we are planning to adopt another child. It is doubtful, but I
rarely say never anymore because things don’t usually happen according to how
you expect them to happen, at least they haven’t for me. But the bottom line for me is--- the adoption
process was absolutely terrifying. No
doubt pregnancy and child birth are terrifying as well, but for different
reasons. The reason that adoption is scary is that you have the child for 4
months before that child is legally yours.
And that’s after you have the child in your home. Before that, there is
even more uncertainty. It’s why we
didn’t prepare a room or even buy a car seat until we were on our way to pick him
up from the hospital. For those first
few months, I thought the anxiety and uncertainty would drive me insane. Of course like all babies, he didn’t sleep
much at night. When he finally fell asleep, I would just watch him and cry for
fear of losing him. I remember watching
him sleep feeling desperate with the desire to hold on to that moment.
So
I feel a special connection with Peter in this Gospel story. I understand his desperation and fear. I understand how his love for Jesus was
tangled up with his fear of losing him. I
imagine that Peter was eager to walk up that mountain with Jesus and the other
two disciples. They had been surrounded by
crowds for quite some time. Finally he
would have some time with Jesus, just Jesus.
Right before this story, Jesus had started to explain to his disciples
that he would soon be killed. That news
had upset all the disciples, but none more than Peter. Peter had been so upset that he argued with
Jesus. He told Jesus he was wrong. It’s
understandable that Peter would be upset by Jesus’ prediction of his impending
death, but apparently Jesus was not pleased that one of his disciples scolded
him. Jesus got so mad he called Peter
Satan and told him that he was thinking human thoughts when he should be
thinking divinely.
My
guess is that Peter was still feeling the sting of this reprimand and relieved
to be one of the disciples Jesus chose to accompany him up the mountain. He probably felt this would be his
opportunity to make up for his earlier error.
Perhaps he was determined to think divinely, just as Jesus had advised.
Well, if he wanted divine, he got divine.
When they got to the top of the mountain, Jesus was transfigured. His face glowed like the sun and his clothes
became dazzling white. Then, if that was
not enough, two great leaders of the Jewish faith (who were supposed to be dead
by the way) appeared beside him.
Peter was determined to
be helpful and offered to make dwellings for the three of them. Many have interpreted this as a foolish move
on Peter’s part. Why would two dead
people and the Son of God need tents? Isn’t this just Peter once again setting
his mind on human things? Or maybe Peter understands more than people give him
credit for. I think Peter realized that
this was a divine moment and that he needed to mark it in some way, preserve
it—not because he was clinging to something ephemeral, but because he wanted to
mark the occasion, carve it into ground of this mountain and into his
heart.
That’s
what we do every Sunday when we have this liturgy. People who are not familiar with it might
consider it arcane or antiquated. That’s
fine if that is what they want to see.
But in my mind, what we are doing is reminding ourselves of our
connection to the divine. It’s true, we
can see the divine anywhere and everywhere.
We can find God in a sunset or the laughter of a child. But here at church, in the context of the
liturgy we are intentional about finding the divine in our everyday lives, not
just the beautiful moments.
When
I was struggling with this sermon, I was trying to think of times of clarity,
when I had a clear sense of the divine, a clear direction in where God was
leading me. All the examples I could
come up with were happy times, celebratory events, times of light and
love. But for most of us, those moments
aren’t consistent. And if we can only
find God in the perfect sunset or rainbow, then we will find the dark days, the
anxious times, the lonely times---almost unbearable.
Peter
was no fool. He knew that things with
Jesus were about to get very scary. He
knew this might be one of the last times where he could get a clear and
profound glimpse of the glory of God.
So he wanted to carve that moment out in the mud and the muck so that he
could carry it with him always. And in a strange way, that is what the
Eucharist is---it’s that point in the week where we remember the whole
story. Listen to the prayer. It’s the whole story of salvation, leading to
the crucifixion and the resurrection. We
tell that story of the suffering and the triumph every week. We tell that story
here in this beautiful space, but also in the hospital room with the person who
is about to die, in the field of battle with soldiers who are risking their
lives, in the home of the person who has not been able to leave their home
because of illness. That sacred story of
suffering and triumph is not confined to the beauty of the church sanctuary,
nor was Peter trying to confine the divine to three tents on a hill. But I think he was desperate to remember it,
carve it into his heart and mind.
What he did not realize
is that every minute with Jesus was precious, not just when he glowed
incandescently. The most beautiful part
of this text, is not the moment Jesus glowed like the sun with the two dead
prophets. It wasn’t even when God spoke
from the heavens. It was the time when all was quiet again and Jesus reached
down and touched his disciples who were now cowering in the dirt and said, “Get
up and do not be afraid.” Obviously,
that didn’t wipe every fear from the mind of Peter but it did remind him that
he was not alone on this journey.
Often, in the dark
points of our life, we look up for something bright, something that will lead
us and guide us. And if we cannot find
that, we think that God has deserted us.
Yet often, we find that even in the darkest places, God is there,
reaching down and touching us on the shoulder…leading us not by sight, but with
his presence. He might not appear as something bright and shiny because our God
knows darkness and desperation. He knows what it looks like and what it feels
like. But more importantly, he also
knows that there is always a way out.
It’s ok to want to hold on to those precious moments, but it’s also important
to remember that experiences with God are never as fleeting as we think they
are. They are all around. We just need to reach up and take a hold of the hand
resting on our shoulder and rise to meet whatever road is before us. That is what Jesus told Peter then and what
he tells us now, “Get up and do not be afraid.”
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