Matthew 17:1-9 (The Message)
Six days later, three of them saw that glory. Jesus took Peter and the brothers, James and John, and led them up a high mountain. His appearance changed from the inside out, right before their eyes. Sunlight poured from his face. His clothes were filled with light. Then they realized that Moses and Elijah were also there in deep conversation with him.
Peter broke in, “Master, this is a great moment! What would you think if I built three shelters here on the mountain—one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah?”
While he was going on like this, babbling, a light-radiant cloud enveloped them, and sounding from deep in the cloud a voice: “This is my Son, marked by my love, focus of my delight. Listen to him.”
When the disciples heard it, they fell flat on their faces, scared to death. But Jesus came over and touched them. “Don’t be afraid.” When they opened their eyes and looked around all they saw was Jesus, only Jesus.
Coming down the mountain, Jesus swore them to secrecy. “Don’t breathe a word of what you’ve seen. After the Son of Man is raised from the dead, you are free to talk.”
Our reading today opened with “Six days later...” Later than what? Let’s take a minute to see. We are no longer on that mountain where we’ve been for the past few Sundays, listening to Jesus teach. That teaching continued for another 2 or 3 chapters, as Matthew has written it, but Jesus and those who followed him did eventually come down from that mountain and entered into a busy period of traveling, teaching, and healing.
Last week’s reading was from chapter five, this week we’re in chapter seventeen. You can see that a great deal has happened and time has passed The remaining disciples were called. John the Baptist was executed by Herod. The Pharisees began to come after Jesus. And there were many, many, many healings. I’m sure the lectionary will get back to these things in Ordinary time during the summer, when we’re finished with Easter and Pentecost, but for now we are closing out Epiphany, the season of light, and preparing to enter into Lent, a season that is gray, at best. We need to shift gears – from just starting out with Jesus to preparing for the end.
The last thing that happened before today’s reading begins is that Jesus told his disciples that he would have go to Jerusalem and be killed, and then rise again on the third day.
And so, six days later, we find ourselves on another mountain top. Jesus has taken Peter, James, and John up the mountain with him where he is enveloped in a blinding light shining out from himself. When the disciples regain their ability to see they realize that Moses and Elijah are also there, talking with Jesus.
This oversets the disciples’ wits entirely – an understandable response – and Peter begins babbling about building shelters and staying here forever. And they hear the voice of God speaking out of the cloud and the three mortal men fall to the ground – too terrified to think, act, or speak.
Then Jesus touches them and tells them not to be afraid – and when they look up there is only Jesus – looking like Jesus again -- there with them.
Jesus has revealed his true self to these three chosen ones, but they are forbidden to speak of what they have seen and heard until after Jesus has been killed and has risen again.
Now, since this is Matthew’s gospel, we have to expect this story to somehow tie back into traditional Jewish teaching, which it does – linking directly to Exodus 24 where Moses goes up another mountain to receive the Tablets of the Law:
There are many links here, not only to today’s reading – with going up on a mountain, and Moses taking his disciple Joshua with him, and then the presence of Elijah and the light and the cloud and the voice from the cloud – but also the forty days and nights reminding us of Jesus’ sojourn in the desert, and even that very specific six days at the very beginning of the Matthew reading.
So Matthew has made his point – not only about the relationship between Jesus and his father, but also about Jesus’ position both in the past and in the ongoing story of the Hebrew people as God’s chosen ones.
That’s very nice for Matthew, but what does this story mean for us, here, today? Leaving Moses and Elijah behind for the moment, the most striking point, for me, is Peter’s desire to just stay in that incredible moment forever. “Let me just build some shelters here and we’ll never leave.”
This is what we refer to as a “mountaintop experience” – that moment (or moments) that is so sublime we can’t bear to leave it and return to the banality of everyday existence.
But – we were not created to live in paradise. We were created and placed right here, with all the other ordinary people, in the midst of noise and messiness and injustice and ignorance and sometimes outright evil. This is where we are, and where we’re meant to be. We don’t get to stay on the mountaintop. We still get glimpses of that mountaintop from time to time, just enough to keep us going, but we don’t get to stay there – not yet.
We were placed down here, not to run off to that mountaintop, but to help create that mountaintop right here in all the noisy, ignorant messiness that is here and now.
But -- that doesn’t mean that we stay just where we are or just as we are. We were not created to sit in one spot forever. Peter and the others really liked where they were. It was glorious and comfortable there (once they got over the initial shock). But there was work to do, down in the lowlands.
We, too, may be very comfortable right where we are. I just read something by Pope Francis that really makes this point for us:
"To put it simply: the Holy Spirit bothers us. Because he moves us, he makes us walk, he pushes the Church to go forward. And we are like Peter at the Transfiguration: 'Ah, how wonderful it is to be here like this, all together!'...But don't bother us. We want the Holy Spirit to doze off...we want to domesticate the Holy Spirit. And that's no good. because the Spirit is God, the Spirit is that wind which comes and goes and you don't know where. It is the power of God, the one who gives us consolation and strength to move forward. But: to move forward! And this bothers us. It's so much nicer to be comfortable."
It is nice. It’s comfy. But nice and comfy rarely push the church forward. Rarely spur us to growth. Nice and comfy will not build the city of God. We will, each of us doing our part in the place where God leads us.
Doing our parts, moving where we need to move, these will, in time, lead us back up the mountain, to transcendence. But we must be willing to get up out of our comfort zone and move when the Spirit says move.
Last week’s reading was from chapter five, this week we’re in chapter seventeen. You can see that a great deal has happened and time has passed The remaining disciples were called. John the Baptist was executed by Herod. The Pharisees began to come after Jesus. And there were many, many, many healings. I’m sure the lectionary will get back to these things in Ordinary time during the summer, when we’re finished with Easter and Pentecost, but for now we are closing out Epiphany, the season of light, and preparing to enter into Lent, a season that is gray, at best. We need to shift gears – from just starting out with Jesus to preparing for the end.
The last thing that happened before today’s reading begins is that Jesus told his disciples that he would have go to Jerusalem and be killed, and then rise again on the third day.
And so, six days later, we find ourselves on another mountain top. Jesus has taken Peter, James, and John up the mountain with him where he is enveloped in a blinding light shining out from himself. When the disciples regain their ability to see they realize that Moses and Elijah are also there, talking with Jesus.
This oversets the disciples’ wits entirely – an understandable response – and Peter begins babbling about building shelters and staying here forever. And they hear the voice of God speaking out of the cloud and the three mortal men fall to the ground – too terrified to think, act, or speak.
Then Jesus touches them and tells them not to be afraid – and when they look up there is only Jesus – looking like Jesus again -- there with them.
Jesus has revealed his true self to these three chosen ones, but they are forbidden to speak of what they have seen and heard until after Jesus has been killed and has risen again.
Now, since this is Matthew’s gospel, we have to expect this story to somehow tie back into traditional Jewish teaching, which it does – linking directly to Exodus 24 where Moses goes up another mountain to receive the Tablets of the Law:
- Moses set out with his assistant Joshua, and went up into the mountain of God..... Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. The glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the cloud. Now the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. Moses entered the cloud, and went up on the mountain. Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.
There are many links here, not only to today’s reading – with going up on a mountain, and Moses taking his disciple Joshua with him, and then the presence of Elijah and the light and the cloud and the voice from the cloud – but also the forty days and nights reminding us of Jesus’ sojourn in the desert, and even that very specific six days at the very beginning of the Matthew reading.
So Matthew has made his point – not only about the relationship between Jesus and his father, but also about Jesus’ position both in the past and in the ongoing story of the Hebrew people as God’s chosen ones.
That’s very nice for Matthew, but what does this story mean for us, here, today? Leaving Moses and Elijah behind for the moment, the most striking point, for me, is Peter’s desire to just stay in that incredible moment forever. “Let me just build some shelters here and we’ll never leave.”
This is what we refer to as a “mountaintop experience” – that moment (or moments) that is so sublime we can’t bear to leave it and return to the banality of everyday existence.
But – we were not created to live in paradise. We were created and placed right here, with all the other ordinary people, in the midst of noise and messiness and injustice and ignorance and sometimes outright evil. This is where we are, and where we’re meant to be. We don’t get to stay on the mountaintop. We still get glimpses of that mountaintop from time to time, just enough to keep us going, but we don’t get to stay there – not yet.
We were placed down here, not to run off to that mountaintop, but to help create that mountaintop right here in all the noisy, ignorant messiness that is here and now.
But -- that doesn’t mean that we stay just where we are or just as we are. We were not created to sit in one spot forever. Peter and the others really liked where they were. It was glorious and comfortable there (once they got over the initial shock). But there was work to do, down in the lowlands.
We, too, may be very comfortable right where we are. I just read something by Pope Francis that really makes this point for us:
"To put it simply: the Holy Spirit bothers us. Because he moves us, he makes us walk, he pushes the Church to go forward. And we are like Peter at the Transfiguration: 'Ah, how wonderful it is to be here like this, all together!'...But don't bother us. We want the Holy Spirit to doze off...we want to domesticate the Holy Spirit. And that's no good. because the Spirit is God, the Spirit is that wind which comes and goes and you don't know where. It is the power of God, the one who gives us consolation and strength to move forward. But: to move forward! And this bothers us. It's so much nicer to be comfortable."
It is nice. It’s comfy. But nice and comfy rarely push the church forward. Rarely spur us to growth. Nice and comfy will not build the city of God. We will, each of us doing our part in the place where God leads us.
Doing our parts, moving where we need to move, these will, in time, lead us back up the mountain, to transcendence. But we must be willing to get up out of our comfort zone and move when the Spirit says move.
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