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February 3, 2008- Last Sunday after Epiphany- RCL Year A
Episcopal Church of the Apostles
The Rev. Mark Byers

Not On a Mountain, but a Hilltop

Matthew 17:1-9

Six days after Peter had acknowledged Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. Then Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, "This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!" When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, "Get up and do not be afraid." And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, "Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead."

“Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

I’m not sure what Peter thought he was going to accomplish. I think he may have meant, in his heart, simply to honor his teacher: “This is a special place, and you are a special man. Let’s memorialize this moment by building houses here for you and your peers, the great prophets.” Peter often had a tendency to do stuff like this. The first line of the gospel reading for today is actually a summary of a long passage preceding this one.

Here’s the actual first line of this passage:

“Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves.”

Our passage says, “ Six days after Peter had acknowledged Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God…”

The problem is that the exchange between Jesus and Peter was much more complicated than this passage would indicate, and that’s important in understanding today’s reading. Here are the highlights:

Jesus asked his disciples who people say the “Son of Man” is.

They said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

Then he asked, “But who do you say that I am?”

And then Peter says what today’s passage has him saying: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus then replies, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

Then Jesus goes on, before we arrive on the mountaintop, to talk about his future.

“From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.’ But he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’”

At what point does striving for a perceived good become contaminated irretrievably by the methods we use? It seems true that many of us, perhaps all of us, are capable of so misunderstanding truly important things that we can destroy what it is that we are trying to accomplish. Even God’s holy purpose is not exempt.

The gospel makes a point of telling us that this episode we read today was “six days later,” so what occurred six days earlier should not, perhaps, have so easily escaped Peter’s mind.

“[I] must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

He’s not saying, “Hey, what if I were to go do this? Any thoughts on an alternative?” He’s saying, “This is going to happen and it is essential to what God is doing through me.”

And Peter comes back with, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” Does anybody hear, in Peter’s response, an echo of “Listen, Candidate X, if you deal with this pressing issue, it will cost you your base”? Or, “Listen, I know water boarding is cruel, but if we’re going to maintain our security, we have to be willing to do hard things”? Or, “Hey, if you want to make it in this league, you might have to use this stuff”?

Six days later, he does it again: “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Which is another way of saying, “Hey, let’s stay here and celebrate how important you are, but without doing what it is that you came to do.”

Jesus promised Peter the “keys of the kingdom of heaven.” Along with the power to bind and loose, which Jesus says will belong to him, must come also the wisdom to know when and how to use such power. And it is not entirely clear that Peter, even standing right next to Jesus, was always able to know what he should do. Just like us. I don’t know about you, but I find it hard, especially when emotions come into play, to make the right decision. And I watch other people struggling, too. Even people who don’t endorse divorce get divorced a lot. Even people who don’t endorse adultery find themselves having affairs. Even politicians who want desperately to make things better do unethical or immoral things, or deceive people, trying to convince themselves that they’re really doing the right thing.

Or, as in Peter’s case, they persistently fail to understand that sometimes a person must make a choice that seems irrational, from the standpoint of an unbelieving world, in order that God’s will might be accomplished.

What’s wrong with Peter’s suggestion? What’s wrong with that mountaintop dwelling? Why go to Jerusalem when we can stay here and continue on as we have been, learning stuff and enjoying each other’s company? Why not just build a place where we can be safe and warm and remember this moment as our defining moment, rather than the moment that is out there ahead of us and scares us?

I’m not saying that Peter was being consciously disloyal or bad. I’m saying that sometimes even Peter was so attached to what he and the other disciples had in the present that he feared to go somewhere else.

God, of course, offered Peter some clarity. “While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”

Don’t, in other words, ignore these things that your King just said:

-I’m going to Jerusalem to suffer and be killed, and then I will be raised from the dead.

-If you want to follow me, you can’t simply like me. You must BE like me.

-“Get up and do not be afraid.”

I would suggest to you that the glory that the Transfiguration foreshadows only comes by NOT enshrining our present, but rather by embracing the Kingdom which God is building among us. I know this can mean living in a dramatically different way, and making hard choices. It calls all of our other beliefs, practices, and loyalties into question. All I can say is what Jesus said: “Get up and do not be afraid.” Reality doesn’t get any easier by pretending things are otherwise.

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