Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
February 6, 2005, Transfiguration Sunday

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Peter doesn’t get it. I mean, he never gets it. Not really. He can seem to get it, but in the end it turns out that he doesn’t. Take the story that comes in Matthew 16, just shortly before the story of the Transfiguration from Chapter 17 that we just heard. Jesus asks Peter: "Who do you say that I am?" Peter answers, apparently correctly: "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." He seems to get it, but then Jesus tells him that he--Jesus--must go to Jerusalem, be killed, and rise again on the third day. Whereupon Peter immediately proves that he doesn’t get it after all. He replies to Jesus: "God forbid it. This must never happen to you," thereby proving that he has the missed the truth about Jesus altogether. He has missed the truth so badly that Jesus immediately calls him Satan! Now that’s not getting it! Matthew 16:15-23

Then we come to that story of the Transfiguration. Jesus has taken Peter and two other disciples up on a "high mountain." There aren’t any high mountains in Israel, at least not by our standards; but never mind. There Jesus is "transfigured." It is as if the glory of God shone through him, which of course it did--and does. The figures of Moses, representing the law, and Elijah, representing the prophets, suddenly appear with him and talk with him.

Peter really liked that. He said to Jesus: "Lord, it is good for us to be here." He was so into it that he didn’t want the experience to end. He offered to build dwellings for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah so they could all stay there. I guess Peter was planning to stay with Jesus. He was so excited, so in awe, so inspired that the thought of going back down the mountain, that is, of returning to the world and his ordinary life, sounded really bad to him.

And once again, Peter didn’t get it. This time Jesus didn’t even reply with words. Matthew records no verbal response from Jesus to Peter’s suggestion. He just recounts the ending of the Transfiguration and says: "As they were coming down the mountain...." Offer of housing up on the mountain rejected. End of story. Matthew doesn’t give us Jesus’ response in words, but it’s not hard to imagine what it might have been: "Oh, boy! There he goes again. What did I ever see in that dullard? Is he ever going to get it? I doubt it; but I’ve got Moses and Elijah here, and I’d a whole lot rather talk to them than to this fool." Well, OK. Maybe that isn’t how Jesus responded. We are talking about Jesus after all, and he gets it about us even when we don’t get it about him. Still....

Peter doesn’t get it; and I find that fact quite comforting actually. You see, I’m a whole lot more like Peter than I am like Jesus. I suspect we’re all a lot more like Peter than we are like Jesus. I mean, I don’t want to see Jesus get crucified just like Peter didn’t; and I know I’d want to stay on that mountaintop with the transfigured Christ, Moses, and Elijah too. I think we all would, and it’s not hard to understand why.

Peter was having a powerful spiritual experience. We call that kind of experience a peak experience, an experience when the Holy breaks into our lives and becomes obvious in ways that it usually isn’t. Many of us have had them, that sense of being in the Presence, of being over-awed and filled with joy and peace. Maybe, like me, you haven’t had one as obvious and powerful as the one Matthew describes Peter having; but maybe; like me, you’ve experienced something at least remotely of the kind. A peak experience fills us with light and energy. We feel a joy like nothing else we’ve ever felt. Today we celebrate communion, and I’ve had peak experiences when taking the Sacrament. I’ve had that powerful sense of the Presence of God in the bread and the wine. It doesn’t happen every time. It hasn’t happened to me very often, but it has happened. And when it does, just like Peter, I don’t want it to end.

And yet it does end. Just as Jesus led Peter back down off the mountain, the Spirit leads me back into the realm of the mundane, the ordinary; and that’s how it should be. The story of the Transfiguration tells us, among a lot of other important things, that peak experiences of the presence and the glory of God are possible. If it can happen to dense old Peter it can, and does, happen to us. But the story also tells us that we can’t stay there in that realm of the purely spiritual, and Jesus doesn’t want us to. The life of faith can include moments of transcendence, moments when we leave the world behind and enter, if only part way, into the Divine Presence. The mystics of the Christian tradition--and other traditions--know that truth well; and we can learn much from them. We must always remember, however, that Jesus wants to lead us back down the mountain into the world.

The life of faith includes the mountain, but for the most part it takes place right down here, in the world. It takes place in our ordinary lives, in our homes, our families, our workplaces, and even in our churches. It takes place in the way we treat each other and the way we treat ourselves. It takes place in our personal relationships and in the way we relate to the world, the way we witness to God’s Realm of peace and justice for all people in the world.

Peter didn’t get it, and it’s not hard to see why not. Those peak experiences are powerfully attractive. They can make us want to spiritualize everything and remove faith from the world. Jesus, however, will have none of that. With Peter we ask him: "Shall we stay on the mountain?" He answers simply: "No. Follow me. I’m headed back down, into the world. That’s where I need you to be too." Amen.