Matthew 17:1-9 (CEB)
Six days later Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, and brought them to the top of a very high mountain. 2 He was transformed in front of them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as light.
3 Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Jesus. 4 Peter reacted to all of this by saying to Jesus, “Lord, it’s good that we’re here. If you want, I’ll make three shrines: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
5 While he was still speaking, look, a bright cloud overshadowed them. A voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son whom I dearly love. I am very pleased with him. Listen to him!” 6 Hearing this, the disciples fell on their faces, filled with awe.
7 But Jesus came and touched them. “Get up,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.” 8 When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.
9 As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, “Don’t tell anybody about the vision until the Human One is raised from the dead.”
Let the words of my mouth
and the meditations of my heart
be pleasing to you,
Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
I don’t have any idea what I’d do if I were PJ&J. This is a bonkers thing to happen. I’ve been to hospitals and through weird relationship stuff enough to recognize the miraculous as God’s usual MO, but this thing is just bizarro.
It’s so weird that the best comparison we can find prior to it is way back in Exodus:
12 The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and wait there. I’ll give you the stone tablets with the instructions and the commandments that I’ve written in order to teach them.”
13 So Moses and his assistant Joshua got up, and Moses went up God’s mountain. 14 Moses had said to the elders, “Wait for us here until we come back to you. Aaron and Hur will be here with you. Whoever has a legal dispute may go to them.”
15 Then Moses went up the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. 16 The Lord’s glorious presence settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days. On the seventh day the Lord called to Moses from the cloud. 17 To the Israelites, the Lord’s glorious presence looked like a blazing fire on top of the mountain. 18 Moses entered the cloud and went up the mountain. Moses stayed on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.
Six days of glory and cloud and creativity. Six days: see the connection? Six days for God to inscribe the Word that would set the children of Israel apart from all the other peoples around. Six days of crafting and creating, and then God calls Moses.
And on the seventh day, Moses joined God on the mountain.
I might have happily handed that job off to somebody else, except when God calls your name, there’s only so much hemming and hawing and avoiding you can realistically do.
Moses!
um. ok.
Can you even imagine?
That’s the flavor of extraordinary happening atop the mountain with Jesus and PJ&J. It’s no wonder they don’t have any idea what to make of it. It’s just another day, as far as they’re concerned. I mean, some pretty wild stuff had just happened: Peter had his inspired confession of Christ, was promised the keys of the kingdom, and promptly scolded Jesus for saying he was going to die. They sat on that for six days…
six days…
and then they went for a hike and this happened.
At least they had a little time for it something to sink in. Or maybe Jesus was spending six days reconnecting to that written Word he had come to fulfill. My favorite recent take is from a colleague I haven’t met yet.
That’s when Peter busts in.
And, y’all, I wonder a little if he’s just being impetuous, knee-jerking, speak-before-you-think Peter; or if he and James and John are elbowing each other: “say something!” “No, you say something!” “What am I supposed to say?” “How should I know?”
“Wow, Jesus. This is… wow. We should… do a thing… a booth! We can build a booth, a tabernacle… er… pile up some rocks…”
Do y’all ever just smile and shake your head at Peter? Poor Peter. He tries so hard. He has such a good heart.
Oh, wait, that’s where we use that phrase:
Bless his heart.
That, I’m convinced, is exactly what goes through the Divine One’s mind when the heavens send a glowing cloud and a voice mercifully interrupts Peter:
This is my Son whom I dearly love. I am very pleased with him. Listen to him!
And they fall on their faces and the whole thing ends, quickly as it came.
This probably would have gone a lot better if Peter had just stopped at, “It is good to be here.”
He didn’t have to react. He didn’t have to fumble through ideas, looking for something in their tradition, in his experience for this one-off extraordinary moment to connect with.
This was never going to connect with anything in his experience.
And, you know, Jesus didn’t have to invite them along, either. He doesn’t need the company. He doesn’t need their approval. Bringing them isn’t for him. It’s for them. He isn’t looking for an appropriately religious reaction. He is giving them a gift.
I suppose we’re not very good at recognizing that.
What we’re doing now is a gift. This community surrounding us is a gift. But the temptation we face is not just to take it for granted, but to go so far as to curse it.
These stubborn and rebellious people… these argumentative people… these mean people… these people who don’t understand what scripture clearly says… I wish they’d just go away, leave me alone, find somebody else to bother…
Do you recognize that as the language of cursing? All that we do that divides us from each other is cursing. God’s blessing always brings healing and community. Harm and division are always curses.
I’m aware that we’re reeling from division. I’m aware that we’re reeling from harm. I’m aware of what I’ve done and said that has added to that, and I’m trying to be aware of what has been out of my control. We each have to live with the consequences of our actions. That guilt weighs heavily. But we each have to realize that we can’t control each other. Other people make choices, too. To best respect each other, we have to let each other make our own choices. It is rarely ever a good choice to try to control someone else’s actions.
Control of others is not ours to take. Control of every situation is never ours to take.
Peter is lucky when he tries to take control of the situation atop the mountain. It was so far out of his league that what he suggests goes essentially unheard and unnoticed.
We aren’t always so lucky when we try to wrest control out of others’ hands. Sometimes God will actually let us, and that rarely, if ever, goes well.
We need to learn to let go. We need to learn to recognize the gift that God is giving us. Even in the midst of division and decline and strife, there is blessing to be recognized. There is transformation being revealed to us. Even in the midst of everything going wrong, the kinship of God is shining through the cracks in our walls.
And in every place and time and relationship in which that is happening, which is everywhere and with everyone, it is good to be here.
Pay attention. Something glorious is happening right near you. I guarantee you want to be a part of it.
It is good to be here.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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