Transfiguration Sunday A
Text: Matthew 17:1-9
sermon by Rev. Robert Klonowski
Faith Lutheran Church, Homewood, IL
February 23, 2020
The Shining Mountain, and the Dark Mountain
Every year, on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday and before the season of Lent begins, we get the story of the Transfiguration. That means that every year on this Sunday I have to think of something new to say about it. On the one hand I’m not happy about that – Shine, Jesus, shine! Really, what else is there to say? – but on the other hand I recognize that the gospel writers Matthew, Mark, and Luke all include this story, almost as if it is indeed something to which I should pay better attention.
In that way I am like Peter in this story – he should pay better attention, too. This year for Transfiguration Sunday let’s consider this story from the point of view of Peter, and let’s just see if that tells us something about our point of view, too.
To understand where Peter is coming from we have to go back to what happened in the verses of Matthew just before the Transfiguration. Jesus begins to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering; he is going to the cross. The one disciple who responds is – you guessed it – Peter, who takes Jesus aside, we are told, and begins to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”
Now remember, this is Jesus Christ himself! who has just told him that yes, as a matter of fact that cross is exactly what must happen. But just because Jesus Christ himself! said it, doesn’t keep our man Peter from contradicting it! Jesus carefully explains again: “If any want to become my followers,” and I’m talking about you, Peter, “let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it ….” You got that? Peter, can you hear me now? Are you paying attention?
And it’s right from that teaching, and that little teaching moment with Peter, that we move to today’s story of the Transfiguration. Peter is one of those whom Jesus leads up the high mountain, and Jesus is transfigured before them, shining like the sun, and suddenly there appear Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. Then Peter said ….
Hold it right there. This is Moses and Elijah, the two great prophets of Israel, having a conversation with Jesus Christ himself!, and Peter … interrupts?! I have had the privilege of attending baseball games from time to time with major league scouts, and when they talk to one another do you think I horn in to let them know what I think about the game? A couple of months ago there were teams of doctors meeting around my mother’s hospital bed to discuss her therapy and care, and you think I interrupted them to say, but enough about what you folks think, let me tell you how I read that MRI of her lower vertebrae? Peter, when you are in the presence of your betters, you need to keep your mouth shut and just pay attention.
But oh, no; here he comes with it!: “Lord, it’s so good for us to be here. I know! I’ll make three dwellings here on the mountain, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” My first reaction is: Oh, right! The glory of Jesus Christ himself! shines out like the sun, and why don’t we just cover that up with some kind of dwelling or something. We’re being rough on Peter here, I know, but how Peter does here, isn’t that just how we do? The gospel is life-changing, world-transforming, but ah, let’s keep it right in church here, and make the gospel about what we do inside these four walls of Faith Lutheran, and whatever we do, let’s not let it shine out there, with its life-giving power in our workplaces or our schools or our homes, or anything like that! Nah; let’s just keep it nice and tame right here; let’s us make a dwelling for Jesus.
Well, this has been fun, but I hope you are picking up Peter’s pattern here; as we make fun of Peter’s cluelessness, I hope you are seeing that his cluelessness is actually absolutely contrived, and manipulative as can be. He’s not as dumb as you think. Actually, he’s working an agenda here, and working it as hard and effectively as he can.
Because he just does not want to go to that cross. Jesus says he’s going to the cross to take the worst that the world has to hand out; Peter says, this must never happen to you! Jesus says he’s going to Jerusalem; Peter says, no!, no!, instead let me build a nice, safe dwelling for you here. Lord, it is good for us to be here, on this nice shiny mountain. This must never happen to you, to go to that other mountain, that nasty Mount Calvary, where things will be not shiny at all, but threatening and oh, so dark. Peter is working an agenda here, and it is the agenda of positive thinking: whatever we do, let’s not move toward that cross.
We are the church of Jesus Christ. We are not positive thinkers; the way we think is cross-ways, and that’s a different way of thinking. Do you remember how the gospel of John puts it, about this matter of a dwelling for Jesus? “And the Word of God became flesh and dwelt … among us.” The only right dwelling place for Jesus is not on some holy mountain and not in some spiritual or disembodied positive-thinking, mind-over-matter way, but among us. That means it’s real; not positive all the time as Peter would have it, or as we would have it sometimes, but real. That’s what the cross means.
Peter didn’t get it, that it had to be the cross, if God was to dwell among us. I should say he didn’t get it the first few times he heard it, because later in his life, he did. There’s hope for us there: we can grow into this cross business. You know, last summer I preached about these little coats of arms that are placed around in our sanctuary, the traditional coats of arms of the apostles. Every now and then someone notices this one that’s closest to the pulpit and asks me, why is there an upside-down cross there?
It’s the coat of arms of Peter. The tradition is that when Peter was in Rome, threatening the powers of this world with the liberating gospel of Christ, living the cross, you might say, the Roman authorities sentenced him to die by crucifixion. I am not worthy, Peter told them, to die the same way as my Lord. All right, said the Romans, we won’t kill you the same way; we’ll crucify you upside-down. I guess Peter was paying some attention after all, when Jesus was teaching him about the cross. Because in the end the way of the cross to which he bore witness – a way of faith that in the worst this world ever has to offer you, Christ dwells right there – that way of faith has turned your whole world upside-down, hasn’t it?