The Transfiguration<\/p>\n
Year A
\nExodus 24:12-18
\nPsalm 99
\n2 Peter 1:16-21
\nMatthew 17:1-9<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The summer after I graduated from high school\u2026 in 1971\u2026 I went to Israel for eight weeks\u2026 it was my parent\u2019s idea\u2026 and I went with about 90 other college students\u2026 who I think were all Jewish\u2026 because the trip was organized by the American Zionist Youth Foundation\u2026 we took classes for two weeks at Tel Aviv University\u2026 classes that would help prepare us for the three weeks we\u2019d spend on an archeological dig in Beersheba\u2026 and after that\u2026\u00a0 <\/span>we toured the country for two weeks\u2026 going to both Jewish and Christian sites\u2026 and then we had a whole week on our own\u2026<\/p>\n There were no digital cameras then\u2026 the first digital camera wasn\u2019t sold until almost eighteen years later\u2026 so for us\u2026 it was either a Kodak Instamatic\u2026 or a 35mm camera with rolls of film\u2026 24 or 36 exposures\u2026 and you took pictures carefully and judiciously\u2026\u00a0 <\/span>because they were kind of expensive to develop and print\u2026 and with that kind of trip\u2026 lasting almost two full months\u2026 there\u2019d be LOTS of pictures\u2026<\/p>\n One of my traveling companions from Long Island\u2026 didn\u2019t take any pictures\u2026 I\u2019m not sure if Peter even brought a camera\u2026 and when we asked him about it\u2026 at least two times that I can remember\u2026 he said\u2026 somewhat flippantly\u2026 and perhaps somewhat seriously\u2026 I take pictures with my mind<\/i>\u2026 at the time\u2026 that decision seemed ill-advised\u2026 because how could he then share the experience with his parents and family and friends\u2026<\/p>\n But there may have been some wisdom in Peter\u2019s decision\u2026 because although there are times when a photograph can remind us of what was going on that day\u2026 what the event or celebration was\u2026 can remind us about who was there\u2026 or not\u2026 maybe even what was said\u2026 photos can rarely capture the entire scene the way we saw it\u2026 can rarely capture what it actually felt like to be somewhere\u2026 any photos from Israel couldn\u2019t have radiated the heat we felt\u2026 or the dry dusty winds blown on our faces\u2026 they couldn\u2019t do justice to the view from the top of Masada\u2026 or replayed the hum of prayer at the Wailing Wall\u2026 they couldn\u2019t recreate the taste of the salt water from the Dead Sea\u2026 or\u00a0 <\/span>anything else we actually experienced when we were there\u2026 air so thick with history\u2026 and theology\u2026 that you could almost cut it with a knife\u2026<\/p>\n And the experiences that we tried to capture on film were certainly formative\u2026 in my case\u2026 they actually contributed to my later conversion to Christianity\u2026 and all of our experiences\u2026 all of our stories\u2026 and how we understand and internalize them\u2026 what we enjoy and accept\u2026 and what we dislike and reject\u2026 all of this certainly shapes us and helps make us who we are\u2026<\/p>\n But the memories that photographs recreate for us\u2026 can be a two-edged sword\u2026 if we don\u2019t hold on to them tightly enough\u2026 we can lose the moorings from which we come\u2026 and can float along aimlessly\u2026 but if we hang on to them too tightly\u2026 we can end up living in the past\u2026 and are not present to\u2026 well\u2026 the present\u2026<\/p>\n The Rev. Warren Swenson\u2026 a priest in the Diocese of West Missouri\u2026 writes\u2026 remember\u2026 on the first Sunday after Epiphany\u2026 we encountered Jesus at the Jordan River\u2026 Matthew tells us that\u2026 when Jesus had been baptized\u2026 just as he came up from the water\u2026 the heavens were opened to him\u2026 and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove\u2026 and alighting on him\u2026 and a voice from heaven said\u2026 This is my Son\u2026 the Beloved\u2026 with whom I am well pleased<\/i>\u2026 and today\u2026 on the last Sunday after Epiphany\u2026 we hear a similar proclamation in the Transfiguration story\u2026\u00a0 <\/span>This is my Son\u2026 the Beloved\u2026 with him I am well pleased\u2026 listen to him<\/i>\u2026 bookend affirmations from God about who Jesus was\u2026 and what he was to be about\u2026<\/p>\n It must have been overwhelming for Peter\u2026 James\u2026 and John to be confronted with the embodiment of Law\u2026 Prophecy\u2026 and God\u2026 it must have been both overwhelming and affirming\u2026 something you wish you\u2019ll get to see before you die\u2026 like Simeon did\u2026 but also something you kind of wish doesn\u2019t happen\u2026 like hoping that Elijah really isn\u2019t there\u2026 when you open the door during the Passover Seder\u2026 it must have been one of those things you want to tell everyone about\u2026 but also knowing that telling it will fall woefully short of conveying the actual experience\u2026 it was probably one of those\u2026 “you had to be there” times\u2026<\/p>\n But Peter wanted to build three dwellings\u2026 he wanted to somehow enshrine the moment\u2026 take a photo\u2026 as it were\u2026 freeze it in time\u2026 to provide three dwelling places for the Law\u2026 Prophecy\u2026 and God\u2026 and the Greek word that\u2019s translated as dwelling\u2026 also means tent<\/i>\u2026 but it also means tabernacle<\/i>\u2026 it\u2019s a variation of the same word we hear in the Gospel of John\u2026 and the Word became flesh and lived among us<\/i>\u2026 the word that\u2019s translated as lived\u2026 also means\u2026 to pitch a tent\u2026 and we can also read it as\u2026 the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n The Jewish people\u2026 carried the Ark of the Covenant with them on their wilderness journey\u2026 and the Ark contained\u2026 according to Hebrews 9:4\u2026 the tablets of Law which Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai\u2026 and Aaron\u2019s rod that budded\u2026 and a golden pot containing manna\u2026 and when they stayed in one place long enough\u2026 they erected a holy resting place for the Ark\u2026 called the Tabernacle\u2026 a tent\u2026 described in Exodus 25\u201327\u2026 an inner shrine\u2026 the most holy place\u2026 housing the Ark\u2026 and an outer chamber\u2026 also holy\u2026 with a six-branched\u2026 seven-lamp menorah\u2026 a table for the Bread of the Presence\u2026 and an altar of incense\u2026 and in many of our churches\u2026 we store consecrated bread and wine in either an aumbry\u2026 a recessed cabinet\u2026 or a tabernacle\u2026 which is what we have here\u2026\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Moses and Elijah may be talking to Jesus about how he will fulfill the Law and the Prophets\u2026 but the Transfiguration experience transcends the three persons\u2026 and points to a way\u2026 that the blueprint of Law\u2026 the prescience of prophecy\u2026 and the love of Christ\u2026 come together in one irrepressible reality\u2026 and Jesus is shown to fully incorporate the Law and Prophets\u2026 by going to the Cross\u2026 in love\u2026<\/p>\n The Peter in today\u2019s Gospel\u2026 wanted to record\u2026 and hold on to\u2026 perhaps too tightly\u2026 his external experience of Law\u2026 Prophecy\u2026 and God\u2026 and he might have been thrilled if he\u2019d been able to capture the experience in 4K video and sound\u2026 but he would probably have held onto it too tightly\u2026 might have watched the video over and over\u2026 and showed it to all his friends\u2026 like vacation slides\u2026 and ended up living in the past\u2026 that may be why the Peter in my Israel trip story took no photos\u2026 so he was free to be formed by the experience\u2026 and that may be why Jesus exhorted the other Peter\u2026 and James\u2026 and John to tell no one about the vision\u2026<\/p>\n Pastor Isaac Villegas\u2026 pastor of Chapel Hill Mennonite Fellowship writes\u2026 transfiguration is not a heavenly escape from this earthly life\u2026 the mountaintop experience is not a call to travel to “an elsewhere” in which we remain\u2026 this narrative turns the disciples back to the place they already know\u2026 back to the familiar\u2026 transfiguration is an invitation to return to our communities and our lives with renewed attention and patience\u2026 awaiting the luminescence of the mundane\u2026 to attend to the present\u2026 and wonder at the ordinary\u2026 to let this life astonish us with the sacred\u2026 we are on holy ground\u2026 transfiguration changes us\u2026 even when we don\u2019t take photographs\u2026 because the tabernacles that God wants to inhabit\u2026 are our hearts\u2026 that\u2019s what makes scripture the Living Word\u2026 because it inhabits us and we inhabit it\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Transfiguration Year A Exodus 24:12-18 Psalm 99 2 Peter 1:16-21 Matthew 17:1-9 The summer after I graduated from high school\u2026 in 1971\u2026 I went to Israel for eight weeks\u2026 it was my parent\u2019s idea\u2026 and I went with about 90 other college students\u2026 who I think were all Jewish\u2026 because the trip was organized by the American Zionist Youth Foundation\u2026 we took classes for two weeks at Tel Aviv University\u2026 classes that would help prepare us for the three weeks we\u2019d spend on an archeological dig in Beersheba\u2026 and after that\u2026\u00a0 we toured the country for two weeks\u2026 going to both Jewish and Christian sites\u2026 and then we had a whole week on our own\u2026 There were no digital cameras then\u2026 the first digital camera wasn\u2019t sold until almost eighteen years later\u2026 so for us\u2026 it was either a Kodak Instamatic\u2026 or a 35mm camera with rolls of film\u2026 24 or 36 exposures\u2026 and you took pictures carefully and judiciously\u2026\u00a0 because they were kind of expensive to develop and print\u2026 and with that kind of trip\u2026 lasting almost two full months\u2026 there\u2019d be LOTS of pictures\u2026 One of my traveling companions from Long Island\u2026 didn\u2019t take any pictures\u2026 I\u2019m not sure if Peter even brought a camera\u2026 and when we asked him about it\u2026 at least two times that I can remember\u2026 he said\u2026 somewhat flippantly\u2026 and perhaps somewhat seriously\u2026 I take pictures with my mind\u2026 at the time\u2026 that decision seemed ill-advised\u2026 because how could he then share the experience with his parents and family and friends\u2026 But there may have been some wisdom in Peter\u2019s decision\u2026 because although there are times when a photograph can remind us of what was going on that day\u2026 what the event or celebration was\u2026 can remind us about who was there\u2026 or not\u2026 maybe even what was said\u2026 photos can rarely capture the entire scene the way we saw it\u2026 can rarely capture what it actually felt like to be somewhere\u2026 any photos from Israel couldn\u2019t have radiated the heat we felt\u2026 or the dry dusty winds blown on our faces\u2026 they couldn\u2019t do justice to the view from the top of Masada\u2026 or replayed the hum of prayer at the Wailing Wall\u2026 they couldn\u2019t recreate the taste of the salt water from the Dead Sea\u2026 or\u00a0 anything else we actually experienced when we were there\u2026 air so thick with history\u2026 and theology\u2026 that you could almost cut it with a knife\u2026 And the experiences that we tried to capture on film were certainly formative\u2026 in my case\u2026 they actually contributed to my later conversion to Christianity\u2026 and all of our experiences\u2026 all of our stories\u2026 and how we understand and internalize them\u2026 what we enjoy and accept\u2026 and what we dislike and reject\u2026 all of this certainly shapes us and helps make us who we are\u2026 But the memories that photographs recreate for us\u2026 can be a two-edged sword\u2026 if we don\u2019t hold on to them tightly enough\u2026 we can lose the moorings from which we come\u2026 and can float along aimlessly\u2026 but if we hang on to them too tightly\u2026 we can end up living in the past\u2026 and are not present to\u2026 well\u2026 the present\u2026 The Rev. Warren Swenson\u2026 a priest in the Diocese of West Missouri\u2026 writes\u2026 remember\u2026 on the first Sunday after Epiphany\u2026 we encountered Jesus at the Jordan River\u2026 Matthew tells us that\u2026 when Jesus had been baptized\u2026 just as he came up from the water\u2026 the heavens were opened to him\u2026 and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove\u2026 and alighting on him\u2026 and a voice from heaven said\u2026 This is my Son\u2026 the Beloved\u2026 with whom I am well pleased\u2026 and today\u2026 on the last Sunday after Epiphany\u2026 we hear a similar proclamation in the Transfiguration story\u2026\u00a0 This is my Son\u2026 the Beloved\u2026 with him I am well pleased\u2026 listen to him\u2026 bookend affirmations from God about who Jesus was\u2026 and what he was to be about\u2026 It must have been overwhelming for Peter\u2026 James\u2026 and John to be confronted with the embodiment of Law\u2026 Prophecy\u2026 and God\u2026 it must have been both overwhelming and affirming\u2026 something you wish you\u2019ll get to see before you die\u2026 like Simeon did\u2026 but also something you kind of wish doesn\u2019t happen\u2026 like hoping that Elijah really isn\u2019t there\u2026 when you open the door during the Passover Seder\u2026 it must have been one of those things you want to tell everyone about\u2026 but also knowing that telling it will fall woefully short of conveying the actual experience\u2026 it was probably one of those\u2026 “you had to be there” times\u2026 But Peter wanted to build three dwellings\u2026 he wanted to somehow enshrine the moment\u2026 take a photo\u2026 as it were\u2026 freeze it in time\u2026 to provide three dwelling places for the Law\u2026 Prophecy\u2026 and God\u2026 and the Greek word that\u2019s translated as dwelling\u2026 also means tent\u2026 but it also means tabernacle\u2026 it\u2019s a variation of the same word we hear in the Gospel of John\u2026 and the Word became flesh and lived among us\u2026 the word that\u2019s translated as lived\u2026 also means\u2026 to pitch a tent\u2026 and we can also read it as\u2026 the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us\u2026 The Jewish people\u2026 carried the Ark of the Covenant with them on their wilderness journey\u2026 and the Ark contained\u2026 according to Hebrews 9:4\u2026 the tablets of Law which Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai\u2026 and Aaron\u2019s rod that budded\u2026 and a golden pot containing manna\u2026 and when they stayed in one place long enough\u2026 they erected a holy resting place for the Ark\u2026 called the Tabernacle\u2026 a tent\u2026 described in Exodus 25\u201327\u2026 an inner shrine\u2026 the most holy place\u2026 housing the Ark\u2026 and an outer chamber\u2026 also holy\u2026 with a six-branched\u2026 seven-lamp menorah\u2026 a table for the Bread of the Presence\u2026 and an altar of incense\u2026 and in many of our churches\u2026 we store consecrated bread and wine in either an aumbry\u2026 a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":553,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions\/553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}