I am really struck by the way in which this Transfiguration story serves as a hinge between the season of Epiphany, which ends today, and the season of Lent, which begins this week. Epiphany, which means “to make known,” is all about light and revelation, the “light that shines in the darkness” that “the darkness has not overcome.” So here we are in this Transfiguration story on a mountain in which Jesus shines like the sun and appears in clothes that are dazzling white, and the three disciples receive a revelation about Jesus’ identity. In Matthew’s gospel, the words from the cloud, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with him I am well pleased,” are the same words we heard earlier in Epiphany at Jesus’ baptism.

      I suspect there is a little bit of Peter in all of us, wanting to build booths to preserve certain experiences for as long as possible. In Epiphany, in a sense we grab hold of the glow of Christmas and hang on to it for another four weeks. It is a season of hope and healing and light and promise, a sort of mountain-top experience that we might easily wish to hold on to for a while, especially when we think about what happens next.

      In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus and his companions come down the mountain only to confront the father of an epileptic boy that the other disciples have been unable to heal. This is coupled with another prediction of Jesus’ passion, which the disciples continue to misunderstand. So in the same way we leave Epiphany after the Transfiguration and enter into the season of Lent, where we follow Jesus on his journey toward the cross. Who wouldn’t want to stay up on the mountain when there is so much trouble down in the valley.

N o commentary I have read knows quite what to make of Peter’s suggestion, “Let us make three dwellings.” The Greek word can mean “tent” or “shelter” or “tabernacle”– as in a place of worship– or simply mean “house.” Why Jesus, Moses and Elijah would need a house is not exactly clear, but it does seem in some way to be Peter’s attempt to enshrine or preserve or in some way prolong this moment on the mountain.

      In Matthew’s telling, Peter is interrupted mid-sentence. As Brian Stoffregen puts it, if ever there was a time to feel about two inches tall, it might be when one is interrupted by God. It’s not the first time Peter is put in his place. Before they head up the mountain, Jesus makes his first prediction of the passion, when Peter– the same one here who wants to build a booth– is rebuked by Jesus because he rejects Jesus’ notion that he must suffer and die. Here Peter is rebuked a second time, but this time by God. “This is my Son,” God says, “the Beloved, with him I am well pleased; listen to him.”

      Listening to him may, indeed, be one of the most difficult things to do. We want to listen to him on the mountain, but not follow him into the valley. Through out the Gospel, the disciples swing between faith and doubt, between understanding and misunderstanding. Jesus keeps explaining to Peter who he is, and Peter refuses to listen. So here on the mountain Peter and the two brothers are given another revelation of who Jesus is, but they still don’t know what to do. Peter wants to build booths. God wants him to listen. Jesus wants him to follow him into the valley.

      Dietrich Bonhoeffer called this the difference between religion and discipleship. He defined religion as any recourse to the transcendent that enables human beings to avoid the claims of Jesus Christ. Religion, in other words, is our desire to stay up on the mountain and avoid the demands of the valley.

I thought about that in relation to our task today to ordain and install church officers. One of the things that candidates for church office often say is that they hope their experience will be spiritually enriching. I hope that too. I am sad whenever someone tells me that their experience of serving on the session sucked the spirit right out of them. I am pleased that no one has said that to me in a long time. Part of the problem is that we often become so busy with booth building that we are not really paying attention to what is going on up on the mountain. Jesus may not have wanted Peter to build booths, and hold on to the mountain top forever, but he certainly wanted him to be there with him or he wouldn’t have brought him along in the first place.

      In officer training, I often talk about the difference between management and leadership. Management is about making the trains run on time. Leadership is about asking what direction the trains should go. We are often so busy with management that we never get to the leadership questions. For church officers, that means slowing down our “doing,” our “booth building,” long enough to ask, “Where is God leading us, and who is God calling us to be?” To put it in Bohoeffer’s terms, one of the ways we avoid the claims of Jesus Christ is to spend all our time building booths. We need mountain top experiences from time to time to lift us up out of the mundane realities of our lives and enable us to catch a glimpse of mystery of God’s presence.

      But the mountain top has its own dangers. Especially now in our culture there is a whole vocabulary to spiritual growth that is all about self-actualization and finding your center and awakening your potential and getting your chakra in tune with your karma– not bad things in and of themselves, but they always strike me as flowing from that part of us that wants to stay up on the mountain without having to contend with the trouble in the valley. Or to return to Bonhoeffer once more, a second way we avoid the claims of Jesus Christ is to retreat to the mountain so we don’t have to notice what is happening in the valley below.

T he whole point of this episode with Peter, James and John, it seems to me, was to take them up on the mountain to get their attention, so they would be prepared for what was going to happen when they come back down. They came up on the mountain to prepare them to go back down in to the valley. So in the same way, in Epiphany we proclaim that Jesus is the light that shines in the darkness that the darkness has not overcome. In Lent, we are invited to enter the darkness, and to trust the light that leads us there.

      So my charge to our three officers today is to echo the words that were spoken from the cloud: “Listen to him.” Listen to Jesus. Let his words, his teachings, his life, be the guide that is at the center of your ministry. The antidote to both booth building and mountain gazing is to listen to the life of Jesus, and let his life speak to your own. It’s not the oversimplified “What Would Jesus Do?” It’s about letting the shape of his life shape your own.

      As we were gathering a couple of weeks ago to plan for the season of Lent, Margee sent me a quote from Eugene Peterson that I think is right on target as a charge for church officers:

      “To follow Jesus implies that we enter into a way of life that is given character and shape by the one who calls us ... To follow Jesus means that we can’t separate what Jesus is saying from what Jesus is doing and the way that he is doing it. To follow Jesus is as much, or maybe even more, about feet as it is about ears and eyes.”

      So that is my charge today to Jeff and Pat and Anne– Spend some time on the mountain. Pay attention to what is happening there. But be prepared to follow Jesus into the valley. Don’t get distracted with booth-building. And whether you are on the mountain or in the valley, listen to Jesus. In either place, he is calling us to follow him.                                                 ✞

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