Rockin’ the Suburbs with Peter: A Sermon on the Transfiguration
Today I want to talk about three things: 1) The Feast of the Transfiguration; 2) Immanence and Transcendence and 3) The Suburbs. And I promise this all makes sense.
First Today IS the Feast of the Transfiguration. An important Feast in the Church Calendar and of particular importance to Anglicans and Episcopalians because it is one of the few from the Catholic tradition that we have elected to keep. But an odd feast because it is celebrated in the middle of summer and usually without much fanfare. We celebrate a unique event in the life of Jesus — accounted for in Mark, Luke and Matthew — where he ventures to the top of Mt. Tabor outside of Nazareth, and there is ‘Transfigured’ — turned blinding light and joined on his right and left by Moses and Elijah and called ‘My Son’ by God in front of Peter and James and John. For a Church like Memorial — with this beautiful triptych commemorating the Transfiguration — and for all Christians, today is a day to ask how does this Transfiguration story matter to us?
Immanence and Trancendece
Every time we look at stories from the Gospels it is helpful to look at them in two ways: ‘immanence’ and ‘transcendence’ Or in the words of Origen — an early church father, mystic and heretic — (anotheo) “On high’ and ‘here below’ (Katotheo). For Origen The Transfiguration in particular offers clear examples of the Immanence and Transcendence of Christ.
So how is The Transfiguration Transcendent? Well in some ways that is easy, right? I mean, Without ANY WORDS — Jesus doesn’t speak at all in the Lukan narrative — Jesus reveals who he is who God is and where we stand to them both (hint — -very close!)
And this setting evokes many other ‘transcedent’ moments in scripture:
- Like Moses the disciples can’t bear to look on God directly and have to hide their faces….
- Like the people of Israel they were enveloped by a cloud…
-It was so good Peter wanted to build altars there! (Like Abraham and Jacob)
The Transcedent here is is pretty easy. This is as close as we get to the coming of Christ as close as we get to the coming kingdom of God until Jesus comes back. A high holy place — with Jesus and the prophets. And all of us surrounded by this great cloud (like a great cloud of. witnesses!) while the true glory of God shines through this incarnate image of God Jesus Christ.
On our very very Good Days Memorial should be a church of the transfiguration — A Church that helps ppl to see the God beyond man. That helps them to forget even for a moment the baggage and pain and hurt they carry with them and offer possibility positivity and potential for the future. It should be a place where people say ‘It is good for us to be here!’ And want to stay.
Okay great.
Immanence
So what is ‘immanent’ about this story? How does this Transfiguration story bring Jesus down to our level? Makes this incarnate God real and present in our lives? Today?
It turns on those same seven little words from Peter. Seven words turn this whole story.
“It is Good for us to be here”
“It is GOOD. For us to be here.”
Now let’s step back and look where we are. Peter and John and James are up on the mountain with Jesus and they have this ‘mountaintop experience! They see this flesh and blood Jesus become GODLY before there eyes!’
Like so many other mountain top moments in scripture. Noah after the flood. Moses. Elijah. Jacob. Isaac and Abraham. David on Mount Zion. Jesus on the mount of olives or the sermon on the mount (different mount) Holy men go up the mountain and find God and… come back down. In fact — Jewish scripture is so adamant that you come back down they made it a sin to dwell up high! To worship on high! That we do in the temple.
But what does Peter say? ‘It is good for us to be here.’ Who cares what the scriptures say! Let us build three dwellings. Tents. Tabernacles and stay here!’ This is our place!
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Now here Peter does something very American. Very. Western.
He goes somewhere beautiful. Unique. Special. Has a special encounter with the divine — and decides ‘This is mine. I’m gonna stay here’
Peter goes up on the Mountain. Like every other Good Jewish prophet before him. Has a unique and transcendent encounter with the divine. Like so many other prophets before him. and instead of coming down off the mountain to do what God has proscribed —- Peter decides to stay there. To build three dwellings. And make it home.
Peter decides to make Mt Tabor a Suburb!
Think about it! We do this all the time. Everyone lives in the city. Things get a little difficult a little challenging. And so they take a trip. Find somewhere beautiful and unique and decide to move there and destroy it.
The Suburbs
We do this all the time. We make suburbs and the exurbs and then ex-exurbs. And then we become power commuters all for the sake of chasing some kind of unattainable ‘Peace’ that we found once upon a time on a trip and wonder if we will ever find again. We say those same words as Peter and we begin the construction of that ‘Suburb’ in our mind.
“it is Good for us to be here” and suddenly “Bolton Hill” becomes concrete and asphalt. “It is Good for us to be here” and the Jones Falls stops being a river and starts being an expressway. “It is Good For us to be here” and Roland Park becomes Roland Ave — The Gunpowder River becomes the Loch Raven Reservoir. Cherry Hill becomes a housing Project. Lutherville Cockeysville and Sykesville? Are they ‘villages’? NO! More like Mini cities as people go out farther and farther seeking Peace and quiet.
The desire to separate ourselves from the problems of the world. The need too create a special and unique connection to God and nature away from everyone else ‘different’’ from us — be it by race or creed or economic status or ethnic background is strong. We start saying ‘It is good for us to be here’ and start pulling away from everything else.
Trust me, I get it. This may be the most confrontational sermon I’ve ever preached because a lot of you live in Suburbs. Hey! I was Born in suburbs! Bolton Hill started as a suburb! The sin is not where we live.
It is HOW we live.
Peter… Peter didn’t want to just live in the Suburbs because it had better schools or an easier commute or more square footage for your dollar. he wanted to ‘ROCK the Suburbs’! you’ve heard that Ben Folds Song ‘Rocking the Suburbs’? Where he is mocking bands that make their money of suburban kids who are too shy to be edgy? Rocking here is not (moving side to side) or even (headbanging) — Rocking here is ‘THIS IS MY JAM! THIS IS WHERE I BELONG!’
‘Rocking the suburbs’ is forgoing everything else and just focusing on people and places that are comfortable. That are more like us. because, well, its easier.
Well Peter wanted to ROCK Mt Tabor. HE wanted to build three dwellings. Not for Peter James and John. But for Jesus, Moses and Elijah.
He wanted to contain these prophetic voices in little boxes on this hillside and sell tickets. He wanted people to come to them and make this place a special place. A place Peter could call home. We have Cockeysville and Lutherville here — he wanted Peterville.
Forget all the problems down in Jerusalem. Forget all the problems down in Capernaeum. On the Gallilee lets come here. Here everything will be good. See! It is Good for us to be here!
“It is Good for us to be here” are fateful words for Peter. And they can be for us as well.
If we use the suburbs. Or the Exurbs. Or the woods. Or the beach or wherever we find our mountaintop moment — wherever we go and say ‘it is good for us to be here’ to excuse ourselves from the cares and challenges of the world. If we use it as an excuse to try and box up God, contain the divine. We will find ourselves very far from God indeed.
You see these holy moments. These mountaintop moments are gifts from God. They are little signs and signatures of God’s grace and goodness — both an opportunity to connect to God and a challenge to go out into the world to make it more holy. More like ‘those moments’ they remind us what this life should look like.
BUT if we move there? If we take our stuff there? Our problems and our challenges and our issues there…. We just make one less place where ppl can find God and where God can find us.
The immanent message of the transfiguration is not about going TO the mountain to find God. No.
It is that we have to come down off the mountain (or the beach or the river or the bay or wherever) and do what God calls us to do! Live in the Suburbs but don’t rock the suburbs. Go to the mountain but don’t rock the mountain. Don’t rock The beach. Don’t rock The river.
Because when that voice booms out from Heaven in the Story God isn’t saying ‘Good idea Peter’ he is saying THIS is my SON. The beloved. Do whatever he says’
And What Jesus says is ‘we are going down off this mountain.’ TO Jerusalem. Where I am eventually going to suffer and die. But we are doing it because it is what we as good and holy people of God need to do — to make this world down here more like that world you experienced just for a moment.
In the peculiar economics of the Kingdom of Heaven — when we take our Mountaintop experience (even the smallest seed we learned last week!) into the world — we make the world more Godly.
But if we do the selfish thing? If we take OUR stuff to a high holy place? If we seek to make the mountaintop moment into a mountaintop lifetime — then we flatten the mountain, and we make that holy place a little more like the world down here.
Go to the Mountain — And Get off it!
Go to the mountain — but don’t rock the mountain. Go to church — but don’t rock the church. Go to the suburbs(!!) — but don’t rock the suburbs.
Take the light, the energy, the fire you find in those places and take them out to where you are challenged. Take them out to where you can be light to others. Take the Grace of our lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit and share them with those in the valleys, in the cities, in the dark corners and recesses of the world so that they too may find God’s light.
And let me say IF YOU feel like you are inhabiting one of those dark corners of the world right now. If you feel far from the light — let us know. We have a lot of light to share. We’ll be along just as soon as we get off this mountain.
Amen. And Amen.
