Good morning! It’s the last Sunday after the Epiphany, the final Sunday before the abrupt change in tone that Lent brings. This Wednesday we’ll gather here in the morning or evening (9:30 or 7) to receive our ashes and begin the five penitential weeks of Lent.
But we’re not there yet! And this being St. James, we’re going to get the most we can out of this last celebratory Sunday until Easter. There’s a lot going on in the world to bring us down right now, and I feel like today couldn’t be better timed.
A big welcome to our musicians, the Ike Sturm Ensemble. This is quite an accomplished group and we’re lucky to have them here with us this morning. They’ve come from far and wide to join us for worship. Thank you Victoria for finding them and for all your work making this happen. It was this Sunday last year that Victoria first joined us. You’ve been such a gift to our community and we’re grateful for all you do.
“Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him…Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, ‘Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah’--not knowing what he said.”
Our reading each year as we prepare for Lent is always this: the Transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain. It’s told in 3 of the 4 Gospels and also in the Apocryphal Gospel of Peter, so it was an important story to the early Christians who selected which moments from Jesus’ life to pass down. It’s important here, at St. James the Less, being featured in what may be our most prominent window in the North Transept. I’ve mentioned before how this was given in memory of parishioner Dennis Quaid by his wife. He was one of Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders in the Spanish American war, and is buried in our graveyard. His wife chose for his memorial window a story that’s featured not once, but twice, in the church year: here, and then again in August at the Feast of the Transfiguration. Clever woman.
In the Transfiguration, Jesus takes his innermost group of disciples, Peter James and John, up what is probably Mt. Tabor, in the Jezreel Valley of Northern Israel. There they have a vision of Jesus with Moses and Elijah, two major figures from the Hebrew Scriptures who, with their presence, confer that same status on Jesus. They also, like Jesus here, had transformative encounters with God on high mountains--a hallmark of mystical experience.
On beholding these three men together, and just as the vision is about to end, Peter says “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” (and the text adds): “not knowing what he said.”
It was an impulsive statement. There’s so much commentary on what it means, but the impulsivity of it leads me to the simplest interpretation: that Peter wanted to freeze the moment, stop time, stay on that mountain the same way we want life to consist of the highs, not the lows, of human experience.
Edith Wharton wrote in her memoir of growing up in New York in the Gilded Age about having a German nanny who read the Bible to Edith and her siblings only in German--it’s how they learned the language. This Bible story in particular stood out for her as being so charming in the German in a way it wasn’t in any English translation. When Peter says “let us make three dwellings,” the German reads, “Lass uns hutten bauen!” Or: “let’s build huts!”
It’s like Peter’s having a great time up there, a boy having a Swiss Family Robinson adventure--no one wants to come down from that. I mean, just look at what awaits Peter when he goes back down the hill, the subject of the second half of our reading today--a sick boy, a grieving father, the pain and vulnerability that also defines a life--the life none of us wants, but none can avoid.We can understand Peter wanting to stop right there. I’ve felt like this many times in life, and I’m sure you have, too. Spring, or summer, the kids are young, and happy, you’re overwhelmed by this sense that this won’t last, but you so wish that it could. (Life with your kids when they’re little has many moments like that. Moments of exasperation, too--I do remember those!)A friend is about to move away, and you only have a few days left together. A parent or sibling or friend you know you don’t have much time left with and any visit to them could be your last. Your kid is becoming his own person, less in need of you, but not quite there yet. A marriage, of many years, is in its last stage; someone will die and life as it was, will end. Yesterday we buried Peter Smith, 94 years old, and I wondered, by 94, how many times must a person have wanted to stop the progression of time?
Of course we later realize if we had stopped life where we wanted to, we wouldn’t have experienced that great thing that came after that, and after that. But the marching on of time also brings the accumulation of loss, diminished experience; it’s no wonder we resist it, or that the apostle Peter resists it here.
The speaker of this statement being Peter, the founder of the church, also makes us think about how easy it is for institutions and religions to cling to certain moments in time. We say, let’s just stop right here because where we are is perfect (for me). Let’s not change anything. Our community is great just as it is…until we experience the new members, or that new music, or a new, more inclusive way of being--or whatever it was we first resisted. Then we’re usually grateful God didn’t give us the power to freeze time or our traditions.
On Wednesday, we begin Lent. Our story every year goes from mountain top to valley, which we must traverse to get to Easter. In the end, Peter, James, John, and Jesus all move forward to the new adventures that await. And thank God they did. So much depends on our courage to move into the future, whatever it may bring.