Meditation on This Week's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, March 6, 2011

First Reading: Exodus 24:12-18

Psalm: Psalm 2

Psalm (Alt.): Psalm 99

Second Reading: 2 Peter 1:16-21

Gospel: Matthew 17:1-9


Here we are at Transfiguration Sunday again. For those of you who are alert, you may have noticed that some years, we seem to have variations of this Bible passage at different times of the year. We celebrate this festival on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday, and since Easter moves, it does seem that way. In addition, the earlier Church celebrated (and Catholics still do) the Feast of the Transfiguration on August 6--yes the same day that the U.S. dropped the first bomb on Hiroshima--let your poet brain feast on those symbolic possibilities for awhile.

I know that some of you aren't interested in these poetic possibilities. Some of you may be dreading the moment that I hone in on Peter wanting to make booths for Moses, Jesus and Elijah. So, let's think about something else. Why does Jesus command silence?

He does this often. Go and tell no one--that seems to be a constant command. And it seems antithetical to the task of the Church.

I’ve been working on a short piece on Pentecost for The Lutheran, so it seems doubly strange to find Christ’s command to silence here, so opposite from the Pentecost message that we’ll be getting in 100 days. Aren't we supposed to go and witness? Spread the good news? If Jesus is our role model, what do we make of his command to stay silent?

In some ways, perhaps Jesus knew the times he lived in. He knew that early fame would undo his purpose. He knew that people would focus on the physical plane--"This man can heal my blindness"--but not the spiritual plane, the one where we need healing the most.

He also knew that people who see visions, who catch a glimpse of something otherworldly, are often shunned by the community. What would have happened if James and John and Peter came down from the mountain and proclaimed what they had seen? How would the community have responded?

He knew that he couldn't appear too threatening to the status quo too early. In the verses that follow, the ones not included in this Gospel, Jesus makes clear that persecution follows those who see visions. And that persecution still persists today. Our culture tolerates those of us who pray. It's less tolerant of those of us who claim that God replies to our prayers.

The life of the believer is tough, and one measure of its difficulty is knowing when to speak, and knowing when to hold our tongues. Sometimes we should keep our counsel. Sometimes we should testify verbally. Always we should let our lives be our testimony.

Like Peter, we might want to turn Christ into Carnival: build booths, charge admission, harness holiness. Jesus reminds us again and again that the true work comes not from telling people what we’ve seen, but by letting what we’ve seen change the way that we live. Our true calling is not to be carnival barker, but to get on with the work of repair and building of the communities in which we find ourselves.