Matthew 17

What Peter, James, and John see on the mountain cannot be neatly packaged for resale.

It’s hard to let go of what we once had.

God’s presence transfigures here, now, in the familiar.

Craig Detweiler draws on art history, psychology, and religion to argue that staring at ourselves can be an act of faith.

In the eastern tradition, theosis—union with God—is the goal of the Christian life.

There is no "on the mountain" and "off the mountain."

Matthew 17:1–9

Let’s build shrines, Peter says. He doesn’t know how to respond to a mystical mountaintop experience, and he’s afraid.

The Transfiguration has a hundred sermons in it. But to me the most touching element is the subplot.

Jesus’ transfiguration is a mystery that defies a straightforward explanation. I find that instead of clarifying anything about his unique nature, it only adds more confusion.

I grew up in Southern Baptist congregations. By the time I left high school I knew the four steps to salvation and the meaning of Jesus’ sacrificial death as a substitutionary atonement for my sins. I could articulate this understanding of salvation in clear and simple terms. Within the metanarrative of evangelical Christianity it made perfect sense and was logically coherent.

Then my fundamentalism began to unravel. 

The pastor was prepared for questions about the Transfiguration. Instead, one first grader asked, "what does 'obviously' mean?"

I have finally gotten around to putting away the green garden hose I tripped over all fall. After some extended travel time, the sudden frigid weather caught me off guard. Trying to coil cold plastic hose in a chilly garage seems impossible. Getting the job done properly requires time and patience. I was determined to take hours if necessary and to do it with humor and the long view.

Learning to see in new ways is one of the most difficult tasks of the transformed life. Old habits of selective vision, old choices about what to leave out and what to focus on tend to dominate us, even as we search for new ways of living that are in closer communion with the life of the Spirit. Transfiguration--that mysterious transformation of vision that is narrated in today's readings--is a radical, if brief, way of illumination.

The Transfiguration provides a window through which the Christian narrative may be viewed.

I’m less inclined that some commentators are to condemn Peter.