Psalm 2
"Transfiguration" - Year A
Holy Hill! Holy Mountain! Holy, Holy, Holy! Holy Land!
We do invest our spaces with meaning. We find the unremarkable has become remarkable; the mundane, sacralized. This process goes on and on.
When we look around we find a mountain is not a single entity but a seven-story event. We find our hill is not a molehill but an occasion to play King of the Mountain and compete with each other for preeminence.
Transfigurations can move contrariwise and we can find our laughter not being laughter with someone but against them in derision. Our experience of forgiveness can turn quickly to avenging past wrongs without ever getting to healing or restoration. Mercy received is not passed on. This may be why, in casual conversation, if you toss in the word “transfiguration” it is so easily heard as “disfiguration”.
Mountain top experiences are real, but short-lived—a healer before; a healer after—a rascal before; a rascal after.
A transfiguring moment actually sets a different course. When we look back on the best of our transfiguring moments we can see they were more in an interpretation than the actual event.
May we be good interpreters of the experiences which come our way.
May we be good interpreters of the experiences of others.
When we look around we find a mountain is not a single entity but a seven-story event. We find our hill is not a molehill but an occasion to play King of the Mountain and compete with each other for preeminence.
As found in Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience
Psalm 2 or Psalm 99
Holy Hill! Holy Mountain! Holy, Holy, Holy! Holy Land!
We do invest our spaces with meaning. Our restaurant or my space. We find the unremarkable has become remarkable, the mundane is sacralized. This process goes on and on.
When we look around we find the mountain is not a single entity but a seven-story event. We find our hill is not a molehill but an occasion to play King of the Mountain and compete with each other for preeminence.
Transfigurations can move contrariwise and we can find our laughter not being laughter with someone but against them in derision. Our experience of forgiveness can turn quickly to avenging past wrongs without ever getting to healing or restoration. Mercy received is not passed on. This may be why, in casual conversation, if you toss in the word "transfiguration" it is so easily heard as "disfiguration."
Mountain top experiences are real, but short-lived. Usually we recognize that who we were coming up the mountain also goes back down. A healer before, a healer after. A rascal before, a rascal after. It is the unusual experience, even of transfiguring moments, that sets a different course. When we look back on the best of our transfiguring moments we can see they were more in the interpretation than the actual event. May we be good interpreters of the experiences which come our way. May we be good interpreters of the experiences of others.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/february2005.html
Psalm 2 or Psalm 99
Exodus 24:12-18
2 Peter 1:16-21
Matthew 17:1-9
These passage can be played against what, in another year, would have been the Seventh Sunday after Epiphany:
Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18
Psalm 119:33-40
1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23
Matthew 5:38-48
A focus on Moses' appearance in Exodus is brought back to the content of Moses' encounter (Leviticus) on the mountain - Here's how to be holy, rather than here's what holy looks like.
Psalms 2 and 99 are again outwardly focused on causing trembling, if not blindness, in others. Psalm 119 here brings the issue to one's internal decision to act on one's understanding, rather than on naming another's source of vain plotting.
Peter has a leg up on prophetic messages. His experience trumps any other experience. Paul builds on a firm foundation in his fashion and others are encouraged to build according to their gifts. Is the faith hierarchical or communal? What is the place of the one with a spiritual gift of questioning or a baby in the faith or one in the midst of transition in their faith - subservient or welcomed?
The conversation Jesus has with Moses and Elijah (Mt 17) might be overheard with Jesus' comments about, "You have said, but I say" (Mt 5). This moment of shift is transformative in a person's life as they move to a next stage - transfiguring, even. When the new perspective comes, it becomes difficult to return to the prior picture with equanimity. A culture shift has occurred and this is a time of danger for the new vision. Fortunately transformative moments are ultimately irradicable and are confirmed in later resurrections into a new community.
- - -
buildings can break new ground
built on a new vision
they rise in new shapes
reflecting a new day
buildings can trap new ground
repeating an old vision
ticky-tacky on a hillside
restraining a new day
irrepressible Peter
reflecting restraining
needing yet a clear voice
assuring belovedness
from fearful restraint
comes a word to get up
to move beyond reflection
to practical healing
practice loving enemies
here lies new community
resist eye gouging
there lies old feuds
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html
2:1 - Why do the nations conspire, and the peoples plot in vain?
99:1 - The LORD is king; let the peoples tremble! He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake!
There it is — the great duality that immobilizes. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, a devil and a deep blue sea, we are frozen in place.
Plot or Tremble, its all the same. The only alternative is serving or extolling the most powerful avenger and quickest to wrath.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2014/02/psalm-2-or-psalm-99.html