GREETINGS TO THE LIGHT SHINING PEOPLE OF CHRIST THE KING,
Reflections on Matthew 17.
Peter, James and John are called to fish for people and Jesus invites them to the mountain to learn more about this fishing expedition that is moving further away from the place of fish and people to a higher place, a place closer to God.
Up, the highest heavens, symbolically and historically is the place we imagine God residing. God says yes and God comes to us and hopes that we will see God not only as up, and far removed but also with and along side and through all of life, suffering and death and return to God. Yes, to up and mountain top experiences and yes to the everyday ordinary places. Yes to suffering and death. God is here and there. God is with us and comes to us in ways we can understand. Easy to see when we hold a newborn baby or when we hold the hand of a loved one as they pass from life to death. God is with us in our comings and goings. And God is with us in all the complicated dimensions of our lives.
We might very well need the big, in your face kind of experiences, to wake us up and make us attentive to the smaller, finer, quiet reveals of God’s presence with us. For when we can experience God in the special places, the mountain top places then we may also be able to experience and trust that God is with us in the ordinary everyday places and we will start looking and expecting God there as well and we will fish for people.
The hyperbole of the Sermon on the Mount definitely caught the people’s attention. The one who healed them and welcomed them, also taught them. These teachings did not drive them away but they recognized the authority of Jesus. These teachings helped them to draw the connection that Jesus was intimately connected to God and God’s ways. They recognized God in Jesus on this mount, this higher place.
The Sermon on the Mount teaches us about fishing for people by having stellar relationships with each other and doing the hard work of communicating truthfully. Where we know ourselves so well and are so honest with ourselves that we get caught up in God’s net, drawing us in and seeing the beautiful body of Christ that we are. Seeing each of us as a temple of God, where God resides.
Wide reaching blessings that include those struggling with life, the poor in spirit, mourners, meek, and the ones longing for justice and mercy. Relationships with a high bar to strive for, a bar so high that we look to God for help to reach these kinds of relationships and where forgiveness is part of our everyday vocabulary with one another so that when we fail, we can name our brokenness and try again with God’s help to repair and restore, creating new and clean hearts.
This is the strong foundation God wants us to build upon. The foundation of our relationships that seem like sand, shifting and hard to hold but are the real solid rock foundation of who we are and what we will become as well as what we have been. This is our God who is beyond us and yet with us.
Peter, James and John meet Moses and Elijah and hear the voice of God and it is magnificent to behold and hang on to this moment building a place here. And God tells them to listen to Jesus. They can do that and so can we. We listen to Jesus. We listen to what Jesus has said and we develop an ear to hear him still speaking to us today, on the magnificent mountain top and in the deep dark recesses and in the everyday ordinary places. That is the rock foundation we build upon each and every day and we are transformed.
Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,
Pastor Connie Spitzack
