[Propertalk] Sermon tidbits for Mt. 17:1-9, Part 4

[Joe Parrish]

Don't rubbish today's Peters for wanting to prolong great religious experiences. Good on them. It's worth a try. But some- where along the line we're faced with coming to terms with ourselves as God's tent! And when it's time to move on it's time to move on & pitch ourselves somewhere else. Wearing our tent inside us. (A bit like Bo-Peep's sheep wag their tails, only on the inside!) We are God's glory, God's tent, even the echo of God's voice, still & small or loud & clear. 

http://www.angelfire.com/journal2/matthew0/MIM1719TRANSFIGLASTEPORLENT2.html

Brian McGowan
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In his Life of Nero, Suetonius (75-160) derided Christians as "a set of men adhering to a novel and mischievous superstition." In his Annals, Tacitus (c. 60-120) sneered at the "pernicious superstitions" of believers. For Pliny the Younger (62-113), governor of Pontus-Bithynia (in modern Turkey) from 111-113, the many Christians under his rule posed a practical problem. In two famous letters to the emperor Trajan he expressed frustration about how to prosecute believers: "I judged it so much the more necessary to extract the real truth, with the assistance of torture, from two female slaves, who were styled deaconesses, but I could discover nothing more than depraved and excessive superstition."

http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20080128JJ.shtml

Daniel B. Clendenin, 2008
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Jesus' transfiguration on the mountain gives us a vision of the glory we anticipate for the whole world once Jesus' redeeming work among us in complete -- and God knows we need to be people of vision to see the journey to its completion. But the speed with which that glory subsides on the mountain and our journeying with Jesus in what follows reminds us that the redemption of the world we anticipate is not just a distant hope of a light and a voice now beyond the clouds; it is here with us, to be seen and touched in service to those present with whom Jesus suffers, in love of those who embrace or scorn, in the fellowship of Christ's Body and the work of reconciliation with all whom God loves -- with all that God has made. 

http://www.sarahlaughed.net/lectionary/2005/01/last_sunday_aft.html

Sarah Dylan Breuer, 2005
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...the glistening white, even more striking in Matthew, and echoing the prediction of Daniel 12 that the righteous will shine like stars in the sky. Matthew uses such imagery also in the interpretation of the parable of the wheat and weeds (13:43). In other words, the scene is painted in colours drawn from visions of the eschaton. The vision portrays in advance what will be seen when the kingdom comes. 

http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/MtTransfiguration.htm

William Loader
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The word, "booths," is the Greek word, "skaynay" which means tabernacles or tents. We ask a question: "Why would Peter suggest to erect three tents for these three greatest figures of Jewish history out there in the wilderness?" Traditionally, one of the Jewish religious feasts was the Feast of the Tabernacles/Tents in which the Jews remembered that they were out in the wilderness for forty years, living in tents, and that God was with them as they lived in their tents in the wildness. Perhaps, having hiked way out to the wilderness area of Mount Hermon, Peter was reminded of the wilderness stories in the Old Testament, and the festival of the wilderness, the Feast of Tabernacles. Just as the Jews erected tents from tree limbs for the wilderness Feast of Tabernacles, so Peter and the disciples should erect tents in their current situation, to remember God's miraculous presence with them in the wilderness. That may have been Peter's logic. 

http://www.sermonsfromseattle.com/series_b_trasnfigurationGA.htm

Edward F. Markquart
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...here Moses represents the Law and Elijah the prophets.

http://montreal.anglican.org/comments/archive/aepflm.shtml?

Chris Haslam
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Verse 1: "a high mountain": This may be symbolic; if a particular mountain is meant, it is probably Mount Hermon, near Caesarea Philippi. It rises to about 2,750 metres (9,000 feet). Other possibilities are Mount Carmel and Mount Tabor.

http://montreal.anglican.org/comments/archive/aepfll.shtml?

Chris Haslam
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