Matthew 17

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The desert behind the love seat
A nearby church had asked me to deliver the sermon on Transfiguration Sunday a few weeks ago. They were following the Lectionary and so I decided to give this difficult topic a go. I'd finished what I thought was a reasonably good sermon when I was informed that my brother-in-law had unexpectedly died.

I have an unused Transfiguration Sunday sermon for anyone who might need it; probably wouldn't fit any other occasion, so wait a year less a few weeks and get back to me.

Transfiguration here means that something suddenly looks very different in a good way. Jesus takes three of his disciples up into the hills north of the Sea of Galilee and there, bathed in glorious light, he is seen by Peter, James and John to be in earnest conversation with Elijah and Moses. It all gets very symbolic and surreal at that point, most likely a coded validation of Christ's claim to be the Messiah via the endorsement of the great prophet Elijah and Moses of the Exodus, the pivotal historical/spiritual event for the Hebrew people.

In Matthew's retelling, Jesus makes clear to the disciples that John the Baptist—very recently executed—was a latter day reincarnation of the prophet, Elijah. “Jesus replied, 'To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished.'” The theme of prophets being without honour in their own country surfaces again. Matthew reprises his most significant motifs, seemingly.
Matthew's gospel is very much an appeal to the Jewish people to recognize Jesus as the fulfillment of the Messianic hope; the transfiguration story is an argument that means to bolster his followers' faith in this. Coming particularly after Jesus' grilling of the disciples with the “Who do you think I am?” question as it does (See Matthew 16: 13 – 17), it apparently was recorded by Matthew some decades later because it was necessary; doubt comes easier than faith, apparently.

“Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” I'm not inclined to draw any parallels between this mustard seed and the one in Matthew 13: 31 – 32 except that in both cases the tiny size of the seed is important. There's a literary device at work here; faith alone doesn't move pencils, let alone mountains, so let's read this figuratively, not literally. Faith is always the first ingredient in putting big ideas into practice; the principle is proven over and over again in the failures and successes of our lives, our communities and our world. People of confidence make good things happen; people who lack confidence . . . give up.
I find the temple tax discussion amusing, although like the transfiguration story that opens the chapter it again presents the claim of Jesus' authenticity as the Messiah, this time through a very mundane, allegorical example. The householder's children don't have to pay rent; rent is charged to guests and visitors. Since Jesus—being God's Son—is the landlord's child as regards the temple, he shouldn't have to pay the usual temple tax. But never mind, it's not worth starting a quarrel over this. Go out, catch a fish, take the 4 drachma coin the fish will have in its mouth and pay the tax already.
Why from a fish's mouth?!? If a coin can be conjured magically, why not pull it out from behind Peter's ear like an ordinary magician would do? Was it a test of faith, to see if the disciples had gotten the “faith as a mustard seed” analogy. I think it would take faith at least as big as a corncob or a Ford F-350 to expect a fish you'd just snared to have 4 drachmas in its mouth. You think?
I expect this object lesson meant more to Matthew's early readers than it does to me. Tangled up in the reality of the Roman occupation of Palestine, it has overtones that have only obscure literal echoes in our day, except for that one claim: Jesus is the son of The One who owns the temple; assuming that our church institutions stand in the same orientation to The One as did the temple, it should humble us, make quarreling over non-essentials seem petty, imbue us with a bit more reverence . . . possibly? Transfigure the Christ?

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