Stasis or movement

The story of the transfiguration (Mk 9.2-9) is illuminating in a number of ways.  For the Church it is a challenge that has never really been taken up or at least not explored to any depth for a full understanding by all.  The most interesting part of the story for me is Peter's response for this has been the response of the Church throughout the ages with a few deviations that keep on coming back to his response (Mk. 9.5-6).  This in response to the full majesty of Christ's revelation and the onward movement to the cross that immediately follows.

Scripture is filled with the idea of movement and change beginning in Genesis and continuing on through the prophets (2 Kings 2.1-12) to the final book of Revelations.  A movement that is embraced by God but often rejected by the majority of humankind. Archbishop Kay in her sermon at her installation yesterday inferred much of this by referring to the dual views as does the retired Pope Benedict XVI who views the church as a ship taking on water.  In our call from God to be lights to the world we are called into change.  Our lives change, our outlook changes and our priorities change.  We can deny God's call to change.  It is not often that we are strong enough to outright deny what God calls us to as God is persistent, we just have to read Jonah to see that.  However we have an alternative method for refusing God's call on ourselves.  In the end it does not get us any where, in fact it is a device that actually stagnates us.  This is the device that Peter wishes to use at the Transfiguration.  He wants to refuse the need to change the call by God into a new life, an new perspective, a new world.

Tradition constrains us to our human thoughts, God calls us to stretch into the future

Just like Peter we to or rather the Church has used this way to prevent the Spirit of God and God's call from moving towards the change that God looks for in our lives.  Peter wants to put down structures, solid foundations (Peter the Rock).  Solidity that will not move and will become a place of reverence, of stasis.  In much the same way we manage to do the same in our lives of faith.  We form structures and places that we are accustomed to and inhabit, in more senses of the word then one.  Once we have formed our habits our places of comfort we have a great deal of difficulty moving forward.  We form our structures not only out of stone and brick but also out of habitus and words.  If we are comfortable doing and saying the same things then that is always our response.  If we look at for example a piece of liturgy, like the peace.  We can suggest that it could be moved.  Horror everyone says. This is the place that it has been since year...  But why will it not have more feeling to it if it were in a different place,  In some places you dare not sit in the wrong seat as this disrupts our sensibilities and our comfort.  It becomes a structure to which we cling and cannot part from even if Christ calls us onwards towards the cross.

Once we realise that it is these structures, traditions, forms that are holding us back; will we be able to complete our journey of faith to the foot of the cross?  For some people it is impossible to move away from the security of their home and life.  In some parts of the country there are people who have never moved further than forty kilometers away from their homes.  Tradition and structure have stifled their own sense of call.  Reading scripture each day reminds us that God calls us into newness of life not stagnancy.  We are, if we are bound to God, harried out of our own stagnant swamps to find eternal light in the darkness of the despondency that we see in the world.  Paul says that we are but "earthenware jars" (2 Cor 4.7) but earthen ware jars can be transformed into lamp stands that shine the light of Christ into the world. We do not always have to repeat what was done in the past.