Peter saw God and wanted to build a wall

On things that get lost in the Transfiguration of Christ

Adapted from a sermon preached at Jubilee Episcopal Church on March 2, 2025

Yesterday in church we read the story of Jesus’ Transfiguration.

It’s a moment when the realness of who Jesus is comes to the for in vibrant color: he and his friends walk up a mountain. And then all of a sudden, there stands Elijah and Moses with Jesus. And then!! Jesus becomes as dazzling as a bolt of lightening, shining so bright his friends cannot even behold him.

I remember reading this story in my illustrated children’s bible growing up, where the illustrations were highly technical drawings with an almost clinically correct energy. Like the pictures had to be a factual depiction of the events of each Bible story.

Which meant that the picture depicting the Transfiguration made Jesus look like He-man, with lightening bolts shooting out of his body and his friends cowering and covering their faces.

Trying to wrangle the lightening dazzle of God into two dimensions is a tough task for any artist, but there was just something so contrived to me about this image, so forced in forcing God to be digestible, understandable, for the glory of God to relate to human metrics of power and might.

But isn’t that this story.

There are so many ways the Transfiguration preaches. But this year? This year I find myself zeroing in on Peter.

Because right at the moment that Jesus is glittering like a divine disco ball, right at the moment where Elijah and Moses seem to be leaving after giving Jesus comfort for the task before him in Jerusalem (spoiler alert: said task dying a brutal death and rising again), right at the moment where Jesus is being the most sparkly, shiny, powerful, terrifying, beautiful being—

Peter — foolish, human Peter — blurts out: “let’s build a wall!”

Peter’s first impulse is to contain this terrifying power of God into an itty bitty living space.

It’s a terribly human impulse, to want to stay on the mountaintop, where things are beautiful and incredible and we’re far from Jerusalem, far from the crowds that want Jesus dead.

But it is also a terribly dangerous impulse, to want to control God, to want to contain God. To try and reign in the might and lightening dazzling beauty of God into something that we build and we understand and we wall in.

Peter beheld the dazzling radiance of God, and his first impulse was to house God, to contain God, to wall God in.

And good God, does that not feel like so much of the energy in the world these days, of so-called kings wanting to build walls around what they call god but is really their own understanding of power.

But God is always far bigger than our confined human understanding.

And look, I know: Peter is so close to the heart of Jesus he is crucified upside-down because he felt unworthy to die the same way Jesus did. He figures his stuff out, crazy Peter.

But even Peter knew the temptation to build a god of our own understanding.

The good news, in the midst of a world full of terrifying idolatry, is that God is never fooled by our foolish attempts to confine Her. God is never tricked by cheap gold statues that claim power and prestige, God is not tricked by attempts to shine in controllable, exploitable ways.

When Peter says “look at You, God, let’s build a wall!”

God interrupts and says: "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!"

Listen to Jesus Christ. Not to false prophets who claim their power and their might is given by God. Listen to Jesus Christ, not to our own worst impulses to reign in the might of God. Listen.

To listen to God is to be singed, to be dazzled, to be unable to behold the face of God. To be terrified and delighted in equal measure, to know we do not know and yet to try and understand what we can. And when we listen to God, we listen to love our neighbors and our enemies —and then we behold the true glory of God.

And the glory of God puts every gilded, idolatrous nonsense to shame.

Every time.