edifice complex

Friday February 24th, Mark 9: 5 Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah." 6(He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.) Peter just didn’t see the big picture. One could say he had an edifice complex. In his fear all he could fathom was a Kodak moment, to stay there and capture the essence of this glorious but transitional event. In our fear, we too just want to stay put, we want the church to be what it was when we grew up and we want it just for ourselves and people like us, and we want the God of our youth, in that order. What we don’t realize is that sometimes holding onto the image of the God of our youth can deny our youth the glory of finding the God of their youth. Sentimentality and Fundamentalism feed on that fear. We can’t really blame Peter, any of us, given the choice between sitting in the glory on the mountain top and working in the dirt down belos, would want to grab our hammer and saw and start building booths. What God wanted was for Peter, James and John to take this essence of the nearness of the Kingdom down into the world and there bring about transformed lives rather than booths reminiscent of the past. God asks the same of us, instead of focusing on the self and past memories of our experience of adoring God, focus on others and find God anew through their eyes.