(Matthew 17:1-9)

Six days later, three of them saw that glory. Jesus took Peter and the brothers, James and John, and led them up a high mountain. His appearance changed from the inside out, right before their eyes. Sunlight poured from his face. His clothes were filled with light. Then they realized that Moses and Elijah were also there in deep conversation with him. Peter broke in, "Master, this is a great moment! What would you think if I built three memorials here on the mountain-one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah?" While he was going on like this, babbling, a light-radiant cloud enveloped them, and sounding from deep in the cloud a voice: "This is my Son, marked by my love, focus of my delight. Listen to him." When the disciples heard it, they fell flat on their faces, scared to death. But Jesus came over and touched them. "Don't be afraid." When they opened their eyes and looked around all they saw was Jesus, only Jesus. Coming down the mountain, Jesus swore them to secrecy. "Don't breathe a word of what you've seen. After the Son of Man is raised from the dead, you are free to talk."

What interests me in this story is that it happens on the top of a mountain. As a general rule, whenever mountains are mentioned in scripture, they usually indicate a special revelation of some kind - think mountains think God. Matthew's Gospel mentions three mountains: the Mount of the Sermon, where Jesus teaches the New Law; the Mount of Transfiguration, where he is seen as the Beloved Son; and the Mountain in Galilee, where he appears triumphant in his risen life and sends his disciples to preach the Good News to all people.

Clouds are another indicator of special revelation. In this story the voice and the cloud intervene while Peter was still speaking. Clouds are all over the Old Testament--Exodus 24 again, as well as Ez 1, 1 Kgs 8, and especially Daniel 7.). Place (land/physical location) is all-important within scripture. The covenant that God makes with Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation, in 1800 BC is for the land: To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates - the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites (Gen 15:17-19). The story of the Israelites is then the story of how they relate to the land

Social mobility and economic necessity means that the place in which we stand is often taken for granted and ignored. The myth of urban living is a detached and rootless existence with endless choice but no commitment. The world has changed since the parish system was set up - people travel across London to a church that suits them best. Joining a church becomes a consumer choice. It is only staying in a church that comes from a Christian conviction. In a week I may have more significant interaction with people through the Internet than I will with my neighbours who live next door. We easily underestimate the significance of where something happens. We naturally think of our 'generation' as being crucial in influencing our worldview, ('she would think like that, she's a Generation X'), and don't tend to see our place as equally important. We talk about people consciousness being shaped by their defining fashion era (DFE) but ignore the simple significance of where someone might have lived

Walter Brueggeman (The Land) draws attention to a spiritual/psychological crisis caused by feelings of rootlessness in modern society: The sense of being lost, displaced and homeless is persuasive in contemporary culture. The yearning to belong somewhere, to have a home, to be in a safe place, is a deep and moving pursuit. Simone Weil wrote: "To be rooted is perhaps the most important need of the human soul." This is why moving house is such a traumatic experience - the three great life traumas are bereavement, divorce and moving house. I engage with people's need for belonging when families come to me because they someone's ashes scattered on the pitch. It gives them a sense of closure because they can feel that the ashes of the person who died are now enclosed within the space where they had so many happy Saturday afternoons.

I may have had intimate conversations with people on the Internet but if I don't spend real time physically with them, they are not rooting me in the place where I live, work and have my being. They won't give me a hug or cook for me when I'm sick or let me play with their children. Those are things my real (church) community does.

Peter immediately tries to create his own sense of place by building the three tabernacles. He wanted to stay upon that mountain, and spend time in worship of the three great men of God. Peter is a good Jew. Moses and Elijah are the people he would have heard stories about his whole life. These were the greatest of the great. Jesus as the stand in for David completes the trio - It is hero time and it is no wonder that he wants the moment to linger. Peter's mistake is that he wants to create a ritual around a single moment. It is an easy thing to do - something is significant and so we want to repeat it.

A sense of the spiritual importance of place has never entirely died out in the Church for there has been an unbroken tradition of pilgrimage: Trips to the Holy Land, the rediscovery of Iona by the Church of Scotland or Lindisfarne by Anglicans (Walsingham where took some young people in 2006). The significance of place comes through the catholic tradition of sacramental theology. Simply put, this says that if God can make himself known in a physical human being - Jesus Christ - then he can make himself known in matter such as bread and wine in a communion service or the water of baptism. The New Testament opens the possibility that any space can be special - giving a community a sense of the 'specialness' of the place they live in is to have a sort of 'shrine' in the centre. A part of the significance of coming to church on Sundays is leaving your houses tom come to a sacred place. Location offers belonging and the layout of the church offers geography of how generations of people have related to God.

One reason why we do not have transformative experiences of this type is that we rarely break our routine and do our equivalent of Jesus-going-up-the-mountain. We tend to follow a regular pattern of behaviour, meet with a set group of people and spend our time in the same places. We can most easily vary our routine if we change what we feel about the physical spaces in which we live. It is easy to do, does not need anything so dramatic as a mountaintop to happen and can open up new ways of learning and understanding God. How can we create our own sacred spaces within Shepherds Bush? sometimes I might sit quietly on my own in the bedroom while others are downstairs watching TV; sometimes I even light a candle. I go to my mountaintop without even leaving the house. How is your house arranged? Do you have television domination in your front room? Do you have space to eat together as a family or are you meals squashed into a corner of the room? Do you have religious symbols on the walls or some special images that mean something to you?