Fellowship – Snacks or a Meal (10 minutes with snacks; longer, obviously, if there is a meal).
Gathering Time (5-10 minutes). In pairs or groups of three, have participants answer, “How has a ‘mountaintop experience’ touched your life?”
Group Dialogue (Approximately 30 minutes). Read Exodus 24:12-18 and Matthew 17:1-9.
As you listen to the small-group leader read Matthew 17:1-4, imagine that you are a bystander closely watching and listening to Jesus, Peter, James, and John. Share your eyewitness account, detailing emotions, sights, and sounds.
What do you think Peter hoped to accomplish by building tents on the mountain?
Find the commonalities between Exodus 24:12-18 and Matthew 17:1-9. Both the Transfiguration and Moses receiving the Ten Commandments take place on a mountain. The six-day time frame plays a significant role in both stories. Both Moses and Jesus are radiant. Moses and Joshua; Jesus, Peter, James, and John are subgroups of a larger group. Both stories feature a cloud and a voice emanating from it. Fear is in both stories.]
- What conclusions can you draw about when, where, why, and how glory is revealed?
- How do these accounts open your eyes to the revelation of glory in your midst?
What does the voice in the cloud say to Peter, James, and John as they lay terrified and prostrate? [The voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him! (Matthew 17:5).]
- How does their experience invite us to respond when we grow in our understanding of who Jesus is?
The Preaching Notes for February 15 say: “ ‘Listen to him’ means shaping yourself around his words. It means taking them into your soul, letting them take root and grow into a life worthy of the gospel . . .”
- What spiritual practice can you commit to that will help you shape yourself around Jesus’ every word?
Prayer (10 minutes). Share prayer requests and respond appropriately.
Sending Forth (2 minutes). End with the following prayer, a similar prayer, or the Lord’s Prayer: Glorious God, in mountain-top experiences, in the streets, in the faces of both friends and strangers, may we see your glory being revealed all around us. Amen.
Rev. Sherry Bryant-Johnson, a United Methodist deacon, served extension ministries in the Mississippi Annual Conference for nearly three decades. Now retired, she teaches “Abiding in Christ Together: Creating Gospel-Centric Retreats” as well as Lay Servant Ministries courses online at www.BeaDisciple.com. An author and a spiritual director, she is an editor and essayist for the anthology, Embodied Spirits: Stories of Spiritual Directors of Color (Morehouse, 2014).
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