When Moses came down from Mount Sinai in today’s reading, the two tablets of the Covenant contain the Ten Commandments. This is his second try. You may recall that the first time he came down with the Ten Commandments, he found that Israel had turned away from God. They had coerced his own brother Aaron, who had been his right-hand man and will become the forerunner of the Levitical priesthood, to cast an idol, a golden calf. Things got, shall we say, a bit tense. God was angry, Moses was furious and it got rough.

But God called Moses up the mountain again. Moses was allowed to see God’s back, any more would have killed him, and God gave him the new set of the Ten Commandments. This morning, let’s focus on his shining and the Ten Commandments, and how they compare to the Transfiguration of Jesus in today’s Gospel.

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The story of Joseph is most compelling. A quick recap is in order. He is one of Jacob’s sons. He is the “golden child” among many siblings. He’s very smart, very talented and very confident. His brothers grow to resent him. They seize him with the idea of killing him and blaming a wild animal, but relent and decide to sell him into slavery and tell their father he was killed by a wild animal, showing him his torn and bloodied technicolor dream coat.

Joseph winds up as a slave to the pharaoh of Egypt. He winds up interpreting pharaoh’s dreams and eventually rises to become pharaoh’s chief executive officer, overseeing his entire kingdom.

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There are certain verses in the Bible that jump out at me every time I read or contemplate them. They nail vital aspects of our faith, key points that help us to frame our understanding of God and our life with him. We have one of them this morning.

“If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we above all people are to be most pitied.” (1 Corinthians 1:19)

As you heard, Paul wrote this as part of his strong affirmation of the Resurrection of Jesus and his promise for our own resurrection. The “vital aspects of our faith” include our understanding of who Jesus is and where he is leading us.

First, Jesus teaches us how we are to live as individuals and in community, as family, neighbors and so on. And it’s not just what he says. It’s how he says it. In one place he’s general, “Love your neighbor.” In another he’s very specific, “You must forgive.” He shares parables that invite us to reflect on different aspects of a story and how it rubs up against our own lives, in effect teaching us to think more like him.

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