We are promised. We are promise to others. With Christ we are transformed.
A homily from the First Sunday in Lent based on readings from
Genesis 12:1-4a, Psalm 33, 2 Timothy 1:8b-10, Matthew 17:1-9
These readings are available at the USCCB website.
We are now ten days or so into Lent. How’s it going? Are we hanging in there with our Lenten disciplines? Are we getting rid of all that stuff that comes between us and God? If you are not there yet, don’t worry. Removing everything that doesn’t bring us closer to God is the work of a lifetime. Keep after it!
Last week in our Lenten journey we came face to face with our own sinfulness and our fallen nature when we heard the story of the first sin, Adam and Eve’s fall. In a lot of ways, that one is the easy one. We can sit where we are now and say, “I wouldn’t have done that.” I would have told Adam when he came home that we were having Serpent Pot roast – and I didn’t even have a pot. We can tell ourselves that, but this week things get real. We are the ones who receive the promise; and are tasked with handing it on. We are the ones who are called to a holy life – but not necessarily on our own terms. But then again, we have great consolation in Jesus, if we listen to him.
Promised and Called
Our first reading takes up the amazing promise God makes to Abraham, and through him to all of us, and through us to the rest of the world. God makes four promises to Abraham. He promised him a nation, a name, divine solidarity, and that he would be a blessing to the world. Through Abraham, God makes these promises to us as well.
One small note, you will notice that our reader tonight referred to Abram. God would later give him a new name as a sign of the great change his life took on. That new name is Abraham, which is how he is mostly known through the ages. I’ll refer to him by the name God gave him, Abraham.
God promises Abraham a great nation – his numbers would be great. For Abraham, a large family was an integral part of this blessing. Large families after all were considered a great blessing. They still are today. There is nothing like a family to help you realize that day to day life is much more about others than about you.
God promises Abraham a name, a dynasty, a rule that would last through the years. Think of this promise not as one of power but one of endurance. This promise has come own to us through the millennia. God remains with his people. He is with us today.
God promises solidarity – “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you”. God has promised to stand with us; he has promised to be on our side. Are we on God’s side? Our Lenten plan to draw closer to God is about getting onside with God, by getting more outside ourselves. A quick side note, we are called to live in the same solidarity with the marginalized in the world and in our community. It isn’t optional. That’s why the Rice Bowl proceeds go to the poor throughout the world. God shows us the way by first taking on solidarity with us.
God promises that through Abraham, the entire world will be blessed. Through Abraham and his descendants in faith, the world has certainly been blessed. Salvation has certainly one from the Jews – in particular through a Jew named Jesus of Nazareth who is God become man. It is our encounter with Jesus that enlivens our faith and inspires us to live for God and for others. We, in turn, must live our lives in such a way that this promise to Abraham continues. We must be the ones who bring the promise of God and of his Christ to our family, our friends, our across-town neighbors, and our across-the-ocean neighbors.
God’s promises to Abraham, God’s promises to us, are fulfilled in Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit whom he sent, and in the Church he gave us.
In our second reading, St. Paul tells us quite directly that we are called to a holy life. We are all called to a holy life, but it is according to God’s design not our own. God provides us the strength. He provides us the direction. He gives us the gift of grace that allows us to put aside our own selfish desires and follow him.
Sometimes it is a challenge to live out our Christian calling in everyday life. It just is. But I want to point out to you we hear in our second reading today that we can be strong in the face of challenges and in the face of difficulty because we do everything with the strength provided by Christ. Saint Paul says, “Bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.”[1]
We are each called to bear a certain amount of hardship. None of us, however, are left without the help of God, without the help of Jesus! We can see this in our gospel reading, the transfiguration.
Transfigured but not Transformed
The transfiguration is one of those amazing events. Jesus Christ calls his closest disciples – his inner circle if you will – Peter, James, and John to join him on the mountaintop. Together, they make the walk up the mountain. I am told it takes about an hour and a half if you walk it straight through. I imagine them reaching the top of Mt. Tabor a little out of breath yet wondering why Jesus called them away. There is a parallel here. Jesus calls them to a deeper moment with him, just like he calls us. They (like us) endure the uncertainty of leaving the group and the difficulty of traveling uphill, of working a little harder to make progress.
Once they arrive on the mountaintop, they have the original mountaintop experience. Jesus appears to change right in front of them. The evangelist is at a loss for words that describe what he sees. Blinding light! Moses, the lawgiver, Elijah the prophet, both dead for centuries and both are in conversation with our Lord! Yes, Jesus appeared transfigured, but is it possible that he simply allowed Peter, James, and John to see a glimpse of his true glory.
St Leo the Great reflected that “The great reason for this transfiguration was to remove the scandal of the cross from the hearts of his disciples, and to prevent the humiliation of his voluntary suffering from disturbing the faith of those who had witnessed the surpassing glory that lay concealed”.[2] Said another way, Jesus gave a glimpse of his glory because he knew that times were about to get tough. He knew that the knowledge of his true glory would help his disciples. It is the same with us. We are each called away for a special mission. Jesus in all his glory is there for us!
We hear in the words of the gospel the excitement and the pure amazement of the disciples as they immediately offer to build three tents. They are ready to stay there! We can also sense the let-down, the sorrow, as they looked up and saw “no one but Jesus alone”. The vision, wonderful as it was had ended. Isn’t that our story as well? We have these occasional “mountaintop experiences” followed by day after day of “ordinary”. We experience day after day of difficulty, the relentless work of day-to-day life. There is just “Jesus alone” for us, and not even in a miraculous vision. Yet, Jesus alone is everything we need. Our intense experiences of him sustain us, just as the transfiguration sustained Peter, James and John. Throughout Christ’s passion and death, they hung on by a thread. That is our story too, sometimes, isn’t it?
They realized, and we can realize, that Jesus alone, Jesus just as he is, is more than enough for us. We don’t see his glory every day, but we know that his love for us will always see us through. We can answer his special call knowing that it will involve hardship. Our faithfulness will not erase will not erase the hardship but will carry us through. We will indeed carry our cross daily. We will indeed be blessed by Jesus just as we are. Jesus alone is all that we need.
Lent is just getting started, and we are just getting in gear with our Lenten program. We are recipients of God’s promise, and we are a promise to others. We have been called to a holy life not according to our works but according to God’s perfect design. We have Christ himself to strengthen and guide us. On those days when we feel like we have nothing, we can recall that Jesus remains with us. And when we remember that and listen to him, we have in Jesus alone everything we need.
When we remember that Jesus is with us and we follow his will, we have everything we need.
[1] 2 Tim 1:8
[2] St. Leo the Great, A Homily Delivered on the Saturday Before the Second Sunday in Lent – on the Transfiguration, Sermon 51.III.1.