Homily for the Second Sunday of Lent
Scriptures for today's Mass
The problem with mountain-top
experiences,
like the one in the
scripture we just heard,
is that most of us don’t
live on top of a mountain!
So if we make it to the
mountain’s top,
once we get there,
we inevitably have to come
down, and once we descend,
we tend to lose the
exhilaration
of what we experienced up
above.
Of course, the point of
going to the top of the mountain
is to meet, to encounter, to experience something
we don’t ordinarily find in
the day-to-day.
That’s what happened for
Peter, John and James.
They met, encountered and
experienced Jesus
as they never had before.
Jesus transfigured in
brilliant light right before their very eyes!
The unexpected appearance of
Moses and Elijah
and the sound of God’s
voice!
These all connect, unite and
identify Jesus
with everything Peter, John
and James know of God and faith.
It’s clear now, without a
doubt, that this Jesus from Nazareth
whom they’ve been hanging
out with,
this carpenter’s son is one
with the eternal God,
and one with the belief and
history of God’s chosen people, Israel,
evidenced in the appearance
of Moses and Elijah
(the law and the prophets).
That was the experience
Peter wanted to capture, to contain,
by building three tents to
harness this mountain top experience.
But what does all this mean
for us?
We’re not on top of the
mountain.
We’re down here in the deep,
dark purple canyon of Lent.
Well, Lent is a time for
climbing the Lord’s mountain.
And you don’t have to budge
from your recliner or sofa to do that.
The Lenten journey up the
mountain is an interior journey
and our purpose in making this
trek is the same as it was
for Peter, John and James.
We need to find out again,
who Jesus is in our lives.
We need to find ways to
leave the day-to-day behind for a bit
and refresh our experience -
or even find out for the first time -
who Jesus is in our lives.
A few days ago online, I
came across some words
from one of today’s finest
theologians, Stanley Hauerwas.
Here’s what he wrote:
“That which makes the church "radical" and forever
"new" is not
that the church tends to lean toward the left on most social issues,
but rather -- that the church knows Jesus
-- whereas the world does not.
In the church's view, the political left
is not noticeably more interesting than the political right
because both sides tend towards solutions
that act as if the world did not begin and will not end
- in Jesus. “
(in Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony)
The world beginning and
ending in Jesus,
in Jesus, the eternal Word
of God,
“through whom all things were made.”
Now there’s a question for
you and me to grapple with this Lent:
“Where, in whom, does your
world and mine begin and end.”
For the Christian,
there’s only one correct
answer to that question:
if the whole world began in
Christ,
(the Word of God through
whom all things were made)
- and if the whole world
will end in Christ,
(who will come to judge the living and the
dead)
then your life and mine
began in and will end in - Jesus.
But we often set much more
narrow limits
on the origin and
culmination of the world and our lives.
For instance:
• life doesn’t begin or end
according to the length of the term
of which administration may
be in office at any given moment.
• life doesn’t begin or end
with finding a job or retiring.
• life doesn’t begin or end
in any relationship I might have -
except for my relationship
with God.
• life doesn’t begin or end
with graduation,
or becoming engaged,
or getting married or
getting divorced,
or winning the World Series
or a Super Bowl,
or buying a new home or car.
• life doesn’t begin or end with
my being right or wrong -
even about something very
important.
• life doesn’t begin or end
with things going the way I
want them to -
or things going in exactly
the opposite direction.
• life doesn’t begin or end
with the bottom lines
of my savings and checking
accounts.
In fact, for the Christian,
life does not begin with our
conception or birth,
nor will it end with our
death.
Since before all time we
have been in the mind and heart of God
and long after we die, we
will live forever,
hopefully, at peace with the
Lord.
When you die, when I die,
each of us will stand before
the Lord naked, our hands empty,
our hearts exposed and our
souls bared.
It will be just Jesus and
you.
It will be just Jesus and
me.
It will be the greatest and
highest of all mountain-top experiences.
And, you and I hope and pray
that when that time comes
we will know Jesus and know
him to be the one
in whom the world began and
in whom the world will end;
to know him to be the one in
whom each of our lives began,
and the one in whom each of
our lives will end.
Lent is a time for climbing
the mountain to find Jesus,
and for leaving behind the
notion that Jesus is someone
“added to,” “pinned on,” or
merely “associated with” my life -
but that, indeed, the whole
of my life
since before its beginning
and eternally forever after my death,
is a life to be lived in
Christ.
Does that exclude my loved
ones, my friends, my work,
my sorrows, my joys, my
worries?
Of course not!
In fact, the message of this
gospel reminds us that each of us
has a place - no not a place
but a person - a person to whom we go
with all that life brings us
and the person is Jesus, our
beginning and our end:
- Jesus, through whom all
things were made, and in whom
all things in our lives will
find their completion and fulfillment:
- Jesus, who climbed a
mountain, the hill of Calvary
and who, on the Cross,
revealed
the depths of his love for
each of us;
- Jesus, who on the night
before he died,
left at our table, this
altar, the gift of his Body and Blood,
to strengthen us, to nourish
us, to feed us with himself,
transfigured in the
Eucharist as our Savior and Brother,
our Friend and Redeemer, the
Word of God,
through whom all things were
made.
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