First Reading – Genesis 15:5-12,17-18
©
Responsorial Psalm – Psalm
26(27):1,7-9,13-14 ©
Second Reading – Philippians 3:17-4:1
©
Gospel Acclamation – Matthew 17:5
The Gospel According to Luke 9:28-36
©
(NJB)
Listen!
Exercise great caution when you read the sacred
text. There is a temptation to read them in a way that enables the reader to
justify their most corrupt desires, and that is the opposite of the way.
The reading for today from the Book of Genesis, contains many errant
and problematic tropes, even though its central message, the promise that God
makes to Abraham, is sound.
Remember.
God does not intervene in human affairs. God
never has, never does, and never will. God made the universe and every creature
in it free, and as such God does not appoint kings and princes, or rulers of
any order.
God did not call Abraham, but rather, Abraham
found his way to God, and as always the path Abraham took was to live a just
life.
Like Abraham we find God by doing good;
through acts of compassion and mercy.
Know this:
God does not favor the cult of animal
sacrifice. This is a human contrivance interposed on human culture for human
ends.
God did not give land to Abraham in a covenant;
God is not a relator, there is no land covenant and there never was.
The idea that there is a covenant of some kind
between God, the creator of the universe, and the descendants of Abraham,
merely served as a justification for seizing the so-called promised land by
force.
In the time of Abraham they were lands which
belonged to other people. The covenant narrative became woven through the
history of the children of Israel after they slipped the bonds of the Egyptians,
and only after they successfully prosecuted their wars throughout Canaan, against
all of the other Semitic peoples.
Be mindful: in the reading we have been given for
today, what is useful is this:
“Your descendants will number as the stars in
sky.”
This is the central promise in the reading,
not the phony covenant with Abraham.
God’s promise is a word of hope; Abraham’s
children will increase without measure, and based on this hope we may set aside
the notion that the world will come to a sudden and arbitrary end. We can set
aside the notion that we are on a race to the finish line, that the clock is
ticking, that the sands are falling, or that the end of days is near.
Know this!
There are billions of stars in the galaxy, and
there are countless galaxies lighting up the night sky; in fact, there are
stars and galaxies aborning at this very moment; their number is without end.
God is good. Open your eyes and you will see
God’s goodness, look for it in the faces of your enemies, the goodness of God
is shining.
God is good. Open your ears and you will hear
God’s goodness, even in the words of your enemies, the goodness of God will
ring out.
God is good. God loves you, and with you God
loves all people. Your eternal home is waiting for you…come, and invite your
enemies to the table with you.
This is the way of Jesus.
Take heed!
Reflect on the daily concerns of the apostle, how he seeks to manage his
community of believers, knowing that people are notoriously difficult to
manage. They do not always do as we would wish them to do, they pit themselves
against each other…they are divisive
Paul was not alone in experiencing this, Jesus experienced it with the
disciples. Paul deals with it everyday, in every community he helped to form he
encounters the schizophrenia of the group mind, a recalcitrant church,
ungrateful, vain and unwise.
If you are responsible for the care of people and you are seeking to follow
the way of Jesus, remember this; God is always with them. God dwells
inside of each and every one of them, in each and everyone of us…if you are
true, they will be true with you.
We may try to influence the circumstances we find ourselves in, to
free ourselves from folly and the impediments of sin, which is the burden of
our nature, but we are not responsible for it’s resolution. The resolution of
sin is in God’s hands, and because we will not live to see it, this is
something we are called on to hold by faith.
Do not give up on God as the apostle did, free
yourself from the doubts the disciples shared. Do not denigrate God’s creation,
or imagine that the body is evil, do not malign the state of our mortality simply
because we experience hunger, disease and pain; these are belong to the mystery
of life, they are of God’s creation, and God’s creation is good.
Remember.
As Christians we are bound to read the Gospel
in the context of its truthfulness. We must let the Spirit of Truth guide us,
even if it means rejecting a passage such as what is behind the acclamation
from Matthew today.
There may have been an event or a time when
Jesus, together with James and John went up the mountain by themselves, and it may
have been that at such a moment Jesus connected his ministry with that of
Moses, the liberator and law giver; and to Elijah who was the truth-teller.
If there was such a moment, or perhaps there
were many such moments sewn together by narrative into one; this may be the
case, but the supernatural events that were described in the text, these did
not happen.
God does not engage in supernatural activities,
because God is the author of nature and its laws, and God does not violate them
for any reason…especially caprice.
The lesson here is that the disciples were meant
to understand that the ministry of Jesus was in keeping with the expectations of
Enoch, the Son of Man, a proto-type of the Hebrew Messiah, whose return was
hoped for.
In the text Jesus warned the disciples that
his ministry will lead to his death, but like Enoch, death would not stop him, and
that like Enoch he would return, and this is what they hoped for.
Be mindful.
Strip the fantastical elements from the
scripture as you find the, they may fuction metaphorically, or allegorically,
but stories of the supernatural cannot be taken literally, they are not
elucidating and to read them this way is contrary to the way.
In
theology the words we use to speak about God. These words are only good and
useful, if they are grounded rationality.
In
mythology; we use words to contextualize our experience and link it to a world
beyond ourselves, this is the place for metaphor and allegory.
These
two modes of narrative are not necessarily at odds with each other, but they
can be.
Myth
can be grounded and rational, but only when the motif of the metaphor and the
assumptions in the allegory are fully understood and properly balanced so that
they are aligned with the way. They can be good and useful when they
facilitate our engagement with the narrative with our eyes wide open.
By
the same token theology can be irrational; if the assumptions we make about the
nature of reality, human nature and the divine economy are not rooted in truth,
or worse, if they are rooted in fear, hate and greed.
The
mythology behind the transfiguration motif is easily and often misinterpreted, and this is because the root of the narrative
has its origins in a fundamental misunderstanding of who Jesus was.
As
I have already suggested; it may be the case that those who first articulated
the narrative of the transfiguration, and those who first penned it, only
intended to transmit the message that Jesus stood in the same tradition as
Moses the lawgiver, and Elijah the prophet.
The
motif of the cloud descending on Jesus may have only been meant to suggest that
Jesus’ authority, his understanding of the divine will, came from a place of
mystery as well as “on high”..
The
voice from the cloud naming Jesus “son,” may have only been meant to convey the
message that Jesus is the “heir” to the Abrahamic tradition, and not merely a
“teacher” within that tradition.
This
is a grounded and rational interpretation of this myth.
However,
the interpreters of this myth commonly dwell on the more sensational images in
the narrative; the bright lights and the shining garments, the presence of
Moses, and Elijah (as if they were actually there), their journey together into
the cloud with Jesus (as if they went there bodily), the voice from that cloud
naming Jesus as God’s son, as an actual declaration of paternity from the
divine source of all being…this is irrational, and this fantasy-based
interpretation has led to great confusion through the centuries. Incredible
conflict and bloody warfare between opposing factions of Christians have ensued
based on these falsities, including conflicts with non-Christians as well.
These
conflicts came about because the people involved in them felt the need to take
sides on the question of who Jesus was, and
defend their claims with violence; this is a tragedy, and it is antithetical to
the way.
Know
this!
Jesus
was a human being, like any other. Like all creatures he carried a seed of the
divine within him, and where the divine is, the divine is fully present.
The
fullness of God dwelt within Jesus, just as the fullness of God dwells within
each of us. We are connected to and in relationship with God, and Jesus, just
as we are connected and in relationship to every creature who ever was, is, or
yet will be.
What
differentiated Jesus from his followers was his understanding of these truths
and his ability to apply that understanding in a manner that points the way
for us to a moral and just society.
First Reading – Genesis 15:5-12,17-18
©
God Enters into a Covenant with
Abraham, the Man of Faith
Taking
Abram outside, the Lord said, ‘Look up to heaven and count the stars if you
can.’ ‘Such will be your descendants,’ he told him. Abram put his faith in the
Lord, who counted this as making him justified.
‘I
am the Lord’ he said to him ‘who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldaeans to
make you heir to this land.’ ‘My Lord,’ Abram replied ‘how am I to know that I
shall inherit it?’ He said to him, ‘Get me a three-year-old heifer, a
three-year-old goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove and a young pigeon.’ He
brought him all these, cut them in half and put half on one side and half
facing it on the other; but the birds he did not cut in half. Birds of prey
came down on the carcases but Abram drove them off.
When
the sun had set and darkness had fallen, there appeared a smoking furnace and a
firebrand that went between the halves. That day the Lord made a Covenant with
Abram in these terms:
‘To
your descendants I give this land,
from
the wadi of Egypt to the Great River.’
Responsorial Psalm – Psalm
26(27):1,7-9,13-14 ©
The Lord is my light and my help.
The
Lord is my light and my help;
whom shall I fear?
The
Lord is the stronghold of my life;
before whom shall I shrink?
The Lord is my light and my help.
O
Lord, hear my voice when I call;
have mercy and answer.
Of
you my heart has spoken:
‘Seek his face.’
The Lord is my light and my help.
It
is your face, O Lord, that I seek;
hide not your face.
Dismiss
not your servant in anger;
you have been my help.
The Lord is my light and my help.
I
am sure I shall see the Lord’s goodness
in the land of the living.
Hope
in him, hold firm and take heart.
Hope in the Lord!
The Lord is my light and my help.
Second Reading – Philippians 3:17-4:1
©
Our Homeland is in Heaven, and from Heaven
Comes Christ to Transfigure Us
My
brothers, be united in following my rule of life. Take as your models everybody
who is already doing this and study them as you used to study us. I have told
you often, and I repeat it today with tears, there are many who are behaving as
the enemies of the cross of Christ. They are destined to be lost. They make
foods into their god and they are proudest of something they ought to think
shameful; the things they think important are earthly things. For us, our
homeland is in heaven, and from heaven comes the saviour we are waiting for,
the Lord Jesus Christ, and he will transfigure these wretched bodies of ours
into copies of his glorious body. He will do that by the same power with which
he can subdue the whole universe.
So then, my brothers and dear friends, do not
give way but remain faithful in the Lord. I miss you very much, dear friends;
you are my joy and my crown.
Gospel Acclamation – Matthew 17:5
Glory
and praise to you, O Christ!
From
the bright cloud the Father’s voice was heard:
‘This
is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him.’
Glory
and praise to you, O Christ!
The Gospel According to Luke 9:28-36
©
Jesus is Transfigured Before Them
Jesus
took with him Peter and John and James and went up the mountain to pray. As he
prayed, the aspect of his face was changed and his clothing became brilliant as
lightning. Suddenly there were two men there talking to him; they were Moses
and Elijah appearing in glory, and they were speaking of his passing which he
was to accomplish in Jerusalem. Peter and his companions were heavy with sleep,
but they kept awake and saw his glory and the two men standing with him. As
these were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, ‘Master, it is wonderful for us to
be here; so let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses and one for
Elijah.’ – He did not know what he was saying. As he spoke, a cloud came and
covered them with shadow; and when they went into the cloud the disciples were
afraid. And a voice came from the cloud saying, ‘This is my Son, the Chosen
One. Listen to him.’ And after the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. The
disciples kept silence and, at that time, told no one what they had seen.
The Second Sunday of Lent (Year C)
