Second Sunday of Lent, Cycle B<\/em> Early in the new year it was clear For the first time since 1945 Then the opening of Lent turned tragic Now, on this second Sunday of Lent Isn\u2019t it at least insensitive if not downright inappropriate Isn\u2019t it at least quixotic if not dishonest And then there is that gospel of Glory Interpreting our society But maybe, deeper excavation of these texts and this liturgy First let\u2019s tackle the Genesis story On the other hand, it seems that around the time of Jesus Thus emerging from these accounts as a kind of martyr Those are words used this past week to describe It is incredibly touching, these gestures from the military But if truth be told \u2026 his family, and classmates And maybe that is the true value of this Genesis reading And thus the true thrust of the story Then there is that dazzling yet baffling Gospel Does it mean to become dazzling In Mark\u2019s account of this event in the ministry of Jesus Biblically transfiguration is revelatory But it did not last long \u2026 But Jesus reminds them His divinity was not predicated upon being raised up And in this transfiguring vortex In his 1952 poem Transfiguration Jarman writes: Jarman then writes: Transfigured by resistance Last week, while searching for resources Her signature teaching, endlessly quoted by preachers & poets:<\/p>\n But all shall be well, and all shall be well<\/em> It\u2019s a lovely thought, but is it simply unrealistic optimism? Is this St. Paul\u2019s \u201cif God is for us\u201d attitude That is what I have thought before Her explanation for God allowing such evil Rather, in a more transfiguring insight she intuits That God is able to draw good out of evil A transfiguring insight into the very nature of the cross The commentator concluded Will be the very emptying of hell itself To live in such hope \u2026 such admittedly mystical hope and trek toward Jerusalem, toward the paradox of the cross In his dying, Jesus shattered the cycle of violence Rather, he took it into his own body So in the midst of whatever loss or suffering We commit ourselves to pulling up stakes but instead to be transfigured in the cross that transfigured him all shall be well, and all shall be well<\/em> Through Christ our Lord.<\/p>\n [1] Bruce Chilton, Abraham\u2019s Curse: the roots of violence in Judaism, Christianity and Islam\u00a0 <\/em>(New York: Doubleday, 2008).<\/p>\n [2] Mark Jarman, \u201cTransfiguration\u201d (1952), http:\/\/www.mbird.com\/tag\/transfiguration\/<\/a><\/p>\n
\nOld Saint Patrick’s, 2018 <\/em>
\nEdward Foley, Capuchin<\/em><\/p>\n
\nthat the opening of Lent in 2018
\nwas going to be paradoxical
\nif not problematic<\/p>\n
\nAsh Wednesday coincided with Valentine\u2019s day
\nashes collided with roses
\ndevotion with sin
\nproposals with prostrations
\nand purported lovers of God confessed our individual
\nand collective infidelity<\/p>\n
\nliterally a day of guns and roses
\nwhen 17 innocents
\nwere slain in a South Florida High School
\nand a nation had an unwelcome and amplified reason
\nboth to do penance
\nand profess love.<\/p>\n
\nin a week of lingering grief and national reflection
\nwe are confronted by readings
\nthat are alternately shocking and consoling
\nperplexing and amazing<\/p>\n
\nin the aftermath of the death of so many young people
\nto ponder a reading in which God seems to command
\nthe death of the young?<\/p>\n
\nfor St. Paul in the second reading to ask
\n\u201cIf God is for us, who can be against us?\u201d
\nOne blogger in pondering Paul this week
\nhad a one line rejoinder to Paul\u2019s rhetorical question
\nIf God is for us, who can be against us?
\nHis response: Someone with an AK 47<\/p>\n
\nthe virtually inexplicable transfiguration of Jesus
\nA gospel that seems so out of place
\nin these early stages of Lent
\nso out of place in a season
\nwhen innocents are not being transfigured
\nbut crucified
\nthat our Protestant sisters and brother
\nwho follow the common lectionary
\ndo not use it as a Lenten Gospel<\/p>\n
\nthe gun violence
\nthe political posturing through the readings
\nthrough this Lenten liturgy
\nmight portend to be an exercise in exasperation<\/p>\n
\nmight provide not only consolation
\nbut a Christian course of action
\nin these troubled and troubling times<\/p>\n
\nSometimes called the sacrifice of Isaac
\nit at first blush does not seem to be about the boy
\nbut about the sacrifice that his father must make
\nin order to fulfill God\u2019s covenant<\/p>\n
\nJewish tradition emphasized a detail utterly lacking in the Bible
\ni.e., Isaac was a willing victim
\nHe understood what God had demanded of his father
\nso he offered himself for the success of the covenant<\/p>\n
\na hero for the cause<\/p>\n
\n15-year-old Peter Wang, killed in the shootings last week
\na junior ROTC cadet who lost his life
\nhelping others escape
\nposthumously awarded a heroism medal
\nand granted honorary admission to West Point
\nsomething of which he always dreamed.<\/p>\n
\nhonoring this young hero, this inconspicuous martyr<\/p>\n
\nhis fellow cadets and fellow citizens
\nwished he would have never died in the first place<\/p>\n
\nfor at least as biblical scholar Bruce Chilton interprets it [1]
\nthis story was created in a context
\nin which child sacrifice was not uncommon.<\/p>\n
\nis God saying no to the sacrifice of children
\nGod saying no to the death of innocents
\nGod saying no for all time and in every place
\nfor the unnecessary martyrdom of the young
\nwhether through bombing in East Syria
\nor gunfire in south Florida<\/p>\n
\nJesus transfigured \u2013 disciples clueless
\nWhat does it mean to be transfigured
\ntransformed, transmogrified<\/p>\n
\nblindingly beautiful like Shaun White or Chloe Kim
\nin their astounding half-pipe snowboarding performances
\nat the Olympics?
\nOr does it mean to be chastened, afflicted, broken
\nlike a faith community in Charleston
\nan LGBTQ community in Orlando
\nor revelers at a Las Vegas music festival?<\/p>\n
\nwe actually see both<\/p>\n
\nJesus revealed as equal to the great prophets
\nHis dazzling appearance was terrifying
\nhis nature as God\u2019s first \u201cbeloved\u201d
\nhis divine origin manifest it all of its splendor<\/p>\n
\nEven though the disciples wanted to prolong it
\nas though by wanting to pitch tents saying \u2026
\nthis is what a messiah should look like
\nwait till the Romans soldiers and Jewish High Priests see this<\/p>\n
\nthat his divinity was not all about dazzle
\nfor that was not how he appeared
\nwhen he blessed the children
\ncomforted the widow of Nain
\ngave sight to the blind
\nor even raised Lazarus from the dead<\/p>\n
\non some high mountain or religious pedestal
\nbut it was being on the ground \u2026 with the folk<\/p>\n
\nhe is commissioned not only to come down the mountain
\nbut to become the true Isaac
\nto journey towards his own martyrdom in Jerusalem
\nso to reveal the depth of the covenantal love
\nGod has for all humanity.<\/p>\n
\nMark Jarman considers Jesus in conversation and conflict
\nwith the voice of the law and the prophets
\nfor sometimes the legal opinion, the popular prophets
\nDo not bring a message from God<\/p>\n
\n[Elijah and Moses] were talking to him<\/em>
\nabout law and how lawgiving should be \u2026<\/em>
\nAnd they were saying that; <\/em>
\nto save the best, many must be punished,<\/em>
\nincluding the best. <\/em>
\nAnd no one was exempt, as they explained it,<\/em>
\nnot themselves, not him, or anyone he loved, <\/em>
\nanyone who loved him.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nI want to believe that [Jesus] talked back to them, <\/em>
\nhis radiant companions,<\/em>
\nand I want to believe he said too much was being asked<\/em>
\nand too much [being] promised.<\/em>
\nI want to believe that that was why he shone in the eyes<\/em>
\nof his friends,<\/em>
\nthe witnesses looking on, <\/em>
\nbecause he spoke for them,<\/em>
\nbecause he loved them<\/em>
\nand was embarrassed to learn how he and they were<\/em>
\ngoing to suffer.<\/em>
\nI want to believe he resisted at that moment, <\/em>
\nwhen he appeared glorified,<\/em>
\nbecause he could not reconcile the contradictions<\/em>
\nand suspected<\/em>
\nthat love had a finite span <\/em>
\nand was merely the comfort of the lost.<\/em>
\nI know he must have acceded to his duty, <\/em>
\nbut I want to believe<\/em>
\nhe was transfigured by resistance, as he listened,<\/em>
\nand they talked. [2]<\/em><\/p>\n
\nresistance to violence
\nto self-serving politics
\nto lent without transfiguration
\nand to Easter without suffering<\/p>\n
\nfor preaching on these texts
\nI stumbled across a reflection on Julian of Norwich
\nthe 14th-century mystic
\nand perhaps the first theologian to write in English<\/p>\n
\nand all manner of things shall be well.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nWould anyone dare to say that
\nat a funeral for one of the victims of the Florida shootings<\/p>\n
\nrun amuck?
\nThe dreamy vision of a deluded mystic?<\/p>\n
\nbut then ran across a serious reflection on this passage [3]
\nthat recognized that Julian, like all of us
\nwas struggling with the problem of evil, sin & suffering<\/p>\n
\nwas not the pat response
\nthat such was the necessary downside
\nof granting human beings free will<\/p>\n
\nthat God\u2019s love for us is so unimaginable
\nso eternal, so pervasive<\/p>\n
\njoy from suffering
\nredemption from sin
\nin ways that humans cannot grasp in the present<\/p>\n
\nthat marked our foreheads
\nas we entered this season
\nand that marked our baptism
\nas we entered this community<\/p>\n
\nthat in Julian\u2019s writings
\nthere is even the hint
\nthat the final triumph of God\u2019s love<\/p>\n
\nso that indeed
\nall shall be well, and all shall be well<\/em>
\nand all manner of things shall be well.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nlike Jesus\u2019 prodding of Peter and the other disciples
\nwe have to leave the mountain of our expectations
\npull up stakes around the tents of spiritual solace
\nand godly expectations that we have invested in<\/p>\n
\nnot embracing suffering and death as our lot
\nbut as our mission<\/p>\n
\nhe refused to pass pain and degradation
\nrejection and oppression
\non to others<\/p>\n
\nhe became the victim
\nso that no one else would be scapegoated<\/p>\n
\npersonal or societal
\nthat confronts us<\/p>\n
\nturning our gaze toward Jerusalem
\nand on the way passing on no hurt,
\nno injustice,
\nno diminishment to others<\/p>\n
\nin the profound hope that<\/p>\n
\nAnd all manner of things shall be well.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n