A time for moving along
Second Sunday in Lent: 4th March, 2007
Fr John Davis, Vicar of St Peter's, Eastern Hill
Lent is a time for moving along, for travelling further on our spiritual journey. It is not a time to be complacent and comfortable. This major penitential and reflective season of the year is here to help us find our way.
There are plenty of obstacles, plenty of distractions. This time when the Lord was battling the temptations in the wilderness presents each of us with our sets of temptations too. One potentially attractive temptation is to give up on the whole thing as simply being too hard. Or we might become so aware of the failings and shortcomings of those around us, that we consider them too poor company for us to be keeping. Or we might think that no one else has had to travel the path we are travelling, even though the pattern experienced in every generation and recorded throughout the Scriptures is a recurring one. Moving onwards: glimpsing faith, hope and love, falling short, seeking grace, trying again, finding God. Or God finding us. Lent is a wonderful time for each of us to consider where we might be, within this cycle.
Lent is an incredibly rich time in terms of the teaching Scriptures that are given to us, week by week. Leading up to Passiontide this year for instance, our gospels from Luke's account take this pattern:
- Lent 1 the temptations in the wilderness
- Lent 2 the Transfiguration of the Lord in the presence of Peter, James and John,
- Lent 3 Sudden accidental death and that fig tree that was not bearing
- Lent 4 the Prodigal Son
- Lent 5 The woman caught in adultery.
It is all about a growing and deepening understanding about our relationship with God and God's relationship with us. It is all about the practicalities of being alive and stumbling on, in the context of continuing and sustaining glimpses of a God who is both wonderful and embracingly accepting. We are each invited to step out on this journey, together. Our Thursday evening study group is looking at this in more detail.
One of the classic journeys recorded in the Scriptures is that of Abraham. This foundational journey story is revered by Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Abraham is told to leave behind all human security – country, family, inherited stability, to go to a Promised Land, that he would be shown in due course. And blessings would flow. Our first lesson this morning simply celebrates the obedient faith of Abraham and Sarah, and has that as the context for our Transfiguration gospel.
The reading from St Paul's letter to the Philippians urges followers of Jesus to live the life, to look to the one who saves, to expect the transformation and renewal that is ours to receive. Paul uses the language of transfiguration to describe this promise. He grieves about those who get it wrong and lose their way. He looks to and values highly the supportive community, working together, being faithful in the Lord.
But the central lesson today is the transfiguration gospel. It is placed in Luke after the highly significant confession by Peter that Jesus was indeed the Christ and the subsequent heavy teaching on the nature and cost of discipleship.
It is the description of a transforming, deeply mystical spiritual time. Peter and James and John are up on a mountain with the Lord. They needed to get away for this to happen. They experience a vision of the glory of God, in Jesus the Christ. A voice from heaven very much like at the baptism of the Lord is heard to say "This is my Son, my Chosen: listen to him". What has started out with meditative walking and quiet prayer has grown into an intense religious experience, the exact nature of which is uncertain. Quite conceivably it lasted through a day and into night. The two great figures representing the Law and the Prophets are seen to be present for a time. Moses and Elijah were heard as talking with Jesus about what was about to be accomplished in Jerusalem: a new exodus. The cloud of the presence of God is here, as in the first exodus. Dazzling light and brightness give way to hearing, listening; being and walking alongside the Lord. Major affirmation then from the Old Testament tradition; allusions to the most shaping of the experiences of the people of God and the unfolding of their salvation history. Major pointers too for the core of the New Testament; looking forward to the Lord's passion and death. Prefiguring the resurrection. God all in all, across all experience, all time.
In the middle of all this pretty heavy material there is a quite characteristic piece of uncertainty and confusion coming from the disciple who is our patron. It is human, it is somewhat disarming. For a moment it relieves some of the building tension of so awesome a scene. Peter's suggestion about putting up some temporary shelters is passed by. We are told that he just didn't know what to say or how to respond.
His concern could have been simply practical. They were up there without any shelter. It was something that he and the other two disciples could set about doing. That putting together of such temporary shelters and indeed staying in them was what was and is done each year in one of the major Jewish religious festivals, as a reminder of those exodus wanderings when such temporary shelter was all they had, while giving thanks for the harvest of more settled times.
In other circumstances after all, he would have immediately offered food and refreshments to visitors. One is reminded of Martha busying herself in Bethany. Peter could then have been just trying to be appropriately hospitable in the presence of such prestigious company. He was heading off at a complete tangent. It all goes to remind us that we too can indeed be fearfully distracted from what is really important.
The point was the awareness of God's glory in Jesus the Christ. The point was hearing this message; starting to comprehend and accept this truth and then going on down the mountain to live out its implications in everyday life.
The immediate context of today's Transfiguration gospel is the Lord telling his followers that he is soon going to have to suffer and to die. The forces against him were gathering and getting stronger. The disciples could not accept or understand this. But this was central to the Lord's own addressing, confronting and defeating for us, the very challenges that do confront every one of us, and have confronted every person who has ever lived. This ultimate confrontation could not be avoided. That is what Good Friday and Easter Day are about. The transfiguration experience for the three disciples who were arguably the core of the 12 perhaps gave them the spiritual breakthrough that they needed, to get past this obstacle. They came down that mountain and went with the Lord on the way to Jerusalem.
So in this Lenten context, this is no time for us to stop the travelling, to break off the journey. This is no time either to be dazzled into immobility by the glory and wonder of God. But it is a time to thankfully acknowledge who and what it is that we are following. The journey takes him and us through to Holy Week, Good Friday and Easter Day.
The Lord be with you.
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