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)
Be mindful of how you read the sacred text.
Always exercise caution, 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 what the gospels intend..
The reading for today, a reading from the Book of Genesis, contains many errant
and problematic tropes, even though its central message, the promise that God
makes to Abraham, that passage is sound.
Let us reflect on it.
Remember this:
God does not intervene in human affairs. God
never does. God made the universe and every creature in it free. 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 to God was by living
of a just life.
We find God in doing good; through love and
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.
There is no covenant, there never was.
This rationale was merely a justification for
seizing the so-called promised land by force. They were lands which belonged to
other people. The narrative was interpolated over the history of the children
of Israel after they fled from Egypt, and only after the successfully
prosecuted their wars throughout the land of Canaan, against all of the other Semitic
peoples.
In the reading we have been given for today,
what is useful for the faith is this:
“Your descendants will number as the stars in
sky.” This is the central promise, not the phony covenant with Abraham.
God’s promise is hope; Abraham’s children will
be without measure. 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
on the end of days.
Listen!
There are billions of stars in the galaxy, and
there are countless galaxies lighting up the night sky.
There are stars and galaxies aborning all the
time. Their number is without end.
Remember this, and hold it in your heart:
God is good. Open your eyes and you will see
God’s goodness, even in the faces of your enemies.
God is good. Open your ears and you will hear
God’s goodness, even in the words of your enemies the goodness of God is
shining.
God is good. God loves you, and God loves all
people. Your eternal home is waiting for you, come and invite your enemies to
share it.
This is the way of Jesus.
Take heed!
Reflect on the daily concerns of the Apostle; be
mindful of how he seeks to manage the community of believers.
People are notoriously difficult to manage.
They do not always do as we would wish them to
do, they are divisive. They pit themselves against each other.
Saint 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.
The church is still recalcitrant, ungrateful,
vain, and misguided.
If you are responsible for the care of people
seeking to live in the way of Jesus, remember this; God, the creator of the
universe, God is always with them. God dwells inside of each and every one of them,
in each and everyone of us.
We may try to have influence over the
circumstances that are presented to us, but we are not responsible for their resolution.
The resolution of sin is in God’s hands, make
room for your faith to help you understand this.
Do not give up like the Apostle did, free
yourself from the doubts the disciples shared.
Do not denigrate God’s creation, do not
imagine that the body is evil, do not malign our mortal state because we
experience hunger, disease, pain; these are all a part of the mystery of life,
of the creation God breathed life into, and called good.
Never forget
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, a time when
Jesus together with James and John went up the mountain by themselves.
It may have been that at such event Jesus
connected his ministry with that of Moses, the liberator and law giver; and
Elijah with the truth-teller.
This may be the case but the supernatural
events that were described by Matthew, these did not happen.
God, the creator of the universe, God does not
engage in supernatural activities. God is the author of nature and its laws.
God does not violate them for any reason.
The disciples were meant to understand that
the ministry of Jesus was also in keeping with the expectations of Enoch, with
Enoch the Son of Man, whose return was hoped for.
Jesus warned the disciples that his ministry
would lead to his death, but like Enoch, death would not stop him, like Enoch he
would return.
This is what they hoped for.
Be mindful.
Always read the gospel in such a way that you
strip from it the fantastical elements. Stories of the supernatural cannot be
taken literally, they are not elucidating and they are 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 and rational.
In
mythology; we use words to contextualize our experience, when we wish to speak
in metaphors and analogies, so that we may link our experiences to a world
beyond ourselves.
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 of the allegory are fully understood and properly balanced. They
can be good and useful when we engage 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, the nature of humanity, or the nature of the divine 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 is easily and often misinterpreted. 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 voice the
narrative of the transfiguration, and those who first penned it, only intended to
transit 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.
The
voice from the cloud naming Jesus as “son,” may have only been meant to convey
the message that Jesus is the “heir” to the Abrahamic tradition, and not merely
a “teacher” in that tradition.
This
is a grounded and rational interpretation of this myth.
However,
as happens most often, the interpreters of this myth point to 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
fantasy-based interpretation has led to great confusion through the centuries.
Incredible conflict has ensued based on these fantastic beliefs; conflict and
bloody warfare between opposing factions of Christians, and with non-Christians
as well.
All
because they felt the need to take sides on the question of who Jesus was, and defend their claims
with violence.
It
is a tragedy. It is antithetical to the way.
Be
mindful!
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 present fully.
The
fullness of God dwelt within Jesus, just as the fullness of God dwells within
each of us. We are connected and in relationship to 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; he showed us how to live in a moral and just society to, for our understanding
of the truth to flow from it.
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)
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