Priest and teacher Barbara Brown Taylor tells the story of the young mother she met in the pediatric surgery waiting room of the hospital where she was a chaplain.1 Earlier in the week, the woman’s little daughter was playing with a friend when her head began to hurt. By the time the mother found her, the child could no longer see. When doctors did a CAT scan at the hospital, they discovered that a large tumor was pressed against the child’s optic nerve. They scheduled the surgery as soon as possible. The day of the surgery Taylor found the mother in the waiting room. An ashtray full of cigarettes stood beside the mother’s chair. Taylor sat down beside her. After a little bit of small talk, the mother blurted out, “It’s my punishment, for smoking these damned cigarettes. God couldn’t get my attention any other way, so he made my baby sick.” She began to cry and then wailed, “Now I’m supposed to stop, but I can’t stop. I’m going to kill my own child.”
Have you ever said anything like that? Have you ever blamed yourself for something that happened to someone else? Why do bad things happen? Why does tragedy strike us? Why do innocent and good people especially seem to get struck down? Does God punish people for the sins of others, as the young mother thought? These are just the questions put to Jesus by those who listened to his teaching. “What about those innocent Galileans, Rabbi?”
These are age-old questions. We ask ourselves the same questions whenever disaster strikes. Is this God’s judgment on me, on us? Whose fault was it? Why did it happen? Even today, when disaster strikes, there’s always someone who stands up and declares that the disaster is God’s punishment on gays, or feminists, or the “party culture” of New Orleans. Would Jesus agree with that judgement?
There is a strand of Scripture that would agree with that judgment. Certain verses in Deuteronomy and Proverbs support the notion that people get what they deserve. We find it easy to believe that. We say, “If she hadn’t been in the passing lane, the drunk driver would not have hit her.” Maybe. But Scripture also reminds us that the innocent suffer and the guilty prosper. The psalms and the book of Ecclesiastes are filled with laments for the suffering of the innocent. And we can easily believe that too. The residents of the Lower Ninth ward in New Orleans might have read some of those psalms, for they did nothing to bring catastrophe on themselves when Katrina struck, while government officials stood by, slow to recognize their plight. While we might lay sin at the door of the gunman, the twenty children and six adults who died in Newtown, CT, like the Galileans in today’s gospel, did absolutely nothing to bring about their tragic deaths.
In an attempt to understand disasters, sometimes people, especially we religious people, offer another explanation: suffering is part of God’s plan. Would you agree? Is that what your experience tells you? One woman suffers a miscarriage at twenty weeks, while another, who did exactly what the first woman did, delivers a healthy full-term child. Did God really “want another angel in heaven?” Is it really the case that “God won’t send us more than we can bear?” Perhaps the people querying Jesus were also asking this question: did God intentionally cause these disasters?
Contrary to all our expectations, in Luke’s telling of this encounter, Jesus does not answer the question put to him. That’s because ultimately, there is no answer to these questions. While Jesus doesn’t rebuke his questioners, neither does he tell them that the Galileans killed by Pilate – and there is historical evidence that something like this really did happen – or that those who died when the tower of Siloam fell on them deserved what happened to them. He doesn’t tell them that their deaths were all part of God’s plan. Instead, he reminds all his followers – and by extension us – that life is precarious, that we cannot claim to know the cause of suffering, that we cannot control the events in our lives, and that we cannot smugly assume that we are immune from disaster – even if we say our prayers every day, worship regularly, and give generously. Even if we take every precaution, there are still abusive Roman soldiers in the world. Even if we drive defensively, the drunk driver can still cross over into our lane and crash into us. There are no guarantees in life. The best we can do, Jesus reminds us, is continually and intentionally try to orient our lives towards God and do our best to overcome our own sins and shortcomings. “Look at your own life,” Jesus in effect tells his hearers. “Reflect on how you are living, but don’t think you’re immune from disaster.”
But Jesus doesn’t stop with that admonition. Jesus adds one more piece to his call for reorientation and self-examination. To what could be a bleak message of despair, Jesus adds a message of reassurance and hope. Don’t we hear it in the parable that follows his warning? A fig tree has yet to produce the expected fruit. The gardener appeals to the owner for the tree to get another chance. Perhaps with a new trench for better water, or with extra fertilizer, the tree will produce the fruit it was meant to produce. We do face judgement, Jesus tells his hearers, and the opportunity for repentance is time-limited. But, the parable reassures us, God’s judgment is never separated from God’s mercy. As we might expect from Luke, Jesus’ parable reminds us of divine compassion, reassuring us of the abundant grace that is available to us – if we are willing to accept it while we still can.
So what does all this mean to us? I’d like to suggest three things we need to hear in this Gospel reading. The first is this: we are called to heed the warning in Jesus’ words. In this Lenten season especially, hear again his warning that, “Unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.” Whoever we are, we do face God’s judgment. Even if we are absolutely certain that we follow the law, even if we diligently engage in every appropriate spiritual practice, we can never be smug or arrogant, we can never think that therefore we can avoid tragedy or bypass God’s judgment. High on the center of the doorway of the south transept of the great cathedral in Chartres in France is a magnificent sculpture of Christ sitting in judgement at the end of time. While we no longer live in the mindset that would easily understand the importance of that image for our own lives, even we must remember that what we do with our lives has consequences.
Second, we are to hear the words in the parable warning us that our time to reorient our lives toward the Holy One is short: the gardener says, “Sir, let it alone for one more year.” We are called to be intentional about lives now, we are called to engage now in the self-examination that Lent calls for, not at some distant time in the future. Can we be sure that we even have a future? An old rabbi told his disciples, “You should repent the day before you die.” “But, Rabbi,” replied the disciples, “how can we know when that day is?” “Exactly,” said the rabbi, “that is why you must repent every day of your life.”
But third, Jesus never calls us to despair. Ultimately, Jesus calls us to trust and hope that God is at work in our lives. We are called to hear, and hear again, that God hears us when we call, that God upholds us and provides the hand to which we can cling, even when tragedy strikes, and that God always wants to nurture us so that we can bear good fruit.
How are we living our lives? Even though it’s still cold out there, I invite you to hear and meditate on that question through the words of Mary Oliver’s poem, “The Summer Day.”
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? Know that you have been gifted with an eye blink of time. Even when bad things happen, commit to living in that eye blink with your hearts and minds turned towards God. Trust that God is at work in your life. Be ever open to the leading of the Spirit.
1. “Life-Giving Fear,” Christian Century, March 4, 1998, p. 229.
Sunday, February 28, 2016
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Return to Me
Why are we here? Does it feel as if we’ve done an about-face? On Sunday we had a mountain-top experience: the veil parted and we glimpsed Jesus’ divine nature, even as we hoped that God would work God’s transformation in us. Then, our story took a turn as we came down from the mountain and back to ministry with God’s people – right to the depths! We sang our last “alleluias” until Sunday March 27th. All the paraments and my vestments have again changed color, from festive white and gold to solemn purple. The flowers are gone from the altar. We entered in silence. And here we are engaging in this ancient liturgy of taking on ashes and confessing our sins. Have we suddenly heard God’s call to repent, to care for the poor, to pray, and to fast? Is that why we sophisticated, twenty-first century people have come together to participate in this ancient rite?
For this rite that we share today is truly an ancient rite, whose origins are lost in the traditions of the earliest Israelites. The Hebrew Scriptures give us several prominent examples of communal rituals of prayer, fasting, repentance, and the use of ashes. For example, after Job was rebuked by God he confessed, “Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel all call the people to return to God and to express their repentance by dressing in rough plain clothing and putting ashes on their heads.
Indeed, in some ways our liturgy today is similar to that of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.1 Still today, even those who do not regularly attend synagogue services pay attention to the call to join the “solemn assembly,” confess their offenses against God, and express their hope to be inscribed in the Book of Life for another year. For us Christians too, Ash Wednesday is day of “solemn assembly,” a day of special prayer, of fasting, and repentance. But for us, Ash Wednesday is also the beginning of Easter. For the earliest Christians, Ash Wednesday marked the beginning of the intensive preparation for Easter that newcomers to the faith observed. For us too, Ash Wednesday turns us toward Jerusalem, the Cross, and the Empty Tomb.
Like the ancient Hebrews and the early Christians, we begin our journey toward the place of Jesus’ death and resurrection with a pointed reminder that we too will die. All our lections remind us of our mortality. Our psalm especially reminds us of who we are in God’s sight: “For he himself knows whereof we are made; he remembers that we are but dust. Our days are like the grass….” And why do we want to hear this reminder? Because it is the truth. Despite all the “age-defying” cosmetics that American manufacturers serve up, all the promises of immortality, all our attempts to hide death, we know that “we flourish like a flower of the field” that is scattered by a puff of wind. We know that our lives are uncertain, that no one of us knows how much time we have left, that we cannot live forever, and that the time to amend our lives, to wake up to God’s reality, is now. Rabbi Eliezer would tell his students that everyone should repent the day before death. “But Rabbi,” one of the students asked, “how can anyone know when that day is?” “Exactly,” said the Rabbi. “That is why we should repent every day of our lives.”
The ashes remind us of our mortality, and that’s important, but death is never God’s last word to us. The ashes are also a sign of hope, a gift. Traditionally, our ashes were made by burning the palm fronds from last year’s Palm Sunday. Even as we hear “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return,” we also hear the first few notes of the Easter to come.
And, yes, we are urgently called to repent and to fast, to acknowledge our “wretchedness,” i.e., our weaknesses and faults and all the ways in which we fall short of God’s expectations. And, yes, we are fallible human beings unable to live up to our own best standards, let alone God’s standards. Yet we do not cringe before an angry vengeful God ready to strike us down for the slightest provocation. Instead, we hear again that, although God cares deeply for justice, God is merciful and loving. We hear that, although we cannot save ourselves, God takes the initiative to rescue, heal, and save us. The psalmist reminds us that: “The Lord is full of compassion and mercy/ slow to anger and of great kindness…. For as the heavens are high above the earth,/ so is his mercy great upon those who fear him.” The prophet Joel repeats that refrain. “Return to the Lord, your God,” he exhorts us, “for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love….” Joel also reminds us that what God really desires of us is change of heart, transformation, or conversion. “Rend your hearts and not your clothing,” he commands us. Don’t just make a show of taking part in rites and rituals. Deeply commit yourself to God. Let God continue to change you into the people God created you to be, into the people who, by God’s grace, are becoming more and more like the Jesus we saw on the mountain, more and more like the Jesus we encounter in Jerusalem.
As we travel the road to Easter once again we also remember that we are members of a Body, that we are deeply bound to one another, and that we need each other to be completely God’s people. As we hear in the call of the prophet Joel, all the people are to be gathered into a “solemn assembly.” No one is exempted, not newlyweds, not the elderly, not even babes in arms. St. Paul similarly called the entire Christian community in Corinth to be reconciled to God, so that as a community they might reflect Christ’s saving power to the world around them. We too are members of one another, and what we do on this day, or any other day in the church, we do together. We may pray in secret. We may seek God in the silence of our private spaces. We may take on certain helpful spiritual practices. Even so, our salvation is never a private affair. Our repentance and renewal is always corporate. Jesus did not die to save me. He was crucified under Pontius Pilate for us and for our salvation. And thanks be to God! Because our repentance and renewal are corporate, because we are members one of another, we are not dependent solely on our own spiritual resources. Lent calls us to uphold and support one another, to encourage each other in Christian formation and transformation, to relearn and deepen our faith and practice together, and to build up our common life in this place.
In the end it is God who calls us together this day. God calls us to remember our mortality, deepen our faith, and strengthen the bonds among us. We have come to begin a solemn and serious season. For the next forty days we can practice simplifying our lives by letting go of those activities and things that draw us away from God, by engaging in more intentional private and corporate prayer, by serving others, by acknowledging our shortcomings, and by seeking and practicing forgiveness. We can begin to see God at work in all aspects of our lives, not just in our time spent here. We might think of Lent as a time for all of us to be on retreat, a time for us to lay aside our self-preoccupation, and pray about how we might truly love God and our neighbors more deeply. Keeping a good Lent ultimately means drawing closer to God and to one another, taking on those practices that will enable us to see our lives from a fresh perspective.
Why are we here? We are here to begin the journey that leads us to Jerusalem and beyond. We are here to receive ashes that can change our lives. Perhaps the ashes we receive today will awaken us to the truth of God’s transforming power. Perhaps we can hear ourselves in Edward Hays’ Lenten Psalm:
Come, O Life-giving Creator,
and rattle the door latch
of my slumbering heart.
Awaken me as you breathe upon
a winter-wrapped earth,
gently calling to life virgin Spring.
Awaken in these fortified days
of Lenten prayer and discipline
my youthful dream of holiness.
Call me forth from the prison camp
of my numerous past defeats
and my narrow patterns of being
to make my ordinary life extra-ordinarily alive,
through the passion of my love.
Show to me during these Lenten days
how to take the daily things of life
and, by submerging them in the sacred,
to infuse them with a great love
for you, O God, and for others.
Guide me to perform simple acts of love and prayer,
the real works of reform and renewal
of this overture to the spring of the Spirit.
O Father of Jesus, Mother of Christ,
help me not to waste
these precious Lenten days
of my soul’s spiritual springtime.2
I wish you a most holy and blessed Lent.
1. Daniel Clendinen, “A Day of Ashes and Rituals of Renewal,” Journey with Jesus, accessed on Feb. 20, 2012 at http://www.journeywithjesus.net
2. Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim (Notre Dame, IN: Forest of Peace, 2008), 185.
For this rite that we share today is truly an ancient rite, whose origins are lost in the traditions of the earliest Israelites. The Hebrew Scriptures give us several prominent examples of communal rituals of prayer, fasting, repentance, and the use of ashes. For example, after Job was rebuked by God he confessed, “Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel all call the people to return to God and to express their repentance by dressing in rough plain clothing and putting ashes on their heads.
Indeed, in some ways our liturgy today is similar to that of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.1 Still today, even those who do not regularly attend synagogue services pay attention to the call to join the “solemn assembly,” confess their offenses against God, and express their hope to be inscribed in the Book of Life for another year. For us Christians too, Ash Wednesday is day of “solemn assembly,” a day of special prayer, of fasting, and repentance. But for us, Ash Wednesday is also the beginning of Easter. For the earliest Christians, Ash Wednesday marked the beginning of the intensive preparation for Easter that newcomers to the faith observed. For us too, Ash Wednesday turns us toward Jerusalem, the Cross, and the Empty Tomb.
Like the ancient Hebrews and the early Christians, we begin our journey toward the place of Jesus’ death and resurrection with a pointed reminder that we too will die. All our lections remind us of our mortality. Our psalm especially reminds us of who we are in God’s sight: “For he himself knows whereof we are made; he remembers that we are but dust. Our days are like the grass….” And why do we want to hear this reminder? Because it is the truth. Despite all the “age-defying” cosmetics that American manufacturers serve up, all the promises of immortality, all our attempts to hide death, we know that “we flourish like a flower of the field” that is scattered by a puff of wind. We know that our lives are uncertain, that no one of us knows how much time we have left, that we cannot live forever, and that the time to amend our lives, to wake up to God’s reality, is now. Rabbi Eliezer would tell his students that everyone should repent the day before death. “But Rabbi,” one of the students asked, “how can anyone know when that day is?” “Exactly,” said the Rabbi. “That is why we should repent every day of our lives.”
The ashes remind us of our mortality, and that’s important, but death is never God’s last word to us. The ashes are also a sign of hope, a gift. Traditionally, our ashes were made by burning the palm fronds from last year’s Palm Sunday. Even as we hear “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return,” we also hear the first few notes of the Easter to come.
And, yes, we are urgently called to repent and to fast, to acknowledge our “wretchedness,” i.e., our weaknesses and faults and all the ways in which we fall short of God’s expectations. And, yes, we are fallible human beings unable to live up to our own best standards, let alone God’s standards. Yet we do not cringe before an angry vengeful God ready to strike us down for the slightest provocation. Instead, we hear again that, although God cares deeply for justice, God is merciful and loving. We hear that, although we cannot save ourselves, God takes the initiative to rescue, heal, and save us. The psalmist reminds us that: “The Lord is full of compassion and mercy/ slow to anger and of great kindness…. For as the heavens are high above the earth,/ so is his mercy great upon those who fear him.” The prophet Joel repeats that refrain. “Return to the Lord, your God,” he exhorts us, “for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love….” Joel also reminds us that what God really desires of us is change of heart, transformation, or conversion. “Rend your hearts and not your clothing,” he commands us. Don’t just make a show of taking part in rites and rituals. Deeply commit yourself to God. Let God continue to change you into the people God created you to be, into the people who, by God’s grace, are becoming more and more like the Jesus we saw on the mountain, more and more like the Jesus we encounter in Jerusalem.
As we travel the road to Easter once again we also remember that we are members of a Body, that we are deeply bound to one another, and that we need each other to be completely God’s people. As we hear in the call of the prophet Joel, all the people are to be gathered into a “solemn assembly.” No one is exempted, not newlyweds, not the elderly, not even babes in arms. St. Paul similarly called the entire Christian community in Corinth to be reconciled to God, so that as a community they might reflect Christ’s saving power to the world around them. We too are members of one another, and what we do on this day, or any other day in the church, we do together. We may pray in secret. We may seek God in the silence of our private spaces. We may take on certain helpful spiritual practices. Even so, our salvation is never a private affair. Our repentance and renewal is always corporate. Jesus did not die to save me. He was crucified under Pontius Pilate for us and for our salvation. And thanks be to God! Because our repentance and renewal are corporate, because we are members one of another, we are not dependent solely on our own spiritual resources. Lent calls us to uphold and support one another, to encourage each other in Christian formation and transformation, to relearn and deepen our faith and practice together, and to build up our common life in this place.
In the end it is God who calls us together this day. God calls us to remember our mortality, deepen our faith, and strengthen the bonds among us. We have come to begin a solemn and serious season. For the next forty days we can practice simplifying our lives by letting go of those activities and things that draw us away from God, by engaging in more intentional private and corporate prayer, by serving others, by acknowledging our shortcomings, and by seeking and practicing forgiveness. We can begin to see God at work in all aspects of our lives, not just in our time spent here. We might think of Lent as a time for all of us to be on retreat, a time for us to lay aside our self-preoccupation, and pray about how we might truly love God and our neighbors more deeply. Keeping a good Lent ultimately means drawing closer to God and to one another, taking on those practices that will enable us to see our lives from a fresh perspective.
Why are we here? We are here to begin the journey that leads us to Jerusalem and beyond. We are here to receive ashes that can change our lives. Perhaps the ashes we receive today will awaken us to the truth of God’s transforming power. Perhaps we can hear ourselves in Edward Hays’ Lenten Psalm:
Come, O Life-giving Creator,
and rattle the door latch
of my slumbering heart.
Awaken me as you breathe upon
a winter-wrapped earth,
gently calling to life virgin Spring.
Awaken in these fortified days
of Lenten prayer and discipline
my youthful dream of holiness.
Call me forth from the prison camp
of my numerous past defeats
and my narrow patterns of being
to make my ordinary life extra-ordinarily alive,
through the passion of my love.
Show to me during these Lenten days
how to take the daily things of life
and, by submerging them in the sacred,
to infuse them with a great love
for you, O God, and for others.
Guide me to perform simple acts of love and prayer,
the real works of reform and renewal
of this overture to the spring of the Spirit.
O Father of Jesus, Mother of Christ,
help me not to waste
these precious Lenten days
of my soul’s spiritual springtime.2
I wish you a most holy and blessed Lent.
1. Daniel Clendinen, “A Day of Ashes and Rituals of Renewal,” Journey with Jesus, accessed on Feb. 20, 2012 at http://www.journeywithjesus.net
2. Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim (Notre Dame, IN: Forest of Peace, 2008), 185.
Sunday, February 7, 2016
The Slow Work of God
“O God, who before the passion of your only begotten Son revealed his glory on the holy mountain: grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory….” Does the collect ask us to do something impossible? How can we be “changed into his likeness?” As we come to the end of Epiphany tide and look towards the beginning of Lent, what is the Book of Common Prayer really talking about here?
Certainly, we cannot be changed into Jesus’ physical likeness. To begin with, does anyone know what Jesus looked like? Artists have probably been trying to capture his “likeness” since the day after the first Easter. We have wonderful art to show for it – frescoes, sculpture, icons, paintings from every century and culture – but most artistic renderings are at best symbolic suggestions of who Jesus was. Even if Mathew Brady had been alive during Jesus’ time and had photographed Jesus, most of us could not be changed into his physical likeness: try as we might we will never become short, black-haired, dark-skinned Jewish males.
Then can we hope to be changed into Jesus’ “likeness” by doing what he did? I don’t think any of us will be executed on a cross by Roman authorities. And unless you all are hiding something from me, none of you will be receiving the death penalty any time soon. And aren’t all of us absolutely sure that there’s no way we can be changed into Jesus’ divine likeness? The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell us that three of the disciples got a glimpse of Jesus’ true glorified nature – and they were terrified! “I will never be glorified as Jesus was, and no one will ever be terrified of me in that way,” we would all say.
So how can we be “changed into his likeness?” What would that look like? If Jesus is our model, perhaps we can answer that question by looking at how he lived out his human life. To begin with, the first thing that we notice about Jesus, especially if we read the gospel of Luke closely, is that Jesus knew that he had a deep and abiding relationship with God. Perhaps Jesus knew his deep relationship with God from the moment of his conception. He surely received another affirmation of his unbreakable bond with God when he was baptized. From then on, Jesus’ connection with God clearly permeated his entire adult life. Jesus’ close connection with God is especially reflected in the depth of his prayer and in how often he took time away from his ministry to go off and pray. If you read the gospel of Luke carefully, you will notice all the times Luke mentions that Jesus withdrew for prayer. It’s not a coincidence that the disciples received such an overwhelming experience of Jesus’ divine nature as today’s reading suggests while they and Jesus were praying.
That’s what happens in prayer! That’s what happens when we open ourselves up to God and let God work within us! The beginning of our transformation into Jesus’ likeness, call it conversion if you will, always comes from a deep and ongoing relationship with God. For some of us, conversion begins with one shattering moment when we sense God’s reality, presence, and demands on us – and after that our lives are never the same. For others of us, conversion begins with a gentle nudge, a feeling that we need to come back to church, to faith, to spiritual growth. And for yet others of us, conversion begins with a “dark night of the soul,” when we feel that all is lost, and that God has completely abandoned us.
After such an experience, are we then immediately “changed into his likeness?” Usually not. Transformation comes through God’s grace at work in us – and it is usually “the slow work of God.” God works in us day by day, week by week, year by year, molding, shaping, and forming us – like a great artist – into God’s desired creation, a human being as fully alive, as filled with the Holy Spirit, as Jesus was. And God works in us as we spend time in prayer with God, as we let God know us, heal us, and change us. Yet transformation is rarely a solo experience. We may pray as individuals, and God may grace our prayer with God’s presence. But if we want to continue to grow as Jesus’ followers, we must do it in community. Notice that Jesus took three people up the mountain with him. Most important, our transformation is never our own doing, and it seldom happens overnight. But the good news is that when we keep “listening to Jesus,” in prayer and worship, when we take time to be present to God, God will transform us.
What happened after the transcendent “mountain-top” experience? They all came down the mountain! The gospel account does not say whether the disciples understood what they had experienced with Jesus on the mountain. Jesus didn’t stop to explain it to them. Rather, Jesus returned to ministry. For Jesus, ministry followed mystery. After prayer time, Jesus always came back to heal, feed, and teach, and the transcendent sense of connection with God deepened his call. He continued to care for those in need, even as he set his face for Jerusalem and what awaited him there.
And so it is for us, as we move from the glories of Epiphany tide to the hard work of Lent. After we have had a deep experience of God’s reality, of God’s deep love of us, and of God’s desire to transform us, we might possibly look different. Moses’ face was radiant after his encounter with God, so radiant that people were afraid to come near him. More often the change is in the way we live our lives. “After Zen, the laundry.” Or as Jesuit spiritual teacher Anthony de Mello tells us,
“When the Zen master attained enlightenment
he wrote the following lines to celebrate it:
Oh wondrous marvel:
I chop wood!
I draw water from the well!”1
The truth is that we and others are more likely to see God’s transforming power at work within us not in how we look, but in the quality of our relationships with loved ones and friends, in our ability to respond to the needs of others, and in our zeal for pursuing justice and peace. Indeed, we are called as Christians to come down from the mountain strengthened to serve others. Scottish Bible commentator William Barclay reminds us that we need solitude but not complete withdrawal. Just like Jesus, we need solitude to stay connected with God. But, Barclay says, “if we, in our search for solitude, shut ourselves off from one another, if we shut our ears to the appeal of brothers and sisters for help, if we shut our hearts to the cries and tears of things, then that is not religion. The solitude is … meant to make us better able to meet and cope with the demands of everyday life.”2
Will we be “changed into his likeness?” As followers of Jesus, we trust that when we live a life of prayer, when we join with others in Christian community, and when we live into our respective ministries to others, God will continue the transformation God began in us. Is such a life easy? If it were, these pews would be filled to overflowing. No, it takes courage, grit, and determination to admit that we need God’s transformative power and to let God into our self-centered lives.
John Smylie tells the story of a teen whose parents had divorced.3 Like many children of divorced parents he had shuffled back and forth between their respective houses, angry at both of them and secretly wishing they would get back together. When his mother remarried, he was even angrier, and especially at his stepfather. Two years after his mother remarried, when he was fifteen, some friends invited him to come to a Happening, a special weekend for teens that helps them go deeper in their relationship with God. When he came home from the weekend, he was tired, but excited, and he bubbled over telling his mother and stepfather about all the wonderful experiences he had had. Then he said to his stepfather, “There’s something I’ve got to tell you, but I’m not ready to tell you right at this moment.” His stepfather replied, “Whenever you are ready I’m here to listen to you.” Three days later, when the stepfather was beginning to wonder when he might hear the rest of the story, the boy declared he was ready to speak. They went where they could be alone. The boy held his head down and struggled to speak. Finally, close to tears, he said, “You know, when you married my mom, that was really hard for me. I want my mom to be happy, but it was really hard to have you come into my life and my family. What I realized over the weekend was that God has brought you to my life.” Stunned and unable himself to speak, the stepfather received the boy’s gracious words and embraced him.
This is the good news: when we look at Jesus, when we listen to him, God’s grace transforms us. God’s grace enables us to live a cross-shaped life, connected both to God and to our neighbors. My brothers and sisters, as we look towards Ash Wednesday, Lent, and Good Friday, we can trust that by God’s grace we will share Christ’s life and be truly transformed into his likeness.
1. The Song of the Bird (New York: Doubleday, 1982), 16.
2. William Barclay, The Gospel of Mark (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1956), 220, quoted in David E. Leininger, Tales for the Pulpit (Lima, OH: CSS, 2009), 80.
3. "Transforming Light,” Lectionary Stories for Preaching and Teaching Cycle C (Lima, OH: CSS, 2012), 45-47
Certainly, we cannot be changed into Jesus’ physical likeness. To begin with, does anyone know what Jesus looked like? Artists have probably been trying to capture his “likeness” since the day after the first Easter. We have wonderful art to show for it – frescoes, sculpture, icons, paintings from every century and culture – but most artistic renderings are at best symbolic suggestions of who Jesus was. Even if Mathew Brady had been alive during Jesus’ time and had photographed Jesus, most of us could not be changed into his physical likeness: try as we might we will never become short, black-haired, dark-skinned Jewish males.
Then can we hope to be changed into Jesus’ “likeness” by doing what he did? I don’t think any of us will be executed on a cross by Roman authorities. And unless you all are hiding something from me, none of you will be receiving the death penalty any time soon. And aren’t all of us absolutely sure that there’s no way we can be changed into Jesus’ divine likeness? The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell us that three of the disciples got a glimpse of Jesus’ true glorified nature – and they were terrified! “I will never be glorified as Jesus was, and no one will ever be terrified of me in that way,” we would all say.
So how can we be “changed into his likeness?” What would that look like? If Jesus is our model, perhaps we can answer that question by looking at how he lived out his human life. To begin with, the first thing that we notice about Jesus, especially if we read the gospel of Luke closely, is that Jesus knew that he had a deep and abiding relationship with God. Perhaps Jesus knew his deep relationship with God from the moment of his conception. He surely received another affirmation of his unbreakable bond with God when he was baptized. From then on, Jesus’ connection with God clearly permeated his entire adult life. Jesus’ close connection with God is especially reflected in the depth of his prayer and in how often he took time away from his ministry to go off and pray. If you read the gospel of Luke carefully, you will notice all the times Luke mentions that Jesus withdrew for prayer. It’s not a coincidence that the disciples received such an overwhelming experience of Jesus’ divine nature as today’s reading suggests while they and Jesus were praying.
That’s what happens in prayer! That’s what happens when we open ourselves up to God and let God work within us! The beginning of our transformation into Jesus’ likeness, call it conversion if you will, always comes from a deep and ongoing relationship with God. For some of us, conversion begins with one shattering moment when we sense God’s reality, presence, and demands on us – and after that our lives are never the same. For others of us, conversion begins with a gentle nudge, a feeling that we need to come back to church, to faith, to spiritual growth. And for yet others of us, conversion begins with a “dark night of the soul,” when we feel that all is lost, and that God has completely abandoned us.
After such an experience, are we then immediately “changed into his likeness?” Usually not. Transformation comes through God’s grace at work in us – and it is usually “the slow work of God.” God works in us day by day, week by week, year by year, molding, shaping, and forming us – like a great artist – into God’s desired creation, a human being as fully alive, as filled with the Holy Spirit, as Jesus was. And God works in us as we spend time in prayer with God, as we let God know us, heal us, and change us. Yet transformation is rarely a solo experience. We may pray as individuals, and God may grace our prayer with God’s presence. But if we want to continue to grow as Jesus’ followers, we must do it in community. Notice that Jesus took three people up the mountain with him. Most important, our transformation is never our own doing, and it seldom happens overnight. But the good news is that when we keep “listening to Jesus,” in prayer and worship, when we take time to be present to God, God will transform us.
What happened after the transcendent “mountain-top” experience? They all came down the mountain! The gospel account does not say whether the disciples understood what they had experienced with Jesus on the mountain. Jesus didn’t stop to explain it to them. Rather, Jesus returned to ministry. For Jesus, ministry followed mystery. After prayer time, Jesus always came back to heal, feed, and teach, and the transcendent sense of connection with God deepened his call. He continued to care for those in need, even as he set his face for Jerusalem and what awaited him there.
And so it is for us, as we move from the glories of Epiphany tide to the hard work of Lent. After we have had a deep experience of God’s reality, of God’s deep love of us, and of God’s desire to transform us, we might possibly look different. Moses’ face was radiant after his encounter with God, so radiant that people were afraid to come near him. More often the change is in the way we live our lives. “After Zen, the laundry.” Or as Jesuit spiritual teacher Anthony de Mello tells us,
“When the Zen master attained enlightenment
he wrote the following lines to celebrate it:
Oh wondrous marvel:
I chop wood!
I draw water from the well!”1
The truth is that we and others are more likely to see God’s transforming power at work within us not in how we look, but in the quality of our relationships with loved ones and friends, in our ability to respond to the needs of others, and in our zeal for pursuing justice and peace. Indeed, we are called as Christians to come down from the mountain strengthened to serve others. Scottish Bible commentator William Barclay reminds us that we need solitude but not complete withdrawal. Just like Jesus, we need solitude to stay connected with God. But, Barclay says, “if we, in our search for solitude, shut ourselves off from one another, if we shut our ears to the appeal of brothers and sisters for help, if we shut our hearts to the cries and tears of things, then that is not religion. The solitude is … meant to make us better able to meet and cope with the demands of everyday life.”2
Will we be “changed into his likeness?” As followers of Jesus, we trust that when we live a life of prayer, when we join with others in Christian community, and when we live into our respective ministries to others, God will continue the transformation God began in us. Is such a life easy? If it were, these pews would be filled to overflowing. No, it takes courage, grit, and determination to admit that we need God’s transformative power and to let God into our self-centered lives.
John Smylie tells the story of a teen whose parents had divorced.3 Like many children of divorced parents he had shuffled back and forth between their respective houses, angry at both of them and secretly wishing they would get back together. When his mother remarried, he was even angrier, and especially at his stepfather. Two years after his mother remarried, when he was fifteen, some friends invited him to come to a Happening, a special weekend for teens that helps them go deeper in their relationship with God. When he came home from the weekend, he was tired, but excited, and he bubbled over telling his mother and stepfather about all the wonderful experiences he had had. Then he said to his stepfather, “There’s something I’ve got to tell you, but I’m not ready to tell you right at this moment.” His stepfather replied, “Whenever you are ready I’m here to listen to you.” Three days later, when the stepfather was beginning to wonder when he might hear the rest of the story, the boy declared he was ready to speak. They went where they could be alone. The boy held his head down and struggled to speak. Finally, close to tears, he said, “You know, when you married my mom, that was really hard for me. I want my mom to be happy, but it was really hard to have you come into my life and my family. What I realized over the weekend was that God has brought you to my life.” Stunned and unable himself to speak, the stepfather received the boy’s gracious words and embraced him.
This is the good news: when we look at Jesus, when we listen to him, God’s grace transforms us. God’s grace enables us to live a cross-shaped life, connected both to God and to our neighbors. My brothers and sisters, as we look towards Ash Wednesday, Lent, and Good Friday, we can trust that by God’s grace we will share Christ’s life and be truly transformed into his likeness.
1. The Song of the Bird (New York: Doubleday, 1982), 16.
2. William Barclay, The Gospel of Mark (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1956), 220, quoted in David E. Leininger, Tales for the Pulpit (Lima, OH: CSS, 2009), 80.
3. "Transforming Light,” Lectionary Stories for Preaching and Teaching Cycle C (Lima, OH: CSS, 2012), 45-47
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