Transforming our LIves

Raphael's Transfiguration

As winter changes to spring, the Lenten season calls for a similar change within ourselves: letting our life be transformed into a more God-centered, other-centered life.

Last Sunday, we were in the wilderness, in the presence of Jesus and the tempter. This Sunday we are on a mountaintop contemplating Jesus and his transfiguration.

But first, the word of God takes us back almost four thousand years. Because Abraham trusted God completely, he set out for an unknown land. Many of us can relate to this: going to a new place? A new job? You may have been anxious. I’m sure Abraham was. Yet he trusted in God's unconditional love. God calls us to be people of faith, as we journey through happy days and uncertain days to our heavenly dwelling place.

Paul’s letter to Timothy speaks about God’s tremendous love for us. God became one of us in Jesus so that we could become like God. Paul urges us to live a holy life now. Yes, “Let us go forth to love and serve God.”

In the Gospel according to Matthew, the disciples experienced the unique and awesome presence of God in Jesus. As described, Jesus’s face became as dazzling as the sun, his clothes as white as light, an allusion to the tunic early Christians wore after they were baptized. The disciples glimpsed the “glorious” Jesus beyond the flesh and blood Jesus they knew. They also saw their own future in the transfigured Jesus.

Jesus lived by faith, completely trusting in God's unconditional love for him. That faith made Jesus a transformative person, ushering in the kingdom of God. That faith was tested to the breaking point on the cross. Jesus surrendered himself unconditionally. He died as he lived: with faith in his heavenly Father, with hope of life forever. In the mystery of death God transfigured Jesus into a new kind of spiritual embodiment.

And just as Jesus became a transformative person ushering in the kingdom of God, Jesus calls us to become transformative people. As co-workers with God, we have to do our best to transform injustice and prejudice into fairness and tolerance; to transform hate into peace, indifference into compassion, sorrow into joy and despair into hope.  Yes, we have to transform self-centeredness into other-centeredness so that God, like the risen Christ, can transfigure us into a new spiritual embodiment.

Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz recognized that attitude determines how well one performs any task. One of his many pointers: “Set goals at every stage in life and work hard to achieve them. When negative thoughts arise, start thinking, ‘I can.’ It works better than ‘I can't.’ "

Surely that can-do attitude helps the Grand Prix race drivers in St. Petersburg this coming weekend.

For Lent, let us be transformative: forgiving those it’s hard to forgive; exercising compassion and mercy; making peace; caring for those in need; carrying our crosses; persevering when we are exhausted; and loving when the last thing we can muster is love. Amen.

With Eyes of Faith

Christ Calling  his First Disciples by Adam Brenner

Isaiah, Paul and Jesus each had faith in an all-good sovereign God.

Sunday's first scripture reading takes us back to the eighth century before Jesus (the 700s). Isaiah speaks about the future: a great light, a king, will illuminate the darkness. This king will trust completely in God. Isaiah challenges us to trust always in God’s unconditional love. God is always close to us.

Paul, in his letter to the Christian community at Corinth in Greece, deplores the divisions that seem to be tearing the early Church apart. He begs for unity in the community in light of their common bond as God's adopted sons and daughters. It doesn’t appear we Christians see ourselves as one family.

In the Gospel according to Matthew, the author proclaims that Jesus is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecies. Jesus is the anointed one, the Christos, who will bring light into our darkness by proclaiming the good news: Jesus, the God-man, is gloriously alive. Jesus exhorts us to orient our lives to God! The kingdom of heaven is at hand!

And then Jesus begins to call some unlikely people to discipleship. These folks experienced, at some privileged moment, an overwhelming sense of the divine in Jesus. They recognized with the eyes of faith what lay beneath and beyond the immediate appearance, i.e., the reality of God in Jesus the Christ. And we see that too with eyes of faith.

Our faith, a gift from God, empowers us to relate to God. It answers fundamental questions: Who really am I? What on earth am I here for? Faith calls us to commit ourselves to Jesus Christ: our way to eternal life, our truth who sets us free and our light who illuminates the darkness around us as we journey toward our heavenly home. Faith is about connectedness to a person.

Belief, on the other hand, is a profession of essential truths. We say in the Nicene Creed from the 4th century: I believe in one God, despite many who question God’s existence. Yes, we say: our God is almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all visible and invisible. Someone completely other and completely beyond ourselves; One who is the cause for all creation: God, Father Almighty.

And yes, we believe in one lord, Jesus Christ, who for us and for our salvation came down from heaven and became flesh, one of us. Jesus for our sake – “as a ransom” -- was crucified, died, and rose again to life.

Yes, we believe in the Holy Spirit, the lord, the giver of life. The power of the Spirit is within us, enabling us to live a life worthy of our calling.

And we believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic community. We acknowledge one baptism and look toward the resurrection and the life to come.

The Nicene Creed underscores the essential content of our faith. May our faith help us to find purpose in life and lead us on into our heavenly dwelling place.

Service and Sacrifice

Here Rests in Honored Glory an American Soldier Known but to God

This Sunday is Veterans Day. One hundred years ago, at the 11^th hour on the 11^th day of the 11^th month, the first World War ended. Irving Berlin, a Russian immigrant, became a U.S. citizen that year and composed the great hymn/prayer God Bless America in 1918.

Today we honor all of our Veterans for their service and sacrifice.

The word of God today coincidentally challenges us to trust God and to be generous. A non-Jew or so-called Gentile is down to her last handful of flour and a tiny bit of oil. Then Elijah asks for a bit of bread. Elijah asks her: trust in God. The woman has a dilemma. Trust and hospitality win; the widow gives all she has to Elijah. And miraculously, she has a never-ending supply. That truly was a great act of faith in God's providence.

In the Gospel, we hear of a widow who put her last two coins, a small sum, into the Temple treasury. Jesus comments that, in contrast to those who gave from their surplus, she gave “all she had to live on.” A great act of faith in God's providence.

The author of Hebrews speaks about the superiority of Jesus’s sacrifice to the many sacrifices in the Temple. Jesus through his death and resurrection opens up to humankind eternal life.

I remembered a newspaper photographer sharing a scene after a devastating earthquake. A long line of people waited for food. Finally, only one banana was left. A girl divided it into three parts for three other children, and she licked the inside of that banana peel. “In that moment I swear I saw the face of God!” wrote the photographer.

Yes, the word of God challenges us to ask ourselves: do we reveal the face of God to one another? As missionary disciples of Jesus, we ought to show the face of God every day, especially living the beatitudes that Matthew sums up so splendidly in Chapter 5 of his Gospel. I would like to think Jesus would say this about us.

If you’re working to pay the bills but making time to be with your children, blessed are you. You may never own a big vacation home, but heaven will be yours.

If you happily give your time to serve, and befriend the unpopular, the lost, blessed are you. Count God among your friends.

If you are overwhelmed caring for an ill relative, blessed are you. One day your sorrow will be transformed into joy.

If you refuse to compromise your integrity and ethics, refuse to rationalize that “everyone does it,” blessed are you – you will triumph.

If you try to understand others and make things work for the good, if you listen and console, if you manage to heal wounds and build bridges; if you can see the good in everyone and seek the good for everyone: rejoice and be glad. Jesus says you are the blessed of God. In the end, heaven is yours.