Homily for the week of March 20, 2011

Second Sunday of Lent, 2011

Genesis 12:1-4a

Psalm 33:4-5, 18-19, 20, 22

2 Timothy 1:8b-10

Matthew 17:1-9

The word obey from gives each one of us a set of experiences and emotions. To obey means to comply with the wishes, requests or commands of another person or law. To many it means to comply with the requests of others such as our father or mother or teacher. We have to behave in a special way. The word obey comes from the the word obedience which means to listen intently and understand. But obedience is much more than submitting to what another person wants us to do. It is an act of our will. We must want to do a certain thing or action. Being truly obedient is a wilful response. It is a response of love. No matter how young or old we are, most persons at one time or other are “hard of hearing. “ We refuse to hear, and are disobedient. But if we all decided not to obey we can imagine the confusion and destruction all around us.

Being a Catholic means that we have personally decided to obey Jesus Christ and his teachings. Our Catholic religion revolves around one event, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ which is what Lent is all about. Everything we think and believe about God always has to be with this event in mind. Jesus was obedient to God’s will. During Lent we are called to observe Jesus’ act of obedience. He listened to the Father intently and did not merely submit to God’s will. He lovingly embraced it.

Our first reading today gives us a summary of the story of Abraham. It is a story of trust and obedience. Abraham listened to a God he did not know, and he listened so intently to this God that he heard, understood, trusted and obeyed.

Consider the depth of trust that was required of Abraham. Because Abram lived in a patriarchal society, he lived in the home of his father. No son ever left this home. Who you were, your whole sense of self, was rooted in this sense of ancestry and family. To leave would be social suicide or a suicide of personal identity. Further, people at the time believed that gods were attached to a specific land. If you left the land, your god did not follow. If you left your land, the land of your gods, you adopted the gods of the new land in which you chose to live. God, who was heretofore unknown, reached out to Abraham and asked him to leave the land of his ancestors and his gods. Abraham’s encounter with God had to have been powerful, for Abram did what everyone else thought to be unthinkable: he trusted and obeyed this strange God!

Even when we are young and able, few of us are willing to leave our family and friends to start over. The Bible tells us that Abram was 75, an age when most people are looking at the last stage of their life, not starting a new one. We know how frightening it is for older parents to leave their homes and friends to move to a strange city even when they are going to a city with their children who love them! What Abram did was simply too frightening, too risky.

At first glance our first reading from the book of Genesis seems to be all about Abram, but it is not. It actually reveals a lot about God. Unlike the gods of Abram’s youth who demanded “Obey or else!” our God’s request to trust and obey is a request made out of love. Our God seeks more than submission; He seeks loving obedience: Obey because we are loved. Obey because to do so is to return God’s love. We can also look at what God offered Abram in return. The greatest promise to Abram’s thinking was to have many descendants in order to continue his family, his tribe.

The Gospel passage that I just read is known as the Transfiguration story of Jesus. Transfiguration is a religious word that means a CHANGE IN APPEARANCE. On the mountain Jesus saw the cross on which he would be nailed, and he prayed that God would change his mind. But in the end he accepted the plan of God.

We catch a glimpse of the glory of Jesus. We see Jesus flanked by Moses and Elijah, famous persons that lived thousands of years before Jesus. We are called to listen to them intently and respond.

Each of us have transforming events in our lives. Some of these may bring darkness and anxiety into our lives. It may news of a severe illness, or the death of a loved one, or some personal or family crisis. It also could be an event like someone telling us they are sorry after years of denial, or someone returning to the practice of their Catholic faith after being away from the church for years. Each of us have such happenings. Sometimes our human plans, no matter how good or worthwhile we might think they are must step aside for God’s plans in our lives. We must obey Jesus when he invites us to climb the mountain with him. But we must stay on the mountain top forever. We must go into our world without fear sharing with others what our faith means to us.