February 25, 2018

2nd Sunday of Lent B Genesis 22: 1-32, 9, 10-13,15-18; Romans 8: 31-34; Mark 9: 2-10 We have some powerful readings today on this Second week of our Lenten journey. We start out with Abraham who is presented with a most difficult situation by God to sacrifice his son Isaac. The penetrating question that comes to each of us would be: How far would I go to express my love for God? I always wondered if I would have enough faith to live in the early Church and admit that I was a Christian when faced with the prospect of death? In my high school years I was fascinated with the North American martyrs, Frs. Jean de Brebeuf and Isaac Jogues. They faced cruel deaths at the hands of the Hurons and Iroquois, could I do the same? I’m not faced with these situations, but I am faced in admitting and living as a follower and a believer in Jesus. Do I live this? How can I live these remaining Lenten days to build up my faith and my love for the Lord? The readings help me today. It is very important to take time and read Abraham’s whole story. It is not long, it takes up part of 14 chapters and 15 pages. It can be read in about thirty minutes. He is the father of our faith, wouldn’t this be a valuable exercise? The whole story of Abraham including the sacrificing of his son, Isaac is set within the context of God’s promise. God has promised Abraham that he will take possession of a great land, be blessed with countless descendants and become a very great nation. A number of times Abraham wonders if this will ever happen, yet he never wavers. In fact when God calls on Abraham today he responds, “Here I am!” At first sight we can just pass over this phrase and continue on. Yet when God called to Moses from the burning bush, Moses responded in the same way, “Here I am!” (Exodus 3: 4) Also God called out to the young apprentice Samuel three times before he responded, ‘Here I am!” (Samuel 3: 4-11) Finally realizing that it was God calling he responded, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” Centuries later, Isaiah responded to God’s appeal, “ Whom shall I send? Who will go for us? ‘Here I am, send me!’” (Isaiah 6: 8-9) In Hebrew the word is Hineni which means ‘Here I am’. But you have to watch out how you say it, because it is a way of expressing absolute total readiness to give of oneself. I am making myself totally available. Am I ready for this commitment? I remember in my youth Mom asking me to do something…I’m not sure that I jumped up and responded immediately more than a handful of times and probably only when Dad was present. Abraham today is responding appropriately to God’s call…His wish should be our command. Is it? When God asks, He tells what He is going to do. He did this continually in the covenants we read about in the Old Testament. The beautiful and powerful Psalm 46, David shares how God is totally available to us. He includes in verse 11 these words, “…Who says: ‘Be still and confess that I am God!’” This is a statement from God of all that He does. It can so easily be turned into a question, Do I confess and live that God is my God? This calls for love, my total attention, devotion and response. This is my call this week of Lent. God is totally devoted to me. Do I give my unconditional devotion to God? Am I available to people He places in my life? Do I respond all the time…or only when it is convenient? Do I wait to hear God’s specific call or am I ready to do His will as a matter of habit? Here I am, Lord! Send me! We come to Paul’s greatest chapter on what it means to be a Christian in Romans 8. He explains that like Abraham, God “…did not spare His own Son but handed Him over for us all…” God did this for us so that we do not have any reason to fear. Jesus has conquered fear and death. As a result there is absolutely nothing that can separate me or anyone from God’s love. Do I spend too much time in feeling sorry for myself or do I let God’s love totally permeate me, as He intends it? Do I turn to God for the help I need daily or do I feel that God is too busy for me? Do I feel that I have to do something special in my Lenten ‘doing’s to merit God’s love? God is love, do I let Him be ‘love’ to me? Do I say, like Peter, that it is good that I am on this Lenten journey so I can be with the Lord and know that the Lord is with me? And God says, This is My beloved Son. Listen to Him.” The chosen apostles looked around and no longer saw anyone but Jesus …”alone with them.” This says volumes to me, God is always with me. Jesus is with me in His life examples and teaching. The Spirit is with me helping me, urging me on to respond with the love and gifts the Spirit has blessed and provided me with so that I can ‘be Jesus.’ How can we sum up these readings today? Like Samuel who finally listened to God…and God is telling us to listen to His Son, a response is asked, really demanded. Am I listening? God desires our total trust and willingness to follow Him. God provides all that I need, and what each person needs. ‘The will of God will never take me where the grace of God will not protect me.’ I am asked to trust God, believing that God knows best, even when I suffer my aches and pains…my disappointments and crises, or whatever comes. God is with me. Am I ever going to understand the why’s of my life? It will all make sense when we come before the Lord. Am I ever going to be totally prepared for all that happens in my life? On my own, No. With God and trusting in His total presence, love and care, Always. All we have to do is to look at our lives. How often have those ‘special people’ in my life transformed despair into hope, sadness into joy, anguish into healing, estrangement into loving relationships? This is not a hopeless dreams, this has happened, repeatedly. Love that calls us beyond ourselves is transforming. The challenge of our call as disciples is to ‘allow that love to ‘transfigure’ our lives and our world into God’s love. In the Transfiguration, the disciples were told to keep this event quiet until Jesus had risen from the dead. They didn’t know He would die. They certainly didn’t know about the cross and His excruciating suffering. They didn’t compare this to ‘carrying their own crosses daily’. So I reflect on: • What am I willing to stand up for? • What values and beliefs are important enough to me, not just to die for, but to live for? • What crosses am I willing to take up? • Do these include ridicule, isolation and rejection? Connections a newsletter on the Gospels sums up, “God is not an abstract concept but a reality to be lived. Easter calls us to trust in the reality of God’s compassion and mercy that is vindicated in the crosses we refuse to lay down, but take up in the sure and certain hope that they can be the means to peace and reconciliation in our homes and hearts.” Sacred Space 2018 states: “In our journey to God, we have peak moments, when the ground is holy. Like Peter, we want them to last forever. But Jesus brings us down the mountain and prepares us for the hard times ahead, during which we live on the memory of brief transfigurations. Can I recall any of my peak moments? There was glory in this experience, but also fear. I want God’s presence and revelation, but am I willing to stand in places that are unfamiliar to me?