Homily for 2d Sunday of Lent

Homily for the
2d Sunday of Lent

March 8, 2020

Gen 12: 1-4

Matt 17: 1-9

Holy Name of Jesus, Valhalla, N.Y.

“Abram went as the Lord directed him” (Gen 12:4).

Abram's journey (Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione)

Abram—whom the Lord will later rename Abraham (ch. 17)—appears quite suddenly in the narratives of sacred history, and the 1st thing we hear of him is God’s command that he should pack up and move—move his family and his servants; move his flocks and herds, his tents, and his household goods; move from his father’s house and country in northern Mesopotamia (what is now northern Iraq) and away from the gods of that land; move into a new land; move into a relationship with a new God who promises him blessings of family, territory, and heritage—all of that unseen and unknown.

“Abram went as the Lord directed him.”  He went without a roadmap or, as far as we know, an advanced scouting of the route and destination; he went only with the Lord who was beginning to reveal himself to him and to establish a relationship destined to change not only Abram but the rest of humanity as well:  “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.  All the communities of the earth shall find blessing in you” (12:3).

And so God began the long process of redeeming mankind after our sins of disobedience and arrogance, like the one described in last week’s 1st reading (Gen 2:7-9; 3:1-7), as well as in the stories that follow it in Genesis.

That long process of redemption culminated in the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, foreshadowed in today’s gospel.  Jesus tells his 3 closest disciples not to speak of his transfiguration “until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead” (Matt 17:9), a command implying his suffering and death—which he explicitly predicted to the 12 on other occasions—and foretelling his resurrection, as his transfiguration foretold his glorification and his fulfillment of all the promises God made thru the Law and the prophets.

Jesus was able to effect our redemption because he was the Father’s beloved Son (17:5), a Son completely obedient, who listened to the Father in everything he did, from his birth thru his public ministry to his passion.  He “went as the Lord directed him,” and so he became the source of blessing for all of humanity, completing what had begun with Abram some 2,000 years earlier.

In the vision, Peter, James, and John were instructed, “Listen to him” (17:5), to Jesus the beloved Son.  This becomes their command, and our command, to leave their homeland and their familiar world, not in a geographical sense like Abram but in a spiritual sense.  It’s a call to conversion, to a change of interior attitude, a change of orientation in their life.  It’s a much bigger challenge than the one given to Abram.

The apostles had to be converted from their material, earth-centered way of thinking, from arguing among themselves about who was most important, from asking what power and wealth they might gain from following Jesus, from limiting the forgiveness they might extend to those who offended them, from lack of concern for the welfare of their non-Jewish neighbors, from their own fears of suffering and death.  Except for Judas, who couldn’t overcome his own covetousness and ambition, by the grace of God and by their experience of Jesus risen from the dead, they were converted and were ready to “bear [their] share of hardship for the Gospel with the strength that comes from God” (2 Tim 1:8); were ready to go forth from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth “as the Lord directed” them with the Good News that “our savior Christ Jesus [had] destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light thru the Gospel” (1:10).

As I said, the command to listen to Jesus, God’s beloved Son, is our command too.  In this season of Lent, this season of repentance and conversion, what is Jesus commanding us to be converted from, what sin to turn away from?  Is it something in our family relationships, some form of selfish or overbearing behavior toward a spouse, a child, a parent?  Is it a habit of fudging the truth, of laziness at work or school, of pornography, of wasting time on the internet or with video games?  Is it an invitation from Jesus to spend more time with him in prayer or reading the Scriptures, or to pray together as a family?  Is Jesus challenging us to return to the sacrament of Reconciliation (and to make a habit of frequent confession and spiritual guidance)?  Is Jesus challenging us to take this year’s elections seriously from the perspective of our Catholic faith?

For sure, we can’t listen to God’s beloved Son Jesus if we’re not meeting him regularly in the Scriptures and in personal prayer and the sacraments.  In the collect of today’s Mass, in fact, we prayed that God the Father would “nourish us inwardly by [his] word” and purify our spiritual sight.  That prayer and purification will lead us to the joy of beholding God’s glory, not just temporarily like Peter, James, and John atop that high mountain—but forever alongside our risen Lord Jesus Christ.