Second Sunday of Lent: It is good for us to be here
March 8, 2010
I was away on business most of this last week. There were long days, restaurant food, hotel rooms and taxis. When I drove back home after landing at the Edmonton airport, I could just feel my body relax as I drove into the driveway. It was good to be back home. You’ve probably had the same kind of feeling after you got back from vacation, whether it was visiting friends or family, or some exotic place. It’s always good to be back home.
In the Gospel story today we heard about the Transfiguration. Jesus took his closest apostles up a mountain and was transformed right in front of them. And he was talking to Moses and Elijah – people they’d heard about from the time they were little boys. And what did Peter say: “Master, it is good for us to be here.” Despite what must have been a scary experience, they knew there was something special about this place and this event. They wanted to be there, and they wanted to stay.
Remember that the apostles didn’t have a 9 to 5 job. They didn’t go home and sleep in their own beds every night. Remember the passage from Matthew’s Gospel, where a scribe came up to Jesus and said: “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” I think the apostles would have been happy for a Motel 6 some restaurant food.
Think about their reaction. “Let’s build a tent – heck, let’s build three tents. Let’s stay a while. It’s good for us to be here.” We need places like that – places where we feel comfortable, places where we feel safe, especially when things are difficult.
In the first reading, we heard God talking to Abram (before God changed his name to Abraham). And what was Abram asking God for? He wanted a child, but he also wanted land. He wanted a place that he could call home. And God said that he would give him land. But it was important enough that Abram asked God, almost challenged God: “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess [this land]?” And then we hear the eerie description of how God sealed his covenant with Abram, with a flaming torch mysteriously passing between the animals that were cut in two and lying on the ground. And then God said to Abram: “To your descendants I give this land…” They would have a home.
St. Paul was also taking to the Philippians about their home, but this was a different kind of home. He was encouraging them to be faithful to the teachings they heard from him, so they would have an eternal home. And after criticizing people who worried only about earthly things (I love it when he says: “Their god is the belly.”), he says to them: “But our citizenship is in heaven.” So it’s there that we will ultimately be at home. He knew the Philippians were having difficulties when they followed his teachings, and encouraged them to support one another. “Stand firm,” he said. And when he spoke of citizenship, he was recognizing them as a community – a unified group of worshipers.
I’m sure many of you saw Joannie Rochette skate for her bronze medal on Thursday night. I don’t know about you, but there were no dry eyes in our house. This young woman whose mother had died just days earlier performed magnificently, especially under the circumstances. But did you hear in her interview afterward – just a short interview – the person from CTV asked her about what it had been like practicing over the last couple of days. She said that she actually felt good being on the ice. She was in a place that felt comfortable. She could focus on the sport she knew and loved, and she was surrounded by friends – supported by her friends – the community of skaters.
When Deacon Michael Schumacher spoke to us during our Lenten mission, he talked about our parish as a community, and we often use the term “our parish family.” When you come to Mass on the weekend, do you say to yourself: “It is good for me to be here?” You should! When the apostles witnessed the Transfiguration of Jesus, they knew they were seeing something amazing, and the Gospel gives us the impression that they were almost in a trance as they watched. Some people call it the “trance figuration” when they try to describe it from the perspective of Peter, James, and John. Well, we see something equally amazing every time we come to Mass. We see simple bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus. But we also have that experience of community – of family. The kind of experience that made the apostles want to build tents, and stay a while.
My job has taken me away from home for a couple of weekends recently. I’ve attended Mass in a church in Austin, Texas, and a beautiful little church just outside of Miami, Florida. And it was great being at Mass. I’m always a bit amazed that wherever I go, the Mass is familiar, and that’s comforting. But I also realized when I attended Mass in these other places that I really missed you guys, and I missed Father Paul, and I missed Miguel. We have something wonderful here. Something that should make us all build a tent and stay a while.
The season of Lent is a difficult time. We make our own lives difficult with the things we give up and the extra things that we do during Lent. And Lent also reminds us of our sinfulness, the responsibility that each of us has for the crucifixion. And in a couple of weeks we’ll confront our role in these events in a dramatic way when we hear the reading of the Passion on Palm Sunday and on Good Friday.
It’s these times that should bring us together as a community. Our parish, this church, should be a place where we feel safe – at home – despite the challenges that the world gives us or the challenges we give ourselves.
We are a family, and it is good for us to be here.
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