Seeing the transfigured Christ in others
Third Sunday of Lent (A) 20.3.2011
In some ways, we are very lucky preachers. you provide us with a full church, a captive congregation, an appreciative audience. In some ways you are very lucky punters. We think up ideas to provoke you, stories to intrigue you, gimmicks to shock you. And we end up preaching ourselves, we end up avoiding Jesus.
When they raised their eyes, they saw no one but only Jesus. Why is it then that we see everything except Jesus? Why are we embarrassed by Jesus? I can remember once hitch-hiking as an undergraduate. What are you studying? asked the driver. Theology I answered. Oh I’m a born again Christian he replied. No, I corrected, I said Geology. We divert conversations away from too personal an approach to Jesus, We prefer to talk about faith, about the spiritual life, about God in fairly general terms – and yet, our faith is called Christianity, The first Christians were inspired not by ideals or philosophy but by a person. They talked in unabashed terms about their Lord, Jesus, the Christ.I know there is a danger of reducing Jesus to a little toy.
I don’t care if it rains or freezes, long as I got my plastic Jesus, sitting on the dashboard of my car.
We recoil from too much talk about Jesus because it seems too limiting. In a world of earthquakes and tsunamis, of revolts and no-fly zones, uncertainties in the Middle East, disasters in the Far East, in a world of economic recession, of massive anxiety, it seems daft for me to stand up here and talk about one man. Our world is too complex to be reduced to one man. And so we put Jesus to one side, with great respect, and affection, turning to him in the sacraments, in times of crisis, perhaps in times of joy, rites of passage, hatch, match and dispatch, but in day to day life, he is not really enough.
From the cloud there came a voice - this is my Son, the beloved, listen to him.
What an extraordinary claim that we should listen to just one man, that the enormity of the universe, the particularity of my life, can be made sense of by one person, the strangest of people, thousands of years ago, thousands of miles away. In the romantic comedies of Hollywood the hero searches for the one, the one destined for them, the one to satisfy their deepest longings, their soulmate, their lifelong partner - and, of course, in the films they find the one. The more pragmatic and sceptical among you will dismiss this as the stuff of fiction. Life is about learning to get on with what is in front of you, not dreaming about what might be in front of you,
If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.
And yet, what if our longing for the one is not just a misplaced desire doomed to frustration, what if it is a sign, like our hunger for food, a pointer to what we need, to what can be found. Jesus is not limiting, he is a person who leads you out beyond yourself, to understand, to see, to experience, that this world is not 'just there', is not random, is not futile, but comes from him, the Word, the means by which the world is created. And goes to him, the destination, the fullness of what it means to be human.
And, to find him, you do not have to shut your eyes, block out everything around you, establish some sort of connection with an invisible, celestial figure somehow floating around, waiting for your heavenly FaceBook poke? Stand up, look up – he is here, calling to you. Here in the sound of the gospel, here in the embrace of your neighbour, here in the dryness of bread, the warmth of wine. It is the same call that went to Abram: leave what is familiar, what is comfortable, for a country I will show you. Take up your cross and follow me, and he will be there, waiting for you, in unexpected people, in surprising situations, in your annoying classmates, your frustrating brethren, your dreadful in-laws. Stand up, do not be afraid. When they raised their eyes they saw no one but only Jesus.
Fr Chad Boulton OSB