Commentary

I. Theme – We should trust in God’s covenants

“ Fox and the Hen”

The lectionary readings are here  or individually:

Old Testament – Genesis 15:1-12,17-18 Psalm – Psalm 27 Epistle – Philippians 3:17-4:1 Gospel – Luke 13:31-35

Today’s readings invite us to trust in God’s covenant promises. Each of the readings speaks about a future, a not yet. This week, try letting your heart break for the world in a new way, knowing that God will transfigure and transform every valley, every sorrow, and every cross knowing that God. is already doing to transfigure despair into hope, mourning into dancing, hate into love. Let your goal in your prayers this week be to deepen both your compassion for the world and your trust in God’s transforming presence all around.

Abraham’s involves continuation of the tribe and of the name, and of the covenant.  His confidence in the lord’s promise is counted as righteousness. Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, trusts in the coming of the Savior and the transformation of our bodies.    Paul wants his readers to be tied to the future that is the Kingdom of Heaven, and the future of Jesus is the future of the true prophet who delivers God’s final word on what will be. The gospel reminds us that although God’s covenant promises are for everyone, nevertheless our effort is required if we are to participate.

While Advent calls us to awareness, awakening and alertness, Lent helps us appreciate the cloud, the shadow, the wisdom of deep sleep. God’s covenant with Abram is not forged beneath the brilliant blaze of noon but in a deep and terrifying darkness, after the sun has set. That such an important event should happen at night prompts us to question our usual assumptions that everything good occurs in the light.

Jesus introduces another puzzle when he implies that the order of sanctity may not be as rigid as we might think. “Indeed, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.” He turns this twist into a concrete example in his lament over Jerusalem: site of the magnificent temple. To his listeners, it’s grandeur must seem close to heaven. Yet it is the city that kills the prophets; it will be the scene of his death.

Furthermore, the people most revered in that society, its religious leaders and scholars, wait outside a closed door, seething in bitterness and frustration. Because they have rejected Jesus’ overtures, they have missed their chance to enjoy the banquet of God’s reign.

The question must come to our minds as it did to Jesus’ first hearers. If the elite don’t get in, who does? Perhaps those who are willing to be gathered like chicks, those who admit their vulnerability, those who do not pride themselves on their virtue, those who know they don’t have a corner on truth.

As we grow in loving God, we become more skeptical of the idols that compete for our loyalty. When bureaucrats are inefficient and heroes corrupt, when the traffic is crazy, when time and energy dribble away, when we lose our favorite project, our finest self or our dearest love, when the oppressors triumph, the greedy profit and the innocent are bludgeoned, then we remember Paul’s claim that “our citizenship is in heaven.”

Too much is awry in this world to ever claim it for permanent residence or lasting citizenship. Knowing that the terrestrial stakes are small and the earthly city doesn’t last forever helps us “stand firm in the lord” as Paul would have the Philippians do.

So do not lose heart, as we are reminded in 2 Corinthians. Lent is a journey, and our spiritual lives are a journey. We do not see the end but we know the way we are going. Living for Christ means living for others and not for ourselves. Living for Christ means following God’s ways of love and justice and seeking justice for others. Living for Christ means knowing that the way of this world—to put ourselves first, to seek earthly success and gain, to “have it all”—means to lose it all in the end. Living for Christ means we trust in God, we trust in the hope of God for us, as Abraham and Sarah did so long ago, as Jesus taught us, and as the psalmists sang and Paul preached—we know we shall see the goodness of God in our lives, and we share that hope with others.

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Today where sun rises on hills of fresh sorrow tomorrow where stars set upon fields of old pain we will do the day’s work to bring comfort and healing for this is Christ’s labour, fulfilled the third day

Today where souls suffer, despairing and fearful tomorrow where whole lives are crushed under strain we will do the day’s work to bring peace, to bring courage for this is Christ’s labour, fulfilled the third day

Today where the parched and scarred earth yields no bounty tomorrow where war-weary ground gives no grain we will do the day’s work to bring hope to the hungry for this is Christ’s labour, fulfilled the third day

Today where the foxes of evil still threaten tomorrow where tenderness so often is maimed we will do the day’s work to bring love and compassion for this is Christ’s labour, fulfilled the third day

Today where the forces of greed rule the kingdoms tomorrow where powers of death hold their sway we will do the day’s work to bring justice and caring for we are Christ’s labour, fulfilled the third day

– Andrew King

Dr. Kathy Bozzuti-Jones, Trinity NY. Image “Mother Hen. Mosaic, Jerusalem”. Unknown

“In a striking woman-centered image of God, Luke’s Gospel invites us to contemplate Jesus as a mother hen, gathering her chicks under her wings in a loving, maternal, and open-hearted posture of mercy. But her children will not come home to her for shelter. And, by referring to Herod — an icon for the murderous powers of death — as a fox, this vulnerable hen, bereft and struggling with failure, declares that it will not run away. Jesus digs in, defiantly. He is resolved to move toward Herod and into Jerusalem for the completion of his saving work of healing and deliverance — his fiercely compassionate mission from God — despite all impending threats. Jesus must be on his way, now, even as he laments his certain rejection: Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills prophets.”

Questions for reflection:

“Does this caring, protective image of God confirm or expand your own image of God? Might it be a powerful image for our times? What does it say about the Christian call to radical vulnerability? What other images of God help you to understand God’s mercy and care, in this moment?”

I. Theme – How we can be empowered by our relationship with God 

“ The Transfiguration ” – Fra Angelico (1440-1442)

“About eight days after Peter had acknowledged Jesus as the Christ of God, Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white.” –Luke 9:28:29

The lectionary readings are here  or individually: 

Old Testament – Exodus 34:29-35
Psalm – Psalm 99
Epistle – 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2
Gospel – Luke 9:28-36, [37-43a]     

Today’s readings help us see how we can be empowered by our relationship to God. The Gospels speak about experiences with God and Jesus. In Exodus, we witness the physical transformation of Moses after spending time in God’s presence. In 2 Corinthians, Paul speaks of being transformed into the likeness of God. In the gospel, Jesus is transformed, his glory revealed and his mission affirmed by a voice from heaven. Ultimately the disciples will need transformation also.

The season after the Epiphany concludes with one of the most powerful epiphanies of all – the Transfiguration. This story comes at the center of Luke’s story, between Jesus’ baptism and his resurrection.

Luke’s account of the transfiguration points back to Old Testament parallels and forward to Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension. As is such it brings in a new dimension of Jesus and a new relationship that the disciples would have with him. Their experience so far has been of Jesus the teacher, the healer, the miracle-worker. Now they are seeing a new vision of Jesus, a new understanding of him as the Christ – as one who would venture to Jerusalem , be killed but then resurrected .

They are still not on board. Peter, however, still wants to avoid the difficulty of the journey to Jerusalem and its ultimate consequences. The mission of Jesus is not about worshipping at shrines or even the practice of religion. The mission of Jesus is about death and resurrection.

The disciples found the journey in the beginning was easier—they left everything to follow him, and to follow meant to learn his teachings and to live his ways. But now the journey will become much harder

Even faithful Christians wonder if God is absent at times, or busy somewhere else. Massive evil, brutal violence and rampant greed seem to smother any slight glimmers of spirituality. Luke’s audience may have had similar concerns, so he stresses for them the necessity of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and eventual passion there. The transfiguration offers the disciples an experience of hope and confidence that will sustain them while they wait for Jesus to return.

As Christ laid down his life for us, so we are called to give of our life to him, to give up being first, to give up our wants and desires to serve others. And like Christ, we will be called to give all for the sake of God’s love of the world. How do we live this transfiguration in our lives? How do we share what our faith means to us? It is more than a conversation that can be controversial. This is our very lives. Do we let it shine, or do we hold it back? Do we still misunderstand? How will you live out your faith differently this Lenten season?

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1.  Transfiguration is transformation. No one and no situation is "untransfigurable" – Dawn Hutchings

In his book, God Has A Dream: A Vision of Home for Our Time, Desmond Tutu tells about a transfiguration experience that he will never forget. It occurred when apartheid was still in full swing. Tutu and other church leaders were preparing for a meeting with the prime minister of South Africa to discuss the troubles that were destroying their nation. They met at a theological college that had closed down because of the white government’s racist policies. During a break from the proceedings, Tutu walked into the college’s garden for some quiet time. In the midst of the garden was a huge wooden cross. As Tutu looked at the barren cross, he realized that it was winter, a time when the grass was pale and dry, a time when almost no one could imagine that in a few short weeks it would be lush, green, and beautiful again. In a few short weeks, the grass and all the surrounding world would be transfigured.  

As the archbishop sat there and pondered that, he obtained a new insight into the power of transfiguration, of God’s ability to transform our world. Tutu concluded that transfiguration means that no one and no situation is “untransfigurable.” The time will eventually come when the whole world will be released from its current bondage and brought to share in the glorious liberty that God intends.

2.  Transfiguration emphasizes the mission of Jesus -that the way of Jesus is the way of the cross

A. Travis Meir

"Jesus’ ministry continues with the trip back down the mountain. He will not take Peter’s advice and stay on the mountaintop. The mountaintop was a vision of the glory of God, but it is not to be confused with the way of the cross, the true ministry of Jesus. Jesus is to be found where the people are, leaning into their needs, and giving life back to those on the margins.  

The disciples do not understand this, and will not understand it until they here the message from the young man at the tomb, delivered by the women. “He has been raised…Go back to Galilee..he is going ahead of you to Galilee (16:6-7).” That is where the ministry of the kingdom of God continues to unfold" 

B. Lawrence  "Disclosing New Worlds"

 The shadow of the cross hangs over the narrative. And it is the cross, not the resurrection, which is emphasised here on the mountain… the Transfiguration is different from what most of us have been brought up to believe since we coloured in our first picture of the event in Sunday School. This is not a moment of glory, or of hope. It is confirmation of the second great cycle in Mark’s narrative: the Way of the Cross. The Way of the Cross is about engagement with the powers of the day. It will bring about suffering and death. It is the only way – both for Jesus and for would-be followers. The Transfiguration confirms the call to suffering discipleship issued in 8:34f. The divine voice underscores it: “This is my beloved Son. Listen to what he tells you!”  

.. At the end of Epiphany, we stand on the threshold of Lent and have to be prepared to hear the call to the Way of the Cross as shocking, new, uncomfortable, divisive and repellent. We need to commit ourselves to dealing with our blindness and our deafness. In Mark’s narrative, the blind and the deaf symbolise the disciples’ condition and response to Jesus. But it’s a narrative of hope, because the deaf hear and the blind see – and the disciples on the mountain do deny themselves, take up their crosses, and follow Jesus! That, too, needs to be our story.

3  Transfiguration without a plan – David Lose  "In the Meantime"

We desperately want an encounter with God – some sense that we are not alone, that there is something More than what we can see and touch – and yet in those very moments that God draws near we find ourselves afraid, unsure, and feeling suddenly very out of control and so we try to domesticate our experience of the Holy by fitting it into a plan.

Why? I suspect that as much as we want an encounter with God, we simultaneously fear the presence of God because we fear being changed, being transformed. What we have, who we are, may not be everything we want, but at least we know it, are used to it, have built a relatively orderly life around it. And so when God comes – perhaps not in a transfiguration as dramatic as Mark describes but in the ordinary hopes, encounters, and tragedies of our everyday life – when God comes and unsettles the orderly lives we’ve constructed we try to put those disruptive experiences back into line by cramming them into a plan.

But maybe, just maybe, there is no plan. Maybe there’s only love. And perhaps our job as preachers and leaders isn’t to fit our experience – let alone everyone else’s – into some kind of “divine plan,” but rather to create space for people to experience the wonder and mystery of God. Not a “safe space” necessarily – how could any experience with the God of the Bible be considered entirely “safe”? – but a space into which we will accompany them, neither building booths to make it neat and tidy nor abandoning them, but standing together in the mystery of God and God’s love

4. Transfiguration – an anchor to Jesus Identity  – Paul S. Berge

In the midst of Jesus’ threefold teaching on his forthcoming death and resurrection and words on discipleship (Mark 8:31-9:1; 9:30-34; 10:32-45), the transfiguration story anchors our lives once again in the one whose identity is spoken to us by the Father: “This is my beloved Son; listen to him” (Mark 9:7). This word of identity reassures us for our journey, even to our death. In this journey we are instructed by the Father to “listen to him.” Jesus’ journey to the cross during the season of Lent will also be our journey. But just as  death awaits us, as it did Jesus, so too do we walk in the hope of his resurrection. Jesus’ death and resurrection are paradigmatic of our death and resurrection; this is our identity as people of faith

5. The Transfiguration – see the Kingdom of God coming in power.    -Brian Stoffregen

One purpose is that it may be the event referred to in 9:1: "And he said to them, "Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power." These three disciples have seen the kingdom of God in all its power with the transfiguration of Jesus. 

Jesus is connected to the law and prophets and then Jesus who the prophets aniticipate. Jesus is at the climax of history, a picture of hope.

A Poem for the Transfiguration – “Flow Winds of Time”

Flow winds of time
Whilst the night takes a spin
Stars are falling in deep prime
As the darkness comes in
Feelings like river going
All is within dream reach
Night sky is now glowing
In its twinkling glow bleach

Flow on to a daybreak’s light
Reach the awaken call
In dreams blue and height
As the night must fall
Silvery dress of the day
Awaken in its true reality
Every dream’s now on its way
To become once more free

Flow to the sounds I heard
Whispers in the deep dark
Like ravens of a winged bird
Shadowed dancing embark
Life is like merry-go -round
Deep into their whole make
Until the light’s again found
As new cock-crows’ awake

Now is the night in its dancing
Humming a breeze melody
Dreams of bedroom romancing For a new tomorrow to be

– Peter S. Quinn

Bruce Epperly writes of Transfiguration Sunday in broad strokes:

“God knows, there’s healing to be done, and quickly. But, healing is for abundant life and celebration not just release and relief. Transfiguration Sunday says “take off your sad rags,” “ditch the frown and the furrowed brow,” “fire the thought police and arbiters of orthodoxy,” “give the inner police officer the light off,” and invite in imaginative “lovers, lunatics, and poets” to give us visions of new selves and new heavens and earths. God knows, we need them if we are to be God’s partners in transfiguring ourselves and the world.”

This week we are moving to Last Epiphany on March 2, the last Sunday before Lent begins.

Epiphany is about 2 revelations – Christ to the world through the wise men as well as revelation of Christ to us through baptism. On the first Sunday after the Epiphany, we celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord. His baptism is seen as the primary baptism, the one on which all baptisms follow, the recognition that his followers belong to God as “Christ’s own forever.”

During the three to eight weeks after the Epiphany, we learned in the gospel lectionary readings about Jesus’ miracles of healing and his teachings. This is a continuation of the theme of the revelation of Christ to his followers. “Come Follow Me”. Jesus has not only arrived but through him the kingdom of God as one who fulfills and extends God’s teachings through the Sermon of the Mount. The last Sunday in Epiphany, the transfiguration can be seen as the bridge between Epiphany and Lent.

At the beginning of the Epiphany season, at the Baptism of Jesus, the liturgical color was white. In the Gospel reading in Matthew at his baptism said, “And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” In the Transfiguration which we will celebrate on March 3, the 8th Sunday after Epiphany, the Gospel of Matthew records, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” The liturgical color once again is white.

Transfiguration serves as the culmination, the climax, of Jesus manifesting his glory and his identity as the Son of God. From this point on, Jesus sets out to Jerusalem, to suffer, die and be resurrected. We will see this story during Lent beginning March 2. This same glory he will return to, once he has completed the saving mission for which he came. Coming full circle, we will one day be in life with Christ as “Christ’s own forever.”

Over the centuries Lent accomplished two basic purposes:

1. Recommit ourselves to Christ and Deny Satan through various practices.These included prayer, fasting, merciful works (corporal and spiritual), praying with the Bible, frequent confession, the Eucharist.
2. To prepare ourselves to renew our baptismal promises

It grew in the early Christian period to bind the Christian community together to withstand various external pressures.

The practice of Lent as we know it can be traced back to the Old Testament. New Testament writers drew upon the earlier Scripture and Tradition to develop a penitential characteristic aimed at helping Christian cleanse their hearts and unite their sufferings with those of Christ on the cross. Over the past two millennia the season has remained rooted in biblical traditions and popular devotions and its development has crystallized. Yet its origins remain unclear, despite how firmly ensconced it is in Christendom. 

The word “Lent” is derived from the words lencten or lente, Anglo-Saxon for “spring,” and lenctentid, or “springtide.” The Lenten structure comprises a penitential season that begins on Ash Wednesday and concludes on Holy Thursday with Vespers followed by the Mass of the Last Supper. It has been refined throughout the ages to what we now know as the forty-day period of abstinence, fasting, merciful works, and prayer.

Possible models for the origin and development of Lent are Old Testament figures Moses and Elijah, and the spiritual journey of Christ in the desert. God brought up the Israelites from slavery by the Egyptians. Once freed, they underwent a forty-year purification by wandering in the desert where they had been cleansed, in part by the serpent lifted on high (a type of Christ on the cross) and across the Jordan (waters of baptism) into the Promised Land, the New Heaven and Earth promised by God. 

Lent finds its meaning and origin in Easter. Historically, it was also used by the church to solidify the Christian community in its early years.  

The earliest reference to a period of fasting and prayer before Easter is in the writings of the 2nd c. church father Irenaus of Lyons (c.130-c.200), who wrote of a period lasting only two or three days. Apparently at that time there was a variety of practices, with some fasting for one day while others fasted for two. But the interesting thing is that it seems that there was a widespread practice of fasting before Easter. He also argues that the practice already has a long history, so it is possible that it goes back to the 1st century.

A few years later, Tertullian also makes reference to a period of fasting before Easter.

The first mention of the ancient term for Lent, tessarakoste, occurs in the fifth canon of the Council of Nicea (325 AD). A few years earlier in 311, Athanasius wrote to his flock that they should practice a period of 40 days of fasting prior to the stricter fast of the Holy Week (the week before Easter). In 339 he wrote another letter urging the people of Alexandria to observe 40 days of fasting as a custom that was universally practiced “to the end that while all the world is fasting, we who are in Egypt should not become a laughing-stock as the only people who do not fast but take our pleasure in those days.”

Thus there is clear evidence that a period of fasting before Easter was practiced at least during the 2nd century, and that by the 4th century there was a wide-spread practice of a 40 day fast. The reason for 40 days is probably to be found in the biblical significance of that number in the lives of Noah, Moses, Jonah, and Christ.

From the beginning, the annual remembrance and celebration of Jesus’s resurrection and, consequently, of our redemption—Easter—has been the principal feast of the Church, the high point and culmination of the Christian year. As such, Easter was regarded from the earliest times as the most appropriate time for persons to enter the church through the sacrament of baptism.  

It wasn’t easy being a Christian in the centuries after Jesus . Lent grew up during the "growing pains" of Christianity. Conversion divided families and communities. The Church needed to clarify the meaning of Christian faith and life so that its members would form a community that could withstand the pressures of an inhospitable environment.  

Understanding this need for clarity of faith, the Church required the candidates for baptism, known as catechumens, to undergo a long and rigorous period of training, instruction and scrutiny. The final stage of their preparation came in the last few weeks before Easter when they entered into an especially intense time of fasts and frequent meetings for prayers, instructions, blessings and exorcisms.

Four elements leading to baptism were developed – entering, prayer/growth, illumination, and commit ment . According to author Alexander Shia in Hidden Power of the Gospel these steps "perfectly echo the lessons taught in the gospel order of Matthew, Mark, John, and Luke. Scholars tell us that the full four-step process leading to baptism had formally appeared by 300 CE. The four-step process for baptism and the gospel sequence so perfectly mirror each other that we surmise the two grew together and likely became common practice in the same time period, sometime between 180 and 300 CE."

The candidate themselves realized they had to ready themselves in mind and spirit. By the end of the second century, all Christians fasted at least a day or more in preparation for Easter, depending upon the level of their devotion. By the fourth century, it had become customary for devout priests and lay persons to join the catechumens in their more intense fasts, instructions and other preparations.

During this time began the emergence of what is now the traditional number of days to fast before Easter: 40 days, following the biblical witness of Jesus’ 40-day fast in the wilderness, Moses’ 40 days with God on Mount Sinai, and Elijah’s 40 days of wandering as he journeyed to Horeb, the mountain of God

So Lent over the centuries has broadened its range of activities. Yes , it is a time of "giving up " fasting, abstinence, penance but more importantly a time of "growing into" through prayer, self-discipline, study, reflection and reaching out and serving others.

We don’t just do it individually but also collectively in Lent. It is a special time for the whole Church to be on a retreat, to take inventory and reexamine priorities, to leave sin and self behind in the love and service of God and our neighbors. To keep a good Lent means to draw closer to God and one another and to prepare ourselves once again to renew our covenant with God through the reciting of our baptismal vows. Lent is a time to prepare to enter afresh into the mystery of Jesus ‘ resurrection and importantly our redemption.