February 17, 2008 at Saint Mark Norman, OK

Genesis 12:1-4 = Psalm 121 + Romans 4:1-5, 12-17 + Matthew 17:1-9

This is not so much a story about Jesus as it is about the disciples, and it must leave us wondering about ourselves. It is more about discipleship than it is about the identity of Jesus. There are ancient symbols here: a mountain and a cloud. The high mountain is about the ascent of the human to the divine. And so, they go up – “by themselves” says Matthew. Then a cloud comes. It is the divine, and there the human and the divine meet. Suddenly they are no longer “by themselves”. They have company: Moses and Elijah. These are also “mountain men” let’s call them. They have gone up to mountains to look far off and find the way. It is there, above the plain that they can see which way to go.

Just as they are about to see the plan, there is that voice, and they fall to the ground in fear. A most tender moment occurs that we often miss when reading these verses of Matthew’s Gospel. The writer simply says: “He touched them.” They look and they see Jesus. He is the only one left to lead them, to teach them what they must know, and to take them from fear to love.

So, this story is about them – about these disciples and how they moved from fear to love: by listening to Jesus. Before their experience, they resisted. They wanted nothing to do with what Jesus said to them about the coming death and resurrection, betrayal and trial. Now things will be different. Peter, whose mind had been set on human things rather than divine things changes as he now begins to listen to Jesus who thinks “the things of God.” In the end, it is these disciples who are changed on that mountain. Jesus goes back to the way he was. They do not.

Matthew includes this story about the disciples so that his church, our church, which too often thinks human things rather than things of God might be touched by Jesus and rise up from fear or from denial. Virtue is tough, and the virtuous life is hard work. It is hard to listen to Jesus when there is so much noise around us. It is hard to hear the voice of God calling us to compassion, peace, and truth when human thinking and the noise of this world is violent, powerful, and destructive of the vulnerable, weak, and the poor.

We carry a moral agenda if we listen to God’s Son. It is a heavy burden to be committed to compassion and face suffering. We must not ignore or dismiss it. It is a heavy burden to be committed to peace and face division and hostility. We must find a way to reconcile without making things worse. It is a heavy burden to be committed to the truth and face cover-ups and lies from the highest offices to the smallest child in a classroom. We must not be fooled into thinking that anything can be hidden.

What we discover on the mountain is that we are not alone. Human effort is never just that. For those who listen to God’s Son there will also be divine grace bringing divine power. What we do in response to what God asks cannot fail, because we do not do it alone. When we finally embrace this truth; we can rise without fear, we can listen to Him, be open to God’s will, and engage ourselves in the mission of Jesus Christ. Then the Transfiguration will no longer be a story about Jesus or about Peter, James and John. It will finally and rightly be about us.

February 10, 2008 At Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 + Psalm 32 + Romans 5:12-19 + Matthew 4:1-11

Since the average age in this parish is 33, I realize that when I think about the days when I was 16 and 17 years old, most of you were not even born. I was that young once, and to the terror of my parents, I bought my own car. More often than not, when I would leave home for work, school, or to take my sister somewhere in that car, my father or mother would stand at the door and shout: “Remember who you are.” At the time I thought it was silly. Did they think I had amnesia?

A simply kind of Gospel wisdom brought that memory back to me as I sat with this piece of Matthew’s Gospel. As always, Matthew has one eye on the Old Testament and one eye on the New. His experience of Jesus and his memory are thoroughly conditioned by the stories, images, and the revelation of Israel’s experience with God.

They went to the desert, and their temptations in that 40 year span of time centered on food and water, the protective presence of God, and whether or not God was really God; a God beyond their control. In other words, it was about trust in God.

So, Matthew has Jesus go to the desert, but not before he gets in the Jordan for Baptism and has his revelation about his identity.

Now think of the Israelites who did not go into the desert until they passed through the water of the Red Sea. In that desert, during those 40 years, they developed their identity as God’s People, but time after time, temptation after temptation, they forgot who they were.

Jesus is now baptized. He knows who he is, and he goes to the desert for 40 days, and temptations begin.

Temptation is something we could all talk about. Everyone ought to be an expert. Temptations have an advantage over us. They are there first. They lie in wait, and they get to make the first move. When temptations finally make their move, it’s usually quick. We rarely have enough time to think it through, consult, and consider all the implications. Speed and pressure are in temptations favor. There is almost always this sense that we need to do it now. If we don’t, we may not get another chance. Later when we look back, we realize that if we had just applied the breaks, things would have been different. Temptation has the upper hand, and we end up saying to ourselves: “How did I get into this?”

Of course, there are different levels of temptations. Looking up from dinner with the desert cart parked by your table is not the same as looking up from your desk and seeing another’s exam answers right in front of you, or suddenly realizing that you could make a few adjustments on your tax table or the books at work and come home with a few more bucks in your pocket. Either way, temptations whether they are big or small are always about identity: who we are.

This forty-day season slows us down a bit and puts on the brakes. With the Triduum ahead of us – those three days when our identity at the table of the Lord, at the foot of the cross, and at the waters of baptism establish our identity, we have time to remember who we are as sons and daughters of God. Temptations are attractive because they appeal to a fantasy; to something we are not but wish we were. So it seems as though we can have it all, or have what we always wanted: a life of good fortune, a life always satisfied, a life without injury, or a life or power.

How could we possibly remember who we are when these things are offered? Eve and Adam know this story well.

Slow down. We move too fast. Fantasy that leads us away from the truth is the threshold of temptation. Knowing who we are, remembering who we are makes the difference. In Matthew’s 40 day story Jesus does not use some divine power to resist and control temptation and the tempter; he simply remembers who he is. We can do the same.

February 6, 2008 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Joel 2:12-18 + Psalm 51 + 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2 + Matthew 6:1-16, 16-21

 We celebrate feasts differently today than our ancestors in faith celebrated feasts. They would keep a long fast leading up to a feast, and then there would be a joyful celebration last might last for days. Now, there is a long celebration leading up the feast, and then a fast follows.

Our way of celebrating Christmas is a perfect example. At some secret day in mid October Walmart, Target, and Hobby Lobby put out their Christmas stuff. That triggers something in us, and then for about two months we begin to celebrate. The parties start, the decorations go up, cards go out, and Christmas music begins to play. When Christmas day finally rolls around, we are finished, worn out, and full of we can eat and drink. The December 26, we’ve had it and we’re ready to move on; and then begins the fasting which the secular world calls “the diet.” Christmas Season used to last until February 2. In fact, in Vatican City the big tree and the Manger Scene just came down. In Oklahoma, Christmas season ended at sundown December 25.

This is a curious reversal. In our tradition as Catholics, the build-up was always toward a feast. Celebration came after. Today the feast is first, the fast is after. It’s curious. My suspicion is that we know how to anticipate and event but have not yet figured out how to sustain it. So, we confuse anticipation with celebration. I think one of the reasons is that in today’s life we just find it hard to anticipate anything. We want everything to happen quickly. We do not live well with the tension of something unresolved. Longing and fasting are not strong points in our culture. Consequently, without building up properly for a feast, we do not celebrate properly either.

To feast, one must fast. To taste something extra ordinary, one must have tasted the ordinary. The sublime depends upon sublimation. Seasons of play follow seasons of work. Seasons of intimacy follow seasons of solitude. Presence means something when there has been absence. There is a rhythm to life that must be observed, and when it breaks down, nothing is special and there is little to enjoy. So, Christmas is hardly special when we celebrated it during Advent. Weddings are not very special when the bride and groom have been living together already. Premature experience has a way of draining us of enthusiasm and expectations which can only come from painful waiting, longing, and sublimation.

Let’s get it right this year and this season. It’s time to fast and get ready for the feast. If we take it seriously, the feast will take more than one day to celebrate. The church gives us four: Holy Thursday, Good Friday, the Saturday of Vigil, and Sunday. Entering this fast anticipating the Feast of Life might suddenly lead us to see that this life is all anticipation for Life’s fullness in the Kingdom of God. Life here is itself a fast when lived in a spirit of self-sacrifice and self-giving. Not taking all there is, not keeping all we have, not demanding and expecting that we have a right to more of anything makes all of life a fast for the great feast to come.

February 3, 2008 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Zephania 2:3-12 + Psalm 146 + 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 + Matthew 5: 1-12

Most of us might easily point to these verses of Matthew’s Gospel as the most familiar part of his work. It is so familiar I suspect that with a little thought we could probably recite the whole list. We’re heard it and read that often! What Matthew unfolds here is list of the kind of people Jesus declares “happy”, and then he tells us what they can hope for. There is here a two-part message: qualifications for entering the Kingdom of heaven, and then what those who seek the kingdom might expect. Failure to keep the two parts together turns the first part into a set of rules: be poor, be merciful, be pure of heart, that sort of thing. If we do that, we miss the good part; the hopes that one might expect who is willing to be poor or merciful, or pure of heart.

This sermon is intended to stir up our hopes, give us something to look forward to, motivate us and urge on to practice the virtues it proposes.

Perhaps we would get the point and take the virtues more seriously if we thought more about them. The list we get here includes the kingdom of heaven, comfort and consolation, sharing in God’s reign, divine justice, divine mercy, seeing God, being children of God and perfect joy and happiness. Who wouldn’t want those things? What they all boil down to is simply the fullness of life in the presence of God. In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our wildest dreams, our best hopes, our most fervent wishes are not only possible, but they are real.

The first part of each beatitude simply lists the character and the behavior of those who really do reach for fullness of life in the presence of God. These people are not economically deprived. They are poor meaning that stuff is not as important as God. They simply believe that if anything they have gets in the way of their relationship with God, it has to go. In short, they are compassionate, meek, merciful, sincere, honest, and people who make the world a better place. They are willing to be insulted and persecuted for their ideals and values.

But something whispers in the back of our minds that all this is mountain talk.

We all come down the mountain sooner or later; down to the flat land. We hit bottom again where poverty crushes all the way through, mourning has not comfort, persecution is victory for the persecutors, mercy is limited, peacemaking impossible, and meekness inherits nothing but it own refusal to fight back. For a moment there on the mountain, we had breath of mountain-fresh-air. Then we’re back to human pollution.