Transfiguration Conversation

Mark 9:2-10

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.

As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean.

Have you ever wondered what Jesus, Moses and Elijah talked about? It's a fascinating question to which there is no answer since scripture does not enlighten us as to what their conversation was about. However, a priest I once knew said, “The most important faculty is not intellect or emotion; it is imagination.” So, let’s allow our imaginations free reign for a bit and listen in on a possible conversation between the three of them…

Jesus: “Moses! Elijah! You have no idea how good it is to see you, brothers! Just last night I was speaking with the Father and telling him how isolated and lonely I've been feeling.”

Moses: “It's glorious to see you, too, Lord. We were deeply honored when the Father said we could come to you.”

Elijah: “We asked him why he chose us and he said we would be able to understand your challenges better than anyone else because of our earthly experiences. Tell us your sorrows, Master.

Jesus: Right now I'm carrying the Prophet's wound, the one that every prophet has had to bear. It's the wound that comes from the incomprehension of the people. Not too many are able to hear what I have to tell them and even the ones who are willing to listen are having a very tough time comprehending my message. I mean, look at those three men over there – they’re terrified. They’ve heard my message, seen my miracles and I’ve told them I’m the Son of God but it hasn’t penetrated. Every time something out of the ordinary occurs they can’t believe what’s happening and they either misinterpret it or they panic.”

Moses: “You don't have to say anymore! I can’t count how many times God did amazing miracles of deliverance for his people in the wilderness and all it did was frighten them into temporary obedience rather than create a loving trust in their God. Then before long they would forget all about God’s merciful provision and begin to complain angrily again.”

Elijah: “It is tremendously discouraging when people just cannot grasp who our God really is. Miracles excite them and create awe in them but it doesn’t take long before they forget his power and start trying to do everything themselves again. Trying to teach them the truth about God was difficult for me as well. They wanted to believe and understand but they just wouldn’t listen well enough to grasp it all. I have to say, though, after spending the time I did on earth and now having experienced the lightness of the kingdom, I realize that there is something about the world that fogs the truth. The Fallen One has done such a good job of creating a miasma of half lies and confusion. The truth is difficult to see. God’s people really do have a challenge to hear, believe and hold on to the Light.”

Jesus: “That's true, Elijah. Sometimes it feels like even I am moving through muddy clouds even though I know exactly who I am and why I’m here. The spiritual atmosphere in the world is immensely dense and heavy. I get frustrated sometimes with my followers but I love them so much for how hard they try under very difficult circumstances to grasp who I really am and what I'm teaching them. They try to comprehend it all. They try to understand what the Father is asking of me and of them. They know the light is there and I can see the great desire in them to reach out and hold on to it. They may be confused, anxious and terrified but they have given themselves to me and I’ll do whatever it takes to bring them all safely home.”

Moses: “I felt the same, Lord. My mission wasn't anything like yours but I loved my people with a passion that came from beyond me. Even though I often felt inadequate and frustrated, I would never have abandoned them in the wilderness. I, too, just wanted to 'bring them home'.”

Elijah: “I agree. Even when God was teaching the people to turn away from false gods by stopping the rain from falling for three years or sending fire down from the heavens to consume animals and stone altars, the strongest emotion in me was not so much anger at their stubbornness but compassion and longing. I knew that what I was feeling came straight from God’s heart. I was not big enough myself to be able to have that kind of passion for the people. It had to come from our God!”

Jesus: “Still, I wish that even for a few minutes they could stop listening to their own fearful confusion to really hear what I’m saying to them, absorb my words of love and know that the time has come and the Kingdom is really here!

When I was telling the Father how homesick I was, I thought of all these people following me, trying so hard to love me in spite of their bewilderment. Suddenly I saw streams and rivers turning into torrents and floods of people throughout the ages, people trying to love God and people aching for their true Home. I was overwhelmed with the deluge of their desire. I told the Father that no matter how discouraged or lonely I feel, I want to do whatever it takes to bring them all home to him. All of them. I will bring home the ones who have gone before me, the ones who tried to follow the two of you, the ones who only suspect there is something more, the ones throughout the ages who hear my Name and even the many who can’t hear it. I want to bring them all home no matter what the cost. But I admit, my heart cried out in agony, “Father, please let them listen to me!”

Moses: “Yes, Lord, we know. We heard you. All of heaven heard that cry and we have come to tell you that you were heard in the Heart of all hearts. We want you to know that the Father and all of heaven are with you in full sustaining love. You are not alone. Ever. Remember us and know that you have our utter gratitude for what you are doing.

Elijah: "My Lord, we have to go now but the Father said to tell you that when we've gone and the light fades, there will be a Word for you and your disciples from him.”

Jesus: “Ah...I long to hear my Father's voice once more! But it’s still hard to let you go. You have no idea what it has meant to me to see my brothers from home. I feel much stronger now and not so all alone. Thank you.”

At that point, the three of them looked over at Peter, James and John. Peter was scared and very uncomfortable. He didn’t know what to say, but he felt like he should say something. He said, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Jesus, Moses and Elijah looked each other and then looked back at Peter with great delight and amusement. Elijah whispered to Jesus, “Does he think we're actually going to live here?”

Then a cloud overshadowed them all and from the cloud there came a voice so filled with love it was hard to bear. “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” The cloud dissipated, the light faded and when the disciples looked around, they saw only Jesus.

And Jesus was laughing.

“Come on, my good brothers, let’s go back down the mountain. There’s much that needs to be done. Oh...don’t try to tell anyone about what you saw, all right? They wouldn’t be able to hear you anyway.”

Lenten question: Are you listening to Jesus or are other fears and voices drowning him out?

On Dwelling in the Desert

Mark 1:12-15

After Jesus was baptized the Spirit drove him out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.

After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. "The time is fulfilled," he said. "The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!"

If there's one thing any serious Christian is familiar with it's the spiritual desert and the last thing we think about when we're in a spiritual desert is that it's a good thing. It doesn't seem good at all. What usually comes to mind is, “This must be my fault. I must have screwed up somewhere.” When one is in a vast wilderness where God seems so far away that it’s hard to recall when he ever felt near, it's natural to blame oneself.

“Perhaps if I prayed harder or more often…maybe if I wasn’t so selfish…maybe if I was able to get to Mass during the week. I should be reading more scripture. It must be something I’m doing or not doing. God must be teaching me a lesson, but I have no idea what it is!”

In the desert your heart is cracked and dry, scripture is lifeless and boring and prayer feels like you’ve been chewing gum for too long. All your prayers seem to be a variation on a theme of “Please help me…please give me…” and it feels like your petitions hit a brick wall and fall to the ground as lifeless words. But you hide these thoughts away because you are absolutely sure you are the only one who feels so isolated from the fruitful abundance of being a child of God. Everybody else seems all right so you act as if you’re all right too.

The great tragedy of a lot of spiritual teaching is that we are not trained to understand the immense value of the desert and so when it comes, it is a shock to the spiritual system. And, it needs to be said, those who have discerned their spiritual vocations and have entered into them, whether it's marriage, priesthood, the religious life or dedicated single, are the ones most vulnerable to the shock of finding themselves in the middle of a howling wilderness.

We are all taught the importance and beauty of our vocations. It is impressed upon us that within our vocation is great spiritual and emotional fulfillment. Therefore, it can be a little terrifying to discover that rather than leading you to a mountain top of spiritual gratification, your vocation has actually led you into a spiritual desert like you've never experienced before. Guilt ensues. “I must be incredibly deficient if I’m not finding all of my fulfillment, spiritually, intellectually and emotionally, in my role as a spouse, a parent or a member of a religious community. What’s making me feel so empty and dissatisfied? What is stopping me from feeling any kind of connection with God?”

The Father is.

What a surprise, huh? Why would the Father keep you from experiencing great spiritual satisfaction when you have answered his call and entered into such a wonderful vocation, no matter what that vocation may be?

It’s because before you were called to be married, be a parent or become a Religious etc., you were called to be a child of God, a being he created to be in relationship with him. Of course it blesses him tremendously when you answer his call to enter into a special vocation but your vocation and the people you serve within your vocation aren’t meant to fill up the last aching abyss of your heart. Only God can fill that spot. There’s a place within you that is big enough for only two: you and the Lord. It’s a place that’s meant for you as you, not for you as wife, husband, parent, priest, Brother or Sister or you as whatever you are in your calling or ministry. These areas of calling are illuminated and blessed by your intimate relationship with the Lord but they are not your total fulfillment. Certainly there will be fulfilling moments and times within your vocation but it is impossible for the role to which you have been called to fill you up inside or nurture you the way your innermost being needs nurturing.

And so, the Father calls you to the desert where nothing fills, nothing comforts and nothing edifies. It is a place of simplification. It is a place of stripping – because none of us know how much we have come to depend on roles, ministries, friendships, rituals and head knowledge to define our relationship with the Lord. The desert is not a place of punishment; it is a place of great grace because the Lord knows how easy it is for roles, actions, ideas and perceptions to subtly take the place of a real intimacy with him. He just wants us to get back to the beginning of everything, a place that may be relatively unfamiliar to us. It's a place where we're not following our parents' faith or our friends' faith or the faith of our favorite spiritual teachers. It's a place where all promises fall flat because we had the wrong idea of what was being promised.

Take heart! All is well. You are the beloved of God, his daughter or son in whom he is well pleased. The very first place the Father wants you to find fulfillment is in him before everything else. In the desert it is just you... and the Lord. Not you and your spouse. Not you and your children. Not you and your vocation or ministry. Just you and the Lord.

Just like it was with Jesus: it was just he and his Father in the wilderness.

Consider this: Jesus was called, baptized and heard his Father speak excruciatingly beautiful words of love and approval to him. Then, instead of being pushed into the deep end of a fulfilling ministry, he was driven into the desert! The desert was as necessary for him as it is for us. When he came out he clearly knew his vocation but more importantly, he knew his Father more intimately than he ever had before. In Jesus' vocation and ministry, his relationship with God came first. It came first. It came first. It came first. It was just he and the Father out there in that wilderness. No crowds, no people to serve or minister to, no one to teach, no one to feed and no one to love him, follow him, challenge him or despise him. His one on one relationship with God came before everything else. It was foundational to everything that came after.

This is the first Sunday of Lent, a time of meditating on our spiritual life and a time when most people choose some sort of act of self-denial or spiritual discipline to reconnect themselves with the Lord. If you are presently experiencing a spiritual desert in your life, I suggest that your focus of spiritual discipline be one of complete acceptance and one of meditating on what it would have been like to have walked with Jesus, day by day, in the wilderness. Allow yourself to accept that the desert is an important, valid and valuable place to be. Pray for the grace to recognize and be able to let go of everything that you have been mistaking for the face of God. Pray to be healed of false expectation.

Jesus walked into that desert and committed himself to it fully. Therefore, you are also called to accept the desert and to be fully committed to it and to be open to the particular kind of healing it can bring you.

It can happen nowhere else.

The Redemptive Power of Love

Mark 2:1-12

A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. So many gathered that there was no room left not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."

Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, "Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?"

Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, "Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, take your mat and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . . ." He said to the paralytic, "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!"

For some reason, whenever I envision those men lowering the paralytic through the roof, I see them as young men. From my days as a chaplain at UVic, I can think of several young guys who would have enthusiastically done what the men did in the Gospel for their paralytic friend. Their friend was in need; there was a problem in getting through the crowd so they got creative and improvised. Obviously they had heard about Jesus’ healing powers and in their minds it was totally worth it to do whatever it took to get their friend into Jesus’ presence. Older and ‘wiser’ minds would have probably just accepted that the paralyzed man wouldn’t be seeing Jesus that night and maybe never. But these young guys decided they weren’t going to miss this once in a lifetime opportunity, even if it meant tearing up their neighbor’s roof. I wonder if it occurred to them that rigging up the paralytic’s pallet to ropes and lowering him through the ceiling could have ended up with them accidentally dumping their friend on someone's head. Probably not. They were just super excited at their great idea for getting their friend into the house and into Jesus' presence.

I believe that Jesus loved it. I think he was completely delighted. I can just visualize Jesus looking at this jerry-rigged bed descending to the floor and then looking up at the hole in the roof and seeing four grinning faces looking down at him. What’s not to love about these guys?

The other thing I think Jesus loved about these young men was that they “got it”. Up until that moment when ceiling dust started sifting down onto his head, Jesus had been preaching his message to a room crowded with people and we find out not too much further on that there were a lot of scribes and teachers of the law in that room. They weren’t there to learn or receive anything from Jesus. They were there to check him out. They were most likely listening with skeptical minds and cynical hearts and a number of people would have been waiting to see what the spiritual leaders' judgments of Jesus were before they committed themselves to his teaching. There was most likely a huge number there who weren’t listening very closely to much of what Jesus said because they were just hanging out in case a miracle happened. So, there was Jesus sharing his precious message with a crowd, a high percentage of which were arrogantly cynical or were waiting to see what everybody else might think or were inquisitive looky-loos. Jesus was probably heaving the odd sigh inside himself but, still, the Father wanted him there at that moment so he would wait to see what would happen.

No wonder he immediately responded to these four faith-filled guys who found a way to get their friend to Jesus. These young men weren’t judging Jesus, they weren’t just there to catch something sensational and they weren’t hanging back to see what everybody else thought. They were taking Jesus at his word and their friend was in need of Jesus’ word.

Jesus responded to that fresh and alive faith by forgiving the fellow his sins - no questions asked. The paralytic didn't even have a chance to say, “Lord, I am not worthy to enter under this roof where you are but only say the word...” It wasn't necessary because 'Jesus saw their faith'.

Have you ever heard that love covers a multitude of sins? This is something to think about in relation to the people you love and are concerned about. It wasn’t repentance on the part of the paralytic that caused Jesus to pronounce forgiveness. It was the fresh love, faith and hope of the friends – love that hoped for great things to happen and faith that refused to accept limitations based on how things have always been. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1)

According to the law, the paralytic was a condemned sinner. If he wasn't a sinner, he wouldn't be paralyzed. According to the law, his suffering was the result of sin and he deserved to be paralyzed but his friends did not abandon him to the definitions of the law. How many family members and friends do you worry about because, according to the definitions of the law, they are outside the pale of acceptability? It may be because of anything from refusing to go to Mass anymore and denying the existence of God to being caught up in destructive and ugly behavior. You can't wrestle them into repentance. You can't berate them into belief. What hope is there for them?

Your love is their hope. Your faith that Christ can heal them in a blink of an eye whenever he chooses to is their hope. Your willingness to walk with them in love and acceptance, no matter what, is their bridge to Christ and his forgiveness. If Christ doesn't forgive them for your sake, he will forgive them for his own sake. In the first reading, God said through Isaiah, “I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.”

We forget the utter redemptive power of love even though Christ came to show us what redemptive love looks like. He showed us so that we could follow him and participate in redeeming the world by allowing the power of his unconditional love to shine through our love. With the love of Christ we can walk with those paralyzed by disbelief and wounded by their own weaknesses.

Our love can break through the hardened ceilings of many hearts and open the way to the healing and forgiving power of God.

He drew a circle that shut me out —
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.

(Edward Markham, 1913)

Stop worrying. Start loving.

The Great Family Physician

Mark 1:40-45

A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’ Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’ Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, saying to him, ‘See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’ But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.

Parents are amazing, really. From the time the first child is born until the last child is able to utilize a toilet and navigate to it in the middle of the night on her own without calling for help, parents are called on countless times to deal with body issues (pun intended) that would turn the stomach of a childless person. Besides dealing with mind boggling numbers of dirty diapers, I cannot tell you how many times I was up in the middle of the night with a sick child cleaning the results of stomach flu or diarrhea off of them, off the bedding and off the floor. Yet I also cannot remember one time when, faced with a smelly gross mess, I had any desire to turn away from my child and let him or her wallow in the sickness and the muck. I might not have enjoyed the smelly mess but it in no way affected my love and concern for my child or my desire to be with the child. In fact, my concern and desire to comfort and be present to that child was heightened by their illness. There is nothing more heart wrenching than a sick child.

Those of you who have no children may remember times as a child when you were so ill and your mother or father sat with you, cleaned up your messes, spoke gently to you and brought you little treats to make you feel better.

Quite often we are encouraged to relate to ourselves as the leper in this Gospel passage and to see ourselves as the untouchable one whom Jesus saves. But, just for a moment, instead of putting yourself in the lowest place, put yourself in Jesus’ sandals.

A leper was repulsive, unclean and dangerous to be around. Open sores and missing body parts made a leper a horror to look at. No one was allowed to go near a leper and they especially were not allowed to touch them. Most people would have found the idea of touching a leper repugnant anyway. But Jesus chose to touch the leper – because he wanted to.

“Such a kind man.” We might think. Well, it wasn’t just an act of detached pity that made Jesus reach out and touch the leprous man. To Jesus, this leper was not a repulsive, filthy, distorted person; this leper was his beloved sick child. Jesus loved this man and he could no more turn away from him than parents can turn away from their sick and helpless children. Can you understand the love now?

There are times when you feel leprous inside, as if all your faults and failings and disabilities have caused open sores on your spirit. There are times of great discouragement in your life because it seems like the more you try to control your failures the more they get away from you. Like the person with leprosy, the sores of your inadequacies just keep appearing and eating away at you. It just doesn’t feel like Jesus would be particularly happy to keep company with someone who has such a diseased and disabled spirit. Yes, you know that he loves you and forgives you but does he really want to be with you? Does he like to be with you?

Tell me who made the hearts of parents? We need not be overly sentimental here. A parent's heart isn’t always the epitome of patience, mercy and love. Parents get tired and worn out and snap when they're pushed too far and have moments of resentment and even desperation but when they have a sick little baby in their arms, a baby or a toddler who’s burning up with fever and can’t keep food down, the kind of patience and deep concern that fills their hearts comes straight from the heart of God. They don't blame the child for being sick. They are just so sorry for the child for being the victim of whatever virus or disease she is fighting. They do not walk away from the child saying, “When you get over this illness and when you’ve cleaned up your messes, come and see me.”

Sin is an illness. When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that Jesus was eating with sinners and tax-collectors, they asked his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with tax-collectors and sinners?’ When Jesus heard this, he said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’ He doesn’t hold himself back from us when we are ill of spirit, mind and heart. He comes because we are sick. He is burning the midnight oil at our sides, cooling the fever, cleaning up the messes. He stays with us until we are better even if that takes until the breaking of the dawn. He will never leave us or get upset if we don’t seem to be getting better. He is also a physician so he knows much better than we do that we are on the mend. Jesus can see what we can’t.

He did not come to earth to condemn it; he came with mercy - and did you know that the Hebrew word for mercy actually means the quality of love felt by a mother nursing her child? That's powerful love. If you’re feeling sick inside, let him nurse you back to health. Your sickness is not what breaks his heart, it’s when you don’t let him in to take care of you because you’re ashamed of being sick.

Can you imagine how heartbreaking it would be to go into the room of a sick child only to see the child frantically trying to clean up the vomit on the floor because he's afraid his parents will be angry and disappointed with him for being sick or that they won't want to be with him because he's so sick. God sees this in us all the time. When this happens in a natural family, we say that the parents are dysfunctional for creating that kind of fear and anxiety in a child. Yet, when we fear God will be angry or disappointed with us over our inner illnesses, we don't stop to think that we are attributing to him the characteristics of a dysfunctional parent.

Perhaps the problem is that you just don't want to be his sick child. You want to be whole, healthy and saintly – one who has got all your inner illnesses well under control. Well, good luck with that. If you are a human being, you are ill. You are broken and you need mending. Don't you see? That's the beauty of it. Christ comes joyfully to you in your brokenness and illness. He doesn't come to you out of reluctant obligation; he chooses eagerly to dine with you, to sit with you and to touch the most leprous parts of your spirit just as he chose to touch the leper and to eat with publicans, prostitutes and sinners.

If you're unwilling to fit in with the sick, the addicted, the sinful and the marginalized then you'll miss out on the wondrous company of the compassionate Christ.

Because that's where he is. Because that's where he chooses to be.