HOMILY for the 2nd Sunday of Lent
It always worries me that those who are the optimists in our world home in on the glory of the Transfiguration of Jesus and their hope of glory with him for ever, (Luke 9:28-36) and somehow slide over the talk about his “passing” and the fact that it is in the darkness of the cloud that God speaks to the disciples. You can hear and see me give this Homily on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubBtaFeWJcs
Meanwhile the pessimists seem only to see the darkness of the cloud and its heavy challenges, and feel that they are being told that the only way to God is through suffering and pain. Of course, it should be the other way round. The optimists need to be told that life in the service of God is not all glory, whilst the pessimists need to be told to look up from the darkness and savour the glory, just as Abram in our 1st Reading (Genesis 15:5-18) looks up at the glory of the stars and sees in them a wonderful promise from God.
I’m therefore a bit stuck about which I should emphasise today. I’m an optimist by nature, finding God’s glory in the beauty of the natural world, of the sun and the sea and the sky, as well as the little things like the birds on my feeder. My mother taught me always to look for the small piece of blue sky on a dark day, and so that is what I do almost instinctively. This is why I know that I have to remind myself regularly that quite often God is closer to me, and I am closer to God, when things are NOT going well, when I feel that he doesn’t exist at all. And – shocking as some people find this – I too have those moments!
This idea of finding God in the darkness is a common theme in much teaching on prayer and on the Christian life. Think of the medieval writing called The Cloud of Unknowing, or of St John of the Cross talking of the Dark Night of the Soul; but there are still far too many Catholics who have been taught that to be truly close to God one has to suffer, that somehow when we enjoy something too much, we are a long way from God. The mistake they make, and maybe have been taught, is that there is a virtue in seeking suffering. That of course is the way of the false martyr, setting himself or herself up, as closer to God simply because they are having a hard time. What the Church actually teaches is that we are called to follow Jesus, wherever he wants to lead us, to joyfully accept the challenges of serving him in others, and if in the course of this things get tough, then and only then can we rejoice that even here God is still with us.
It is perhaps no accident that the Church is growing in the parts of the world where there is more poverty and struggle than in the richer countries like the UK or the USA. Those of us who have plenty, who have more than enough of the good things of life, can soon find that those things are more important for us than worshipping God. We are in effect too busy with our own plans, to be open to what God may want us to do. We’re just like the disciples who, as we heard in our Gospel, respond to the Transfiguration by wanting to be busy building tents, in other words making their own plans, rather than waiting in the silence of the cloud for God’s word to lead them and guide them. It reminds me of the warning of Jesus to those of us who are relatively rich, about how hard it will be for us to enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matt 19:23-24) This is surely why we are much more shocked by the devastation of the Ukraine, a relatively rich country, than we are of the continuing suffering in the Yemen or in parts of Syria. I’m not saying that the situation in the Ukraine should not trouble us. I’ve certainly been moved to tears at times by some of the scenes we are witnessing; but I know that I can easily forget other kinds of suffering that are ongoing in other parts of the world.
The solution to this is not obvious to those involved in one of these troubling world problems, for there isn’t any easy answer. There aren’t great plans that can put things right. There is just the daily slog of coping; and many of those in really tough situations who are believers put us to shame by their faith in God in the midst of such darkness. They would understand, as perhaps we don’t, what it means to find God speaking when all is dark, and they cannot see the way ahead. St Paul’s Letters often speak powerfully to such people, precisely because Paul was writing to small groups of faithful Christians struggling in a dark world. So we hear him today “So then, my brothers and dear friends, do not give way but remain faithful in the Lord.” (Phil 3:17-4:1) Or in the more famous passage “Neither death, nor life, nor anything in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:37-39)
But for those of us who are relatively comfortable, and who trot on pretty happily day by day, we need to hear more of the challenge of God, more of the demand to listen to Jesus, and less of the comfort. As we make plans for what we will do next, what holiday or even holidays we will take this year, what’s the next book we will buy or the next Film we will watch, when we all too easily see going to Mass as just one more option we might take if we can fit it in to our busy schedule; Jesus says very firmly “Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (Luke 12:20) and “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23) It is the same for those who feel comfortable about their faith, who find it easy to say their prayers and go to Mass. If being a Christian, if being a Catholic, is too easy for us, we need to examine ourselves more closely. I’m always saddened by those who think that the way to get young people to go to Mass is to make it more enjoyable. To go to Mass is to follow the way of the cross, and in our comfortable Western society, that means that going to Mass, joining others in prayer rather than having our own nice private spiritual thoughts, must become one of the sacrifices we must make. Yes at times, the Church as an organisation, as a religion, can be very depressing, even shocking. But that’s the same for every human organisation because it is made up of us dreadful humans who so easily get things wrong. Jesus didn’t say “I am not going to die on the cross for you. You just don’t deserve it,” did he? Whatever cloud you are facing, be it in the struggles in your own life, or in your agonies over the failures of the Church, remember what God says to us all “This is my Son, the Chosen one. Listen to him.”
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