2nd Sunday of Lent – Year C
Selection from Genesis 15:5-12; Psalm 27:1, 7-8, 8-9, 13-14; selection from Luke 9:28b-36
As she does every year on the Second Sunday of Lent,
today the church climbs Mount Tabor alongside Jesus, Peter, James, and John,
she joins Moses and Elijah there as they appear alongside Jesus,
and she basks in the light of the Transfiguration.
I have a confession to make, though:
the choice of this gospel reading on this day often puzzles me quite a bit.
Last week, again, as she does every year on the First Sunday of Lent,
the church wanders out to the desert with Jesus.
The loneliness, the absence of food, the forty days of trial,
they all strike classically Lenten chords for us.
But the Transfiguration?
Seeing Jesus’ face “change in appearance and
his clothing [become] dazzling white” (Lk. 9:29),
standing with Peter and the others who
“saw his glory and the two men standing with him” (Lk. 9:32),
and hearing the voice from heaven announce,
“This is my chosen Son; listen to him” (Lk. 9:35)?
All of this sounds far more like Easter than it does Lent,
and thus, it feels like we are moving out of the Lenten drama for a bit
so that we can get a little aside that reminds us of the big picture.
I want to make a different claim today, however.
I see all the Easter-y elements of this story, of course,
but I think that the Transfiguration is a fundamentally Lenten gospel reading.
At least that is how it struck me over the past six days or so,
as I started to think more explicitly about the Transfiguration
in preparation for our coming together
to celebrate the Eucharist this evening.
This wonderful story, or at least one critical element of it,
invites us not to move out of Lent, but to set up a tent in it,
to abide in it, and to let Lent prepare us for what comes next.
The critical element to which I refer, as you might have guessed,
is the moment when Peter realizes that Moses and Elijah are gathering their things
and getting ready to head out for the night.
You know how it goes when you have guests to your home,
when it gets a bit late, and when one of them says,
“Well, this has been great.”
This is the universal sign for, “I’m leaving.”
I imagine it was no different in Jesus’ day.
But Peter does not want the visit to end. Who can blame him?
And so he gives us another entry in the Hall of Fame of silly things that Peter says –
a rather crowded Hall of Fame, mind you:
“Master, it is good that we are here; let us make three tents,
one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” (Lk. 9:33).
So outrageous was his suggestion that it prompted Luke
to make the memorable sidebar comment of,
“[H]e did not know
what he was saying” (Lk. 9:33).
With all due respect to Luke, I feel like I know what he was saying,
and it was what I was up to six days ago that helped me hear and appreciate
Peter’s words anew.
Six days ago, last Monday that is, I woke up in the home where I was raised on Long Island.
I try to visit there once a month or so because, as some of you know,
my mother has some significant health challenges.
Because my train to get into New York City,
where I would catch another train to get to Boston,
left quite early that Monday,
I said goodbye to my mother the night before my departure.
My sister, God bless her, woke up early to take me
to the local train station for the trip into the City.
As I was lying in bed last Sunday night,
as my sister drove me away from our house early on Monday morning,
as I took the Long Island Railroad along Sunrise Highway and saw
all sorts of diners, and parks, and stores I had visited
throughout my life,
old Peter’s words started to make
more and more sense to me.
I wanted to stay there. I wanted to build a tent, or two, or three, and simply freeze time.
It is not that I do not enjoy my life here in Boston,
it is not that I wanted to miss the chance to be with you all this evening,
it is simply that my heart was saying, “It is good that I am here.”
It is good that I have a mother who gave me such a happy childhood,
and it is not so good that she is sick now.
It is good that I have a sister who woke up early that day to take me to the train,
and a brother who wakes up early every day to team up with his wife
to care for their three little children.
“It is very good to be here,” I thought. Very good.
Without intending it, I was engaging in a form of prayer that St. Ignatius Loyola,
the founder of the Jesuits, the patron of this church,
calls the Examen.
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Often, that prayer takes us through our day, and asks us, with God’s help,
to identify where God was inviting us into
deeper friendship with God’s self and with others,
deeper appreciation for the gifts around us,
deeper awareness of the realities of our lives and of our world.
Sometimes, as it did for me on Monday,
that prayer takes us through longer periods of time,
occasionally through our whole lives.
Whatever the amount of time it considers, the Examen, invites us to make a tent,
to pause for a bit, to stay put,
even though we know that, eventually, we must
come down from the mountain,
keep living life,
get on the train and come back to Boston.
We will pray a brief Examen at the end of our liturgy today,
we will build, oh, what, a few hundred tents here, just for a few minutes,
before we go out to become what we will receive,
to become the Body of Christ.
Brothers and sisters,
this is what Lent is all about: pausing
for the forty days in the desert,
at the top of Mount Tabor,
during the long narratives from John’s Gospel that will be proclaimed
at some of our masses over the next three weeks.
All of these stories,
and today in particular, this wonderful story,
they invite us not to move out of Lent, but to set up a tent in it,
to abide in it, and to let Lent prepare us for what comes next,
next in the church’s liturgical calendar,
and perhaps more importantly, next in our lives.
With Peter, James, and John, let us be ready to embrace whatever may be next,
but tonight, with Peter, that man who maybe did know what he was saying,
let us also build tents, and let us really be here, if only for a short while.
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