Monthly Archives: February 2017

Setting Our Hearts on God’s Treasure

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purpleFlower1Jesus’ teachings on the right and wrong ways of fasting are true and important but I would rather talk about treasure and our hearts. Treasure is a much brighter and exciting thing to think about then renunciation and fasting. What child doesn’t like a treasure hunt? Why else is Treasure Island such an archetypal novel?

What is the treasure we should seek? A treasure is whatever we set are hearts on. If we desire diamonds, then diamonds are our treasure. But even if we find a diamond mine in our back yards, we won’t have the treasure Jesus is talking about. Jesus’ admonition to “store up treasures in heaven” sounds like we store them for an after-life. But let us remember that this verse comes roughly in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount which outlines the real treasure we should seek: “Do not resist an evil doer” (Mt. 6: 39) and “Love your enemies.” (Mt. 5: 44)

We call these treasures? If we set our hearts on these teachings, they do indeed become treasures, treasures we have in the here-and-now, treasures that “neither moth nor rust consumes.” (Mt. 6: 20) These are treasures that remain safe as long as we set our hearts upon them. How about that as a challenge for Lent and on into Eternity?

Transfiguration on to Way to the Cross

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crossRedVeil1The transfigured light that radiated from Jesus has inspired many as an image of our potential for holiness. Some Eastern Orthodox spiritual writers such as Gregory Palamas and St. Seraphim of Sarov believed that they saw the light of Mount Tabor within.

Jesus’ self-designation “the Son of Man” is also rich in possibilities for humanity. Walter Wink famously suggested that the phrase “Son of Man” refers to a newly created humanity in Christ. This fits well with St. Paul’s use of the phrase “New Humanity” in Romans 5. For the likes of the disciples and us entry into the new humanity in Christ is not smooth sailing into transfigured light. The disciples quickly return to arguing about who is the greatest. We all know the anger and other discordant feelings that overtake us quickly every time we sense any hint of the transfigured light in our lives. Even Moses and Elijah were both compromised with violence which they had to overcome in the same way we have to overcome our own violent impulses, petty as they often are.

Jesus’ transfiguration is linked to the journey he is about to make to Jerusalem and we know what happened to him there. Jesus was transfigured, then, because he was willing to die in Jerusalem if that turned out to be necessary for opening the way to a new humanity. Jesus tells his disciples as much when he admonishes them not to tell anyone what they have seen until “the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” (Mt. 17: 9) At that time, Jesus opened the way for a new humanity that would not require human bonding through the death of one for the sake of the people as Caiaphas would have it, but a new humanity that would join in seeking for even one lost sheep, strenuous and dangerous as such seeking could be, and then rejoicing when that sheep was found. (Lk. 15: 3–7)

That the Transfiguration takes place on a mountain recalls Mount Sinai, where God began the renewal of humanity. The first Commandment that “you shall have no other gods before me” and the last one “you shall not covet” cover our relationships with God and neighbor and create a sandwich with the eight other commandments. More recently there is the Mount where Jesus preached his sermon to renew humanity through non-retaliation and forgiveness, precisely the human qualities Jesus himself showed as the risen forgiving victim. This is the transfigured light that shines in the darkness so that the darkness cannot overcome it. (Jn. 1:3)

 

See also: How is the Gospel Veiled?  and The Transfigured Glory of God’s Children

On Expecting Patiently in God

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simeonThe Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple is a belated closure to the Christmas Season. Since the excitement of Christmas and New Year’s Day is long past, we may have assumed Christmas was over, but the Presentation of Jesus is the last of the Infancy Narratives. The Christmas Cycle began with Advent, the time of expectation of God’s coming to us. In Simeon and Anna, we come full circle with two more people who were waiting for the consolation and redemption of Israel. Anna had been waiting for 57 years, with nothing to show for it until that day.

To wait in expectation as Anna did takes much patience. For most of us, expectation is coupled with impatience. If we expect something, we expect it now. There should be no delay when it comes to what I expect. God’s time is shown here to be different than ours. The many centuries during which Israel had been expecting consolation and redemption were a lot more years than Anna had spent coming to the temple fasting and praying.

Expectation can lead to rivalry and even violence. This is all the more likely when expectation is coupled with impatience. The more impatient we are, the more likely we are to act precipitously to bring about the consolation and redemption of our own people. This is what happened in Israel. Few, perhaps nobody at all, had the patience of Simeon and Anna and were violently hastening the redemption and consolation of Israel. This haste resulted in the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D.

Expectation is, however, quite different when we give ourselves over to it in patience and in God. The patience and presence of God wear away the trap of violent rivalry. Patience in God also made Anna and Simeon responsive to the Holy Spirit so that they came to the Temple at the right time to see the Christ Child.

More important, patience in God broadened the expectation of Anna and Simeon. Although Simeon had been waiting for the “consolation of Israel,” when he held the child in his arms, he said that he had seen the salvation “prepared in the presence of all peoples.” Not only was this child the glory of God’s people Israel, he was “a light for the revelation to the Gentiles,” the very people from whom they were expectantly waiting for deliverance.

Patience in God also deepened the expectation so that Simeon realized that Jesus would be a “sign that is opposed,” one who would reveal the “inner thoughts of many.” This child, then, was not destined to be a consolation and redemption of Israel in a comfortable or cosy way, but would console and redeem Israel and the Gentiles (i.e. everybody else) by revealing the truth of how we build human culture on collective violence and then offering us redemption through embracing this truth.

We also see patience on the part of Joseph and Mary who offered a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons as required of the Law for those who were poor. Many years later, Jesus would again make the offering of a poor person who had been opposed and so “reveal the inner thoughts of many” as they “look on the one whom they have pierced.” (Zech 12: 10)