The Second Sunday of Lent 28 February 2010

Readings Gen 15:5-12,17-18 Phil 3:17--4:1 Lk 9:28b-36

Yesterday, the early morning calm came to an abrupt end with the news of the earthquake in Chile. At first I thought it was a replay of the Haitian earthquake, and even the announcer was a little confused at first. And as the day wore on, it became all too clear how devastating the quake had been. Shocks and then aftershocks. And tunamis that reached all the way to Japan, although they were very modest compared to the Great Tsunami of 2004 that killed over a quarter of a million people.

Inevitably, people ask “How can a good and loving God allow such things to happen? And if god knew it was going to happen, why didn’t God warn people so they could get out of harm’s way? Or at least send an angel or two!

These are ancient questions, used from ancient times to discredit belief in the existence of a wise, omnipotent, and loving god. And today, as then, they raise important questions but not so much about God as about ourselves. I taught in Berkeley, California, a decade before the devastating earthquake of 1989, which destroyed much of the Bay Bridge and collapsed an overpass I used almost daily. A lot of people were killed. Actually I’ve lived and even slept through a number of earthquakes, as well as survived floods, tornadoes – seven in a single night in Minneapolis, as well as severe dust storms, forest fires, and other natural calamities and dangers. A few years ago I looked down the throat of an semi-active volcano. And I know the objections by heart.

One question that rose in my heart after the Loma Prieto earthquake of 1989 is why do people build schools and hospitals next to earthquake faults? Why do people live perilously close to places where tidal waves and hurricanes slam into the shore? Why do people look down volcanoes, like me or the poor fellow who fell into Mt. St. Helens just over a week ago. Partly, I think, because we are desperately foolish, and also because we are terminally curious. Sometimes we are just looking for cheap real estate. Sometimes it’s just because we are poor and have nowhere else to go, like the people who lived in the 9th Ward of New Orleans. But blaming God for our mistakes and misfortunes hits wide of the mark.

The readings for this second Sunday of Lent tell us as much, especially the Gospel account of the Transfiguration of Jesus.

The first reading reminds us of the covenant God made with Abraham – a kind of contract executed amid split animal carcasses and to the accompaniment of some pretty eerie effects. Not, perhaps, as exciting as the opening of the Winter Olympics, but an impressive display, and it was meant to impress. The Lord God, who had called Abram, as he was first called, out of the depths of what we now call Iraq, down near Basra, and then down from the border of what we now call Syria, had a plan. And Abraham, as he was now to be called, was a part of that plan. A big part. It would be through his posterity that the great promise would be fulfilled, a promise that went as far beyond Abraham’s imagination as the stars exceeded his grasp.

On a really good night, I’m told, like a wintery night in New Mexico or on the coast of Ireland, you can see about 5,000 stars. I can well imagine that Abraham saw at least that many out in the desert near the Dead Sea. But the fulfillment of the promise would be much greater than having posterity even as numerous as the sand on the shore. Abraham had no idea of what lay in store.

St. Paul gives us a hint in the mysterious words of the Epistle to the Philippians about how our bodies will be transformed according to the pattern of Christ’s glorified body in the fulfillment of the promise begun so long ago. But it’s a promise that goes far, far beyond the physical transformation of our arthritic, creaking, aching, sagging, shaky, sick, and sometimes mortally injured physical selves. God is about transforming the universe, world by world in a sense. And we are part of that promise and that plan.

The Transfiguration of Jesus, an event found in the synoptic gospels and placed strategically just before the passion narratives, points us in that direction, but it also takes us back and deeper into the mystery of God’s presence in the midst of catastrophe and suffering. The Ancient Covenant had been enacted in darkness and at night. Now the Light of Glory shines through and from Jesus between the witnesses that enacts a new covenant promise. And the identity of these witnesses is important – Moses and Elijah, not merely figures of the Law and the Prophets, but figures who presage the Messianic Reign of God. More than that, as we learn in Luke’s gospel, it is what they are discussing with Jesus. They appeared in glory and spoke of what Luke calls Jesus’ ‘departure,’ “which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem” [Luke 9:31]. The word Luke uses here in Greek is very important: “exodus.” Jesus is about to fulfill the ancient covenant and lead humanity into a land of promise beyond all expectation. But he would do this by emptying himself, and here is the connection with the Epistle to the Philippians. Jesus was about to suffer and die and so enter into his glory. The cross was waiting for him in Jerusalem.

The disciples had no inkling of what this was all about and they wouldn’t awaken from their slumber until after Jesus rose from the dead. It’s hard for us, too. Even Jesus seemed to feel abandoned on the cross – he called out to God not to forsake him. And God did not forsake him. God was there in the suffering, death, and rising. God was always there. God always is. God did not spare Jesus from the passion, but redeemed the world through it. His glory is the glory of the Cross.

And so when we get jittery in the face of disasters and horrific accidents, the seeming indifference of nature to our wants and needs, and even the barbarities human beings afflict upon one another, we should not have to ask where God is in all this. Because God is right there. Always has been, always will be. Our task, like that of the poor apostles, is to open our eyes and learn to recognize the presence of God in all things and all things in the presence of God.