Several weeks ago, on the Sunday of our annual meeting, I spoke to you about the Great Light of Christ. Throughout this season of Epiphany, we have been hearing about that light, which is always breaking out in unexpected places, on the most surprising people.
On that day, I mentioned our bishop's sermon at diocesan convention in 2008, just as the full extent of the economic crisis began to be felt. Bishop Breidenthal told us we should be like trees in times of drought. He urged us to send our roots deeper into the rich soil of the Gospel--to become more fully rooted in Christ, so that we might spread our branches in love.
On this world mission Sunday, I'd like to take up some of those same themes. For, in times of hardship, it would be easy to turn inward and forget our profound need to be part of a worldwide community of Christians. World mission offers us priceless opportunities, through a mutual exchange of gifts, to deepen our communion with God and our fellow human beings.
World mission is at least as much about the roots as it is about the branches. Through world mission we renew our own life in Christ, as we encounter the vibrant, joyful faith of our brothers and sisters around the world. It is not primarily about bringing the Good News to people who have not heard it (most of the places we are called to go have already heard and received the Gospel)--though we are of course called to share the story of Jesus wherever we may go. It's not even about helping those less fortunate than ourselves--though there is profound material poverty in this world, and we are called to be ministers of God's justice and mercy.
World mission, like local mission, is about seeking the face of Christ where he has promised to be found. When we are sent in mission, we expect to find Christ in our neighbor. By our neighbor, God invites us into a universal communion of love. With our neighbor, we practice solidarity in suffering and work side by side to give birth to a better world. In our neighbor, both near and far, we encounter Christ in the flesh.
Today, brothers and sisters, we hear the Gospel of the Transfiguration. On the holy mountain, we see the light of Christ breaking out on the disciples in a whole new way. This Jesus, whom they thought they knew, is unveiled before them, confirming Peter's testimony that he is Son of the Living God. In anticipation of his resurrection, his face now shines with the light of glory. Even his clothing is transformed. And Moses and Elijah, the greatest witnesses of the Old Testament, flank Jesus, as if to say "Here is the one who fulfills both the law and the prophets." A bright cloud descends, and a voice from heaven echoes words spoken at Jesus' baptism: "This is my Beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him."
If we listen to Jesus, we will obey him. We will follow in his steps. And we will seek him out, wherever he wills to be found. In today's epistle, the apostle Peter, or someone writing in his name, looks back on the transfiguration and invites us "to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts."
The transfiguration is a startling epiphany of how far we have to go in our walk with Jesus. It lays bare the gulf between our sinful humanity and his own. But this gulf is not an impassable one. If it were, the story would be bad news. This mystery points us to the very good news at the heart of our faith--that the living God, without ceasing to be God, has become one with us in our flesh.
The transfiguration invites us to pay attention to Jesus as the light of the world, so that we might be transformed more and more into his likeness--and the whole world might more clearly reflect his goodness. Like every self-manifestation of God, this one is about God crossing the gulf that divides us, a gulf that is real from our perspective but never from God's. Out of an abundant and merciful love for us, God crosses that divide.
Recently, one of you sent me an article about Christian spirituality. It contained a quotation from Karl Rahner, the great Jesuit theologian who helped open the Roman Catholic Church to the modern world in the sixties and seventies. Rahner says that "Christians of the future will be mystics or they will not be [at all]." The article defends the thesis that mysticism is not primarily about esoteric forms of union with God, but paying attention to the ways we all find the presence of God in everyday life.
And this precisely is what we should expect in a religion of the Incarnation. If the glory of the Lord has been revealed and all flesh now sees it together, we should expect God to be found not just in mountaintop experiences but everywhere. God is found also in the valleys, where the majority of us live our lives. And so, God is found in the workplace, at the dinner table, and in the fields. God is found in classrooms and dorm rooms--in libraries, offices, and labs. God is found in silence and in nature--but also in the noise and commotion of the public square. It is this kind of insight, grounded in the Incarnation and the sacraments of the Church, that caused William Temple, one of our greatest Archbishops of Canterbury, to proclaim that Christianity is the most materialistic of the world religions.
Christianity has a contemplative dimension--a mystical dimension if you will--and some of us are more oriented than others are to forms of practice that help us pay attention to the presence of God. But Christians, even the most cloistered ones, must always also give ourselves over to a this-worldly love. If the Christian of the future needs to be a mystic, so too does he or she need to be a servant and prophet.
At different times in our lives, we may favor one dimension of this vocation or another. Styles and temperaments may vary as well. But the call to pay attention to both roots and branches is universal. It follows rather directly from our Lord's summary of the Law:
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Because we cannot see God, we often turn inward to find God. But God is also found in our neighbor, in whom we glimpse the radiant face of Christ.
The two great commandments come together in the Incarnation, where, in Christ, God becomes our neighbor. And so, we seek and serve him in our fellow human beings. For, in the end, we are saved together, or not at all. As Christians living in troubled times, we are called to live in hope--to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. And we never, ever do so alone. We do so in the company of brothers and sisters, both near and far away. We are called to walk TOGETHER with fellow pilgrims from every family, language, people, and nation--until at long last the day dawns, and Christ, the bright morning star, rises in our hearts.
2 comments:
Fantastic!
Fantastic!
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