Second Sunday of Lent C

All that stuff in the first reading about cutting a heifer, a goat and a ram in half and a firebrand passing between the halves seems at first sight to have very little relevance for us today. Indeed, it’s the kind of passage which often causes people to ask why we bother reading the Old Testament at all given that so much of it makes no sense to people. And yet, behind what is, admittedly, a rather unusual story, lies a truth which, if we could grasp it, would change the whole way we think about God. It takes us to the very heart of the difference between religion and faith and it’s for that reason that I invite you to look at it more closely today.

And what we find there is the very strange way in which people three thousand years ago sealed contracts and agreements. In the days before written documents, public ceremonies which emphasised the importance and solemnity of a contract needed to be developed. And in the reading we hear about one of them. The practice, strange as it seems to us today, was to cut the animals in two and for the two parties to the agreement to walk between the halves, the implication being that if either party reneged on the agreement they deserved the same fate as the animals. But in the case of God and Abraham this, if you noticed, was not what happened. Abraham, in fact, fell into a deep sleep and God alone, symbolized by the firebrand, passed between the halves. In other words, the Covenant which is being sealed here is not a quid prop quo agreement. It’s not a case of if you do this then I will do that in return. The Covenant God is making with Abraham is pure gift. It’s completely God’s initiative. Abraham has nothing to offer to God in return for it. All he can do – and all any of us can do in the end – is be open to what God gives, receive it, accept it and rejoice in it.

And yet how different this is from the kind of religion we are all so familiar with, a religion which, from its primitive origins right up to the present day, is rooted in fear and riddled with the idea that we have to keep God happy by doing the things that please him. Our ancient ancestors, in an attempt to exercise some level of control over the world around them, invented Gods who would send the rain when they needed it or protect them from disease. And the way to make sure this happened was to perform religious actions like offering sacrifice, performing ritual dances or chanting religious words. Jesus himself warns us against this, telling us that, when we pray, we should not babble like the pagans do. They think that by using many word they will make themselves heard – the underlying belief here being that the gods were at best uninterested or at worst hostile – but there’s no need for us to do that. And the reason is simple. God knows what we need before we ask, longs to give us what we need and like any good father would not dream of giving us a stone when we asked for bread or a snake when we asked for a fish. Our primitive ancestors were like slaves who lived in fear of their gods. But Jesus tells us that the relationship he wants to have with us is not one of slaves or servants but of friendship and an intimacy so deep that, in the Eucharist, he gives us himself as food and drink under the appearances of bread and wine. And yet two thousand years on the evidence of our pagan past in everywhere as millions of religious Church-going people still live in fear of an angry God and continue to perform religious actions in the hope of keeping him happy. Religion always was and still is about doing things for God while what we are called to is the kind of faith that is open to the amazing things God wants to do for us.

And we see it in the Gospel today too. Confronted with a vision from God which is utter gift, Peter’s reaction is a classic religious one. He wants to do something. He wants to build three tents. And did you notice what happened? Even as he spoke, Luke tells us, a cloud came and covered them with shadow, smothering Peter’s words even as they emerged from his mouth. God did not even respond to them. They were totally irrelevant. Peter’s role in this whole experience was to say nothing, do nothing and let God be God, which is ultimately what we, as men and women of faith as opposed to religion are called to do. Mary did it in the story of the Annunciation when she said to the angel: ‘Let it be done unto me according to your word.’ Jesus did it on the cross when he cried out: ‘Father into your hands I commend my spirit.’ And it is what we say every week, when we speak those words, ‘Only say the word and I shall be healed.’

But while we say things this, in reality many of our attitudes and the things we do belong still to the world of primitive religion. Many of us still see attendance at Mass as a duty and an obligation. We still see prayer as a way of persuading God to do the things we want. We still make deals with God along the lines of what one of my nieces said to me many years ago when I opened the door to her on Christmas Day – she was only three at the time – ‘We’ve got presents for you, have you got presents for us?’ And worst of all, many of us still live in fear of God and carry out religious actions – some of them little more than superstition or magic - to appease him and keep him happy. And the truth I invite you to see this week, and it is a very difficult one to understand, is that none of this is necessary. Ultimately, like Abraham who fell into a deep sleep and Peter covered by the cloud, we do not have to do anything. Everything that God gives is pure gift and our role is to receive it.

But if everything is gift and we don’t have to earn it, why live a Christian life at all? Or as many people have said to me over the years, if God loves everybody the same, why bother being good? Well, to answer these questions we need to explore the concept of a free and loving response, which, God willing, we will do next week.


BIDDING PRAYERS


In the first reading today,Abraham is told by God that his descendants will be as many as the stars in the heavens. Abraham believes God and in doing so becomes father in faith to millions of Jews, Moslems and Christians through the ages. At a time in his own life when he might have expected to be left in peace, Abraham was prepared to go where God led him and do what God asked of him, and in this age of change and transition in the Church, we pray for the grace to do the same ourselves...... Lord hear us

The book of Genesis speaks of how, in the presence of God, Abraham was seized with terror. And in the Gospel today, when the cloud came over them, the disciples, too, were afraid. In both cases they are completely overcome by a God who is greater than anything we can imagine and who cannot be adequately described by religious language or tied down to churches and holy places. This is the true God, the God who fills everything that exists and we ask that God to reveal himself to us here in this parish..........Lord hear us

As the story of the transfiguration unfolds, Jesus leads Peter, James and John up the mountain to pray. Throughout the Old Testament, the mountain was a place of prayer and encounter with God and it is there that Jesus chooses to reveal to the disciples the full truth of who he is. And so it will be with us. If we are to come to know who Jesus is in our lives, it will happen when we go up the mountain and learn the meaning of contemplative prayer. And so we ask God to teach us.........Lord hear us

In today’s story, Peter offers to build three tents, one for Jesus, one for Moses and one for Elijah. To have done so, however, would have been to create a religious shrine, and this was not what the Transfiguration was about. It was to prepare the disciples for what lay ahead and as soon as it was over it was time to go down the mountain again and get on with the work of preaching the Gospel. And so we pray that our prayer each week here in St Brides will lead us, too, to ministry in the midst of the world..........Lord hear us

One of the things that has happened in recent years is that many people who previously went to Mass out of fear or out of a sense of duty or obligation have become less afraid and more relaxed about such rules and regulations. And on balance this has been a healthy development. But now we need to go deeper and find more profound reasons for being here, reasons not based on fear or on rules, but on a new understanding of what Mass is about. And so we pray for this grace for the whole parish.............Lord hear us

Our Parish Week of Directed Prayer begins this evening. There are fourteen participants and four guides who are coming from other parishes in the diocese. And so we ask God to be with and guide both participants and guides over the coming days. We ask him to open up the Scriptures to them in a way which touches them deeply and give them the grace they need to go wherever God leads them. And we thank him for the generosity of those who give up so much time to be with us this week.........Lord hear us