Second Sunday of Lent
Lectionary: 26
Reading 1
God put Abraham to the test.
He called to him, "Abraham!"
"Here I am!" he replied.
Then God said:
"Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love,
and go to the land of Moriah.
There you shall offer him up as a holocaust
on a height that I will point out to you."
When they came to the place of which God had told him,
Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it.
Then he reached out and took the knife to slaughter his son.
But the LORD's messenger called to him from heaven,
"Abraham, Abraham!"
"Here I am!" he answered.
"Do not lay your hand on the boy," said the messenger.
"Do not do the least thing to him.
I know now how devoted you are to God,
since you did not withhold from me your own beloved son."
As Abraham looked about,
he spied a ram caught by its horns in the thicket.
So he went and took the ram
and offered it up as a holocaust in place of his son.
Again the LORD's messenger called to Abraham from heaven and said:
"I swear by myself, declares the LORD,
that because you acted as you did
in not withholding from me your beloved son,
I will bless you abundantly
and make your descendants as countless
as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore;
your descendants shall take possession
of the gates of their enemies,
and in your descendants all the nations of the earth
shall find blessing—
all this because you obeyed my command."
Responsorial Psalm
R. (116:9) I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living.
I believed, even when I said,
"I am greatly afflicted."
Precious in the eyes of the LORD
is the death of his faithful ones.
R. I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living.
O LORD, I am your servant;
I am your servant, the son of your handmaid;
you have loosed my bonds.
To you will I offer sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and I will call upon the name of the LORD.
R. I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living.
My vows to the LORD I will pay
in the presence of all his people,
In the courts of the house of the LORD,
in your midst, O Jerusalem.
R. I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living.
Reading 2
Brothers and sisters:
If God is for us, who can be against us?
He who did not spare his own Son
but handed him over for us all,
how will he not also give us everything else along with him?
Who will bring a charge against God's chosen ones?
It is God who acquits us, who will condemn?
Christ Jesus it is who died—or, rather, was raised—
who also is at the right hand of God,
who indeed intercedes for us.
Gospel
Jesus took Peter, James, and John
and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves.
And he was transfigured before them,
and his clothes became dazzling white,
such as no fuller on earth could bleach them.
Then Elijah appeared to them along with Moses,
and they were conversing with Jesus.
Then Peter said to Jesus in reply,
"Rabbi, it is good that we are here!
Let us make three tents:
one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah."
He hardly knew what to say, they were so terrified.
Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over them;
from the cloud came a voice,
"This is my beloved Son. Listen to him."
Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone
but Jesus alone with them.
As they were coming down from the mountain,
he charged them not to relate what they had seen to anyone,
except when the Son of Man had risen from the dead.
So they kept the matter to themselves,
questioning what rising from the dead meant.\\
The story of Abraham dragging his 12 year old boy up a mountain, making him carry a bundle of sticks to get a fire going, telling his son only that they were going up there to offer ssacrifice, seems sick to us. A sick father and a sick god who would put such an idea into anyone's head. So where do we go from here?
Yet I feel half the problem arises from the way the story-teller sets the context. A secular journalist, or a counsel for the defence in court, might give it a more realistic tone.
A man, recently migrated from a distant country, felt he'd come to a land of opportunity, except for the fact that he had no son, no heir to his good fortune. When , in apite of their age, his wife got pregnant and gave birth to a healthy boy, he was elated.
By the time the boy was 12 the man gave some thought to a suitable coming of age celebration. Big-hearted generous, trusting man that he was, he looked for some special way to make the event a celebration of his trust in the god who had led him through so many difficult steps to this new life., something really outstanding that would have the bonus side effect of making him famous as a man whose trust in his god knew no bounds.
All this is recognisable as a situation a man may find himself in. But then, as so often happens, an idea came into his mind. 'How about I sacrifice Isaac my son?' (The practice was not unknown at the time, and was considered the height of devotion to a god.) Then it would be up to god to make good the loss with a replacement son to inherit his good fortune and continue his line. The man had no doubt this would happen.
A deep hunger to make his name famous, fueled by over-flowing gratitude for the unimagined good fortune that had come his way over recent years combined with a slightly fanatical religious devotion to his god, makes for a heady mix. Some small voice whispering 'This is not right!' was easily silenced..., until at the last moment he wakes up to what he is about to do, and the knife clatters on the rocks at his feet.
In a panic he unties the boy. Glancing around in a confusioin of shame and fear he sees a ram caught in a thorny thicket. Quickly he kills it and puts it on the fire to burn, now sending up the sacrifice of a chastened heart. On the way down a deeper peace comes over him as he sees his trust in god, his trust in Life, was not in vain - and he hugs his beloved son to his side as they walk.
Similar explanations for the Transfiguration story will not work so well. Factual or symbolic, it is a unique and extraordinary narrative which portrays the disciples suddenly confronted with a window into another dimension. They were terrified, as well they might be, but there is no intention on the part of the gospel writer to suggest this was a mere hallucination. or a dream. That other dimension is as real as the ancient history of their people, as the great figures of the past who set the moral standards for the people, as the trial and crucifxion, still in the future then but long past at the time of writing, would be.
Back then a secular society was inconceivable. The real world was that one beyond, populated by the gods, the dwelling place of YHWH, the God who is, the Father of all, who has chosen Israel as his favoured children. This life is lived in a shadow world, an unclear mirror image of the real, and people longed for the clear vision that would be the lot of god-fearing ones beyond the grave.
It took an Enlightenment and an age of Rationalism for the idea a secular societyto be conceived. The secular is a view of reality as hard cold facts in the here and now, and the view that further dimensions are the stuff of dreams, of myth, and of religions' groundless ideologies.