High School Senior Retreat

Some of the most fascinating and, I think, valuable passages in Scripture are those in which the Apostles, the Scriptural authors set down their own religious experiences. The emphasis in these passages is not so much on what Christ said and did, as it is the effect that those words and deeds had on the people who witnessed them, what they experienced inside of themselves.

It is kind of interesting to see that in the Scriptures, most of these experiences seem to have taken place after the death and resurrection of Christ. It is almost as if the Apostles had to experience the absence of Christ, before they could stir themselves into making the kind of decision that would ensure His presence in their lives... almost as though they had to be left feeling alone, have the comforting support of Christ's presence removed, before their discipleship could really become an active things a leap of faith.

But that is not always the case, certainly. This Gospel passage we have just heard, the story of the Transfiguration of Christ, is just such an account. It is not really a miracle story. It is much more about the experience of the three Apostles, Peter and James and John, than it is directly about Christ. It is a story about movement, movement in faith, a moment in which Peter and James and John, and though them the rest of the Apostles, came to understand more clearly than before, what it means to be a believer, to truly commit themselves in an act of faith to a whole new attitude toward life, a whole new style of living.

That is a good word to use in talking about faith, "new". The call to faith is a call to change oneself, to radical renewal. The first reading this morning underlines that very emphatically, I think. It is a passage from the book of the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah wrote those words, and a good many more, for the comfort of what was very much a broken people, a people whose whole way of life, whole set of values had been tested, and found wanting. When Jeremiah wrote, the Hebrew people were in exile, captivity, in Babylon. They were in exile because they had lost a series of quick, brutal battles to the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar. So, in a very short period of time, all of the impressive political and economic and military structures they had put together over the years since the reign of King Solomon, came crashing down. It must certainly have seemed to them that there was simply nothing left to do, nowhere to turn for hope.

But Jeremiah tells them, "Yes, indeed there is hope. You can be restored, made whole, brought back to life. But it means changing. It means giving up all those foolish, pointless illusions of wealth and power. It will mean learning to rejoice in the fact that what had been built has been torn down, it was worthless anyway. It would mean starting over on a surer, stronger basis. It couldn't be done alone, but it could be done." Jeremiah puts that promise into God's own mouth. "Look for Me, and you will find Me… And I will change you."

Fortunately for us, our own call to faith doesn't usually mean anything quite that radical. The changes we must make are more internal, but no less real. Changes in attitude, changes in behavior. But that too may mean leaving behind some pretty comfortable and familiar ideas. Leaving them behind because ultimately they don't work. Certainly that was the case for Peter and James and John in this Gospel passage.

Whatever else the Transfiguration may have been, it was for the Apostles a glimpse beneath the surface of their lives. A moment in which they realized very clearly how great a difference there was between their understanding of Christ, based on their everyday experience of Him, and what He really was. The reality of Christ, and His mission, was something radically other than what normal, day-to-day human experience seemed to provide. And that meant that they to must make of themselves something radically other than what normal day-to-day human experience would provide. So many of the things that normal human beings normally consider to be so important, things like comfort, approval, success, acceptance, power, position, even survival, none of these mattered, not really, at least not that much. And to spend a great deal of time and energy in their pursuit alone, was to miss the point of their lives.

So the newness to which a believer is called. A set of values, a way of thlnklng, a way of acting that is so removed, so different from that of those who have not seen beneath the surface, not believed, that it may even appear to be very foolish.

It is a fascinating thing, and, I think, a significant one, that in virtually every instance in Scripture in which God does grant to a human being some sort of glimpse beneath the surface, some sort of understanding of just what He really is, mankind's first reaction is fear. So it is in this reading today. When the voice of the Father is pictured as saying, "This is My Son. Listen to Him, take Him seriously.", it says they fell on their faces, overcome with fear. And it is true. There is something frightening about this kind of revelation by God. And we don't need to see visions, or hear voices to experience that. Personally, I've never had any visions, or heard any voices, and all things considered, I'd just as soon leave it that way.

So, a kind of fear, a hesitancy, reluctance is most certainly a common, almost a reasonable reaction to facing God, for us, just as much as it was for Peter and James and John. Fear of what He asks us to do, asks us to be. Faith is a demanding, risky business. At least it seems that way, on the surface. I doubt very much that the people to whom Jeremiah wrote responded to that call with a single-minded enthusiasm. Much more likely, it was something like, "What?... You can't be serious. Give up everything we have held so important for so long?"

Now, Jeremiah's people did respond. They did change. Some of them. But they didn't do so easily, they didn't do so without doubted or second thoughts. And neither do we. We are just not that sure of ourselves, not yet. We respond to God's call tentatively, even apprehensively sometimes. Our faith is a mixture of conviction, and of doubt. A mixture of "Yes", and "Maybe. I'm just not sure."

But it is alright that way. Perhaps that is what makes our faith human. And after all, it is humans that God calls to faith. Not robots who respond as they have been programmed to do, not lumps of clay who simply move the way they are pushed or pulled, but human beings who know what it means to act in the face of doubts, in spite of fear.

And the way that we do that is pretty much the same way that Peter and James and John did it. Trust. The Gospel says that once they had fallen to the ground, Christ laid His hand on them and said, "Don't be afraid." And they stood up and went back down the mountain with Him, back into the real world. Trust is an essential element of faith. It is of any relationships really. In faith we do not simply affirm the truth of what we are told, we do so because of a real confidence in, an affection for the one who speaks. While it is certainly true that we are hesitant, and unsure, and fearful in the face of the world's challenges, it is just as certainly true that Christ is not. We are not left just to our own devices in the process of becoming believers. Whether or not we do so is not simply our own concern. It is Christ's as well, and He will direct the process, more than make up for our weakness. We are in good hands, we have reason to be confident. I always think that a kind of good yardstick to use in judging one's own ability to believe, to see beneath the surface of life, is just to sort of look around, and see the number of people whom I really trust... people from whom I do not demand constant justification, proof of everything they say, people whose word I would be willing to use as a motive for changing the way I act. And to sort of paraphrase a passage from elsewhere in the Gospel, if we have to admit that we are not very willing to trust people whom we can see, it is not very likely that we are willing to trust God, Whom we cannot see.

So. The newness to which God calls us. The real risk that we experience as we set out to achieve that newness. And to offset that, the confidence, the trust that we really ought to have not just in the Lordship of Christ, but His friendship, His companionship as well. I think that is an element of faith that we frequently overlook. The value of a real human sense of friendships, an affection, for Christ. The Apostles certainly had it. They didn't just worship Christ, they didn't just believe in Him, they didn't just love Him. They liked Him. And that made it a lot easier to trust Him.

And I think that is a sense which we too can develop. So many times in the course of our lives we too are granted a glimpse beneath the surface, a chance to see who Christ really is, and what He asks us to be for Him. But for us, too, as for the Apostles, with each glimpse, with each Transfiguration, there is always that comforting hand on the shoulder, and the words, "Get up... Come with Me. And don't be afraid."

Readings: Jeremiah 29:11-14; Matthew 17:1-8. This homily was preached at a Mass celebrated as part of a Shanley High School's Senior Retreat.