Transfiguration Part 1
Print Friendly Version| On the Road to Peace by John Dear S.J. | Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2006 |
| Vol. 1, No. 26 |
When I first met Daniel Berrigan, I wanted his advice about the life that lay ahead for me, but I didn't know exactly what to say. "What's the point of all this?" I finally asked him.
Dan took my awkward question seriously. "All we have to do is make our lives fit into the story of Jesus," he said. "We have to get our lives to make sense in light of the Gospel."
What a helpful answer! I never forgot it. The Christian life, I was learning, is fashioned after the life of Jesus. As his followers, we have to know his story, enter his story, and make our story part of his story. The Gospel, in other words, is the measure of our lives.
According to the story, after several years of non-stop service, preaching, healing, and other public works, Jesus retreated up a mountain in search of prayerful solitude, the affirming presence of his beloved God, and the strength to go forward to the cross. His spiritual experience on the mountaintop confirmed his public mission to seek justice, make peace, and lay down his life for humanity. This contemplative event renewed his determination to go to Jerusalem no matter what, because it was there, on the mountain, that God again called him "My Beloved." It was there on the mountain that his self-understanding was confirmed in person by Moses and Elijah, who encouraged him to fulfill his vocation as the nonviolent Messiah. It was there on the mountain that he experienced a foretaste of the glory to come in God's reign of light and resurrection.
By sharing that experience with his friends, Jesus passed on a great lesson. We too can take time from our life journey, climb the mountain of God and recognize the risen Christ in our midst. We too can awake to see the transfigured Christ before us and hear the voice of God instruct us to listen more attentively to Jesus and do what he says. We too can take heart and go forward into the world with the Gospel mission of serving the needy, resisting evil, doing good and proclaiming peace. We too can receive a glimpse of the new life to come in God's reign of light and resurrection.
Every one of us can have a transfiguration experience at some point in our lives if we dare follow Jesus all the way to the cross and resurrection. The more we enter into the story of Jesus, the more we too will share his every experience. At some point, we too will have a sacramental experience of hearing God call us God's beloved, as Jesus did when he sat by the Jordan River after his baptism. We too can share his public ministry of healing, teaching, challenging injustice and promoting justice. We too can enter his private life of community with friends, table fellowship with the marginalized, and intimate solitude with God. At some point, as we walk the road to our own Jerusalems, we too can climb the mountain of God and suddenly recognize Christ in our midst. We too can hear God tell us once again to listen to him.
If we dare listen to Jesus and follow him closely on the road to peace, I am learning, we too are transformed, and at some point, if only for a moment, even transfigured. Our lives are changed into light and love, we realize that we are God's beloved sons and daughters, and we shed Christ's light for others, guiding them through this world of darkness. We ourselves glimpse the new life of resurrection to come. Encouraged by the transfigured Christ, by our own modern day Moseses and Elijahs, we take another step on the Gospel journey of nonviolence into the world's violence. We listen closely to the words of Jesus, and put them into practice. We even find strength to carry the cross of nonviolent resistance to injustice, and welcome the risen Christ's gift of peace in our hearts and in the world.
By walking with Jesus and sharing in his work here and now, we meet the transfigured Christ who, in turn, transforms us, confirms our mission and encourages us to continue his work for the reign of God. If we remain faithful to the journey, we will be transfigured, persecuted, crucified and risen--and the risen Christ himself will welcome us home into the house of light and peace.
This little meditation on the story of Jesus' transfiguration grows out of my own discipleship journey over these last difficult years for the church and the world. As I meditate on my journey and the story of the Transfiguration, I discover again that all we have to do is walk with Jesus, listen to Jesus, wait for Jesus, love Jesus, be with Jesus, serve Jesus, see Jesus in suffering humanity, practice Jesus' way of active nonviolence and welcome Jesus' reign of peace.
The best way to understand life in these tumultuous times, then, is to see it as a pilgrimage journey on the road with Jesus. I am learning once again that as we enter into the story of Jesus and continue his mission of love and peace, we will see the living Christ transfigured in our midst. We will hear the voice of God call us to listen and be reenergized to go forward on the Gospel journey. Though we will undoubtedly face the cross, if we heed the transfigured Christ and follow him step by step down the mountain to Jerusalem, ready to proclaim the good news of peace and practice his compassionate love, somehow, someway, someday, we too will share his resurrection. The Transfiguration is the sign of that promise.
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The above is the introduction to John Dear's new book, Transfiguration, which features a foreword by Archbishop Tutu and will be published next week by Doubleday. It can be ordered at www.amazon.com or your local bookstore. For further information, see www.fatherjohndear.org
I have never had a decent
I have never had a decent thing to say about john dear, i think he is soooo politicized, soooo ultra-left, on and on. But, in all fairness, this was one great column. It is very, very good.
This recounting of Christ's
This recounting of Christ's experience on the mountain, feeling God's love for him, reminds me of my experience being brought back into the Church through seeing people's love and compassion for strangers after Hurricane Katrina. After seeing the complete lack of compassion on the part of the federal government, I saw God reflected in the eyes of the good people who cared enough for their fellow citizens to welcome them into their homes.
In Albert Nolan's book Jesus Before Christianity, I loved the passage that read: "God's feeling of compassion possessed (Jesus) and filled him. All his convictions, his faith and his hope were expressions of this fundamental experience. If God is compassionate, then goodness will triumph over evil, the impossible will happen and there is hope for humankind. Faith and hope are the experience of compassion as a divine emotion".
Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1
Resisting evil is a start.
Resisting evil is a start. We must know what we are resisting and calling it what it is.
If I don't do something, I may not be resisting, I may not be participating. It doesn't mean that I am resisting doing it in the first place.
People can join the military, for example, and never be faced with going to war or killing someone. This doesn't mean that what they did was beneficial or that it kept the peace. When faced with a situation in the military one may resist the evil of killing everyone that they see just because they are told to be very afraid of "those" people.
I could have resisted the temptation of joining the military by not volunteering if my lottery number was high enough without having to actively resist. Or I could have become a conscientious objector on moral or religious grounds showing people that I resisted what I believed was wrong.
Active resistance is more than keeping your actions hidden. If no one knows what you are resisting and why then we may never see real peace because passive resistance does not bring to light options that may be better than acceptance.
Rey, I agree. However, I
Rey,
I agree. However, I think that what is needed is a change of worldview which rejects war itself as an option in solving world problems. There was much opposition to the Viet Nam war which was expressed by those who just happened to be of age to be called upon to fight that war. I don't hear those same voices objecting to the cIurrent war in Iraq. Could it have been that what they really objected to was not war itself but only their involvement in it. Where have all the hippies gone?
Sorry if I have offended those who truly opposed war itself, but it bothers me that the majority of Americans, many of them the same ones who spoke out so loudly against Vier Nam, were and are supportive of both wars against Iraq.
I believe those who call themselves Christians have to take a long and hard look at the life and teachings of Christ and ask if a Christian can support any war.
It seems we are far more comfortable relegating morality to matters sexual, especilly in areas addressing other people's sexuality rather than ours, while overlooking things such as war, death penalty, systematic injustice, etc.
'Resisting' evil doesn't
'Resisting' evil doesn't have to involve direct actions,(preemptive war,e.g.) I believe it does involve active non-cooperation (viz. Gandhi,M. L.king, Dorothy Day, the Berigans...)
This is more than tolerance, and it is engagement.
"Active non-cooperation" is
"Active non-cooperation" is a great thing as well, and something that nearly everyone can do even if they do not choose to "resist" or confront others in any way.
But when Gandhi walked with thousands of his followers to the sea to make salt, which was strictly forbidden under the Salt Laws of the British Empire, that was an overt action of resistance, one which I can't imagine anyone today finding fault in. It was that action and others like it that broke the will of the British to keep occupying India, and made for its nonviolent withdrawal from the subcontinent.
And if it weren't for American blacks in the South sitting in at lunch counters where the laws forbade them to sit (while turning their cheeks when whites hit them), sitting in the front of a bus where the law forbade them to sit, marching up the steps of schools where they confronted screaming white people face to face, and overtly breaking other segregationist laws, where would we be today? I can't imagine anything which could embody the spirit of the Gospel more.
Would anyone rather that we still had segregation in this country, so that we could all be consistent with some people's interpretation of the English translation of this one word in the Bible??
I also think turning over tables and driving people out of the holiest place in the world for Jews, the Temple, is about as actively resisting evil as you can get.
Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1
John Dear writes: " We too
John Dear writes: " We too can take heart and go forward into the world with the Gospel mission of serving the needy, resisting evil, doing good and proclaiming peace."
The problem here is the term "resisting evil". The more accurate term is "non-resisting evil". Remember, Our Lord did not spend His time resisting evil directly. He tolerated the evil while doing some positive good. In fact, "He was lead like a lamb to the slaughter."
Bill Horan writes:
Bill Horan writes: "Remember, Our Lord did not spend His time resisting evil directly. He tolerated the evil while doing some positive good."
Have you forgotten our Lord in the Temple? What about the innumerable times He railed against the Pharisees and the rabbis? What about when He spoke out against towns that rejected Him? Heck, what about the poor fig tree?
Christ didn't tolerate evil -- he forgave and accepted repentant evil-doers. The only time He let evil run its course was at His Passion -- and that was because He sought to let evil do its worst before His triumph.
Yes. Resistance is
Yes. Resistance is futile.
from the underdesk of Gone Tomorrow.
(and let's ignore that whole go and sin no more bit, shall we?)
I believe that William Horan
I believe that William Horan was saying that we need not try to be superheroes ridding the world of evil, but merely avoid engaging in it.
Thanks Dear John Dear. :-)
Thanks Dear John Dear. :-) While looking over the posts of my friend Pat Claus (I like her prespective)I came across this column. This column reminds me of this statement I read somewhere and remembered.
"To "follow Jesus" means to personally share his religious faith and to enter into the spirit of the Master's life of unselfish service for man. One of the most important things in human living is to find out what Jesus believed, to discover his ideals, and to strive for the achievement of his exalted life purpose.
Of all human knowledge, that which is of greatest value is to know the religious life of Jesus and how he lived it."
May God bless and guide John Dear and us as we strive to live a Christ led, Spirit led life. :-)
The more we discover how much we are Loved by God, the more we want to do God's Will