reflections
Sunday before Lent Exodus 34
2 Corinthians 3 Luke 9
On this last Sunday before Lent, it is traditional to rehearse the story of the Transfiguration, which has its own Feast Day on August 6th. But the way the lessons are arranged today, it is clear that one word ties all of the readings together: reflections. Moses reflected the glory of the Lord when he came down from the mountain and continued to have the same experience whenever he went into the sacred Tent to meet with God. Jesus’ human nature reflected the divine glory that was his true divine self. That is to say, on the Holy Mountain his humanity visibly reflected the glory that pertained to Jesus’ status as the divine Son and which would be natural to it come the resurrection. Then, in his letter to the Corinthians, Paul says that we Christians are to reflect the divine glory also—the work of the Spirit is to make us like mirrors of the glory that was visible in Christ. This is the essential difference between the times of Moses and the times of Christ. In the past, there were certain extraordinary manifestations of the Spirit in order to guide the people of God according to the divine will. But now in Christ, the Spirit is at work in an extraordinary way in all believers. Any veil that hid the meaning of the purposes of God from ordinary believers has been taken away. In the Spirit, we can all see Christ clearly and his reflection becomes visible in the lives of all who are living in the Spirit. It is an extraordinary text—especially when it seems to imply that the mirror in which we see Christ is each other!
Now this does not mean that we shall shine, necessarily—like Moses’ face or Jesus’ clothes on the holy mountain—although every once in a while I have noticed that some of you do seem to have a kind of glow about you—but that is not the kind of reflection we are talking about. What we are to reflect is the likeness of Jesus—the work of the Spirit is to make Jesus visible in us: his manner of life, his faith, his love, his gentleness, his truthfulness, his patience. These are the kinds of things that rub off on people who are Jesus’ students, his apprentices. Once they have spent some time with him, learning Kingdom living, they start to incorporate what he teaches them in their lives. It is what Jesus meant when he said that as the Father had sent him, so he sends his followers into the world. This is the ministry of the Lord who is the Spirit—it seems as Paul goes back and forth in this passage between talking of Jesus and the Spirit. It is the Spirit who makes this reflection of the life of Jesus in the believer possible. On our own, we cannot be faithful apprentices or persevering followers of our Lord. But in the Spirit all is possible, since the strength comes not from us but from the Spirit.
In fact, Paul is so wrapped up in the idea that it is the Spirit who is at work in his ministry, doing all the hard stuff, working at the depths of things, that he is completely fearless and open with people—just as Jesus was. “Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness,” he says. He has decided that he doesn’t need to work any angles; he doesn’t need to manage things in a controlling kind of way. “We refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word; but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God.” Since it is the Spirit who is at work, and where the Spirit is at work there is true liberty, he can be free simply to speak the Truth—no trickery or manipulation—and call upon all who hear him to heed the voice of the Spirit. It is their responsibility to listen or not to listen.
This means that we are faced with an exhilarating challenge and a rather scary one at the same time: we cannot take refuge in organized religion, in ecclesiastical duties, in keeping the rules—or whatever we call it. We cannot take refuge in disorganized religion either, that is, in making our own way, in our own light, taking a little of this and a little of that, and composing our own personal religion. We must instead be listening for the voice of the Spirit, cultivating a sensitivity to the Spirit’s presence. We do not lose the corporate sense of our life together: it is the same Spirit that works in each of us and that gives us our own particular service in the one Body that is Christ. But no one can listen to the Spirit for you—that is your job. The Spirit is at work already in your heart and life, leading you towards the identity and ministry and life that Christ has for you. Only you can discover it—although you can share what the Spirit is saying to you with others and profit from their discernment.
That means a great freedom for me as your priest. I don’t have to worry about getting everything right—doing everything correctly—fearing to make mistakes—although I would rather not make too many of them, of course. I have not always been free from that worry—and I have also found that worrying doesn’t free you from mistakes, it only makes them more worrisome when they happen and can make you more defensive in handling them. No, what I have to do is listen to the Spirit, too. My ministry is to offer you opportunities to hear the Spirit speak to you. That is why we are at Mass on Sunday—to meet with Jesus through the agency of the Spirit in Word and Sacrament. I choose hymns and prayers and sermons, according to the pattern of the prayer book, so that we can offer ourselves to God through this worship and prepare a space in which we are available to listen to the Spirit. That is the purpose behind everything I do: group meetings and studies, sacramental preparation, individual conversations, and articles I write: I am trying to listen to the Spirit in my life and in the life of the Church and then offer what I hear as an opportunity for the Spirit to speak to others. Then it is up to us all to listen. I may not get it right every time. That’s OK—I don’t know everything. I make mistakes. I need to be in conversation with many others—living and dead. But even my errors can be an occasion for the Spirit to make the truth known—in that case, by your disagreement with me.
The most I can do is to cultivate a listening attitude towards the Spirit and the disciplines that will make it easy for the Spirit to reach me and teach me. If I am not doing that work, then I am failing in my vocation, which is to provide the Spiritual Direction which keeps us all focused on the Spirit in this place—or, as our mission statement puts it: To share the Wisdom of God in all its rich variety, through our common life in the Body of Christ, so that the place where we live may be renewed and transfigured in God. But essentially, my job is the same as yours: to become a reflection of Jesus by cooperation with the Spirit. So I am liberated from all kinds of external expectations—though I still am accountable to my bishop: we have to have some organization—as I pursue the one expectation that God has of me: that I listen to the Spirit who will lead me more and more to reflect Christ in my own life. We are all in this together: “All of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.”
That was the great hope and the great freedom Paul had—since the ministry he had was a ministry of the Spirit, the Spirit who was applying all the work of Christ to the hearts and lives of the people who had heard his message, Paul didn’t have to worry about what was happening. He often did, of course, but he often reminded himself that outcomes were not his business—that was the Spirit’s business—so he could be frank and open and honest with the truth and allow the Spirit to work, calling upon those who heard him not to pay attention to him, that is, to Paul, but to God and see if the words he said and the actions he performed actually manifested the life of Jesus or not.
We ought to go on record, I suppose, at this point, as understanding that all of this is not easy. There are lots of distractions and sins and evils in the world which make it hard to listen to the Spirit. Paul was very much aware that he did not have it within himself to carry on this ministry. Earlier in chapter 3 of 2 Corinthians he said: “Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” In spite of our sins and weaknesses, God has made us competent to be ministers of his new spiritual covenant with humanity.
We stand now before the season of Lent once again. After the Transfiguration, Jesus set his eyes towards Jerusalem and he knew what he was facing there. At the beginning of Lent we look towards Easter and maybe we see that we have a lot to do before our transformation into the glory of the image of Jesus in our own lives is as visible as we want it to be. That is exactly the point Paul is making in our Epistle: we don’t have to worry about the outcome if our process is undertaken correctly. We don’t have to worry about mistakes and sins and failures along the way, if in reality our hearts are set to listen to the Spirit and we know that the final goal of our lives is to manifest the life of Jesus in our own particular way. That intention could even lead towards approaching Lent with a light heart—as if the Spirit had wonderful things to teach us this Lent.