Time to move on!

2nd Sunday of Lent
Vancouver, March 8, 2020

​We have all have had the experience of change that involves “going to another place” where we shall spend our time -- perhaps live our lives. When we first began school, elementary or high school, the anxiety of the unknown, the unexpected. Two questions we might ask? Will I be happy. Will I like the people.

I know when my niece changed schools, from one Catholic school to another starting Grade 2, this was quite the event for her, and the entire family, who had also just moved. The anxiety was felt across the three generations: grandparents, parents, and child.

We may also have had the experience of moving into a new house. Common experience for Canadians who look for a better home, more suitable, bigger or down-sizing. Regardless, there is again anxiety. Will I be happy? Will I regret it?
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And when we change countries, we pack up our bags and move, whether alone or with our family, we are still anxious whether this is the right thing. The right move: we leave people behind, like family, and who knows what we can expect. Will we want to turn around and go back because we miss home? 

​Canada is made up of migrants who left their homeland to settle in this vast land, green in the summer but icy in the winter. Sometimes people never returned to set foot on the land they left; others, spend their lives feeling homesick: I miss my family. I miss my friends. I miss the way of life.
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Change is about hoping you’re making the right decision, sometimes, you don’t seem to have a choice in the matter. Circumstances mean that you must sell your home and move out – move one -- elsewhere…
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And yet with the apprehension there is reflection and prayer and then people will say that the most difficult move of their life was the best decision they ever made. And they’ll even say: I should have done this sooner. We should have done this years ago.

Our first reading from Genesis 12 is precisely about a big move, from the Land of Ur to a Land that God will reveal to Abram.

The story of Abram’s departure from his homeland is immediately placed in the context of trust: God is telling Abram to leave, to go to a land -- Abram is not even sure where this land is --  to which God will direct him.

Abram puts his complete trust in God and he will follow God’s instructions. But Abram is not going by himself, he is also bringing with him his wife, children and livestock. The move involves the entire family – and this means Abram’s tribe.

If we break-down our experience of moving to a new place, as I said at the beginning, it could just be our first experience of going to school that involves in a way a move from the time we spend at home with our family, to the time we spend at school with teachers and classmates.

Moving means fundamentally not knowing. And the unknown causes us anxiety for different reasons.
The story of Abram teaches us to put our trust in God, as difficult as it may seem; when we are dealing with the unknown; it is precisely in these situations that is difficult to put our trust in anyone except ourselves.

The instructions come from God, and Abram does not even know where he is going, but God says,“I will show you,” and in doing so, Abram and his family will be blessed. By listening to God, and trusting in His will, we are blessed by Him.

Now what is the connection between Abram who is directed to a land known only to God but which offers Abram earthly blessings, and Jesus in chapter 17 of St. Matthew’s Gospel , who ascends Mt. Tabor with his three disciples, Peter, James and John?

Jesus’ disciples’ are alone with Jesus and this trek is not a horizontal one across the desert with earthly blessings, but a vertical one, where Jesus is transformed, and his disciples bow in adoration.

The event of the Transfiguration involves listening, following, trusting, “This is my Son…listen to him.” But the earthly promises illustrated in the horizontal trek to a promised land, is different from the spiritual rewards in this vertical ascent on Mt. Tabor.

The reward for fidelity to Christ -- dazzling white -- is the Resurrection that Mt. Tabor anticipates.
But Jesus transfigured which the Apostles witness, and the resurrection for those who are faithful is continent upon trust: following Jesus wherever he leads us. Listening to His voice.

In the Mt. Tabor experience recorded in St. Matthew’s Gospel are three dwellings to be made or tents, as proposed by Peter, one for Jesus, one for Moses, one for Elijah.

Moses is associated with the Law, specifically, the ten commandments, and the covenant at Mount Sinai, another Mountain. Moses prefigures both the new law, and the new covenant, of Jesus Christ.

Elijah, instead, represents the prophets, one of the greatest prophets, and all prophets point to the coming of the Messiah, the Anointed One. Elijah’s ascension into heaven (2 Kings 2:1-2) prefigures the Resurrection of Jesus beautifully suggested with Jesus’ dazzling white at the Transfiguration.

Journey walking, journey climbing, from earthly promises to Abraham, to the greatest reward offered to the disciples of Jesus for their fidelity, eternal life. With Jesus we climb Mt. Tabor, listening to Him, to be one with him, dazzling for eternity. Amen.