Second Sunday of Lent
“Are we there yet?” This common cry from someone on a long journey is as common as it is annoying. But it’s also understandable, especially if the long journey is towards a vacation or a nice destination. Often times we like to skip the travel part, and just arrive at the destination. The Star Trek idea of using a transporter has for a long time seemed to me an ideal way to travel, in as much as it requires very little time to get from point A to point B.
It can be difficult when we’re not at the destination. But think about Abram in our first reading. This is really the beginning of the story of Abram, who would be renamed Abraham. God calls Abram to leave Haran, where Abram’s father, Terah, had taken him. Terah had been called to go to the land of Canaan, but something happened and Terah never made it to his destination. So God calls Abram to go to Canaan. One website said that the distance between Haran and Canaan was around 500 miles. To put that in context, 500 miles south of us is the city of Nashville, Tennessee. And Abram was 75 years old when he started that journey. Abram did make it, and traveled around Canaan, also going to Egypt, and always seeming to struggle a little. But he never saw the fulfillment of God’s promise that God would make of Abram a great nation. In fact, Abram had only 2 sons, and only one of them, Isaac, was actually the son of the promise to be a great nation.
Jesus, for His part, also knew that the pilgrimage His apostles would be on would be difficult. He had told them that He would have to suffer and die, but assured them of the Resurrection. But still, they didn’t really understand. In their mind, the Messiah was not supposed to bring sorrow and die, but to bring a new Davidic kingdom, with nothing but good times for the Chosen People.
In our own faith life, we may ask from time to time, though maybe not in these words, “Are we there yet?” We want to be at our destination: heaven. And that’s good. But to get there, we have to press on. We cannot, like Terah, Abram’s father, stop and settle on the way, lest we give up and not reach our destination, the true Promised Land. In the midst of our sufferings and trials, we want to be done with it all and be in a place where there is no more suffering, no more confusion, no more “not yet.” That takes courage and perseverance to press on, even in the face of difficulties, when we know that God is calling us to keep going.
Some of you, maybe many of you, feel like this parish is at least in a time of suffering and pain. God invited you to a new pilgrimage, not so much by you moving, but by me moving here, which is a change from my venerable predecessor. We might say that we, like Abram, have left Haran, but we haven’t made it to the Promised Land yet, and we’re wondering when, or even if, we will get there. In many ways I feel your pain and insecurity. We look at the bulletin and see how far off we are in Sunday/Holyday collections and wonder how we can make it (but don’t worry; I’m cutting back on expenses as much as possible). Fr. Anthony is different than Fr. Robert, and different is sometimes scary. Some of our friends have left the parish to go to other parishes. These things are on my mind and heart as well. But, I am personally comforted by the words of Jesus we heard two weeks ago, when He told us not to worry and not to be anxious, because God cares for us. That is what helps to limit the sleepless nights that I sometimes have.
I wish I could suddenly appear in a brilliant, shining light to give you a sense that everything is going to be alright. There are definitely signs of hope: our school is strong and growing stronger, and it is my firm belief that by spending time with our youth and their families in their schools and in their activities, which I do my best to support and to which I frequently go, our parish will rebound and that through our youth and their families, especially through our wonderful schools, new families will be drawn into our parish. I’m not saying that everything is going to be easy and painless from here on out. I seem to find myself on the cross every week, and the words of Psalm 22, the words that Jesus said on the cross, come easily to my mind: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” But my hope and my consolation is the Resurrection, which was prefigured in the Transfiguration that we heard about today. God is continuing to do great things in our parish, as he has since our foundation in 1955. But we’re not in the Promised Land yet. We, like Abram, must press on until we get there.