THE TRANSFIGURATION: PREPARATION FOR BATTLE
Seventh Week in the Time of a Galilee
Brothers and sisters, companeras and companeros – we are at the end of the season of Galilee in our spiritual journey this year. We prepared as the people prepared for the Birth of a great liberator, Jesus of Nazareth. We experienced the love and healing of the Virgin Mary and the Virgin of Guadalupe. We experienced the patience of the prophet who waited so long for the coming of the liberator and the call to make the way ready for him by John the Baptist. We saw the wisdom of the magos and the faithfulness of the shepherds as Angels brought them to Bethlehem and warned the Holy Family to go to Egypt as an evil governor slaughtered the first born boys of the town. Finally, we returned with Jesus as he was baptized by John, confronted the devil in the desert and began his ministry, promising Good News and the Kingdom of God among the poor and oppressed.
We have followed in the footsteps of Jesus as he recruited his disciples, reached out and healed the poor and drove out the demons of oppression, restoring their dignity and equality before all. We walked in his footsteps as he sent out the disciples and then 72 volunteers to gather the people with his message of healing and liberation and gave them confidence to become part of a new church – a church that had no temple walls or corrupt priests, that did not cower before the arrogance and racism of their conquerors, a church ready to give spiritual strength to new communities of faith in the diaspora to which the people were forced throughout the Roman Empire.
Now we are called to follow Jesus on his march to Jerusalem, to the cross and to the Resurrection. You are God’s people, those who have been forced to migrate to this northern nation where, disrespected and exploited, you have persevered and raised families through hard work – and through the strength of your faith. You are millions – with and without papers and you have given rise to a new generation, the descendants of the diaspora, an army of fighters with the knowledge they have acquired and the faith you have given them – the faith of their ancestors.
Now we face a critical year in the struggle. In nine months, the nation will decide on the future of its government – and the kind of treatment and justice this government will afford to you and your descendants. There is a war going on against the Latino family. It goes on every day through arrests and deportations, through law enforcement racism and repression, through exploitation and oppression. It is a war against you because the Latino family is generating a new majority of people of color in this nation and those in power, Trump and his followers, are consumed with the goal of making America White Again.
As Jesus made his way to Jerusalem. Confronting the hypocrisy with which his people were controlled and suppressed, so we must make our way to a confrontation to demand respect for the families which God has created and planted in this nation to make his justice and his love known.
Today we seek those who will act with the courage, love for their people and faith in the God of Justice to take this campaign for our right to family to the people - and to the centers of power. We will send our representatives ahead to Washington DC and we will begin to assemble the people to celebrate massively “A Day of the Family” after we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus. We do this to light a fire that can erupt across the nation over the next nine months, motivate our community to vote and put our demand before a democratic party which has too often ignored us.
First there must be the street and then the election. It is the only way. WE cannot depend on the democratic party to defeat Trump and the wave of racist trumpeters that carried him to power. We did that in the last election and we have paid dearly for it. We want the battle cry to “Stop the Deportations” and “Stop the separation of families” to raise up the opposition throughout the nation.
We have walked with Jesus through the scriptures on our spiritual journey. We have been guided by those scriptures – but we have also been guided by the living Jesus. Jesus is here now with us today – as are all the prophets from Moses to Mohammed to the leaders of liberation struggles around the world.
How is Jesus with us? Through your faith! Through your faith Jesus walks with you. Through your faith, you will know his miracles. Through your faith you will make the Kingdom of God come alive on the earth and you will claim the victory!
Today, we are called to make ourselves ready as Jesus did. The people have doubts. Their doubts come not from cowardice but from their concern for their children and their community. Jesus knew this about his people and so he made a decision. He would take his little movement, with his twelve disciples, and he would march on Jerusalem, the capitol, the center of Roman Power and Jewish compromise.
Remember he came preaching to “repent because the Kingdom of God is near.” He preached the forgiveness of sins. He preached that through faith his people could become innocent – innocent of sin and innocent of the hypocritical laws that were used against them.
It is hard for us to believe in ourselves. It is hard to believe in our leaders. Many have disappointed us. Jesus was determined to show them that true innocence could defeat hypocrisy – so his people would seek that innocence in themselves and would believe in themselves and in the struggle. He prepares himself on this day for that journey to Jerusalem. He goes to the mountain and takes two of his disciples with him.
On the mountain, the two disciples suddenly saw Jesus talking with two of their greatest prophets of old, Moses and Elijah. Moses had led their people from slavery in Egypt, on an exodus through the desert. Elijah had fought back when the government began to oppress its own people. God had spoken to both of these prophets and showed them the way to save the people.
The disciples didn’t know what to make of this. In truth, Jesus went to the mountain to speak with his ancestors. As he talked with them, he was transfigured, as if a light was suddenly inside of him. A voice came from the clouds, “This is my son. Listen to him!”
When the Israelites escaped from slavery in Egypt they were led by a cloud. The voice today comes also from a cloud. In his Transfiguration, Jesus was at one with his ancestors, beyond death – and therefore had no fear of the death he would face on the cross. To summon his courage, to prepare himself, Jesus withdrew into the Spiritual world of his ancestors.
We are asked this year to walk in the footsteps of Jesus along his journey. His transfiguration is a premonition of the transformation to which Jesus is leading us. If you feel the scriptures today, you will know that you could really be changed this year! We can receive forgiveness and be made innocent and free of the dramas that addict us to death and drugs and inhumanity to each other. So too we recognize that we are innocent of the crimes of which they accuse us. Those who were forced to come here for the survival of their families are not criminals, they are victims of a forced migration for which they are owed respect and justice. Those whose lives are spent in confinement are victims of a system of criminalization and are owed the respect of a second chance.
As we follow him in these next few weeks, we will walk with him as he confronts the hypocrisy of the world with his innocence. His innocence on the cross will expose the hypocrisy and his confrontation with hypocrisy will confirm his innocence. Today, in communion with his ancestors, he is sure of his innocence in resurrection and committed to the salvation of his people.
Before we begin this journey with Jesus to Jerusalem, receive the communion with your own ancestors that is offered today. Withdraw from the drama and the doubts. Feel the heartbeats of the indigenous that watched the tall sails of the ships sailing into their harbors but stood their ground. Walk with Juan Diego to the Bishop, carrying the flowers and with the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe on his Tilma; Withdraw to the spirit of those who rode with Zapata and Via. Stand up with Rudy and King and Fred. Step into the river’s water next to a mother who carried her child above her head to provide for its future or join in prayer with Francisca in sanctuary; But withdraw also from the drama and self-doubt that puts you at odds with each other and let that mother’s love fill your heart.
Withdraw from the drama and the doubts. Find in yourself that communion with the Kingdom of God. Prepare to walk with Jesus and confront the corruption of a system that imposes greed and racism and unjust laws on our lives. Together, let’s confront those who would accuse us, who would criminalize us, who would exploit us. Confront and become free.
Withdraw to the mountain where the river of the Spirit runs strong. Prepare to walk with Jesus in the light that comes from within. You are not alone. Jesus walks with you! Together you will become Jesus if you persevere.
Let us pray: Make me humble, Make me Just, Make me Fair, Teach me to Share, Teach me to Sacrifice out of love, Teach me to always honor and search for Truth, Give me the courage to do what is right, Give me the courage to stand with those who are treated unjustly, Teach me to forgive without forgetting what is right, Teach me to serve God and to serve God’s people. Purifiy me, as I walk the road that Jesus walked.
In the words of the Holy Scriptures, Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles; And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith!
Amen. Amen. Amen!
The Holy Scriptures for the Seventh Week in the Galilee
L. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses,
P. Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.
L. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,
P. Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith
Exodus 3:7-12 Moses And The Burning Bush
The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey…. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.”
1 Kings 19:12-18 Elijah on the Mountain
After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He replied, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.” The LORD said to him, “Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus. …. Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him.”
Mark 9:2-13 The Transfiguration
After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.) Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!” Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.