SUNDAY OF LENT WEEK 2 - YEAR A – 17TH FEB 2008
Glimpses of God’s Kingdom
The transfiguration of Christ is a glorious, if only momentary, glimpse of the Glory of God’s Kingdom, as revealed in the person and message of Jesus.
For a moment, ……a few of Jesus’ closest disciples get a small, overwhelming taste of what the fullness of the Kingdom, //……the fullness of Jesus’ glorification, would be like…..// and it is almost too much to comprehend…//.. Perhaps that is all they could bear at this time….. // this little taste was all that their minds, and our minds could hold…..
I have always love the idea that surrounding us at all times, is God’s presence, action and glory….. but our human minds and perception does not often comprehend this…… so, for the most part, we only get little momentary flashes……. a glimpse behind the veil……..
Jesus assures us…. the
have you ever visited someones house and you might be talking to them, and they suddenly get up and say “oh, that’s the phone…. “ and then you find yourself saying… “oh, I didn’t hear anything……”
That has happened to me in the different presbyteries I have lived in…. the person living in the house or office eventually gets attuned to the subtle sound of their own phone, but to others…. amidst the bustle of noise and other sounds…. the ring goes undetected…..
I think the Spirit at work in God’s kingdom is very much like that…. like the air we breath… it is well and truly present, but we take it for granted… until the air gets stirred up into a terrifying storm and we see the enormous power of the air and the wind currents… even if normally invisible… and we only notice the air in a room when it starts to deplete in oxygen and the room gets stuffy…… when a room iswell ventilated, we don’t often think of the air… but it is still there…
Same with the Kingdom…. Christ is present and at work amongst us all the time…. there are signs of the kingdom everywhere….. but many subtle…..
The values of the kingdom can also be at work in people and events not even directly connected to the Christian churches….. the values of
This week…. we caught a powerful and moving glimpse of the Kingdom….. in the events in parliament on Wednesday… especially the moments when the two parties government and opposition were united in a common agreement… and also proposing a common team to move forward….. that’s not something one sees everyday…. but I think of that beautiful Eucharistic prayer for Reconciliation II which says something very special about glimpses of the Kingdom: “In the midst or conflict and division, we know it is you, who turn our minds to thoughts of peace. Your Spirit changes our hearts: enemies begin to speak to one another,
those who were estranged join hands in friendship,
and nations seek the way of peace together.
Your Spirit is at work when understanding puts an end to strife, when hatred is quenched by mercy, and vengeance gives way to forgiveness.”
I believe we glimpsed that very emotionally this week….. and it fills one with a sense of awe…..
How wonderful if we could see the wonder of the natural world… as well as our society as “Charged with the grandeur of God,” as Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins did? Full of life, love, power, and possibility? - I did a spiritual retreat at the Monastery of St Beuno’s where Gerard Manley Hopkins was inspired by and wrote this poetry… about God’s grandeur…. and I couldn’t help but be moved by it….. but of course….. its all around us…. not just in nature… but right here……
Perhaps on rare occasions we perceive reality this way. Or maybe it only seems that way for people who have fallen in love or won the lottery and so on….
Most of the time, I suspect we see our lives in more muted tones. Our routines keep us safe and on course, but they also blur our ability to see what’s beyond them. We start to believe that the way things are is the way they must be. Annoying people just won’t change; irritating factors have to be endured. Injustices of every stripe are part of the package and can’t be helped. we become resigned about the world without ever consciously making the decision to take that course.
But what if we woke up every day, took our first waking breath, and felt the amazement of being alive! Of having another day to create a path, to make decisions, to explore new ideas, to learn something new. What if we saw each day as a cooperative effort between God and us, to bring good news into being? What if we, the free children of God, actually believed in our freedom and exercised it?
It could happen. It is no dream. It is actually Christian reality. The truth about our world exists in layers, but how often do we glance only at the surface…... If we stopped—looked—contemplated every aspect of our day, we’d be astonished at the possibilities inherent in each hour to do things differently, to do them better, to do them in league with the seed of kingdom… growing silently…. but oh so determinedly amongst us…..
( P.W Kelly, with additional resources by prepare the word subscriptions)
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