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March 11, 2017Last week we heard the story of Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden and the serpent. It is shocking, in that God’s act of creation was an act of generosity. In the stories that follow, sin spread undermining creation. Cain killed Abel and the murderer was banished. God ‘regretted’ that he made humans at all. So he sent a flood to blot humanity out, but saved Noah and his family. Noah got drunk, his son Ham, committed incest and Ham was banished. After that, some of Adam’s descendants decided they would make a name for themselves by building a tower in Babel. They were scattered all over the world and their languages were confused. How can the Garden of Eden exist if populated by the selfishness of human beings. It is at this point that the story of Abram begins. God invited him to "Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father's house to a land that I will show you.” The reading today said that, unlike all the human beings before him, “Abram went as the LORD directed him.” Gn 12. Abram listened.
God called Abram from Ur of the Chaldees to follow him to a place that must have seemed like the edge of the world. Abram was told that God would make his name great, whereas the people of Babel sought to make their own name great. God called Abram from a place of security into a world of insecurity. God blessed Abram and told him that he would be a blessing on the nations. In the story of Adam, God cursed the serpent and the ground because of Adam’s sin. God promised to bless us through the Abram that listened.
The vision of this Sunday's Gospel is part of the story of salvation going back to Abram. St. Paul wrote to the Gentile Christians in 2 Timothy that that they too were heirs to the promises to Abraham
He saved us and called us to a holy life, not according to our works but according to his own design and the grace bestowed on us in Christ Jesus before time began, but now made manifest through the appearance of our savior Christ Jesus, who destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 2 Tim 1
Jesus’ transfiguration anticipated his resurrection. Moses and Elijah are two great and blessed figures from Israel’s past that symbolize the Law and the Prophets. When the law was given to Israel, the people were instructed, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” Dt. 6:4. Jesus is the holiness described by the Law and he Prophets. After the vision, only Jesus and the three disciples, all Jews, remained and followedd Jesus down the mountain to Jerusalem.
God is preparing us for himself. The story of how Abram became Abraham is the story of a man that listened to God and followed him from Ur of the Chaldees to the promised land. In Abram’s journey, he didn’t walk a straight line. Neither do we. His physical journey, a sign of the interior transformation that changed him is a story. Our lives are a story also. Our story is not just the sum total of all the houses we have lived in, or cities we have visited, but the interior transformation that occurs through all the interior changes in our life. In prayer and the reading of scripture, we are called to listen to God’s voice. Adam is the father of all humans in the story of creation. The difference between Adam and Abram, is that Abram listened to God and became Abraham, the father of a people God calls his own.
