Faith & Mission

Gospel Breakdown - Luke 9: 28 - 36 1

1. Text: What does it say? About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray. As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure,which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem. Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, “Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and covered them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. A voice came from the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.” When the voice had spoken, they found that Jesus was alone. The disciples kept this to themselves and did not tell anyone at that time what they had seen.
2. Message: What is Jesus’ message? Jesus has just predicted his suffering, death, and resurrection for the first time and has issued a radical call to those who seek to be his followers. He is about to commence his journey toward Jerusalem, where he will be killed. At this point in the narrative, the transfiguration divinely confirms Jesus’ understanding of his fate. The transfiguration is not about offering encouragement to Jesus; it is about instructing the disciples who witness it. The voice that comes from the cloud (a familiar representation of God’s presence) addresses them, not Jesus. They need to know that what is about to happen is part of what Jesus has come to do. 3. Response & Image: What is being asked of us? This story can be thought of as Jesus giving his disciples a strong picture of him to hold on to as they enter the dark days of his suffering and death in Jerusalem. As such, it is a bit of a “courage” for the journey event, something that they could return to ground and center themselves so that they could push on through the bleakness with hope.

Ms Hannah Hale

Director of Faith & Mission

Reflection

The Gospel reading for Sunday week back was Luke’s account of the Temptation of Jesus.

In my lifetime, community attitudes towards ‘temptations’ have shifted in fairly dramatic cycles.  I was born in the strait-laced fifties.  A time when the married couples of my favourite American sit coms would happily sleep in separate beds.

The swinging sixties took aim at all manner of traditional certitudes.  Attacks upon, and disparagement of, ‘Catholic guilt’ were common place.

Liberated Western societies of the eighties and nineties looked upon the indulgent excesses of business tycoons and celebrities with something that was not too far from approval.  Temptation and guilt were clearly out of fashion.

The ‘noughties’ saw the development of movements such as ‘Me-Too’, ‘Black Lives Matter’ and ‘Climate Action’ that clearly and forcefully called out certain types of human behaviour as evil.  For social progressives, temptation and guilt were back. 

In the latest twist to these cycles of morality, there is an argument that the success of Donald Trump’s MAGA movement is connected with a negative community reaction to the associations of guilt that progressives had made with respect to racism, sexism and other areas of modern life and human relations.   

This potted history of the last seventy years suggests to me that a gospel reading on temptation has plenty to say to our 21st century lives.

In Luke’s gospel, there are three temptations and Jesus rebuts them, not with guilt laden negativity, but with statements that guide us to the way of a life worth living.

To the first temptation, Jesus references the Jewish script, Deuteronomy, and states that humans do not live by bread alone. 

This is not an argument that we are going to hear in the forthcoming political debates on our ‘cost of living crisis’.   And, in no way do I want to trivialise the financial hardships facing large numbers of Australians.  But, for example, it is true that the fundamental raison d’etre of the Academy of Mary Immaculate and of religious schools in general, is that students need spiritual nourishment alongside ‘bread winning’ capabilities.

In response to the second temptation, Jesus states that we must worship only one God. The God of Love.  The God of Mercy.  The God who offers life, and life to the full.

Is it fair to say that the fears and turbulence of our modern world, and indeed of the last seventy years, speak to the propensities that we humans have to worship the false gods of power, wealth, control, fame and so on?

In response to the final temptation, Jesus says that “You must not put the Lord your God to the test”.

In pondering this line, I am moved to think about the divisive intolerance that has plagued religious debate for centuries.  It strikes me that so many people from both conservative or from progressive camps, present opinions as if they can speak with total certainty for the mind of God.  This appears to me like putting the ‘Lord your God to the test’.  If any reader thinks that this link is a bit of a stretch, I invite them to think about how tested parents can be, when their teenage children emphatically pronounce upon them, what they should think, say and do. 

Fr Bede Griffith, an English Benedictine monk, offered advice to those who sought to build bridges across the factional divides within our communities or within our families.

“Unity is not something to be achieved solely through doctrinal agreement but through the shared experience of silence, where the heart can recognise itself in the other”.

Mr Mark Hyland

Guest Contributor