Citizenship Preservation Sunday
Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18; Philippians 3:17-4:1; Luke 9:28b-36
For those of us who travel often, international Passports are not equally respected. For once, black is powerful, perhaps Africans should be proud of this, because it shows that Caucasians are not a bunch of racists – their passports are largely black, and respected. How Africans and Asians ended up with greenish and reddish international passports is a tale for another day. The power of black passports derive from human contrivances, and history shows that their powers have fluctuated with good and bad fortunes. The issue, though, is that earthly citizenships have set conditions for their procurement and forfeiture, just as powerful personalities determine who is in and who is out; parenthood, place of birth, citizenship laws, economic status, etc militate against universal citizenship. You know what, God grants you and me a universal citizenship!
“Our citizenship is in heaven,” explains the purpose of Lent – how human beings everywhere, irrespective of economic, social and ethnic fortune or misfortune, obtained and continue to acquire heavenly citizenship, the only citizenship that matters. What is the price of a “heavenly citizenship”? Zero dollars, zero ethnicity and zero status – it is a free gift from God, through Jesus Christ; it is the cross of Christ that is the price, a cost accruing to God, a credit given to us; this is the subject matter of this Sunday’s homily – Heavenly Citizenship. If you want a theological term for it, the New Testament calls it GRACE, a free gift; and, the Old Testament calls it MERCY, God qualifies everyone for it! Yes, a universal citizenship is God’s gift to humanity because of the merits of Jesus’ passion and cross, and Lenten season tells us the story of how it was achieved. Actually, the process started out with a covenant – an agreement, at God’s initiative, because human beings failed God in Adam and Eve!
Those familiar with human frailty of any kind will appreciate the meaning of mercy – the fact that merits-based-salvation has never stood human beings in good stead with God because of human imperfection, before a perfect God, always falls short of divine expectation. Adam and Eve are a classic example. In Judeo-Christian history, sin has always been part of the picture; little wonder we talk about “original sin,” among Catholics, and “sin of origin,” among Protestant biblical scholars; whichever way one looks at it, failure is part of the history of human relationships with God. Before human limitations and infidelity, God’s mercy is the only way out and forward – God gave his Son, as a sign of mercy, in order to save human beings. What then is “mercy”?
“Mercy” is the history of a God who keeps shifting the goalposts in order to make his sons and daughters score goals; it is a history of a God who bends the rules in order to grant his children a pass mark; yes, God is a self-limiting God, who qualifies an adulterous and murderous David as king of His people Israel; who grants Israelite citizenship to Rahab a prostitute; a God who in-grafts non Jews like Ruth into Jewish genealogy, who spends 9 months in a lady’s womb, despite the inferior status given to women at the time! Indeed, the history of mercy and the God of mercy are one!
Our first reading establishes the historical origins of God’s mercy. Today, Scripture doesn’t record for us Abram’s application and request for greatness; on the contrary, Scripture informs us of a God who takes “Abram”, meaning “father,” and makes him “Abraham,” an exalted father, “everybody’s father”. We are dealing with a story of a family here, not of a race, gender and status: hubris and pride have no place. It is about a family which God creates by calling and conferring “fatherhood” on one man, Abraham, for the sake of every human being, us!
The covenant with Abraham, which our first reading recounts, anticipates your citizenship and mine, because every covenant establishes a relationship, especially kinship relationships. In the covenant with Abraham, God qualifies you and me for a familial relationship with him, just as he qualifies Abram by freely choosing to enter into a relationship with him: this is the essence of God’s mercy, we belong to him anyway, because he decides it should be that way. Nobody realizes this reality of the essence of a covenant with God better than St. Paul. Paul calls it the conferment of heavenly citizenship! The citizenship we often forget because of earthly preoccupations of human beings, which blinds them to their heavenly citizenships. In spite of our earthly attachments, according to our second reading, Paul calls us brothers and sisters, not a biological model of kinship but that of faith via the cross of Jesus Christ, which earned us our brotherhood and sisterhood; but above all, it confers citizenship of heaven upon us.
As a confirmation of our heavenly citizenship, Jesus, in our gospel, offers some of his disciples a foretaste of this citizenship – immortality with God in glory. The transfiguration of Christ tells us, in a nutshell, that we are pilgrims on earth. That the journey Abraham set out on, from the Middle East, doesn’t have an earthly destination, but heavenly. This point comes across clearly in Jesus’ transfiguration – the earth veils heavenly glory, but just for a time, because immortality is God’s gift to us. In other words, heavenly citizenship comes with the gift of immortality and the abiding presence of God. The appearance of Elijah and Moses, at the transfiguration, proves that immortality is a reality because Elijah and Moses live on, so they can appear again!
If Lent recounts this fact of our heavenly citizenship and how the cross of Christ is a necessary part of it, Lent calls us to appreciate what God gave us in Christ. The catch is, “this is my son, listen to him”. How hard is listening, if that is all God asks of us, in order to keep our citizenships? “Listening” is different from “hearing,” for whatever is said in our hearing, we hear, like the noises of cars and gossips, but we do not necessarily listen. “Listening” takes place when what is heard shapes our lives and behaviors. Here precisely is the challenge – if God offers you and me a heavenly citizenship, on a silver platter, how do we preserve it? The answer is in our gospel – “this is my chosen Son, listen to him!”
Two fundamental points differentiate heavenly citizenship from earthly citizenships: 1) the presence of God, and 2) border and security controls. The transfiguration of Christ assures us that it is the presence of God that makes heavenly citizenship a reality, not a piece of paper (Passport) of whatever color! Also, our Christian credentials are only required before God and not human agencies, so we cannot fake it. These two differences make listening to God the only condition for the preservation of our heavenly citizenship! The conclusion, therefore, is – pick up your bible to read and act in accordance with its directives, that is what it means – “this is my chosen Son, listen to him!”
Assignment for the Week:
Buy a copy of the Holy Bible each for your home, car and office: reading and practicing its contents assure your citizenship may remain sacrosanct!
(Taken from Fatherayo2u.com 2016)