This Sunday's story of the vision of the transfiguration of Jesus on the holy mountain is offered to us by the Church as the goal towards which our lives are directed. We get to see God's glory through the choices we make, through the proper exercise of our freedom. In this Land of the Free, freedom is greatly prized. For most, freedom is the capacity to say 'yes' or 'no' simply on the basis of one's personal inclination. Religious freedom is seen as the ability to practice whatever religion a person wants to, and without any kind of governmental constraint or reward.
Religion is very important to Americans. We have often been described as being, after India, the most religious nation in the world. If the Pew Forum is to be believed, some 76% of Americans claim to be Christian. Our neighborhoods are dotted with churches of one denomination or another.
Early Christianity thrived on the notion that God became human so that humans might become divine. You will find this conviction throughout the writings of early Christian writers such as the 2nd century Irenaeus, the 3rd century Origen, the 4th century Augustine, the 5th century Leo and so on. The belief behind this is that Jesus Christ (God become human) elevated our humanity to the point of its being able to share in his glorious divinity.
For many people today, Catholicism is seen as anti-humanist. It is viewed as a religion characterized by an array of laws controlling self-expression, especially in the area of sexuality. Even the great Christian apologist of the last century, C.S. Lewis, had a problem with this before he was baptized, fearing that commitment to Christianity would diminish his freedom. Lewis eventually came to see that 'God's compulsion is our liberation.'
In the popular mind today, human progress is about having more and more personal freedom and the enemy of this progress is grumpy, moralizing Christianity! How did we get from the rich humanism of our tradition, summed up in Irenaeus' pithy 'The glory of God is a human person fully alive,' to today's conviction that Christianity is the chief enemy of human progress? Much depends on how we understand freedom.
The type of freedom that our society promotes is narcissistic and says 'life is all about me.' It has a problem with rules, order and discipline because it sees them as limitations. There's another kind of freedom, the classical freedom of Christianity, which might be called freedom for transcendence. Sports stars know all about it.
Jeremy Lin, the contemporary basketball sensation, plays so well because he subjects himself to the discipline of the game and to the constraints of exercise and diet. For the big tennis players, footballers, golfers and other sports stars, such laws and disciplines are liberating. They propel them to the top of their game. The sober alcoholic is more free than the drunk because she/he has subjected her/himself to the discipline of a sobriety program.
It is in this light that Paul could say, 'I am the slave of Christ Jesus' and again 'It is for freedom that Christ has set you free.' To people who are into the narcissistic kind of freedom, these two statements make no sense at all; to be a slave means there is no freedom to choose, only compulsion. To advocates of the freedom for development and excellence, Paul's statements make a lot of sense.
Freedom is more than the ability to choose; it is the ability to choose what will make me a better - indeed the best - disciple of Christ. It involves being responsible and caring for myself and for others. This is the freedom Christ and the gospel offer, and the freedom that is misunderstood today by much of our culture, politics and society. Real freedom to live a more excellent life is the freedom that leads to personal transcendence, transformation....transfiguration.
We pray at Mass this weekend that 'with spiritual sight made pure, we may rejoice to behold' the glory of God. That's the task and goal of true freedom.
PASTOR EMERITUS
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