Transfigured: Seeing the Presence of God in Everyday Life

Looking out from Chanting Steep at Sewanee

 

2 Kings 2:1-12

Psalm 50:1-6

2 Corinthians 4:3-6

Mark 9:2-9

 

©2024 The Rev. Seth Olson

 

Holy God, let my words be your words and when my words are not your words, let your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.

 

It doesn’t happen often—an encounter with the transcendent wrapped in the mundane. A moment when despite all odds we see clearly what is not there otherwise to view. Frederick Buechner, the late great churchman and one of my favorite preachers, in his work Whistling in the Dark, described these beautiful interjections of God entering the humdrum with the following words: 

 

The face of a man walking with his child in the park, of a woman baking bread, of sometimes even the unlikeliest person listening to a concert…[or one] standing barefoot in the sand watching the waves roll in, or just having a beer at a Saturday baseball game in July. Every once and so often, something so touching, so incandescent, so alive transfigures the human face that it's almost beyond bearing.

 

Today, we face one such moment as we walk with Peter, James, and John, following Jesus up a high mountain. We have skipped over seven chapters since last Sunday—a product of the peculiarities of the Church year—and in the process, we have missed much. God has been on the move in Jesus’ healing, teaching, preaching, and being with the poor, the sick, and the marginalized. As his path wove ever-nearer to Jerusalem, to his last week, to the Cross, Jesus invited his inner circle of disciples to a mountaintop respite. There something happened that these disciples could only talk about with one another in hushed tones—at least until the Day of Resurrection.

 

On top of this high mountain, Jesus was transfigured. A rarely utilized word in modern speech, it indicates to us that his appearance became more beautiful, radiant, and luminous. Even Jesus’ clothes changed such that they were dazzlingly white. Just for good measure, Mark shared that even if launders had tried, they would not have been able to make his garments this white with all the bleach in the world. 

 

Mysteriously, Jesus was joined in converse high by paramount figures of the Hebrew Faith—Moses and Elijah. Moses was the founder of the Law and Elijah the chief prophet. How the disciples knew who these persons were remains baffling! Of course, the entire encounter defies the grasp of what is logical or reasonable. In this overwhelming state, Peter grasped at straws.

 

The disciple approached Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Mark adds that he knew not what he was saying. Of course, he did not—he was witnessing his teacher glowing with the two most important figures of the Jewish Faith right beside him. Peter then did the most human of things—he tried to hang onto this sacred moment. He wanted to capture the Holy, to teether the Divine to the mountaintop, to box up God. 

 

All of a sudden though, a cloud descended—the mysterious presence of God, the Father enveloped the whole scene. How marvelously terrifying would it have been to be standing in the disciples’ sandals! In the shadow of the Divine presence God’s voice shared the Truth: “This is my son, the beloved; listen to him!”—a mountaintop revelation we continue to unpack. 

 

Then, as suddenly as the figures and the cloud had appeared they vanished. Peter, James, and John were left alone with Jesus. They were left also with the weighty truth of their rabbi’s true identity. He was not just a teacher—he was the Son of God, the Beloved One, the One to listen to and to hear. On top of holding this good and overwhelming news, Jesus gave them the instruction to tell no one, at least until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. Imagine the scene when Peter, James, and John next sat to eat with the other disciples. 

 

“What was it like up on the mountain with Jesus?” asks Andrew. Peter, “Uhhh…”

James, “It was nice.” John, “Yeah, we just chatted with Jesus and looked at the view. Prayed a little bit.” 

 

As funny as this might have been, the Transfiguration, even though we hear it every year on the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, the last Sunday before we begin the Season of Lent, even though we hear this every year, the impact of this story on our lives is often cloudier than the mountaintop. Buechner rightly pointed out that these encounters with the Divine, when God enters our common, human lives are at most once-in-a-lifetime. Still, there are times when we surprisingly catch a glimpse of the ethereal shining brightly through the everyday, like the brilliant spring sunlight illuminating shards of stained-glass. I wonder, have you ever had such a once-in-a-lifetime moment? 

 

God once gave me such a gift. When renewing my Baptismal Vows at the Easter Vigil in 2008 I encountered a Great Mystery. After the Rt. Rev. Duncan Gray Jr., late Bishop of Mississippi and Civil Rights leader, had led me through the renewal of my vows, I was given the opportunity to bear chalice. I was a 23 year-old working in All Saints Chapel where the service was taking place. As I picked up the Schwartz Chalice a fishbowl sized communion cup something happened. The first person kneeling to receive the Blood of Christ, the Cup of Salvation was my childhood priest, the Rev. Francis Xavier Walter. Fr. Francis in his early years of ordained ministry picked up the holy work of Jonathan Daniels that cost him his life. Something holy radiated from Fr. Francis’ face that holy night. 

 

After giving him the chalice, I started to move onto the next communicant, Francis’ wife, Faye. Something stopped me though, as I looked into the reflection of the silver cup. It was a momentary glimpse into the Divine Cloud. Sewanee is known for its fog, but this was a surreal glance, which revealed to me the Great Cloud of Witnesses. It was as though those who were, are, and will be God’s People had converged there to share in Holy Communion. And, just like that, the vision was gone. I faltered for a moment, then got on with communing the full congregation, afraid to share what I had seen for several months. 

 

I know this may sound like the wanderings of an unhinged priest succumbing to the fullness of life as a new rector; however, I know what I saw. I know the truth that has been revealed. Jesus is God’s beloved, and we have the opportunity to dwell in this reality, like we are watching the fog roll in on a misty Sewanee morning. 

 

And yet, these moments of holding the Divine are fleeting, like the joy of holding a baby for the first time, the sting of holding a beloved’s hand as they enter the nearness of God, or a million other incandescent moments in life that we briefly hold as they dissolve before our very eyes. The human instinct is to build containers in these moments—to do something to capture the Divine, like Peter wanted. As we come down from this luminous mountaintop to walk the path of Lent, the road towards Jerusalem, the Way of the Cross, I invite you to embrace every mundane moment with open hands, which allow you to receive what God gives you and to give it away. For as terrifying as this sounds, we will only see the transfigured one, we will only hear God speaking to us, we will only experience the belovedness of the God who made us and makes us one, if we show up, if we watch, and if we listen. 

 

God’s here and now. Do you hear the Divine voice? “You are my beloved.” Amen. 

Coming Home

 

When have you felt lost, like the sheep from Luke 15:1-10?

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28
Psalm 14
1 Timothy 1:12-17
Luke 15:1-10

The Rev. Seth Olson © 2022

Holy God, let my words be your words and when my words are not your words, let your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.

I love hide-and-seek! At least a few times a week, my five-year-old (Teddy) and I find ourselves sneaking around our home trying to evade one another. I am no longer the champion hider that I was during the days of deep pandemic time. Partially that is because our home only has so many hiding places, but also my child has grown up—he’s a much better seeker than he once was.

When the shoe is on the other foot, and Teddy is hiding, I admit that sometimes I intentionally do not find him at first. Even if I hear him giggling under the bed, I might walk down the hall for a while, so that he can reveal in the freedom of being “lost.” Of course, eventually he wants to be found—we all do. Perhaps more than anything else in the world, we yearn to be found.

If you have ever been truly lost it can be a bit terrifying. My first day of College Track practice at Sewanee was such an occasion. I ran with the rest of the team for 3 miles, but they dropped me as I was undertrained. Deep in the woods of the 13,000-acre campus, not knowing how to get out, I felt panicked. At first, I tried to keep running to find my way home; however, that only got me more lost. In those days we did not carry our cell phones everywhere either (man, I sound so old). So, I stopped, and I listened, and I prayed. Then, not too long after that, my friends came running down the trail where I was.

From time-to-time, all of us get a bit lost, and I do not mean like I did at track practice. Lost like we were 21 years ago today when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Lost like we might have been the past couple years. Lost like we forget who we are and whose we are.

When we are this kind of lost we might take inventory of our lived values with questions like: do I enjoy my job, am I fulfilled with my relationships, or how do I feel about my drinking? We might even feel lost as to what we are feeling inside saying: the world is moving on, but I feel stuck—I feel more uneasy or anxious and don’t know why. When we get this kind of lost our society claims there are many solutions to help us find our way and ourselves!

You probably know these promises that we willingly take on ourselves: When I get enough money then you will have made it. There’s that perfect job out there and once I get it, I’ll be set! My life will be complete when I find the right person. A baby will make my family whole! When my team, candidate, or company wins, then it’ll all finally be great! Maybe these “solutions” help us for a time, but what about when we are the type of lost that cannot be solved by earning more, doing more, or being more?

If we are not careful, we might mishear the words from Jesus today. We might mistakenly think Jesus is telling me to go do more – I am a shepherd who will be alright when I find the sheep, or I am like the woman who must get that money back! Here though Jesus is not telling us to just keep seeking until we find, instead he is describing something we cannot find or fix on our own.

When we are lost—when we feel as though our faith, our spirit, our soul is lost—we would be wise to hear three aspects of these stories Jesus told us today. First, when we are lost, it is not on us to become found. Second, while being found is not on us our role is not entirely passive either. Third, this is not a “being found” competition—in other words, we are invited into a celebration where we rejoice alongside others when God finds them too.[1]

First, finding ourselves is not all up to us. There are a lot of books on Amazon with the title “Finding Myself,” and I am sure these volumes with thousands of five-star positive reviews do indeed help individuals to do the important work of discovering their truest selves. That work cannot be understated in how valuable it is. And yet, at the same time there is something fundamentally humorous in the idea of me being able to find myself if I am truly lost.

Jesus’ parables today enlighten us to the truth that sometimes we are the lost sheep or the lost coin. Anytime we get overwhelmed by the too-much-ness of this world, God is already searching for us. God is the foolish shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine other “found” (saved?) sheep to go find the one who has gone missing. Make no mistake this is poor animal husbandry; however, it is the audacious way that the Reign of Christ works! God comes looking for us.

In the same seemingly foolish way, the poor woman having just found her coin, then throwing a party for her neighbors would NOT have been the best financial decision. However, when she found a coin worth—funny enough, the amount of money needed to purchase a sheep—she could not help but celebrate with others. Jesus was not attempting to provide worldly wealth management advice, nor was he your typical shepherd. The way he depicts the Kingdom of Heaven points us toward seeing that God’s love is lavish, superfluous, extravagant, over-the-top, and even a bit dangerous (in the best possible way)!

So, if the point of these stories is that we aren’t the seekers, but the lost, then it’s not up to us at all—we’re merely passive passengers with Jesus taking the wheel, right? Well, this is the second point to notice—there’s this happy middle ground here, like when I was lost in the woods running. I could have keep searching by running and gotten myself more lost. Something deep within me though told me to stop and listen and be open to being found! Sure enough, I was. So was the lost sheep and so was the lost coin.

The point of the story then is that we are miserable sinners, and we should sin boldly, and get lost after some riotous living (like the Prodigal Son in another parable)! Right? That sounds fun! Except, that’s not it either. In the parable that follows right after today’s Gospel, the Prodigal Son gets lost too, and it’s not fun—he’s so desperate that he daydreams about eating pig slop and being a hired servant. Being lost takes its toll, living riotously is not all fun. Sometimes though it takes us reaching that sort of emptiness, that kind of breaking point to realize we’re lost and cannot get “un-lost” on our own.

The beauty is that we need only to be still, to pay attention, and be open to God. In this middle ground, God does something almost incomprehensible. God comes running for us, and when a lost sheep is found, a lost coin is retrieved, a lost child is home, there is a raucous party! Every time we find ourselves lost (haha), God will seek us out to bring us back home where a giant celebration will commence.

Still, there’s a third and final point here to the story. Yes, we are “lost” sinners and tax collectors, but we are also “found” religious ones like the scribes and Pharisees. Our part in these stories is multiple. We play more than one role. As we experience the relief of being found and coming home, our task is not then to ostracize those who have not yet realized that God is pursuing them. Our aim as cojourners on this spiritual path is to rejoice whenever one is found by God, and maybe something more.

It is quite easy to be cynical, to think like the older brother in the Prodigal Son story, that we have earned our way into the Household of God because God found us at a different time, but that’s not the point of these powerful parables. Instead, we are called to rejoice around the Table together recognizing just how magnificent it is that God seeks us still.

At times we might feel like we are playing hide-and-seek with God, but as we hear these parables of the found sheep and the found coin anew, may we recognize all the ways we fit into the story. At times we will be the lost ones, at times we will be the found ones, and at times we will be the ones invited to rejoice alongside lost ones coming home. Alongside God may we be like the Good Shepherd, the Searching Woman, and the Adoring Father who rejoice and celebrate the beauty of us all coming home.

 

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[1] Elaborating upon points made by Dr. Scott Bader-Saye, Theological Perspective Commentary on Luke 15:1-10 in Feasting on the Word Eds. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010).

Wholehearted Diet

What makes for a good diet? As a child growing up in the days of the food pyramid, I recall that whole grains, fruits and vegetables, meat, and dairy were the core components of healthy eating. My parents instilled in me the goal of eating a balanced meal with foods from these four main food groups. When I went off to college I can remember being a bit overwhelmed though with the dining hall options.

McClurg Dining Hall—the cafeteria at Sewanee—provided a wealth of eating options: A home line with comfort foods like casseroles and mac n’ cheese, an Asian line with made-to-order stir fry options, a grill line with hot dogs, hamburgers, and fries, a salad bar, a sandwich bar, and a dessert bar! This does not even cover the wealth of back up options like a waffle bar, various cereals, numerous drinks, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The fifteen pounds I quickly gained at college were primarily from the wealth of choices, although I blamed it on wanting to bulk up to play college soccer… haha, yeah right! I can remember struggling that first year to make sure I ate balanced, healthy meals. There were even moments when I felt a little bad about not eating enough good stuff. Sound familiar?

In today’s Gospel lesson (Mark 7:14-23) Jesus has some concerns about people’s diets, but not in the way that I was concerned in college. The scribes and Pharisees—well-meaning religious folk of Jesus’ day—had become fixated on eating the right things. They even believed if people ate the wrong thing—something defiled, prepared with unclean hands, or not ceremonially washed—then it made someone unclean or bad. Jesus using basic anatomy outlined that food did not corrupt one’s heart, as it travels through the stomach and into the sewer—not into one’s heart. Even if we think we have surpassed this mistaken idea that some foods are bad, we only need to google diet books to find thousands of dieticians laying out what is good and what is bad. So what do we do?
Jesus challenges us to observe a different spiritual diet, instead of concentrating solely on what we eat. Of course, certain foods may not agree with us. Sure, some people are allergic or sensitive to certain items. Yes, particular foods provide a greater nutritional punch than others. Still, Jesus warns against believing that food makes one good or bad, instead of seeing how the actions of someone point back to the health of one’s heart.

We have all heard of a heart-healthy diet, well what about a whole-hearted-diet? Jesus laid out those terrible behaviors that stem from being corrupted within one’s heart—fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly—but these are not default behaviors. How does one end up acting in such a way? Or, better yet, how does one live whole-heartedly instead of greedily or sinfully? Augustine of Hippo may help us out here.

Augustine was a man who lived his early adult life pretty dangerously. He kept on searching for God in places that were not sustaining and life-giving. Eventually though he found that living a selfish life may have provided fun activities, but it was devoid of any spiritual nutrition! After a profound conversion he wrote, “My heart will not rest until it rests in God.” He succinctly described the way we might have a spiritually rich diet—not by filling up with things that lack any real substance, but by resting in God first.

That long list of terrible things that Jesus outlined for us all seem to be symptoms of the same problem. Today we might describe them as addictions, but all of these negative actions are truly ways that we avoid growing closer to God—ways in which we avoid that rest when our souls rest in God. This is the true challenge of living a spiritually rich life. We must start not with good actions, but with the truth that God loves us first and our souls’ homes are resting in God. Once we reside there our actions will fruitfully stem from that place of immediate and transcendent love.

How’s your diet? Not the one focused on food, but the one that comes from your heart? God invites us to start by resting our hearts in Him. Then, we will discover that those actions through which we sought to fill an aching void (things like envy, deceit, or pride) will no longer be hungering—for God will have filled the otherwise unquenchable places within us. That is how we will have a spiritually rich life by starting with our hearts resting in God.

EQB

"Ecce quam bonum et quam jucundum habitare fratres in unum." I am certain that you all understood completely the Latin phrase I just spoke, but just in case here it is in English, "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." These words begin the one hundred and thirty-third Psalm. They also happen to constitute the motto of Sewanee: The University of the South. These beautiful words from the Psalmist have been carved delicately onto the hearts of many including myself.

Over the past few months after finishing up our mid-week Eucharists in St. Mary’s chapel I have stealthily flipped the lectern Bible open to the page that holds the Psalms around 130, including the 133rd song. Partially I did it to see if anyone would notice or if it would annoy Evan—it has not to my knowledge accomplished that. Even more than trying to subtly pay homage to my school though, I have felt a deep pull towards something beyond myself—towards the goodness of dwelling together in unity.

Driving around Sewanee's mountaintop campus in rural Tennessee one likely will spot many oval stickers on the backs of automobiles, which read EQB—Ecce Quam Bonum—Behold How Good! Not just a bumper sticker people there yearn to be together—in classrooms and lecture halls, in dorm rooms and common areas, in fraternity houses and sorority buildings, on sports fields and wooded trails, at the dining hall and the University Chapel. This concept of dwelling in unity radiates as a particularly excel-ling and somewhat peculiar goal for a four-year institution. Those who have been shaped by that place though, would have it no other way. And while it is not a perfect place void of its own dark ages, God has used that community and places like it to shape to give us a foretaste of heavenly communion. So these opening words of Psalm 133 provide a much needed trajectory for all of us to follow in a world bleak and battered by recent hate-filled events.

Somehow though when I saw that we would sing the 133rd Psalm together this morn-ing my heart let out a painful sigh. This groan was filled with desperation for at this particular moment God's desire for us to dwell together seems a far off pipe dream. The events in Charlottesville, VA last weekend—the scared actions of some too afraid to see the truth that God yearns for all to dwell together—and the pulsating shock-waves of anger, fear, and violence, which crested afterward—not only point out the widening discrepancies that exist between people in this country, but also that a chasm separates "the nightmare that this world often is and the way God dreams it can be” –to borrow a line from Presiding Bishop Michael Curry.

We can so easily isolate ourselves into self-segregated tribes that confine us and live into this nightmare. Hatred, aggression, and hostility towards others have made dwelling together in unity seem a nearly impossible hope. And yet, through Christ all things are possible.

In today's Gospel lesson we discover how Jesus dealt with three separate relationships that existed precariously along fault lines—not unlike what our world feels like today. Jesus' relationship with the Pharisees, his disciples, and a Canaanite woman point to God's desire for unity to overcome estrangement, for Communion to dispel isolation-ism, for grace to outshine hatred. In each relationship we discover how we may dwell more deeply in Communion, while not befriending oppression in the process.

First, Jesus loved to spar with the educated, religious people of his day—the Pharisees. His difficulty with them had less to do with their being religious and more to do with how they let being religious get in the way of sharing God's love freely with others. Along this line, Jesus warned against following blindly man-made laws regarding what makes one pure or holy. External practices do not lead to salvation, rather the power of God's spiritual healing within oneself leads to sacredness. Jesus appears wary of a religion that scapegoats the other.

Next, Jesus' relationship with his disciples appeared unsteady, as he frustratingly yearned for them to see God's realm more fully. When Jesus pointed out that what comes out matters far more than what goes in his disciples worried how the Pharisees had received Jesus' teaching. The disciples struggled with leaving the comfort of their familiar religion behind. They could not understand why Jesus wanted them to do something new. The challenge Jesus lay before his disciples focused on having a broader vision: behold what leads to living grace-filled lives and let go of the vestiges that no longer lead to unity with God and neighbor. If religion prevents new growth, then it is fruitless.

Finally, we turn to this relationship between Jesus and the Canaanite woman. Upon entering Tyre and Sidon, a place filled with others who were not part of God's plan of salvation, a Canaanite woman began hounding Jesus and his disciples. She sought healing for her demon-stricken daughter.  Jesus paid her no mind—ignoring her entirely. His disciples were not as adept at tuning out hecklers, and they begged Jesus to send her away. So, Jesus said to his disciples, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." If this were not harsh enough, as the woman knelt before him Jesus replied with some of the most difficult words found in red lettering within the whole New Testament: "It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs."

• Is God's dream not unity among all children?
• Is grace not extended to all?
• Are there really outsiders and insiders in God's realm?

Sometimes grace surprisingly breaks through from an unexpected source. After being compared to a dog the Canaanite woman persisted. She daringly called out Jesus, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table." She under-stood that God's grace extended even to her. Others may have seen her as despicable, annoying, and part of the wrong group, but she had faith in God's love—she got that grace destroys boundaries between us—she knew that grace implores us to live to-gether in unity. Even if Jesus himself did not yet see it, she did. She knew God's ex-pansive abundance—God’s love embraces us all even the despised Canaanite. Her faith was indeed remarkable, for it was faith in a grace that united her with God and united God with all.

We live in a time when divisions exist as deep and wide as those between Jesus and the Pharisees, between Israelites and Canaanites. The scared actions of a few continue to inflame society in anger, fear, and violence. We are far from the dream of Psalm 133 to dwell together in unity, but we must not give into hatred, despair, or aggression our-selves. Instead we must hope. Hope like the Canaanite woman. Hope in a grace that extends even to those presumed to be on the outside. Hope so greatly in God's reign that we are willing to stand up to whomever opposes the outstretching love that unites all.

And with this bold hope let God turn our faith in action, for we are called to act. We are called to act like the Canaanite woman even if it means we have to stand up to Jesus himself. Let us always be on the side of grace extending not just to the few, but to all. If we ever hope to dwell together in the unity of God it will come when we share grace as freely as it is given to us by God! Behold how good and pleasant it is to dwell together in unity through God's grace extending to all.

Priceless Spirituality

Every college has its memorable professors whether they are quirky, funny, or profound. Sometimes they are all of the above. One such professor taught Religion at Sewanee and his name is Dr. Gerald Smith.

Smith—as most students referred to him—wore a tattered old teaching gown that barely held together, as he went on long tangents. Long ago—back in the early 2000s—Dr. Smith had the harebrained idea to get rid of all paper from his classes, which elated many of his text-book hating students. While there were still written assignments, one would read on his or her own to acquire the requisite sources, then email a paper to Dr. Smith. Before each class Dr. Smith wanted students to also email him questions or comments that they found interesting and pertinent to the day’s topic—most of the time the day’s conversation or lecture emanated from one of those emails. In one of those very conversations during Smith’s New Religions class I found myself completely blown away.

This New Religions class focused on the zany pseudo-religions that have originated over the last three hundred or so years. As we discussed everything from the Oneida Community to the Latter Day Saints to Scientology, one day I found myself grasping onto a common thread that wove them all together. In each of these religious organizations there was a fee to pay, a checklist to follow, or a fickle leader to placate. In other words, none of these new religions emanated from grace. Of course, even though these were new religions there was nothing new about that aspect of them.

At the start of the 200s the followers of Christ were beginning to gain traction. The integrity of their beliefs, actions, and worship meant that even in the face of persecution many in the Early Church kept the faith, which made a real impression on others. At the same time Christians were struggling to come to a consensus over the nature of God—the foundational theology of Christianity. One question came to a head in the heart of the Second Century: How can a perfect being (i.e. God) produce an imperfect world (i.e. Earth)?

One side thought that the world was God’s united Creation as spirit and matter are one, while another group believed that the world was full of dualistic forces. The latter group were the Gnostics. They saw the world through the lens of opposing forces, like good vs. bad, light vs. dark, spirit vs. matter. On the surface this does not sound problematic; however, digging deeper Gnostics also held a belief that stated Jesus did not actually suffer, for he was actually just made of all spirit and no flesh. According to them he was like a holy hologram. Tied to the shoddy belief system of Gnostics was the way they practiced their spirituality.

Gnostics believed that God was perfect and the world imperfect, so how did the world come into being? According to Gnostic theology, God created a creature called an AEon, which created another AEon and another and on and on until there were 30 of these AEons. The last AEon created the earth. Even though this belief sounds outrageous, what stands out even more was the elitist spirituality they followed.[1] Gnostics thought that Jesus had come to teach two separate doctrines one for the common person and another for the elite. Gnostics were the only ones who could get the secret knowledge, thus they had all the control of this exclusive spirituality. One man born in the Second Century could not stand for this exclusive type of Christianity and thus stood up to the Gnostics.

Irenaeus of Lyon, whom we celebrate today in the Church, observed this elitism and spent his life preaching against a belief that Christ’s full message was restricted to those with wealth, power, or resources. Whether we are speaking of modern elitism within religion, which requires one to pay top dollar to move up the spiritual ranks or the Gnostics of old, we must be like Irenaeus and stand up for not just freedom of religion, but also a religion that teaches that God’s grace is free to all.

Irenaeus, never one to hide away the light of Christ within him, exemplified three particular ways for us to share God’s message of love to all. Irenaeus preached that all churches regardless of where they were existed as part of the Church catholic. He believed that the message of the People of Israel was sacred and built the foundation for Christians, and that Christians’ task was (and is) to share the truth of God’s love with all people wherever they were. Finally, his message pointed to the Truth that Jesus came not to form an elite religion, but to free all people to serve God and one another.

We too believe that God loves all of us. We believe that Jesus came for all people. We believe that he came to lead all people into love. We must not charge people to practice spirituality, nor can we create a religion based on elitism. For God’s love may be priceless, but it is free for all to receive. And while walking the way of Christ requires one’s entire life, God makes that way available to all. Let us be like Irenaeus who lived his life to show that God freely loves us all.

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[1] Kiefer, James. IRENAEUS. April 30, 2016. http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/Irenaeus.htm (accessed June 28, 2017).