A homily for the Second Sunday of Lent, March 13, 2022
Gn 15:5-12, 17-18, Phil 3:17—4:1, Lk 9:28b-36
Celebrity is a strange concept, especially how it’s practiced today.
We have the self-declared so-called Influencers, who use TikTok and other social media du jour to dictate what their followers must say, think and do. Influencers actively promote themselves incessantly and shamelessly. They preen so that they can be seen. And they attract millions of disciples.
We have the Reality Stars, who broadcast and stream from their Los Angeles Kompounds and from their Real Houses all over the world and from the Jersey Shore, and whose lives and loves and fun and faults are laid bare, similarly shamelessly. And millions more kan’t take their eyes off them.
We have Traditional Stars, who mesmerize us on massive movie screens (remember those?) and in our home theaters. Off-screen, they project a public persona that mirrors or dovetails with the characters they play, but they work equally as hard to shield their true private lives from the public’s prying eyes. They, too, have millions in their thrall.
Why, then, would Jesus not want to be in any of those groups? Think what he could have done with all those beliebers.
Before Christ’s Transfiguration, before God made it clear that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law (Moses) and the Prophets (Elijah), the disciples couldn’t really explain why they chucked away their previous lives to follow him anywhere and everywhere, let alone to Golgotha and then to their own demises.
There was something about this carpenter’s son from Nazareth, even though the common wisdom was that nothing good ever came from that village.
The Apostles sensed whatever that something was — and is — and after they witnessed the literal blinding brilliance of the Messiah and heard God’s loving endorsement of Jesus and his words and miracles, they jumped at the chance to shout from the mountaintops that the Son of God was among them.
Not so fast, Jesus said, absolutely befuddling them.
And that wouldn’t be the only time Jesus put the kibosh on publicizing his good deeds.
Now, we can take it as Gospel truth that The Father loves Jesus, is proud of him, and wants all of humankind to practice what he preached. We likewise can believe that we, as children of God and through our baptisms as adopted sisters and brothers of Jesus, are loved by God, who is proud of us when we, yes, practice what Jesus preached.
That is and always will be a key takeaway from any of the Scripture versions of the Transfiguration. Jesus really is who he is, divine yet human, of the same substance as Father and Spirit, with power and majesty and purity and goodness and love beyond human comprehension. People are right to be absolutely blinded by him. Fair enough.
And it would be perfectly acceptable to close the book on today’s Scriptures with that.
But the unanswered question remains: Why does Jesus make it so plain that he prefers the dark glasses-and-baseball cap look to the heavenly spotlight?
Maybe it has to do with human nature, humans’ fickle nature.
We recall how the same people who welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem with Hosannahs and palm fronds were calling for his crucifixion mere days later. Talk about how the worm turns.
What about in the three years before that?
As we see with today’s rapid turnover in the top spots on popularity charts — of all sorts, on all platforms — fame is a fleeting thing.
Cliché time: Flash in the pan. Here today, gone tomorrow. One-hit wonder.
Jesus, the gentle itinerant rabbi with nary a shekel to his name, was never going to live up to any unrealistic hype that preceded him, so he tried to make sure that no hype did. He didn’t always succeed, of course — Zacchaeus, come down from that tree! — but he did deliver compassion and wisdom to individuals and to massive crowds wherever he visited.
Jesus also tried to tamp down misguided expectations, because many in Israel were looking for a military victor and an earthly king as their Messiah. Jesus is the Messiah, but not that flavor. So minimizing celebrity paid dividends there, too.
One last cliché: Actions speak louder than words.
Jesus sat among the people, especially the sinners and outcasts, especially the women and children and demoniacs, especially the tax collectors and lepers and centurions, and in sitting down, Jesus elevated them.
Jesus told them, told us, how to live in love, and then healed body, mind, heart and spirit to seal the deal.
By choosing humility over celebrity, Jesus ensured that The Way and the Law of Love are permanent, regardless of how fickle we can be when the next shiny thing catches our eye.
Jesus shunned celebrity. And his Holy Name and his works have been known and revered universally for millennia.
