Text Luke 15:11-32 The prodigal son. GUC 27 March 2022

“The pursuit of happiness” is one of our most fundamental rights. It is enshrined in The American Declaration of Independence. This is hardly controversial since almost everyone thinks that wanting to be happy is a good thing. If only it were that simple; unfortunately, I see at least two difficulties.

First, there are many people who have done well – basically have everything a person could want – but are perfectly miserable. Many have sought happiness but not found it. Maslow developed his hierarchy of needs. People have assumed, along with Maslow, that if our basic and higher needs were met, we would be happy.

Let’s stop a person on the street and ask. Fred is employed in a public service clerical job, he is married with two adolescent children. He has an income which meets his family’s basic needs (food, water, warmth, rest), and living in Australia meets his safety needs. He has a stable relationship and friends (belonging and love needs). He did a part-time university degree and feels he has achieved something (esteem needs). Notice that we have ascended the need hierarchy. Neither Fred or I know what Maslow, a child the human potential movement, meant by self-actualization which was placed at the peak of the need’s hierarchy. But Fred has recently talked with his GP and has started anti-depressant medication. Maybe Fred should be happy but he isn’t.

There are countless people just like Fred – who have every reason to be happy but are deeply unhappy for no apparent reason. A couple of my closest friends are ‘in the same boat’. They are older and perhaps with more money but unhappy. The second barrier? You will have to wait until later in the sermon. I will have ‘to set the stage’ with the parable of the prodigal son which is one of the best known in the New Testament.

Reflect: There are three people: the younger brother, older brother and the father. Who do you identify with? Think for a moment. Ask yourself why. What life experiences have you had to make such an emotional connection?

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Luke 9: 28-36

The inner circle of the apostles: Peter, John and James accompany Jesus up a mountain to pray. Then the ‘ordinary’ of their ministry experience was interrupted by the ‘extraordinary’. Jesus’ face was changed and his clothes became dazzling white. The disciples saw him talking to Moses and Elijah and the gospel writer noted the disciples, though heavy with sleep, “saw his glory”. Peter felt the need to do something, offering to make dwellings for each of them, which seemed a silly response (but churches have been built for stranger reasons!). A voice came from the cloud, presumably God, announced, “This is my Son, my chosen; listen to him!” (9:35)

This incident is hard to understand. But over the last two thousand years people have tried. It seems important because it is reported in all three synoptic gospels. Perhaps a historical point is being made. Jesus stood in the OT tradition of Moses with the law and Elijah with the prophets. This adds significance to “Listen to him!” Theologians have tried to make sense of it. Some have argued that it as the meeting place of the human and the divine, or the temporal and the eternal. Perhaps it prefigures the resurrection. In Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Anglican traditions there is a Feast of the Transfiguration. I am not sure any of this helps it is a gospel passage that remains mysterious and it is hard to see any contemporary relevance.

But one point can be made: Transfiguration invites us to see with different eyes.

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This reflection was brought to us by Gordon Ramsay (not the sweary one) on October 31, 2021

Readings

• Job 42:1-7,10-17 
• Psalm 34:1-8,(19-22) 
• Hebrews 7:23-28 
• Mark 10:46-52

Have you noticed that people regularly see patterns in things.
We can be good at seeing images, or shapes, in clouds
or even seeing faces in the frothy milk on our coffee.
Sometimes we see patterns when in reality there probably isn’t really a pattern to see
and at other times we can miss patterns that are quite deliberately built in to things 

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The story of Job is a great place to go if you love stories that inspire tough questions, and over the last couple of weeks I’m hoping I’ve opened a few up to you, but, perhaps the toughest lot of questions for me come here at the ending of the story.

Perhaps the response of the friends in Job has frustrated us, maybe because we’ve been in on the bet and know Job is innocent, the friends response is ill informed. Maybe we’ve been frustrated with the friends because we’ve had well-meaning friends offer similar reflections to us when we’ve suffered, or maybe we’ve struggled because the friends remind us of times when we’ve responded to someone else’s suffering in ways that have been unhelpful.

But the most frustrating response, as I reflect on how I first read the story was how I responded as the reader. I came to the end of Job and thought “there’s the happy ending I was hoping for, it all worked out in the end.”

Yet, after a while the story began to haunt me (as many good stories do) and my response became something that made me feel uneasy, and I began to hear in my response the voices of the friends, again assuring that those who are righteous will end up being blessed… that it will always end with a happy ending. 

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