January 27, 2008 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Isaiah 8: 23-9:3 + Psalm 27 + 1 Corinthians 1:10-13, 17 + Matthew 4:12-17

It is not a good time. The voice crying in the wilderness now thunders in prison. Authority does what authority always does: tries to silence whatever threatens. The response of Jesus is not to run. He is the light shining in darkness, so he goes headlong into the darkness. He leaves the safety of his home, the protection of his family. The town and territory to which he goes is the land of that authority. The infant who once fled to Egypt for safety now walks straight into the danger. It’s a dangerous move, taking a message of light into darkness, a message of life into a land of death. He could easily suffer the same fate as John, yet he goes to Galilee.

But this story of Matthew is not just about Herod, John, or Jesus. Beneath their story a prophecy unfolds. Isaiah predicted this. Jesus is not a fool teasing the wicked; he moves by God’s plan with a message that cannot be imprisoned.

So now, the torch is passed from John to Jesus. A desert voice moves to the cities and towns, to the sea and temple. He leaves what is safe, secure, known, and predictable because the Kingdom of God is at hand. But the people do not know how to reach for it. If they would change the way they think and act the Spirit would come upon them. Yet they sit in darkness. The Kingdom of Heaven is now; but the people are not. He knows the task is bigger than he is that it will take longer than a lifetime, and so he looks for help. He looks first to a pair of brothers. Matthew wants us to get that point. He says twice in one sentence. He goes to them. He does not wait for them to come to him. The condition for coming with him into the mission, into the Kingdom, into life is that they leave nets and boats, family and father. Not that these are bad, but because what they mean and what they provide is not enough.

Often, I have tried to imagine that father standing there with those empty boats wondering what he was going to do next without them.

Nowhere is it ever suggested that he yelled after them, objected, or resented their desire and the prompting of their hearts which led them to leave all things and follow that man of enchantment. Told today, it is a story that might well frighten and discourage some parents: this thought that a child might just get up and leave without ever looking back. However, the people who first heard Matthew’s story knew it well. Many sitting there had been kicked out of their families for following Jesus, picking up his mission, and being willing to look for something or someone who would teach them how to live in their present with the hope of experiencing the future fullness of God’s Kingdom. That is, in the end, what this man Jesus came to teach us.

“Repent.” he says. Repentance is not an invitation to feel sorry. It is a demand to take a second look at our values and our lives. Religion and faithful followers of Christ challenge the practices and values that support and enable injustice. What this conversion shall require is what unfolds in the chapters to come in Matthew’s Gospel. We have preview of it today. Let go. Leave behind. Take a risk. Believe the Prophets. Do something with your life that is more than catching fish to eat. Life is more than a trip to the store or shopping the mall. Be something more than a repetition of your parents. In the end, they don’t want that anyway.  Loving parents always want their children to do more than they did and surpass them in goodness and holiness, love and service.

This is a vocation story proclaimed in a month our church calls Vocations Month. Parents, look at the father of those men in this Gospel. Don’t you think he brought them up with hearts burning for the Kingdom of God? Young people who are you going to follow, shallow narcissistic celebrities and greedy doped up athletes? Maybe following the light into the darkness would be better.

December 30, 2007 at Saint Mark Church in Norman,OK

I grew up with images of the Holy Family that always made the Boyers look like the Clampetts. There were those images of Mary and Joseph on holy cards. There was a picture hanging in my school classroom in which Mary was always weaving something. Joseph had obviously been out picking lilies because there was always one in his hand, and I guess he cut it with a carpenter’s square, because that was in the other hand.

The boy was always gazing at his holy parents, waiting to obey their next command. They were the Waltons of Nazareth! They didn’t live in Norman. If they did, they belonged to some other parish.

That image is a perfect recipe for discouragement. It is one more crushing blow to the single parent family. To many mothers it is an invitation to resentment because it would be so wonderful to raise only one perfect child with the help of a perfect husband, the model of chastity, hard work, gentleness and consideration. And in front of that image stands every father, frustrated, defeated, tired, and anxious looking at that perfect family and left to feel defeated, inadequate, and guilty.

That image is like the hundreds of Christmas card photos I have just received. I have a family too, and on several occasions I have taken that photo and I remember what it was like moments before the flash captured one moment that was carefully posed. For just that moment, everyone stopped talking, giving orders, and complaining.

The Gospel writers would have us understand that it was no different in Nazareth. We must keep the whole story in mind as we celebrate this day called: “Holy Family.” Their life was not a Christmas Card photo. What makes that family holy is not some kind of perfection, but perhaps some kind of fidelity. Do not forget that this family’s beginnings were a bit rocky and uncertain. Joseph had to make a tough decision about whether or not to keep Mary as his wife. The silence of the Gospel writers suggest Joseph’s early death. In the public part of Jesus’ life there was not a nuclear holy family, but a whole village. The evangelists portray a large, extended family, most of whom are unsympathetic and downright hostile to Jesus’ vision Mark even writes that some of them thought Jesus was crazy. Today’s story suggests not a perfect family, but one on the move for the sake of safety.

The family whose story is told in this Gospel had its ups and downs. The family whose story is told in this Gospel lived through confusion, strange journeys, dealt with disgruntled relatives and people who did not understand. We are not here to celebrate the ideal family with a perfect mom, an honest dad, and an impeccable child. I think this feast is for my Aunt who was never blessed with children and now lives alone after the death of her husband last year. No children to care for her. I think this feast is for a woman I passed in a nursing home earlier this week sitting by the door looking for someone, anyone to come for her. I think this feast if for a mother I know whose son is waiting for a bone-marrow transplant; she stays with him constantly while her husband simply cannot visit because of his fears and disappointment. I think this feast is for gay people whose lives never quite fit in and never really will. I think this feast if for single parents who just do the best they can, and it never feels like enough. I think this feast if for families torn apart by divorce, and because of it all cannot find their way to church anymore.

This feast is for all of them and for all of us because we are God’s chosen ones, holy, and beloved. What we all have in common is the power of the Gospel and the pain of living close to or distant from those we love best.

It seems like a lot of pain sometimes. But in the end, there is nothing quite like a family, however it is composed. After all, it is in family that we learn to be sensitive to the presence of others, the needs of others, and the rights of all human beings. Family is the ultimate school where one learns to love, to forgive, to be responsible, and to respect. It is also the first and best school of holiness.

December 25, 2007 At Saint Mark Norman, OK

It is beginning to dawn on me that as long as we keep celebrating the birth of Christ in the way we have for the past few weeks, we are never going to get it right. Nice as it is for our economy to shop until we drop or run out of money; wonderful as it is to receive cards and family photos from friends with those letters that tell us way more than we need to know, and thrilling as it is to travel and spend some time with our families, if you get there at all with luggage, it is getting more and more difficult to get the point. Our children grow up thinking this is a birthday party for Jesus, and never get deeper into the mystery, the wonder, and the power that lurks in the reality of this festival.

The Incarnation is not something we celebrate.

It is something we must become.

What is beginning to dawn of me then is that as long we simply stick with the celebration and all its trappings and customs, enjoyable as they really are; we may never become anything. We are getting so trapped in all of this that the only thing we are becoming is greedy, guilty, depressed, and exhausted. I don’t think that is what we are supposed to be become because of the Incarnation!

The wonder of this night does not stop in Bethlehem. There is no point in celebrating the birth of Christ without wondering and asking “why?” “What was God thinking?” This Gospel we proclaim in a story both familiar yet strange, does not simply speak of God and what God does, it also speaks of what has happened to humanity.

There is in this story a marvelous cast of characters, a whole parade of people touched by this birth: an aging priest and his childless wife; a young woman called to give birth in a way unheard of in human history;

the dark night sky shining with God’s glory and shepherds hearing “Good News of Great Joy”; an aging couple living and waiting for God’s anointed. And Matthew gives us an anointed king who is really a brutal killer, a young and bold prophet who ends up in jail for his courage beheaded while his “messiah” runs around helping everyone else, a young man full of dreams and hopes whose fiancé comes up pregnant, wise men from afar who follow a star and kneel before a child. It is in the end, an affirmation of humanity in all its brokenness and its glory. It is a story told again and again in countless unnamed people among whom God’s Word continues to become flesh and dwell among us.

Those angels were bending near the earth with their harps of gold (not to heaven). They were speaking to us (ordinary people), shepherds at work no less! It’s all so familiar, yet so strange. Salvation breaks into creation by a birth. What could be more ordinary, common place, and normal than a birth? Yet behind it all for people of faith there is yet something curious. This silent night we find goodness and holiness in a scene so ordinary that we might miss it if it were not for our brothers and sisters who came before us. They left us with a faith that is capable of knowing that in the very ordinariness of our lives and times, goodness is more powerful than evil, faith is stronger than death. A stable can be cathedral. Humanity can become the dwelling place of the divine. Bread can become God. And so, this feast is then, not something simply to celebrate every three hundred and sixty five days, but something we become every day. “What shall we become?” we might ask ourselves in silence as we gaze a baby in a manger. what is it we shall become………………………. and when?

December 23, 2007 at Saint Mark Chuch in Norman, OK

He is the central human character at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel. He is no stranger to fear, disappointment, confusion, and doubt.

He is the perfect example of what the Old Testament calls a “just man.”

That does not mean he is a “nice guy.” He reminds us that the way we live our lives, the choices we make, and relationships we have make a difference. He could have followed every legal recourse and exercised his rights, but he did not do so. He could have done what was expected of him by others instead of what was asked of him. He could have punished her, taken her to court, gotten even, shamed and humiliated her. Instead he ushered in a new definition of righteousness and nurtured to maturity a new definition of compassion and justice. He could have chosen a different role in the drama unfolding this week. It would have been a role of honor and respectability, security and safety.

Instead, he chose to embrace a role defined by fear and uncertainty, danger and discomfort, newness and change. With a cast of characters that includes Archangels and a murderous king, he claims a bit part in the drama of salvation always knowing that the lead role belongs to someone else, and remembering that at best he is just a supporting actor in this drama. His name is Joseph, and every three years we tell his story. Parents among us would do well to introduce their children to this man. He towers above every other hero this world can produce. First among men and first among fathers, he is role model our children would do well to know. He is no celebrity. He will not show up on the cover of People magazine. He will not be chased around by paparazzi, nor be the subject of comments on Entertainment television.

He stands alone in our tradition as a man of faith, of trust, and commitment. He made a promise and he kept it even though for a brief frightening moment it looked as though he was the only promise keeper. He reminds us today that we are called to listen to the promise of angels, not the promise of power or prestige in this world. He reminds us today that we are called to nurture forgiveness and compassion, not obsess over our rights and privilege. He reminds us today that we are called to a creative love that knows no boundaries; a love that allows us to embrace the outcast and forgotten more than clutch the accepted and desirable.

So, we gather here at the end of this Advent with the hope of Isaiah, the trust of Mary, the passion of John the Baptist, and the courage of Joseph. These are the virtues of those who passed these days in readiness. The shattered hopes of John the Baptist are no less than the shattered dreams of Joseph the Carpenter. Yet both are spirit filled and listen and follow the Word of God.

Wake up! is the message Joseph keeps hearing not because he was sleeping and lazy; but because he needed to wake up to what was going on around him. He did wake up, again and again in the midst of more than one confusing and doubtful moments. He woke up to the power of the Holy Spirit, and the strength of his faith. Hours before we celebrate the coming of God in Human flesh, we would also do well to wake up. Wake up and look around at what is going on, not find fear in it, but find the presence of God and see the divine dimension which calls us to holiness, to courage, to forgiveness and compassion; which call us to stop demanding our rights all the time and look a bigger picture and live a bigger life.

December 12, 2007 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

For anyone who has ever entertained even the slightest doubt about their faith in Jesus Christ or God’s promises, this Gospel story is very important, and John the Baptist suddenly becomes very, very real. He is sitting there in Herod’s jail. It is the price he paid for speaking up when something was wrong. He has done what was right, and the consequence was prison, and it will eventually mean his execution. He has proclaimed the Messiah, identified him, and heard the divine affirmation at the Baptism of Jesus. He has called everyone who would listen to repentance and prompted them to be ready for the Kingdom of God. Now he sits in Herod’s prison. What’s wrong with this picture? He has grown up with the prophet’s promise that when the messiah comes, he will set captives free. Yet, he’s in Herod’s jail. We know his confusion. We understand his question and the question of his followers.

Parents know how it goes. You give birth and with dreams and hopes you raise a child as best you can, and suddenly you look at that child and say: “Where did you come from?” “Who is this?” Nothing goes as you planned, and that young adult is nothing like you hoped. Couples look at each other with the same wonder. The dreams of a life together go awry. An infidelity breaks trust, an addiction seizes a beautiful life, a disease strikes at the most happy of moments, and suddenly nothing is the way you thought it was going to be.

Anyone who dares face life with hope and dreams and expectations knows exactly why John sent those disciples to Jesus. Tragedies, disappointments, disasters, and even little things can make us turn to God and wonder: “What’s going on here?” “It’s not supposed to be this way.” If the pain is bad enough people we know give up all together and turn to other gods: drugs materialism, alcohol, sex, gambling, anything to find a fix or make things go the way they want them to go. In the wisdom of Matthew’s Gospel as we hear it today, Jesus only speaks briefly to the disciples of John, then he suddenly turns to speak to us, “the crowd.” To the disciples, he simply lists the work of the messiah as the ancient prophets had foretold in comparison to his own work. “This is what I have come to do. If this is what you have been waiting for, then, yes, I am the one who has come to do it. But if you have been waiting for something else, then perhaps you will have to go on waiting.”

Then he turns to us and asks one of the most important questions: “What is it you expect here?” or “What are you waiting for?” It is a caution not to expect salvation on our terms. We ask for salvation

and God responds in the cry of newborn child. We ask for justice and God speaks of mercy. We ask for forgiveness and God responds as a teacher who refuses to condemn a sinner. We ask for reconciliation and God responds in the conversation of two men on a cross. We ask for life and God responds with an empty tomb. We ask for sustaining strength and comfort, and God responds with tongues of flame. We ask for God’s kingdom to come, and God calls forth the church.

John wanted a political messiah who was going to run Romans out of town, restore Israel to its glory and power. What he got was a lamb. Like John we sometimes want a God who is going to ride in on a white horse and run off all the bad guys and fix everything that is broken. Instead, if we get this season right, God would rather restore us to our original greatness, and using one of our own, fulfill the plan God had long ago for how we might live together in trust, in mercy, and in love.

Isaiah in today’s readings saw this restoration already beginning. Expecting it to continue would be wise. James proposes patience and an informed expectation so that we might wait for what is right and what is in God’s plan. Losing heart or getting discouraged might happen, but only because we had the wrong expectation, not because God failed to act, to love, to be present, and to be with us.

December 9, 2007 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OP

I love the way Matthew introduces John the Baptist! He just appears, suddenly out of nowhere. It suggests mystery and leads us out of the ordinary and into wonder. You get a sense that something is up, some mystery is about to begin. The setting for this mystery is itself a place of wonder and wildness: the desert. Everything about this scene recalls Israel’s past: the clothing, the diet, the setting. Prophets and Passover are the stuff of this image and message. Something new is at hand, but only for those who themselves are new.

His words are shouted as a challenge to what is old with a promise for those who will turn around from old ways. Pharisees and Sadducees emerge as the old, and they are finished. Gone is privilege and the security of law-keeping. Something new is happening. A new age, a future that fulfills every prophet’s dream, and everyone’s hope; but the way into that future is not the way of the present. Those who will be part of that future will have turn around. They will turn their back on the present and the things that are.

In his desert preaching, he thunders a judgment at those who are content, prosperous, and comfortable with themselves and the way things are. His cry is heard everywhere, and even the curious are drawn to that desert place where things are stark and simple In the desert, there is no noise, no clutter, only the wind and the presence of God. In that desert, the truth is inevitable and unavoidable.

John would have us in that desert where we and everyone who hears his cry can see themselves in truth where pretense, denial, and falsehood are useless. There is nothing soft or easy about the message in that desert. It is a call to purity, to cleanliness, to holiness: a condition that confronts evil and sin for what it is.For a people in that age and this who have grown comfortable and compatible with sin, there is trouble.  We don’t like to talk about sin, and we certainly don’t want to hear about it. But this desert wild man is not afraid to name it for what it is. As I said on the Holy Day we have just observed, and some have not: we would rather try to explain human suffering, failure, and evil in terms of psychological disorders, social change, pressure, tension, depression and anxiety. But none of that talk changes a thing and says nothing about the truth. After all, ages, cultures, psychology, and societies don’t really exist. Only people do. Sin is what it is. All our pretending and denial never makes it go away. Even our absence from the confessional hasn’t made better. It just adds to our moral misery and growing contentment with it.

We face tragedies like the killings in an Omaha Mall as though it is just something we have to live with these days. “What a shame.” we say. “What a poor sick boy.”  We endure bombings and war, poverty and hunger, homeless people on our streets, corporate greed, and the rich sheltered by their precious tax breaks and never call it by name. The longer we pretend it isn’t sin, the more complacent we become.

A wild desert man shouts: “Stop that!” There is sin in the world. It is concrete and real. It is ours. It is not there because society or some system fails, but because we have done nothing and allowed ourselves to become dull and selfish. We even like ourselves that way.

There will be no Silent Night. There will be no “Joy to the World” and nothing for Angels to sing about until we turn this around. There will be no peace on earth until we make it. The coming of Christ that John proclaims is a coming into our hearts and our lives not some pile of straw in a manger. And that coming is going to demand some sifting and sorting. John isn’t talking to someone else. His voice and his message do not come to us from the past. We heard it today.

It has taken me a lifetime to figure this out; this matter of Adam and Eve and this business of sin and redemption. I’m not sure if I am just slow to process things or have simply had to live sixty-five years to get it; but I finally am getting to the heart of matter here. These two figures from the beginning: the problem with them is that they simply never said “I’m sorry.” When asked the question: “Why did you do it?  The blame started. She blamed the snake. Adam blamed her All they needed to say was: “I don’t know. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it was foolish, and it was wrong.” All they needed to say was: “I did it. I’m sorry.” Confronted by God after their sin, they were unable to admit it. Had they simply admitted their sin, human history may have been different, and I am beginning to believe that this is the point of the story the writer of Genesis wanted to share with us. The tragedy of blame, the foolishness of hiding the truth, and the consequence of a failure to cry out for redemption and forgiveness.

The refusal to admit that we sin begins a lie that gets retold and retold again and again until we begin to believe it ourselves. We rationalize, make up excuses, project blame, use psychology and sociology to justify our behavior. All the while it’s lie. This ability and easy way of not admitting our sin is the greatest of all temptations that faces us. Failure to admit weaknesses and acknowledge our sin as sin is infinitely more damaging than the weakness and sin itself.

Failure in self honesty is the start of the sin against the Holy Spirit, the only sin that cannot be forgiven. We are all familiar with the warning Christ gave against the one sin that cannot be forgiven: blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. That sin is simply lying to oneself until one become so warped that the lie is believed. Falsehood become truth. The reason this sin cannot be forgiven is not that God refuses, but because the person no longer sees the need to be forgiven. Living in darkness is seen as living in light; sin is seen as grace; perversion as virtue. This person would not accept forgiveness if it were offered, because to do so would mean admitting sinfulness and the need for redemption.

It always begins with the rationalization and the failure to admit sin, and everything in this world supports that way of getting off the hook,

of making ourselves look good by denying our weakness and sin. We see this everywhere, and for us Catholics, the most obvious sign is our tendency to avoid Confession of all kinds. It means an inability to take personal responsibility for our own unhappiness, and in our tendency not to admit our moral misery. It shows up in our inability to be contrite in confession in church and everywhere else.

What does all this have to do with the Immaculate Conception you might ask about now in the middle of this homily. My thoughts have gone this way because this feast declares that only one of us human beings is without sin: that is the Immaculate Conception. Only one. The point of celebrating Mary’s sinlessness is to move honestly toward admitting our own sinfulness. She stands before us in her human perfection so that we might see our human imperfection and know what to do about it because of her Son.

Only the sinner can be saved. Only those who say: “I am sorry.” or “Forgive me.” can ever hope to hear the angel’s message: “Fear not.”

and become “full of grace.” But that is what He came to bring us: grace and a life without fear.

November 18, 2007 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

 Malachi 3:19-20 + Psalm 98 + 2 Thessalonians 3:7-12 + Luke 21: 5-19

This Gospel is not about the future even though that might make it more interesting and entertaining. Prediction of the future has always drawn a crowd. We are the ones being addressed here. We are the ones who are living through times of trial, catastrophe, disasters, betrayals, war and natural disasters. Jesus speaks to us just as plainly and just as clearly as he did to those in Luke’s community who witnessed their own disasters, betrayals, wars, and catastrophes. It is not a matter of when are things going to come. They already have. It is a matter of how we shall face them and what shall become of us because of them. To this issue Jesus speaks.

It seems to me that there are only three options: denial, fear, and faithful perseverance. We all know what happens to people who are in denial. They end up being destroyed by the very thing they will not name. We know what happens to people who give way to fear. Many have in these days. The culture of fear is all around us. Politicians are using with great skill. Scare us badly enough and we will surrender our most treasured principals and compromise our very liberty. Neither of these two options is consistent with Gospel life. Neither of these two options will save us from anything. In fact, they are both ultimately destructive.

A culture of denial and a culture of fear are toxic to the soul as well as to the body. The only option is what Jesus Christ offers us. Age after age on this earth has had a time of crises. Every one of us has or will have it as well. This room is full of people whose lives bear the marks of suffering, disappointment, tragedy, loss, death, sickness, and pain. Some can tell stories of family member who have betrayed them, who have laughed at them, and left them. Some have stories of disease, sudden death, tornados, fires, and tragic accidents. An absurd war tears apart families, leaves men and women broken and scared for life. It has wrought economic chaos for the future and it threatens our life style more than any terrorist.

The fearful and those in denial just keep going passing on the debt to our children’s children.

What to do, and what shall we become is the question raised by the Gospel. Jesus gives the answer. Luke has said it from the first spoken words of his Gospel. Fear not. All of these things are signs that the Kingdom of God is at hand. We are living already in the end time if we stand firm, hold to faith, and let nothing tear us from one another and from Christ. Human suffering and even human sin can be a privileged time for renewal, reflection, and new directions that may give birth to the hope that Malachi has spoken of. A new hope that “There will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays.  Whether we face a terrorist, a dreaded diagnosis, loss of a loved one, some natural disaster that takes everything we own, the loss of our job, or anything else this world can throw at us, we know what we must do, and what we must become. Persevere in faith, in hope, in charity. Become like Christ in order to share in His victory. This Gospel then is about today, not a prediction of the future, so the order of the day is perseverance with which we shall secure our lives.

November 11, 2007 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

 Maccabees 7:1-2,9-14 + Psalm 17 + 2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5 + Luke 20: 27-38

He is in Jerusalem now, and he has already cleansed the Temple. Jesus is in a no-win conversation, and anyone who has been the target for religious questions raised by persons who had no intention of being influenced by the answers can sense the frustration. These Sadducees were the ultimate right-wing religious fanatics. They only believed and gave authority to the first five books of the Old Testament: the Pentateuch. They did not ask this question to get an answer or have a conversation. They raised the issue to bully Jesus with their conviction. They wanted to argue, to embarrass, and perhaps, turn people against Jesus. Their attitude gets no response from Jesus only their question.

To understand the answer, we must understand the culture. Marriage at that time was not about love, affection or romance. It was a simple political/economic system concerned with property accumulation and population growth. Population growth is the issue addressed in the Book of Deuteronomy requiring the brother of a deceased man to take the widow and her children into his care so as to continue the family line. The scenario proposed by the Sadducees is of course exaggerated to the point of being silly, and Jesus ignores that. He simply sticks with logic and avoids being embarrassed by their proposition.

On the second point, Jesus stays within their accepted scriptures reminding them that their own scriptures speak of the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” who must somehow be alive since the same scriptures refer to God as a “God of the living”, not a God of the dead. At this point, their trap collapses by the words of their own accepted authority.

Yet the point Jesus makes is not just for the Sadducees, it is for all who are listening. What he reveals or teaches here is that there is a radical difference between the present life and the resurrection; but because of God and within God, there is some continuity. In other words, life after death is so different that procreation will not be necessary. He is not saying that there will be no relationships; but that the primary relationship will be with God and in God and all other relationships will be found in God. This becomes a proposal for ordering our relationships now. Perhaps what Jesus suggests is that the more God is a part of a relationship, the closer that relationship is to the divine plan

that comes to fulfillment in heaven.

When earlier in his teaching Jesus raised questions about how much his disciples should worry about material possessions, he proposed that we consider what of those possessions we would take with us after death. It was a radical way of questioning values and how we look upon the stuff we gather up and keep in our garages, attics and storage facilities. Now he goes one step further raising a question about our relationships. He proposes that one relationship will carry over through death: our relationship with God. Getting that point calls into question how we relate to one another, and what we might seek, expect, and find in our human relationships.

The heart of what is revealed here is that belief in the resurrection is not the same as the conviction that the soul is immortal. On this point we divert from religions that believe in reincarnation because they believe in immortality but not in resurrection. Our belief in resurrection is grounded upon the concept of covenant, which claims that God has established a relationship with human beings. The question is this: does physical death end that relationship, or is God’s desire to keep the covenant stronger? The tradition in the Bible is that God’s desire is stronger than death.

Consequently, for you and me, this covenant holds our hope for resurrection. Only one relationship holds that promise. Other relationships we have in this life must lead us into the covenant which is why love is such an indispensable issue. Casual sex, narcissistic relationships, or the insincere manipulation of another for the sake of profit or fame does not lead us into covenant. Only sacrificial love takes us there, and these are the relationships that should matter and be the focus of our attention and the source of our hope. Our relationships are what we shall take with us into God, nothing else. Relationships are what we must work for, nothing else. A family that suffers the absence of someone because they are working all the time is very poor no matter what the earned income. This Gospel on a November Sunday simply calls into question the quality of our relationships with one another and how those relationships lead us to God.

November 4, 2007 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Wisdom 11:22-12:2 + Psalma145 + 2 Thessalonians 1:11-2:2 + Luke 19: 1-10

Like so many of the stories in Luke’s Gospel, there is a parallel. Luke seems to like things pairs, and most of his characters have an “opposite” match somewhere in the Gospel. It’s all part of his “great reversal” theme, and Zacchaeus is no exception. Earlier, another rich person has come up to see Jesus, and he goes away sad. This time, a rich man comes to see Jesus, and he ends up joyful.

The problem Zacchaeus has is the “crowd”. Because of them, he can’t “see” Jesus. But be careful, Luke is not talking about a “sighting” here. That is not Zacchaeus wants. Think about how we use the word “see” a little bit more. Sometimes we say: “I’m going to see the doctor.” That’s the point here – that is what Zacchaeus wants. He wants to understand and be understood by Jesus. He wants a relationship, now a pair of binoculars.

His problem is not his eyes nor his physical stature. His problem is the crowd! They are in the way – not physically, but personally. They want sightings, they want to watch, they grumble and mummer, they do not enter into a relationship. Zacchaeus wants none of that stuff, but because of the crowd and their behavior and the things they say, and their expectations, he is needs to get above them – he needs to “get over” them. Think about the images here, not the literal details.

Zacchaeus has enough desire, enough willingness, enough creativity to do just that. He is willing to look silly, be laughed at or ridiculed because of his desire to have a relationship that Jesus; and he gets what he wants and more.

So does Jesus. He gets what he wants and more. There are people with intense desire here: Jesus, who says: “I MUST stay at your house today.” This is strong language. He is not asking for an invitation. He expressing something he MUST do. Zacchaeus comes down QUICKLY and received him with JOY. Both of these men have their deepest most urgent longings satisfied, and the consequence if Joy for both of them. Remember, in the parallel story of a different rich man, Jesus was saddened as the man went away with eyes cast down for he could not do what Jesus asked of him.

 There is another wonderful little but important thing happening here worth observation and reflection. When Jesus shows up at dinner or at someone’s house, he is never the guest; but always becomes the host. He feeds, nourishes, serves, and always, he becomes the host.  It happens at Cana in Galilee with wine and water. It happens in the home of Martha and Mary.

It happens in home of a Roman Centurion, in the home of a Pharisee,

and now in the home of Zachariah. The divine guest becomes the divine host prefiguring the heavenly banquet. He invites Zacchaeus into his life, into the intimacy of his friendship.

This invitation is extended to us all, my friends. Would that the same sense of urgency could move us to do the same, to ignore the crowds of this world and their superficial response to Jesus and get above it all and experience the same Joy. What Luke says to us on this autumn Sunday is that Jesus loves us

not because we are particularly holy, pure, and good, but precisely because we are not. There is on God’s part through Jesus, an obligation, a desire, an urgent longing to stay in your house. The response God’s want and God is anxious to have is not one that is simply spiritual, but one that radically changes our behavior, that is marked by extraordinary generosity, and the freedom to give away, let go of, and make amends for harm done in our past.

One rich man in Lukes Gospel could do it and lived with Joy. The other went away sad for his riches were many.

Which one is going to be our story?