August 3, 2003

Exodus 16:2-4,12-15 + Ephesians 4:17-20-24 + John 6:24-35

We move into our second week with John’s sixth chapter. Last week, Elijah opened our hearts for the Words of Jesus, and this week we turn to a familiar story from Exodus that prepares us to reap the harvest of John’s Gospel. Again, as I said I would through this series, I want to speak first and let God have the last word! Remember the vision the apostles had at the Transfiguration.

Jesus Elijah and Moses talking together. Today we complete the triptych we began last week now adding Moses to our reflection.

Last week it was Elisha and Elijah. This week it is Moses and Aaron. and these next verses of John 6 are heard in compliment with Exodus.

Manna and quail are common substances and are a simple phenomenon of nature. An insect secretion forms at night and falls in flakes from the leaves of the tamarisk thickets in the early morning. The heat of the sun melts them, and they are gone by late morning. It tastes sweet but cannot be preserved. It perishes.

Quail migrate twice a year. They make a long over water flight to and from northeastern Europe and Africa. Exhausted from the long over water flight they land in the Sinai Peninsula exhausted and are easily caught. These are delicacies.

People of faith see in ordinary natural things the providence of a loving God. People without faith are simply entertained by the wonder itself and they want more. Today John shows us this crowd. They want free food. They like the signs and wonders and have little interest in what this wonderworker has to say – they just want more entertainment. They are running all over the place looking for Him, not because of who he is, but because of what he can do for them. They are yet to ask: “What is this?” They stop short – they fail to see through the sign to the one who provides. This is the issue in the desert. These people Moses leads have yet to learn reliance on God that will enable them to face and overcome their struggles.

The demand for a sign comes from an Old Testament expectation that a prophet like Moses would come in the last days to work again the Exodus wonders. Now this is the heart of the message coming from a prophet like Moses who is Jesus. In John’s Gospel, if one stops short, captivated by the wonder, then one fails to understand the reason for the action: the gracious activity of the Father through the Son.

The people in the desert asked: “What is this?” They struggled with the identity of this bread. Their struggle defined their identity. Perishable food makes perishable people. Food that lasts forever makes people who live forever. The people of John’s Gospel struggled with the identity of Jesus. We who feast on this Word of God today may either stand back and wonder about this sign wanting more for ourselves, or we can enter into the struggle over what they mean and where they lead us. That struggle is called “discipleship”, and it is the work of God. Our discipleship demands that we continue to look at what God provides and ask the question: “What is this?” Look at our jobs, our homes, our possessions, and our relationships – look at it all and ask: “What is this?” If we do not see past these things and perceive the one who provides them, we cling to what is perishable and we shall perish along with it all. Moses and Jesus confront a lack of faith today. Moses and Jesus along with Elijah last week tease us with food. Gandhi once said: “With so much hunger in this world, can God come in any form except bread?”

It is time now to be fed at Wisdom’s table,  to examine the signs and wonders that are all around us, to quietly ask ourselves what it is we really need and who it is we are becoming; to recall that manna evaporated in the heat of day, and ponder the presence of Jesus who comes with food that will not perish. Whether it is manna shared in the desert or barley loaves on a grassy hillside overlooking the Sea, those who eat together are bonded together. What we shall come to understand in the weeks to come is that it is Christ who eats with us not only as the one who provides, but also as the food that is provided. Be attentive now to the Word of God.

July 27, 2003

2 Kings 4:42-44 + Ephesians 4:1-6 + John 6:1-15

For the next several weeks, as happens every third year in the late summer, the church turns to the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel.

It is John’s “Bread of Life” gospel, and it is a feast for the soul.

Proclaimed in the context of the Eucharist, it is even more so.

If you think of the Liturgy of the Word as a Feast in itself,

it becomes a four-course meal, and the appetizer is the first Old Testament reading.

Today it is the Book of Kings.

Next week we focus on the Manna in the desert as described in Exodus.

Then we hear the story of Elijah being fed and prepared by God for his 40-day walk to Sinai.

A Proverbs text follows Elijah’s story,

and the series ends with the renewal of the covenant at Shechem.

During this series, I am going to do something different

since you do not have the texts in your hand or before your eyes.

I am going to preach first and then we shall listen to the text and take a few moments after each reading to reflect and savor

what God’s Word says to us.

In that way, you will be prepared for what you hear, since I sometimes think that you have not settled down enough to really hear the first reading. Those who habitually come late are going to have a problem with this, but I can’t help that.

There is a detail in the first reading and the Gospel that is important to know for a wider understanding of what is happening and the implications of these texts. Barley bread is the food of the poor. It is course, bitter in taste, but cheaper than the finer grains at that time. Notice too that it is a poor man who is generous in the first reading. It is a poor man who brings his barley bread to the prophet. In the Gospel, it is a boy, another poor man, whose simple, course bread becomes the “stuff” of a miracle.

For the Jews at the time of Jesus, the miracle stories of Elijah were told and retold with great delight by all the people, but especially the poor for whom story telling then just as now was the favorite entertainment since they did have resources for more elaborate fun.  Yet their telling was not just to entertain, but also to affirm that the power of God is at work, and the poor, the needy, and the helpless can count on that power. Once you realize how popular this cycle of stories was among the Jews, and then begin to see the parallels between the miracle stories of Elisha and Jesus, you can understand why so many people thought that Jesus was the prophet returned.

The major element of the Elijah stories is the conflict with Canaanite religion that tended to identify God with the gifts of a fertile earth. The Canaanites made gods out of the gifts rather than having the gifts lead them to God. The miracles performed by the two prophets: Elisha and Elijah counter that inclination by insisting that Israel’s Lord of the Covenant controls the fertility of the earth, the cycle of death and life, and that Lord was the source of all good things. No stopping at the gifts themselves to make idols of them; but the force of the story insists that we go through the gifts to the giver.

When we sit with the Word of God on this hot summer weekend, there are two miracles here to ponder: two miracles that lead us into the mystery of God. The first is the miracle of the generous poor. Those with the least give the most. Those with the most to lose do not cling to what they have because they trust in God and believe that God sees their need, and their God will not leave them.

They preach more powerfully than any prophet or preacher. Their  faith is miraculous. The second miracle is the response of the servant in the Old Testament and the disciple/servants in the Gospel.

When they do what God asks, something they didn’t quite believe in happened. They doubted, feared, and suspected that there would not be enough; but they went ahead with the plan and the request. The miracle here is not just the consequences in terms of plenty;

but the fact that their obedience led them from doubt to faith.

May it be so here this day. May our attentiveness to God’s word

move us to discover and imitate the generosity of the poor and so find us counted among those God favors; and may our willingness to obey God’s command lead us from faltering faith, fear, and doubt to true faith in God and a joyful celebration of the bountiful gifts God has for those who hunger for what God provides. Listen now to the Word of God.

July 20, 2003

Jeremiah 23:1-6 + Ephesians 2:13-18 + Mark 6:30-34

They had been sent on their mission, these apostles; and it was over. They came back to report all that they had done and they were exhausted. Their rest was a boat ride, and we have no idea how long it took much less if it was enough rest. But when the ride was over, so was the rest. There are numerous ways to listen to this Gospel, and all of them have a point or two.

    There is something said about a balanced life of rest and work.

    There is something said about pity.

    There is something said about the crowds

    wanting to hear Jesus at all costs and rushing around to do so

    wanting to hear Jesus badly enough to skip a meal.

    It’s all in there.

Heard in the context of this Liturgy with Psalm 23 and Jeremiah 23,

we begin to focus upon Leadership, and that level of the Gospel text emerges in our consciousness. With it however comes a risk that could easily trip us and send us off in the wrong direction.

    That risk comes from a cultural flaw with which we live,

    and it emerges from a level of spiritual immaturity

    that poses great danger, and never more so than at the        present.

In the two Old Testament passages and the Gospel today, the  image of Shepherd is put before us in the context of leadership. It would be easy, and that’s the symptom of immaturity, to think that this reference is to someone else: in our context, about Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. What can trip us and send us in the wrong direction is to sit back and think that somehow God is speaking to us about “them” and that “they” really need to hear these readings.

There is a little element of this Gospel that is easy to miss……….

    the Apostles have been out on their mission.

    They have finished it and come home.

    In the sense of this story, they are finished. It’s over.

    Yet as the story goes on, there is still work to do.

    I believe this Gospel invites us to consider whose turn it is,

    or whose is going to do it?

    Now you know where God’s Word is leading us today.

This Gospel is not about them: the apostles or shepherds. It is not about Bishops or Priests, good, bad, successful or failures. It is about us all. The moment we stand and say: “I believe”, the moment we put out our hand and say “Amen”, the moment we say “Thanks be to God”, we cease to be sheep and become shepherds.

We are the ones who receive the Good News and its power to bring peace. We are the ones who know that forgiveness brings healing and restores love. We either use it or not. We are the ones entrusted with the little ones, the vulnerable, the poor, the ignorant, and the homeless. Parents, you are the leaders in your homes, the shepherds. If your children grow up without a knowledge of God, do not know how to pray, cannot make a moral decision, have no relationship with the church, you are their shepherds. If your chief concern is that they get an education and grow up to make a lot of money, the prophet Jeremiah would suggest trouble is coming. Yet in truth, making a lot of money is no fault. Not knowing how to use it is. Single persons living away from parental homes do not pass half a day without someone’s need gaining their attention. Stressed and depressed friends, and lonely parents facing empty homes and losing their youth are your sheep.

There is much to do, and the needs are great. In fact, they are getting greater by the day as injustice increases and an economy that favors the rich is the preference. The truth is that on this earth poverty is growing not wealth, and because there are no shepherds nothing happens. Nothing happens because too many sit back and think that someone else is the shepherd.

The Gospel is proclaimed, the Prophet speaks, and the Psalm is heard from the heart of God’s people. There is a room full of Shepherds here, more than a thousand will pass these doors today. In this church there is both enormous power and resource, courage and energy, vision and grace. What we choose to do this week and what we become is a matter of faith and spiritual maturity.

The days Jeremiah speaks of are our days. “The righteous shoot to David” has been raised up, and we are the ones who shall gather the scattered, and do what is just and right.

July 13, 2003

Amos 7:12-15 + Ephesians 1:3-14 + Mark 6:7-13

The prophet of this week had a lot of problems, not the least of which was that he was a layperson, a working man, a herdsman. Today we would call him a migrant worker. We would restrict his benefits, lure him to work for us in jobs no one else wants, and leave him at the bottom of the pay scale. He did not come on the scene with any credentials. He had no degree in theology. He was not part of the establishment who ran things. In fact, his authority came not from a title, an earned degree an ordination ceremony or an “inside group”; but from God’s call. He fits the model of Israel’s greatest: Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Moses, even David. It is a long line of our ancestors who were lay men and women through whom the plan and purposes of God were accomplished. Except for Isaiah and Ezekiel, all the prophets were lay people.

It is not much different in New Testament times. John the Baptist, his cousin, Jesus, and all those hey called to discipleship were, with few exceptions lay people. They were willing to leave behind the safe and familiar to set out on a mission for the sake of the good news. Those we hear about in the Gospel today were not prepared for the work Jesus gave them. They did not understand perfectly who Jesus was or what he was doing. They were full of faults, ambitious, confused, and they fought among themselves. Yet Jesus did not wait till they had it all together to send them out. I think he knew that whatever success they experienced would not be theirs, but the consequence of his Spirit. The work they were to do would not be their work, but his. If he had wanted professionals, he would have selected scribes or Pharisees.

The biggest difference between Amos and the Twelve is that the twelve went out two by two, while Amos went alone. Going together made it clear that they were not free agents but members and representatives of a community, and it assured the truth and validity of their witness. In spite of this difference however, the message was much the same Amos comes to warn the kingdom and its neighbors against reliance on military power, social injustice, immorality and shallow religiosity. Disciples are sent to invite people to rely on God with the reminder that true authority over life and death is never our own. They proclaim that Love of Neighbor is as important as Love of God. As a result, Social Justice is an issue for believing people, and it becomes a measure of faith just as surely as devotions and prayers.

Disciples of Jesus are not defined by their success. By the political and power standards of his day, Amos was a failure. Jesus was a dead man as far as the Romans were concerned, and a huge disappointment even to some of his friends at first  Our only failure would be to ignore the mission, to do nothing, to be silent in face of injustice, violent in the face of conflict, and miss the example of the one who sends us forth.

My friends, you do not belong to the church. You do not have a role in the church. You are the church because you are Baptized. The mission of the church does not belong to someone else.

It is not my job – it is yours. Whoever rights wrongs, feeds the hungry, cares for the dispossessed; Whoever is simple and honest, sensitive toward the countless heartaches people suffer, and intolerant of injustice is the presence of Christ in this world and the continuation of his mission.

These efforts must be fueled by passion. When faith becomes a passion, things change. Amos was so passionate that even when rebuffed, he would not be silent. The Twelve were so fired by the passion of Jesus, so driven by that passion that human comforts were unimportant. Today, Amos, Jesus, the Twelve, and the author of Ephesians remind us that all of us who have been chosen by Jesus are called to renew our passions, our purpose, and ourselves.

Perhaps our reflection on their lives

may help us all to retrieve some of the passion and fire that drove themand is worthy of disciples and people of faith.

July 6, 2003

Ezekiel 2:2-5 + 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 + Mark 6:1-6

We have to push through this Gospel today and not get snagged on any of the little sidetracks that are there. They are all dead ends. This Gospel is not about them. It is about us. It is not about the people back in the town where Jesus seemed to make his “home.” It is not about the Markan community, who preserved this memory either, even though they were asking the same question we are left ponder.

It is about us.

Whatever their trouble was, the people in that town where Jesus was had a good excuse for their attitude or “disbelief.” They lived with the historical Jesus who was at that moment in time a prophetic, wonder/worker, rabbi/preacher who had a somewhat political message and challenged the status quo with a new interpretation of the Law that offered everything for the poor and helpless but nothing for those who had security and some control over their lives. It isn’t hard to figure out why they were not interested in this Jesus. We don’t choose leaders for this country nor contribute to their campaign funds if they are going to take what we have and give it to someone else. We give our attention, our money, and our votes to those who preserve what we have and get us more. The people in His “native” place lived with Jesus before the resurrection. They were dealing with one of their own as far as they knew.

Had this encounter happened after they witnessed his death and resurrection, it would have been a different issue entirely, and when we read it and look at ourselves, it is a different issue entirely. There is more going on here than peer envy. The people of His native place had no problem about a wise man teaching them about God, and I doubt that they cared if he wanted to call himself God’s Son. What they had trouble with is the other way around: that God would be one of them. Jesus as God and God as Jesus are not the same thing.  In their favor, until the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, it was not all that clear that God wanted to be one with them. That is why it is different for us. We cannot use their excuse or their innocence. Yet we still try to do so.

The very first heresy was not denying the divinity of Jesus. It took awhile for that to happen. The first heresy was denying that God became human – the thinking that God was just “appearing” on earth as Jesus while remaining the old divine self in heaven. Jesus Christ is not an “appearance” of God for Christian believers. Jesus Christ is God. Jesus Christ is not Lord of Heaven – He is Lord of Heaven and Earth. It is this issue that the Gospel confronts. Lord of Earth is the issue, not Lord of Heaven. Jesus can be God in heaven without us, and he was, but come the Incarnation, for God to be Jesus on earth, our participation is needed. That is the problem in that town, his “native” place. They did not participate, and it is still the problem. We have to make Jesus Lord of Earth – without that, flood and fire control nature; without us, evil people determine history. With us, it is not so.

Jesus can work through God without us, but God cannot work through Jesus without us. That’s the point. That is the incarnation: that God actually became flesh and entered our world. The rest is up to us. We make Jesus Christ the Lord of creation when we steward nature instead of wasting it. When we take care of the earth because we believe that it is God’s creation and it is good and it is a gift to us. We make Jesus Lord of Earth. When we protect the earth, water, and the air everyone must breathe, we are believers in God present among us. We make Jesus Christ Lord of History when we oppose evil structures and create those that further the kingdom of God – because we are believers – not in Jesus in Heaven, but of Christ on earth. We make Jesus Christ Lord of our lives when we let him command what we eat, what we wear, and drive and say and do every day of our earthly lives.

If we are believers, He is Lord of our lives here and now, today;

not in heaven or at the end of time.

See, that was the problem in his native place. He was Lord everywhere by there. We can call him Lord until we’re out breath. We can sing our hymns as loudly as we can crank the volume and build our churches as big as we want,

but until we make him Lord of our lives it’s all a waist, and until we do, I suspect that he will work no wonders here either other than maybe cure a few sick people.

June 29, 2003

Acts 12:1-11 + 2 Timothy 4:6-8 + Matthew 16:13-19

Heroes and heroines tell us more about the society that recognizes them than about the individuals themselves. They tell us about the likes and dislikes, the prejudices and principles, and the values and priorities of the society in which we find them. In one society, someone may be hailed as a martyr, while another society may look at the same life and call that person a terrorist. A hero or heroine could be a public servant, an athlete, a spiritual figure, rock star, or a criminal on the run. They are often the result of a crisis or tragedy, and no authentic hero or heroine ever set out to be one.

That is the difference between a hero and a celebrity. The celebrity or “star” becomes so by will or by plan. The hero and heroine becomes so involuntarily.

Someone asked John F. Kennedy once how he became a World War II hero, and he said: “It was involuntary. They sank my boat.”

I read a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson who suggested that a hero is no braver than ordinary people, but they are simply braver for five minutes longer.” When boats sink and danger looms and five minutes seems like an eternity, heroes are born.

As a church we assemble today honoring two of our heroes. They were unlikely candidates early in their lives; and neither of them made any voluntary choice to become heroes. A fisherman and a tent maker do not seem to be the stuff from which heroes are made, but that is the point. They were very common, ordinary people made extra ordinary by grace. The faith that focused their lives, motivated their decisions, finally gave them an identity as Apostles of Jesus Christ was not born of reason or logic but of grace.

We have the same two elements: we are unlikely candidates for heroism or sanctity, and an honest look at our lives would leave the conclusion that few of us have the stuff that makes heroes heroines.

Yet we have that second element that changes it all. We have grace, pure gift of God who has called us and made us His own. It is grace that sustains a father or a mother in the face of a child

who does not return their love. It is grace that brings a man and woman into a holy union that may have as much challenge and disappointment, as it has joy and peace. It is grace that brings hope when a doctor says there is none. It is grace that sets one free from addiction when all denial has finally failed to hide the truth.

At the heart of this Gospel today lies the question that affirms this grace. “Who do you say that I am?” “Who do you say that I am? asks the homeless, the immigrant, the addict, the prisoner, the neighbor. The answer to that question confirms the presence of grace, and that’s all God can do for us. Then when someone sinks our boat we’ll have to see what happens. Or when we think we can’t go on for one more minute, we go for five.

June 22, 2003

Exodus 24:3-8 + Hebrews 9:11-15 + Mark 14:12-16,22-26

The Old Testament gives us the source of our reflections today as the Church celebrates the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ. With the reading from Exodus we are drawn deeper into the mystery and wonder of Covenant with God. With the images and memory of Exodus fresh in our minds, we move into the heart of this Feast to acknowledge that the Body and Blood of Christ is about Covenant first and foremost. The constant risk and challenge this annual feast puts before us is the risk of stopping short of what is revealed and failing to move through the symbols toward the truth to which they lead.

Exodus focuses on the ritual of blood and word. It is familiar to us. We do it in the place. This ritual is not about the Last Supper, Consecrated Bread and Wine, Transubstantiation, or any of those related things. The ritual of blood and word that we follow here is for the same purpose as the ritual Moses and the people of Exodus followed. It is for the sake of Covenant with God. Consecration of the Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ is for the sake of Covenant, not for the sake of taking Holy Communion. We take Holy Communion because we are a people of the Covenant. To focus on the symbol and not go where it points is to trivialize or neglect the real revelation found in the symbols. This is a present reality. We are not re-enacting something that happened in the past. This is not an instant replay. Every year in certain historical locations, people dress up in costume and re-enact battles of the Civil war or the War of Independence. This is not like that. This is the real thing for today and for this hour.

Our times and culture day in and day out bear witness to covenants broken and disposed of. As a consequence, it is a good thing to celebrate this Feast and acknowledge what it proclaims. Unlike the oaths we take only to perjure ourselves, and the treaties we sign only to ignore when the powerful partner finds it unprofitable or inconvenient, this is Covenant, not contract, nor oath, nor treaty.

This is about relationships and identity. It is more about being than doing. Ancient peoples used a ritual of sacrifice that involved blood because of its once and for all nature. The finality of death for the victim sacrificed, and the mutual sharing of its blood made the covenant a “once and for all” – “no going back” kind of statement. Those ancient people split the victim of their sacrifice and walked together between the halves – agreeing that a similar consequence should befall the one who breaches the covenant. Those ancient ones understood “blood” as the essence of life. The blood of the victim bound them together in life and for life. Then those ancient peoples shared a meal in the belief that those who ate together were bound as partners and protectors of one another for life.

When the Church assembles for the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, it assembles for more than an affirmation of the symbols. We are not here simply to affirm our belief in the presence of Christ in Bread and Wine. We are not here to casually stroll up the aisle and take a piece of consecrated unleavened bread. We are here for the sake of Covenant, the Covenant that this Body and Blood establishes. There is nothing casual or informal about what happens here. It is awesome and profound. It is divine. This is the essential, distinct Catholic experience of the Eucharist. We are not re-enacting the Last Supper. We are not “taking” communion, nor are we having a private and intimate personal experience with the historical Jesus. We are being swept up into divine life, transformed in the very depths of our being into a relationship that is blood – like family. God makes a binding pact with us. It makes us partners and companions assuring us of a place at the table and a share in the everlasting banquet of heaven. It is a costly, painful, and lonely covenant, but its consequences are greater than its demands. This is a covenant in our flesh because of what we eat in this place. It is a covenant in our lives because of what we become in this place. The Body and Blood of Christ do not simply appear to be bread and wine. They also appear to be the flesh and blood of those who eat. This feast leads us through the symbol to the reality. Those who make that passage can never kneel before the Blessed Sacrament and then turn their back on the hungry, the poor, or the homeless. To do so disconnects the symbol from that to which it points: the transforming Covenant into which we are invited by a God who chooses to be with us, in us, and for us, for always and forever.

June 15, 2003

Deuteronomy 4:32-3,39-40 +Romans 8:14-17 + Matthew 28:16-20

Any way you look at it, as a disciple of Jesus Christ, as a theologian or as a philosopher, thinking about the Trinity inevitably leads to reflections about relationships. It is more than a theological concept. It is more than a metaphysical exercise. It is the core of our creed over which blood has been spilled, and countless hours of study, rhetoric, and deliberation mark our history with councils in far off places looking again and again at this wonder of God’s self giving and self revelation.

I avoid the word: “Mystery.” It leads us to suspect that we cannot understand, and then we excuse ourselves from the wonder and awe it can stir in us. Understanding is not the issue. Experience is. This is the experience that marks the Christian. Just as touching a door post and reciting the shema marks the Identity of Jews, and facing the direction of the holy shrines with one’s forehead on the ground marks Islam, the Sign of the Cross marks the Christian. In gesture and in word, the Creed is proclaimed, the bond is renewed, and the experience is acknowledged.

The experience of the Trinity is the ultimate acknowledgement of God’s Loving presence. The three most essential questions that lurk in the depth of the human soul are stilled by the experience we call Trinity. Do you love me? How much do you love me? Will you be here tomorrow? The God of the Christian tradition speaks to the human soul and quiets the fear and anxiety that these questions sustain. “Do you love me?” “As much as I love myself”, says the God in whose image we are made. “How much do you love me?”

“Enough to send my only Son to be with you in your darkest hours.” “Will you be here tomorrow?” “My Spirit will be you everywhere and forever.” No mystery here except the mystery of unconditional love which with our best efforts, we just can’t quite master.

No mystery here except the mystery of love’s power to forgive and to heal. This day calls us to wonder and stand in awe before the God-gift we have received. This day calls us to raise our hands again more confident than ever that we who are signed in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are a people embraced in love. More than chosen, we claimed as God’s own and exist in the intimacy of the divine family: because “God so loved the world.”

We celebrate this feast after Easter and after Pentecost. The risen Christ and the Spirit complete for us the experience of God we have been given. The God we acknowledge and have come to know day in and day out is a God locked in with humankind. We believe in One God we are about to say: a God who is one with us, a God who knows no distinction between heaven and earth. a God who by the power of the Spirit wills to be known, to be seen, to be heard, to be loved. Our life in the Trinity expresses our own identity and our mission in these days following Pentecost. We are sent, now as was Jesus to reveal this God we have come to know

and to let others see what we have seen, that they too may become children of God and share in our inheritance. All they will see, all they will hear, all they will know is you and me. To see the children is to see the Father.

June 8, 2003

Acts 2:1-11 + Galatians 5:16-25 + John 15:26-27, 16:12-15

Most of us take the account of Pentecost as Luke tells it as the central text of this day. Visual and sensate as we are, tongues of fire, descending doves, and a mighty wind is easy to deal with. Artists through the ages have made it so. There isn’t anyone among us, I suspect who could not close their eyes and visualize what Luke speaks of. We have also come to expect that spirit filled assemblies are highly animated, demonstrative, and enthusiastic. We have rallies before contests to build up the “spirit”. The louder they are, the more energetic they become leads us to judge them to be “spirit-filled”. Yet, an American lynch mob or an urban gang rally could be pretty spirit filled too. A rock concert in Lloyd Noble Center is too.

At the same time, a lone person kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament, or a devout parent lighting a candle with prayer for a troubled child is without doubt filled with the spirit. A community of monks or nuns filing quietly into a monastery church raising their voices in song is just as much a vehicle of the spirit as turning up the decibels with electric thumping that you can here five blocks away. The test of the Spirit’s presence is not fire, wind, doves, noise, wild enthusiasm, physical animation, or high-pitched emotions. The test of the Spirit’s presence among us is whether Jesus Christ is made known. That does not require extra ordinary phenomena like speaking in tongues or courageous missionary zeal. The people most filled with the Holy Spirit in my life, the people who have most clearly and convincingly borne evidence to the presence of Jesus Christ have been anything but loud, pushy, zealous enthusiasts. On the contrary, they have been people who forgive and bring peace; who mere presence or hospitality brings comfort; whose words are filled with compassion never reproach. They are people who suffer various disappointments and tragedies with confident courage, whose prayer is steady and unselfish. Their compliments replace the complaints and criticism of others.

The central text on Pentecost Day is not Acts of the Apostles. It is the Gospel. The words of Jesus about the Spirit, about what this “Advocate”, whom the Father sends will do is what matters today. “HE WILL TESTIFY ON MY BEHALF”, says Jesus. In other words, more plainly, he STAND IN for Jesus. That is what an Advocate is – someone who knows the part, who speaks and acts in the place of someone else.

This Gospel comes from the Farewell Discourse. He is leaving, but only to send this world a greater presence, one not limited to a single body present in one place at one time. Luke’s testimony is to the fulfillment of that promise. It is not a description of the event. Luke’s testimony is that bumbling, doubt-filled, slow to believe, very common fishermen, tax collectors, and sinners can make known the presence of Christ and realize the promised signs of the Kingdom of God. It does not mean they speak in tongues or can give great orations to huge crowds. It means that when anyone as been around them they will know they have been touched by Jesus.

In this assembly today, there is Spirit, plenty of it, and we don’t need to make a spectacle of our selves to know it. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control: signs of the Spirit. I’ll take those over tongues of fire and a mighty wind any day. As Paul says: “If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit.”

June 1, 2003

Acts 1:1-11 + Ephesians 4:1-13 + Mark 16:15-20

A contemporary spiritual writer has suggested that in this age of time we have three classes of Christian people. The first are the “aristocrats” of sort. They live with solitude and contemplation. They have a special relationship with God. Many live in convents and monasteries. Some are hermits. They most often live apart from us, and some are sought for their wisdom. They are genuine their gift benefits us all.

The second are the “bourgeoisie”, to continue using that vocabulary. They are a kind of high society – upper middle class. They have aspirations, goals, hopes, and plans.  They can retire to their private rooms to think about God because they have private rooms. They can go on retreats, by and read spiritual books. They can go to Bible Study classes and Adult Education classes about religion because in general they have something they often take for granted. They have a wonderful gift too. It is called: “Time.”

The third group includes most of the other people on this earth. They live day in and day out in a world that shoves them, pulls them, and sometimes crushes them. It simply seems to drag them from birth to death. Now and then they get a glimpse of Christ, but more often than not they end up feeling dissatisfied. They do not have “time” like the aristocrats and bourgeoisie. Their waking hours are spent seeking enough to eat – not just for themselves, but for their children, since if they do not eat something, their children will suffer even more. For this group, time is not a gift for seeking God,

but an extension of their struggle to survive. Now I have come to believe that the Ascension of the Lord has more to do with TIME than with where Jesus went or what happened on Easter to the Apostles and to the Risen Christ. It’s about TIME: how we use it, and where it takes us.

It is about this time, not the past when Jesus of Nazareth was here, but about June in two-thousand and three. It is about today and tomorrow and the time we have to complete our mission as it has been preserved for us in our ancient writings.

The rebuke of the first reading still sounds clear to those who stand around looking at the sky. However tempting it might be, a “wait and see” attitude is not the attitude of disciples. The consequence of the Ascension is that the goodness of this world is affirmed; that the way to God is the way of Jesus Christ, obedience, service, love, and forgiveness. The consequence of the Ascension is that mission of Jesus Christ has become our own. And so, the bind will see……see the glory of God in a people filled with Joy and with Hope. And the lame will walk…..walk upright and free from injustice and poverty, from prejudice and racism. And the lepers will be cleansed…..and all those pushed to the edges of life will be restored to their place in the heart of God. And the poor will have the Good News preached to them…. the poor who have no hope and no choices, no opportunities, and no time.

It would appear that most of us in St. Mark Parish are, in Michael Quoist’s analysis, the bourgeoisie. We have time either because money has purchased this kind of leisure or our birth-right has left us here. In this assembly today, the Word we proclaim stuns us with the expectations God seems to have of us. In the glorification of Christ, in his being taken up into heaven away from us, the plan, the will, and the intention of God becomes perfectly clear.

An English Hymn writer (Fred Pratt Green) put it this way:

“The Church of Christ in every age,

Beset by change, but spirit led,

Must claim and test its heritage,

And keep on rising from the dead.

Across the world, across the street

the victims of injustice cry

For shelter and for bread to eat

And never live before the die.

Then let the servant church arise,

A caring Church that longs to be

A partner in Christ’s sacrifice,

And clothed in Christ’s humility.

For he alone, whose blood was shed,

Can cure the fever in our blood,

And teach us how to share our bread

and feed the starving multitude.

For we have no mission but to serve

In full obedience to our Lord;

To care for all, without reserve,

And spread his liberating Word