Wisdom 12, 13, 16-19 + Psalm 86 + Romans 8, 26-27 + Matthew 13, 24-43

It is a parable. It is not a lesson on gardening. As I was driving out of the OU Medical Center after a visit to someone this week, there was an employee sitting on a curb pulling what I call “nut grass” and other non-blooming plants out of a patch of flowers in the median. I thought to myself: “What a hopeless job. With the rain we’re having they will all be back before she gets to the end of the block.” But then, if the weeds were not pulled we would never see those “lantana” blossoms that look so grand especially when the sun is shining; and with that, I drove off thinking about this parable.

It is a parable about the end of time, the great gathering or “harvest” as Jesus often refers to it. That topic was an important one for Matthew in his Gospel probably because he and the church to which he was writing were expecting it to occur very soon. Perhaps for that reason this parable is only found in Matthew’s Gospel. I suspect that Matthew is thinking that with the end coming soon, there is no need to be concerned about sorting weeds from wheat. By the time Luke prepares his Gospel using much of Matthew and Mark, the end is clearly not coming soon and may have already begun, so the parable is of less interest in Luke’s Gospel. None the less, here we are long after the transition from Matthew to Luke holding this parable up for reflection and open to the Living Word’s revelation.

It is still about God, as parables always are. The seed comes from God who sows everywhere. For Matthew, the field is the church. If so, the Church is full of wheat and weed. Not much has changed. There are still some who produce fruit, feed, and nurture, and there are still some who just take up space using up precious moisture and sunlight; taking and never giving. It’s none of our business which one is which except to ask ourselves which we have become. We don’t do the sorting. We produce the fruit. This has long been the heart of the parable’s message which can lead to asking whether this parable is about weeds or people.

Perhaps we could go a little further with it, a little deeper, and let it become a little more personal. It is said by scholars that Matthew is writing about the early Church, a mixed assembly of good believers and not-so good believers. Not much has changed on that idea. Perhaps however, the parable might lead us to look at ourselves and recognize the truth that within us there is something very good, and something not so good. The Word of God today might well be asking us to stop looking around at others making our judgments about who is wheat and who is weeds. It might be better to simply look within and clean up the garden or the field of our own lives that are always such a mixture of success and failure, good and bad, because we’re all sinners and saints full of goodness and light one day and doom and gloom the next.

The field of this parable is the world, and the good seed has been sown everywhere. Think of the image of the sower Matthew spoke of last week. Going on with the second parable about a mustard seed, we are reminded that it does not take a lot of seed nor big seed to produce something good. All it takes is a little yeast to make the bread says the third parable.

For me this parable is today a reminder that there is a little good in everyone and when they are ready to pull their weeds, what good there is will grow even better. I am also reminded that when all I can see is the weeds in my life, there is still a mustard seed or a grain of yeast in all of us that will, once the weeds are addressed, grow more abundantly. Of course that assumes that we recognize our imperfections and, shall we say, “weediness”. This is then a parable of hope and encouragement more than one of threat and doom that can define these days as preparation for the harvest.

The Matthew of the past was all worried about apostasy in the early church with advice about how to be prepared for the harvest. So concerned about the future, it was difficult to live in the present. This “reign of God” he speaks of has already begun. It is not some future cataclysmic event. It began with the Birth of Jesus Christ. This reign of God is only obscured by the weeds which have to go before we can shine like the sun. The angels are among us like grace itself providing the courage and the wisdom, to lift up our hearts, our minds, and our lives for we are living now in the harvest time.

Isaiah 55, 10-11 + Psalm 65 + Romans 8, 18-23 + Matthew 13, 1-23

Sometimes I think we get too picky and far too analytical about the details of Gospel parables like this one and we fail to get the bigger picture. All caught up in thinking about rocks and thorns, hungry birds and dry soil, we miss the message entirely. Trying to make every little word of this parable correspond to something in life, we get all intrigued by how it works, all caught up on the agrarian images, and forget that this parable is addressed to us today. We forget that the Word of God is living, and in that forgetfulness, we are satisfied to figure out what Jesus was saying to his disciples a long time ago. Stuck in that mentality, we never get around to what Jesus is saying to us now.

That’s all very fine for a classroom or a course on Matthew’s Gospel, but it does not get us into this day when the Word of God speaks to you and to me. Two things happen in this parable: sowing and harvesting. Two things are described: the sowing is extravagant and generous, the harvest is equally huge. A hundred, or sixty, or thirty fold, is a very unusual unimaginable increase. In between the extravagant sowing and the huge harvest, there are ups and down, bad times and good, losses and successes. Everything is not perfect; but in spite of that fact, there is a huge harvest. This is a simple lesson on life. Be generous enough, and not matter what happens, there will be harvest, and it will be bigger and better than you thought. That is the simple wisdom behind the parable that gets lost when all we can hear is the interpretation of the parable by Matthew.

The church at the time this Gospel is coming together is very concerned about why and how it is that the Word of God has not taken root and produced greater numbers of believers. Unexpected persecutions have started, and trusted members of the apostolic community have stumbled and turned away lured by money and prestige. The Matthew’s community has personified the conditions set forth in the parable: the path becomes a man who hears without understanding. The evil one gets the blame. The rock becomes the man who falters in the face of a challenge. The briars become the man who is lured away by money. Interesting as all this is, and true as it might be, it unfortunately leaves us set in one role, the role of the listener, and in terms of the seeds God sows, we are the recipient. We end up the center of the parable, and we get placed in the position of getting something. I do not think that Jesus saw it this way.

Parables are always about God first of all. This parable is no exception. It tells us about God and how God works, just like this farmer who is extravagant with the seeds that go everywhere. There is nothing stingy or careful, nothing picky or fussy about where the seed goes. It just goes everywhere. Then the parable also tells us that there will be a harvest, and it will be a good one.

Since this is the living Word of God that can be interpreted in this day and age for us as truthfully as it was for Matthew’s day, we might and we should ask what it means for us. Perhaps in this time it might be better if we moved beyond the role of the one who receives the Word and wonder what it might be like if we either saw ourselves as the seed or if we could began to imitate the one who sows. After all, we have been given the Word, we have been given faith. What are we to do with it, and what are we to become because of it? These are the questions we ought to be asking. The disciples who heard the parable from the lips of Jesus had their questions reflected in these verses. We have our questions, and this might be the time to get the answers.

Knowing that there is going to be big harvest, we might get interested in being part of it or in being the cause of it. Either way, if we begin to think of ourselves with our faith and its rich traditions as the seed God has sown all over this earth, we need to be ready to die as seeds do when planted in the earth. We need to be life giving, productive, and not worry about where we are, the ups and down, successes and failures. Notice that in the parable, every seed does come to life and give life even if it is bird food. No seed scattered by that farmer does nothing. God is sowing you and me into this world. It does not matter how hard it is, how disappointing, or what obstacles come along. There will be a harvest.

On the other hand, we might begin to remember that having been made in the image and likeness of God, we might begin to behave a bit more like this extravagant farmer who saves no seed and is not the least bit picky about where the seeds are sown. It is for us an example of divine generosity that suggests to us that such extravagance might be the right response or the right style of life for people to whom much has been given. If we used what we have been given the way God sows seeds, there is certainly going to be a great harvest.

Instead of trying to think about which of the “men” we are in Matthew’s interpretation making sure we are not without understanding, not faltering or set back by persecution, or not distracted by worldly anxiety and money as Matthew puts it, we might stop thinking it’s all about us, and look more closely at God and see ourselves in relationship or contrast to God who still and always will depend on us to sow the seed in such a way that there will be a great harvest in spite of whatever obstacles may come along. With that thought and that hope, we can hear this message and take it in. We can actually be this message itself which in the end is true discipleship. To see a disciple of Jesus is to see Jesus just as seeing Jesus is to see the Father.

Zechariah 9, 9-10 + Psalm 1145 + Romans 8, 9, 11-13 + Matthew 11, 25-30

These verses of Matthew’s Gospel are a cry from the heart of Jesus. He has come to an awareness that the works he does and the wisdom he lives is falling on deaf ears. He has awakened to the fact that those in power, those with authority, the leaders of the people, Scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees who held the wealth in the Temple are rigidly bound to the law, deaf by arrogance, blind by pride, stuck in their superstitions and their own ideologies. Talking about the reign of God with them has become impossible. They are unwilling to learn anything. Independent, confident of their opinions, they use their superiority to burden others, judge and accuse, exclude and blame. Convinced that they know everything there is to know about the Law, the Prophets, and God, they look upon something new with suspicion and distrust. They listen to Jesus and think him a heretic. They see the signs and wonders he works and decide that those works come from the devil, because of course, they know everything about God, how God is supposed to act, what God thinks, and what God wants.

In Matthew’s Gospel, this is a turning point for Jesus and for his message. Now the things of God will be hidden from the learned and the clever. Instead they will be revealed to the little ones, the unself-conscious people who are not afraid to wonder and to love. Those who are dependent, receptive, innocent, free and trusting are the ones who will know God and experience the wonder and wisdom of Jesus. He is not threat to them, and they have nothing to fear from him. He sees their ability to wonder as a readiness and openness to the divine presence. He sees their dependence not as a weakness, but as a readiness for God to be their strength. He sees in them a kind of freedom that makes them ready to grow and change, discover and delight in something new.

These “little ones” do not rely on their prestige, their wealth, power, or feigned authority. They can rely only upon God, and it is to them that Jesus now begins to reveal in himself, through his own weakness, a God of mercy and love. To them his powerlessness in his passion and death is no stumbling block. They know what it is like to be persecuted, to suffer, and be helpless. To them the resurrection news comes as hope and a vindication that God will see and hear, raise up and glorify those who seek God’s will and God’s reign before their own.

“Learn from me.” he says. Gentleness and humility is what he teaches to those who will learn. But to the self-reliant who know everything, there is nothing to learn, and gentleness and humility are lessons far from them, and so is God. The prophet describes the one who comes in the name of the Lord as being “meek” and riding on a colt the foal of an ass. No horse like the powerful, like the Romans in those days; but on a colt. This is a difficult and hard lesson for those who are independent, who rely on themselves, their connections, and their privilege.

It has been said that noble and wise people are often heard to say: “I didn’t know that.” No matter how much they have studied, read, and accomplished, there is for them always more to learn that springs from a kind of wisdom that always seeks the truth never believing that they possess the truth. That kind of wisdom and nobility never trusts and never relies on power or wealth, but uses power and wealth to empower and enrich others. To nations and cultures the message of Jesus speaks in every age and place. Armies and Weapons, Money and Influence can make no peace or lead to goodness and righteousness. Being independent is no path to goodness and God. It just makes one lonely and empty. Knowledge without Wisdom is foolish and useless if it does not leave us receptive to wonder, beauty, and love.

Jesus completes this lesson using an image out of the farming methods of his day. Usually, beasts of burden were paired in a double yoke so they could combine their efforts at plowing. With that image of a shared yoke and shared burden, he assures us that we are not alone facing the future as disciples. He is our yokemate. With an assurance of rest and his presence, he never promised a life free from sorrow or struggle. He simply assures us that if we keep close to him, we will find relief from crushing burdens, crippling anxiety, a sense of frustration and futility, and the misery of a conscience burdened by sin. For those of us who have to learn about yokes and paired oxen, there is a more easily appreciated image that can carry the same promise: the image of a Christian marriage and the Church. As spouses bear one another’s burdens, work together side by side forgiving and encouraging. The very thought and image that the Church, the Christian community, is the bride of Christ lifts us all with hope and courage because we are not now and never will be alone.

Our presence here, this pause in the routine of a summer week, is the rest he promises. Take a deep breath when you come in here. Put down your worries and concerns, fears and doubts. Our communion together and with Christ feeds us and binds us together to bear the burdens of the past and the future. Being here will make whatever comes this week easier because we are assured of help. This is the Spirit Paul speaks of to the Romans, and it is reason to rejoice with the joy the prophet Zechariah has proclaimed.

Acts 12, 1-11 + Psalm 34 + 2 Timothy 4, 6-8, 17-18 + Mathew 16, 13-19

A few weeks ago I was reading about this text from Matthew’s Gospel, and a commentator said something that stuck with me for days. He said that you could tell when someone was a real student of music when they heard to Rossini’s “William Tell Overture” and not think of the Lone Ranger. You can also tell when someone is a real student of the scriptures when they read Matthew 16 and do not think of the Papacy. We Catholics have taken these verses and used them to support an ecclesiastical structure that we have created. It is almost impossible for us to hear the words: “You are Peter and upon this Rock I will build my church” without thinking of Vatican City, Miters, Bishops, and the medieval papacy. Scholars tell us that nothing could be further from the mind and the intention of Matthew. Taking those verses out of context within the whole Gospel is like taking a few bars of Rossini’s Overture to start another episode of the “Lone Ranger.” Rossini did not know a thing about the Lone Ranger, and Matthew could never have imagined anything like Vatican City.

Matthew is writing for a Jewish/Christian community: followers of Jesus who faithfully go to the synagogue every Saturday, have been circumcised and observe kosher laws, and still feel obligated to keep all 613 Mosaic Laws. They’re the earliest kind of Christians. They also seem to be one of the last biblical communities still expecting Jesus’ Second Coming to take place in the relative near future. Unlike Luke’s community, they’re not yet into preparing for the long run. They’re much more interested in the implications of living their faith right here and now, convinced that no matter what problems they face, the risen Jesus is present and working effectively in their lives.

With that awareness, we proclaim this Gospel today not to justify or confirm the institution led by the Spirit that grew out of those days, but to be reminded of who we are and what it is this church rests upon. To think that we rest upon Peter is to miss the point and perhaps build upon a shaky foundation. This church, our church, rests upon faith and not only the faith of Peter. The commission we read of today is not exclusive to Peter. Two chapters later in the same Gospel Jesus will give the commission of forgiveness to all the faithful. Faith is the foundation. The faith of Peter, the faith of Paul, and the faith of all the other apostles and disciples. The challenge of our times is to recognize that our faith matters as well.

At the heart of these verses, a question is raised. It is a question of identity. In the context of the Gospel it is the identity of Jesus. In the context of our proclamation today it is our identity. The question today is not “Who do people say Jesus is?” It is no longer about whether Jesus is the Messiah, a Prophet, or the Biblical “Son of Man.” That identity was settled long ago. We would not be in this church were it not settled in our minds and hearts. The question now proposed by the Word of God is, “Who do people say we are?” Wondering what people think and say when they look and listen to us is important, and it has something to do with the foundation of the Church and our future as a church.

Peter and Paul, and all the saints in every age were for their day and time what Jesus was for his, the Word made flesh. By putting on Christ in baptism, we are for our day and time what the saints were for theirs and Christ was for his. Peter and Paul were the continuing presence of Christ where ever they were. That would be their answer to the question: “Who do people say they were?” Our words, deeds, and attitudes make Jesus present in our world today. Our witness gives people a concrete experience of Christ and answers the question Jesus put to the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” When we feed Christ’s flock with his compassion and love, people can say, “In you we see Christ.” When we offer what we have to a sister or brother, whether healing, listening, or the truth of the Gospel as we understand it, people can say, “In you we see Christ.” When we are willing to sacrifice and give ourselves totally to another like spouses do to one another, or parents do for their children, or children do for their parents, or ministers, lay and ordained, do for the people of God, people can say, “In you we see Christ.”

Like that breakfast conversation with Peter after the Resurrection, Jesus offers us the gift of reconciliation and renews our ability to make his presence known. Like Paul, Jesus heals us of our blindness so that we turn to him in our need and see his unconditional, merciful love in our midst. When we are for our day and time what Jesus was for his, we offer firsthand testimony that we have seen the Lord. Our witness is anything but hearsay when we tell the story of our experience of Jesus Christ who has rescued us from the power of sin and death and promised to bring us to God’s heavenly reign. Grow close to Christ in prayer. Tell the story of how he has changed your life like Peter and Paul did. Stand on their apostolic foundation, feed Christ’s lambs, and run the race that will give glory to God forever. This is what we celebrate today as a church: the experience and consequences of our own faith; and the joy of living that faith together in unity and peace, forgiveness and love.

Deuteronomy 8, 2-3, 14-16 + Psalm 147 + 1 Corinthians 10, 16-17 + John 6, 51-58

A few years ago when I was in Haiti visiting Father Marc Boisvert at the ESPWA orphanage in Les Cayes he taught me that when children arrive there,  it is always possible to distinguish those who are malnourished from those who are not. It is not just a matter of a distended stomach that we are sadly accustomed to seeing on TV news reports. Long before that occurs, the color of the children’s hair changes. The fact is, sometimes the stomach is not distended because there has been enough to eat; but what is consumed is not nourishing. It is then that the hair color changes. When the children have been at ESPWA long enough, the hair color turns to a natural and healthy looking black that signals improved health.

For some reason that memory came to mind while I was reflecting on this feast and its focus on food. It came to mind in a troubling way as I was also reflecting in prayer over the thousands of children crossing a boarder into this country listening to the outrage and arrogant responses of some with their easy and confident solution to the problem. Hungry and frightened children running in fear from violence and hopelessness seem to be scaring and threatening a lot of very comfortable and secure people in high places. It makes me think that perhaps we ought to look at the color of their hair. It makes me suspect that the undernourished are not the refugees, but those who are living it up with full plates and grocery carts.

As it is, the color of my own hair is not easily identified these days, but the truth of the matter is that all of us might do well to check our consumption and our diets. These times and the challenges they bring do not permit us the luxury of blame and finger pointing. While that goes on, people die. As Pope Francis said recently, when the Stock Market goes up or down a point or two, it is big news; but when someone dies of hunger in poverty, it is never news. Something is wrong here, and while we might find it easy to blame another, a system, a party, or an attitude, someone is starving to death while we fill garbage cans and feed our pets.

My faith tells me that this Feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ cannot be reduced to processions with the Blessed Sacrament, Holy Hours, or Benediction. This feast is about the Body of Christ. It is about food and nourishment. It is about unity and a bond among us all that is both mystical, spiritual, and physical. When someone dies of hunger, something in every one of us dies. When a child runs toward us in fear, it must not threaten us. Those are not someone else’s children. Every child belongs to us because every child belongs to God.

When we can find nothing better to do than insist that these children be sent away, it’s time to look at the color of our hair. We are not well nourished. A people who feast on the Body and Blood of Christ are not a people of fear, and they are not a people of ever think in terms of “them and us.”

Before this Feast becomes a matter of political and social issues, and before it gets reduced to processions and benedictions, it is about food and nourishment for the soul. It is about strengthening and building up the Body of Christ in this world, a body that includes Hondurans, Guatemalans, Mexicans, Canadians, Africans, Asian peoples, Citizens of the United States, and people we never even think of because they are so far away. Our fumbling, cautious, and sometimes cruel response to this newest crises suggests to me that we are not well nourished; that the Body and Blood of Christ is not often enough and real enough on our menu to prepare us for the challenge ahead. We are not the only nation facing a challenge like this as people flee day and night into Jordan and Lebanon out of Syria, and as they flee day and night out of Nigeria and Somalia. There are 50 million refugees on this earth today, and many are in their own country because of violence. We cannot hide from this or pretend it is someone else’s problem.

The food we share in here when shared with knowledge and with faith will nourish and strengthen us as the Body of Christ, and then when a new crisis comes we will know what to do and do it right because we are the Body of Christ who never sent anyone away who came to him.

Exodus 34, 4-6, 8-9 + Psalm Daniel 3, 52-56 + 2 Corinthians 13, 11-13 + John 3, 16-18

There is something completely silly about human beings using language to explain God. In some ways, it is almost an act of pride, for if we can explain in our words the Divine Mystery, then we have somehow captured, control, and now understand God. So, comes the annual observance of “Trinity Sunday” right after Pentecost perhaps to test how completely we have received the Holy Spirit and the gift of “Understanding.” Ridiculous!

I have spent most of my life thinking that this is a Feast for scholars, for those who can stand up and speak coherently about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: Three in One, One in Three, Undivided Unity. The hymn we sing this day sums it all up, and it boils down to some kind of mental exercise that has always left me a little bored and put off. As “Sister” used to say to us children in class: “It’s a mystery. Just believe it.” “Believe what?” I would ask in all innocence, and then spend 90 minutes after school writing: “It’s a mystery.” 1000 times!

I had to grow up and get out of school creating some distance from those theological scholars to discover that this is not a Feast of Scholars. It is a feast for lovers. Eventually in the face of love I began to see what this is all about. To help us explore this revelation, the church gives us readings about what God does; not about what God is. The way into the mystery of God is to look at what God does. From that we can begin to stumble around with human language to express what eventually is not expressible.

That first reading is almost a surprise, a surprise at how tender and loving God is with Moses providing the Law to give life. Paul speaks of discovering God in communion, and the conversation with Nicodemus is really about love. Saint Theresa, the “Little Flower” wrote that “The loveliest master piece of the heart of God is the heart of mother.” If that great woman so understood God by understanding the love of a mother, then why would it not be so for a father as well?. Loving parents are the first and best doorway into the mystery of God. Their love brings them together in Unity, but they are never indistinct from one another. The longer they live in that love however, the more one they become. The more they begin to think for each other, to speak for each other, to know without it being said what is going on in the heart of the other. These are clues for perceiving the nature of God. Relationships of this kind are sacramental. They are for us a sign of something deeper and more inaccessible through the sign, and the love they have and share is known by what they do.

We learn more about God from human relationships than from Philosophers and Theologians. You can learn more about God from your parents and teachers than you can from books and movies. People who believe in you, who are willing to make sacrifices for you; people who will not give up on you, who love you no matter what you do or say,: that is how you come to know what the Trinity means and what God is.

That first reading about Moses is a good one for today. Moses is someone worth getting to know. He is a good model and a worthy hero. Today we hear about him going up the mountain for the second time!  He goes up after the people have done their thing with the golden calf and betrayed everything he taught them, and ignored everything he gave them. He goes up there one more time to offer his life for those ungrateful, impatient people. Moses is an introduction to Jesus who comes to lead people who love the light into friendship with God that nothing can break, and unity with each other that is as close and real as blood.

For people who love the Trinity is not hard to understand. It is just a little difficult to talk about like real love is difficult to talk about. And so we either run the risk of talking too much, or finally just give in to the awe of it all and sit in silence holding hands, folded in the arms of the other, and believing that we are a people who have the life of God within us.

1 Kings 17, 7-16 + Psalm 4 + Matthew 5, 3-16

June 10, 2014 + Villa Theresa Convent + Oklahoma City, OK

 The Jewish people at the time of this Gospel’s earliest formation avoided using the name of God. They had all sorts of substitutes, but it seems that the word used by most people was “heaven”. With very few exceptions, this Gospel, so deeply set in the Judaism of its time always speaks of the “Kingdom of Heaven” instead of the “Kingdom of God.” It was the politically correct turn of phrase. It was polite, inoffensive, and respectful. However, a problem begins to arise once you move out of that time and that place because it suggests that the “Kingdom of God” is identical with heaven leading anyone who does not read this Gospel critically to assume that the Kingdom of God is somewhere else, and perhaps for some other time which then makes the work and preaching Jesus Christ quite a bit less immediate and a bit less emphatic since there was hardly any reason to get all worked up about something that would happen somewhere else later. However, there is nothing about the behavior of Jesus and nothing in his teaching to support that idea. In fact, picking up on the themes of John the Baptist, it is quite the contrary. The Kingdom of God, or perhaps better said, “The Reign of God” is primarily and above on earth, and Jesus insists again and again that it has begun. It is an event that has already happened.

 In Israel people began to speak of “God’s royal reign” during their monarchical period; the times of David and Solomon. This idea of God’s royal reign had a relationship to actual society from the very beginning of its use. It would be a real experience in which God’s kingship would be visible. It was not some ideal for the future, and in the Bible this concept never referred to something purely internal or spiritual. The “Kingdom of God would affect all relationship right then and there. After all, people knew that a king without a people is no king at all but simply a figure in a museum. If God is King, then there already is a Kingdom and people within it.

 What Matthew proposes to us in Chapter Five in these verses we call “The Beatitudes” is a profound awakening of the reality of the present reign of God. This is the beginning of the public life and ministry of Jesus Christ. It is his inaugural address. It expresses what he sees as his mission and the agenda of his life. It is not a vision of what heaven will be like. It is a proclamation of the Kingdom of God which he says has already begun. In that Kingdom, in that society, in relationships Jesus is forming among his disciples the poor will be blessed. They will not be cursed. Those who morn will find comfort. The condition of the meek will be reversed. Instead of being left out or last, they will get their inheritance. There will be no hunger or thirst, and mercy will be the experience of everyone. The clean of heart will reveal God. Peacemakers will know God’s favor, and the victims of violence, the persecuted, will find joy rather than fear. This does not describe the future. This is the vision Jesus has for the present, for the life of those who follow him, for the society and its members who are willing to leave all things and follow him.

 This religious community is today and has been for many generations just such a society: a people who acknowledge, profess, and live in the Royal Reign of God. It is not an idea, and the Kingdom of God is not something for an afterlife for those who are worthy. It is a way of life inspired by a young woman in France who caught the imagination of countless people all over the world by her simplicity, meekness, poverty, and mercy. She was “pure of heart” which has nothing to do with cleanliness, but everything to do with the truth that what you see is what you get. No hidden agenda, no other focus in life other than life itself. She said once in a letter: “You know well enough that our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions nor even their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them.”There is a “Beatitude” in full view.

 Theresa was like the woman we heard about in the first reading today whose greatness was not so much what she gave to the prophet, but the loving trust with which she gave it all. What we celebrate this week, last Sunday and again today in this old Motherhouse that has heard the laughter of joyful servants as well as their suffering is just such a “Beatitude”: a happy attitude of trust and confidence, fidelity, obedience, and service. When we celebrate and rejoice gratefully with Sister Sylvia, it is not just Sister Sylvia who is honored, admired, and loved. It is also all those who walked these halls before her in solitude with Christ and in sisterhood with companions who like the woman in Zerapath have given it all because they have nothing to fear. Just before Jesus gave everything he had into his passion, he sat down with his disciples in full view of the place in the temple where people left their offerings, and he observed a widow placing her last coins into the treasury. It was a gift of love, and sign of the Reign of God; because in that reign, in that society, and in that loving community Jesus came to establish she had nothing fear about her future. Others would care for her, feed her, give her shelter, and provide from what they had to keep her from suffering alone.

 This is the Kingdom of God, a real place that has social dimensions and relationships of trust and love. The reign of God develops its power where people live the new common life established by God and endow that common life with everything they have. This is what you are, sisters; and this is what you have been doing for the past fifty years, Sister Sylvia. You have left all things and sold all that you have to follow Christ into the mystery of God’s Kingdom. All of you live it faithfully here in a community that is poor, meek, merciful and sometimes persecuted by those who do not see the light that shines in you.

 Sister, may you find hope and comfort in the words Theresa, your patron once said to her family: “May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.”

Thank you for fifty years given to us all in Oklahoma.

Acts 2, 1-11 + Psalm 104 + 1 Corinthians 12, 3-7, 12-13 + John 20, 19-23

It occurred to me while reflecting on this day’s great celebration that in the Apostles Creed there are ten statements about Jesus Christ and only one about the Holy Spirit. Perhaps this is so because everything else proclaimed in the Creed is the consequence of the Holy Spirit. The Creed speaks of God as “Creator of Heaven and Earth”. That work or that act of creation was really the Holy Spirit, the “breath” of God. When it comes to the Creed’s proclamations about Jesus Christ, it is really all about the Holy Spirit from the Conception when the Holy Spirit comes upon the Blessed Mother to the Baptism of Jesus when his work begins as the Son of God.

Even the Old Testament is filled with evidence of God’s work by the Holy Spirit. No one leads who is not led by God’s Spirit. In Genesis the Spirit gives Joseph the skill to rule. Joshua has military might by the Spirit in the Book of Numbers, and every one of the prophets is moved by the Spirit. We often speak of “inspiration” when we are touched by a work of art, a piece of literature, or a musical composition recognizing a beauty that is uncommon and sometimes makes us catch our breath. These very expressions and experiences give evidence of God’s work. An inspired person has breathed in something of creation and the creator with it. A truly great artist working in any medium of art reveals not just some thing beautiful; but reveals something of God, something that draws us to God, to the divine. This is exactly what we profess in the Creed with those simple words: “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” There is nothing more to say. The Holy Spirit is the work of God: all of it.

Not too many years ago standing in the ambo at Saint Mark Church in Norman, I began the Pentecost homily by challenging the assembly to name the “Gifts of the Holy Spirit.” There was a nervous wave sweeping across the church, and I began pointing to people who had not looked away. Gradually, one by one, we managed to come up with the “Gifts of the Holy Spirit”, nine of them!  We got carried away, way beyond the traditional seven. The list we gathered was very convincing, but no one suggested that “energy” was a gift of the Holy Spirit; but from my own experience in all my years of ministry, I think it should be. We can talk all we want to about wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord, but without energy these are passive virtues all of which require some explanation or definition. What we hear happening in Acts of the Apostles today is anything but passive. It needs no explanation or definition. Those people in that upper room had some energy. They got up and went to work. They got up and began to do what was commanded of them by the risen Christ, and they did so with some extraordinary energy and enthusiasm. They had the Holy Spirit. In them and through them God went to work at creation.

One of the surest signs of sickness is a lack of energy. It afflicts many of us from time to time emotionally, spiritually, physically, and psychologically. The sick have no energy to do anything. It is a serious symptom. I remember the first awareness of my heart condition several years ago. It was a lack of energy. I could not keep up. I could not get going. Even walking to the office was a challenge. I had no energy. Fatigue is the way our body signals that something is wrong and our reserves are depleted, and it tells us that we need something that is missing. We must pay attention to this spiritually as well as physically. Spiritual fatigue is just as real as physical fatigue.

My observation is that we are living in an age of fatigue both spiritual and physical. We are worn out from chasing around after nothing but puny pleasures that wear out and are quickly replaced by another that requires more of us than we sometimes have. We do not seem to have the energy to deal with immigration, human trafficking, drug abuse, and the countless ailments that infect our lives and the lives of our neighbors. Even our church is tired and worn around the edges often lacking the energy to be truly prophetic. The popular “Prosperity Theology” that often fills suburban mega-churches makes people feel good, comfortable, and justified, but it never inspires or fires us up about true justice and the reign of God. Too often imprisoned in a kind of fundamentalism that turns Christ into a “personal savior” communities get obsessed with saving the world from sin, while the real sin is not remembering that our roots and our beginnings are in Pentecost.

Several weeks ago I went to the grocery store and filled a basket with things I needed for the coming week. When I got the register to check out, I reached for my wallet, and it was not there. Humiliated and frustrated, I explained the problem and asked them to hold the basket until I returned. I raced home and searched through the clothing I had worn the day before. No wallet. Then I put my hand in my jacket pocket, and there was the wallet. I had it with me all the time. I simply forgot it where it was.

This is what our Feast of Pentecost is all about. I have never gotten into this thinking that this is a Birthday celebration for the Church. In my opinion, that trivializes the reality we celebrate, and removes us individually from an experience that must be our Pentecost. We have the Holy Spirit. We may not forget that truth. Paul reminds us again and again that the Spirit of God that raised Jesus from dead dwells within us. As Paul said to Timothy, he says to us: “God has not given us a spirit of fear; but of power and of love.” The power of the Spirit is not like the power this world generates: a power of privilege and influence. It is the power of compassion, humility, gentleness, generosity, patience and service. More people will be drawn to that kind of power than to the power of might! Greatness in this world and in the reign of God is measured by how much a man or woman has been filled with the Spirit.

This is a day comes once every year with a reminder: a call to remember what we sometimes forget we have: Engery.

Acts 1, 1-11 + Ephesians 1, 17-23 + Matthew 28, 16-20

To move from preparing the homily for the Sixth Sunday of Easter to this Ascension Day reflection, I spent a ridiculous amount of time listening to the great hymn composed by Charles Wesley in 1742, “Hail the Day that Sees Him Rise.” Before you go on I urge you to check either of these (or both) sites and listen as I have.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zNJbUBGZfE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b_ODz_jgTs

Sit with this text, and let yourself be caught up in the spirit of this music which with such beauty expresses what our faith holds and proclaims on this day.

As I listened, it occurred to me that there is a change in heaven being proclaimed by the Feast of the Ascension and by this salvation event. Now, because Christ has accomplished the will of the Father, heaven is different. It is changed just as much as earth was changed by the Incarnation. Now heaven is for us. It is no longer just the domain of the divine. Now in Christ we are there, and heaven is a place for us. In the same context, this earth is changed as well by what Christ has accomplished. It is no longer just the human dwelling place. It is now a place where the divine can be encountered. The Son of God comes here to change the earth, and returns to the Father to change what we call “heaven.”

This is much of what we celebrate and much of what gives us joy today. Heaven and Earth are renewed, restored, and Paradise is at hand. As the verses unfold in the hymn, our  heavenward gaze shifts from the memories of the past to our hopes for the future leading us to expect with joy the return of Christ that is promised in Matthew’s Gospel. This is as much about the Church as it is about Christ. His return to the Father having accomplished the Father’s will now leaves us to do the same: accomplish the Father’s will with the assurance that heaven is where we belong since Christ himself has gone before us still calling us with the same invitation as before: “Follow me.”

Introduced now is the expectation that Christ will come again setting the scene and the mood for what our lives are like in the present. Living with this expectation of Christ’s return changes the way we perceive our relationships and our day by day lives. Readiness now marks the way we greet each day. Readiness now is the way we steward the gifts we have in expectation that the owner of the vineyard will come for an accounting. Having used those gifts for the glory of the Father, it will be a day of delight to hand over the fruits of our labor. Only those who have fearfully buried their gifts have anything to worry about. For those how live in this readiness, the joy of what is to come breaks through to silence every fear. Unlike those who fear the day, live in anxiety and expect the second coming to be a day of doom and frightening judgment, we who have bound ourselves to Christ in His death and resurrection are bound to him in his return to the Father. With nothing to fear, we stand in hope. With faith that is born in the Resurrection, we expect only a day of mercy not a day of wrath. Like the verses of Wesley’s hymn, “Alleluia” becomes the theme of our song and the style of our lives.

The commandment given in Matthew’s Gospel today expects far more than an effort to bring everyone to the font of Baptism. The command expects that we will bring this world into a relationship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. From that relationship springs Life and Peace, Forgiveness and Mercy. As Luke tells of this event in Acts of the Apostles, Angels are present again as they were at the beginning of his Gospel. Now their message is to us, not to the Virgin, to Joseph, or to Zechariah. Now we receive a message from on high telling us what to do and what to expect. As they gave their assent to the message of an angel, so must we, and so we GO as the angel instructs, to lead and teach in the name of Christ, to heal and forgive in the name of Christ, to reveal the Father’s mercy and love, and to live in the joyful expectation that Christ will come again.

As the final verses of Wesley’s him proclaim:

Ever upward let us move, Alleluia!
Wafted on the wings of love, Alleluia!
Looking when our Lord shall come, Alleluia!
Longing, gasping after home, Alleluia!

There we shall with Thee remain, Alleluia!
Partners of Thy endless reign, Alleluia!
There Thy face unclouded see, Alleluia!
Find our heaven of heavens in Thee, Alleluia!

Acts 8, 5-8, 14-17 + Psalm 66 + 1 Peter 3, 15-18 + John 14, 15-21

MS Massdam Passanger and Crew Mass

In many ways, our gathering here is always like the gathering of the faithful disciples of Jesus in that Jerusalem upper room. They picked up the pieces of their lives, their failures, sins, and denials and came together because they knew, once they were with one another, that they were acceptable and forgivable. These gifts of acceptance and forgiveness experienced in Christ could be shared with each other as Jesus had accepted and forgiven them time after time in his great mercy. This assembly is never more like that than when we approach the celebration of Pentecost, because every Assembly of God’s people on the first day of the week ought to be a time when the Spirit promised by Christ would renew us to continue the new life we have found in Christ. What we read and hear about in those communities must be a description of us, or we have strayed from the zeal, the love, the hope, and the joy that so marked those communities always recognized by their love. What clearly startled those who observed this love was not just their love for one another, but their love for everyone. It is no great accomplishment to love people who love you. It is something remarkable to encounter people who love those who have no love at all.

So in the readings for today, which tease us into readiness for Pentecost, we begin to see some very real and obvious characteristics of those who followed the “Way”, who had in faith begun already to lead the life promised by Christ at Easter. That life is manifest within a network of relationships where cooperation, reconciliation, unselfish sharing and real concern for one another reveal who we are.

Aristotle once said that “As a thing appears and acts, so it is.” Such profound wisdom so simply stated reminds us that who and what we are is revealed in what we say and do, in the way we carry our bodies, and express our feelings. If we are angry or depressed, in doubt or confusion, this will be evident in our appearance and body language. Conversely, when a person is in love, they cannot long hide it from others. When someone lives their lives with hope and with joy in the face of everything this world can throw at us, people will notice. They will wonder, and sometimes they will ask, and we owe it to them to explain it and profess our faith.

Hope and Joy are clearly evident in the faithful communities we read about in today’s scriptures. Of all the signs of the Spirit, these two are the first that receive attention. Joy is an undeniable and unmistakable sign of the Spirit’s presence. You can hear it! It is the sound of laughter and the result of good humor – of not taking one’s self too seriously, which is a mark of humility. These people, filled with the spirit make good companions. Their hope raises all kinds of questions when in the face of bad news or a tragedy, they do not give in to blame or denial, anger or despair, but move forward confident that with the help of their fellow companions, Christ will lift them up and dry their tears.

Other marks of life in the Spirit we can identify are the great signs worked by these faithful ones. A sincere and deep examination of our life in the Spirit calls for a careful look at this mark of the Spirit. It is still present, but for some reason, our privatized and “personal” style of living our faith obscures the truth and the fact that such great signs continue. There is healing, and we can do it. The pragmatism of this age and our exaltation of science leads some to scoff, but the power to heal through love and forgiveness is still at work in us. It may be untested and untried, but it’s there. We are often too narrow in our thinking about healing. It does not always have to be physical. We block the power of God by our easy assumptions that: “God doesn’t work that way.” When we are alive in the Spirit, we are a conduit for the power of that Spirit given to us by Christ without reservation or condition. We can work great signs and wonders by the power of love and forgiveness, mercy, compassion, and generosity.

Finally, as we hear these rich stories that describe not communities in the past, but the signs of Life in the Spirit in every age, there is one more that is probably the greatest challenge and test. It is that “bold speech” we read about so often. That confidence, and that zeal to share what we have with those who are alone, without hope, without joy, without the very relationship with Christ that gives us the Spirit he shares with the Father.

We are too shy. We are too reserved and too private about our faith. There is nothing private about faith, Jesus Christ, or the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is not a private agent. The Holy Spirit is a Public Agent, a Public Event, a Public Person that stirs and motivates, encourages, prompts, and blows through us like the wind.

The Holy Spirit is a “person”, not an “it”. One great writer describes the Holy Spirit as the consequence of the Love between the Father and the Son. Their mutual love is the Holy Spirit. They look at each other, and in their love they “sigh” as lovers often do. That “sigh” is “SPIRITUS”, the holy sign of love between the Father and the Son. In Genesis God speaks in the plural. “Let US make”, God says. The love between the Father and the Son is the power that makes the world. We are invited, called, and created to enter into that great mystery of love. A real “spiritual life” is living in that Holy Spirit; living in that love, in that hope, in that joy, and it’s not a secret! If we believe it, we must proclaim it.