We pick up this wonderful reading today so rich in imagery so often told. We are going to hear again in just a few weeks in Holy Week. It has to be paired with last week and the ones to come in Lent, the first readings. Last week the first reading for a Sunday in Lent was the story of Noah, that powerful story of redemption and new life. So, today it is Abraham who speaks to us. Next week it is Moses. Then it is Cyrus of all people, and then, Jeremiah. Central to our celebration of Lent is the truth and reality of Covenant. This Holy Season begins with the first Covenant with Noah and ends with the final Covenant on Holy Thursday. As we make our way to that Holy Night when God makes his final covenant with us in the Body and Blood of Christ, his son. We should remember all the Covenants that have taken human kind deeper and deeper into the mystery of God’s love for us.
The story of Noah is the story of salvation and re-creation. It is the story of life’s triumph over death, the story of God’s promise. It is a promise that reveals the promise maker and the promise keeper. In that covenant, nothing is asked of Noah. There is no condition. It is a pure gift. It simply introduces God’s promise with rich and powerful images that speak to every Christian sensitive to the symbols with which we often speak: water. It covers the earth, it sweeps away all that is evil, and creation begins a new with God’s promise that death will never come again.
Today it is the story of a father and a son. I reveals to us a God who will provide. It is about way more than Isaac’s death, however. It is about the death of us all. Abraham is not the first nor the last to be put to test. He is not the first to be asked for a sacrifice, and neither is Isaac. Each of us is required to make Abraham’s sacrifice. We are all going to have to face letting go of our most beloved person, or most beloved task, possession, and sometimes joy. Everything dear to us, everything we love, everything given to us by God is subject to death. Its own and our own.
The essence of this story is simple, but profound. Is God good? Will God keep the promises? This is the question that rises up in our face every time we are separated from what we love: the death of a spouse, the death of a child, a parent, a brother or sister puts that question right in our face at the moment of the separation. Is God good? We lose our job. We lose our home. We lose our dignity to old age and sometimes that terrible illness that might rob us of our independence, freedom. In the midst of that, the question rises. Is God good. Is God going to keep the promise. A physician comes and says, there is no hope. There is nothing more to do. The question rises, is God good? How can this happen?
Abraham is our father in faith because Abraham embodies the final act of faith that all of us must make. We all make scarifies; we all stand in the face of the terrible separation from what we all hold most dear. We have to know the answer to that question. The point of remember this profound yet simple truth is that God does the same. This is my beloved Son God says from afar. He is the only one I have. God does not hold back. God does not ask what God has not done. God knows separation. God knows the sadness of losing a child. God knows what it means to lose everything you have. God asks us to be merciful because God has given mercy. God asks us to forgive. God forgives. God asks us to sacrifice and serve. God sacrifices and serves. God makes a promise. We make a promise. If God keeps God’s promise, then we keep our promises. Just about ten days ago, we marked our faces with ashes that remind us that we are going to die. Every single one of us. No one is going to get out of here without dying. But, we have marked ourselves with the sign of the cross because by that cross we know that we shall live. The simple message of the cross is: “Get worthy of it.” Ashes, you are going to die. The cross, get worthy. This is exactly what this season of Lent is about: getting ready to die, and getting worthy to live forever.
Joel 2: 12-18 + Psalm 51 + 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2 + Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18
We make today a profound and important declaration. It is one that goes contrary to much that this world would profess and hold to be important. Everything in our western world and in the pagan culture in which we find ourselves insists that we are different, individuals, unique, special, and can only find our true identity by doing something no one has ever done before. It proposes that this is greatness. The consequence of this is killing us and driving us further and further apart. The more we believe this, the more we begin to think that no one knows what we’re going through; no one has ever felt what we feel before or faced the challenges we face. The growing individualism in which we find ourselves pushes us further and further apart, contributes to the ideological conflicts that divide us, and make us more and conscious and competitive demanding our rights without a thought of how those so called “rights” might diminish the rights of another. This condition is just cultural and outside of us. It is an interior experience as well. Spiritual Individualism is just as great a danger. It is exactly the thinking Jesus confronts with the warning about doing things in order to be seen.
This is the hypocrisy Jesus condemns: the doing of things in order to be judged by what is seen. It sets us apart. It suggests that we should be judged by externals, and that what we do for others to see is really the measure of our goodness.
Today we say “no” to that. Today we shall all look alike because we are all alike. What we say today is not: “Look how different I am” but rather, “Look how we’re all in this together.” We all shall have to answer the same fundamental question: “Is your life meaningful given that fact that it will eventually end?” By showing the mark of death, we proclaim the possibility of life. Unlike those who want to be judge by the external things that they do, we seek to be judged by what is in our heart and how that is revealed by what we say and do.
In all the ages of Christian tradition and Catholic custom, no one has yet come up with a better way of purifying the human heart and revealing the best that is in one’s heart than by prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Together these three challenge every bit of individuality and individualism that might creep into us. They lead us to experience our utter dependence upon God challenging forever the idea that we are somehow on our own and able to do anything we desire. They turn us toward each other and everyone else’s needs, and we are reminded in a radical way that we are our brother’s keeper, and we are not in this world alone.
In a world that whines and complains, hoards and hides, tempting us to believe that we are number one; God says: “I am number one.” We have nothing to whine and complain about if we would just look around. We have no right or reason to hoard and hide unless we think that God has finished providing what we need. We have it all to provide for others. Recognizing that we are not alone is what we must remember today. So we shall make ourselves look like because we are. We must heed the warning and hope to be judged by what is in our hearts, not by what we do; but we must use these days to purify our hearts so that what is in them is good, noble, and worthy of children of God, and then what we do will match what is in our hearts. Then we shall have found the Truth and we shall be living in the Truth.
Let us begin to purify our hearts, to turn toward one another in sincerity and in love, and help one another through difficult, uncertain, and frightening days by standing together as one in prayer, in service, and in sacrifice.
This weekend, as we move quickly into the Season Lent and still adjust to a new calendar year, I want to give you a “State of the Parish” address with some pastoral commentary leading up to the publishing our annual report which will appear on the web site before the end of this month. I am prompted to do this for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that I am leader here, and every now and then a leader needs to take a good look ahead and look back to make sure someone is there. I have done that over the last several weeks, and I want to tell you what I see. My opinion is that the past is not nearly as good as what lies ahead if you will get reenergized, refocused, and renewed for the journey which is what Lent could do for us.
When I look back this it what I see. Fewer and fewer people are looking ahead and willing come with us. Some are along for “the ride” so to speak, meaning they want a “free” ride as long as it’s easy. Some are bumping into things that get in the way because they didn’t know what to expect. Some have gone back and given up. Some were not prepared for the journey and they are confused and long for what they think were better times in the past (Like those who murmured against Moses in the desert when they didn’t like the diet.)
Here are some facts that lead me to say those things. Three weeks ago the church in this country celebrated a tradition that has made Catholicism in the United States great: Catholic Schools. At each of the Masses, I called up all the children from this parish who attend our school. The total number of children who came forward at all three Masses was 77. I had the deacon count at each Mass. There are more 215 children from this parish who claim to be Catholic at All Saints School. That means 138 children did not attend Mass that Sunday here at Saint Mark. Where were they? I know where many of them were: at home, in bed, or playing computer games. I hear confessions of children, and it frightens me when they say: “Father, I’m sorry I didn’t go to Mass.” What frightens me comes when I ask why and they tell me that their parents wouldn’t bring them because they were too tired or too busy. What frightens me is that Jesus said that anyone who messes with the conscious of a child and causes them to sin should be drowned with a mill-stone around their neck. It is the strongest language in all the gospels. We are spending an enormous amount of money to have that school for what? For 77 our of 215? There is a problem here, and it is not simply at the school; but that is the easiest place to see it. There are 121 children in Religious Education and 215 in the school for a total of 336. The roles of this parish count more than twice that number. Where are those children? What does it mean, I wonder, when a couple stands at that font as you see them do about 39 times a year and promise to bring their children up in the practice of the faith? When are they going to start? I’ll tell you when, in the 7th year of the child’s life when they want something: First Communion. Then half the children come to us not knowing how to say the Hail Mary!
There are 3000 members of this parish according to the roles; but of course the roles are a mess because on 50% of you responded to repeated pleas in October and November to update the data. Why only 50% If there are 3000 members of this parish, why is Sunday attendance averaging around 1200? How has Sunday Mass attendance become optional? How in world can anyone stay home when the Body of Christ is being broken and shared at this altar? How can anyone say they are too tired to give thanks in face of that crucifix! I’ll tell you why. There is no faith, and what concerns me is that where there is no faith, Jesus will work no wonders. There is evidence of that in the Gospels.
What I see when I look back is that we are living in a world that not only does not believe in Jesus Christ, it does not believe in sin. Of course, without sin there isn’t any need for Jesus except for some entertainment and a curious distraction now and then. That was the problem there in Capernaum in today’s Gospel. They liked the miracles, but as soon as he said anything about sin, trouble broke out. When I look back what I see is that many have perfected the “blame game” – you know how it goes: it’s always someone else’ fault; and with that they have sunk so far into denial that sin and guilt, conscience and repentance are little more than the subject of late night comedians who mock us with their jokes and their laughter. You know what Sister George taught me: “A guilty conscience is God talking…. better listen.” Of course if you don’t have a conscience, you’re deaf.
I wonder, but I’m not sure which came first, the collapse of our responsibility for personal sin or the the overwhelming sinful nature of our corporate/communal sin with which we now live so comfortably with systems of injustice and evil. So we shrug off the corporate and moral decay of business and finance while tolerating theft, lies and cheating as simply the way things work. I think it is just the tip of the ice berg that is about to sink western civilization as we have known it. That we give a wink and a shrug to sexual exploitation, consider the bombing of women and children as justifiable casualties in a mad effort to preserve our way of life that many would consider immoral and ungodly just rolls off of us. That our children cheat and lie, and that some adults teach them to do so means nothing. The message our children are getting is that there is no sin. The biggest sin for a child these days is getting caught. In this community soccer, basketball, or football practice or the other games with which we amuse ourselves are more important than prayer and worship. This is curious in face of the First and Fourth Commandments. That someone might sit here not be too sure of what those Commandments are only makes my point.
Like the Israelites making their way to the promised land, we are making our way through pagan territory. We must not let the gods of this territory turn our face away from our destination nor should we sacrifice our children to their gods. I intend that strong image and language. With many exceptions, but not too many, the children in this community are over-indulged and privileged. Parents in this community be vigilant to protect their children from this plague. I hear children talking all the time about their feelings, and way too many parents are always protecting their children’s feelings without every teaching their children to have a concern about the feelings of anyone else. Children, hear me. Listen to me, if you pay more attention to the feelings of others, you are gong to be great and noble. Thick skin and a soft heart are a lot better than thin skin and a hard heart. Decide what you want. One will make you lonely, desperately lonely. The other will bring you Joy and more friends than you could ever imagine.
One more observation about the state of the parish. We are not growing very fast right now, and some will blame that on the economy. The collection income in the 12 months of 2011 was $50,000 less than then the previous year. Now in fact that is less than the collection for three Sundays, so maybe it doesn’t mean much except to confirm that we are not growing much right now. Other things are growing, and nothing costs less. In tune with the times, the expense side of the budget was wisely cut last year, and we are paying our bills and meeting our obligations, but we are not growing, and we are not fixing things that break. Look up at the lights. They are not burned out. The computerized lighting system has failed after 11 years of constant use. The new one will cost about $50,000. Get the comparison? How many of you turn off and on the lights in your kitchen by going into the closet of a bedroom or into the garage, and flipping the circuit breakers? That is what we do here now to get the lights off and on.
Our construction loan this month will finally go under $3 Million Dollars. Ten years ago it was $5 Million. In a parish this size, that debt should be gone and should not pose any problem. Look at the cars in this parking lot – the make and model. Why that debt is still such a burden that consumes almost 50% of our income every month leaves me speechless. The first debt at this parish with less than 300 families was gone in less than 5 years. As with so many things, there is always this thinking that it’s someone else’s responsibility or problem. I can’t live that way, and I can’t lead that way.
Now let’s look ahead. In three days Lent begins. The season of repentance is a season that amounts to nothing if you don’t believe in sin and forgiveness. Yet this church will be packed with people who want their Ashes, as though receiving the ashes does not come without accepting the responsibility for conversion and change. To claim the Ashes is to claim the sin that they signify. To expect forgiveness without any intention of changing the behavior that brings one to seek forgiveness mocks the forgiver.
This season must to be a time of very intense self-examination and very real renewal for this parish and for each of us as individuals. If we are renewed, this parish will be renewed. It is dangerous to think and feel that any of us is doing as much as we can and so have no need to pursue greater and deeper growth. When we tell ourselves that we are doing all that we can we drift. We drift away from the very instruments for personal renewal that God provides for all of us in His Church, notably worship and penance. The truth of the matter is, none of us is doing all we can do.
The Gospel today is not the story of a paralyzed man. It is the story of Jesus who forgive sins as easily as he heals a cripple, and it is the story of some people who have faith. Please note that it is their faith that Jesus compliments and acknowledges. It is because of their faith that a man gets up off his mat. When I look ahead, I see this parish and everyone of it’s members up on the roof bringing people to Jesus. That is not going to happen if the people of this parish do not see the needs of others, and demonstrate their courage and their faith in what God can do. “Faith” in biblical languages is the same word we also use for loyalty. It is time for some faith expressed in loyalty. Running around town from one parish to the next to find the most convenient Mass time so that you can do all the things you want to do and still not miss Mass is disloyal, and more seriously, it turns the Eucharist into a private devotion whereby you get to Mass, but your community is not strengthened and encouraged by your presence. This town is notorious for “floaters” as the leadership of every parish in the county calls them. Those who are here one week and gone the next — off to get what they want without any inconvenience.
Some are at St Thomas or St Joseph today and they might be here on Ash Wednesday. According to national statistics, one third of catholics attend Mass once a month, so that third of our parish is relaxing at home right now or taking the places we want in a restaurant in about 45 minutes.
Do they need this message? Of course, but they won’t hear it. Do you who are here with me need it? I think yes, both to encourage not to be at home next week, but even more to so be aware, challenged, and ready to stand as Catholics against those who will not. We have in this desert a tough time. We need to stick together. Our values are under attack. Our traditions and customs by which we pass on the truth of our faith are not widely respected, so we simply must do more: do more to embrace, to call, to encourage those who are week and short on faith. We must pray for them, look for them, and welcome them. Perhaps if there was a bit more joyful personal attention to them when they are here, they might realize how rich, how wonderful, and how comforting and blessed we are to be here. Don’t you suppose that’s how that man on the stretcher felt?
Those friends of faith could have found all sorts of easier ways to get their friend to the Lord. They could have run and yelled: “Fire, everybody out!”. They might have simply served up some free food outside that would have emptied the room. Nobody every passes up a free meal…. Yet, they did it the hard way and it brought them the best news they could have ever hoped for: “Your Sins are forgiven.” Let’s get ready for Lent: a time of renewal, of grace, forgiveness and new life.
Remember what we discovered about Jesus and his dual role in Mark’s Gospel last week? He is both Teacher and Exorcist. As we spend this year with Mark’s Gospel pay attention to how often Mark will insist that the work of Jesus is driving out demons. Unlike the other Gospel writers, Mark sees the greatest miracles of Jesus in terms of his conflict with evil and the consequences of evil. So today Jesus has left the synagogue today, and he goes immediately to where people live. His life, his work, his presence is among the living, and there he finds suffering and sickness.
There is an important detail here that we ought to keep in mind. It is the fact that there is a difference between disease and illness. Disease is a malfunction of biology. It is chemical thing that affects an organism. Plants get diseases. Illness on the other hand is much more far reaching because it disrupts human life, relationships are ruptured, and identity is lost. Curing is aimed at disease. Healing is aimed at illness. Jesus is a healer, and so are his followers, the church. We have no idea what diseases people had who came to Jesus, but we know what afflicted them, and we know what he did about it.
Sickness or possession then and now isolates and alienates people. It takes them out of their proper place, their role, their very identity. It is not hard to see the correlation between sickness and possession and sin. The consequences are the same. Sin breaks relationships. It takes us out of our proper place, our role, our identity, and so it is an easy leap from healing to forgiving, a change we shall soon see in Jesus, who, in healing often begins to say: “Your sins are forgiven.” The point is, the presence and action of Jesus is not just to cure, but more than that: it is to heal what is broken, relationships. When he raises up Peter’s mother-in-law, she immediately resumes her proper place. She goes back into her role as servant.
This is still the opening day for the ministry of Jesus. It is still chapter one in Mark’s Gospel. He has been in a synagogue and in a home. He has been teacher, exorcist and healer. But this is not all he has come for, and it is not all he will do. We have no idea what happened to that man in the synagogue after his exorcism. We do know what happened to the woman in this Gospel. The fever leaves and service begins. God’s service to her becomes her service to others. She is not only cured, but she is healed. In this woman, service is not menial work. It is the hallmark of the new humanity that Jesus came to establish: “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.”
Curing sickness, driving out demons restores individuals to family and community, to the circles of love that grieve at loss and rejoice in reunion. As the ministry of Jesus unfolds in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus avoids the distraction of popularity. He attracts crowds. To the disciples this means success. Fame and notoriety drive Peter and his companions to hunt down Jesus. Jesus however, called followers, not fans. What he does, these cures and exorcisms are signs of a new revelation of God. They are manifestations of a spiritual revolution.
Suffering is an invitation to heal our alienation from God and neighbor. The healing may or may not result in a cure. If a cure does happen, then there is a struggle to persevere in the healing that was begun in sickness. The Gospel begins with cures and exorcisms, restorations to health. The Gospel must eventually lead to personal transformation leading us into a deeper, more profound and life giving relationship with one another and God. It must lead to conversion, a change of life, of heart, and of soul. That conversion will lead us to service and deeper into the mystery of human suffering, the likes of which Jesus endured to lead us and show us. Unlike many other stories of exorcism or healing that lead us into the identity of Jesus, this story is not so much about proving the identity and power of Jesus as it is the story of one human being doing whatever is in his power to ease the suffering of another human being. You don’t have to be divine to do that.
Two weeks ago, the Gospel led us to consider the first recorded words spoken by Jesus. Byron led us to reflect even more upon them last week, and today we hear the first miracle story in Mark’s Gospel. It is important for us because it directs us toward what is to follow. Days ago when I sat down with this gospel, I was fascinated by this sick man wondering what in world he was doing in that synagogue. Given the way that society was arranged, I am surprised he was allowed in. He was sick. He was unclean. He was disruptive, unpredictable, frightening, and it seems odd to me that he would have been there. When I got nowhere with wondering about that, two things came to mind: it’s not about him; and when it comes to people being possessed by evil spirits, they were more comfortable than we are. This whole idea spooks us. It is an idea we would rather not talk about unless we’re sitting around a camp fire and want to scare someone. It is the subject of movie thrillers to be viewed late at night, and always with someone else.
But evil and possession is exactly what this story is about. The the first miracle story is a conflict that casts Jesus in the role of an excorsit. In Mark’s Gospel, there are more exorcisms and references to exorcisms than in all the other Gospels. Mark casts Jesus in two ways: a teacher and an exorsit. We get that in this story becasue of where it takes place: a synagogue. It is in the synagogue that teaching happens, and Jesus is there both as teacher and as exorcist. Through these exorcisms, Mark will lead us not just to the revelation of who this man is, but to a growing awareness of who we are in relation to Jesus.
In this conflict story the crowd simply comes to wonder who he is. They do not make up their minds. They go away wondering where he got the power he has, becasue they can tell it is unlike any power and authority they have ever seen. In a later conflict story, they will continue to wonder, but among them will be some who have decided that his authority comes from: “Belezabub” or “Satan”. But that is going to come later. What gets their attention and causes their wonder is that he simply speaks and the evil spirit obeys.
At this time in human history, all illness was considered a possession, and exorcists were to them what doctors are to us. The exorcists of the time worked hard to cure and expel the evil. They would use incantatons and all kinds of dances, and herbs, potions, and tools to drive out the evil. They would sometimes even beat and scream at the person they were curing. Jesus does non e of that. He has no formula or incantation. He invokes no higher power or authority other than his own. He says: “Be still.” “Quiet”. “Come out.” This is the cause of great amazement. Jesus accomplishes by his word what others might spend days or nearly kill someone trying to accomplish.
Making matters more amazing is the fact that he does this without any reference to the Law or the Prophets. Teachers and Exorcists at that time always based everything they did on the scriptures. This made him a controversial figure. He did not behave like every other teacher. In fact we get a further and more clear sense of this when we remember the Sermon on the Mount with his repeated use of the phrase: “you have heard, but I say to you…..” He is claiming personal authority relying not on the Law and the Prophets nor on any other Rabbinical figure.
Now we like to think of Jesus as teacher, and we are programed to think of ourseleves as his disciples. I believe that thinking only of Jesus as “Teacher” and ourselves as “Disciple/Students” is to get only half the gospel. Mark would have us also see Jesus as “Exorist” leaving us to be the “Posssessed.” We must not shy away from that idea and cannot afford to refuse the role. We are possessed. We need the exorcist. We are possessed by all manner of evil that leaves us helpless and disoriented. We are possesed by materialism, consumerism, selfishness, all kinds of idiologies that compete with Gospel values. We are possessed by infidelity, immorality, laziness and pleasure. We are addicted to commercialism, technology, poronography, gambling, alcohol, drugs and way more besides.
It would be well for us to take seriously our own possessed condtion for none of these evils is cast out easily. A month from now Lent will be begin. There will be no better time to call upon the exorcist, and perhaps letting His Word set us free. What he says to that man in the synagogue, he still says to us: Be Quiet. Be Still.
January 25, 2012 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK
1 Samuel 3:3-10,19 + Psalm 40 + 1 Corinthians 6:13-15,17-20
I am certain that everyone of you parents and even extended family members like me can remember waiting for that first spoken word to come from the lips of your child. I imagine that many of you can remember what it was. I remember clearly the excitement in my family when my neices spoke their first words and the thrill that came when they began to put those words together into sentences.
Today the church is having that same experience. We have just spent three weeks celebrating the birth of Christ Jesus, and now in John’s Gospel we hear the very first words spoken by Jesus: “What are you looking for?” This is the central question in the Gospel of John, and in all the encounters Jesus has with a variety of people in this Gospel, the question of recognition is always there. It is there at a Wedding Feast in Cana, at a Well in Samaria, at a tomb in Jerico, at the Courtyard of the High Priest, before Pilate’s throne, on Calvary, and finally on the morning of the first day of the week — in other words, at the beginning of the new beginning is the question, what you looking for? Why look in an empty tomb?
I have found it very prayerful to look at this Gospel from two perspectives: one is from the perspective of the spoken words: “What are you looking for?” “Where do you live.” and “Come and see.” It seems to me that John captures the whole of the human existence in that brief conversation, and when we stop listening in a shallow way to this Gospel and dig deeply into it personally, the question is the ultimate question of our lives? What are we looking for? I wonder that sometimes when I stand here with you face to face. What are you looking for here? A good show? A good talk? Entertainment? It leaves me stunned sometimes to see people come and go, here one week and them missing for two. They must not be finding what they are looking for. Or perhaps they are here looking for something we simply don’t offer. Just a glance into the life of most of us might give some clues. One look at how most people around here spend there time gives some clues to what they are looking for, and everyone of us might think more seriously about that. It looks to me like most people are looking for a good time, entertainment, fun, pleasure, and some way to keep what they have and get more. This church is less than half full but that Stadium across town is never less than half full, nor does the Thunder play to half a house. There are some who will pay any price at all for concert tickets or season tickets to games and reluctantly offer loose change to God. At the same time there are those who seem to be looking for what money can buy, and so they work night and day while the loved in their lives are left looking for someone to love them. We struggle with every human gift we can gather to embrace and lead our young people into a life-style that is worthy of their calling, but baseball and soccer always come first before Mass or Class. Jesus asks: “What are you looking for?”
They say to him, “Where do you live?” and he says “Come and see.” They are not asking for his address, and he never takes those who are interested to a house. They want to know where he dwells, where his roots are, where he gets or finds what he seem to have. He wants to lead anyone who is looking to his dwelling place; to the place where the indwelling of the Holy Spirit can be found. What the Gospel will eventually reveal is that this happens in an upper room where believers are found together waiting and watching in hope of Christ’s coming: and that’s where it happens. Nowhere else.
Then think for a minute about the other perspective of this Gospel story, the unspoken part that happens more in action than in word. The three whose lives and whose actions speak to us are: John the Baptist, Andrew, and Peter. Andrew is the central figure. What does astounds me even now after years of hearing and studying this Gospel. He gives up John the Baptist and switches his loyalty to Jesus. What a gift Andrew has! He can see that his old way, his old relationship with John as a disciple is not taking him anywhere, and so he changes his loyalty and for that matter, he must have given up some of his relationships. John had a big following. He was known. He was popular. It was probably a very “in thing” to be his disciple. Andrew sees a better way, and he goes after Peter. Quitely and gracefully that other figure, John says to him in effect: “Go.” John gives up and gives way. His fame and his followers, his importance and his whole identity suddenly fade away so that Christ can become more and more. John knows who he is. John is intouch with his vocation and his identity. He knows that life is not all about him, and John knows where he is going probably because ne never forgot where he came from. It is a lesson for us that has no words in this Gospel, but when it is attached to the words that are spoken, there is no doubt and no escaping what is revealed.
Deep in this Gospel which is not really about John, Andrew, and Peter:
the “What” becomes a “Who” and then the “Who becomes a “Where.”
What are you looking for becomes “Who are you looking for?”
Then “Who are you looking for becomes “Where are you?”
That is the heart of this Gospel today.
My people, take that with you this week, and with an open heart, an open soul, an open mind, an open life. Examine everything you do, where you do it, and why.
It is God who asks each of us every single day: “What are you looking for?”
Pray this week for the wisdom and the courage of Andrew.
Ask for the strength of conversion, the abililty to leave behind what is not worthy of us and what does not lead us to that place where the Spirit dwells.
Live this week with the expectation, the joy, and the hope that having been purchased at great price, we may as Paul says “glorify God in our bodies.”
And grow this week. Grow in the Lord as Samuel did not permitting any word of God’s be without effect in our lives.
January 1, 2012 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK
Number 6: 22-27 + Psalm 67 + Galatians 4: 4-7 + Luke 2: 16-21
In a few minutes we are going to stand and recite the Creed of Nicea. The words of that Creed were chosen through long discussions, study, argument, political maneuvering, and every other means we humans have for coming to some common expression of things we hold dear. “God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, consubstantial with Father……” all in a feeble attempt to express in words the divine mystery and the truth of the Incarnation.
It is tragically true, I believe, that human nature when confronted with something beyond itself attempts to thologize, philosophize, or analyze. The first thing we seem to do when we come upon something new that we do not understand is drop in a test tube and begin to try and break it down into parts that we can then analyze, understand, and somehow control or reproduce if it would be in our interest and profit to do so.
This feast of the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God, (You have to say the whole thing: “Mary Mother of God” in order to get to the point of this feast) draws us to important truths of our faith without trying to explain them. But for a minute or two, let’s think about it. Calling Mary the “Mother of God” expresses our belief that Jesus was not just adopted by God and raised up to some kind of divine status. This feast insists that Mary’s son had a fully divine nature from the beginning, and that even with two natures, Jesus Christ is One, a singular being, with Mary as his mother. Now if that is not complicated, I don’t know what is: and if it’s complicated for us to imagine or figure out, imagine what it meant and what is was like for the Blessed Mother! It’s hard enough to figure out when you’re just a disciple. Image what it was like to be involved in the whole thing to begin with!
Think of it: neighboring shepherds show up to see the new-born child reporting what had been revealed to them about this child. Imagine a choir of angels singing God’s praises! I suspect it was a rather large choir that could have been heard if someone reported it! What in the world was she to think? Well, Luke tells what happened and how she handled it. “She kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.” Instead of insisting that she understand it, find words to express it, and then accept and approve it all, Luke says that she entered the mystery comtemplatively; and it might make better sense for us to do the same.
From that contemplative place, we might be in a better position to reflect and wonder about this cosmic event that made heavenly hosts praise God over something that occured through a couple of poor pilgrims and a stable of a small town. Wondering about that might make us more sensitive to all kinds of little ways that grace abounds and how strangely God works in the most ordinary of things. It might open us to a deeper discovery of how God is revealed in the homeless, the poor, the helpless, and in something as common and ordinary as the birth of a child; which is probably for those who have experienced it, the closest they have ever come to God.
I have come to believe in my long and years of the priesthood that the wisdom of this feast and it’s date on the calendar is not so much an affirmation of our faith in the divine and human nature of Jesus Christ as it is an invitation to wonder, to imagine, and most of all to rememember what it is we have just celebrated a week ago today lest in taking down all the decorations to store away for another eleven months, we forget that something has happened to us, something has been born or awakened in us, something is a little different about us. Understanding it, expressing it clearly, or explaining it is not the issue at all; but kowing it in our hearts, and refleting upon it from time to time may very well change the way we look at oneanother, and perhaps sooner rather than later, “Peace on Earth” may be more than a few words in an angelic hymn or a verse printed on another Christmas Card. Brothers and Sister, Peace Be With You!
December 25, 2011 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK
Isaiah 9: 1-6 + Psalm 96 + Titus 2: 11-14 + Luke 2:1-14
For generations without number, the words of Isaiah ring out with undying hope. “A people who walk in darkness have seen a great light.” and those words sustained a faithful hope and led to great joy. And then almost suddenly during the reign of the most august, powerful, feared, and imperial of Rome’s emperors, a child was born whose birth renewed that hope and led to great joy. A child; poor, vulnerable, and homeless; a child who would in a short time so threaten that feared and powerful one that a reign of terror would sweep away all the first born sons, and soon lead to the destruction the great Temple of Jerusalem scattering those faithful to the promise into another age of darkness. In that darkness, another great voice, Paul writes simple yet wise instructions to a young, zealous disciple: “live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age as we await this blessed hope.”
Since those days, one cloud of darkness after another has swept across this earth. There have been times when the people in that darkness have themselves made it all the more dark. Wars and conquests, inquistions, revolutions, and reformations have swept across the face of this earth again killing children and the innocent, burning and desicrating temples, churches, synagogues, and mosques as one ideology after another maquarades as religion in pwerful conflicts abusing power and jealeous ambitions. So in a world that labors in great darkness, and to hearts that grow weary with disappointment and scandal, the story we tell on this day has the ability to sustain us with hope and expectation as Paul suggests to us through Titus.
This story is not to be heard with just our ears. If that is the case, it will be short and sentimental with hardly any power to sustain hope and stir up joy. This story must be heard with our hearts in the full knowledge of what this birth really means. The story we tell tonight cannot end in Bethlehem. It must lead us to Jerusalem. It cannot end with the visit of magi. It must lead us to Egypt and the story of slaughtered infants that casts all this in the shadow of Moses and a passover to freedom. Swadling clothes become a shroud. A wooden manger becomes a wooden cross. The baby becomes a man, a teacher, a healer, a prophet, a savior, a messiah. The story cannot, must not, and will not end in Bethlehem. If it does, we are hopeless indeed.
Best of all, this story is heard with our hearts because we are in the midst of it. As long as there are young couples about to give birth to their first-born, the story is told again. As long as there are old couples like Zachary and Elizabeth living faithfully and growing old in love the story is told again. Look at the cast of characters. We’re all there: young couples, old couples, hard working outcasts who work day and night doing work no one else wants to do like those shepherds; people from other cultures and lands like the magi, powerful, abusive, violent enemies of peace; and refugees who flee to foreign lands to escape danger, poverty, and death. There are messengers of good news who sing of God’s glory, there are scholars who study the writings of the past and scientists who look out to the mysteries of the heavens. There are inn-keepers who make room for strangers, and even writers who record the stories.
What draws all of us very different people together is a hope that rests upon a promise made long ago and repeated again and again by all the prophets. It is first expressed in Genesis with Adam and Eve, Noah, Sarah and Abraham, and again with Moses. There is a promise in these stories which we tell again today. Yet, Christmas is not the fulfillmentntof that promise. The fulfillment comes at another dawn in springtime when this infant whose birth we celebrate today rises as a man from a tomb glorious in light and in life. This feast for people who live in the hope of that Easter day is the living promise that we are never alone. No matter where we are in life, no matter in what condition we find ourselves, no matter how far we might stray away or how unfaithful we are; God, the supreme lover, will pursue us in love for all eternity.
This is what old Zachaaria and Elizabeth began to experience in the birth of a promised one who would be a voice crying in the wilderness. This is what that young couple began to experience in a Bethlehem stable with the birth of one they were to call: Jesus. A promise was kept becasue fear and doubt never overcame their hope. Without disappointment, there was nothing left but Joy. So Paul’s old advise to Titus still makes sense today no matter how things may threaten to disappoint our hope and quiet our joy: “live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age as we await this blessed hope.” For this is how those live who are children of God. Hope and Joy mark the difference between those who are lost in the darkness of night and those who are full of grace and truth.
It is not only the birth of Christ that we celebrate, but our own birth as children of God which is the source of our Joy and the reason for our hope. We cannot remain at the crib, amazing as it is. We must leave here filled with the light of Christ that shines in a gentle love of neighbor , a prophetic defence of those on the edge of society, and a joy shared by knowing that we are loved utterly and irrevocably by a God willing to empty himself that we might be filled with his Spirit and share his glory. In that faith, I wish you today a Happy Birthday, for this is the day of our birth as well.
Saturday 4:30pm at Saint William Catholic Church in Naples, FL
November 24, 2024 at Saint Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL
Daniel 7: 13-14 + Psalm 93 + Revelations 5: 1-8 + John 18: 33-37
At a shallow reading of just the words, it would be easy to think that it is Jesus who is on trial here. We are so familiar with the Passion from all four of the Gospel writers that the unique nuances of each one blend together, and that is unfortunate because we lose the important message each writer has to deliver. In John’s Gospel, it is not Jesus who is on trial.
The Jewish leaders are on trial. It is important to see a difference between the “Jewish leaders” and the Jewish people. The Jewish people have been following and listening to Jesus all along. They have been the grateful recipients of his healing power and compassionate presence. But these leaders do not have the welfare of their people at heart. They enjoy a measure of freedom and power given them by the Roman government. They benefit financially from their cooperation with that oppressive empire. They impose and collect taxes related to the temple, and who knows how much they kept for themselves.
Pilate is on trial here. The prisoner asks the questions. Pilate is unwilling to live according to the truth. As a Judge he is judged as a failure. Do not think for a minute that he hesitates and wants to save Jesus. He has one thing on his mind and that is himself. He has one job. Keep the peace. He cares nothing for the Jews. In fact, everything about him suggests that he despises them, mocks them, teases them, and threatens them. He manipulates them to make himself look good and keep his job. This talk of a king and a kingdom is something he can’t allow. There is only one king in his life, and it is Caesar.
Besides the Jewish leaders and Pilate though, we too are on trial here as John sees it. What brings us to trial is this matter of a King and his realm. “Are you a king” asks Pilate to which Jesus responds, “My kingdom is not of this world.”
History easily shows that followers of Jesus have been tempted again and again to desire a kingdom that is very much from and in this world. Christians have tried to fuse commitments of worship, faith, and justice with a certain political agenda. The thinking and the passion of some to turn this nation into a Christian nation denies two things: the very principal of a secular democracy that protects the right of every person to practice any every religion and the very words of Jesus: “My kingdom is not of this world.”
A disciple of Jesus is called to a difficult but important kind of detachment. For good reasons we become attached to the kingdoms of this world that provide security and identity. These attachments that could be called “patriotism” can be dangerous if left unquestioned. Without any critique, atrocities take place, genocides, holocausts are ignored with dire consequences for the human community. Power is seductive and a great temptation. It is this very ideal of a powerful King that Jesus calls into question. Instead of being served like a king in this world, King Jesus serves. Disciples of Jesus resist being attached to the Kingdoms of this world, because they seek first the kingdom of God knowing that in the midst of any anxiety, God will provide for all our needs and our best identity.
John gives us a Jesus who is a social prophet who criticized the economic, political, and religious elites of his time. Jesus had an alternate social vision. He is guilty of acts of compassion and justice, caring for people, and addressing the causes of their misery. Jesus points to a kingdom where everyone has what is needed to survive; where none are superior based on status and privilege. The world is waiting for our allegiance to the real king to finally make a difference.
2 Samuel 7: 1-5,8-12 + Psalm 89 + Romans 16: 25-27 + Luke 1: 26-38
In the first chapter of Saint John’s Gospel the future apostles are spreading the word about a man they are calling “teacher”, and some of them are getting their friends and some family members to join them after hearing John the Baptist’s testimony. Two of them named, Andrew and Peter are from Bethsaida, and a friend of theirs named Philip from the same town has become interested, and he goes out to find a friend of his named, Nathanael. When Philip says: “We have found the one Moses spokeof in the law, the prophets too – Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth.” Nathanial says: “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” John 1:46
This little comment in the formation of the apostolic community reveals something about the world into which the “teacher” was about to emerge and the people with which he would begin his mission in obedience to the Father. It was a world that worshiped power, a world that functioned and communicated in a network of infuence, control, and manipulation; where authority came not so much from what you did as who you were like scribes or pharasees, chief priests or elders.
So, the expectation for the one Moses spoke of was one of power and influence. How in the world could God hope to accomplish anything unless God looked for a man with some credentials, some back ground, some connections, some power? The one Moses spoke of was surely going to come from Rome or Athens or Damascus, or maybe even Egypt, but Nazareth? Impossible. Nathanial speaks for everyone. Not only was the world so taken by power and authority, people themselves judged others by how they spoke, their accents, how they dressed, by the friends they had and of course, by where they came from.
It is not difficult to understand this thinking because we still do it. The rich and the powerful, the influentian and the glamerous are still too often our hero images, and it is to that level of personalities that we still look for values, style, and too often leadership, at least in the sence that we often immitate them, and if that isn’t leaderhip, I don’t know what is. When someone comes along like Mother Teresa of Calcutta, we act surprised, and their fame startles us as though we should not expect anyone like a plain looking old lady to affect the lives of millions across generations!
In this was of thinking and this social context, we have to realize that not much has changed in the past two thousand years when it comes to human beings and their expectations. At the same time, not much has changed when it comes to God and how God chooses to work.
God could have chosen from all of creation the most beautiful, influential, and powerful woman. God could have looked into palaces or into the homes of great traders, high priests, and merchants; but no. God looked toward Nazareth. God looked at a virgin promised to another and to an elderly woman who had given up hope of ever being a mother. There is nothing that would recommend them for the role they would play in God’s plan. To me, it seems like the Gospel would have had more credibility and been more acceptable if John and Jesus had been born into well-established families with the means to help their sons impact the world with their messages; but no.
In the new world order, the new creation, the beginning of which we are about to celebrate, expected and traditional values, old ways of doing things, and long established expectations are turned upside down, and the process of that has its theme song on Mary’ lips in Luke’s Gospel. For us this Christmas comes as a time to look again at our expectations not only of where Christ is to be found as I suggested with you last week, but more deeply and personally. Christ Jesus is not found among the powerful, influential celebrities of this age. God has not chosen them to reveal God’s plan for this creation. We cannot look to Washington, to New York City, London, Paris, or any of the great seats of power for our messianic hope. We will do better to look in the most unlikley places, perhaps rather than look around and look out, we might do well to simply look within. That is ultimately what God asked those first to do.