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.
Isaiah 61: 1-2,10-11 + Psalm is from Luke 1:46-50 + 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-24 + John 1: 6-8, 19-28
For a long time I have thought that this incident in John’s Gospel was about John and some curious Pharisees, Priests, and Levites, but I have learned to think otherwise. John’s Gospel more than the other three is certainly no history. By the time this Gospel was put together, the other three were already in wide circulation with their bits and pieces and fragments of history, sayings, and miracle stories. John is a Gospel for today and everyday. What happens in John’s Gospel is still happening: the Word is becoming flesh, the light of the world is still among us, and there are those who testify to the light. Among them are the catechmens and candidates who have seen the light of faith and draw near to it sometimes to the shame of those of us who take it all for granted, and are so inconsistent and shallow in the witness of our lives and so shallow.
One sentence in this passage today leaps off the page and into our face with a challenge that is both intimidating and troubling. “…there is one among you whom you do not recognize, the one who is coming after me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.” There is one among you whom you do not recognize! This Gospel is address to us. This Gospel is proclaimed today as it has been for generations for the sake of asking us and insisting that we look around and realize that we have not yet recognized the one among us! When we do, things are going to be different.
Christ Jesus, the anointed one is still among us, and John calls us to pay attention, to look around, to live with the understanding and the belief that Christ is among us, and perhaps to confess that we have not always recongnized that sacred presence. If this is true and if this Gospel shapes our belief, then our behaviors and attitudes toward one another can bear some scrutiny, and our easy dismissal of others, our disinterest in their plight, their needs and wants, even their human dignity betrays that fact that Christ goes unrecognized, and therefore what he brings and what his presence provides is incomplete.
This is a real issue here. Understanding this Gospel, getting deeper into these verses might raise some issues when it comes to our thinkng and behavior with regard to immigration, to those who live on welfare, to those of different ethnic origins, color, or religion. There is one among you whom you do nor recognize! If this is so, we need to be careful. We need to be watchful, attenetive, and more open to how Christ presents himself to us. That one among us we don’t like, refuse to forgive, hold in contempt, refuse to acknowledge or take seriously may be the one! If we do not recongnize him, we might need to be a little more careful about how we treat everyone lest in our failure to recognize the ONE AMONG US and end up letting the one starve, or be deported, or go homeless and live with no jobless benefits just because we don’t think they deserve it.
Our preparation for Christmas might be a lot more well done if we ponder these words a bit carefully, for they Gospel words, they are God’s word spoken again today. “There is one among you whom you do not recognize.”
Let me tell you simple little story about a monastery that had falled on hard times. The monks did not talk with one another. No new young people were among them, and people had stopped coming to them for spiritual solace and direction. In the woods surrounding the moastery lived a rabbi in a small hut. On occasion the monks would see him walking in the woods as though he were in a trance, and they would say to each other: “The rabbi walks in the woods.”
The abbot of the monastery had done everything he could think of to improve the spirit in the monastery, but nothing made a difference. One day he saw the rabbi walking in the woods, so he decided to ask his advise. He alked up behind the rabbi. The rabbi turned, and when the abbot adn the rabbi faced one another, both began to weep. The sorrow of the situation affeect them both deeply. The abbot knew he did not have to explain the decline of the monastery, so he simply asked, “Can you give me some direction so the monastery will thrive again?”
The rabbi said: “One of you is the messiah.” Then he turned and continued his walk in the woods. The Abbot returned to the monastery. The monks had seen him talking with the rabbi, and they asked, “What did the rabbi say?” “”One of us is the Messiah”, the abbot said slowly. The monks began talking to one another. “One of us? Which one? It is Brother John or Andrew? Could it even be the Abbot?”
Slowly things began to change at the monastery. The monks began to look for the Missiah in each other and listen to each other’s words for the Messiah’s voice. Before long, younger monks joined, and people returned to the monastery for spirit comfort and direction. End of the story.
Or is it? What would it be like in this parish if we all began to wonder which one of us is the Messiah? If we began to really listen to each other listening for the voice of the Messiah? What would this city and this world be like, if we were waiting and looking and really expecting the Messiah to return, and allowed that John’s idea is right: there is one among us who is not recognized.
There are two women set before us today by the Scriputres. The first is called, Eve. Created by God, sinless from the very beginning.
She enjoyed the best of everything: a garden where everything was for her, and maybe best of all, intimacy with a God she could see face to face, a God who walk with her, talk, and listen. Yet instead of talkng and listening to the creator, she decided to talk with the creation, a serpent. With all the abudance of creation, she decided to be concerned with what she did not have. She lost trust in the God who created her in love, and disobeyed. Then that wasn’t bad enough, she had to get someone else to do the same.
We know the consequences of that behavior. We live with them everyday and every hour. Instead of abundance we now suffer from hunger and loneliness. Instead of having all we need provided for us, we must work and plant, wait and harvest. Most difficult of all, we have the immediate presence of God. We no longer see God face to face, no longer easily know God’s will, and it is difficult to know good from evil and choose to do good. Now instead of living with all things good, there is evil, sickness, violence, fear, and death.
Inspite of all God has given us, we still fail to trust. We still often choose our plan over God’s, and so we hurt one another, poison our enviornment and this beautiful earth. We suffer from despair and loneliness, depression and an emptiness we try to fill with all kinds of things that will never do what God alone can do.
Gladly, what we celebrate today is an assurance that this is not the end of the story, and it need not be this way for us. Another woman comes into this scene also created sinless by God out of love. She never had what that first woman had, all of the fruits of the garden and she never saw God face to face or enjoyed walking and talking with God in peace and confidence. When God’s will is made known to her, she sets aside her plans and dreams, and accepts what she does not understand. Unlike Eve, she accepts God’s plan and entrusts herself to God. As a result, a Savior is born to us, Christ the Lord.
As Eve was the mother of all human kind, Mary becomes the mother of all believers. On this Thursday, in the middle of the week, we do something that is not usually part of a Thursday. We gather in this place because the truth of faith is more important to us than anything else at this hour: the truth that what she received from God is also in store for us when we trust God’s plan, obey God’s will, and are willing to give ourselves body and soul to the fulfillment of God’s will for creation.
It is the will of God that we be without sin as God created us. It is the will of God that there be no evil, sickness, loneliness, and death. Listen to the words of Paul today: “God has chosen us in Christ to be the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless.” On our part, we must work and pray everyday to make the will and the plan of God for us become real. God has chosen each of us from the beginning to do what no one else can do in fulfilling and completing his plan for creation. Though we may not have all the gifts that Mary had, we can still hold on to the hope that she offers us, and the promise that she fulfills. With her and by her example we can and we do have if we just ask the strength, the grace, and the faith to say, “Yes” again and again and again to everything God asks of us.
Isaiah 40: 1-5, 9-11 + Psalm 85 + 2 Peter 3: 8-11 + Mark 1: 1-8
It is very likely that you have never realized that John the Baptist’s promise of one who will baptize with the Spirit is never fulfulled in Mark’s Gospel. Jesus never baptizes anyone. Instead, Jesus is Baptized by John who announces a promise of another Baptism. This unfulfilled promise tells us something important about the gospels: the story of Jesus continues into the future. Mark wants us to understand that we are part of the Gospel story. We do not read this Gospel like a history book. We proclaim this Gospel because it is about all people and all times. This Gospel tells us about the beginning of something that has not ended, and it will not end until the “owner of the house returns”.
A baptism of repentence in water and the promise of a baptism in the Spirit, a Baptism of Fire, is what John puts before us at the beginning of Mark’s Gospel in the beginning of a new year of faith. More than repentence is expected. The Baptism of John is not enough. More is to come, and what is to come is not something that Jesus will do, but something we must do. Until we awaken the fire of the Spirit that is within us, we shall not be ready and prepared. This world needs more than repentance.
What we do at that font is awaken the potential, proclaim the promise, raise the hope, and acknowlege who we are and where we are going, but there is more to come. The very presence of Jesus, his word and his work brings the fire of a new Baptism, and lest we think in his absence that it’s all over, Pentecost affirms that there is more to come after the earthly time of Jesus.
Repentance turns us away from sin, and affirms a change of life. In our repentence we acknowlege our anger and hatred, our desire for revenge, our obsession with power, our manipulation of others, our greed and unwillingness to really help others in need by changing oppressive systems that hold people in the bondage of poverty and ignorance. But acknowledging these things is not enough. That doesn’t change anything. It simply recognizes the mess in which we have been living.
The Spirit reveals that new world, that new heaven and the new earth. The Spirit into which we have been Baptized by Jesus Christ reveals what we have been waiting for and leads and teaches us how to get there. The dawning of the regin of God is not in the future for those who are truly Baptized in the Spirit it has come. It is at hand.
This is not something done to us like the Baptism of John. This is a gift given to us; the promise of the Spirit that proposes a new way of living in this world: a way of life that revives and lifts up the weary and the worn, forgives, heals, and frees. This is a way of life we can choose, and when we do, watch out! The power of the Spirit will be unleashed upon this world.
What we proclaim in this place now and every time we assemble here is that the Master is coming and we must be ready. While we await the return of the “one who owns the house” as one of the parables puts it, we are busy about things that matter, about what we know he must find when he comes: peace, justice, forgiveness, joy, and charity. He does not make these things happen, we do. It is what we are about now since Jesus has shown us what to do and how to live.
Our faith, this Advent, our very existence in this world is to transform this whole life into the Kingdom of God, into paradise, into the very holy garden where we live without shame, in obedience, in peace, and in the most intimate presence of God whose plan from the beginning was that we should have no fear, no need or want, and no death.
Our wilderness time is at an end. The voice in the wilderness has spoken the word of repentence. Now it is time to stir up and awaken that Spirit which Jesus has sent to those who are Baptized. In this news, we find reason to rejoice and be glad, for out time has come.
November 27, 2011 at Saint Mark Catholic Church in Norman, OK
Isaiah 63, 16-64:7 + Psalm 80 + I Corinthians 1, 3-9 + Mark 13, 33-37
Somebody once said that “Time is God’s way of keeping everything from happening at once.” It’s a good thought about something that is today very precious and in short supply: time. It’s odd how we use it and how we waist it; how we guard it, and want more of it. The season in which we live and the culture in which we live it uses time in ways that are often not particularly admirable. We rush and hurry, we look anxiously at our watches, fuss and fume when we have to stand and wait, and it’s almost as though we hurry up so that we can wait again for something else. Waiting is really what we do here.
Among other false gods, we have begun to worship efficency. Bill Gates is quoted as having said: “In terms of the allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient.” He went on to say: “There is a lot more I could be doing on Sunday morning.” Communists sacked churches all over the world and turned them into “something useful.” This idol, time, is one of the idols that the Gospel was meant to smash, and the “Sabboth” is one of the hammers used to do it. Like all the other signs in the Old Testament it was intended to point to the Lord of the Sabboth who is our real rest. That is why the tradition of making time holy or of making holy time continues in the Christian tradition of the Lord’s Day and of holy and sacred seasons, feasts, and solemnities. It is a habit of celebrating sacred play time that points to something else: the fact that vast amounts of time are spent waiting around.
Today, this weekend, we begin one of those waiting periods. We have been observing them for a long time. The apostles had one waiting for Jesus to reveal his power and his glory. When he didn’t do it the way they thought, they had another waiting period in an upper room for forty days until the Spirit came upon them. From the stand point of efficiency, this isn’t very productive. But then the whole of history demonstrates the same thing; a lot of waiting.
Sciences tell us that the overwhelming span of time in creating the universe consists of unthinkable epochs in which humans play no role at all. Best estimates are that the universe is three times older than the solar system. The entire span of time our earth and sun have existed (4.5 billion years) had to pass and then pass again before the universe was ripe enough to have the right planet have the right star, the right poisition and orbit, the right size and composition, the right companion planets, the right moon in the right part of the galaxy, with the right combination of atmosphere, geology, and water, to have the possibility of life. Clearly God is leisurly in his long and slow construction of this cosmic Temple we call, Earth. The human race, both in Genesis and in natural history, come at the tail end of a story in which they play no part except for a newborn that the Father has taken great labor to preapre a safe nursery in a woman of great faith and favor.
The long wait of creation for our arrival is a sign and token that waiting is built into the fabric of things. Human beings are the only creature that God has willed for it’s own sake. The story of our salvation is the story of waiting. In fact, I think that is why the Old Testament is so much longer than the new: it is filled with long periods of waiting.
There is Abraham who waited so long for a son. Moses who waited so long in the desert.
Israel who waited so long for the promised land. An old couple in the Temple who waited so long to see the Messiah, and even Jesus who waited 40 days in the desert after 30 years of silence. But all of that waiting has not been empty waisted time – it was full of promise and full of meaning.
We are living today in another waiting time and our Advent is just a reminder inviting us to refine our focus and remember what this time is all about: this time we use so carelessly yet so jealously. We are waiting for the climax of history for that moment when all will be over, when time will cease, and judgement will come about how we have lived, used, and made holy the gift of time itself in which God has often enough revealed himself to us who take the time to look, to believe, and celebrate in a way and in place that is hardly efficient and productive.
Those who do not believe in Christ wait in fear. They stock pile stuff to “get them through” the rapture. They spread dour and terrifying images designed to scare and frighten becasue fear is all this world has to offer. “News” these days in this world is about murder and robbery, thieves and tragedy because this world has turned a deaf ear to the “Good News”. Yet those of us schooled and shaped by the Good News have been taught to wait in hope which the four weeks of this season let us practice so that we might get it right and be ready.
So we practice now and in the weeks to come. We practice waiting. We pracitice keeping our mind, our thoughts, our hopes focused on what is to come and how we must be ready when it does. Against all odds and common sense, in a world filled with economic doom, war, cultural meltdown, social chaos, terrorists, ecologial fears, and all the rest, we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ: not to Bethlehem of Judea, but to this place so simple and so unknown by the rest of the world that is to busy to look.
In listening to some arabic speaking friends recently, I recognized a word being pronounced in two different ways. When I asked what it meant, one said: Bethlehem. Then the other pronounced the same word with a different accent which meant, Bread.
Think of that my friends, while we wait. Christ is coming to Bethlehem and to Bread.
It has been a long wait, and we must not tire, nor can we waist the time we have as though we did not know what we were waiting for.
Revelation 7: 2-4,9-14 + Psalm 24 + 1 1 John 3: 1-3 + Matthew 5: 1-12
The Bible is not the only way to learn about God. It is not the only way God is revealed to us. If you couldn’t read at all, you could still learn about God from the Saints. They are living scriptures. Their lives, their love, their faith, their service all reveal God to us. By knowing them, we can all walk God’s way by the light of saint’s life.
Unfortunately, most of the Saints we can name have by reason of legend and our strange need to exaggerate become larger than life, and that’s too bad. The first qualification the church looks for in the modern process of canonization is humanness, and then the church looks at what grace can do with human nature. The Saints are simply our brothers and sisters who arrived at what God wishes for us all, a true, full, and graced humanity. I call it wholeness, and that is the stuff of which holiness is made.
John in the second reading today goes right to the heart of the matter. This whole idea of being holy is simply living like children of God; living like children who are loved. It is my observation that children who are loved no matter what they have or what they do not have are happy. In fact, those who have very little, but plenty of love are the happiest of all. They laugh a lot, giggle, smile, and tease. They are quick to dance at the sound of tune, and they have all the signs of joy about them.
The fact of the matter is: there are no sad saints. I don’t think it’s possible. I do think that some story tellers for one reason or another may not choose to tell us the fun parts of the lives of saints; and the consequence of that has not been particularly helpful when it comes to imagining ourselves as saints. We ought to just admit the fact that having a sense of humor is a necessray part of being fully alive, emotionally mature, and a psychologically healthy human being. If Jesus was fully human, then he must have had a great sense of humor. If not why would people have wanted to be around him? Why would children have been so attrated to him?
That window up there always cracks me up for two reasons: one is that I imagine that Jesus must have roared in laughter at Peter jumping out of a boat thinking for one minute that he could walk on water. The other reason is that I was looking at it with some children one day, and I asked them what they thought of that window. One of them said: “I could walk on water too if I had feet that big!”
The saints were men and women others wanted to be around. There are no grumpy saints. Theresa of Avila said: “A sad nun is a bad nun.” She also said: “I am more afriad of one unhappy sister than a crowd of evil spirits.” St Lawrence the martyr who was burned to death on a grill called out to his executioners: “This side is done. Turn me over!” Augustine publically prayed: “Lord, give me chastity, but not yet!” Saint Philip Neri believed that Christian Joy is a gift from God, flowing from a good conscience.” When once asked by a young priest what might be a good prayer for a wedding, he said: “A prayer for peace.” Some of the saints were thought of as foolish for following Christ, and today it’s still much the same. Paul was called a fool for Christ.” The fact is, radical faith is usually seen as foolish.
The happiness of the saints comes from their closeness to God and from a way of looking at and living life that comes from faith. Humor is a prerequisite for sanctity. The saints knew to take the long view of things. They were quick to laugh at life’s absrudities and themselves, and they always placed their trust in God. They had a clear eyed look on life, which simply means that they took serious things seriously and the not-so-serious things not so seriously. They knew the difference.
“A good laugh is a sign of love,” said a famous German theologian. “It may be said to give us a glimpse of, or a first lesson in, the love that God has for everyone of us.”
If you did the assignment I gave two weeks ago, you will have read the entire Epistle to the Thessalonians and refreshed yourself with a tender, sincere, joyful, and life-giving message from Saint Paul. The Epistle is a challenge to a sober and fearful relationship with God. Laugher in the company of another is sure sign of the depth of friendship. We all laugh the loudest and longest when we are around those we know well, love, and treasure. A people who really love God and trust in God’s love for them are going to find humor, and smiles, and laughter even in prayer. I’ve always suspectedd that those who only run to God in some crises would have a hard time with this. When I was little I thought of God as the great problem solver, who would fix up my problems if I used the right prayers, repeated them in the right sequence, or prayed hard enough. God was like the cosmic gum-ball machine. If I put the right prayer in the slot, out would pop my good fortune. After failing a few tests in college and graduate school over which I had prayed more than studied, I got over it. What I’ve learned as I get older is that it’s fun to call friends when something really wonderful happens or when I’m laughing at myself over something foolish that I’ve done or said. They like those calls a lot better than if I would only call when I need somthing. Our relationship is a lot better.
Thinking about and remembering things that make us happy, make us laugh leads to gratitude, and living gratefully is likely to keep us joyful throughout the day. If all you can think about and for that matter pray about is how bad everything is and how much trouble you have there will be no gratitude, and then there will trouble. “Rejoice always” says Paul to the church at Thessalonica. It was a church just like us that lived in the midst of human suffering and injustice having every reason to NOT be joyful. This makes me think of the great American spirituals. Listen to this:
Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen
Nobody knows but Jesus,
Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen:
Glory Hallelulia.
Sometimes I’m up sometimes I’m down
Oh yes, Lord.
You know, sometimes I’m almost to the ground
Oh yes, Lord.
What a lasting sign of great faith in the African American Christian is this legacy in their hymns. These are not songs of passive resignation, they are freedom songs of joy consitent with divine revelation: Glory Halleluia! they sing in the midst of slavery and misery. How can they do that except that they are in love with God and live in faith.
Joy, deeper than happiness, is a virtue that finds its foundation in the knowledge that we are loved by God. It does not mean that suffering does not bring sadness, and that injustice is not wrong and evil, but it does mean that suffeirng is not the last word in the life of Jesus or for us. That knowledge leads to Joy.
Joy, Prayer, Gratitude are what Paul urges us to practice. They are bound together. Joy springs out of a grateful heart, yet Joy can lead us to gratitude. Our joy over good news moves us to gratitude and it moves us to prayer. In Joy we want to be with God. Sharing a joyful life gratefully in prayer is what brings us to this holy place. Yet as soon as I begin to think this way, I begin to wonder: “Why is it that churches fill up when there is a disaster, and are half empty when things are good?”
Half the problems I listen to as your pastor come from evil, injustice, mean, and sinful behavior. The other half come from taking ourselves way too seriously and lacking a sense of humor about how silly we really are, how we get things all out of proportion, and let little things seem ten times bigger and more important than they really are in the grand scheme of things. Humor and Humility are very close friends. Those puffed up Pharisees in today’s Gospel were taking themselves way to seriously. Jesus pokes a little fun at them with their widened phylacteries and their great long tassels, and in their pride they can’t take it. With that the message is lost on them. It cannot be so with us.
Joy, Prayer, Gratitude are important virtues, and each supports the other. When one is missing, the others fade away. Prayer awakens gratitude. Gratitude leads to Joy. Joy leads to prayer; and this is Paul’s simple advise to us today given nearly two thousdand years ago. We still need to hear it.
It is the oldest book of the New Testament. It was written justs 17 years after the death and resurrection of Christ. You would think that Christian people would know it as well as any of the gospels and quote verses of it by memory, hold up signs with chapter and verse numbers as one sees on occasion for John and Romans, but that never happens. Most people cannot even pronounce the name of it. I can’t count how many times I have heard well-meaning but unprepared lectors stand up and say: “A reading from the first letter to the Theologians.” The same readers by the way think Paul wrote letters to Philadelphia!
Perhaps the fact that the First Letter to the Thessalonians is only proclaimed on seven Sundays out of 156 Sundays in the three year cycle of our Lectionary contributes to our ignorance of this gem. It is not proclaimed nearly as often as Romas or 1 Corinthians both of which we hear 34 times over the three year cycle. I don’t know what this means in the mind of those who arranged the lectionary, but I do know what it is doing to us. Being pounded for offences, hearing short clips of serious theological rhetoric leaves us all longing to get the second reading over as quickly as possible so we can stand up for Alleluias and dive into the Gospel where there is something to imagine and wonder about. Now three of the seven occasions to hear 1 Tessalonians occur this month, and I do not want the opportunity to draw upon this most ancient wisdom to slip away. So today I want to turn your attention back to the second reading on this first of three Sundays. Two weeks from now I will speak of it again. In the meantime, I want to urge you to take up 1 Thessalonians at home and read it and read it again with this knowlege.
The city is still there in modern day Greece. When Paul was there, it was politically a Roman city for two hundred years, but very Greek in culture. It was the capital of the province of Macedonia. A port city on the Aegean Sea made it a very complex mix of cultural, commercial, and religious influences. Paul, Silvanus and Timothy came there, and their preaching was effective in turning hearts to Christ. It did not take long for the Jewish leaders to rise up and throw the apostles out claiming that they were causing an “uproar.” After a short time, Paul sent Timothy back to Thessalonica to see how things were going among the convert/christians, and he sent Timothy with this letter. Today we heard the greeting. There is no heated theological debate going on. There is no error or misconduct to correct. There is simply encouragement for a holy life. Toward the end of chapter five when you do your reading, we will come upon a verse that is the heart of this Epistle proposing three things that will nurture and sustain holiness in life. He says: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumsstances: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
In light of this, I wonder why in a culture of plenty where there is so much to satisfy us — wealth, clean water, food to waste, medical achievements, technological advances, way more entertainment than a balanaced life needs is there so little joy and so much sadness, depression, and anxiety? Why are mood altering drugs as common as asperine in our medicine cabinets? Our society has succeeded in multiplying pleasures, but it has difficultly in generating joy because joy is a spiritual value. It is a sure sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Thomas Aquinas thought that Joy was the most noble human act. We are drawn to joyful people, and I believe it is because we are always drawn to God. Joyful people can lead us to God.
For the past several weeks, we have been laughing at ourselves at Mass as we stumble along through a few minor changes of langauage; and the laughter is good. This is a celebration; but often it doen’t look like it. Sometimes I wish there was a huge mirror here and you could see what I see. Paul speaks to us today, just as he did to the Thessalonians. The Joy he looks for and calls for in us is not shallow silliness, but a deep and confident way of looking trouble in the face and of laughing it away. The Gospel today is a perfect example for us. The topic of taxes sets us up for a squint eyed examination of a controversial and divisive issue. Wouldn’t you like to hear the Tea Party, the Democratic Party, Republican Party, and Independents give you their read on this Gospel? I’ll bet in the end the giving to God ends up being the pocket change that’s left over! So you read today’s Gospel and you have to smile and maybe laugh at those silly Pharasees in league with their own enemies, the Herodians. Jesus catches them red-handed with Ceasar’s coin! You can almost see those standing around laughing as the Pharisees and Herodians realize they have been caught with that coin they should never have had in their pocket. The trappers have just been trapped!
Joy springs from gratitude. When we recall things, events or people for which and for whom we are grateful, our joy increases. We are in this place today to remember, and to give thanks. How could we leave here without more joy?
As I read and re-read 1 Thessalonians this past week, I began to remember my great Jesuit training for which I am so grateful everyday. And then I remembered this:
There’s a barber in a small town. One day he’s sitting in his shop, and a man walks in wearing a pair of sandals and a long brown robe with a hood. The man, very thin and quite ascetic looking, sports a short beard. He sits down in the barber’s chair. “Excuse me,” says the barber. “I was wondering, why are you dressed like that?” “Well, “says the man, “I’m a Franciscan friar. I am here to help my brother Franciscans start a soup kitchen.” The barber says, “Oh, I love the Franciscans! I love the story of Saint Francis and how he loved the animals. I love the work you do the poor, for peace, and the enviornment. The Franciscans are wonderful. The haircut is free. And the Franciscan says: “Oh no, no, no. We live simply, and we take a vow of poverty, but I do have enough money for a haircut. Please let me pay you. “Oh no,” says the barber, I insist. This haircut if free!” So the Franciscan gets his haircut, thanks the barber, gives him a blessing and leaves. The next day the barber comes to his shop and finds a surprise waiting for him. On the doorstep is a big wicker baskest filled wih beautiful wildflowers along with a thank-you note from the Franciscan.
That same day another man walks into the barber’s shop wearing a long white robe and a leather belt tied around his waist. When he sits down in the chair, the barber asks, “Excuse me, but why are you dressed like that?” And the man says, “Well, I‘m a Trappist monk. I’m in town to visit a doctor, and I thought I would come in for a haircut.” And the barber says,, “Oh I love the Trappists! I admire the way your lives are so contemplative and how you all pray for the rest of the world. This hairtcut is free.” The Trappist monk says, “Oh no. Even though we live simply I have money for a haircut. Please let me pay you.” “Oh no,” says the barber. “This haircut is free” So the Trappist gets his haircut. Thanks him, gives him a blessing, and leaves. The next day the barber comes to the shop, and on his doorstep there is a surprise awaiting him: a big baskest filled with delicious homemade cheese and jams from the Trappist monastery along with a thank-you note from the monk.
That same day another man walks into the barber shop wearing a black suit and clerical collar. After he sits down, the barber says, “Excuse me, but why are you dressed like that?” And the man says: “I’m a Jesuit priest. I’m in town for a theology conference.” And the barber says, “Oh, I love the Jesuits. My son went to a Jesuit high school, and my daughter went to a Jesuit college. I’ve even been to the retreat house that the Jesuits run in town. This haircut is free.” And the Jesuit says, “Oh no. I take a vow of poverty, but I have enough money for a hairtcut.” The barber says, “Oh, no. This haircut is free.” After the haircut the Jesuit thanks him, gives him a blessing, and goes on his way. The next day the barber comes to his shop, and on his doorstep there is a surprise waiting for him: ten more Jesuits.
There you are, my friends: joy, laughter, and humor are unappreciated values in a spritiual life. They are desperately needed every day. With a smile and some laugher, you can face any evil everyday of this week and nothing will get you down. Do your homework: read 1 Thessalonians before the end of the month.
There is more to think about in these ten verses of Matthew’s Gospel than would be required for a PhD Thesis.
1) It is the third encounter of Jesus with the Scribes and Pharisees in just two chapters
2) The parallel between this story and a previous one that told of people being called to work in the vineyard are too obvious to dismiss.
The violence toward the messenger/servants is the same.
The persistence of the principal character is there too.
The openness to anyone and everyone is consistent in the stories as well.
So Matthew obviously would have us read these stories against one another. In his typical abrupt and clear way, he concludes with a one-liner that sums it all up:
Many are invited, but few are chosen.
With this line, we are left to reflect upon the details of the story.
As child, I would hear this Gospel every fall. Matthew’s Gospel was the principal source of Gospel readings at Mass for years and years as I was growing up. It was not until the 1970s that we began using this three year cycle with the other Gospel writers added in. So many of us older Catholics simply grew up with Matthew. Year after year this story would be told, and I would wonder about these details and think how unfair it was to treat someone who was invited at the last minute so harshly.
It wasn’t till I got into the seminary course of Matthew’s Gospel that I figured out that for Matthew this is the Robe of Baptism, and there is something deeper going on here.
In that time and place, when you got to the banquet, the “King” would have opened a great wardrobe for the guests, and everyone would have been supplied a suitable garment.
This is not about the King except to reveal his desire to have everyone at the wedding. For Matthew, as the allegory of this story unfolds, this garment is the robe of Baptism, and this man in the clever plan of Matthew represents some of the baptized who have been invited to the banquet of king; an image of God’s reign. Each of these details represents different groups. The religious leadership of Israel is represented, and they decline the invitation and make light of it. They act in the presence of Christ as though nothing important is happening and they just go on about their business. Some go beyond ignoring. They are violent toward the messengers, or servants who might well be for Matthew, the apostles. As always, their violence leads them to a violent end. It is always so. They destroy, and they are destroyed in the end. Then others are invited: an indiscriminate guest list. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to come. There is no requirement. What seemed at first to be a banquet for the privileged and chosen becomes a feast of beggars. When they come in, they put on the garment, the only requirement which is offered by the king. Remember those words in the Rite of Baptism when we robe our babies and converts saying: “Today you have put on Christ.”
This garment signals a readiness to understand and act on the teachings of Jesus. The invited must make them their own. In a sense, as one commentator suggests, the guests are the bride at this feast. Notice that there has been no mention of the bride at all, only the Son, the groom. The guests then are invited to become one, to unite with the Son, and in that union, they must bear fruit: justice, peace, compassion, mercy. But there is one who even though invited and present has not put on the garment, and as Matthew says: as soon as he is noticed, there is silence. He is and remains silent.
Something happens at that moment, and a story that began as a judgement against the leadership of Israel becomes a cautionary tale to Christians. Just belonging and just showing up is not enough. Just sitting at the banquet silently is not acceptable. Hearing the call is the first step. It is not the final condition. Everyone of us is chosen as a bride for Christ. It is an ancient name for the church: the “Bride of Christ”. Hearing the call is easy, wearing the garment, marrying the son is difficult. This idea of marrying the son is a way of speaking about the Christian adventure of spiritual development. As a church we carry the mystery of Jesus Christ. When we enter the church through Baptism, we enter into he mystery of Jesus Christ, but to enter is not the same as being in full communion.
In this story, and in this room there are some who even though they are present have not quite made themselves a bride of Christ, That man in the story thought he could come on his own terms. He did not put on the robe. He wanted to do it his way and have it his way. Matthew suggests that we must come to the banquet on the terms of the host, and that we cannot remain if we want to have it our way; and for those invited silence in the face of this truth leads to disaster.
A story of envy leads us deeper into this Gospel today. We could spend all kinds of time exploring the ideas of Justice with talk about equal pay for equal work. We could study the details of this text noticing that the landowner has the foreman do the paying. There are curious details about what each group is offered: one group is offered the usual day’s pay, and another is offered “what is just.” The last group is offered nothing. However, all those details and more only stay on the surface while we need to go deeper into this story that comes right after Peter asks Jesus what the disciples are going to get out of his mission; what they are going to get for their sacrifice and work.
The whole parable is a challenge to an attitude and an expection that God owes us something. The grumbling group thinks that they are the center of everything, and the parable makes us uncomfortable because it exposes us when we quietly and inwardly side with those grumblers who evaluate everything that happens from the point of view of their own comparitive well-being. They think they are special because they worked all day, so the owner owes them big time. Whatever protects and promotes them is good, and they like it. But if someting happens that makes them equal to others, they begin to whine and complain that it isn’t fair. The first hired complain because the salary difference or the reward did not benefit them. Their real problem is that they value themselves by comparing themselves to others: bad business! Even more so, they think they deserve something special.
Here lies a deeper meaning to this parable. What matters is not what we get. What matter is that we work in the vineyard. The problem addressed in this parable is idleness. Doing nothing is what the owener is concerned about. He keeps going out to those who are doing nothing and calling into work. That is his concern. Notice that there is no mention of wage for the last hired, he just wants them to get productive in his vineyard.
A world of envy and it’s inhabitants can never get to the truth of this parable. They are only concerned about getting what they deserve. We are called to a world of abundance and goodness. In that world, we who work in the vineyard get the usual day’s wage, just enough for today. Our prayer calls it “daily bread.” We are, in the end day laborers doing God’s work. We have no job security at all, and here we see the heart of this parable. We are dependent upon a call everyday and we have no claim on God. But each day we respond to God’s call to work in the world.
We must avoid Peter’s mistaken assumption that by sacrificing a lot, we are going to get a lot; and that those who give up the most will get the most. It is not going to be that way. We are never in God’s debt and God never owes us anything. We have to get that right.
Working in the vineyard of this world for God is not a burden for which we deserve some just reward, but a privilege. If we have responded early, we are not treated unfairly, we are favored. I once read something by St Teresa of Avila who put it this way: “We should forget the number of years we have served him, for the sum total of all we can do is worthless by comparison with a single drop of the blood which the Lord shed for us.”
Jesus told this parable on his way to Jerusalem where he would be handed over, suffer, and die. When we finally begin to do some of God’s work in the vineyard of this world, we might stop thinking it’s all about us and what we’re goint to get out of it and what God can do for and give us. Then we might concentrate more seriously on what we really owe God, and that might well stir up a generosity in us that is more remarkable and surprising than what we see in the owner in this story.