February 14, 2021 At St. Peter & St. William Churches in Naples, FL

Leviticus 13, 1-2, 44-46 + Psalm 32 + 1 Corinthians 10, 31-11,1

Mark 1, 40-45

There are two things to remember as we listen to this Gospel with open hearts, because Jesus has something to say to us today. We have to remember that people in the days when Jesus believed in a theology or a system of reward and punishment. It is a system that is quite nice for those who think of themselves as “blessed” because of their privilege, good luck, or good health. It’s not such a good system for anyone who is sick or who has had string of bad luck. The result of this kind of thinking is that poor people, sick people, those with some disability, foreigners, or someone struggling with sexuality or gender identity ends up being treated like trash.

Into that steps Jesus Christ, the Son of God who refused to buy into that thinking and that attitude. He sees a leper and treats him with respect acknowledging his dignity. In doing so, he exposes that current thinking for how far it is from the will and plan of God. Jesus touches that man, and in doing so, he does not just heal him, he recognizes that this man is fully capable of bearing witness, of being a sign of God’s presence and action in this world. Then, he sends him to the priest inviting that priest to do his job of building up the community. He is actually giving those priests the first chance, before anyone else, to recognize what God was doing through him. They didn’t. They had their own ideas about how God was supposed to work, and who God would choose to reveal God’s presence. And it wasn’t going to be some nasty leper.

It is a powerful and unmistakable lesson about the need for disciples to be humble. You can be sure that those fishermen who had just left everything to follow him got the message and it was a hard one. If they thought for one minute that they should have been the ones sent to bear witness to Jesus, they were wrong. The news that leper had to share was that God does not want anyone cast out, marginalized, or left out. That leper was himself the message. His healing and his strength came from knowing that he was loved and accepted, and that no one could take that away. He was healed by compassion, touched by love, restored to humanity by respect.

It is not until those men called from their nets have themselves been beaten down, disgraced, and shamed by their own actions that they can bear witness to their Savior. It is not until Peter has denied Christ and been restored to his place among the apostles that he has any credibility at all. What restores the apostles who have hidden and failed Christ at the hour of his greatest need was compassion, the same compassion Jesus had for that leper.

Compassion, my friends, is not just pity or feeling sorry for someone. This emption is passion. It is suffering. It is heart wrenching. It is a response from the very depths one’s being. Jesus does not just touch that man with his hands. He touches him with his heart. He feels what that man feels, the desperation of being alone, cast off, shunned, despised. It is as though Jesus would trade places with him, and in some ways, he does. In the end, Jesus is the one who ends up alone, cast out, with a broken body, bloody and bruised that no one would want to touch while that leper goes free.

We are all lepers living like outcasts hiding from one another the truth of our lives. We even hide the truth from ourselves. We hide our sins. We deny our racism and judgements about others we don’t even know.  So, we talk ourselves into believing that sin is something private and personal with no real social consequences at all. The evidence of that is the decline of our use of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. “Why admit to someone else that we have sinned? After all, it’s just between me a God?” No, it isn’t. we avoid the truth that sin is often an attitude like prejudice, racism, sexism. It isolates us from one another avoiding those who are not like us, whose skin is different, or whose accent is different as though we don’t have one to their ears. We will find the key to accepting others, when we begin to accept ourselves as we really are. If anyone in here thinks they are not sinner, they don’t belong here.

The Jesus of this story is a man of kindness, not a man of judgement. This is a man who reveals the mercy, the kindness, and the compassion of God to those willing to ask for what they need. It is not healing from a disease that we need. It is acceptance, compassion, and reconciliation that we need, not just with God, but with each other. That’s why the man is sent to the priests to complete his total healing and reconciliation with those who have looked up him with judgement and cast him aside.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people began to run around and talk openly about how they had been treated by us Catholics: about the kindness, the compassion, and the respect with which we met them day after day? It’s amazing what people can do for others. People can rekindle hope, bring back a joy for living, inspire plans for the future, restore self-respect and pride, and it’s all a mirror of the infinite charity of God which is what we are all called to be.

February 7, 2021 At St. Peter & St. William Churches in Naples, FL

Job 7, 1-4, 6-7 + Psalm 147 + 1 Corinthians 9, 16-19, 22-23 + Mark 1, 29-39

There is a characteristic of Jesus that is a unique element as Mark records the ministry of Jesus. It’s that constant fast-paced movement of Jesus and the crowds who are always chasing around after him. Already in just 29 verses of Chapter one, we hear that Jesus needed to sneak away quietly from everyone by getting up early, but even Simon and his companions track him down. One of the reasons he keeps moving on is to escape those people who are after him because he’s become a celebrity. These days we could call that crowd “Paparazzi”. They are interested in only one thing, another miracle, one more amazing demonstration of power. We have to remember, there was no TV or internet. Someone like Jesus was the best show in town, and no one wanted to miss the next episode or miracle. The people following him have failed to go deeper into what it all means. They have failed to ask the question that matters: “What is God doing here?” In fact, there is no evidence that they think God is involved at all. It’s all sensationalism.

This movement on to another place gives us a sense of how disillusioned Jesus was becoming with these people. No one ever asks who he is. Those healing events are meant to prod people into asking, “Who is this?” and “What is he doing here?”  He wants to preach. They want miracles. We just heard Paul reflecting upon his role and his mission to preach, and the purpose of all preaching is to bring people into contact with God. That’s what I do here, but I’m not the only one. Bringing people into contact with God is a role and responsibility of every baptized man, woman, and child. I have always thought that children do it best. You know, preaching isn’t really about words, and you don’t always have to say something to bring people into contact with God. Every now and then, I get a few minutes of Facetime with my grand-nephews who about two and a half years old. Just listing to them jabber and watching their wide-eyed wonder at the simplest thing, like a caterpillar. Leaves me with a sense that a loving God is very near. When I hear a two-year old laughing, I think I hear God.

Yet, something happens to us as we grow up. We get self-conscious. We get cautious. We worry about how we look and what someone might think of us. We turn our faith into some kind of private matter for fear of offending someone or fear of looking silly or simple minded. Meanwhile, countless opportunities to preach by example and simple kindness slip by forever gone. People who are quick to forgive preach powerfully about the nature of God. People who are patient and kind, slow to anger and rich in mercy make these qualities of the divine believable and desirable opening a path to holiness and nearness to God.

There is something important to learn from the Jesus of Mark’s Gospel that can give our preaching credibility. It is the compassion that continues to motivate Jesus. It is extraordinary, because in spite of his weariness, in spite of his discomfort over becoming the “rock – star” of his age, he continues to love and care about those in crisis or pain. The miracles he works are not to get him more fame and greater crowds, but to awaken faith and trust in the Word of God and restore in all of us God’s vision of a world united as brothers and sisters.

Compassion like his breaks down stereotypes and our flimsy defenses that divide, segregate and marginalize. The ministry of Jesus is about far more than healing the sick. It is more about spiritual healing that does more than heal the body. It heals the soul. Compassion uncovers the basic humanity we all share. It knocks down the walls of self and allows us to realize our connection to all of God’s people. Compassion enables us to open our hearts to others to see one another as more than numbers or races. It enables us to feel the pain of others and compels us to heal that pain. In the compassionate, there is no hint of racism. Jesus healed a centurion’s child. He touched lepers. He met an enemy at a well knowing every dis-reputable thing she had ever done without a hint of humiliating her or abandoning her in disgrace.

In as much as we may preach the wonder of God’s love, we may also work miracles of charity and generosity through which our families and communities may be restored to hope and trust in the God who loves us.

There is a world outside of this church still waiting for a miracle of generosity and forgiveness. In world overwhelmed by anger and revenge, anything that does not give us more of that would be a miracle indeed, and the world may once again acknowledge, honor, and adore the God who is with us.

January 31, 2021 At St. Peter & St. William Churches in Naples, FL

Deuteronomy 18, 15-20 + Psalm 295 + 1 Corinthians 7, 32-35 + Mark 1, 21-28

At the time of Jesus and when this Gospel was prepared by Mark, if there was anything that happened, any tragedy, sickness, or a natural phenomenon that the people did not understand, they attributed it to unclean spirits. They simply viewed miracles differently that we do. In our scientific and technological age, we would look at this scene and ask, “How did that happen? How did he do that?” They asked a different question, “Who is responsible?” Their answer was always the same, God. Their amazement is not with the miracle. It was this new authority. Notice that they don’t talk exorcism. They are amazed at a new kind of authority.

There is something new here for them and for us as well. Jesus speaks with an authority different from the scribes. Their authority came from the power to enforce. They never spoke on their own. They always began by quoting the law or some greater authority.

For Jesus, authority comes from within himself. It comes from his love, from respect, and from compassion. That inspires. What impresses those people in the synagogue is that the action matches the word. This is what establishes his authority. Jesus is not just satisfied with words. He does not go on and on with lectures. He acts. He does something. He sees a need, and out of love, he acts. It is inspiring. That pattern of Word and Act carries over into the church with our Sacraments. Words are spoken, and something happens.

For most of us, just like those folks in the synagogue, it is exciting to find someone who does what they say, who follows up their talk with action. This is the look of real authority. Someone who does what they say gets our respect and admiration. The admiration is inspiring, and it ought to make want to be like that. The teaching of Jesus would simply be abstract, just a lot of nice ideas and theories if it were not for the action that always follows. He shows what can happen when compassion inspires a response and we know that from the way he treats people that no one else at his time would even look or let alone touch.

As a church, as members of Christ’s body, we can’t just talk about mercy. We have to show it. We can’t just talk about forgiveness, we have to give it. We can’t just talk about love, we have to share it. We can’t just talk about, study, or wish for the Kingdom of God. We have to live in it now. What is the point of saying a lot of prayers if we fail to live in the presence of God. There are certain men and women who possess an unaccountable spiritual superiority. This gives them enormous moral authority. They have this authority, not because of an office they hold but because of the kind of person they are. This is the greatest and highest authority of all. It has roots in the authority of God. Jesus possessed this kind of authority. It was unequaled at its time. But since then, it ought not to be so rare. Every disciple of Jesus Christ by reason of baptism and communion as the people of God share in Christ’s authority. It ought to make us trustworthy and give us integrity and a credibility that inspires others to seek the truth and always act and speak with compassion. When that happens, people will not wonder how we did something, but they will know that God is present and active in our lives.

January 24, 2021 At St. Peter & St. William Churches in Naples, FL

Jonah 3, 1-5 + Psalm 25 + 1 Corinthians 7, 29-31 + Mark 1, 14-20

There is a very subtle yet important distinction needed to understand this Gospel. It is the difference between a “vocation” and a “purpose.” They are not always the same. A vocation might be a career or a talent that shows up with a job skill. A purpose is entirely different, and that is what Mark leads us to reflect upon and eventually to resolve as this Gospel moves forward.

            Those men Jesus calls today have a career: fishing. It is their vocation. Jesus comes along and invites them to follow him and discover their purpose. He finds them at work, exercising their skill. He invites them to use that skill for a different purpose. Rather than using that skill to earn money and success, he will show them how to use that skill to win the hearts and lives of others for the Kingdom of God. They are going to keep fishing, casting a net; but the purpose of fishing will be different.

            We all have a vocation that emerges from the skills we were born with or the those we acquired in school. Many educational systems have Vocational-Technical schools that teach the skills of a vocation. When it comes to purpose, there is also a school that we call the Gospel. In that school, we learn how to discern what our purpose in life should be. Parenting is a vocation. The purpose of parenting is to bring children into this life and lead them into everlasting life. Social work is a vocation. The purpose of Social work is to extend the mercy of God to those who need it most. An attorney has a vocation. Their purpose is Justice. Teaching is a vocation. The purpose of teaching it to awaken the minds and hearts of students to recognize their gifts and seize the opportunities that come in life to use those gifts to build a better world.

            So, here we sit as Jesus speaks to us through Mark’s Gospel. There is an invitation being extended to all of us. It is an invitation to discover and realize our purpose in life. It isn’t to make a lot of money. It isn’t to look good, or be admired by others. What Jesus invites us to do and is ready to show us how is to discover why and what we were made for. This arouses in us what I like to call, a “homing instinct” which is a desire for our true home where we shall be what we were always meant to be. That is what he calls those men in this Gospel for. He calls them to become disciples which ultimately means to become like the teacher: to know what the teacher knows, to do what the teacher does, and to be what the teacher is: a child of God. In other words, discipleship is the path to divinization. It is the way we cleanup, polish up, clear up, or whatever you want to call, it is the way we restore how we were made: in the image of God.

            The Incarnation, the coming of God in human flesh in this life is God taking up our fallen humanity. It is a free gift of God’s own loving kindness in a truly personal way. What has been revealed to us by God through the Son and by the power of Spirit is that God is an overflowing fullness of personal relationships: The Holy Trinity. By the sinful choices of human kind, we step out of that relationship, and the consequence is called “individualism”. It is deadly. It shows itself in an attitude that insists on doing things my way, or doing things that I want to do with no thought of how it might affect another. This destroys communion. It breaks up community. The undeniable sign of that individualism shows up in thinking and acting as though I am independent; or, as some like to say these days, “I’m free because this is a free country”. This is not the way home, and that kind of thinking and acting could hardly be further from the image by which we were made.

            There is an invitation offered today. Be my disciples. Follow me, and learn from me your purpose in life. Ultimately that purpose is communion: to be at one with each other and with God. Remember St Paul said to us that there are three things that last: Faith, Hope, and Love. When we come to the end and are awakened into eternal life, there will be no need for faith, and there will be nothing to hope for, but what will last is Love, and to live in that love right now is our purpose, and remembering that is all that matters.

January 17, 2021 at Mary, Mother of Light Catholic Church in Tequesta, FL

In the Maronite Rite it is the Second Sunday after Epiphany and the Gospel text is the same as in the Roman Rite.

1 Samuel 3, 3-20 + Psalm40+ 1 Corinthians 6. 13-15 + John 1, 35-42

Thirty-five verses of John’s Gospel have passed, and then Jesus speaks. He asks a question. It is a question he asks every one of us in this church. “What are you looking for?” It is the question he will ask of those who come to arrest him, and he asks it of Mary Magdalen on the morning of his resurrection. No matter where we are or what we do, and whether we think about it or not, we are always answering that question. Because, everything we do responds to the question and reveals our answer. What we are looking for is the reason we get out of bed in the morning. What we do with our evenings and how spend our weekends says something about what we are looking for. What we read, what we dream about, and what we most want in our lives answers the question, and sometimes it’s not worthy of us.

What it all boils down to if we really stop to look at all of those things, is that we are looking for love. Sometimes we say it. “I would love to take a nap.” “I would have a long vacation.”  “I would love to have that car.” “I would love to look like that.” When we say those things, we know they are silly and shallow, but at the same time, they tell us something about ourselves and our basic need which really has nothing to do with a nap, a vacation, a car, or a look. What we need is love and a relationship that we can depend on, a relationship that is lasting, a relationship in which we can really just be ourselves. What we are in love with affects everything from imagination to our motivation, and all our decisions.

That’s what happened to those disciples who had been hanging around John the Baptist. They fell in love, and as we might say, it was love at first sight. That’s what happened to Samuel when he realized who was calling him. It wasn’t any hero or awesome role model. It was the one who made him. We could call it a vocation, a calling, and the real vocation which we all have in life has nothing to do with the priesthood which we are conditioned to think of first. The first and real vocation we all have is call to be in love, a call to enter into a relationship just like those apostles whose love-story we tell today.

In that moment, struck by the opportunity to make sense of their lives and give purpose to their being, they asked a question. They were not asking for an address or a home town. They were asking him where he will remain. For the word John uses in this question is better translated as where will you remain. Again, it is a word that will come up again when Jesus says: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in them.” In another place he says: “Unless you remain in me you will not bear fruit.”

In answer to their question, he simply invites them to “Come and See.” They do, and where he takes them is not where they may have first thought of. He takes them to leper outcasts. He takes them to the poor, to the homes of sinners. He takes them to Samaria and well where he meets a woman and a whole village of enemies who end up asking him to remain with them. Ultimately, he takes them to an upper room, then to a garden for prayer, and on to hill and a cross where he shows them the truth about love.

So, the question has been asked again today in this place. “What are you looking for?” The only answer that saves, the only answers that give us any hope at all is to finally recognize that we are looking for love, and this is the place to find it. Our most basic vocation is to fall in love, to fall in love with God. I have believed, and it comes from my experience that this is what happens in marriage. Two people fall in love, and that love they share begins to reveal and lead to being in love with God. Cultivating the decision to love can fill up our lives. The Jesus who asks us that question also invites us to come and see, because seeing leads to believing.  “Many began to believe in him when they saw the signs he was doing”, says John. In another place he says: “This is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life.”

My friends, what we have here are four things we ought to cultivate beginning today: seeking, coming, seeing, believing. When we do, we will have come a long way toward really being children of God.

January 10, 2021 At St. Peter & St. William Churches in Naples, FL

Isaiah 42, 1-4, 6-7 + Psalm 29 + Acts 10, 34-38 + Mark 1, 7-11

It is only the seventh verse of Mark’s Gospel. There has been nothing about a birth, the location, or the visitors. In Mark’s Gospel, there is a quotation from the Prophet Isaiah to confirm the work of John the Baptist, and the suddenly, there he is, Jesus, coming up from Nazareth: no choir of angels, no star, no shepherds or magi, just Jesus and John who says nothing in the presence Jesus. The only words are those Jesus hears: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased, and he saw something. Mark tells that he saw the heavens open in the same way the curtain of the Temple would be torn open at the moment of his death. There is no longer anything keeping the divine from the human and human from the divine. It is a moment of revelation for Jesus: Heaven is open to earth. Then comes from Mark a revelation of the Trinity as the Spirit descended upon him.

Out of the waters of the Red Sea emerged the chosen people. Across the Jordan, led by Joshua, the people of God entered the promised land. Now Mark is announcing a new Passover, a new moment of creation. “Spirit” means the “Breath of God”. It is blowing on the water again, and up out of that water comes the new creation, the new Adam, the Son of God. The whole wonder of the Incarnation is described for us here. Heavens opened. Now through Jesus Christ it’s all accessible to us. What was closed by the of Adam and Eve is now wide open because of the choice of Jesus Christ. He chooses to be Baptized. How else could he identify with us completely enter into our human condition?

Whatever Jesus had been doing before, coming up from the water was his moment to discern how God’s life would fill him and call him forth. He heard a voice just like we all hear a voice now and then. We all heard when we were little. That voice when you wanted another candy bar, or just as you were about to escape the boundaries of the back yard. That voice said: “Don’t you dare.  You know what Mom said.” Then we get older, and that voice is still there. It sometimes says: “That was dumb. What were you thinking?” That voice sometimes prods or clobbers, but eventually you learn to know that the voice is right. Then comes that time when we make friends with that voice and we talk: “I’m not sure what to do here.” “What was that all about?” Then, sometimes the voice speaks comforting words: “You belong. You are loved even if you deserve it.” That little voice is really the voice of God speaking to us in the events of our lives, in the people we love, and in moments of confusion and doubt. Jesus heard a voice that day that confirmed that he was loved by God and that he was God’s own.

What we celebrate on the feast of the Baptism of the Lord is what has happened to us all at our Baptism. It is nothing less and nothing more than hearing a voice that says, ‘You are mine.” From that moment on, we begin to live that way, to trust in the promise of those words.  At the time we were brought to the waters of Baptism, we too were claimed by God with the sign of the cross traced on our foreheads. Like a brand that marks livestock for its owner, we have been branded for God. We have crossed over to new life and the heavens are open for us when we hear and head the Word of God. We are not called to simply worship and just believe in Jesus Christ. We are called to believe in ourselves and to believe that all of us are given a share in the same intimate relationship that Jesus experienced with our Father. We are invited to seek God’s will and experience what Jesus experienced when he was obedient to the Will of the Father to the end. When it was all over, as will be for us, God says, “Get up from that grave. Now you have my life in you.”

January 3, 2021 At St. Peter & St. William Churches in Naples, FL

Isaiah 60, 1-6 + Psalm 72 + Ephesians 3, 2-3, 5-6 + Matthew 2, 1-12

There is something here that I find a bit ironic. These foreigners were trapesing all over the place with the expectation that God was doing something new. While the very people in whom this action of God was takin place did nothing. The very leaders of the chosen people did nothing at all. Those leaders at the time had worked out a relationship with the Roman Empire that allowed them to function as long as they did not rock the boat. They were content to read their scriptures and do nothing. In the meantime, those “Magi” allowed something to awaken their dreams and shake them out of their routine and their comfortable existence. They had no Abraham and no Moses with their stories, dreams, and faith. Yet, they believed they believed that life could be more than they knew, and without any details, they believed in a God of revelation.

We do too, and at least I hope you do. Yet we all muddle through our lives sometimes just barely making it from one day to the next. We hardly ever look very far ahead, and only on rare occasions do we look deeper into anything with wonder. Of course, we have all looked forward to that vaccine that will remove the constant threat of sickness. Some of us looked forward to election day so that we would no longer be insulted by outrageous lies, distortions and complaints about someone’s opponent. Regardless of how you feel about the outcome, we can all agree that we’re glad that’s over with. Those political adds seem to assume that we are all simple-minded fools who would believe anything they hear or read on a screen.

What Matthew puts before us today is a choice. We can either be like those leaders of the Jewish people and be content to keep things as they are accommodating the world around us, and just read the scriptures, or, we can be like these Magi who have big dreams and are willing to follow them even it means leaving what is comfortable, predictable, and traditional. In truth, those who just want to keep things as they are accommodating the world as it is are guilty of complicity because they never offer anything new or even expect anything new.

We call this Feast Epiphany. It’s a word that means manifestation or revelation. As people of faith, we don’t accommodate this world as it is because this world can be better than it is. Doing nothing new, never rocking the boat, is a kind of complicity that will not do for disciples of Jesus Christ. Just keeping your mouth shut when others around you are talking trash about someone who isn’t there is complicity. Saying nothing when someone spouts off with some opinion that racist, sexist, cruel, or immoral is complicity.

An invitation is being extended to us today. It is an invitation to become a Magi, a seeker, a dreamer, or perhaps better called Wise.

January 1, 2021 at Saint Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

Numbers 6, 22-27 + Psalm 67 + Galatians 4, 4-7 + Luke 2, 16-21

We come into this holy place today to bear witness to our faith and begin a new year in the place where our hope will be strengthened, where we shall celebrate again and again the great mysteries that reveal God’s love for us.  We begin this year as we have in years past by reading aloud a Gospel that proclaims the mighty name of Jesus. It is a Gospel that sets before us the truth of what we celebrated a week ago, a truth that is the reason for our hope and the source of our strength: God is with us. We are not orphans in this life. We are not helpless nor hopeless. To affirm this truth, the Church puts before us this day, Mary, the Mother of God.

When in the fourth century, to settle once and for all the matter of Christ’s divinity, the Fathers of the Church, meeting in the Greek city of Ephesus, chose the word: Theotokos to express as clearly as possible the true identity of Jesus Christ. In doing so, they put before us one who had found favor with God, who is full of grace. A new year begins with a Feast in her honor. That old saying: “Like mother, like son” is today affirmed by us who see in the life of her son the values, the compassion, and the hopes of the mother. She who sang out her dreams and her hopes that the lowly would be lifted up, that the rich would be sent away empty, that the strength of God’s arm would scatter the proud in their conceit, and that every generation would know mercy, formed her son with this dream and this promise made to Abraham and his children forever.

A great Dominican theologian called: Meister Eckhart, way back in the 13^th century preached that “We are all mothers of God”, for “God is always waiting to be born.” My friends, it is true, what we have celebrated is not something from the past. God is still waiting to be born in loveless stables, and forgotten caves. God is waiting to be born in the Bethlehems of anger, estrangement, and hopelessness. God is waiting to be born in the Nazareths of our own homes. The title: “Theotokos” means “Bearer of God”. Is that not what we are called to be? That great and holy handmaid of the Lord, with whom we pray so easily, can teach us how to give birth to the Word and the Presence of God.

We have a place in God’s plan, each of us, in union with Christ we have become a new humanity set in place to show a restored image and likeness of God to a world struggling to get past the habits of war, exploitation, tribalism, and egoism. The future of this planet and human life is at stake held in a shaky balance now as we ponder things in our hearts and decide that peace is possible when there is justice and a just sharing of the earth’s resources building a genuine global community as the family of God. That family has a mother. Mary is held up as a sign of hope. A world and a people that treasures women and children will, by God’s grace, evolve to claim a future that finally becomes the Kingdom of God.

December 27, 2020 At St. Peter & St. William Churches in Naples, FL

Genesis 15, 1-6 & 21, 1-3 + Psalm 128 + Hebrews 11, 8, 11-12,17-19

Luke 2, 22-40

For Luke, the fact that Joseph and Mary were law-abiding people fulfilling what was required at the time of a birth, this story is important. But, in this place and at this time, that’s not so important to us. Other details he provides are because, he puts before us two elders placing this child right into the history of his own people. From old Abraham and Sara in that first reading to old Zechariah and Elizabeth the unexpected parents of John the Baptist, we see God’s promise fulfilled. Jesus Christ comes out of that promise, and this story today confirms his membership in the people of God. Jesus is brought into the temple. The act says it all. It’s just the Rite of Baptism. A child is brought into the church becoming a member of the church family.

The temple was the very heart of life for the Hebrew people. Everything happened there. It would have been filled with Scribes, Pharisees, priests, and every kind of officials and there were ordinary people too like Simeon and Anna. These two, simple elders, step into the spotlight by name, and Jesus right into the midst of them. In a sense, this is another nativity story. First it was some shepherd and now it’s these two old folks. It’s almost as though Luke is just hammering away at us to get the point that Jesus comes to us, not to the big, powerful, important people. Jesus is to be found where ever people are gathered together waiting in prayer. That’s why this happens in that temple. These two are the perfect models of evangelists. They pray and give thanks, like Simeon. They announce the presence of Jesus to everyone waiting for redemption, like Anna.

With this Gospel today, we are led to realize that this Feast is not about a nuclear family with parents and a child. This is a celebration of the whole human community, the whole human family. Yet, we look around and we realize that something is broken. It does not seem possible to decided which is the cause and which is the effect, but family life everywhere is fragile and breaking. Neighborhoods are too. People hardly make time to speak to one another much less know the names of those just across the street. Calm and peaceful looking neighborhoods turn into places of danger where children are not safe to play on the street. Nations, just like our own, are broken, divided, and violent. There is work to do about this, and it is the work of the Lord whose presence we have just proclaimed. It is work of us all who inherit his Spirit and accept his mission.

We are here today in this church two days after a very difficult Christmas because, a great number of us celebrated alone with others in our family unable to travel. For some these holidays are hard because broken marriages, family feuds, or the loss of a loved one this past year leaves a great hole in our hearts and an empty place the table. But we celebrate a promise that began with Abraham and Sarah. We celebrate a truth that Christ has come just as promised to the least expecting and the most simple and humble of people. The story we tell begins with Abraham and simply reveals that God fulfills promises and will accomplish the impossible with people who strive to be faithful. What we do today as church is celebrate and confirm our place in communities of love; communities that make us more human and more godlike. It is the holy family of humankind, bound together across the ages by the God who loves us into life now and forever.

December 25, 2020 At St. Peter & St. William Churches in Naples, FL

Isaiah 9, 1-6 + Psalm 96 + Titus 2, 11-14 + Luke 2, 1-14

More years ago, than I care to think about, my school was putting on the traditional Christmas pageant.  Believe me, none of us boys were the least bit interested in being angels. Not because it would have been out of character, after all everyone knew that I was the perfect angel from the beginning. It was just a matter of those white dresses and the wings. The little kids were better at that. Then there was the role of shepherds: it wasn’t a bad role. You just had to wear your dad’s bathrobe and tie it up with a rope. But none of us were particularly interested in carrying that stuffed lamb around either. The starring role for us guys was Joseph, most of all because he never said anything, no lines to memorize. So, like the role of Mary, everyone secretly wanted to get called to be Joseph. I didn’t get it. Instead, Sister cast me as the Inn Keeper. It wasn’t a bad role. I just had to open and close this door without knocking over the set. My lines were easy: “There’s no room. Go away.” I still remember my lines, and to tell you the truth, they have begun to bother me from time to time.

All of our images and experiences in celebrating the Birth of Christ Jesus are more influenced by imagination than by the Sacred Scriptures, and as we proclaim this all too familiar story today, we might need to pay more attention to the facts we are given than to the traditions and images that have grown up around it. The truth is, what we think we know may not be very accurate. For instance, the word “Inn” so often used to translate the Greek word: “Kataluma” is far from accurate. It’s a word used only one other time in the Bible, and that time is the “Upper Room” of the last supper. Archeologists tell us that most of the human dwellings at that time had an upper room reserved for guests.

The fact is, Bethlehem was an out-of-the way little hamlet. The only reason to be there would be to pass through on your way somewhere else. There was no Hotel 6 or Holiday Inn 2000 years ago in Bethlehem. Joseph could not have called ahead to reserve a room. Why would he? It was his home town. Add to this the fact that the Hebrew people would have considered it a terrible offence against God to refuse hospitality to anyone. No Jewish person would have sent a stranger away. So, when the Gospel tells us that they were there for several days, there is suddenly no urgency to the scene at all. What is more probable, given the details Luke provides, is that the guest room was taken, and the home he approached welcomed them into the family space in which these people kept their animals at night as way of keeping them from being stolen and as a way of staying warm.

Listening to the story Luke provides allows us to focus on the message it carries rather than be entertained by the lovely little skits and plays we have enjoyed over the years. At some point we have to get through all the extras that have been added over the years and get down to the true meaning and message, because what really happened is nothing short of astounding. It is so profound, in fact, that maybe we need the little stories to cope with it.

God came. God came into this world at that time, and God came to stay. Jesus stepped into our world. He willingly took on human flesh not just to pretend or try it on for size. He did it fully aware of what it might mean: being mocked, harassed, beaten, flogged, and crucified for one reason. He revealed the truth. He was the truth, the truth about the power of love.

Love makes human do some very amazing things, and we all have our stories about that. But, God has us all beat. God humbled himself to become one of us, to be revealed first in a manger, a food trough, and then to become the very food that saves. He died on purpose to take away sin that is the cause of death so that we might live.

In this most sacred liturgy on this memorable day, we must step into this story with hospitable hearts making sure that God has a dwelling place within us. We cannot personally grasp the meaning and message here if we are too busy to listen to one another, too busy make room for someone seeking safety or shelter, too distracted with our work or our careers, too busy to come to church and adore, or too busy all the time with our shallow and selfish pursuits.

There is a reason for this season. It is to awaken us if we have dozed off to the truth that God has come, that God is here, and that God is to be found not in power, in glamor, in the richest places and the finest palaces. God comes to the Bethlehems of this earth: to the simplest, the least and littlest, and the most insignificant places and people. When we finally do get the message and hang on to it, this will be a time and place of universal love, warm hospitality for all, and we will all be at peace.