30 December 2018 at St. Peter & St. William Churches in Naples, Fl

Sirach 3, 2-6, 12-14 + Psalm 128 + Colossians 3, 12-21 + Luke 2, 41-52

There is some great wisdom behind our old tradition of reflecting upon family just after Christmas. After all, when God had finally decided it was time to enter into a real and lasting covenant with us, God seemed have decided that it should be through and within a real family. Taking a breather between Christmas and the celebration of a New Year offers us the chance to reflect and wonder about the mystery of family life. Of course, in our own times, what makes up or identifies a “family” is not quite as consistent as it might have been a generation or two ago. Regardless of who makes up a family these days when single-parent families seem to be growing in numbers, and extended families are more scattered, there is one element that doesn’t change. A family is bound, in one way or another, to consist of parents, and in that there lies some mystery.

This unique family who leads our reflections today may be unique in how it all got started by the message of some angels, but I don’t believe for a moment that after that birth there was anything terribly unique. Mary and Joseph were parents facing the frustrating and demanding challenges that St. Luke describes throughout the Gospel. Those two parents, just like any of you who have parented face the difficult discovery that your child is just not going to go along with you every step of the way. Their story with their son is the story of a real family living with conflicts, disappointments, frustrations, fear, and surprises. I think that this little family in Nazareth, or where ever they were, are symbolic of all kinds of relationships.

What those parents experienced is nothing different from what any of you have experienced. When they couldn’t find their son, you know what that fear is like. When they did find him and faced the fact that he was going to discover his own path in life, it had to have come as a jolt. He wasn’t going to be carpenter. He wasn’t going to inherit the shop. No matter what they might have hoped for him, he did not belong to them, and you know what it is like to come to that realization.

It might be fun to let your imagination run with that scene in the Temple when they finally found him. Isn’t it interesting that the Temple is where they went to look for him? Not in the market or a Mall, not in some night-spot that might attract adolescents, but in the Temple. As his first teachers, they taught him what every child needs to learn: something about God. So that is where they went, and that is where they found him. I love to imagine the real conversation not polished up by Saint Luke for his Gospel. My best bet is that he got grounded, and from the way the Gospel is put together, he was grounded for about twenty more years. I like to think that in response to his comment Mary really said: “Your time has not yet come. Get on the donkey.” It would be with a son’s knowing smile that some years later, he would repeat what she said at a wedding in Cana: “My time has not yet come”, and in quick response I think she said: “Oh yes it has, there is no wine. Do something to help.” Consistent with everything we have to go by in the scriptures, Joseph never says a word, but he is always there and he listens, and then he vanishes. The scriptures put very few words on Mary’s lips; but not much. Yet, every mother in this church could put words in her mouth, and they would probably be true. I can imagine her prayers now and then: “Dear God, that angel never warmed me about this!” “Will someone explain to me why he went off after that wild trouble maker named John.” “What in the world was he doing out there in the desert?”

What we are left to celebrate today is our relationships with those we love most deeply. What we may ponder in our prayer today is that the greatest gift we can give others is respect and the freedom to become all that God has created us to be. It is the secret of parenting I think. It is the key that unlocks the mystery of God’s plan for each one of us. Don’t be grieving because your children did not do what you wanted or live the way you expected. Rejoice in their freedom and trust in the one thing promised to Mary: “Nothing is impossible with God.”

If I had children, I would call them today and just tell them once more how much they are loved and give them a blessing.

Christmas 25 December 2018

St. Peter & St. William Churches in Naples, Fl

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

At the heart of this story there hangs a “no vacancy” sign that even today can trouble a sensitive conscience, and leave us wondering about what to do. Not too long ago a school Christmas pageant was being presented by a group of enthusiastic children all ready to play the parts. Among them was a boy named Billy who has “Downs”. The teacher, Billy’s parents, and members of his class at school worked hard to help Billy remember his lines: “There is no room in the Inn.” For weeks, they rehearsed the lines with Billy, “There’s no room in the Inn. There’s no room in the end.” Over and over they practiced with Billy. Then came the night of the show. Everything was just as planned and as rehearsed. Mary and Joseph walked up to a sagging door, knocked, and Billy opened the door and spoke his rehearsed lines: “There is no room in the Inn.” Everyone was relieved. Mary and Joseph looked sadly at each other and began to walk off at which point Billy shouted: “There is no room in the Inn, but you guys can stay at my house.” It is almost a casual remark, but yet it is a cry that leaves us wondering why we can’t see things the way an innocent child sees, and why we can’t think the way an innocent child can think. Billy was listening to that story he was part of, and he added his own tidings of great joy.

In his Gospel, Saint John takes up this chance comment about the lack of room when in his Gospel he talks about the Word became flesh. “He came to his own and his own received him not.” My friends, we have gathered here because Jesus Christ is still coming, and after all this time, too often there is still no room. This world is filled with time saving tools and devices, but we seem to have less and less time, and there is too little room for God. In a real and practical way, our attitude toward the homeless and refugees takes on a deeper dimension here when we think there is no room. Yet this season reminds us that God keeps knocking, and those who saw that Christmas pageant with Billy may make room and invite God into their hearts and home.

On the night and in the ancient Gospel story we have just proclaimed, there are two kinds of people who heard the cry that night. Shepherds who know they know nothing, and wise men who know that they do not know everything. They are the very simple and the very learned. In both cases with these two kinds of people, something happened because they listened and headed what they heard. They listened. In fact, every part of this Gospel is about listening; and every person whose story is woven into this Gospel are people who know how to listen. Old Zachariah, young Mary in Nazareth, and a man who never says a word in our scriptures named, Joseph listened. That’s all he did: listen and act. They all listened, and because of their willingness to listen, God was able to accomplish something great. When they came, these shepherds and these wise men whose story will soon be retold saw tiny hands that would one day hold a heavy cross and tiny feet that would walk on water. They saw eyes that could see the secrets of every human heart. They saw ears that could hear people in a distance crying out over the noise of a large crowd, “Son of David, Have Mercy on me.”

Some historians believe that western monasticism saved civilization in the dark ages, and I believe that the ancient wisdom of their Rule may once again save civilization as we know it. A man named Benedict wrote that Rule by which western monasticism has been guided to this day. For hundreds of generations those monastic men and women were inspired by the wisdom and common sense of that Rule to be generously hospitable to anyone searching for a place to stay, while the very first line of that Rule says: Listen, and the silence of those holy places is just what it takes to hear the cries of people in this world.

 Once in an interview, Stephen Spielberg was asked, “What would you hope God will say to you when you finally meet him. Spielberg responded, “I hope God would say to me: ‘Thank you for listening.’” What a great answer! It is true about the Christmas story. All have heard it, and some have listened. At the Annunciation Mary is listening. In today’s Gospel, those shepherds are listening. Two-thousands years later we confront this stunning message of comfort and joy, and look around and wonder if anyone is listening. God is with us. God wants a place in our lives, but not just in some back room or just when some crises arises, but in the very center of our lives and our homes. The great light that people in darkness must see is the light of our lives and our faith in the hands of people like us who have been baptized and handed a lighted candle to be kept burning brightly.

Those shepherds whose story we have just proclaimed did not only listen, they shared with others what they had heard and what they had seen becoming messengers of Joy. Their glad tidings touches human hearts and changes human lives, and it bears repeating more than once a year.  In those shepherds, we find our own identity and purpose: messengers of joy. Today we can say to them, thanks for listening and for sharing, and we can say to the Lord and to every holy family, “You can stay at my house.”

The Fourth Sunday of Advent on board the MS Nieu Statendam

23 December 2018 on board the MS Nieu Statendam

Micah 5, 1-4 + Psalm 80 + Hebrews 10, 5-10 + Luke 1, 39-45

As we stand at the threshold of this year’s celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, we find ourselves being asked to reflect upon the unexpected ways in which God works. Here we are on a ship that a year ago was not even on the water. I knew it was planned, but on December 23, 2017 I never expected to be here. Yet here we are about to disembark, and many will head back home where it is entirely possible and even likely that the unexpected will again break into our lives. Because, that is how God works, unexpectedly. The three readings for this final Sunday of Advent all communicate some element of the unexpected. There had been a long tradition of sacrifice as the ultimate religious practice. In the second reading we find it replaced by something else. Who would then have ever thought that God would tire of sacrifices in a Temple. Then we discover that Jerusalem, long the place of honor and prestige, the city of power, is passed over and a little no-where place provides the savior. The major actors in this story are women, and it is a woman whose faith is the beginning of a new covenant. No one in that man’s world could ever have imagined such a thing. Then, story we are about to tell once again is a reminder that God approaches us through the seemingly insignificant in surprising ways.

The divine project that we are about to celebrate is revealed in actions as much as in words. Old Zachariah, one of the Old Testament’s priests is silenced. He and his wife Elizabeth are like Abraham and Sarah for their day, but their day has passed, because now Mary arrives, the mother of a new covenant. Her pregnancy has nothing to do with human plans, because God is doing something entirely new. This passing away of the old, and a recognition of something new and unimagined is a cause for joy. Unlike many these days who find change to be threatening and unwelcome, these people of faith believe that God can and does work in surprising and different ways never before dreamed of.

That God is not finished; not finished with creation, not finished with us, and not finished being revealed. Make your journey home in the morning a bit of an imitation of Mary’s journey to a loved one and family member. Carry with you the refreshment of these days. Celebrate the Joy of your reunion. Remember to look for and enjoy the surprise of little things and the little ways in which God can be found all around you, and especially in the little and least of gifts you may receive from those who, like God, love you very much. When you do remember, you will be among the Blessed who believe that what has been spoken to you by the Lord will be fulfilled.

The Third Sunday of Advent at Saint William Parish in Naples, FL

16 December 2018 at Saint William Church in Naples, Fl

Zephaniah 3,14-18 + Psalm Isaiah 12 + Philippians 4, 4-7 + Luke 3, 10-18

The prophet is the voice of God speaking in this assembly today. This prophet whose voice cries out to us is a man whose authenticity is beyond question because of his honesty and his passion for justice. Unafraid to speak truth those in power, he deserves the same respect and attention today that he earned ages ago. Here was a man who cared nothing for comfort, money, or fame. He could not be bought or manipulated by anything or anybody. For the people of his time and for all of us in this time, he still speaks for God with a message that is direct and simple.

There is no watering down what he proposes. There is no way to intellectualize or avoid his message. It is so urgent and clear that people asked, “What shall I do?” If we believe as they did that a Prophet is the voice of God, we should be asking the same question. “What shall I do?” This has nothing to do with “What shall I buy or give” or, “What will I get for Christmas?” The question has to do with, “How I shall make ready for the coming of Christ?” This message is not a seasonal one or something we just think about at Christmas. It is something that should nag at us all the time.

John does not ask tax collectors to stop collecting. He does not tell soldiers to desert. To the tax collectors he simply says, “Do not collect more than the amount owed to you.” To the soldiers he says, “Do not extort money from anyone or intimidate them with threats. Be satisfied with your wage.” There is nothing profound or complicated about this. It is simply the rule of integrity. The message is timeless, the Word of God is alive, and God speaks to us in this assembly. Do not cheat. Share what you have. Be honest. Never use or exploit others for your gain, comfort, or security. Being prepared for the coming of the Messiah requires no great heroics although sometime heroics might seem easier than living a humdrum daily life well. Let’s be clear about one thing: when we speak of and anticipate the coming of Christ, we are not in some nostalgic fantasy imagining Christmas in Bethlehem. We are thinking about and anticipating our death and the final coming of Christ at the end, which we may not really want to think about right now. Be that as it may, the whole divine plan beginning in Nazareth and Bethlehem was to save us and prepare us for that day when we shall stand before God face to face. When we are sincerely facing that reality, the question: “What shall I do?” is very real and very urgent. To that question the prophet speaks today. How do we get to ready to die and face the Christ? It’s not hard nor complicated. None of us here have to do anything really remarkable to be ready. What God expects of us that we simply live life with integrity and honesty, with a passion and desire for justice and truth. That may require some repentance, some changing of our ways, our thoughts, and our desires. The good news is, there is still a little time to do that, and John would suggest that we not waste this time.

The SecondSunday of Advent

December 9, 2018 at Saint William Church in Naples, FL.

In this second week of Advent, it might be a good idea to put the image of the desert in front of us because it is the antithesis of the mall. In the desert there is nothing to buy. In the mall it is all about noise and lights and crowds of people. In the desert the only light is the stars, a beauty that is beyond our reach yet seems to have been created for nothing more than our wonder and delight. All around us there are other kinds of deserts. There is one on our southern boarder where poor people wander seeking something better as they bet their lives on a chance for peace and safety. There are deserts of loneliness in the midst of big cities and in nursing homes everywhere. These are deserts of desperation and helplessness, and we don’t have to go far to find them. These are deserts created by selfishness and greed, by human sinfulness, by power abused for self-protection rather than service. Those who suffer in these deserts are never the guilty.

This prophet who speaks for God is speaking to us today. The promise of this season is made for people in these deserts, and we are being charged with a mission to straighten out some things. These mountains he speaks of are still dividing people from one another. Mountains of debt keep poor people and poor nations helpless and hopeless.  The crooked paths that the helpless follow seeking a place that is safe for the sake of their children need to be straightened. Twisted words and lies need to be straight forward so that words of compassion and understanding may bring comfort where these is none.

We need courage to enter into the valleys of depression and desperation that have trapped our brothers and sisters for too long leaving them with loneliness and fear. The prophet calls us to build bridges and repair broken relationships healing old wounds sometimes by simply saying: “I’m sorry”. To do that, we have to bend low, come down off our mountains of pride and privilege. None of that will ever happen as long as we hang out in the Mall and distract ourselves in a season of commercialism and consumerism. It is desert time for the people of God. The promise of these readings, and for that matter, the promise of Christmas is made for desert people. When you already have everything money can buy, there is not much to hope for; but in the desert, we can re-discover our greatest needs, to be loved, cared for, forgiven, and healed. These are gifts we can give one another because they have already been given to us so often and so freely.

The Immaculate Conception
8 December 2018 at Saint Elizabeth Seton Church in Naples, FL
Genesis 3 9-15 + Psalm 98 + Ephesians 1: 3-6, 11-12 + Luke 1, 26-38

The reading from Genesis assigned for today is a reminder that this world, God’s creation, is broken. It’s not as though we have to be reminded, but the struggle to live in that brokenness might cause us to forget that God made a promise to restore creation to its original sinless and perfect condition so that it might more clearly and consistently mirror the goodness and the beauty of the creator. The first step in that restoration is the woman we honor today, a new Eve, whose very sinless conception is the beginning of that restoration. Being born without sin, she is what the first Eve was in the very beginning. This Immaculate and sinless birth is the beginning of God’s plan to restore all creation to its original sinless and perfect state.

What we can discover from being attentive to the brief and infrequent appearances of her in the Gospels reveals a great deal about what God must have hoped for when life was first breathed into human kind. What little is said about her is very significant even though it is just a glimpse. She appears at crucial moments in the story we have in the Gospels. She who conceives and gives birth to Jesus begins the story of our restoration. She is there when Jesus begins to discover his calling to be about the Father’s business. Then again, at the beginning of his ministry at Cana’s wedding, speaking to us all as she says: “Do what he tells you.”  She is there in the middle of the story when worried about his safety because of the direction of his life, she wants to bring him back home. She is there at the end of it, present on Calvary, and she is present at the launching of the church on Pentecost. More than any other figure in the Gospels, she is there with a role to play in salvation.

What we can discover from those glimpses is that she was concerned about other people, that she had courage and strength of character that came from knowing that she was loved by God. She had faith, and because she believed, then acted on that belief. She is the first disciple, and for us a model of holiness.  We learn from her that even with faith we may not always understand everything. But, faith commits us to a life of searching, of holding things we may not understand in our hearts. Essentially, faith like her faith simply means trusting in God, and allowing God to do things we never dreamed of or thought were impossible.

She is a woman of our time, a woman of all time, a friend of the poor, giving hope to those who struggle for justice, challenging us all to live more simply and trust in God. She stands before us as the model of holiness and a reminder of what God had hoped for us all in the beginning. Unlike that first Eve, the new Eve attained holiness and perfection simply by obedience to God. She is blessed not just because she gave birth to the Son of God, but because she heard the Word of God and did it.

The First Sunday of Advent
2 December 2018 at St. Peter & St. William Churches in Naples, Fl
Jeremiah 33, 14016 + Psalm 25 + 1 Thessalonians 3, 12- 4, 2 + Luke 21, 25-28, 34-36

For many of us who use technology today, making a journey sometimes means pulling up some program on the internet into which you enter the location you are headed for, the end of the journey. Today we pick up the Gospel of Luke, and from now until November 24, 2019 with very few exceptions we shall make our way as though on a journey with Luke as our guide. We begin the journey this first Sunday by entering the destination. If we don’t know where we’re going, we’re never going to get there. It’s as simple as that. This Sunday and next we shall take a look through the eyes of Luke at where we are going, at how this journey will end. The last two weeks of this season will then explore how it begins or where it starts: in Nazareth and Bethlehem.

In the course of this year and its journey, the whole of Christ’s life and teaching will pass before us. We will re-visit all the mysteries of his life, reliving his whole story. It is a story we have heard many times, and because of that, there is great danger, and that danger is that we will fall asleep like children listening to familiar nursery rhymes told over and over again. The constant urging of this season as that we stay awake, because in these days, there are many who sleepwalk through life. They have ears but hear not, eyes that do not see. Men and women enlightened by Christ Jesus are people awake, alive, and alert.

The Lord asks us to stay awake as watchful and faithful disciples. This world is in agony and full of suffering just like Jesus Christ in the garden the night before he died. What he asked of those disciples then, he asks of us today. Awake and Watchful, we shall see this story as new and present and alive. We are not playing and old video here. Each celebration of every feast brings back the event in its original clarity and vitality never glowing cold, lifeless, or fading away. We are not spectators, but actors in all of this.

Knowing where we are going, and headed into the second coming of Christ, we know by faith what is happening in this world. The earliest followers of Christ believed that the second coming was near, and would be preceded by cosmic signs. We are not so sure about that. All the false prophets of the end saw a time of gloom and doom. But, Jesus spoke of it as a time of liberation and salvation. The world is not headed for catastrophe in spite of what some may think or say. God has a plan and a goal for this world, and that goal is the coming of God’s reign in all its fullness.

What is expected of us is that we live with joy and bear witness to truth, to justice, to love and peace. Every commitment to peace, justice, and human rights is a witness to the Gospel. The way to witness to truth is to live truthfully. The way to witness to justice is to act justly in all our dealings with others. The way to witness to love is to act lovingly towards others. And the way to witness to peace is to live in peace with others. When all the world denies the truth and lives a lie, when justice and peace are mocked by the powerful who rule for their own preservation, Jesus says we should Stand erect and hold our heads high for in him we have and find the strength to remain steadfast and faithful, sure of what is to come.

In this hemisphere we are moving into the darkest time of the year, but we know that by the end of this season, the days will grow longer and the darkness of night will give way. In this world today, we are the hope and the light. This season gives us a marvelous opportunity to brighten the lives of everyone who lives in darkness, of everyone who is worn out and tired, working two or three jobs to make ends meet, living with pain or sickness and ready to give up. People of God, Church of God, stay awake, stand up. Hold up your heads. There is a third coming of Christ that Luke will tell us about in the course of his Gospel. It is the coming of the Holy Spirit that reveals the presence of God within us and all around us every single day and all night long.

The Thirty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Solemnity of Christ the King
25 November 2018 at St. Peter the Apostle & St. William Churches in Naples, Fl
Daniel 7, 13-14 + Psalm 93 + Revelation 1, 5-8 + John 18, 33-37

The two of them stand before us. We have no need of their conversation. We know who they are and what they have to offer. Pilate tries to diminish this one standing before him. He wants to put some limits on the power of Jesus. Pilot calls him, “King of the Jews”, a title that refers to a race rather than a nation or the people of God living in covenant. Jesus is silent because Jesus is the Truth while Pilot is the lie.

The “lie” is Pilot in a world of competition, fear, power, and force. In Pilot’s world people must make their own importance known and felt. It is a world of heredity, who you know, clothing, titles and power to manipulate and define a person’s worth. Pilot may have thought he was dealing with a religious fanatic or some revolutionary, but standing before Jesus, he meets someone who is absolutely free. Pilot isn’t free. He is trapped by what the people will say about him, and worried about what the Emperor will think of him if things get out of control. Pilot is trapped, caught up in very lie of his existence.

The truth is Jesus Christ who is free of Pilot’s world living already where the strongest have no need of power or force, where the only fear is being afraid, where the greatest is the one who serves the most, and where those who seek the truth about life will fall in love and stake their lives on the freedom he offers willing to give up everything Pilot’s world offers for the sake of this freedom and this love.

There is before us this day and set by this Gospel a choice to be made. It is a choice that defines our identity. Since that day until now this world has been filled with Pilots, and when the world that Pilot rules stands before the truth it is empty. It is violent. It is destructive. It enslaves citizens in service of the big lie that somehow happiness is found in riches, peace is found by force, and anyone’s individual rights become a permit for doing or saying anything they want. In that world there is no future, no respect, no communion, and no vision of the common good. The citizens of that world are defined by their language, skin color, sexuality, or political party. Those in control stay in control like Pilot who is threatened by the very thought of another way.

Since that day however, there is another way, another world filled with people like us whose citizenship papers are baptismal certificates that entrust with the mission to live in another realm defined by the Truth revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Today, the Feast of Christ the King reminds us that we have been called into a Kingdom, a realm that embraces those who love, who serve, who are free to live without fear of what is different or unknown, not particularly concerned about what others outside of this realm may think of them. In this Kingdom, our identity comes from a God who loves us all: a God who knows nothing of Romans or Jews, black skin or white skin, yellow or brown, gay or straight, republican or democrat. This feast says we can see through all of that because we are of God, because we share the divine life, and the same divine spirit. Like Jesus, we stand before the world of Pilot refusing to be confined, defined, or reduced to the service of power and self-interest.

If we declare that Christ is King, then we must make it clear that Christ is our King, and we are of his kingdom not of Pilot’s. In our Kingdom, it is no longer a winner-take-all survival of the fittest kind of life. It is a kingdom based upon love not power. It is a kingdom of respect, a kingdom of communion not a kingdom of individuals. There is nothing exclusive, territorial or coercive. In our Kingdom we redefine power and greatness in terms of care, kindness, and service, free to give all that are.

Our pledge of allegiance is our Creed and the prayer that Jesus taught us. If you truly belong to the Kingdom of God, stand up and say so, act up and make it so. “I believe in One God, the Father almighty…….”

The Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
18 November 2018 at St. Peter the Apostle & St. William Churches in Naples, Fl
Daniel 12, 1-3 + Psalm 16 + Hebrews 10, 11-14, 18 + Mark 13, 24-32

Today, the Book of Daniel and Mark’s Gospel invite us into the apocalyptic mindset which is a point of view that proclaims that the worst of times will give birth to the best of times. Apocalypse simply means an “uncovering”. So, apocalypse uncovers the hidden trajectory of the world. Apocalyptic visions present a panorama of destruction that will affect everyone, but not everyone will respond in the same way. Some will prepare for the apocalypse like those frightened citizens in the 1960s who dug shelters to save themselves from the nuclear war. People spent a great deal of time and energy (not to mention the cost) creating an illusion of security even to the point of teaching children how to duck and cover in case of a nuclear attack. Jesus warned his disciples to avoid that sort of behavior. He offers an alternative, hope.

Hope is the conviction that God is at work in our lives and in our world. It differs from optimism that is based on good odds and our own resources. Hope, for a disciple, is the certainty that God can transform any situation into an occasion of grace. Jesus went to the cross believing that God would raise him “on the third day” which meant in God’s good time. Jesus preached about an apocalypse to invite his disciples to share his hope, to believe that God continues to be at work even and especially when we do not perceive it.

Of the three great virtues: Faith, Hope, and Charity, Hope is the greatest challenge. Faith is no great surprise. Creation is so magnificent, it is easy to believe in a creator greater than ourselves. Charity is no surprise either. Unless you have a heart of stone, suffering people always move us to gentle and kind charity. But hope is another thing altogether. It is always a surprise and a marvel of grace to stand in the midst of turmoil, danger, or fear and hope that God will do something in God’s own time.

Learning and growing into hope requires that we abandon our desire to duck and cover, our desire to hide from the suffering of this world. We cannot anesthetize ourselves in the face of suffering. All that does is make us blind to what is happening both the evil and the hidden good. The more we are challenged by these terrible realities, the more apocalyptic literature offers us hope. That hope comes from the truth that we are willing to proclaim our faith in spite of mockery and to stand in mourning with those victims of injustice. When we are willing and ready to face the fear, to share another’s suffering, recognize and condemn the evil of injustice all around us, we will be ready to perceive the Son of Man appearing among us not as an angry fearsome judge, but rather the Son of Man that Mark gives us; a man of forgiveness, compassion, and mercy. In the midst of this angry and violent world, that takes hope, a virtue for which we must now pray.

The Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
11 November 2018 at St. Peter the Apostle & St. William Churches in Naples, Fl
1 Kings 17, 10-16 + Psalm 146 + Hebrews 9, 24-28 + Mark 12, 38-44

Today, Mark says that Jesus draws his disciples to himself. Something really important is about to be shared. Something is about to revealed that they must not miss. What we get here is another example of what I like to call, “divine logic” which turns human logic upside down. The apostles had been raised and believed that people who had a lot of things and a lot of money were the blessed and favored by God. Those who were poor and lived on the margins of society had somehow sinned and brought this all on themselves. Once again, Jesus turns this thinking upside down. In their eyes, the woman’s contribution was just about worthless compared to what others had given. Jesus reveals that God measures the gifts given on a bases totally different from human calculations. God looks at the motives of the heart. The others had contributed from their surplus. They gave to God what was left over after they had taken care of themselves, but this woman gave from her poverty. She gave from her substance not from her surplus.

Her gift meant that now she would have to rely on God. There is a kind of reckless generosity here that reveals something about God which in the end is the whole purpose of the story. She is an example of the kind of giving that is God-like for God gave his only Son for our sake holding back nothing for himself. These words of praise for this widow are the very last words that Jesus ever speaks in the Temple. It is his final revelation of the Father’s love for us. What he would have us see is that God is like this poor widow who does not give left-overs, extra change, or hold back anything for himself. It is all or nothing for God. The focus of Jesus here is not the Scribes of whom we should beware, but the focus is on this widow. Jesus equates her gift to the house of God with the gift of God himself.

Something about us always leads us to be impressed by what is big or what is expensive at the cost of overlooking or ignoring what is small. G.K. Chesterton once remarked that if size is the criterion then a whale should be the image of God. He was often upset by natural scientists whose excitement about the scale of the universe reduced humanity to insignificance. He said it was a vulgar notion like trying to infer the value of someone’s personality from the size of their bank balance.

If it is the size of things that matters then the death of a young man 2000 years ago outside of Jerusalem was to all but a few contemporaries, an insignificant event, the last moments of a crucified criminal dying unnoticed by secular historians in an obscure corner of the empire. You would think it might have been reported with a two-line notice on page four of the local paper. After all, it’s only a little thing compared with the media coverage of celebrity lives these days. However, that little thing, that single death outside of town was filled with a power to which no limits can be set in heaven or on earth. It ought to affirm for us once and for all the truth that little things matter in a big way, and that giving from our substance rather from our surplus is the kind of sacrifice that matters.