Acts 5, 27-32 + Psalm 30 + Revelation 5, 11-14 + John 21, 1-19

April 10, 2016 at Saint Peter & St William Churches in Naples, FL

With Peter before us today, the Gospel affirms that strength and weakness can be found in the same person, and I suppose that is good news for all of us. The weakness of Peter is there all along and it is unmistakable, but Christ sees Peter’s strength and that too is good news for us because Peter is not the only person in whom there is strength and weakness. As we gather here today, we can only hope that Christ sees some strength in us as well.

There is a pattern to Peter’s experience with Christ that we might refer to as: “Call, Fall, and Re-call.” That first call occurred as Jesus was beginning his ministry. The second call is the one we hear today. Perhaps about three years passed between those calls, and during that time a lot of things happened to Peter. He found out a lot about the one who called him, about the task to which he was called, and most of all, he found out a lot about himself, and most of that was nothing to brag about. When the second call comes, he is a lot more wise and humble, and so his response this time is much more mature and enlightened than the first time.

I like to think that Peter’s story is a lot like our own, and that pattern of “Call, Fall, and Re-call” is ours as well. It’s that middle part that matters, and makes us more wise and humble as well. Sadly, too many people get the first two parts of this experience, but miss the third. When the fall comes, it’s just too devastating and too destructive. They never hear or respond to the re-call for one reason or another. We all know people like that who have fallen and never get up, who have faced a tragedy and never risen, and who have been broken and never healed: people whose weaknesses overcome their strengths.

The story of Peter is the heart of the Gospel message for people who have strengths and weaknesses, who have been called to faith and have fallen. Still in this Easter Season, we proclaim as a church that with Christ, no fall is the end of the story. We are, because of the power of forgiveness, all re-called again. The story reminds us that something more is expected of people who are forgiven, of people who have fallen. There is no just going back to the way things were, like Peter and his friends going back to their boats. Once called and fallen, there is forgiveness and then there is Mission. There is something more to do after forgiveness and reconciliation.

In today’s world, we cannot be “Keep it to ourselves” Catholics. The world is starving for spiritual nourishment, and people are looking for God everywhere. There is too much ignorance and prejudice about Christians and our beliefs. Our society is growing increasingly unwilling to defend the dignity of innocent human life, increasingly dismissive of the critical importance of married love to the health of human society, and increasingly hostile to the teachings of Jesus. If we do not speak up, who will? We are all re-called in our strength and weakness to love and feed his lost sheep. He has given us his Holy Spirit with all the gifts we need to do so. All we need to do now is step out with faith and courage and let the Holy Spirit take care of the rest.

 Acts 5, 12-16 – Psalm 118 – Revelation 1, 9-11, 12-13 – John 20, 19-31

April 3, 2016 at Saint Peter & St William Churches in Naples, FL

It is a world of wounded people who have celebrated Easter this year. Wounds are everywhere from Belgium to Paris, from Boston to Pakistan where Christian children celebrating Easter with their families are killed by a suicide bomb. These atrocities bogle the mind and tear at our hearts with the risk that we become numb to all of this and cease to stirred and troubled closing ourselves away from one another. All the while in the background multitudes of Syrian refugees flee their homes to be met by hostility and barbed wire. This church is full of wounds too, perhaps not as dramatic or violent, but there are wounds in every one of us. Wounds from divorce, wounds from tragedies, lost children, broken dreams and hopes, betrayals and unexpected deaths that leave people alone, helpless, and frightened. The whole earth cries out wounded and in pain.

Our response is often to lock the doors and close the windows. Hearts that are broken are too often frozen in grief and closed to healing. Like nations overwhelmed by the flood of refugees, we close the borders and in fear want to protect ourselves so that there can be no more wounds, or hurt, or pain. But into all of that steps Jesus who will not be kept out, and notice how he comes, with his wounds in plain sight, not hidden from view, or minimized. A wounded savior stands among the wounded.

He showed those wounds, but he did not whine about them, exaggerate them, or blame anyone. He did not stand in that room looking for pity either. He came as he always had before to reveal something about the one he called: “Father.” He was not afraid of suffering. He touched lepers. He lifted a woman suffering the humiliation of being caught. He went to Martha and Mary. He wept at the death of his friend. He was moved with pity for a widow whose son had died, and he felt the suffering of a foreigner whose daughter was dead.

To all he revealed a God who did not shy away from human suffering, pretend that it did not exist, or make nothing of the real pain human beings can cause one another. In that room he revealed that in resurrection and new life, the wounds do not disappear, but anger, vengeance, and hatred toward those who caused the pain is useless and will not take away the wounds. He came to reveal that even those who were afraid of wounds and locked themselves away in hiding find no healing and no life. Fear of getting hurt or of having wounds will not be the way for those who love and look at him with his wounds.

That broken and wounded Son of God stands in this room before us today through the words of John’s Gospel. He stands among us with all our wounds to remind us again that there is no hiding, pretending, avoiding, or denying the fact that those who love and who are faithful to God and God’s will cannot be lost, abandoned, or left unhealed. In spite of all the wounds, we shall rise again. In spite of all the doors we close, Christ will find a way to enter and call us out, out to faith, out to life, out to another day in which the glory of the resurrection will shine from our faces and from our hearts.

It is still Easter, my friends, and it will always be Easter for those who can look at a wounded Christ and see the Lord God. It will always be Easter when we look at our wounds without anger, hatred, or blame. It will always be Easter when we offer forgiveness instead of revenge, and it will always be Easter when wounds do not keep us from one another and especially from those who caused them.

 Acts 10, 34, 37-43 + Psalm 118 + 1 Corinthians 5, 6-8 + John 20, 1-9

March 27, 2016 at Saint Peter & St William Churches in Naples, FL

No one goes to a grave and expects to find it empty and if they did, they would not expect to find life in an empty tomb. But, that is what happened. That one John calls, “Mary” and then Peter and John went to an empty tomb and confronted the unexpected. They went there because their relationship with Jesus Christ was being challenged by their experiences in the preceding days. They did not expect to find an empty tomb. They did not expect to find life when they had seen death, but that’s the way it had been since they walked away from their past and their old way of life. One surprise after another kept them together with that man who walked through their life. At first they expected a political revolution, and some of them were slow to give up on that. They never expected to hear about a Kingdom that was not of this world. They never expected to see lame people get up and walk, blind people begin to see, and a young girl and an old friend be awakened from the sleep of death. Never expected to see 5000 people fed on five loaves and two fish. They never expected to see Samaritans, Tax Collectors, and sinners embraced as friends and included among the chosen. They never expected to be left alone either fearful of being hunted down and killed as co-conspirators or blasphemers; but they were.

After all, they were just ordinary people working hard to earn a living and care for loved ones when that man walked by and said: “Follow me.” They had no idea where they were going. They never expected to be led to an empty tomb and then find themselves trying to make senses of what it meant much less what to do about it. As we shall see from their stories in the weeks to come, they began to scatter and tried to go back to “business as usual”, but that didn’t work out. He did not leave them alone, and there was no going back. What they heard and what they had seen in his company changed them forever. Now things they never expected or imagined were suddenly very possible. Enemies began to speak to one another. A frightening God who demanded sacrifices and whose name could not even be spoken was now called: “Father”; and this Father preferred mercy over sacrifice, forgiveness over revenge, and love rather than fear.

From a manger in Bethlehem to an empty tomb outside Jerusalem it was all beginning to come together. God has visited God’s people, and God cannot die and still be God. No tomb can contain or restrain this Divine Word by which God has created all things. The Lord of Life will have nothing to do with death. The source of all goodness will change all evil into glory.

As the people of Israel spent 40 days in a desert being formed by trial and faith into a Holy Nation, we who have passed 40 days in the desert of Lent are formed as well into a Holy, Royal, and Priestly People. In forty more days and we shall hear again the voice of an angel that asks why we are standing around doing nothing but looking up into the sky. Ten days later, those who persevere in faith and hope will be lit by the fire by the Spirit and filled with the breath of that Spirit making all things new. There is nothing more to expect, and there is nothing more to wait for. The promise made in the Garden of Eden to Adam and Eve has been kept. The covenant made in the desert has been fulfilled and folded into the new covenant we share at this table.

No one goes to a grave and expects to find it empty. No one goes to an empty tomb and expects to find life: but we do, and as long as we do not run or hide in fear from anything or any evil, we shall bear witness to what we have seen and heard. We shall fulfill what has been promised, and we shall be a light shining in darkness reflecting the glory of the one who has come to set us free from death, despair, emptiness, and hopelessness. We are the ones called to life this day, a life of joy, a life of peace, a life that reflects the glory of the one who is life itself. This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad. Peace be with you.

 Luke 24, 1-12

March 26, 2016 at Saint Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

Rolled in place and set with a seal, that stone was there to stay so some thought, but those women who had a different idea.

We all have our versions of that stone in our lives. Every one of us here knows what it is like to be in a tomb with a big stone in our way. We know what it is like to be trapped, blocked, or held back from something we want, need, or have dreamed of. We have stones of resentment that keep us entombed in bitterness or anger and rob us of Joy. We have stones of the past, mistakes we’ve made, failures, disappointments, and broken dreams that rob us of Joy. We have stones of self-doubt and depression, stones of old memories and shadows of a past that haunt us and steal our Joy. We have the stones of ignorance and prejudice, unbelief and doubt, stones of fear, independence and stubbornness that have been in our way, blocked our growth, and stifled the work of the Spirit.

But we are here, all of us because those stones have not been as permanent as we thought. A glimmer of light as dim as a candle shines into the darkness of all that stuff with a flicker of hope that gives us reason to think like the women of this Gospel that someone will roll back the stone. We are in this holy place, priests and deacons, sponsors, baptized, and confirmed, children and grandparents, friends, and neighbors all because someone has rolled back the stone that have kept us apart, kept us in the dark, and kept us from the light of a resurrection day.

The story of these women is our best news, and they are great teachers, for they came to that tomb in hope and certain that someone would roll back the stone that kept them from Jesus. Little did they know along the way what it might all mean and what would happen when they found the stone rolled back and what they would become because of it.

It shall not be different for us. The stones have to go. Expect that they will, be confident that by your hope and by the power of Life itself in Jesus Christ all the stones will roll away.

This is the news we share this night. This is the way we walk to the tombs that darkness, sin, and Satan may have prepared for us; singing the Alleluia of Life itself. Walk together, stay together, and preserve this oneness, because the sin and sadness of death, the violence, hatred, anger, power and envy of the days before did not break them apart, scatter them in weakness, nor destroy the bond and unity for which Jesus had prayed just before his death.

It shall be so for us. Stay together, that is the essence of “church”. Look at the ministers at this altar. It is a vision of the church. Two islands and two continents, cultures, colors, and people all one in Christ’s church. In that unity, no stone stays put, no stone is too heavy, no stone can keep us from the risen Christ. Be Joyful. Be confident. Be grateful. Be faithful. Christ is risen, and we shall rise again with him by the power of his Spirit.

 Luke 19, 28-40 + Isaiah 50, 4-7 + Psalm 22 X Philippians 2, 6-11 + Luke 22, 14 – 23, 56

March 20, 2016 at Saint Peter and Saint William Church in Naples, FL

There is a detail in the 19^th chapter of Luke’s Gospel that slides by easily. There are no palms in Luke’s Gospel. Having said that, do you remember what it was they spread on the ground in front of him? Yes, their cloaks, their single most important and valuable piece of clothing. It was the most expensive article of clothing anyone had in those days. Constantly mended, it was never discarded. For the poorest of the poor, it was their shelter. For the wealthiest, it was their badge of success. There is something else unique about Luke’s Gospel not found in Matthew and Mark. The crowd is not shouting “Hosanna”. They are shouting: “Peace in Heaven and Glory in Highest.” It’s an echo or a repeat of the message angels brought at the birth of Christ. So, what began with a message of Peace and Glory, ends with that message now taken up by the people of Jerusalem. Today, what began with the ashes of Palms five weeks ago ends with Palms. What begins with a triumphant procession into Jerusalem ends with another procession of shame leaving Jerusalem. Jesus rides in with glory and shouts of joy. He walks out with jeers and scorn. Contrasts everywhere you care to look in these readings and in this liturgy. Even now we began here in song after weeks of entering in silence here at St Peter. We will depart in somber silence.

Something has happened to us, and for believers, there is not avoiding the reality and the truth of it. Jesus Christ, the Son of God has traded places with us. The innocent has traded places with the guilty.

All through Luke’s Passion account, the innocence of Jesus is announced for all. The religious leader, Herod Antipas, knew it and sent Jesus back to Pilate. That civil leader, Pilate, knew it too and said so: “There is no charge against him. He has done nothing to deserve death.” A criminal crucified beside him proclaims the innocence of Jesus. Then at the very end, a Roman Centurion knows it and says it. “Surely this was an innocent man.” The innocent one has died so that the guilty may live. There is nothing innocent about us when we tell the truth about our lives. What we must leave her pondering is how and why God would be willing and able to trade places with us suffering like a guilty one in order for us to share the life of the innocent one. That is what has happened. To give us the child’s place at the Father’s right hand, the innocent Son gave up his place there to redeem and restore us to the place the Father has prepared for us. There is much here to wonder about, and even more here to be grateful for.

Ezekiel 37, 12-14 + Psalm 130 + Romans 8, 8-11 + John 11, 1-45 (Lectionary Cycle A)

March 13, 2016 at St William Church in Naples, FL

In this Gospel, John is not telling a story about Mary, Martha, and their brother Lazarus. John is presenting a “sign”, one of several that make up the outline or framework of the Fourth Gospel. Because it is a sign and not a miracle story, there are a lot of details that get confusing if you simply think this is a miracle story. For instance: why did Jesus take so long to go to Bethany, or is Lazarus going to die again and leave his two sisters to grieve twice? At the very beginning we are told by John that this is for the glory of God that the Son of God may be glorified through it. This is not about a family crises in Bethany. It is about the crisis of the world caught up in death and sin. It is not about a corpse being resuscitated nearly as much as it is about giving life to the world.

This text is like a thin sheet of paper laid on top of another. There are words here, and there is a story, but bleeding through from beneath there is another message, the real one. This story is like a shadow that tells us something about the real event that is happening in the light. The story of Lazarus is a sign, and for us this weekend, it is a sign pointing us toward what we will celebrate, acknowledge, and affirm as the foundation of our faith in two weeks. This story is full of clues if you read the story carefully. We are told that the end of this story will be the glorifying of the Son. Thomas says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” You see, it is pointing toward the death of Jesus and his resurrection, not to the death of Lazarus. Notice that Jesus is deeply  moved and troubled, that he weeps, that the tomb is near Jerusalem, that it is a cave with a large stone covering the entrance that must be rolled back. Jesus cries out in a loud voice – remember that he does that from the cross. Then, the grave cloths are removed from one dead but now alive, and we should think of the grave cloths removed and folded in an empty tomb. John wants us to think of Jesus, not focus on Lazarus.

Lazarus left the tomb, and the price of that was that Jesus had to enter it. Jesus himself said that one cannot give life unless one dies. He made no exception for his own case. This willingness to submit to the giving of life, which he had asked of his disciples, is dramatically stated when Jesus asked where Lazarus had been laid, they said to him, “Come and see.” Do you remember what he said when he called his disciples from their old lives as fishermen: “Come and See?”

It’s all here for us now, the way to life, the way to glory, the way to the Father. A weeping Jesus does not weep so much for Lazarus as he weeps for all of this world still trapped in death and violence, trapped in tombs of doubt and fear. As the weeping Jesus dries the tears of Martha and Mary, he does so for all who share and speak the faith Martha proclaims. The life and the glory that he shares with us is not cheap or easy. It means service, suffering, sacrifice, perseverance, and obedience to the Will of the Father. It will mean rest in a tomb but with readiness to come out when he calls.

Isaiah 43, 16-21 + Psalm 126 + Philippians 3, 8-14 + John 8, 1-11

March 13, 2016 at St Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

It is a story of mercy well worth hearing again during this Holy Year of Mercy. The woman caught and condemned is not the only one who receives mercy even though she seems to be at the center of the story. The Scribes and Pharisees receive mercy as well. They learn a lesson and also get a second chance although we don’t know how much good it does. As sinners we may find comfort by identifying with the woman in the story, but we might learn more by shifting our attention to the Scribes and Pharisees. While there may be a few big sinners and adulterers among us, if the truth is told we are more like the Scribes and Pharisees than the woman. We judge, we embarrass, we accuse, we reveal secrets, and we often choose the moral high ground when it comes to the faults and sins of others.

The woman, whose sin is acknowledge goes away free and forgiven. She gets to experience mercy, but those others whose sin is never named nor really acknowledged just slip away trapped in their righteousness and convinced that they are doing the right thing. Of course, the “right thing” for them has nothing to do with this woman they are using. The right thing for them is trapping Jesus, catching him in violation of the law. They seem to be deaf to the very word and commands of God they want to enforce. “It is mercy I desire, not sacrifice” says God in the sixth chapter of the Old Testament Book of Hosea, but they only listen to themselves jealous of the Rabbi who draws bigger and more admiring crowds than they do. So they are willing to sacrifice this woman to their ideals forgetting all about mercy which they think she does not deserve. What lies behind all this is the fact that justice without mercy is never really just. It is only revenge.

Earlier this week while studying this text, I came across this little story that left me thinking for hours. One day a mother came to plead with Napoleon for her son’s life. The young man had committed a serious offence. The law was clear. Justice demanded his death. The emperor was determined to ensure that justice would be done. But the mother insisted, “Your Excellency, I have come to ask for mercy not for justice.” But he does not deserve mercy.” Napoleon answered. “Your Excellency, said the mother, “it would not be mercy if he deserved it.” “So be it,” said Napoleon. “I will have mercy on him.” And he set her son free.

My friends, Mercy, of its nature, is pure gift. It is something we all stand in need of and none of us deserve. It is a gift we have already received, and a gift the worthy will pass on to others remembering the words of Jesus spoken to us all: “Blessed are the merciful; they will obtain mercy.”

Josiah 5, 9-12 + Psalm 34 + 2 Corinthians 5, 17-21 + Luke 15, 1-3, 11-32

March 6, 2016 at Holy Spirit Church in Mustang, OK

Waiting. It is well past bed time for Mom and Dad, but sleep is out of the question. Their 16 year old son is out with friends. Curfew is eleven, and they know he will be in on time. Sure enough the door slams exactly at eleven. Coming into the living room, he says, “Why did you wait up?” Trying to be cool, they say “We weren’t waiting up – we just wanted to see the end of this movie.” Then it’s off to bed for everyone, home and family once again complete and at peace.

Mom and Dad wait. The angry words still resonate in the house. In time, this storm too will pass like hundreds of others have that rocked the family. It will blow over. Until then, Mom and Dad put aside their heartbreak and get ready to be forgiving and welcoming parents when the angry son or the put-upon daughter returns because that’s what you do when you are Mom and Dad.

Wait. Everything has been a blur since that phone call: she was crossing the street on her way home and a car came out of nowhere. The driver never saw here. Someone called 911 and….after hours of surgery, they sit by a hospital bed. Their precious daughter hooked up to a wall of blinking monitors, and for the time being, this small hospital room is home, and they wait.

The love of a parent for a child is a remarkable thing. Children have no idea how much their parents do and would do for them: while many good parents never realize what that love enables them to do. They just do it, and so it is easy to tell this story again from Luke’s Gospel. We understand it. We know what it means, and what it suggests to us about a God Jesus taught us to call, “Father.”

Yet, at the same time, it is not easy to tell this story, because there is no peace in that house as the story concludes. The reconciliation is incomplete, and while the father may have one of his sons back alive, another stands outside angry refusing to even call his father by that name and refers to his brother as, “That son of yours.” What could be a joyful story of a family united in peace is really a sad reflection on the present condition of the human family broken and angry, envious, greedy, and prideful.

When the characters are removed from the parable, it chronicles the struggle between virtue and vice that goes on within every one of us. The struggle is made all the worse by a confusion within us over values and virtues. Understanding the difference and putting them in the right order provides the insight and wisdom to see virtue victorious over vice. Virtues and Values are not the same thing. Confusing them is not helpful for those who want to grow wise and holy. Confusing them is a formula for personal, spiritual, and social disorder. A virtue is behavior that makes me good. A value is something I want. Virtue speaks to morality. Value has nothing to do with morality. Morality is about what I do with my values. For example, money is value. It is not good nor bad. I can use it to support my family, or buy drugs. I can use it to do good things or bad things. Only my behavior is good or bad when it is consistent with virtue. Values are relative. $50 is a lot of money. $500 is a greater value, but virtues are absolute. Kindness is always good. Patience is always good. Justice is always good. When we confuse these two, values often are often placed ahead of virtues. For example, our culture often places freedom, which is a value ahead of responsibility which is a virtue which can be a disaster because freedom is not a virtue. It does not make us good. Responsibility does.

The boys in this parable are good examples of Virtue and Value face to face. The older son has a lot of values, working hard, doing what is expected of him, but there is no virtue in him. As he stands there proclaiming his values, there is nothing really good about him, and none of us would want to be like him. He is arrogant, mean, proud, and very much alone. Then there is the other one whom I always like to think of in terms of virtue. He has one no one can miss, and it is probably the most important one of all: humility. That virtue makes him good again, and if you would have to choose which of the two you would want as a friend, I hope you would choose the younger one. He would be good to have around. He is wise, humble, and loving.

Tonight, Monday, and Tuesday evenings here at Holy Spirit, I have come to spend a little time with you reflecting upon virtues and vices. Whether or not such a reflection is of value to you remains to be seen, but I would like to propose that as we move through the last days of this Lenten season, it might be valuable to do something with the time we have left. I am going to speak about what our church tradition has for centuries called: “The Seven Deadly Sins.” These vices that make us miserable and continue to leave the human family broken and alienated. Lots of people these days don’t like to talk about or hear about “sin.” Many may insist that they have “issues”; but hardly does anyone like to say they have “sins.” Yet when recently asked by a reporter who he was, Pope Francis without a pause said: “I am a sinner”, and with those four words, he unmasked the lie and the denial with which we stumble through life blaming and accusing others for the choices we make every day.

It will do no good however to simply list the vice or the sin or the “issue” if you want to pretend. What we need is to learn, understand, and practice the virtue that will, when embraced, will lift us up, restore the human goodness and glory for which we were made in God’s image. I’m going to talk about those virtues each night and contrast them to the vice and the sin their absence allows to wound and fester the human soul. Pride and Envy tonight. Anger and Sloth Monday, and Greed, Gluttony, and Lust on Tuesday. I always save the best till last. So I invite you come for an hour or so to pray, reflect on the Word of God, and learn to cultivate real virtues that will eventually, if we wait long enough, and God is patient with us will get the party started with everyone in the house.

Exodus 3, 1-8 + Psalm 103 + 1 Corinthians 10, 1-6, 10-12 + Luke 13, 1-9

February 28, 2016 at Saint Peter Church & St William Church in Naples, FL.

If taken seriously, the first part of this Gospel text is the end to any thinking that God punishes people in this life. I have never believed that, and I have been stunned too many times by people who think or say: “They got what they deserved” suggesting that some tragedy or disaster had God’s punishing hand behind it. That’s what these righteous people are suggesting to Jesus when they come up to him with that question about the slaughter of some Galileans. When you consider that these upright citizens of Jerusalem looked down on those backward Galileans as being of less value and importance than they were, you can almost feel them tense up when Jesus turns the tables on them by asking if they also think that the disaster in Jerusalem suggested that nice and upright citizens of Jerusalem were also being punished for something.  Disasters and catastrophes are never signs of God’s anger toward sinful individual people. Jesus says that this is nonsense. Neither good fortune nor calamities are indicators of one’s favor or disfavor with God. In an age to come God will judge the hearts of every soul regardless of their situation in life.

With that in mind, the second part of this Gospel text begins to make real sense and convey a powerful message to us all. I like to call this the “Gospel of the Second Chance.” We are that fig tree. God is the owner of this vineyard, and Jesus is the caretaker or gardener whose work and word among us provides our second chance because there will be, in the age to come, a harvest, and we had better be producing.

There is perhaps a third part to this Gospel being told or written here today. We are a people who are broken and too often barren. We have not produced the fruit of justice or of peace. We have not satisfied the hungry of this world who hunger for dignity and respect or for forgiveness and understanding as well as for clean water and food. We have not protected the vulnerable and given them the chance to live. Tragedies and repeated struggles cut down our lives and leave us worn, tired, and discouraged.  In spite of all of this, God continues to plant in our midst opportunities to start over, to try again, to rework things, to move beyond our hurt and pain to make things right. This is the God revealed and proclaimed by these verses from Luke’s Gospel. There is no God of vengeance here. There is a God of mercy. Who waits one more time for us to get it right.

The time will come for judgement and perhaps for punishment for those who have not seized the chance to start over and try again; but that time is not here. This time is for something else, mercy. The fig tree is an invitation to hope in the unlimited love and mercy of God. This third part of the Gospel is our time to discover again the spark of humanity within us that reflects the image of God Jesus has revealed: an image that makes us loving, compassionate human beings able to realize our life’s harvest.

Opening of the Lenten Mission at St Peter Parish in Naples, FL

February 21, 2016

Genesis 15, 5-12 & 17-18 ✠ Psalm 27 ✠ Philippians 3,17-4,1 ✠ Luke 9, 28-36

This event that Luke has recorded for us is about glory. It is not just about something that happened to Jesus. What happened on that mountain provided for those present a glimpse of what they might dare to hope for themselves. If we were to sum up all the work of Jesus on this earth it was simply to restore us to glory; to give us the glory of being a chosen race, a holy people who live in the presence of God. When ever Jesus encountered anything that robbed someone of glory it had to go. If someone was blind or lame, a leper or a sinner and Jesus came along, he restored them to glory not just to health. Anything that robbed someone of the glory for which they were made had to go.

On that mountain Jesus came into the presence of God just like Moses came into the presence of God in burning bush on the top of a mountain. The Bible tells us that after that experience the face of Moses was glowing and reflected the glory he had seen, but it didn’t last. It faded the moment he saw his people worshipping a golden calf. Now, the mission of Jesus Christ is to take us into the presence of God. His mission was to restore us to the glory that was ours at the beginning as God intended; the glory experienced in paradise before it was traded for something less. Today one look at the human condition, the human family makes it clear that there is not a lot of glory about us most of the time. There is then a lot of work to do. What keeps us from glory is SIN. Our failure to live up to the glory that is ours is as tragic as the unhappiness evil causes. But we don’t like to talk about sin these days unless it is someone else’s. Most people today don’t have sin, they have “issues”, and instead of facing head on the fact of sinfulness, we frequent psychiatrists and take pills. While this might be appropriates for some chronic illness, it is sometimes a way of avoiding and denying the reality of evil and consequence of our sinful choices. When Pope Francis was interviewed a year or so ago and asked by the reporter who he was, he responded without a pause, “I am a sinner.” The Holy Father went on to say that our humanity is wounded. We know how to distinguish between good and evil. We know the difference, but we often choose the evil. We make choices, and we can choose our glory.

We are living through an age of serious moral decay. Cheating and lying are a way of life today. Although anger doesn’t make most of us murderers, lust doesn’t make most of us rapists, and greed or envy do not make most of us outright criminals, together with gluttony, arrogance, and sloth, there isn’t much glory in us, and those who have to live with us are miserable.

Every deadly sin fuels harmful social phenomena: lust-pornography; gluttony-substance abuse; envy-terrorism; anger-violence; sloth-indifference to the pain and suffering of others; greed-abuse of public trust; and pride-discrimination.” As long as there is any trace of these evils in our lives there is no glory in us. We are less than human and less than what God has made us to be. Yet, we have in our faith a treasure of wisdom and tradition, teaching and revelation that leads us to a life of virtue and balance, holiness and joy; that is glory! It is not that pleasure is inappropriate, but real glory comes from character and virtue, and a right relationship of one’s self to others and to God. That is where we find pleasure, and that kind of pleasure leads to glory.

So, I am inviting you to spend three nights this week reflecting upon “The Seven Deadly Sins”. Unlike our bodies influenced by our genes; our souls, our spirit, and the lives they animate are free to be shaped by our choices. We can choose to be whole. We can choose glory. We can repent and change, and that is what this Lenten season which we have just begun is all about. There is more and better in us than we have chosen to become. One of the startling facts of life in our times is that no one wants to admit to sin and take any responsibility for its consequences. Lent is the time to do that, and this mission may well provide some time and insight about what we can do.

We have been given our nature, but we choose our character. When we say someone is a good man or a good woman, we do not suggest that they are people in whom there is no inclination to evil, but rather that they are people who have wrestled and still wrestle with it and never give in because their quality and their goodness comes from the struggle. I think that is what Jesus learned in that desert as we  heard last weekend. It is what gave him what it took to really withstand the temptations that come later in his life. People who learn from the struggle are truly noble. These are people of virtue, character, and nobility. The work of Jesus and his expectation that we change leads us to glory, to Easter, to virtue and nobility.

The glory of Jesus Christ came from his willingness to suffer in obedience to the will of his Father. Calvary was no short – cut to glory. There isn’t one. We will have no glory and no Easter from short-cuts either. I want to propose to you over the next three evenings that while there are seven sins (not issues) that lead us to death there are seven virtues that when taken seriously lead us to life. I invite you to give some time with me this week for the sake of the truth and for glory; three times in this church for the sake of life itself, your life. Tomorrow night we shall reflect upon Pride and Envy, Tuesday night Anger and Sloth, Wednesday night it will be Greed, Gluttony, and Lust.  I always save the best till last!  So I hope to see you again for prayer this week when we might begin to consider how it is that we restore that glory that is ours by God’s plan, and let Christ Jesus lead us deeper and closer into the presence of God.