Sirach 3, 2-6, 12-14 + Psalm 128 + Colossians 3, 12-21 + Luke 2, 22-40

St Francis of Assisi Parish Castle Rock, CO

If you do not understand what Luke is doing with this story, there is a danger of thinking that this family who come to the temple are somehow different from us. This is not the case. These announcements by Simeon and Anna are a tool that the Biblical writer uses to lead us to a deeper meaning. It is the same kind of tool that Shakespeare uses to tell the audience what characters are thinking or what is about to happen. In literature class we called these, “soliloquies”. These are not part of the story for the characters, but they are inserted for the reader. Not understanding that removes Mary and Joseph from reality making their lives and their family so unique that they cannot possibly relate to our experiences. That is a loss.

At the time it is perfectly logical and likely that two old people found every day in the Temple were speaking to and blessing every couple that came to fulfill the law. It is as though they did not want to miss the Messiah they longed for, so they were there for every child. There is nothing in this text that suggests Mary and Joseph were the only couple they greeted. What is important is that Mary and Joseph went to the temple. It is a detail that Luke provides to refute rumors in the early church that they were not good Jews. There is care all through Luke’s Gospel to show that they observed all the laws and customs.

When Simeon announces that this child will be a light to the Gentiles, Luke is telling us about the faith future of gentiles. It is like those “teasers” that get our attention to watch the news: “Stay tuned, details at 10:00.” Simeon’s announcement that this child will face opposition keeps us tuned in to see what that is all about.

We must remember then that this couple were real parents. They had no idea what was coming, what this child was going to be like, and since he was their first born, they didn’t even have any practice at parenting. We get no details about their private lives except one occasion when they get separated from their son, and another occasion when his mother goes with family members to get him and take him away. It sounds more like an intervention than anything else. They thought he was going to get into trouble with the way he was talking and challenging the authorities.

Anyone here ever get separated from one of your children? Nothing special about that except that it scares you to death and when it is over you don’t know how to feel. This is a real family. This is where and how God chose to begin the work of salvation and redemption: in the context of a family. This is fundamental Incarnation. God with us, Immanuel, is revealed in a family, and not just once. God is still being revealed in your family and in mine. The hand of God, the presence of God, the love of God, the forgiveness of God, the tenderness of God, the mercy of God: it’s all there when you choose to look and see.

This feast reminds us to look within. It is not an occasion to look out and put Mary and Joseph on a pedestal suggesting that their home and their relationships and their experiences were not the same as our own. My own opinion is that there is no information about their private home family life because it was so ordinary and so real. No news there, nothing to report.

The sword in the heart is an important detail. A sword is something that divides, cuts in two. It is a startling image for what Jesus will accomplish and what salvation will require of us. A sword piercing someone’s heart refers to discerning what God is doing in someone’s life, and their willingness to follow through on the painful consequences that flow from such discernment and choices. A discerning person sees things others miss, and therefore does things other people refuse to do.

A sword in the heart causes people to make decisions many would rather not have been forced to make. Mary’s heart experienced the same sword we all experience. No one comes into contact with her son without having to decide one way or the other about their faith and lifestyle. Do we reject or accept? Only by the decisions we make are the “thoughts of one’s heart revealed.”

Throughout his Gospel, Luke affirms that Mary chose the correct side of the sword. He shows her to be the perfect Christian: someone who hears God’s word and carries it out. Yet, because of the way we often fail to understand these Biblical stories, we fail to appreciate that she, along with everyone else who encountered the historical Jesus, had to make faith decisions. She and Joseph would only receive the insights contained in the Gospel after their son’s resurrection, not before. Except for the unique mystery of how Jesus’ conception came about, they had to relate to their son along the lines most parents relate to their children. Only their later reflections would make sense out of earlier events. It is the same for all of us. After things settle down and time passes and heals do we often understand and see what it was all about, what God was doing, and how we all grow in wisdom and faith. It’s always a matter of seeing things other miss and doing things others refuse to do.

Isaiah 62, 11-12 + Psalm 97 + Titus 3, 4-7 + Matthew 1, 18-25

St Francis of  Assisi Parish, Castle Rock, CO

Those of you looking at missals or hymnals know that a different Gospel has been proclaimed from the one publishers expected. Since I am new to some of you, I have taken the liberty of doing something new by choosing the Gospel from the Vigil of Christmas since none of you were here for the Vigil of Christmas. As far as I can tell, there wasn’t one, so Matthew’s Gospel gets lost in the scheduling of our lives, and I’m not sure that’s a good thing. When the church arranged the readings for this feast, the plan was for Matthew to start and John to finish. So, I want to take you to the beginning.

Because we know how the story turns out, we do not hear this story the way people did for whom Matthew is writing. They knew nothing about how it ends or what is being revealed. So every detail Matthew provides was something new, curious, and thought provoking. We fail to sense the anxiety, the fear, the conflict, and the possible consequences unfolding in this moment. Our romantic approach to these events and sometimes our piety overlooks troubling elements of the story that are part of the message. There is more being said here than what John’s Gospel says so starkly, “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us.”

In the center of this story stands Joseph who having not been conceived without sin, having not been called “Blessed” by an angel is more like us than the Virgin Mary. I’ve always thought we ought to pay a lot more attention to Joseph than we have historically. Luke’s Gospel is the version that has captured the imagination of artists, poets, and songwriters. Luke’s Gospel has more to say about Mary than the other Gospels. The cast of characters in Matthew’s Gospel is more simple. Have you noticed that no one ever puts on a play or pageant using Matthew’s Gospel version? It would be very short. There is no music, no choir of angels, no sheep, no shepherds!

At the heart of this gospel we have “an upright man.” More literal translations call him a “righteous man.” At the heart of this Gospel there is a serious conflict and a powerful lesson. It is a conflict that weaves its way through the life of Jesus and his struggle with the Scribes and Pharisees. It is conflict found in our own lives. Joseph’s uneasy story about what to do is part of the message here. Joseph begins to redefine what it means to be “upright” or “righteous.”

Simply put, before Joseph being “upright” or “righteous” meant one thing: following the rules and obeying the laws. Nothing else mattered. The consequences of strictly following the rules were irrelevant. After Joseph, being “upright” and “righteous” means something else.

Joseph should have followed the law and put Mary away, meaning publically breaking off the engagement and leaving her to live with the consequence of having a child that was not his. What is he to say to people: “An angel told me what to do”? No one is going to believe in talking angels, a child conceived by the Holy Spirit, who ever heard of that before? No way! If he did not follow the rules, he would have been cut off from everyone, no friends, no business for the shop, his reputation would have been ruined, and he would no longer be admired and respected as a lover and follower of the Torah. His whole life would have been trashed. His decision, his willingness to sacrifice everything by doing what is right rather than follow the rules is major part of this story.

Do you ever wonder why God waited and let Joseph struggle with all this stuff and then sends the angel? It would have been a lot easier if the angel had come first to explain everything and remove the anxiety. It is possible though that anxiety removal is not God’s number one goal. It is possible that in getting his world turned upside down, in having to struggle between what he thought he should (follow the rules) and what he ought to do (be merciful), God was leading him to a new understanding of what it means to be “upright” and “righteous.”

When Joseph was long dead and Jesus was a grown man, he taught in Matthew’s Gospel (5, 20) “Unless your righteousness passes that of the Pharisees and the Teachers of the law you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus must have been thinking that he had seen the better kind of righteousness firsthand in Joseph.

God had a reason for this odd, painful, lonely way to start a family. Perhaps God still calls people to be willing to die to reputation, status, and comfort for the sake of love. When Joseph decided to proceed to take Mary for his wife, he thought it was the end of his being known as a righteous man. He gave up concern about what other people would think, and realized that just following the rules is not always the right thing to do. He did not know fully that the child he would adopt would bring to the human race a new kind of righteousness. This is a big part of what we celebrate this Christmas.

2 Samuel 7, 1-5,8-11, 16 + Psalm 89 + Romans 16, 25-27 + Luke 1, 26-38

MS Eurodam & St Sebastian Parish, Ft Lauderdale

The last of Advent’s prophets is heard today. Samuel is responsible for crowning David as King, and so the book that bears his name describes Israel’s transition from the period of the “Judges” to the Monarchy under Saul and David. It is not a history, but simply a series of episodes centered on the principal characters of Samuel, Saul, and David. Our church listens to Samuel just before Christmas because it can lead us to anticipate and prepare for the coming of one who brings hope to fulfillment, history to term, and holiness to perfection, Christ, the son of David and promised Messiah.

So there is way more to this passage than just a story telling about David’s desire to build a Temple, a dwelling for God motivated by the fact that David is living in a palace. Behind the resistance that Samuel reveals is the fact that in some way, David’s wish will be a way of controlling and containing God. “If I put God in a house, I will know where God is.” For those interested, it also reflects a theological shift from the age of the Judges to the Monarchy. In the previous age, under the leadership of the “Judges” the presence of God was experienced in the corporate community, the People of Israel. Now the shift goes to the monarchy. Where the King is the sign of God’s rule and presence.

At a deeper level, this matter leads us and prepares us to ponder again the mystery of the Incarnation, Christmas. In sharp contrast to David’s plan comes God’s plan. Instead of a Golden Temple in Jerusalem, there is a stable in an out of the way little town called: Bethlehem. Instead or royal robes and a king’s armor for battle, there are swaddling clothes that upon a second look appear to be a shroud. This contrast of images leads us to wonder about the dwelling place of God, and the light of faith leads us to see the Word Made Flesh as God’s choice to dwell within and among us.

Before our ancestors built great churches, God had already made a choice of where to dwell. There are some who believe that the very beginning of the Christian community’s possession of land and buildings was the beginning of trouble, and there is evidence to support that thinking. Everywhere in the western world today, church buildings are becoming a burden, source of division and conflict as leaders begin to deal with the fact that they cannot be maintained by a handful of people, and that the real works of charity and service are challenged by the demands of leaky roofs and heating bills for enormous buildings used a few hours a week by a congregation half the size they were built for. Meanwhile people go without roofs or heat because there is nothing left for them. This is not to suggest that we  should have no place to meet, to pray, to worship, and be strengthened by God’s Word, but it is a reminder that what makes this place holy is the people who gather here in covenant. The Blessed Sacrament in that tabernacle could not be there without first assembling the faithful people in the presence of God to be fed by that sacrament.

What Samuel and David remind us of today is that the first dwelling place of God is in our hearts and in our lives. Understanding that truth and believing it changes the way we look at all of God’s people. The comfort we experience in a heated or cooled church with light and bathrooms and convenient parking should at once make us uncomfortable for those who have not, and in that way, these buildings serve a good and saving purpose. In thinking of this, I recalled something the late Cardinal Bernadine of Chicago is once said to have spoken at a dinner honoring wealthy donors. “The poor need you to help them, and you need the poor to keep you out of hell.”

We come into our churches in order to be sent out. That is the final instruction at the conclusion of every Mass. We come here hungry to be fed and are told to feed others. We cannot worship God in this place and hold in contempt or disrespect any of God’s children. This is the message we draw from David and Samuel. It is the earliest hint about what God has planned and will reveal in sending God’s only Son to live and die among us. As we look at the message of these readings, it seems we are being invited to savor the mystery. Through Nathan, God told David that it was not time to build a temple. God, not David, was building the future, and no temple should get in the way or try to circumscribe God’s initiatives. God cannot be walled in. As Nathan reminded David, God chooses to remain with us in our wanderings.

The familiar story of Mary’s experience must be ours as well. What we will soon celebrate is more than the birth of her child. It is mystery of the Incarnation, the mystery of God’s life and presence within us all still waiting to be born.

Isaiah 61, 1-2, 10-11 + Luke 1, 46-48, 49-50, 53-54 + 1 Thessalonians 5, 16-24 + John 1, 6-8, 19-28

MS Eurodam in the Caribbean

Again the words of a Prophet stir our hearts and minds in Advent’s third week. It is almost as though today’s text is the prophet’s response to last week’s command from God who said: “Do something” or “Comfort my people”. Instead of saying, “Who me? Get someone else” or “I don’t have time”, the true prophetic person pauses and reflects remembering whose command it is and responds: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.” The comforting of last week is now described in detail, and with it comes the spirit of the message which must possess the heart of the messenger.

It has always struck me as strange and sad that so many look upon religion, and especially our own faith tradition as something guilt ridden, dark, and doom filled. I think this says more about the messenger than the message. This is never clearer to me than when I speak with parents about the possibility of a religious vocation for their children. I can’t count the times when I have been stunned to hear them respond seriously that they want their children to be happy implying that I am not. I have always taken that response as a reason to check my attitude and behavior. Perhaps somehow I have failed to convey and bear witness to the full and joyful life to which I have been called. It is not a burden to be celibate. It is not unpleasant to proclaim God’s forgiveness to the repentant. It is privilege and joy to sit with the dying as visible evidence of God’s presence, and it is humbling and wonderful to share the greatest moments of joy or of sadness with God’s people. These are the very ingredients of happiness.

We are not prophets of doom and destruction, punishment and death. Our faith and practice of it is no burden. It is a privilege. It is not a serious obligation nor a complicated set of rules. It is an invitation to Joy that comes from hope fulfilled living in the promise that a God of mercy loves us even when we are not loving ourselves.

Recently I was in Lourdes which is, to me, one of the most holy and joyful places on earth. People come there from all over the world sick and frail, troubled and depressed, lost and confused. Yet, in the midst of that, there is always joy. There are smiles and happiness, confidence and faith. These are a people who have the spirit of the Lord upon them. I walked in the procession one night alongside a young couple pushing a complicated wheelchair that held their child. My candle was blown out by the wind. The child who could barely speak from some unnamed malady shouted up at me and held out the light of his candle for me with smile bright enough to illuminate the heavens. I’m walking on two feet after seven decades of life, and this child who has never taken a step gives me a light and smile.

My friends, we have glad tidings, and we are the tidings. We have good news, and we are the news. If the God of our faith is not the God of joy this prophet speaks of something has gone wrong. We either have some idol like power for a god or we have no faith. In the midst of this season, at the darkest time of the year when nights are longer than days, we are all there is to brighten the night and bring on the day. The anointing of our Baptism and Confirmation is enough. If you are here and hear this Word of God, you are the ones “clothed with the robe of salvation” as the prophetic word said today.

Our witness to the joy that real faith sustains is more than just seasonal. It is more than a verse on a card or a wish in greeting. It is way of life that will bring liberty to captives, heal the broken hearted, and freedom to those held bound by ignorance, doubt, guilt, or even the injustice of poverty imposed upon them. Catholicism as we see it now in our Pope Frances is again about joy, smiles, laughter, patience, tolerance, wisdom and peace. This is who we are and what we are, and this world longs for the hope that joy can provide.

Isaiah 40, 1-5, 9-11 + Psalm 85 – 2 Peter 3, 8-14 + Mark 1, 1-8

Still at the center of Advent readings stands a prophet. This prophet receives a command strongly delivered and repeated twice emphatically. As I was sitting with this text in study, just as I was two weeks ago, a song came into my head. Handel’s treatment of this text in the “Messiah.” Artist that he was, Handel was certainly free to interpret the word as he might for its effect in the whole work, but that tiny little tenor voice that quietly sings “Comfort Ye, Comfort Ye” is not the best way to get the point. If Handel really wanted to interpret this text, this piece might have started with the entire chorus shouting in unison: DO SOMETHING with a big drum roll.

This is a command. It is not a wish. It is a command from God telling the prophet what must be done in order to find freedom from oppression, peace, and lasting joy. It is a command that provides instructions about how to restore what had been lost by the Babylonian conquest and enslavement of many Israelites. They know why it happened. Because they had ceased to care for one another, because they had ceased to observe the covenant, because they had cared for themselves before they cared for God and God’s little ones they lost everything. Earlier prophets in the same book list again and again the grievances and the conditions that resulted in the present misery. There was no justice. There was idolatry. They offered sacrifices in the Temple while “ignoring the orphan’s plea and the widow. (Isaiah 1, 16)”.

So, after a long silence, God speaks up. God gives a command to the prophet about how to restore what has been lost. That is true “comfort”, because real comfort is not just patting someone’s hand saying simply “Now, now, don’t feel too badly, things will get better.” The only real way to comfort someone in distress is to restore what has been lost. Whenever we need comfort it is because something or someone has been lost: a job, a loved one, a treasure of some kind. Real comfort only comes with restoration or the return of what or who was lost.

With the command given to the prophet comes also the plan for restoration and real comfort. Tenderness and forgiveness, a straightening of crooked ways, and a filling in of valleys. Poetic language here that insists that kindness is essential, and forgiveness to be received must be given. It is always about giving. The word itself says it all. Give it! When things are crooked and twisted, uneven and unfair, fix it. Straighten it out. Make it easier to care for one another, to be kind and forgive. Where there is inequality and a twisted convoluted access to justice it must fixed. This is only way to find comfort and the only way back to what God has promised.

My friends, we cannot listen to this text as spectators nor study it as though it was a document in the “Rare book” section of a library. This is the living Word of God, and proclaimed in this assembly it is even more alive and more emphatic than ever. We are the prophets. We are the ones called by God and the ones to whom God reveals God’s commands and will.

When God says: “Go up a high mountain and cry at the top of your voice” God is speaking to us. When God says: “Do not be afraid to cry out” we are the ones God is addressing. That straight and level way is how God will break through and restore with us the intimacy, peace, and joy God intended at the beginning. This is not something someone else must do. Our faith itself is the acknowledgment of our call. Our faith is not about what we get, but about what we shall be and what we shall do to become what we shall be. You see, it is always about comfort, about restoring. It is about restoring the innocence, the holiness, the respect, the peace, and ultimately the relationship human kind had with God before sin and the spoiling of paradise.

God wills us to have it back. God wants us to come home, to walk in the garden of life with God again. If we hear this call and command and do nothing, we have no one to blame for the condition of this world than ourselves. Blame is easy, but it is foolish. Adam blamed Eve. Eve blamed a snake. It got them nowhere but further from the truth.

The second week of Advent is call to listen. While this season is often considered a time of “waiting”, it is also a season that informs us about what to do while we wait. Do something! Comfort my people, says God. Kindness, forgiveness, and attention to those around us; Justice and faithfulness to God is the stuff of real comfort that beings an end to sadness. We have nothing to fear except the consequences of our own inaction, passivity, and blame. We are on the mountain. From here what we do and what we say can be seen by all. We must pray today that what is seen in us is the promise and glory of God.

The great Temple of Jerusalem is in ruins. The Babylonians wiped Jerusalem off the face of the earth and had taken most Israelites into slavery. Then the Persians did the same thing to the Babylonians permitting the Israelites to return to their homeland. Many did not, because the first ones to return sent word back that it was better to stay where they were than face the destruction and misery in the homeland. Here is the dilemma faced by the prophet whose words open this Advent Season and our new year of grace, praise, and thanksgiving. How is it possible to convince an entire generation to spend their lives rebuilding a new city and Temple? Most of the captives felt their lives were just fine the way they were. Imagine the prophet standing in the ruins of the destroyed Temple speaking the words we just heard.

The Temple was built by a people who had a relationship with God and a covenant with God that could be celebrated and renewed generation after generation. The prophet now wonders what good it would do and how it would be possible to build the Temple again when there is no relationship and covenant with God. The building is symbolic. It represents the faith of the people in their relationship with God. That ruin is only a sign of the ruined relationship with God once enjoyed by the Israelites. It will do no good to build a Temple when there is nothing to do there. It will do no good to build a Temple when there is no relationship to celebrate and no covenant to affirm with its sacrifices. No relationship with God means no Temple and no Jerusalem.

“None call upon your name, none rouse themselves to cling to you; for you have hidden your face from us and have delivered us up to our guilt” cries the prophet. It almost sounds as though he is blaming God until that last word: guilt. It is that recognition and admission that shifts the blame back upon the guilty, those guilty of abandoning the covenant and the God of covenant.

It is a timeless message, and an experience of every age and generation. It is the focus of this season, and the challenge of our time: rebuilding our relationship with God. Our celebration of Christmas is a celebration of God breaking into human lives, and these weeks of prayer must awaken our awareness of God’s presence and God’s action all around us and within us. There is no way to notice God’s presence without a desire for that presence.

The prophet still cries out to this world and our generation. Half of this world looks like the Jerusalem he saw. All around the ancient world ruins of churches dot the desert and the countryside. Great centers of faith like Ireland are littered with ruins and empty churches. Huge urban Cathedrals built by people of great faith are filled with foreign tourists while simple country churches are boarded up. In our own country, the church struggles painfully with the burden of abandoned and empty urban churches while angry people in the suburbs protest the closure of places filled only with memories of their parents. Old memories is all they have because they make no new ones. Country parish churches are abandoned as rural life fades away with the migration to the glamor of city life. We sit here week after week wondering where others have gone, missing our children, and watching the number of people at Mass decline year after year. The prophet cries again.

The prophet speaks to you and me about our relationship with God and our awareness of God’s presence in our lives. In the Gospel Mark speaks to a people who live with the risk of missing the return of Christ, who do not see the very real and powerful presence of God always and everywhere at work for good all around them. Wake up and pay attention is the message from God today. Wake up to the presence of God and pay attention to what God is doing.

Our faith is not about rules and obligations. It is first of all about a relationship, and then the responsibilities that come from that relationship. A relationship with the living God brings some responsibilities when we have entered into it just like a marriage brings some responsibilities. No parent sits up all night with a sick child because of a rule, but rather because of responsibilities lovingly accepted.

Christmas, just like the Thanksgiving holiday we have just celebrated always reminds us of relationships as family gathers and friends are remembered. The feast we soon will celebrate only makes sense when we are prepared and pay attention to the God who still has more to do with us; the God Paul speaks of today when he says: “God is faithful, and it was God who called you to fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

 Ezekiel 34, 11-12  15-17 + Psalm 23 + 1 Corinthians 15, 20-26, 28 + Matthew 25, 31-46

 With the approach of this feast, I found myself humming a melody that is not found in any of the hymn books we use around the country, and it is not likely to find its way there any time soon. The closer time came to putting down some thoughts about this annual celebration of Christ the King the more dominant that song became in my mind. I am sure you all know what it is like to have some tune running in the background of your mind for hours or days at a time. That is what has been going on with me. The song comes from “The Lion King”, a classic tale that portrays themes of honor, loyalty, bravery, and most of all, love. It is a sentimental tale, and the Disney movie with a song by Tim Rice performed by Elton John only makes it more so. Sentimental or not, the message comes through, and the song “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” fits in perfectly to tell about unconditional love shared by the two main characters. Striking metaphors reveal the message of love’s unstoppable power despite the tribulations and hardships often found in this life.

The lyrics work to emphasize the strength of love. The image of a “restless warrior” emerges in the song, and with it, the restless warrior, Jesus Christ emerges for me. The warrior who does battle with sin and hatred, betrayal and arrogance, a religion gone dry by legalism and its heartless enforcers. Then in the lyrics comes a “wide eyed wanderer” evoking images of the Nazareth carpenter’s son who has no place to lay his head and invites his followers to a life of wide-eyed wonder at the inclusive and powerful love God has for those who like God’s only son find refuge in the mystery of love which the lyrics call an “enchanted moment”.

The story and the song within it encourages optimism and great hope because of love’s presence in life. The way love is expressed in the song suggests that love provides the power to survive every challenge and pain providing shelter from many of life’s obstacles. The singer suggests that one day everyone, from Kings to vagabonds will discover the wonder and power of love.

I have never thought that Jesus would have been or is even today comfortable in the role of a King. Something about the image we have of him from the Gospel is contrary to a Royal Sovereign lording over subjects. However I do not think Jesus Christ would have any trouble at all with the thought of you and me as royal people lifted up, robed, and living with dignity restored to us by his suffering and death. The triumphalism too often suggested by this feast is hallow and deceiving as long as one of God’s loved ones lives like a stranger, hungry, thirsty, naked or imprisoned with no one to visit.

Like wide eyed wanderers we have now completed a year-long telling of the story of God’s love revealed in Matthew’s Gospel. It is a story of hope that speaks to the hungry and the thirsty, the immigrant stranger, those without clothes and those imprisoned inviting them into the wonder of God’s love. We take the image of Christ in Matthew’s Gospel that begins with gifts for a King brought by three wanderers who in come in hope. We tell the story of his rejection and alienation ultimately concluding with his crucifixion, and then we tell the story of love’s victory and triumph with the resurrection. It is all a story of hope that reaches out to embrace and sustain us all. It is a story that sustains our hope because, as the song says: “There is a time for everyone” that leads us to believe the very best.

Proverbs 31, 1-13. 19-20. 30-31 + Psalm 128 + 1 Thessalonians 5, 1-6 + Matthew 25, 14-30

The parable we have today comes in Matthew’s Gospel just before the beginning of the Passion. It is spoken to and directed to us, disciples of Jesus. For the leaders of the people, the Scribes and Pharisees, time is up. The focus for Jesus now is upon his own. This parable as we have it suffers from cultural and language conflicts. Just picking up these verses of Chapter 25 and hearing the words we have in English never begins to adequately set the scene.

The unfortunate use of the word “talent” sets us up for a shallow reading which results in a less than surprising and emphatic response. That word has nothing to do with abilities or skills. A talent at the time this parable is proposed is a measure of weight like pounds or tons. So with that understanding, there is a proposal here that this man about to depart has a “ton of money” so to speak. Historians, Scripture Scholars, and Economists estimate that what he has in weight would equal nine million dollars. They tell us that one talent has a value of one million dollars today.

So with that thought, the parable goes on to tell us that having taken out what he needs for his journey, this man is handing over a huge amount of money to three of his trusted servants. Notice that he left no instructions about what they were to do. He simply left these talents in proportion to their abilities, and then he leaves town. Put yourself in that situation, and this parable sounds a little more problematic. You have been given for a time more money than you would ever earn in a lifetime. What are you going to do with it until the master returns?

These were all trusted servants who knew the master well, and they knew how he operated. They understood and had likely participated in the amassing of this great wealth. Two of these trusted servants learned from the master, and they imitated his ways. They did what he did. However, the third servant was an insult to the master. The third servant ignored the master, and in some ways he shamed the master by hiding the money and doing nothing. If he had learned anything from the master, it doesn’t show in his behavior which might well be seen as a negative critique of the master himself. Actually the loss of income was nothing compared to this refusal to follow the master’s example. This third servant is really more lazy than fearful, and when finally caught in his laziness, he resorts to blame! He blames the master for being tough and demanding.

Catch the parallel here. The master is going away. We don’t know why or where, but he is leaving for a long time. He leaves his trusted servants in charge, and wants them to act on his behalf. There were no instructions, and no one is in charge. They were to continue his work. If he had wanted that money buried, he could have done that himself, but he expected to reap what he did not sow.

Matthew presents this parable to his church which is still very much aware both of the master’s absence after Christ’s ascension, and yet very much aware that he will come again. Now we tell this story on an autumn Sunday in a season that constantly reminds us of a harvest because there is the danger after all this time of forgetting that the master will return and that we have seen and learned what to do in his absence. The danger of ignoring what we have learned from the master about forgiveness, inclusiveness, generosity, and hospitality is ever present, and the culture of blame in which we live makes it all the more easy for us to do nothing and pass the blame to someone else or to some other circumstance that allows us to take the easy and safe way through these times.

When we gather next week, a complete cycle of the church’s year will be completed, and the image of Christ, a King coming in glory, ought to make us a little anxious to consider once again what we have done with what has been entrusted to us, and how well we have imitated the master in the ways in which he has initiated this royal real we will celebrate not with triumphant glory but with humble gratitude.

2 Kings 2, 1-16 + Ephesians 6: 10-25 + Luke 3, 1-6, 1-15

“Do not forget that the value and interest of life is not so much to do conspicuous things as to do ordinary things with the perception of their enormous value.” Teildard Chardin

This simple idea and this profound wisdom guided much of John Vrana’s life as a child of God and as a priest. Those two identities were never opposed nor separate in John’s life. He was always a child of God. The curiosity, the interest, the delight, and the mischief of a child was always there. Never childish but always child like, John found interest and excitement in anything new and the simplest of things and ideas. It was a quality of being that made him ageless and youthful in spite of a failing and frail body.

Our Sacred Scriptures identify 55 prophets in the Old Testament. In the Second or New Testament, there is no counting of prophets, but that certainly does not mean that there are none. According to some views, prophecy is not a gift that is arbitrarily conferred upon some people; but rather, it is the culmination of a person’s spiritual and ethical development. When a person reaches a sufficient level of spiritual and ethical development, the Shechinah, the Divine Spirit comes to rest upon him or her.

When the prophet of the first reading today left this earthly realm, that Shechinah did not depart with him, but remained upon another who had imitated and reached for the prophet’s spiritual and ethical values. Never was Israel without such prophetical figures. From my own perspective, Israel itself became prophetic often speaking and revealing to us the will and nature of God who loved and favored Israel for so long. It would seem that Israel may have preserved this story to claim the prophetic role and to remind itself that seeking spiritual and ethical perfection was the only fitting response to the love and favor God had shown.

As a remnant of prophetic Israel moves into the Second Testament, the role of the prophet and the priest merge together first in Jesus Christ and then in those who follow him to continue his work of service and revelation. In some ways, the passing of John the Baptist is like the passing of the First Testament Prophet we heard of today. No sooner is John gone than the ministry of Jesus begins. The role and the work of the prophet passes on not just to Jesus Christ, but to the new Israel he has prophetically called to spiritual and ethical perfection.

We are a people who acknowledge today the presence of a prophet in our midst; for John Vrana was more than a priest for us. He was a prophet as well in the image of Jesus Christ. In his prayer and in his preaching he urged us all to deeper spiritual and ethical values. He was a man who stood before the Lord somewhat like the gifted man of this gospel and asked the same question: “What must we do?” Those who were his students know that he often insisted that we ask the same question and act upon it. He lived those stirring words of Paul to the Ephesians we just heard.

Asking that question all through his life is what made John a real child of God. It opened his mind and his heart day after day, book after book! From that openness he spoke like a prophet among us crying out for Justice and for Peace; and was never silenced by the hatred and ugliness of those who attacked him personally. In the face of it he simply suffered their insults and rage growing more peaceful and centered on the priest and prophet, Jesus Christ whose spirit overshadowed and inspired him.  Those of us who lived with him through those years know well how it hurt, but John knew that a prophet suffers silently and patiently for the sake of the truth. It now looks as though that silent patient suffering prepared him for these last years and months of his life.

He once said to me when I was a seminarian: “The whole of life lies in the verb of seeing.” I was very impressed. In those days everything he said impressed me. Because he was a man of few words it was not hard to remember what he said. I still remember that wisdom because John could see. Perhaps that is why he lived and loved so magnificently; and John could live so that many of us could see.

In the Divinisation of Our Activities, Chardin worte: “Those who spread their sails in the right way to the winds of the earth will always find themselves born by a current towards the open sea.”

John, the priest and prophet has gone from us now having spread his sails in just the right way leaving us with the Spirit of God that put light in his eyes and fire in his heart. He encouraged many of us to do the same: spread our sails to the winds of the earth. He now sails ahead of us toward the open sea, the open arms of God his creator, redeemer, and sanctifier. Eternal Rest Grant unto him, O Lord.

Ezekiel 47:1-2, 8-9, 12 + 1 Corinthians 3:9c-11, 16-17 + John 2:13-22

 There is no doubt in my mind that there are many who prefer to think that this day on the calendar of the church is all about an ancient basilica in Rome. While I have been there several times and would quickly name it as my favorite among the great Roman basilicas, the feast of November 9 on the Roman Church calendar asks more of me than memories and images of a big church building. It is a grand place that still has a 4^th century baptistery I delight in seeing every time I can. There are precious relics of Peter and Paul above the great altar, and there is a simplicity that ignites the imagination of anyone who steps into that enormous space knowing that it holds the chair for the Diocese of Rome and was the scene of many significant councils in our history. At the same time my knowledge of its history reminds me that it has not always been so grand, and that the Dedication we remember today was not actually of the building we see in the 21^st century. It was once an abandoned derelict of a building without a roof and doors. If fact, the doors it has were looted from the Roman Forum!

For me, and I hope for you, this Feast comes to remind us and awaken us again to the wonder and mystery of the Incarnation, of the truth that God has come among us to make a dwelling place with us and for us. This day is about sacred space, all sacred space. It is about the place and the times when God and humankind come together. It is a day that can celebrate our healing and freedom from sin and our elevation by grace and mercy restoring us to the condition we enjoyed before sin had wrecked its havoc and broken our relationship with God.

We rejoice today not just that a basilica was dedicated and set aside for the Christians of Rome, but we rejoice because there is sacred space everywhere the Christian family gathers to celebrate the Eucharist and rejoice in the gift of God’s mercy and love.

We rejoice today because this space is holy and because we are free to gather here again to meet our God and share the love God has poured on upon us in the holy place.

We are reminded today that this place and every place dedicated and set aside exclusively for a Divine encounter is holy and unique, worthy of great respect and honor.

These places are not auditoriums, concert halls, or museums.

These places are sacraments in a way that speak to us of God and unite us to God.

The dates of dedication for many of the Churches in which we worship are long forgotten or have simply faded into archives in dusty files locked away.

So today comes for us all to remember and rejoice that someone with great faith, devotion, sacrifice, and commitment built this place just like workers for Constantine first built the Church of the Savior, St John, at the Lateran Gate next to the Lateran Palace.

Years ago in my own ministry, I began to recognize that a building has a great deal to do with shaping the spirit and the identity of the community that assembles within its walls. Those people are that church, and every church building, big or small, grand or simple is us. This is where we measure and mark our lives. It is why in many places at this time, the closing of churches no longer in viable use or no longer able to be maintained is so painful. It is why during times of revolutions church buildings are so often desecrated and destroyed. Yet all of this goes beyond brick and mortar, glass and marble.

Thomas Merton once recorded this truth, “I thought churches were simply places where people got together and sang a few hymns. And yet now I tell you … it is that Sacrament … Christ living in our midst … it is He alone who holds our world together.”

What we really celebrate today is Christ living in our midst, holding our world together through all that we do in here because of this place. We do it because of the One who draws us into this sacred place. There is One here who nourishes our hopes, who calms our fears, and who makes each of us—with all our flaws and imperfections— his tabernacle. It is all because of Christ in the Eucharist. It is as simple as that. This is something to remember, to cherish, and celebrate.