Saint Peter the Apostle Parish Naples, FL

Acts 3, 13-15, 17-19   Psalm 4   1 John 2, 1-5   Luke 24, 35-48

Last week I suggested that the fear felt by the apostles was far more than “fear of the Jews”. I truly believe that their fear must have also included a fear of Jesus; a fear that he might return as he said. Then, what would happen to them. Their lack of action on his behalf made them partly responsible for his death. Add to that their belief that he was the Messiah they had hoped for and then abandoned made this an even greater fear. They were terrified and trapped. This realization that he was the Messiah they had failed had one consequence, damnation. They had lost their chance to be saved. They certainly heard about the death of Judas knowing he had suffered from the same guilt and despair. Now they were hearing news from others about walking, talking, and eating with Jesus who was very much alive. Then suddenly Jesus is there, and two things happen that move them from doubt to belief, from fear to wonder and joy: touch and food. The one has touched others and brought healing and hope now invites them to touch him, and that touch heals their doubt. This is real. In that culture, you do not eat with people you fear and do not trust. Now the one who has fed thousands, broken bread with tax collectors and sinners, and fed them in an upper room asks them to feed him, and that removes their fear.

This greeting of Jesus in that room is rich in meaning. Far more than an end to hostilities, peace is a wish for wholeness and for holiness in mind, heart, and soul. The power of this greeting in peace spoken by Jesus brings healing among them and reconciliation. What we must not fail to see is who come seeking that reconciliation and offering that peace, Jesus. It should have been the other way around. They were the offenders who, by our standards ought to have sought him to say they were sorry and beg for peace and forgiveness. But it is not that way in this story nor is it ever that with God as this story reveals. God comes to us. Jesus seeks. He reaches out passes through locked doors, stony hearts, and walls of guilt and fear to bring hope and the joy of peace where there is none.

In this we have found the meaning of his life, death, and resurrection. It is the ultimate revelation about the Father who sent Christ Jesus into this world. The God from whom Adam and Eve hid in shame is the one who begins the reconciliation. This is the God who seeks communion with human kind, the best and most loved of creation. This is the news Jesus proclaimed among us. He had taught these disciples over and over again to seek the poor and the outcasts, those left behind and those shut out. All the while they argued for places of honor. He proclaimed the privilege of the poor and the necessity of suffering, but they would have none of it. Now when they are at their lowest in guilt and disgrace, he comes with an offering of peace that opened their minds to understand the scriptures in a new way. Having met this Lord, risen in glory, and having accepted his offer of peace, they are prepared then to be witnesses of this to all the nations.

My friends, it must be the same for us. The offer of peace, the promise of forgiveness, the opportunity to live with joy is there for us who are willing to touch and to feed for there are still too many who long to know the touch of kindness and hunger for understanding, justice, and love. The Joy with which we live our lives, welcome others, touch, and feed hungry will be the witness Christ expects from those who have listened to and kept his word. As the Epistle today says: “The love of God will them be perfected in them.”

Saint Peter the Apostle Parish Naples, FL

Acts 4, 32-35   Psalm 118   1 John 5, 1-6   John 20, 19-31

After more than forty years of study, prayer, and preaching with this text, something new is beginning to dawn on me. Perhaps it has simply taken that long for me to get over it, because being named “Thomas” always put me in a defensive mode when hearing this story. I recall going through a time when I defended him. I would image all sorts of reasons for his absence, and excuse his interaction with the others thinking that because he was out buying the food or preparing meals for that group in the upper room he did not get to share in their conversations and experiences which included previous visits of the Lord.

What I have finally begun to realize is that this is not about Thomas at all. It is about Jesus Christ risen among his people. Thomas is not the point of the story. Jesus is the point of the story. It is the behavior and the words of Jesus that matters most of all. That situation with Thomas is just a set-up for the appearance of Jesus and more wonderful and joyful revelation. What Thomas speaks and proclaims is really the first “Creed”. The first profession of faith. Isn’t it interesting what happens in four hundred years to the “Creed?” It goes from 5 words to 224 counting the Amen! It was a lot easier to memorize, and nobody messed with the translation of that first creed to get us mixed up.

We must pay attention to Jesus in this story. He comes to them when they are afraid. A Gospel writer says that they had the doors locked “for fear of the Jews.” I suspect that “fear of the Jews” was just an easy excuse. I think they were afraid to see Jesus face to face; afraid of what he might say about the recent behavior. Yet, there he is. Does he berate them for their shameful and cowardly behavior? Does he scold them? Does he look at Peter and say: “I told you so”, or ask were Judas is? None of that. He simply says: “Peace.” Everything is fine. He knows them. He loves them. He called them his own. He embraces their weakness and their failure. Their not too dependable loyalty and even their absence still merits his presence. It’s as though with Thomas he is just going to keep coming back until he finds Thomas there where he belongs. He knows all their doubts and their fears, and he simply comes to be among them bringing them peace.

It is a moment of Divine Mercy. It is a message of hope to a church that he has not left them, and that when his presence is acknowledged, they will know peace and the joy it brings. To imperfect and broken people Jesus entrusts his final and best gift, peace. He describes that gift in terms of merciful forgiveness. It is never earned nor deserved. If it were, it would not be “mercy.” What he asks of them in those words of sending is mercy. What they receive from him they must give.

The power to show mercy comes from being a broken person. The power to show mercy comes from the knowledge and the feeling in your heart that you owe everything you are and have to sheer divine mercy. That is exactly what was going on in that upper room. They had come to the realization that they deserved nothing. They were helpless and hopeless. They were cowards and unfaithful, and in that truth they were able to say and accept the fact that every joy and virtue, every distress, and every success they knew came from the free and undeserved mercy of God.

So, here we are in that upper room. As far as Jesus is concerned, those people in that room were not his friends. In running and hiding, denying and abandoning him, they were as complicit in his suffering and death as the Romans and the “leaders of the people.” Having done nothing to stop it, they were as guilty as anyone. Yet, there he is with the blessing of Peace, and the Joy that wells up from this undeserved mercy is remarkable.

What we see here is the proof of real mercy: the power to see distress, feel pity, perform relief and all of that toward an enemy or someone you thought was your friend.

Saint Peter the Apostle Parish Naples, FL

Acts 10, 34-43   Psalm 118   Colossians 3, 1-4   Mark 16, 1-7

There is an important way to consider what we celebrate today that not many of us have taken up. I know that only recently this thought has worked its way into my thinking and believing. I suspect that those first companions of Jesus had to allow time to sort this out as well in order to see and believe. We learn quickly in life that what you see is not always what you get. It always depends on how you see and what you are looking for. On that first day of the week, they did not see with anything but sadness and fear, grief and disappointment. So what they got was an empty tomb that may have been robbed. What they were looking for was Jesus of Nazareth, a carpenter’s son, a rabbi/teacher who had stirred their hopes of a Messiah who would reign with glory and restore Israel to its past power.

Had they not been motivated by fear, grief, and disappointment, they might have seen a mighty act of God. There is a clue to that in the text, but you have to read critically to pick it up. By the time Mark’s Gospel settled into a written text, the fear, grief, and disappointment was gone, and what was finally described is written in what grammar calls: the “Passive voice”. It says, “The stone was rolled back.” It does not say who did it. There is no name which leads us to suspect that respect for the name of God caused this detail to be recorded in the Passive voice. They could not say “God.” In other words, this is an act of God. What believers see is not an empty tomb. Believers see an act of God: Divine Revelation.

Through the whole life of Jesus Christ Divine Revelation has been in progress. From the moment it all began with the Annunciation, the nature, the being, the presence of God and the will of God has been unfolding for those who are ready to see it. For those God was present and at work. For those who were looking for something else, perhaps for their own gain or power, there was nothing to see. If we were to choose a word inadequate as one word could be to summarize or describe what has then been revealed, I think it would have to be LIFE, which might be the best and most clear sign of God’s presence. When that presence goes into action, when life is at its best and highest, it is unconditional LOVE.

The whole idea is so immense and so profound that our human minds have to carve it up into smaller pieces to grasp. So we make animal life, plant life, and human life which is all very fine as long as we keep seeing the creator in the beauty of that life. “What you see is what you get”. When it comes to human life unfortunately we do the same thing. There is life before birth, adult life, and life after death for those willing to take a leap of faith. Perhaps there is a better way to look at life which is what Easter can become for us.

Instead of thinking today about “life after death”, it might be better think about “life through death” not only for Jesus Christ, but for us all. At the Incarnation God chose the best of God’s creation to share divine life. God did not choose animals, plants, fish, or stars. God chose the last of creation to share God’s life. In Jesus Christ God reveals the secret of life. God reveals what makes life worth living (so to speak), so precious, so full, and so creative and beautiful: Love. What we celebrate today and what draws us together is Life, Divine Life, not just in Jesus Christ, but in everyone who lives and loves. This room, simple as it is, worn with the feet of the faithful for 40 years in this parish is full of life today and full of love. What we proclaim with our song, our presence, and prayers is that nothing can destroy life because it is of God, and as long as we love nothing can keep us down or hold us captive: not hatred, not disappointment, not betrayal, not even death.

We tell the stories of those first disciples during these days because they are clearly our own. They doubted, they denied, they ran, they hid, and they got the message wrong over and over again thinking it was about them and their lives as though they could separate their life from God’s life. Finally, after seeing and believing that life goes on even through death, they got it. After discovering that in spite of all their failures God still loved them, they grasped the reality that their very lives were a share in all that God is. With that realization, they changed and everything else changed. God continues through them to forgive, to heal, to hold up and lift up those who are bowed down. God continues to call back to life those who are entombed in hatred or racism, violence and revenge. What it really means is that our lives have purpose and meaning, we have a mission and a reason for awakening every day to the opportunities to be God’s presence for those in darkness.

Life through death is the promise we celebrate today because of the witness of the Risen Christ. We can, we shall, we are full participants in his life, not just after death, but through it, within it, and even before it. What Christ is, we shall be when love, heals what is broken in us and awakens us to the dawn of this day. Then others will get what they see in us, life and love.

On behalf of your pastor, Father G, Father Pedro, Father Benjamin, the five deacons who serve this parish, and all the staff and volunteers, I extend to you our great affection and sincere hope that you will live your lives in Christ, through death and every challenge, with hope and joy that brings us all peace. For this is the day the Lord has made!

Saint Peter the Apostle Church, Naples, FL

Isaiah 52:13–53:12 • Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9 • John 18:1–19:42

 The Television medium has loaded us with opportunities to become spectators for the past several days with programs called: “Finding Jesus” and “Killing Jesus.” I am not sure what is behind these productions other than the money the sponsors make by drawing people around the screen to watch some writer or producer’s idea of what it was like in Jerusalem at the historical moment Jesus of Nazareth was killed. The trouble with all this business is that it turns revelation into “entertainment” and whatever historical value might possible have slipped in is left unconnected to the present day. This leaves us in the role of the spectator as though we were sitting in our living rooms or a stadium watching a grand drama unfold munching pop-corn. We might feel some sadness or admiration for Jesus of Nazareth, but personally confronting the mystery of what the Passion and Death of Jesus means and what God reveals and wills through the Death of Jesus Christ is the last thing we are encouraged to do so. Television producers are not going to take us there, but at some point, perhaps today, we have to ask the question: “What does this death have to do with us today.” “What have we become because of it?”

Only around this altar and in communion with our companions in faith will we enter into this mystery to discover what it means. Only around this altar can we participate in the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ and move from being spectators into actual participants. Our place in the Life and Death of Jesus Christ is not to sit here and read: “Crucify Him.” Our place is not among the mob and unbelievers. Our place is among the apostles, who though hiding in fear, confusion, and disappointment, eventually, by the power of the Spirit, became the very body of Christ for this world. Here in communion around this altar we become one with Christ and with all who suffer; with the innocent, the imprisoned, the misunderstood, the betrayed, the rich and poor, the sick and the lame, the lost and the sinner. Here we struggle with the question of suffering and confront the reality of death with a faith that gives us hope. Otherwise we are just watching someone die a horrible unjustified death.

The Son of God who abandoned the comfort and glory of heaven took on flesh and blood to become one with us, all of us, and in that “communion” in that bond with humanity divine life is resurrected within us out of the death of sin. Our place in this story is eventually on the cross. That is what the disciples discovered once the Spirit opened their eyes and their hearts. God’s desire to lift us up, heal our brokenness and restore us to our original glory is revealed in Jesus Christ who so completely identified with us that he embraced the most insidious, horrible, agonizing death anyone could imagine at that time so that no one would be left out. All we have left of him now is bread broken in communion, the Eucharist, which when received brings us into communion with him and with all human kind.

Still to this day, the sick must not be alone, those on the edge and fringe of society must be gathered in, the poor must have companions and a voice, the abused must have protectors, the old must have tender respect, the grieving must find comfort, children must be brought to Jesus, and the gospel must be proclaimed to those who live in darkness because these are God’s children. This is what God has revealed through Jesus Christ. The Will of the Father was not about a crucifixion, but about being obedient to and completing God’s plan for all to be saved, healed, forgiven, and loved. What God asked of his Son God asks of us: that we might become one with the same kind of people Jesus came to serve and love. It was not those in power or those with influence. It was not to the healthy and prosperous. It was to the sinner, the sick, the poor, and the powerless left behind.

At some point, the wonder of this revelation must get us up off the couch, and draw us into the mystery of what this cross has done for us. We were not born into this life to be spectators. Our faith will not permit us to watch for long. The Spirit comes with fire and wind, and the Christ who rose from the dead will call our names as he called Lazarus to unbind us and set us free: free to be his disciples living in communion, forgiven, healed, and full of life.

 St Peter Catholic Church Naples, FL

Mark 11:1-10 + Isa 50:4-7 + Psalm 22 + Philippians 2:6-11 + Mark 14:1–15:47

The Passion account just proclaimed is filled with stories of disappointment, loneliness, despair, rejection, aloneness, and feelings of abandonment. The stories of humanity’s struggles are revealed before our eyes in the journey of Jesus, his disciples, his friends, and those who knew him. Without knowing fully how the Resurrection event would end, I am sure that on Good Friday and in the days following many felt disconnected, confused, and full of despair wondering who really cares and whether or not their lives with Jesus of Nazareth really made any difference.

Every one of us experiences some type of loneliness at one point or another in their lives. Even people in committed, solid relationships can experience loneliness, and it can even be said that a certain dose of it is healthy for personal and relational development. Many people, however, find it to be their consistent and unwelcome companion. This crippling loneliness can lead to a terrifying sense of isolation and eventually depression. We are quickly becoming a society of isolation and entitlement. Our lives are often too complicated and busy to find the time needed to build and maintain meaningful and close relationships. Worse still, we may not even realize that there is an imperative need within us to do so. The prophet Isaiah in our first reading today, insists that we must learn “how to speak to the weary a word that will rouse them.”

The disciples found their strength in connecting with one another after the crucifixion of Jesus. Jesus found his strength in connecting with his Father. These were connections of the heart, connections that lead to profound transformations of love. The love revealed in the crucifixion of Jesus did not come to us simply by what was said about it. It came from the humble actions and the transformation that embraced it. We will soon tell the stories of how disappointed, lonely people found hope and joy in the company of one another in the days between Good Friday and Pentecost from Jerusalem to Emmaus.

We have a profound message to bring to our world. There is no one else who can witness to others the value and sanctity of every human life and the profound joy that connecting with others in our community of faith can bring.

People who are vulnerable, lonely, or poor need help in confronting their darkness and helplessness to find the truth that is within them. It is a journey whose success relies on companions willing to walk with them and assist them in seeing the light. Those who are most isolated and lonely can experience the tremendous joy of the Resurrection when they learn the beauty of what it means to walk with others and discover the spark of the divine that is revealed when serving others along the way.

Alexandria, LA at St Francis Xavier Cathedral

Jeremiah 31, 31-34 + Psalm 51 + Hebrews 5, 7-9 + John 12, 20-33

With one week full week left in this season we are led by the Church through the readings for this day to come face to face with the paradox of salvation and the contradiction found at the heart of our faith between the cross and glory. This touches the very core of our faith, and it tests the very strength of our hope. The strongest and most basic human instinct is survival and the will to live, yet death is even stronger; and death casts its pall over human life. It calls into question everything we try to achieve, and no matter how far we may try to look ahead, death is the horizon of human life.

Probably more than we care to realize, death may be the greatest human motivator there is. The fear of death lies beneath every other fear and is at the heart of selfishness. “Get it now. Keep it now. You may not get another chance” is the thinking in the heart of darkness. Death, the ultimate separator, the final condition that leaves us separated from one another and even from God is the one last consequence of sin to be removed, conquered, and replaced by God which leads us to the cross and our observance of Holy Week.

Every sickness, every ailment, every evil that has separated God’s people from one another has been challenged and conquered by Jesus in the Gospels. Lepers were cleansed and restored to their place among God’s people. Sick children are restored to their parents, the blind and the lame get up and walk with Christ among his followers. Outcast tax collectors and sinful women are no longer cast out but included. Samaritans and Romans are drawn into faith and included among those who know God’s healing and forgiving love. One last thing remains, and we get a hint of what is to come when the story of Lazarus is told and he walks out of a tomb by the command of Christ.

Time after time, Jesus willfully identifies with and in a sense, takes the place of those he invites and leads to faith and hope. When he touches lepers and sinners, when he eats with tax collectors and goes into the home of a enemy Romans, he becomes one with them and is one of them in the eyes of his adversaries. One last enemy, one last evil, one last sickness is yet to be touched and shared: death. In doing so, everything will be complete and everything that separates us will be destroyed. There is no place to go now except to Calvary.

John’s Gospel touches on the power our fear of death has on us as he reports the anguish of Jesus in the verses of today’s Gospel. Then John goes on to unfold the plan and wisdom of God with the directive that we are to abandon our doomed desire for self-preservation, our singular attachment to this mortal life, and reach for the life Jesus has promised and will soon reveal in his resurrection. The death he will experience is his final and complete embracing of our human lives. By accepting the most terrible death that could be imagined he leaves out no one and no death so conformed is he to our human experience.

The glory of is death is found in the totality and completion of God’s will in the mission of Jesus Christ. Once it is finished, as Jesus proclaims on the cross, there is nothing left except new life bursting out of a grave. Death is no more. Fear is finished. Life is the promised fulfilled. This is the mystery of the cross then that makes it a sign and a promise of glory. For us it becomes now a sign that the most feared thing in life is dismissed as easily as a  blind man comes to sight, and a lame man picks up his mat and walks. This is the glory that awaits all who follow Christ into a grave. It is what we shall promise and proclaim to those who have asked to see Jesus and share the life and glory he found through obedience to the will of his Father who wills nothing more or less for us than that we share in unending Divine Life.

2 Chronicles 36, 14-16, 19-23 + Psalm 137 + Ephesians 2, 4-10 + John 3, 14-21

After listening in on the conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus, it becomes very difficult to separate Mercy and Salvation. The Mercy of God that Jesus has come to reveal is a challenge, and for some a stumbling block in our measured world where everything must be earned, won, or deserved. The struggle of Nicodemus gradually coming to faith is our own. Nicodemus is a trained Pharisee, someone who knows the the law and keeps the law; someone who is convinced that only by observing the law is there any hope for God’s favor and salvation. For Nicodemus, at the beginning it’s all up to us, all a matter of us earning salvation by our perfect observance of the law. It’s as though God’s role in all of this is to be the judge who sits with a score card and counts up the points, or lists the failures.

The message of Jesus that leads Nicodemus beyond that idea is the message of mercy and the invitation to discover and experience the love that God has for all creation. The salvation Jesus reveals is not so much an escape from something as it had been for the Jews saved from slavery, as it is the new beginning of God’s eternal plan for Life, life without end within the Divine. It is a new kind of being as much as a new kind of life. The movement into that life is belief, as John expresses it in the words of Jesus. This belief however is not an intellectual assent to a Creed, a proposition of the intellect, or consent to some verbal expression of dogma. That would make “belief” like a kind of insurance policy!

The belief that Jesus speaks of to us and Nicodemus means that we trust and hope so strongly that we would bet our life on it. It means that we know we have nothing to fear because Christ lifted up has overcome every evil, and to whatever extent we can merge ourselves into Christ, blend our lives into Christ, conform out hearts into Christ, we will know that God’s love, stronger than death, is available to us no matter what. CON-FORM is the whole idea here. It is the ultimate goal of a spiritual life, to form ourselves into Christ. To do this changes everything. It changes the way we look at ourselves together, in relation to God, and the way we look at suffering and death. These are not things we shall escape, suffering and death. Salvation does not mean we escape death or suffering. It means that a God willing to suffer and die without revenge, powerful enough to overcome death is our God who loves and who wills us again and again to wake up and come to life – the real life God planned for us for all ages and forever.

When we are coldly honest with ourselves, we know that this is something we can never earn nor deserve. The betrayal of our own sinfulness, the pride of our willfulness, the madness of our efforts to be like gods, using the words of Genesis, is still not greater than God’s mercy and love. With squinting eyes and measured thoughts, we just can’t quite grasp what has happened to us through the Cross. Like Nicodemus, we are in the dark, the darkness of thinking that we have to do something or say something, to get God’s attention and win God’s favor and love.

No child has to earn a parents love. You parents know that, and remembering that extraordinary truth might lead you to understand God’s love. All you have to do is BE: be born, be a son or daughter, be a child, be in that safe, nurturing, loving relationship. That is what Jesus, Son of God, asks of Nicodemus. If the law does not lead you into a relationship with God and into a loving bond with your neighbor, it is not going to lead to salvation. Rather than making us do something, the law should lead us to become something, faithful children of God. Through Christ, with Christ, in Christ, we find our salvation and a share in his glory. That is our hope, and it is the purpose of this holy season that we may come out of the darkness, set aside the deeds of darkness, and become children of the light who live forever in the glorious favor and merciful love of the God who saves.

St Francis of Assisi Church Castle Rock, CO

Exodus 20, 1-7 + Psalm 19 + 1 Corinthians 1, 22-25 + John 2, 13-25

The problem at the Temple was not the money changers and those who sold oxen, sheep and doves. They had to be there for the required sacrifices of the temple to take place. The law that prescribed the offerings and sacrifices. The Jews could not use the Roman currency which had Caesars’s image, so they had to change money into the Temple currency. The issue Jesus has with all of this, and especially with the Scribes and Pharisees who run the place is that in spite of all those offerings and sacrifices, nothing is happening, no change. They bought forgiveness without repentance. They bought sacrifices without every making any.  In spite of all that religious activity, nothing ever changed: the poor will still poor, outcasts stayed out, sinners kept on sinning without every reforming their lives. All they had to do was buy another dove and keep on going. This is repugnant to Jesus who has come to preach repentance, conversion, and change. There was no faith. It was all just a mechanical repetition of the same old thing without ever producing what he and the Baptist before him called for again and again: repentance. Change, repent, be made new, let the glory that belongs to the children of God shine forth.

Christ Jesus is headed to Easter, to glory not just for himself, but for and with all of us. Two weeks ago we heard the Gospel of the Transfiguration, that moment when Jesus came into the presence of God. His mission on this earth is to take us there, to lead us to Easter and to glory. There is a problem however. There is not enough glory in our lives, and most of the time, we are not much of an Easter people, and the problem is something we don’t much like to talk about: sin.

All of us are engaged to one degree or another in a personal, ongoing battle with sin and vice. We are living through an age of serious moral decay. I think that is why Islam looks at us and is inclined to call us “infidels.” Cheating and Lying are a way of life today. Our culture is not about life. It is about pleasure. There is not enough faith, the kind of faith that grows from repentance and change. Although anger doesn’t make most of us murderers, our lust doesn’t make most of us rapists, and our greed and envy do not make most of us outright criminals, together with gluttony, arrogance, and sloth, there isn’t much glory, and those who have to live with us are miserable. Our failure to live up to the glory that is ours is as tragic as the unhappiness our evil causes.

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, we are less that human and less than what God has made us to be. 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 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 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. 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. Too many these days have no sins. They just have issues! So, call it what you want, but it is deadly, and there is an alternative if we choose to change.

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. Those people 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.

“Morality is like art, said G.K. Chesterton, “it consists of drawing a line somewhere.” We live in an age in which no lines seem to be drawn at all, or those that have been drawn are being erased. In my 73rd year of life and almost 50 years as priest I have come to recognize that an unhealed wound, a kind of sinful restlessness, afflicts humanity and robs us of glory.

Bruce Springsteen, “The Boss” wrote a song that describes our age when he sings: “Everybody has a hungry heart.” I think we are hungry for glory, hungry for the life we should have had by God’s will and God’s original plan for us. But we have traded our glory for something else, and sin is the consequence. Our hunger is for God and the glory that comes from being in God’s presence. 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 a short-cut either. We cannot fill ourselves with things that do not satisfy, that do not fill us or lift us or hold us up.

I want to propose to you 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. It means that we learn from today’s Gospel that we have to change and that what we do here cannot be a shallow and mechanical repetition of the same old thing again and again as it had become in the Jerusalem Temple. Nothing there ever changed. That cannot be so with us. We have to change. I invite you to give three evenings this week for the sake of the truth and glory; three evenings in this church for the sake of life itself, your life. Tonight we shall reflect upon Pride and Envy, tomorrow night Anger and Sloth, Tuesday night Greed, Gluttony, and Lust.  I’ve saved the best till last! I hope to see you again for prayer tonight night when we might begin to consider how it is that we satisfy our hungers and our thirst, because “everybody has a hungry heart.” What it will take to satisfy that hunger is found here and nowhere else. 

Genesis 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18 + Psalm 116 + Romans 8:31b-34 + Mark 9:2-10

Many have been troubled over the story of Abraham and Isaac wondering how God could ask such a thing, but this is not a story about God. It is a story about Abraham. It is all about Abraham. It is about a man who listens to God. It is Abraham’s willingness to listen and obey that reveals the true nature of God not as a God who asks sacrifice, but a God promises to provide and rain down blessings greater than anyone could imagine or deserve.

The Gospel of Mark today confirms the expectation that we are to listen to the voice of God, and those who do listen will experience first a transformation and then a transfiguration into the glory of God. The transformation is seen in lepers who are cleansed, blind who see, lame who walk. This deeper transformation is their restoration within the community of the faithful, as outcasts are touched, healed, and brought home, as sinners are welcomed and included in banquets and and feasts all in the company of the one who shows us how to listen. Our own best hope as that by listening to the Word of God we too will find ourselves transformed in this life. We call it “conversion”. It is the focus of this season, and the whole purpose of our prayer, fasting, and sacrifices. This experience of transformation brings us healing and forgiveness, reconciliation, and hope.

Finally like all those who have gone before us, Abraham and Moses included, the transformation will find us once and finally transfigured through death into the glory that is God’s gift and promise through Jesus Christ. What those apostles saw on that mountain was what lies in store for those transformed by listening to God’s Son. What they saw was what we may all be if we listen. They did not and could not understand until they saw and experienced what transformation promises. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ which they witnessed and then understood by the power of the Holy Spirit would then be their own transfiguration if they would but listen.

There is or ought to be stillness in this season of Lent. These days should offer us time and desire to listen. To be truly fruitful and transformative, our observance of these forty days ought to provide time for listening. Whatever it is that we sacrifice and give up should provide some time for listening. Yet the noisy world in which we find ourselves makes no room for silence. Real listening is becoming a lost art. Double tasking,  the constant noise of children’s games on iPads and phones, Televisions shrieking away in empty rooms, ear phones jammed into ears everywhere are all the evidence we need that no one is listening; at least no one is listening to anything that matters.

This is a season for quiet, and in the stillness we can listen: listen to the longing of our hearts for peace, forgiveness, and healing. We can listen for the voice of God in the silence of God’s presence. We can listen for the cry of the poor whose pleas for justice and hope are muffled by the blare of consumerism’s unending advertisements. We can listen to the Word of God that will lead us to the glory of a final transfiguration that will be our own resurrection from sin and sin’s consequences into mercy and the fullness of life.

There is still time in these Lenten days to obey the command spoken on that mountain. “Listen” God says. Listen, and when you do the promises made to Abraham will be ours.

Genesis 9, 8-15 + Psalm 25 + 1 Peter 3, 18-22 + Mark 1, 12-15

The first followers of Jesus Christ did not follow him because they believed he was God. They followed him and eventually began to imitate long before they began to worship him. They changed their lives and left everything behind following him from town to town, synagogue to synagogue because they saw something valuable in the way he lived. They saw how he paid attention to things and people they had never noticed before, and he showed them how to change the world in which they lived. He did not do this by creating a new religion. He did it by showing them how to bring his new insights into the faith they already had. This is why it is important to understand how central “covenant” is in the faith of Jesus, and how central “covenant” is for us during Lent. Over and over again, we will hear about “covenant” during these Lenten weeks, until finally a “New Covenant” emerges at the end on Holy Thursday.

Today we hear about the first covenant with Noah. It is a little unique among the covenants because in this one God makes all the commitments. In every one that follows, there will be mutual responsibilities, and the covenant will revolve around each side keeping their obligations. Other covenants will follow like the one with Abraham and Sarah and another that Moses mediates on a mountain top. There was always something more to these covenants than the mutual obligations. There was an understanding that the obligations were the bare minimum, and that something more was always expected. Jesus was a man of covenant, and he believed and understood this matter of doing more than was expected.

Think of it this way. Marriage is a covenant. The terms or obligations of the covenant are set out in the vow: “I will be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I love and honor you all the days of my life.” In an older version it says: “to have and to hold from this day forward for better, for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.” Now, if that’s all you do for one another and nothing more, it isn’t going to be much of a relationship. It takes a lot more than that for a covenant to be life-giving and lasting. You can do “little things” and sometimes big things that bring give life and joy into a relationship. There are countless little things that you don’t have to do, but when done out of love bring joy. These things bring freedom into a covenant because while we are not free to break the covenant, we are free to do more than the obligations. This is what Jesus began to show his followers. Just keeping the rules and doing the bare minimum does not allow a covenant to be life-giving and lead the two in the covenant to come closer together and become one.

Here we discover what Jesus was doing and teaching his disciples. Story after story, parable after parable he takes his covenant relationship with God beyond the rules and regulations to which most people adhered somewhat rigidly. Faith for Jesus and his commitment to his Father led him to find commitment with others and experience God working in every situation of his life by always doing more than was required.

The season we have now begun is focused on covenant, but not to examine how well we keep the rules, but to lead us to freedom and into the reign of God. That freedom and the real fulfillment of the covenant is found in doing more than what is required.

So a rule says: no meat on Friday. Is that the best you can do? It says two days of fast every year. Is two days the only time you might fast? Mass once a week on Sunday. Is that all you can manage? A commandment says: “Do not kill.”  Have you done anything to give life? “Do not steal.” Have you given anything away? It isn’t hard to look at our lives this way. This way of life and this way of relationship in covenant is what those disciples learned from Jesus. Our faith and the covenant we have in the Body and Blood of Christ is about being more than average, about doing more than just getting by, about living more deeply, joyfully, and freely by doing little things and big things that are not required, but freely chosen out of love for one another and love for God.