May 11, 2025 at Saint William and Saint Peter Parishes in Naples, FL

Acts 13: 14, 43-53 + Psalm 100 + Revelation 7: 9, 14-17 + John 10:27-30

Those of you holding books in your hands know that I have taken the liberty of adding more earlier verses to the Gospel passage assigned to this day. I have done so because the four verses we get out of context in Chapter ten leave us nowhere. At least, I didn’t know what to do with those verses several weeks ago when I began to prepare for today. We have to know why he said that. We know about hearing the voice of Jesus, and all that it promises. But that last verse is the punch line that matters: “The Father and I are one.” 

So, don’t get all sentimental about this shepherd talk and shepherd image. In my opinion, artists have complicated our access to the message of this Gospel painting a calm, long haired, slim, white-faced man dressed in flowing white robes. The truth is, no real shepherd then or now looks clean, spotless, and well groomed. It’s dirty, messy work, and if they’ve been sleeping in the field with the sheep, they will not look like they have stepped out of a painting or greeting card. 

At this point in John’s Gospel the identity of Jesus is the issue. This is what matters here, identity – his and ours. He is not claiming to be a shepherd. He is claiming to be one with God. In doing so, he is giving us a clue about how God works or God feels. At this point in the flow of this Gospel, those John writes to are stuck over the issue of identity and how to confirm or recognize it.

Just before this conversation begins, Jesus has cured a man born blind, and this act has stirred up a controversy over the identity of Jesus. Some of these Pharisees feel like Jesus might well be the Messiah judging from his works. Others, paying no attention to what he does and only listening to what he says, think he is a fraud. They refuse to connect words and works.

The importance for establishing an identity through works is what matters, not words, especially if the words do not match the works. John is writing to those early followers of Christ. They are struggling with the Jewish community in synagogues, and John is reminding them about what matters. They will never win over those in the synagogues with arguments and words. What they do is what will get the attention of their opponents, and he has the same message for us. We ought to remember that it was the things Jesus did that brought those crowds of people to him. Once they were attracted by what he did, he began to speak about what it meant and who he was.It can be no different now. The Gospel we proclaim on this Fourth Easter-Time Sunday gives us reason to look carefully at what we do all day long, how we use our time, and where we go. This is what reveals who we are. After taking a good look at what we do, we might then see if what we say matches what we do remembering what Jesus had to say to those who questioned who he was. “The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me.” The question raised today is who we are – and what we do all day tells the truth.

May 4, 2025 I am in Oklahoma City this weekend

Acts 5:27-32, 40-41 + Psalm 30 + Revelation 5: 10-14 + John 21: 1-19

John’s use of darkness and light should be familiar to us by now after hearing the Passion proclaimed on Good Friday. It continues today as the disciples go fishing at night. They catch nothing. We should know by now what’s coming, and John does not disappoint. After the uselessness of darkness, he tells us it is daybreak, and now they go they back to fish again in the light, and the catch is huge. Once you get the point of what happens when we work in the light of Christ, the Gospel hardly needs any preaching. I could sit down now, but the Word has more to say to us.

There is a charcoal fire there on the shore, and it’s not the first time we have heard about a charcoal fire if you recall the Passion Narrative. This time Peter does a bit better than he did at the other charcoal fire allowing the Gospel to reveal both the place of Peter among the apostles, and the patient, forgiving mercy of Jesus toward those whose faith is inconsistent. Peter gets to start over as Jesus calls him by his former name: “Simon, son of John.” He does not call him “Peter.” Then, with Peter’s final affirmation of faith, he gets the same invitation he had much earlier, “Follow me.” This time, Peter knows the truth of what following Jesus will cost him, and so do we.

Many come into this church today after a week of hard work that sometimes produces nothing like those men fishing in the dark. We come into this church today, into the light of the risen Christ who will feed us here as he fed those weary apostles. We come into this church today, and he asks us who are so much like Peter, “Do you love me?” “Do you love me?” As we consider our answer to his question, we need to remember the cost of saying, “I do.” 

May 1, 2005 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Acts 8:5-8,14-17 + 1 Peter 3:15-18 + John 14:15-21

“Notebook” is the name of a movie released this past year that drifted through my mind as I sat with these verses of John’s Gospel through the past week. Sometimes the complexity, the developing theology,  the profound and unique Christology of John’s Gospel

allows us all to slip past the simplicity and sheer poetry of the verses. Had I not watched that film one evening with these verses of John’s Gospel fresh in my mind, I probably would have missed it altogether. These verses are really a poem for lovers.

They reflect a unique style of love rooted in intimacy and profound care. Those whose only experience of love is fleeting infatuation or sexual attraction will never get it; but those who have discovered in love the bonding of companionship and union recognize that these verses literally sing of union and peace of love and joy. This kind of love the poet John is writing about possess four qualities:

obedience, companionship, revelation and union.

Unfortunately in our culture and language, the word Obedience carries far too many meanings, because having lost our knowledge of the root of words we often fail to rediscover their authentic meaning.

In the context of Love, and religion for that matter, “Obedience” is not about following orders nearly as much as it is about listening, about the ability to be open to listen to the authentic invitations for life and respond in a way that is consistent with our own identity.

The root meaning, and so virtue of Obedience is about listening and responding.

Companionship heralds the authentic commitment of love. When there is love, there is commitment, and in this commitment, the focus is the other, their well-being, the desire to help them grow.

The miracle of this love is that two individuals who have first cared only for themselves and have seen themselves as individuals begin to protect, touch, and think only of another. Then in this authentic gospel love, there is revelation that means transparency and vulnerability based on trust. When someone discovers that they are cared for, they risk revealing more of themselves.

This love that Jesus speaks of to those who choose a life style fit for the Kingdom of God is inclusive. It is not experienced and expressed in the same depth by everyone, but it is seen in people joined together in obedience, companionship. They care for one another, and in that caring, God is revealed.

The love our poet writes of today is the love we find at the heart of our lives. Our knowledge of God and God’s love comes to us through our experience of love in creation; in the experience of loving and being loved by the other. Husbands and wives know this best of all, and for that reason, their experience of love is a Sacrament that reveals God’s love and makes them one with God.

Children know this love from their experience of loving parents

who give them the freedom to grow without fear because they are cared for, protected with a love that is truly sacrificial.

The wonder of God’s love is that it does not ask us to choose between God and the other. It asks us to choose God through the other. Our very ability to live in obedience, companionship, revelation and union with ourselves and others is founded on and strengthened by God’s love.

In the film, Notebook, a wife of many years suffers from dementia,

and she has lost all recognition of her loved ones except for brief moments when her memories are ignited by a loving spouse

who reads to her every day from his journal. There are brief and fleeting moments of recognition that give him reason to live in the nursing home with her, treasuring those memories and moments of “obedience” and companionship. This is a metaphor of God’s love for us, the story of God’s patient willingness to live with us,

to retell and to remember the story of our love over and over;

because from time to time we wake up and remember, restore and celebrate the covenant we have made and share.

The poem of this day’s Gospel speaks of that love, of the promise of presence in a relationship of obedience, companionship, revelation, and unity. For this love we have reason to rejoice today,to give thanks,because we are cared for and protected with a love that is truly sacrificial.

April 27, 2025 At Saint Peter and Saint William Churches in Naples, FL

Acts 5:12-16 + Psalm 118 + Revelation 1:9-11, 12-13, 17-19 + John 20:19-31

“I have seen the Lord” says Mary Magdalene. “We have seen the Lord” the disciples tell Thomas. These declarations bring to a climax a theme of sight and blindness that runs through John’s Gospel as a whole. At an earlier time, some Greeks come to the disciples saying, “We wish to see Jesus,” but he hides from view and reveals himself only to the disciples. It’s as though he does not really want to be seen except after he has risen. After the resurrection there are always the wounds suggesting that if we do not see Jesus on the cross as well as in resurrected glory, we will not see him at all.

Perhaps then, wounds are important for recognizing Jesus, and there are plenty of wounds around these days. Wounded people are everywhere except where politicians want to hide them. As a Church, we feed them, we comfort them, and we do so because we can see not with the eye, but with the soul. We believe.  Notice in this Gospel that Thomas does not want to see Jesus. He wants to see the wounds. This is not about whether the resurrection is real or not. It is about whether it matters or not. It is one thing to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead. It is quite another to believe that it can mean anything for our lives.

The marks and wounds still matter today, but they are not the ones in the side and hands of Jesus. They are our wounds, the ones in this city and everywhere people suffer.

We hear so many stories from people without faith that include their disillusionment with the church, and our failure to make real what we profess. What this world is looking for, at heart, is some legitimate and trustworthy connection with the Divine. That can happen when we are present revealing the love, the patience, the forgiveness and mercy of God.

Faith in the Resurrection of Christ is not a dogma we have to believe. It is a new way of life that comes from the conviction that Christ’s new life is ours as well. The Resurrection is not a mystery to be clung to either. It is a practice that develops in new and deeper ways as we live into it. With practice, our lives will proclaim the presence of Christ in every wounded, living human being. As we perfect a new way of life that recognizes the living Christ in every single one of God’s children, wars will cease, hunger will vanish, and those most abandoned, avoided, and feared will be embraced, while those who do not believe come from darkness into the light.

April 20, 2025 at St Peter the Apostle and Saint William Churches in Naples, FL

Acts 10: 34, 37-43 + Psalm 118 + Colossians 3: 1-4 + John 20: 1-9

There is a lot of running around in the Gospel verses we proclaim today, and it is proclaimed to world that is still running around all over the place. From one relationship to another, from one job to another, from one home to another, the running goes on and on. Artificial Intelligence tells me that there are 45,000 passenger planes in the air every day with 2.9 million people in them. They will all hit the ground and start running all over the place. Yet, here we are in the sacred space, and at least for the moment, no one is running, but many of you know the signal to start.

Just like Mary, Peter, and John, we have run to this place hopefully seeking the Lord. Like those three, we are sometimes confused, sometimes uncertain, sometimes believing, and most of the time struggling. The world in which we live and from which we sometimes want to run insists that religion has had its day and that the church is finished. The resurrection could not possibly have happened. “Some things never change” so they say, leaving us all frozen in time helpless and hopeless in the face life’s challenges and demands.

As John writes these verses, there are four characters put before us: Mary, Peter, John, and “They.” There is always a “they” in this life and so they have to appear in this story. “They” have taken the Lord. It was the “they” who were at work in the trial and death of Jesus. It was “they” who stirred up the people. “They” were the ones who decreed that the body of Jesus must be removed for whatever reason. They are always nameless, their identity is vague, but they are always pitted against us the helpless.  Whatever it is we don’t like or whatever leaves us helpless, it is almost always, “they.” They closed my street for repairs. They turned off the water to fix the pipes, and we are never quite sure exactly who has done this, but we have a vague sense of some power impinging on my world. 

All of this thinking can eventually make us unwilling to take personal responsibility for our lives. A world dominated by “they” is one in which we are forever at the mercy of powers and authorities beyond us leaving us without any control over our destiny. This is what Mary, Peter, and John were facing the moment they stared into that empty tomb.

Have “they” done something or not? Are “they” going to determine what those three see and believe? That’s the issue here. “They” are casting their influence over Mary and the others. As we see, that spell, that dark power gets broken. It does not happen all at once for everyone, but in the character of these three we see how it is possible to move from the anger, fear, and grief of Mary to Peter’s curious wonder over how or why the wrappings and napkin were all folded up to the belief of John.

My friends, faith in the resurrection of Christ is not a dogma. It is a way of life that flows from the conviction that Christ’s new life is ours as well. It is not some mystery to cling to. It is a practice to develop in new and deeper ways. I can stand here saying these things because I have witnessed the resurrection, and so have you. I have seen survivors of tragedies that “they” have caused rise up with courage starting a new live that in many ways is better than the old. I have seen men and women face the death of their loving companions come out of a tomb called “grief” and find and live a new life marked by hope and joy. I’ve seen people whose homes have been destroyed by fire or storm begin life again with joy because they are still together.

In this life, if we surrender to the power “they” may have over us, we shall live always in fear, plagued by doubts, angry and helpless. The resurrection of Jesus Christ offers us another way. It is the way of hope. It is the way of faith. It is without a doubt, the way of love which conquers all things. We have to go into that tomb. We have to die a little to ourselves if we have any hope of coming out. We have to take off the clothes of death, remove the veil that covers our face and our eyes so that we can see the face of God and live. When we do so, our lives will proclaim the presence of Christ and we can dare to proceed in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This will make all the difference in the world.

April 18, 2025 At Saint Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

Isaiah 52: 13-53:12 + Psalm 31 + Hebrews 4: 14-16, 5: 7-9 + John 18: 1-19:42

We have just completed part one of a great and ancient ritual that has known very little change since the year 381 when a pilgrim made her way to Jerusalem to join that early Christian Community gathering to remember what Saint John passed on to us. She writes that the Christians gathered in silence at the place of the crucifixion from Eight in the Morning until Three in the afternoon with the wooden cross exposed. Then they carried that cross to their church where they listened to the Prophet, sang Psalms, and offered prayers for all in the world. Their focus was the Passion and Death of Christ. It was a day of intense fast and constant prayer. The fast even extended to Holy Communion, because there was no Mass celebrated on Friday or Saturday of Holy Week. The cross was what held them and drew them together just as it does today.

In a few moments we shall begin the Solemn Prayers for all the world with the hope that no one might be left out of God’s Mercy and God’s Kingdom. After which, the climactic moment that brings us here today begins as a cross of wood is brought into this place. We can only be stunned to silence by the power of that cross. An instrument of death becomes the source of our hope.

Some have and always will wonder what kind of God could demand the death of his only Son before forgiving us. They have failed to listen to the New Testament that never says God demands the death of His Son. It does say that Christ came among us to do the will of the Father. Jesus is crucified while doing the will of his Father. That does not make his dreadful death what the Father desired or demanded. A child can be killed while doing some chore asked for by a parent. The parent only asked for that chore, not the death.

The one great gift all of us have and have had since the dawn of creation is the gift of a will and freedom. The great adventure of life is about the choices we make with that freedom, and the whole history of human life is one great struggle over making the right choices. Until now, the stories of that history are tragic and violent. Too often we have come close to destroying everything and ourselves.

Then comes Jesus. That moment in history when God resets creation, and God’s Son comes with his mission saying: “I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me.” (John 6:38) He came to want what the Father has wanted from the very beginning, that we might all be one living in peace in this beautiful garden God made for us.

As we just heard, Jesus gave up his spirit so that his spirit might be poured out into us, and showered upon all creation. This ought to leave us startled and stunned only to be awakened, like Christ on Easter, empowered by the gifts of that Spirit to lift high the cross, to stand firm in the face of evil, to set right what is broken, always thirsting to do the Father’s will. When we do, we will know what Jesus knew at the final moment. It is “Enough.”

April 13, 2025 at Saint Peter Churches in Naples, FL

Isaiah 50: 4-7 + Psalm 22 + Philippians 1: 6-11 + Luke 22: 14-23:56

Our prayer is long today, and we give to God some extra time to listen to his Word and remember the two gifts we have all been given: life and death. Without that second gift, the first one, life, would not be nearly as precious. In fact, it might actually be tedious, monotonous, and frightening.

While we live we have before us a troubling sign of God’s love with the memory and the image of an innocent man crucified. Over and over again in Luke’s Passion Jesus is found not-guilty, and yet, a victim of jealousy and fear he dies while everyone who knew him, who loved, who followed him everywhere said nothing. We like to think that the Romans killed him and the leaders of the people demanded it. But the truth is, silence killed him. Even Joseph of Aramathea, a member of the Sanhedrin who, Luke tells us, did not consent to their plan seems to have done nothing except bury the body of an innocent man.

We have much to remember and even more to ponder this Holy Week. What must not be forgotten is that silence in the face in any injustice is a terrible thing that leaves us all accountable and responsible for the suffering of innocent people. We gaze at the cross and hear its story over and over again to be reminded of what comes next, because it is not the end of our story of God’s love.

It is Easter that we really celebrate. It is the hope we have in the face of death that gives us reason to really live. For people like us who can see beyond the cross, hope always defeats despair, joy wins over sorrow, good triumphs over evil, and faith conquers fear.

April 6, 2025 at Saint William Catholic Church in Naples, FL

Isaiah 43: 16-21 + Psalm 126 + Philippians 3: 8-14  + John 8: 1-12

 A quick look or listen to this Gospel and we could easily think that this is about the sin of adultery. But that doesn’t say much to me and, I hope, to most of you. Adultery is not my problem. Christ is speaking to us today in this place, and he is not speaking about adultery. There is shameful sin involved in the way these scribes and Pharisees treated that woman. There is not a shred of evidence that they recognized a human being. There is no sense that they gave any thought to her feelings. They are using her as bait to trap Jesus.

There is another sin in their attitude toward Jesus. They wanted to shut him up and just do away with him. Murder is in their hardened hearts and a stubborn refusal to listen to him because he threatened their way of life and their values. Those Pharisees thought more of the law than the person. Maybe the greater sin here is their refusal of mercy, and mercy is what this is all about, because that is what we see at this moment in Jesus Christ.

Do not be distracted by that writing on the ground business. No scholar knows what that is all about. Wasting time even thinking about it avoids facing the demands of this story. One of the most basic principles left to us by Jesus is that no human being is to judge another. Distinguishing the difference between the sin and the sinner, Jesus does not condemn. He did not need to realizing that she was already condemned. She did not need that. What she needed was mercy. Those standing around, and even some today might ask why she deserved mercy. Of course, that thinking only comes to those who have forgotten what mercy is, a gift, a pure gift. No one earns it. No one deserves it.

Jesus never approved of the sin. In fact, he urges her to sin no more, and he does so in such a way that his respect for her comes through in the telling of the story. He invites her to conversion which is why we retell this story now near the very end of Lent as we approach Holy Week. It’s not too late, is the message. It is not too late to recognize our own sin. It is not too late to admit that we have and we do use other people sometimes for our selfish pleasure or to protect our comfortable lives. It is not too late to open our hearts and our minds to the truth and the message of Jesus Christ. It is not too late to stop judging other people, to stop humiliating others and treating them without any respect for their human dignity no matter what they have done to themselves. We don’t need to do any more damage to them. It is not too late to hope for mercy either because we all need it badly.

Compassion for fellow human beings is without a doubt one of the most important things in life. If there was more of it, there would be lasting peace, and there would be justice that looks less like punishment or revenge. We would all be better for it and have more hope that standing before Christ in judgement we might receive what we do not deserve, his mercy.

March 30, 2025 at Saint William Catholic Church in Naples

Joshua 5: 9-12 + Psalm 23 + 2 Corinthians 5: 17-21 + Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32

 The Great Journey to Jerusalem continues with one of the best loved and known parables of Jesus. It speaks to all of us who know jealous rivalry, conflict between children and parents or among the children themselves. It speaks to every community that has some members who just go their merry way taking and never giving, and others who work faithfully for the good of all. Today we get a shocking picture of how the path of reconciliation begins.

The first shock is the son’s request, which at the time of Jesus and in that culture really meant he wished his father was dead. The second shock is that the older son raises no objection to this. The third shock is that father goes along with it. Those who heard this parable from Jesus would have gasped at that father’s behavior. He should have thrown the kid out with nothing and changed the locks. Today we would call that kind of father an “enabler.” Even more shocking is the father’s behavior later in the story as he gives up his manly dignity and runs outside with a kiss, a ring, and a robe. I’ve always wondered where the mother was. I think she nagged him until he surrendered his macho ideas and asked her to set the table for the party.

Familiar as the story is to us, we have to be careful and thoughtful about who of the three in the story gets our attention and is worthy of our imitation. I have sat through more Penance Rites than any of you have ever attended listening to preachers talk about the younger son urging everyone to repentance. Hardly ever does anyone pay attention to the other one who is really much more like us. People who can identify with the younger son are not here. They are still out there somewhere living it up with their “eat, drink, and be merry” life-style. We are the ones who are always here. We are the ones who give, sacrifice, and do what God asks of us, and herein lies the danger.

At that time, his attitude is a mirror image of the Pharisees toward sinners. Remember, this story started because the tax collectors and sinners were coming to Jesus and the Pharisees were plotting against him because he ate with them. An attitude of entitlement and privilege is the greatest problem emerging from this story then and now. It is a strong warning that God’s love is not earned. We are all God’s sons and daughters. We are not slaves. That sick and sinful attitude is dangerous to the whole human family of God.

This parable in an invitation to consider our discipleship and how it may deteriorate into joyless resentment toward those who seem to be benefiting undeservedly from all that God offers. At the same time, we might recognize the free offer of God to us all, a shocking generosity offered by the one is willing to pay the high humiliating cost to gather in all the children, none of whom have earned the right to this inheritance. The father is the humble one here, not that son.

Don’t think that the young one learned humility when he recognized how low he had sunk and decided to go home. His rehearsed speech was a job application. It had nothing to do with the family, with humility, or with repentance.  He was broke and he needed a job.  It’s the father who teaches us something here about God’s costly, humble love for us.  “All that I have is yours” he says to us. The cost of accepting that is to replicate such reconciling love in our own attitudes and actions.

March 27, 2005 At Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Acts 10: 34, 37-43 + Colossians 3: 1-4 + Matthew 28: 1-10