February 25, 2007 At Saint Mark in Norman, OK

Deuteronomy 26:1-11 + Psalm 91 + Romans 10:8-13 + Luke 4:1-13

It’s our desert time, this Lent. Forty days to spend looking deeply and honestly into ourselves. Or forty days of slight inconvenience caused by the loss of trivial little things we probably don’t need anyway or use in excess most of the time. The story Luke puts before is not something from a journal kept by Jesus. No piece of history, this is the story of anyone who might choose to spend some time wondering who they are and what they might become with the gifts they have discovered in themselves.

This is a story that raises the question we must all eventually ask ourselves. Why am I doing this or that? Why have I made these choices? The temptations of this story are not about bread from stones, kingdoms observed from a high place, or the need to see if God is really there for us. The issue here faced by Jesus in that desert is identity, but when we tell it here, it is not just the identity of Jesus, but the identity of any of us.

In that desert, Jesus had to decide whether to exercise his power as Son of God for himself or for others. He had to decide whether his power

would bring him riches and prestige or simply the knowledge that he was doing God’s will. Our desert time for the next six weeks can do the same.

The gifts with which we find ourselves are not much different from the gifts Jesus recognized in himself. The challenge and the question proposed by this Gospel is the same. What are we doing to do with the life we have? What are we going to do with the gifts we find in such abundance? Use them for ourselves? For our ambition, prestige, or power? Behind these three temptations is a much bigger issue.

The real temptation Jesus faces here has nothing to do with bread, kingdoms, or assurances of God’s care and presence. The real temptation for Jesus is one we face all the time. We’re not temped to turn stone into bread, to imagine ourselves as the leader and ruler of nations. We are not tempted to try something silly to see if God will rescue us. But, our identity is called into question all the time. The temptation Jesus faced in that desert was about what he was to become: what he understood himself to be from his Baptism? Or what someone else (the devil) would like him to become?

Is his life and are his decisions shaped by what happened at his Baptism,

or is his life and decisions shaped by what someone else thought of him or wanted him to be? That’s the real temptation he faced, and he faced it all the time. Easy to become a miracle worker having people flock around, call him by name, run out to meet him Miracles are cool. They’re fascinating. Why not feed all those hungry people with a miracle? That would be a lot easier than doing it yourself! That’s the problem with this thinking. It leaves God to the heavy lifting, so to speak. The other problem with miracles is that it leave people passive expecting God to do everything.

These forty days might well give us time once again to examine why we do the things we have chosen to do; and give us pause to consider again who we really are by Baptism and what God wants of us, or because of what others think of us. This is the real temptation of life. It is first focused on what we become, then on what we do because of it.

February 21, 2007 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Joel 2:12-18 + Psalm 51 + 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:10 + Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Islam with it’s face to the ground, Israel with covered heads. Ashes on our faces, because we are not worthy. Ramdan, Passover, Lent: we fast, all of us. Financial Sacrifice for the sake of others because God expects it from everyone. The mood this day, the spirit of this occasion for all of us

is not a matter of convenience or how we feel. We are not “invited” to pray to fast, to give. It is command. It is what we do because of who we are.

Yet this is not the sort of talk we like. This age, and this western culture in which we find ourselves believes that convenience trumps all that freedom means choice that if it doesn’t feel good, we don’t do it, and that if we don’t get something, we’re not about to give.

The prophet says, NO to that thinking. The “Lord” in this reading doesn’t say: “Could I please have your attention?” or “Would you mind looking this way?” He says: “Return to me.” It means: “Get over here.” “And while you’re at it, Get on your knees. Get hungry,and do so0mething for someone who can’t do anything for you.”

There is nothing soft or easy about what God expects of us, and this season simplifies the message. The mercy of God is useless to those who have not repented and asked for it. The kindness of God is not available

to those who know nothing of kindness. The generosity of God is not going to be experienced by those who are not generous.

This day and the season it begins is about rediscovering the image in which we have been created. We have forty days to figure out how much we resemble God; God as we have experienced Him in human form: Christ Jesus. We shall in the weeks to come explore in depth that human form of God And if we have prayed like him, fasted like him, and given like him, we shall first of all be able to resist temptation as we shall soon hear this Sunday. And finally when the forty days of our lives are complete, we shall rise like him from the dead. Until then we shall wear the mark of death but only as an exterior sign of something going on inside. Within, we shall pray more than ever.

Our prayer shall be for mercy, and we shall seek forgiveness in a public way which is just what the Sacrament of Penance is all about. If you think you can just handle it privately between you and God, then why not just make your own Ashes? There is a connection between this action and confession of sins. Mercy is not imposed. It is given to those who ask.

We shall fast, and it doesn’t mean giving up chocolate. Fasting is not a diet or a return to healthy eating. It is a refusal. It is saying “No:  to an appetite: every appetite. By saying, “NO”; we resist temptation and sin. That’s what it’s all about, learning again the meaning of “NO!” We don’t like that word in this culture, but this culture needs to be redeemed, and it will only happen by fasting.

We shall also make and offer sacrifices, and it doesn’t mean loose change that we don’t need anyway. It means feeding someone, putting a roof over their head, or heat in their house, because we have too much to eat, too many empty rooms and beds, and way too many coats. The bottom line is, we have no right to these things. What we have is obligation. The freedom and the choice we have is what to do, not whether or not we should.

These are tough words and tough things to think about. This season is tough, is serious, and very, very real. Forty days in a desert is tough business. Accepting the mark of the cross is not for show. It is for life and for salvation.

February 18, 2007 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

1 Samuel 26:2, -9,12-13,22-23 + Psalm 103 + 1 Corinthians 15: 45-49 + Luke 6:27-38

This Gospel will thin the ranks of disciples. It goes against common sense.

Doing good to those who hate you is codependency at its best. It is masochism at worst. Giving to everyone who begs will eventually means that you’ll be begging and find out that most people don’t give to those who beg. In the end, you begin to wonder if Jesus skipped Playground 101? What happened to that God who was going to make my enemies my foot stool? Where is the God of Moses and Elijah who slaughtered enemies? What we are hearing today is a parody on that saying: “Do unto others before they do unto you.”

Jesus has seen the never-ending nature of violence and the never-ending nature of God. The two are incompatible. Our relationship to that God of love must be stronger than our relationship to anything else, and eventually we will have to make a choice. They are incompatible.

In other words: circumstances do not control us. Enemies, persecutors, haters do not make us into themselves infecting us with their toxicity, but that is always their power. They make returning evil seem necessary, a matter of survival. In that thinking, we decide that we didn’t start it, but we can end it…………. No, we can’t. It has never been so.

We always have the option to choose between a reaction and a response. The difference between the two is only a matter of a pause. There is no pause before a reaction. It is simply knee-jerk and mindless. After a pause however, there can be a response that is mindful and more in touch with who we really are. In the choice between reaction and response lies growth and happiness. Our ability to take that pause – to stand in the space of time is the measure of our spiritual development.

We make a choice in that space between slavery to compulsive reaction or liberation from reactivity.

The truth here is simple: our personal actions create the world in which we live. When we get bone-dead honest with ourselves, we know the connection between how we act toward others and our own destiny.

If we are judgmental and condemning of others, we end up swallowed in negative fury. When we are fiercely righteous, we never see it, but our own inner state of self-condemnation targets others while it really brings us to judgment. What we think is harmful to others is really harmful to us.

It also works in reverse. The way of forgiveness in Jesus may first seem to benefit others, but it is ultimately our way to fulfillment and freedom. The generosity we bestow on others always overflows into our lives. We find ourselves, so often the recipient of our own generosity. How we treat others becomes how we are treated.

This truth is not put before us as an article of belief. We are not asked today to say “Yes” because this is the inspired word of God, but because if we look deeply enough what is revealed here is human experience illuminated by the Word of God. It takes a little practice, but in time we realize that what Jesus proposes is really the truth, and as Flannery O’Connor said: “The truth will make us odd.”

It takes a little practice to enjoy that pause and be comfortable in choosing a response rooted in our true identity rather than be trapped in one reaction after another.

February 11, 2007 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Jeremiah 17: 5-8  + Psalm 1 + 1 Corinthians 15: 12, 16-20 + Luke 6:20-26

There is a great risk of “spiritualizing” these words of Jesus that is often a way of insulating ourselves from their literal meaning. To get the message here, we must pay attention to both. That “the poor” exist as a social class, marginalized and powerless is itself part of the message. It should not be so. They should not be poor. Their very existence is an indictment those who leave them poor. Those allow the poverty to continue will not enjoy the consolation of the Kingdom. If there are hungry people, there is something wrong with the well fed. If someone is weeping, there is something wrong with those who gave them reason to weep. If someone is hated, this Gospel suggests that there is something wrong with the one who does the hating.

The wealth of this world and its pleasures are not the blessings we might think they are. In truth, the wealth we enjoy and its pleasures are a challenge, a burden, and a responsibility. Provoking our reflection is the purpose of the paradox Luke puts before us today.

There is a popular television preacher these days who proclaims that God wants us to be rich. This preacher says “NO” to that. God wants us to be Holy, and the only rich holy people (Saints) I know of became holy because they cared more about injustice than about their wealth.

This Gospel cannot be spiritualized into silence. Luke, whose community historically must have embraced many wealthy people in its time, speaks to the rich the good news that their salvation lies in concern for the poor and in using their goods for others. This message in our day carries not only to individuals, but to corporations as well, since the whole idea of a “corporation” implies the collective people who give the system identity and power.

Jesus has been up on the mountain alone with God. There in prayer, he must have attuned himself to the mind or will of God. Coming down from there into our midst, he reveals God’s vision for human life in contrast to the way humans are really living it. It is this discrepancy that drives the blessings and woes. Out of sync with God, this world’s judgments are off the mark. Success or failure, happiness or despair as this world sees it is not normative nor lasting, because it is too far from the Will of God. “Real Life” is constructed upon the rock of spiritual truth, and it takes seriously the Word of God as normative for how we live now and every day.

Timothy in his Epistle spells it out best of all.

“For those who in the present age are rich, command t hem not be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.”

February 4, 2007 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Isaiah 6:1-8 + Psalm 138 + 1 Corinthians 15: 1-11 + Luke 5:1-11

There is a wonderful sense of movement in today’s Gospel; and the movement carries the message. Pay attention to the boat which starts at the shore, then “puts out a little.” Finally, it goes to the deep water. There in deep water things happen which eventually lead Peter and the others back to shore. Two different groups of people receive the Word of God:

the crowd and the disciples; those who stay on the shore, and those who get into the deep water. The contrast and the point which Luke makes with these details is very important.

Those who go out, who are willing to leave the shore, those who will go into deep water experience what they have heard. Those who stay on the shore only stand and listen. The disciples in the boat follow the instruction of Jesus, and the consequence of doing so is a blessing of abundance. This experience does not happen for those who stay in the shallows or choose the security of the shore. What we see happening is that those in the boat realize a life-changing, life transforming experience. They have done more than just listen to the Word spoken to them. They have let go of the shallows of life for the sake of the deep.

Isaiah, Paul, and Disciples are in today’s readings all called by God. But these calls are not calls to faith, they are calls to ministry. We are not called simply to life of personal holiness however important that may be.

We are, at least those who get in the boat and push away from the shore, called by God to be sent into this world. In the Gospel, Simon Peter is sent to “catch”. Now think of that image for a moment. “Catch” in the sense of fishing means to snatch up. In the sense of the Gospel, it means to snatch up from death. We must catch the fallen, hold up the stumbling. In more practical ways in this day and time, it means we might insist on fair practices at work, weed out prejudice and violence so that a new a just world may can be fashioned. In other words, we are told by Jesus to “catch” those who are falling through the net of life, those who are struck down by prejudice and injustice.

There is here a challenge to the shallowness of too many who call themselves Christians but stand on the shore. There is an opportunity, a call to put out into the deep, to risk such a change in life that we might get out into the open water. It seems to be the only place where fullness and abundance are found. Once that risk is taken, once that fullness is found, leaving everything is easy, and putting one’s feet on the path with Christ Jesus is the only way to go in this life.

So many times, in life we think and say: “I can’t do it.” and just as many times in Scripture God’s response is: “Of course you can’t. Nobody can, but I can.” The disproportion between our abilities and what we are asked to accomplish in our roles is far greater even that the disproportion between Peter’s ability as a fisherman and the catch he finally makes. What God asks of us is that we put out from the shore. What God asks of us is openness to truth, a willingness to learn, readiness to grow, a sense of responsibility and a generous spirit.

They caught nothing after a long night of fishing for themselves. In the company of Jesus, they do it again, and this time it’s more than they bargained for. Suddenly it’s the fishermen who get caught; caught by Jesus, caught and called from fear to humility, to trust, and to service. It won’t happen on the shore however; you have to get out into the deep.