March 29, 2009 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Jeremiah 31: 31-35 + Psalm 51 + Hebrews 5: 7-9 + John 12:20 -33

To an age and culture that prizes individuality this Gospel suggests something that might prove troubling. To people who find their identity by establishing and maintaining their unique difference from others this Gospel is almost unintelligible. Singularity and the ideology of individualism is a hoax; a lie that is the surest sign of sin’s presence in this world. From the very first reflection on the condition of sinful humankind in Genesis, to these words of Jesus in John’s Gospel the action and the will of God has been to restore the unity, wholeness and oneness of creation with the creator. It is not good to be alone! And so, a single grain of wheat opens up this message for us putting us in touch with what Jesus reveals as the will of His Father. The example Jesus uses is a grain of wheat. This is not an agricultural lesson. The point is not so much the object as it is the singleness. The adjective, single is the point; not the noun, wheat. It is the single grain that dies in its singularity. What dies is not the wheat, because it brings more wheat. What dies is singularity, the individuality. When it falls to the ground it is transformed and ceases to be a single grain.

That death or that passing away opens the way to life as God has planned and willed it. For that single grain there will never be a head of wheat until the individuality passes away. It is the singleness, the individuality, the separateness that must die before all the grains it produces can be harvest together.

This is the mystery of the incarnation opening up for us. Human and Divine separated by sin loose their separate condition and become one. The work of that One who is the Christ is the restoration of the oneness of the human condition. Think of what he does again and again with his signs: the lepers are restored to their relationship with the community from which they were separated by that disease; a dead girl, a centurion’s son, the sleeping Lazarus are brought back not just to life but restored to the relationships and family to which they belong. If the signs He works are not enough, listen to the prayer: “Father, that they may all be one as we are one.”

In these verses today, when Jesus exclaims that the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified, it is his response to the Greeks who have come to Philip and Andrew. He recognizes that his work is nearly complete. Those outsiders, those Greeks, are now coming in! The differences that have kept them apart are going away, the separate grain dies, and something new is coming to life.

The struggle that Jesus experiences is the struggle we all know only too well. The individual self dies hard. The independent spirit does not give up easily. Doing it my way, having my way, doing my thing, keeping my stuff, is not the way of life in Christ.

We are so locked into this thinking and this behavior. We start early in life thinking and too often saying: “Look what I did!” When in truth no one of us every does a thing by ourselves; but we think we have, and we are quick to suggest that there is something grand in that assumption.

This is what it means to die to self or to lose one’s life: It means to lose that separate, individualized, isolated, life for the sake of being one with all others and the Christ/God.

This was the work of Jesus: to become one and lose himself in others: to become one with the sinner and the outcast, to become one with the sick, the hungry, and the thirsty, to become one with the seekers and questioners, the married at Cana and the single young man who came wanting to be perfect. He even became one with the dead so that in the isolation of death, the divine presence might bring them all to rise on the last day.

In this divine plan we discover the meaning of what it means to be church: not separate congregations doing their own thing. This is why Paul says in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. All that makes us distinct, separate from one another and therefore from God must die, must pass away. When it does, the compassion of Christ will be known and shared by all. We will bear one another’s burdens because the burden of one is the burden of all. The hungry and the homeless will be fed and find shelter because no one will ever think that the food they have or their home is their own. Privilege will not mean possessions and power, but rather opportunities and duties. Remaining a single grain offers no promise of life, but when all that keeps us apart passes away and we lose that kind of life – we shall be transformed and finally have life everlasting.

March 8 2009 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Genesis 22: 1-2,9,10-13,15-18 + Psalm 116 + Romans 8: 31-24 + Mark 9: 2-10

The opening line of our first reading today sets the focus for our week:  “God put Abraham to the test.” Last week it was a test for Jesus in the desert, and as I said then,

such experiences need not simply be a time of trial and temptation.  They may also result in an unmistakable encounter with God who is always there in the wilderness. Abraham faces a test and meets the God who had promised him so much!

Our Gospel today is also the story of a test – a test for Peter, James, and John. Jesus is not the only one who has an encounter with the divine on that mountain. These followers of Jesus have one as well. Their test is about obedience and about what they see when they look at their Rabbi. Do they see a carpenter’s son who might be a political messiah leading them to freedom from Roman occupation? Or do they see someone who will be handed over and rise again? Can they follow a man whose destiny and whose vision they do not understand?

It is important to notice that their experience on the mountain is communal not individual just as the experience of Pentecost was not private or individual in an exclusive way; but communal and mutually formative and supportive.

This is an experience available to us when we have assembled on this mountain. What we see here is a “transfiguration” so to speak. If Peter, James, and John no longer saw a man from Nazareth but the glory of his exaltation, then we no longer see bread on this altar; but what it becomes for us. If Peter, James and John no longer saw the man they followed up that mountain but saw the glory of divine life in him, then we no longer see each other just a neighbor or a stranger for by grace that same glory shines in each of us. If Peter, James, and John heard a voice that said: “Listen to him.” So have we. If Peter, James, and John can take the risk of following Jesus even when they did not understand where he would lead them and what it would mean, so can we.

The risk of standing back and hearing this Gospel as though it was about something that happened to some apostles a long time ago takes the life out of the Word of God. This is the Living Word that we proclaim here in the midst of a living community. These are the stories of our faith today with Abraham, Peter, James, and John.

For Jesus, what happens there is strictly an act of God who allowed those apostles to see Jesus in his glory. For the Apostles, for Abraham, and for us all, we are confronted with a divine command on this mountain: “Listen.” In this season, our time for change is at hand. It can and it will proceed for those who will listen and heed the voice of God that affirms the importance of Jesus in our lives.

The risk of moving forward when we may not understand is made more possible by the example of Abraham and these disciples. “Playing it safe” has never been the style of serious disciples of Jesus. Knowing all the answers or having perfect understanding has never led anyone the truth either. This is not the posture of a disciple it is simply a pretense and often an excuse for not listening. If you do not always understand what God asks of you and sometimes are confused about what it seems to mean, just keep listening. That is what led Peter, James, and John deeper into the mystery of Christ in their midst, and it was what ultimately saw God’s promise to Abraham fulfilled.

March 1, 2009 at Saint Mark in Norman, OK

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

At my age it is getting increasingly difficult to love weight. I lose everything with no trouble at all from keys and cell phone to my car in the parking lot, but five or ten pounds or an inch or two from my waist becomes a major effort that requires more concentration and attention than anything I can think of. There are candy bowls all over that office! Any trip to the south that brings me near La Baguette or Panera Bread, and I’m done for. So, I avoid driving the streets that get me there. Have you ever noticed what gets placed just inside the door of the grocery store? Two steps inside and there is a table of cookies, cakes, and pies. To make matters worse, they offer free samples. The other day I came home from lunch and there was a cheesecake on the front seat of my car. What could I do? I was going to lunch and passed that bakery. I decided that it was no accident that I had to go that way, so I said: “Ok Lord, if you want me to have a nice cheese cake, make sure there is parking place near the door. If there is no place to park, I’ll do without.” Would you believe than on the seventh trip around the block a parking spot opened up!

I have a good friend who announces proudly at the conclusion of every purchase of something he does not need that, “God wanted me to have it.” We have gotten to the point in our great and long friendship that it is a constant joke between us. I often begin our conversations by asking: “What did God want you to have today?” It has dawned on me that with almost no conscious awareness all of us have slipped into a pattern of negotiations or bartering when it comes to temptation, and I believe that simple little things become big things before we know it. What starts as cheating on a diet might end up with cheating on a spouse or cheating on an expense report.

As a confessor and spiritual director, I more and more recognize how common this thinking has become. “The devil made me do it.” is the silly way we often trivialize bad behavior and wrong choices. We just don’t want to call it what it is: temptation. It is not a game of manipulation. Temptation is a serious encounter.

If we study the behavior of Jesus in such an encounter, we can learn something helpful. Name the temptation. Call it what it is in particular. No generalizations allowed. Be specific. That is what fixes the situation. Then name the tempter. It is the only way to stop rationalization as in saying: “I had to take that money from work to pay my mother’s hospital bills.” No, you did not! Next, practice resistance. Moral training is just like any other training; music or sports. It takes discipline and regular practice. You start small and build up. “No” to a tiny pleasure is how you end up saying “No” to a big one. The amount of money spent at gyms for a personal trainer strikes me as a bit curious when moral or spiritual trainers called: “Confessors” are avoided, maligned, and ignored.

Finally, call for help. Relying on one’s own resources alone is programmed failure. Claim the grace that God offers, consult a mentor, but always ask and trust the help of God. This is what Jesus did. He found temptation to be a time and place in which to meet God.

The presence and the power of evil can never be ignored. The human interest in self-gratification and ambition goes right along with it. But temptation need not be a bad thing because in the midst of the struggle between good and evil one will always find God. That is where Israel found God: in the desert. It is where Jesus found His father: in the wilderness. His experience in temptation changed him, and no doubt made him more humble and stronger. It would be right to believe that it can be the same for us.

In the classic and wonderful work, Murder in the Cathedral, T.S. Elliot gives us Thomas Beckett facing a wilderness of loneliness, doubt, confusion, and fear. He reflects that the greatest temptation anyone ever faces is rarely about right or wrong; but most often it is the temptation to do the right thing for the wrong reason. This is the final test we have in our quest for holiness and greatness. It is well to consider it now in the first days of Lent. Doing the right thing for the right reason takes a considerable amount of self-knowledge, humility, courage, and patience to do so; but these are gifts we have and will always discover when we live in the presence of God.