August 30, 2009 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Deuteronomy 4: 1-2,6-8 + Psalm 15 + James 1: 17-18,21-22,27 + Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23

As I was sitting with this Gospel, began to remember an old saying my father used to use on me and my sister. We have been collecting some of those old sayings our parents used on us now and then and this one came to mind:  “Sticks and Stone will break your bones, but words can never hurt you.” Now several of those old sayings are going to be the subject of a long conversation one of these days when we meet again in the Kingdom: that is provided their plans for me to get there are realized! What in the world was my dad thinking? The person who first said that must have been a deaf-mute! Words hurt, and they hurt a lot longer than sticks and stones, at least that’s my experience. Yet Words are important so they must be chosen carefully. The Jewish people often referred to the Ten Commandments as the “Ten Words.” Insisting that those words have power, the power to save or the power to justify.

This is the heart of the dispute with Jesus. He is suggesting something else. He challenges the idea that just keeping the rules or minding the commandments is not enough. In fact, that behavior can sometimes lead to evil, wrongdoing, and take one far away from God. Jesus makes a contrast between what is inside and what is outside.

He suggests that it is what is within us that matters first and foremost and paying attention to that – perhaps we could call it, that inner voice is motive for and the source of goodness and righteousness.

There are times when strict adherence to the law can produce the opposite of what is intended. Rather than enhance human life and direct us to God, rigid conformity can restrict life and result in smug self-satisfaction. In his example of life, he makes exceptions when the good of others seems to call for exceptions. What we enter into with this passage from Mark’s Gospel is probably a look at the early church and an inner-Jewish dispute. The Pharisees were primarily a lay group dedicated to strict observance of the Temple regulations for purity in their daily lives as a sign that every aspect of life could be holy. What we might suspect is that the followers of Christ were beginning to struggle among themselves over how to keep the law and yet be faithful to the master’s vision of the family of God hospitable to all, welcoming the increasing number of Gentiles and Greeks who were not “clean.”

In this Gospel Jesus speaks not to the Pharisees and scribes, but to his disciples, warning them of those evils that can pollute the human heart and destroy relationships. It strikes me that this struggle is always with us. We face it as a nation when we struggle over the law and the immigrants – over whether or not the demands of charity that are rooted in our hearts might influence the imposition of the law and how we might view the law when we see it tear families apart with children left helpless and homeless while we enforce the law. This is just the most obvious example of what this Gospel suggests we might need to consider on an even larger scale.

A lot of human suffering and destruction goes on in every age as people hide behind rules and regulations. Jesus is concerned about moral defilement and how it comes into the world. He shows us that it happens in the exact opposite way of ritual impurity. Defilement begins and develops in the human heart in the cultivation of evil thoughts, intentions, and imaginings.

We all work from the inside out, not the other way around. If our minds are full of fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, jealousy, deceit, slander and pride, these drive our actions. Hiding behind the facade of keeping all the rules does not build a kingdom of love and peace. The Pharisees and scribes are obsessed with the ritual defilement and the external world. Jesus is attentive on the internal world and the moral havoc it releases. He insists that we pay attention to and focus on what drives moral behavior.

There is always more going on within us than we care to admit. Without attending to the inner voice and the inner self, the outer easily turns into an act into hypocrisy. This is the beginning of shallow trivial lives concerned about how things look more than with how things really are. Jesus lives out of his heart and proposes that those who would follow him would confront any inability to hold together the inner love of God and neighbor and the outer ways hat love should be embodied.

August 23, 2009 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Joshua 24: 1-2,15-17,18 + Psalm 34 + Ephesians 5: 21-32 + John 6: 60-69

It is easier to leave things alone than to make changes even when the way things are is not right, easy, or productive. That is a fact of human behavior. Addicts of every kind know that truth. They simply stay in their old ways because it’s too hard to do or be anything different.

It is easier to leave than to stay when a relationship gets demanding, the needs of someone else conflict with our own comfort and satisfaction, or it just gets harder to be faithful, keep a promise, or do the right the thing. This fact of human behavior accounts for a lot of divorce, fragmented churches, civic failure, and unfulfilled dreams.

In these closing verses of John’s sixth chapter, there is suddenly an awakening that Jesus is talking about more than bread, and that the intimacy to which he has invited his followers and the relationship he extends to them will do more than make them feel good and be satisfied. It is beginning to be clear that something is going to happen to those who eat this bread, that in becoming his flesh and blood, they will become the giver not the receiver. If he is bread, those who eat that bread will themselves be bread. If he is broken, they too will have to be broken. They will not simply be hearers of God’s word, but doers of God’s word. No wonder they began to murmur. It would be easier to leave things alone; or as John puts it, it is just easier to go back to their former way of life.

What troubles them is not eating flesh. It is the reality that eating that flesh will awaken within them life; but not a life for this world. In other words, the Spirit will take possession of them. They will become spiritual beings first and foremost, and the human/earthly part of them will be secondary and passing. They will live in this world but not be of this world. In the language of this Gospel, Jesus speaks of flesh over and against the spirit. He insists that the flesh, which here refers to the human way of being in the world, cannot give life. That is the difference between the old desert manna and the bread he will give. One nourishes the body which will die. The other nourishes the Spirit which will live.

Living by the spirit rather than living by the flesh is a difficult choice for people who do not believe in this one who has come down from heaven and will go back to heaven. It is difficult because he is suggesting that they have heavenly origins and a heavenly destiny, and therefore how they live in this world and how they relate to one another will be influenced, shaped and sustained by that knowledge and that faith.

A decision to believe in Jesus Christ determines our identity like the people of the Old Testament reading, and it determines whether or not we are spiritual or just a combination of water and various chemicals here today and gone tomorrow. Peter and his friends had by this time come to trust and believe. They saw the choice and understood that nothing in this world gives life, that nothing in this world could lead them to and fulfill the promise that was within them and for which they were created.

The choices we make in this life always reveal our deepest values and our inner motives from the company we keep to the cereal we eat. Now at the end of the sixth chapter, John puts before us the choice that Jesus offers: stay where you are and do nothing except prepare to die  or enter into communion with Christ and prepare to live not in the future, but right now. Live as a citizen of the Kingdom of heaven, live as one who feeds the hungry, touches the sick, listens and forgives, bears a burden rather than a grudge, and lives by the Spirit rather than the flesh of this world.

Peter and his friends stayed but no longer in the world of the flesh. Others left to return to their former ways in this world unmoved, untouched, by the Spirit that gives life. John tells us why Peter and his friends stayed: because they had come to believe and know. Coming to believe and know is the very process of a spiritual life or the life of a true disciple. It is a process that begins with trusting enough and ends with understanding enough.

(5:30 pm)So, women of faith, awakening your life in the Spirit will lead you into a deeper and more profound life giving union with Christ and God. You have come here for this conference trusting enough and hopefully you leave here understanding enough: trusting the faith you treasure and the church in which you find hope; and better understanding what you have been called to become by God’s will and God’s plan. No choice is ever made once and for all. Someone asked me not long ago when I decided to be a priest. I said: “This morning when I got up.” I do it every day. It is no different for you. Your choice to live the sacramental covenant of marriage is made again and again. Your choice to live the life of a faithful Catholic is made over and over again, not just at your baptism. Your faith is confirmed by your every choice. Decide every day, not just today whom you will serve. In so doing you will always be Women of Faith.

(11:00 am)So, those of you who come here as candidates for Confirmation: awaken your life in the Spirit. It will lead you into deeper and a more profound and life giving union with Christ and God. You have come in formation trusting and hopefully when I present you to the Archbishop you will have understanding enough. Trusting the faith you treasure and the church in which you find hope. Understand what you have been called to become by God’s will and God’s plan. Ask every day what God wants you to become with your life. It is the only way to find fulfillment and lasting Joy.

August 16, 2009 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

Proverbs 9: 1-6 + Psalm 34 + Ephesians 5: 15-20 + John 6: 51-58

“How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” they ask. Always the wrong questions!

The issue is not “how”. What matters is “why” and what happens because of it.

It has always seemed to me that the ‘How” question leads to discussions of transubstantiation which is all very fine if you think with the mind of a scholastic and are motivated such arguments, distinctions, and language. But when it’s all neatly explained in that theological techno language, the real question still remains: “Why?”  If you fail to get to that question, it does no good to understand how. If you do not arrive a moment faith, all the language of theology is just an intellectual exercise. First comes belief in the one who gives, then comes belief in the gift. That is the progress of thought in this chapter of John’s Gospel. Who is it that gives, and then what is given. You cannot understand and believe in the gift until you understand and believe in the giver.

The invitation extended here, and the gift that is given is a relationship of intimate and personal dimension. Yet a world like ours that gets less personal every day finds this difficult to understand. Texting and email may be instant, but they do not provide communication. They only provide messages and information that is often misinterpreted. There is no communion between people in this kind of world: no living presence, no sound of voice with inflection and tenderness, no eyes to see, no hands to hold and touch. The price of this instant connection is personal presence, and without that there is no real human relationship, only a technical connection. It is no wonder that statistics reveal that 50% of Catholics do not believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. They speak in terms of memorial and symbol, remembrance, and sign avoiding the reality of this moment. What we do here is not about the Last Supper. It is about this supper. It is not about the historical Jesus whom we fondly remember. It is about the risen Christ who is present today in our midst. The evidence of this failure to believe is clear every week as a large proportion of people in this assembly head out the door once they have received communion with no thought nor witness to belief in what has just happened in this place. If they did, they would fall to their knees and complain that the thanksgiving time is too short. They may have received communion, but they have not entered into the relationship to which they are invited.

Intimacy is the gift, and intimacy often makes us uncomfortable and vulnerable, A God who hungers for us invites us to feed on the divine presence. The relationship into which we are invited according to John’s Gospel is the same relationship Jesus experienced and lived. “Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.” It is not a relationship for some time in the future. It is a relationship that begins as soon as we eat his flesh and drink his blood. It is an offer and invitation that is so profound that once understood makes us hesitate not with doubt, but with wonder because it is almost too good to be true.

There is no answer to the question “how” can this man give us his flesh to eat. What simply matters is who provides his flesh and blood and why we would be invited to enter into the depth of this one who lives forever and would have us live through, with, and in him. When you say, “Amen” you accept the gift the Father gives to His Son, Jesus Christ and if like His Son, we remain obedient and seek the Father’s will, death will have no power over us for we will already have begun to live forever.

August 9, 2009 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK

1 Kings 19: 4-8 + Psalm 34 + Ephesians 4: 30-5:2 + John 6: 41-51

I had to remind myself while praying and working my way into this homily that chapter six of John’s Gospel began with the feeding of a multitude. We have to keep that in mind when we pick up lose verses like the ten today.

The word is out! Free meals! Come and get it. This crowd seeks Jesus for the wrong reasons, and that becomes more obvious as the chapter moves along. The crowd is interested in material things: food, signs, and wonders. They will not go beyond the sign and how it benefits them. They will not consider what the sign means, what it asks of them, nor will they recognize the one who provides the sign. They will not ask that question. They want one thing and one thing only, their entertainment and free food so to speak. When the free food demands something of them (belief) they start to murmur.

But this Gospel proclaimed today in this place is not about “them.” It speaks to any and all who are here or who come to Jesus for the wrong reasons. This Gospel speaks to anyone absent or thinking about leaving because they do not get anything out of it. It speaks to anyone whose relationship with God depends upon getting something they want or need. “Do you believe because you see signs and wonders?” Jesus asks? “Do you believe because your prayers are answered; because you get what you want? because you feel satisfied have a good time and are comforted? This Gospel suggests something else, and those people who heard him became uncomfortable and backed away.

People of faith are wondering what it is God asks of them, not what it is God can do for them. People of faith are not gathered around Jesus to get what they can. They are drawn together to bear one another’s burdens, to stand in communion, to lift up the cross, and live in the presence of God whose plan for this world is not a nation of consumers, obese from gluttony, exploiting the weakest and most vulnerable, and hiding in gated communities from the poor whose very poverty has often supported their luxury. God sees all of this and says: “Your ancestors ate manna in the desert, and they died.”

The operative word in Chapter Six is “flesh.“ We have to dwell on that and get it right. Jesus is not talking about meat. That is not the “flesh” he promises. This “flesh for the life of the world” is presence – as real as flesh and blood. It’s about “incarnation” — hear that syllable “carne” in the bigger word? Any fourth-grade student of Spanish knows that Latin word for flesh-meat: carne. It expresses the real presence, the real in-dwelling of God in this world. This is the most profound, literal and real revelation of God’s presence in this world: in the flesh: not spiritual, nor symbolic. REAL.

In this part of John’s Gospel and next week we shall reflect upon the very roots and deepest meaning of the Eucharist. Eating this bread that is his flesh and drinking this cup of salvation is an entry into the presence of God who in this sacrament becomes a living presence within us. This changes the way we think of and see our selves and the way we look into the face of the others who commune in the presence of God with us.

Last week, Jesus spoke to them about ultimate things, and they ask silly questions. He speaks of eternal life, and they want a sign, and then ask for bread. This week, he gives them bread and calls it “flesh” and they are back away murmuring. They cannot see what is right in front of them because they are so bogged down in a literal, the superficial, and materialistic reality.

How shall it be for us? More entertainment and free food?  Or shall we enter into this revelation to discover that giving flesh for the life of the world has something to do with sacrifice, service, and laying down one’s life for another. It has something to do with being broken, poured out, and shared. It is God who proposes that this is the only way to eternal life. “Believe it and live.” he will say to us next week. In the meantime, we probably ought to figure out what we’re doing here; why we have come; and what we are going to become because of it.