February 27, 2011

Isaiah 49: 14-15 + Psalm 62 + 1 Corinthians 4: 1-5 + Matthew 6: 24-34

The “Sermon on the Mount” continues today, and it is still about choices.In an age when there is every reason to worry and be anxious, this part of Matthew’s Gospel is very tricky to understand and take seriously.The world is changing before our very eyes with daily news of another uprising that brings down oppressive dictators. Where it stops and what it means for the countries that have supported those regeimes is a question historians will answer, but there is every reason for us to worry. Our precious oil supply may no longer be cheap and safe.

We talk of arming students in high schools and universities. We fear for the safety of our children with locked doors and background checks for employees while statistics show that the greatest danger is from within the family itself: and so we worry.Body scans stirr up controversy at airports and on facebook as celebrities are made for refusing a pat-down. All because we worry.Jobs are lost without warning, savings collapse from scams and greedy investment policies, and every day there is some new reason to worry.

The advise of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel not to worry seems naive and insensitive. So when we hear those words, we roll our eyes, and with ease dismiss the idea as some kind of idealistic wish for some other time, other people, or another place. When that happens: when we fail look deep into this text, fail to make the choice to listen, learn, study, and ponder what it means, God’s Word has no power to save or transform us and this world.

The worry that Jesus warns against is the consequence of choices made, and therein lies the key that leads us deeper into his counsel. “Seek first the Kingdom of God” he says to those who listen. My opinion is that we have failed to imagine what that means, and so we have not made choices in that direction. We have decided that the “Kingdom of God” is yet to come, a long time off or someplace else; and so we live as though today has no connection to tomorrow and we are surprised and sometimes alarmed when tomorrow becomes today and the consequence of what we did yesterday messes up today. The result?  Worry. There is an even more serious consequence to this: the Kingdom of God gets further away.

The Kingdom of God as it appears in this Gospel does not refer to life after death but to living in response to God’s reign here and now. Think of this!  What is the point of the Incarnation? What is the point of the birth of Christ in this world if the Kingdom of God were for another time and place after we’re dead? There is something in God’s plan for this world and this life and for this time.

The Sermon on the Mount is addressed to the whole people of God, not to just individuals. Do you remember a few weeks back when we started this chapter and I made the point that the “YOU” addressed by Christ is plural, all embracing and all inclusive.

It is not an individiul or personal matter. Being in here, being part of this Eucharistic Community means this is addressed to you-all. We are a community that seeks first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness which means that the needs and wants of all others become our concern. There is no looking away or turning away.

Notice that this section begins with the words: “You cannot serve both God and mammon.” The poor are not caught in that dilemma of trying to serve both God and mammon. It is those who are well off who are tempted to move beyond a balanced sufficiency to greater affluence. It is to those of us in that comfortable situation that these words of Jesus are most clearly directed. To us Jesus says: “Get your priorities straight.” For those who have the means it is one thing to eat a healthy diet, get enough exercise, and dress appropriately. It is quite another thing to be obease, lazy, worried about having the “right look” latest fashion, finest shoes, and belong to the best gym in town where you go more to be seen than to be fit. Don’t worry is the instruction to those who are worried about fitting in, looking good, and being liked by the right person who can get you more of what you want.

I think of something my father said to me when I was in High School where I thought I had to have the finest of everything. We lived a rather simple life. My father frugal but generous. One day on the way to school I was beginning to whine about something I wanted that some of my more wealthy friends had. He said to me: “You have something they will never have.” “What?” I said ready to pout. He said: “You have enough. They will never have that.” And from that moment on I began to recognize that when I saw it.

There is a theory proposed in a novel by Robinson Davies which suggests that Jesus was really a wealthy oriental who had “made his bundle” and then went into religion. The idea was that once the basic needs are taken care of, you can lift your thoughts higher. Basic physical needs dominate everyone. But if you get them out of the way, you can put your time and energy into more noble projects.

Matthew’s Jesus suggets that even though we have made our bundle we still don’t think we have enough. Even though we have food and a roof over us we still work and long for treasure that rusts and must be insured and protected by security systems. The sad fact is that there is never enough even when it promises ultimate security with “just a little more.”

My friends, it’s that “little more” that is killing us. It is to those of us looking for and working for just a little more that Jesus speaks today. There is no suggestion here that we should not work for food and the needs of a good and secure life; but there is a suggestion that we see all of this as a gift from God not something we deserve or have earned. This kind of gift consciousness leads one to be a Steward of the gifts, and asks the question: “How will these gifts turn this life into the Kingdom of God?”

February 13, 2011

Sirach 15: 15-20 + Psalm 119 + 1 Corinthians 2: 6-10 + Matthew 5: 17-37

For some this might well be the most difficult passage in all of Matthew’s Gospel.

The difficulty probably lies in the fact that this is about choices more than the subject matter. Choices for people of wisdom, integrity, and maturity are simply not easy. The basis of our alienation from God is quite simply poor choices. We call that alienation and those poor choices: “Sin.” The alienation deepens with every abuse of freedom and every bad choice. I don’t know which was worse, Eve’s choice or Adam’s choice; but either way, their story is the story of wrong choices.

Two hundred years before the birth of Christ, a wise man whose writings we heard today spoke of the importance of right choices and of using one’s free will for good rather than evil. Every free choice brings with it a pair of consequences: fire or water, death or life, evil or good. In the fifth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel six choices are raised by Jesus. We treat four of them this week, and two next week. Jesus uses these examples or these issues to propose to us that greatness, holiness, and worthiness for the kingdom comes from making choices, not from playing it safe. You see, the Scribes and Pharisees were always just playing it safe, hiding behind the law, doing just the minimum, avoiding choices by often chosing to do nothing.

Jesus never played it safe, and neither can his disciples. What he teaches us by word and example is that the law is the starting point, not the end. Nothing happens, nothing is accomplished by keeping the law. There is no greatness in just keeping the rules. Greatness begins by going further and doing more. The presumption in this part of Matthew’s Sermon is that everyone listening is already keeping the law which was the bare minimum of what it meant to holy, righteous, and just. For those of us who are here, there is more to do. Just attending Mass every Sunday is just the beginning, not a great accomplishment. No pattying yourself on the back and thinking, “I made it.”  No you didn’t, you just started by getting here.

So in today’s Gospel there are three areas of choice.First there is the choice to be a person of peace or a person of violence.Violence begins with an angry heart, a heart that is loaded with hurt.Violence begins deep within us, and the evidence of this is everywhere in this angry world. It is a sin rooted deeply within us that sours life and if left to itself brings great darkness. There is no end to revenge. It begins a cycle of hatred and anger that breeds more violence.

To be person of peace means being a person of forgiveness. It is the one dependable antidote to anger and violence. Without forgoveness, anger builds and festers like a sore that eventually bursts and nine times out of ten, someone innocent suffers and pays the price. So, we have the choice to make peace or not, and the proposal is presented in typical scriptural exaggeration: leave everything and make peace before you bring your gift to the altar. The choice we are offered is to be part of a community of peace.

Then there is the choice to live in a right and respectful relationship with others that is pure. It’s about lust, says Jesus. It means choosing to respsect and honor every other person with a purity of intention that never turns them into an object to be used for pleasure or sought after for any reason other than their own good. This is a choice, and when the choice is made, poronography is out of business. It is a matter of choosing to honor one’s self and respect an other, never to use another for any gain or pleasure.

There is also the choice for fidelity, of honoring one’s commitments. At the time Jesus spoke of this matter, adultry was something only a man could commit against another man. It was a matter of violating the property rights of another man: the woman was the property. What Jesus is doing here is defending the woman and establishing the fact that she has rights and is not just a piece of property. Something bigger is going on here than defending property rights. Something new is being proposed suggesting that marriage was a part of God’s plan as a sign of God’s fidelity to the chosen people. The marriage relationship was to be a place of safety and honor, not danger and dishonesty. What Jesus insists upon here is a reconciled relationship whenever that is possible so that marriages blessed and strengthened by mutual forgiveness become the story of our relationship with God blessed and strengthened by forgiveness.

Finally there is the matter of oaths. If fidelity is a mark of those living in the Kingdom of God, then so is honesty. They go together. It is truthfulness that strengthens fidelity and commitment.  When truthfulness and fidelity are present, there is no need of an oath. An oath would add nothing. Who would require an oath from someone who is faithful and honest? It makes no sense and adds nothing. In fact, the requiring of an oath raises some suspicion that there is a history of infidelity and lies.

What we have here is simply the root values that guide a life in Jesus Christ. To be a person who is forgiving, respectful, faithful, and truthful is to be well on the way to greatness, but we must choose to be forgiving, respectful, faithful and truthful. Those of us who choose to respond to the challenge of Jesus will not be leaning on the law or claiming that we’ve kept the rules. We will rather begin to frame our lives with new questions. Rather than asking: “What do we have to do?” or “What is the rule?” We will ask: “What more can I do?” and “What more can I become.” “How far will love lead us.”

February 5, 2011

Isaiah 58: 7-10 + Psalm 112 + 1 Corinthians 2: 1-5 + Matthew 5: 13-16

In this age that glorifies the individual and always suggests and tempts us to think that everything is always about me, we are set up to miss something very important in these verses. The English language translation makes it all the more difficult because we have no distinction between singular and plural second person pronouns. In the original language there is no singular pronoun here.The word, “You” is used in the plural and it is used very emphatically.

Jesus is talking to his disciples as a group, not to any individual. He speaks to us today as a church aware of the fact that alone we can nothing that really matters, nothing that will endure. Together however, we can fulfill his mission, and so the commission of Jesus in these verses is a vision of what we must become and what we must do together. A single grain of salt is not going to do anything. It just as well be trampled under foot.

This gospel is first of all a challenge to our contemporary individualism. Salt is only good when it gets mixed up with other things. As long as we continue to think that religion is a private matter, that faith is just about me and Jesus, that the Gospel and the mission of the church is to be concerned only with internal pious matters and never address or question matters of society and social issues, we are never going to get the point, and never be a light in this world.

We are salt, says Jesus. Not for ourselves, but for the earth!We are light, not for a closed fellowship, but for the whole world!These verses anticipate the final commission that closes Matthew’s Gospel when he sends them into the whole world to make disciples of all nations.To do this, we must work together, we must be church.

The message gets even harder to grasp and internalize when an old English saying gets thrown into the mix. You’ve heard the description of “good-old-boys” described as being “salt of the earth” type people. This kind of thinking with this image waters it down so badly that there is hardly any hope of understanding what Jesus is proposing. So, when I do get around to writing that “Gospel of Norman” I talk about now and then, I’m going to adjust or correct the image, and it’s going to read: “You are the red-hot-chillie peppers of this world.”

In other words, this church and everyone in it ought to be spicing up life in this world. We are not sent to put people to sleep, bore them to death, alienate them, or condemn them. We are sent to spice up their lives, give them some joy, a reason to live, to laugh, to smile. This is why Jesus and his disciples so often got criticized for eating and drinking, for parties and celebrations. Remember those verses where Jesus responded to his critics complaining over his joyful life by saying who fasts while the bride-groom is present? Any church that adapts itself so completely to the secular world that it fails to be different, unique, and have something offer over and beyond making people feel good has lost its flavor.

It is the same with the image of Light. Ancient Israel assumed that God was not only the source of light for the world, but God was that light itself. As a church we cannot think for a minute that we are the light as one silly popular hymn suggests. It would be better to imagine that we are the window through which the light shines, for there is truly only one light.

What is set before us today in this text of Matthew’s Gospel is a formative description of what we must become and what we are called to be by Christ.

These verses today are part of that Great Sermon on the Mount we began last week. There were Beatitudes followed by a sudden shift from the third person: “Blessed are they…” to the second person Blessed are You” The verse immediately before today’s verses said: “Blessed are YOU when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely.

Discipleship is a relationship not just with Jesus, but with all the other disciples.In these early verses of Matthew’s Gospel the image and the mission of church is being formed. This is not an individual, private thing. It is a corporate, communal experience we become together, a relationship that shapes and forms us not the other way around. For this conversion of heart and life to be accomplished we must be willing to die to self and rise to new life in Christ.Let us pray today that because we have been together here with Christ a little spice for life will come into this world and into those around us this week; and may the Light of Christ shine through us where ever there is darkness.