April 24, 2011

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

It has begun to occur to me that the world did not take much notice of the resurrection of Jesus. It was, in fact, a rather humble and hidden event. Today the whole world knows it’s Easter. Even non christian populations know we are up to something today. They may think it has something to do with adults hiding colored plastic eggs; while children run around looking for those eggs; or with baskets full of chocolate bunnies. But the fact remains that on that first day of the week at dawn, nobody much noticed except a couple of women and a couple of men who were not too sure about what was happening.

As the truth of this simple reality sinks in, I have begun wondering what Jesus was doing, where he was, and how such an awesome event could go so unnoticed especially by those who were so involved three days ago. Why didn’t he go straight to Pilate, bang on the door till Pilate answered and then say something like:  “Hello. Want to wash your hands again? The next time your wife tells you about her dreams, PAY ATTENTION!”

Why didn’t he go back to the Temple to scare the incense out of those Scibes and Pharasees. Can’t you imagine that scene? They would have been running all over the place trying to hide muttering: “Look out! Here comes the King of the Jews!”

He could have stopped by to check on those soldiers. Can you imagine their faces when he walked in and said: “Who’s got my tunic? Give it back! Or he might have said: “Any one want to try on my crown?”

But it didn’t go that way. Only those called by name, only those with whom he broke bread and to whom he spoke words of peace, were aware of what happened. No one else. Jesus was raised as a sign of hope to those who loved him and followed him that God’s love is stronger than death. The resurrection of Christ must not be separated from the resurrection of humanity saved by him.

Artists, poets, even musicians have tried to make something big out of that first Easter morn; but no matter, the fact is, it was a hidden event that freed humanity from the chains of death. It happened in an obscure corner of the world, in an distant outpost from powerful Rome and it involved simple fishermen and a couple of women from insignificant places.  It is nearly the same all these years later.

Many in this world have no clue even to this day what Easter is all about. Many of those who know about Jesus don’t get it. They think it’s all about him. They think his greeting of Peace is something they get never realizing that the peace of Christ is given not as the world gives. It is a life changing gift that brings more challenge than we might care to imagine. In it’s most simple form, it means we will live together in mutual respect, care, and love with everyone from the neighbor who may annoy us, to the terrorist who frightens us, to someone who may hate us and wish us ill. The peace of Christ is a peace that transforms this world and that transformation begins with us or it begins nowhere at all.

Think of it this way…..

The world is at war. The British Isles are chloaked in darkness. Into the midst of this black night a German pilot, his aircraft disabled by hostile fire, bails out to save his life. Perhaps he prays as he plumets to the ground into the heart of enemy territory. Perhpas, as he struggles to rlease his paraahute, he has a flashbak image of the girl he left behind and dares not hope to see again. Minutes later his parachute becomes tangled in a tree, and he lies unconscous on the ground.

Dawn breaks. A young woman passes by. She is lost in thought. Her lover has asked her to marry him. She longs to say yes. But who can afford to celebrate a wedding in these dark days? Where will they find the ingredients for a wedding cake? Whatever could she wear for a bridal gown? Warning voices tell her to wait until the war is over — but who knows when that might be, and she loves him and longs to be his bride now…for tomorrow may never come. Suddenly her daydream is interrupted as she nearly stumbles over the German airman lying in her path. Her heart knows what she must do. She covers him gently with her coat and places her sweater over his head. There is still a pulse. There is still life. She runs for help. The casualty will be cared for – at least in his immedaite need. Beyond that, who knows?

The next day her path rakes her back past the spot where she found him. The torn parachute is still there, caught in the branches. She gazes at it but now, in her mind’s eye, she no longer sees a parachute hanging there in the tree but the possibility of a silk wedding gown, a gift from God. For the next weeks she spends every spare moment with her needle, painstakingly trnasforing an abandoned parachute into auniquely beautiful weddig gown. From his bed, the the military hospital, a lonely young German airman, recovering from disatser, sees the bridal couple pass by. His heart leaps with a sudden surge of hope. This time next year, perhaps, he will be with his own bride3 once more. He never guesses that this English bride is wearing his parachute.

This time next year! Easter is a time to look forward. Too often the Christian story gets told backwards, as if it were only about God’s rescue mission, God’s parachute, bailing us out the wrechage of our sin. Easter is the time to change the direction of our gaze and see the rescue mission for what it can become: an invitation to participate in the great adventure of becoming the people God is dreaming we can be and of transforming planet Earth into the sedbed of God’s Kingdom. That will be the gift of Peace with which Christ risen greets us – not so much something we get, but something we have become.

If we are going to celebrate the resurrection, we ought also be celebrating our transformation. If a parachute can become a wedding dress, we can become peacemakers

worthy of and sharing the gift of God’s peace.

April 23, 2011

Matthew 28: 1-10

“The first words from the Sacred Scriptures spoken earlier tonight in the darkness were“In the beginning.”Beginnings are hard.Ask any business owner about their first year.I can tell you from my own exerience in preparing homilies that getting the beginning right and those first words on paper is always the hardest part.Beginnings are hard.What makes them hard is that you have to let go of what was,and for a brief time, there is nothing to take its place,and that is frightening.There is so much loss in every beginning:the loss of childhood to become an adult,the loss of college and all its adventure and friends to move on with a job,the loss of dependency to gain independence, the loss of an uncommitted life to gain a partner and purpose,the loss of middle age to gain, one hopes, wisdom.

The Gospel tonight begins with these words:“After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning….”Think of those words in the context of beginning.The day of rest is over and must be left behind = “loss” now it is time for the work.It is the first day of the week.It is creation day – the “day of beginning.”It was dawn.Night is over the darkness is lost, but the day begins.Creation begins.Life begins.Light comes, and suddenly this night makes sense to us all,but never more so than to these neophytes, these newly baptized and confirmed.

In just a few moments we shall wrap them into the arms of our savior,feed them with the bread of life,incorporate them into the mystery of the church.My brothers and sisters brought into the Body of Christ this night,you have been brought from darkness into light.Like the Israelites, you have followed that pillar of fire into this holy place,God’s dwelling among us.This is a night of beginnings for you,and your first ministry as disciples of Jesus Christ has been fulfilled by your willingness to listen to God’s call and respond.Your very courageous presence here through the Rites of Initiation has been a work of evangelization.You are spreading the faith. Standing before us week after week since Ash Wednesday,you have reminded us that we are all beginners, converts,leaving behind old ways, old sin, old thinking, old behavior,and we are being lifted up from the dust of the earth by a Creator Godwho has called us His own in a mysterious and wonderful new creation.

There is no going back.The Israelites had spells when they lost courage and gave up hope.They complained and imagined that slavery in Egypt was easier than life in a desert.They whined and longed for the past; but after crossing the Sea with Moses, there was no going back.They kept going to the end.Instead of a miserable end as slaves of Egyptians their lives had a better and new ending.Slaves no more,they were free, they were faithful, they were holy, they were God’s chosen.Someone very wise in the ways of this world once said:Nobody can go back and start a new beginning,but anyone can start today and make a new ending.

The mystery and wonder of this night is then about a new ending that starts today.Creation Day, the First Day of the Week. At dawn.Imagine that ending.Imagine what God has planned and promised. if you can and if you will,the ending will be one of glory, of peace, and of joy that knows no end.This is what we wish for you, my dear newly baptized and confirmed.Come now to receive the food for your journey,the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation.It promises a new endingyou could never have imagined before you stepped into this church months ago.Who would ever have thought that you would be here robed in white?Who could ever have imagined what God has in store for you?Yet because you are here, robed in white, anointed with fragrant oil,there is a new ending for you full of promise and full of peace.This is the day the Lord has made.Let us rejoice and be glad.

April 21, 2011

Exodus 12: 1-8,11-14  + Psalm 116 + 1 Corinthians 11: 23-26 + John 13: 1-15

A powerful deed of love is set against a dreadful deed of betrayal.There is something horrible about being betrayed by one who has shared the food of the table. John’s description is simple and direct. At the very moment Jesus extends his love and friendship to Judas, Satan takes over his heart. Judas does not leave until after the washing of his feet. Notice that point.

It is one who has received the food of that table;one who has been loved, washed, served, and saved that betrays.This is the great sadness and tragedy in this story.It is not an enemy.It is not someone who is threatened by the teachings of this “just man.”It is not some foreignor or angry terrorist who commits this deed.It is one who is loved; who was privileged to see what others had not seen;who was a blessed companion of the Son of Man.

Evil is alive and active in the most intimate relationships.John sets before us tonight a pair of realities:the foot washing on one hand and the betrayal on the other.They capture the meaning of Jesus: divine love expressed concretely and vividlyanswered by the reality of human evil.In the face of it, the other disciples remain totally naive,and so there is yet a second tragic sadness.They don’t get it, and so they do nothing to stop it.Their failure to grasp the reality of divine love in Jesus,the truth of a humble God who would serve rather than be servedcalling them to imitate that divine loving service is just beyond them.It is a twisted tragedy that continues to be lived and suffered in every generation.

Children who grow up in loving homes betray, abandon, and refuse the faith and tradition of parents who have clothed, fed, nursed, washed, and given them life itself in suffering and pain. They simply walk away from the beliefs and customs most treasured by their parents like the child of the prodigal father.

It is always those who are close who hurt us the most.And so it is with God.This is the story of this night.We have taken from this table what has been given to us,while remaining naive about what it means and what happens to us here.The greatest sadness of sin is that chosen, holy, and believing people remain sinful.The tragedy here is that a broken divided people remain sowhile sharing in the very food that should make us one.The shame is that we take for granted and then only when convenientthis gift of life, peace, and reconciliation.This is a night to ponder an ironic reality.We began in joyful song with bells ringing,and we conclude in a different mood cast by the reality of love betrayed.

We came in here talking and laughing, full of smiles and good cheer.We will leave in a different way: in silence and recollection about what is to come.As we reach out our hand to receive a “morsel” we must face and acknowledge the power of evil within us all – within the chosen, loved disciples.We must rise above the ignorance and naivete that excuses our failure to grasp, to live, and to preserve what we have been given.

We must rise above the complacency that ever allows us to take this gift of love in sacrament for granted; walking up these aisles as though we were approaching the checkout at the grocery, reaching and grabbing, quick to leave for something more important.We must rise above the laziness and ingratitude that ever allows us to think of missing one opporunity, one Sunday, one Holy Day when we might let the Lord come under our roof to speak the word of healing and peace.We are Judas and we are Peter.We are sinful and naive.We can do something about naivete and its consequences.

God can do something about sin and its conseqences.The next two days will resolve what happens when love is betrayed by a loved one.The rest of our lives will reveal what happens when the glory of truth removes the shallow and empty ignorance and naivete that keeps us from becoming what we were made to be and remembering what a price was paid by God for us all.When that day comes, we’ll all be on the floor with a towel and water.

April 17, 2011

Isaiah 50: 4-7  + Psalm 22 + Philippians 2: 6-11 + Matthew 26: 14-27,66

The Passion Story has a great cast of characters, and each of them have their own motives for their behavior. The truth is, none of them are really “bad people.” If we lift them out of this story and our own prejudice, there are many interesting things about them.Think of them for a moment.The Pharisees were austere religious men who devoted all their energy to doing good and the study of God’s Law. The problem with such people is that they are so convinced of their position and opinions that they are capable of terrible evil.

Paul before his conversion is a perfect example: he murders Christians.Crusades and the Inquisition are other examples,and presently the torture of terrorist suspects is usually carried out by dedicated people who are devoted to their cause.

Then there was Caiphas. He was a man probably thinking about religious orthodoxy anxious over people who were led astry by false messiahs. History remembers that he was not unique when you think about people being burned at the stake by others convinced that they were doing a service to God.

It goes on today in more subtle ways of silencing and ruining the reputation of others who do not seem to be quite orthodox.

And then Pilate stands there thinking about preserving law and order at a time of great unrest. He knew Jesus was innocent, but feared that trouble would erupt if he did not give the religious leaders what they wanted. There is no doubt that he had every reason to worry about his job. Most people know what is right, but they do not often have the courage to do it. Pilate is not unique. World leaders everywhere from Washington D.C. to the State Capital on 23rd Street is crowded with people who know what is right, but lack courage and worry about keeping their job.

Judas was probably a very disillusioned man. I go easy on Judas, and I suspect that he simply took matters into his own hands getting impatient for the coming of the Kingdom, thinking that if Jesus got backed into a corner his real identity as Messiah would emerge and crush his enemies. At the same time, he came to recognize and condemned the evil he had done. Plenty of people these days seem to have no such problem. Think of Executioners, abortionists, and terrorists. At times we all betray our ideals, if not our friends.

Then there is Peter: a man who was simply weak and cowardly. Anyone one of us would have done what he did in the same circumstanes. At least he shed tears over it. Too many of us never do.

Soldiers are there simly carrying out orders. How often we have heard in history: “I was only doing what I was told to do.” “Just carrying out orders.” We love to blame others for our sins and our actions without any responsibility for our actions. Blame. It’s big these days.

Finally there is the crowd on a highly emotional situation. They probably had no idea what was happening. “Everybody’s doing it.” is the excuse!  And with that excuse, untold evil continues to wrap itself around this world. It’s the story of a culture where the bully wins.

Dark evil sleeps in all of us who could take any role in this Passion Story and make it our own.

The tragedy here is very simple, and the tragedy here continues. This is not history, this is our story. The tragedy is that no one did anything. From the good Pharisees to the crowd; from Pilate to Apostles, no one did a thing to stop it. They all stood back excusing themselves for feeling helpless and thinking: “What could I do about this? I’m just one person.” “I have to think about my job and my family. “What can I do about this, we have to have law and order, protection and safety.” How can I do anything against the power of Pilate or the Pharisees? “It’s not my problem. I’m just doing my job, doing what I was told to do.”

We have to wonder about that today: wonder about why we do nothing in the face of evil, why we do nothing when we can see what’s going on all around us.

The tragedy is not just that Jesus died, but that Jesus died alone with no one making any serious effort to stop it.

April 3, 2011

1 Samuel 16:1, 6-7, 10-13 + Psalm 23 + Ephesians 5: 8-14 + John 9: 1-41

There are documented cases of people who were born blind, grew up that way, and then as adults were suddenly enabled by surgery to register optical phenomena. Surprisingly they are not able to see right away. Their brains to not have the skills to interpret the visual data transmitted by the retina. They have to learn to see. The brain must learn to interpret what the eye sends to the brain. We know this is true, and we understand that this is what infants gradually learn to do by interpreting visual cues about space, distance, and the objects around us. While this kind of learning comes naturally to a child, it is a shock to adults who have lived blind and then suddenly can see.

This experience contributed to a dramatic story told in a 1999 film called: “At First Sight.” It is a clever story about a man who falls in love with an architect who in her love and desire to “fix” this man she loves convinces him to have an operation that might restore his sight. I am over-simplifying a complicated plot and several layers of relationships by this summary, but the operation is a success, but their relationship gradually falls apart as they drift further and further away from each other. Complicating things between them is the fact that the man is unable to interpret the look on her face from time to time, and so he misunderstands many things. As the story moves along, the surgery does not provide a permanent cure, and gradually he goes blind again and slips back into his old life routine until one day while sitting on a park bench with his guide dog, the woman happens to come along, sit down, and they begin to talk. She apologizes for  trying to change him and for trying to make him move too fast which led to their problems together. He gently puts his hands on her face and touches her tenderly. She asks if he wants to take a walk and “see what they see”, and the movie ends with them leaving the park together.

It is a lovely story that touches on much of this lovely Gospel story which could almost stand alone as a short story except that it is Gospel. It is John who is writing at a critical moment in the life of the church, and it is the living Word of God which speaks as powerfully and authentically today as it did when John first set it to writing. This man has no name, so it is not about him or about an historical event. This man without a name is us, God’s chosen ones, God’s church. Note carefully that the blind man never cried out, never made a scene, and never called for the attention of Jesus. It’s the other way around. Jesus went looking for him. In fact in the story Jesus seeks him out twice: at the beginning and at the end.

This is a story about people who have been to the water and have been anointed. It’s about us: a baptized/anointed people who have lived in darkness and come into the light. It is about people who do not at first see or understand what has happened to them, but who gradually come to understand that how it happened is not nearly as important as who did it: who gave us sight, who brought us into the light, who comes seeking us, anoints us, and then asks one question: “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

This is a story John writes to a church that is being misunderstood, judged harshly and expelled from synagogues because they answered that question like the man in the Gospel and said, “I do believe.” Today John still speaks to a church, to people who do believe and because of it, are misunderstood, judged harshly and unwelcome in certain groups and places. They are a people who refuse to buy into a self-indulgent culture that chooses pleasure over sacrifice. A people who refuse to exploit the poor for the sake of getting richer; who cry out against revenge disguised as “justice” that risks the execution of innocent people while refusing to acknowledge a flawed legal system. These are believers who suffer disrespect and disregard because they chose life for innocent unborn children and for the old when it is inconvenient or expensive. There is a price to be paid for saying: “I DO BELIEVE” says John’s Gospel; but only those who live in the light can see and say: “I do believe.”

Blindness is not a sin. In itself it is neither good nor bad. In fact, it is the darkness from which God can bring forth light. It is what the work of God works on.

On the other hand, sin is a stubborn attachment to a darkened understanding of God, of creation, of Jesus, and then calling this blindness “light”.

Sin is mistaking ignorance for “truth.”

There are no miracles in John’s Gospel. The word never occurs. There are only signs that point to Truth. This story is not a miracle. It is a sign pointing to Truth in  the person of Jesus Christ. When the Pharisees do not open to the sign but cling to their falsehoods and suppress the truth, their sin remains. They say they see, but the see not.

Years ago sitting in a College Sociology class, old Father Camillus said to us over and over again something that always comes to mind when I read the 9th chapter of John’s Gospel: “You see what you have been trained to see.” How true that is, and how long it took me to understand it. We look at people who are different from us, and we have been trained to see danger or terrorists. We look at people who are poor and too often we see someone lazy who ought to get a job. Perhaps this Lent we ought to begin to rethink what we have been trained to see and start learning again how to see like people who do believe.