Real Hope

This past Friday, I awoke at 8:00 and walked out on our porch in shorts and T-shirt. The morning was a little cool, 65 degrees but the sun quickly warmed it up to closer to the mid seventies. I was in Hawaii on retreat, not in the midwest where you were enjoying temperatures closer to the freezing point. It really was a beautiful experience of seeing mountains, rainbows and flowing plants. Part of the time, I was on retreat in prayer, which is always so rewarding. Yet, I must admit that there's something nice coming back, even if I did go from 72 degree weather in Hilo to 18 below in the Twin Cities. There's just something good about the familiarity of home!

In this way, I think I can sympatize with the gospel for this weekend. In it, Jesus goes home. But, it's not the home that we might expect. It's not Bethlehem of Judea, where he was born. No, he was forced to leave from there as a baby by Herod. And it wasn't Nazareth, the place his mother and father brought him to be raised. A town, by the way, that, in another passage of scripture, nearly throws him off the top of a cliff. Jesus' home in the gospel if a town called Capernaum.

Now, you may wonder why Jesus called Capernaum a home. Some say that it may have been the place Jesus and Mary went after the death of Joseph. That sort of makes sense since it was another growing city at that time and it was just up river from the Jordan. Jesus could have easily heard about John the Baptist in this town much easier than in Nazareth.

Yet, I think there is a larger theological significance to the referance to home. I think the gospel writer is using code. Jesus finds himself in the ideal preaching scenario. He's literally surrounded with people listening to him, even people standing in the doorway. Yet, the reason he's attracted the attention of so many people is not because he's such a good story teller or because he's so funny. They come because he is preaching the word. This is the environment where Jesus is at home...when people listen to the word and seek to draw closer to him. It's, basically, what the first reading calls "something new." We all need something new to maintain our hope.

Yet, something new is different than something novel. Let me clarify the distinction that I'm making with an example. When I was in Dubuque last year, I was approached by a teacher who wanted the students in the catholic grade school to have a particular prayer experience. We approached the principal who thought it was a good idea. The students took turns coming over to church on Friday morning and experiencing. Yet, the prayer experience was adoration of the blessed sacrament, something that we do at the end of mass on Holy Thursday and that probably harkens memories of forty hours for the majority of you. It's an ancient prayer form in which we remind ourselves of the value of the eucharist, not something novel. The kids walked away with a deep respect for the eucharist and a respect for silence, as well. The newness was more interior than exterior.

Too many times when we seek for hope in the church, we think we have to reinvent the wheel. We put on new programs and try something novel. Maybe we use a new eucharistic prayer or walk into church in a different way. That's okay, I suppose. But, in truth, what gives us the hope is when God does something new to our spritual life and draws us closer. Maybe it's when we hear something new in church, not because it's not been there before but because we made a connection or really listened when it was taking place.

This is why the church feels like a home to us, because it is a place of hope for us, a place to experience the newness of Christ. In it, we are called to be open to God making this church our house, making us anew, and giving us hope in his powerful spirit.