24 OT A: Being a bright light of hope in a dark world

Friends

Peace be with you.

This weekend’s gospel is kind of unique. It’s a parallel parable, two events that are similar take place with two very different outcomes. Unfortunately, we probably aren’t as shocked by either outcome because we’ve heard it before and some of the facts kind of need to be translated. So let’s explore some of those facts to help us understand what is so shocking about this parable.

There’s a servant who, roughly, owes his master the equivalent to the national debt of the United States. No kidding, it’s a huge amount and there’s no way he could pay it back so he says “Be patient with me and I will pay you back in full.” The master must have been having a good day or something because, he’s so moved with compassion, that he not only doesn’t throw him, his wife, and his children in jail and sell of his possessions but he forgives the whole debt.

The servant leaves and immediately encounters a fellow servant who is in debt a few hundred bucks. It’s a significant amount but nothing compared to what he owed the master. When this other servant uses the same expression he just said to the master, “Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full” there is no pity in the forgiven servant’s voice. He throws his fellow servant in jail until the money shows up. And, in the context of the story, it appears the money in fact shows up and he is able to pay the debt. Maybe the first servant knew his fellow servant really could pay the debt and that he was lying. Or maybe the first servant was incredibly poor and needed to collect his debts just to be able to eat. We’re not entirely sure.

This is when the surprising part happens because: When the servant is called back in front of the master, the prudent thing the master would have done is to demand the smaller amount of money the servant got from his fellow servant. I mean, wouldn’t that just make sense? By throwing the servant who is incredibly deep in debt in jail, the master wouldn’t have been able to be repaid at all. It’s better that his servant work and slowly repay the debt over time by, for example, collecting the debts that others owed to him. You’d think, therefore, that the master would be happy that the servant is trying to pay back some of the debt.

The problem and the surprise of the story is that the master didn’t want the servant to repay the loan in the first place. He had completely forgiven it and expected this servant to have a sense of gratitude for that forgiveness. That’s the appropriate way to behave when we are treated kindly. We should want to behave just as kindly to those around us.

The problem is that it’s so easy to forget the tremendous kindness that God has had for us. There is so much darkness and despair in our world that we can follow our culture’s attitude of tit-for-tat vengeance. Our culture tells us that we should only be nice to people who are nice to us. We should only forgive those who forgive us. We should just give to those who give us something. This is the attitude of politicians and advertisers; you pat my back, I’ll pat yours.

As Christians, we are called to a more hopeful, more sacrificial life than this. God loves and and so we must love others without needing them to love us back. God has forgiven us so we must forgive everyone who harms us even if they don’t ask for forgiveness. And God has given his life for us so we must give our lives for others. We must be a beacon of hope in an all too dark world.

The God whose plan comes in a quiet whispering sound

Friends

Peace be with you.

I generally don’t associate the appearance of God with pyrotechnics. A ringmaster at a circus or a performer at a theater may appear center stage after a flash of light and bang of sound but that’s generally not the way I think about God appearing. I bring this up because it’s not true historically. It was common for natural events that are remarkable to imagine to be associated with the gods. Thor is the god of thunder, he appears with thunder both in Norse mythology and in the Marvel cinematic universe. In the mind of the Canaanite people, the major adversaries of the Jewish people, their god, Baal, was the god of fire. He appeared to them in fire. So lightening, the sun, molten lava, and other fiery things were associated with Baal.

In the 18th chapter of the First Book of Kings, the chapter immediately preceding the story we heard in the first reading, the King of Israel, whose name is Ahab, has convinced all the prophets of his day that Baal and the one true God are basically the same and, therefore, they should work for Baal. There is one brave prophet left, Elijah, who is tasked with putting down this false notion of syncretism, the belief that all religions are basically the same, and putting forth the truth that there is one God and that his name isn’t Baal. Elijah’s way of reminding the people of the things St. Paul mentions in the second reading, “They are Israelites; theirs the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; theirs the patriarchs,” is to challenge the false prophets to a fire creation off. What’s a fire creation off, you ask. Well, it’s when Elijah invites the false prophets to stack a bunch of wood in the middle of a field and then beg the god of fire to start it on fire and create a place where they can offer him sacrifice. For an entire morning the false prophets of the false god dance around trying to do this while Elijah taunts them that there God might be asleep or away on vacation or possibly even drunk and passed out. Finally, Elijah stacks up some wood, pours a bunch of water on it, and asks the one true God to show them who’s boss. God lights the wood on fire and proves he’s the one true God. Now, normally, if you hear this story this is the end and you get a homily about how important it is to worship God and not false gods like money, power, or pleasure.

However, this isn’t a normal homily. Because, immediately after the fire is going really well and all the water has been lapped up, Elijah tells the townspeople who had come out to watch this fire creation off, to take the false prophets down to the valley and kill them all. Not very nice, right? You can understand why we don’t bring it up normally. But you have to know that to understand what happens next. King Ahab finds out that all his prophets are dead and that they’ve been killed on the word of his nemesis, Elijah, utters a blood oath. A blood oath says either that guy dies or I die, with no intent on the person who said it being the one who dies. He sends out his soldiers to kill Elijah and the one true prophet of the one true God has to go into hiding. He runs for 40 days and 40 nights (remember how the Old Testament loves the number 40?) and finds himself by the same mountain that Moses first encountered God and got the ten commandments. In this Book, they call it Horeb but we’re probably more accustomed to it’s earlier name, Sinai.

And that’s when our reading starts. Except, they’ve left out a bit of dialogue. When Elijah arrives, God says to him, “Why are you here?” and Elijah responds, ““I have been most zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts, but the Israelites have forsaken your covenant. They have destroyed your altars and murdered your prophets by the sword. I alone remain, and they seek to take my life.” He feels totally alone and abandoned. That’s when God says to go stand outside and he showers down three things that are fire based. Well, sort of fire based, if you think in the mind of the time. Wind is fire based because it’s violent. Think of the gospel, how the wind and waves blow the boat around. It destroys things. And wind amplifies fire. You need oxygen to make a fire grow. Earthquakes are also violent and they may be associated with volcanic eruptions. And, the last one is fire. All three are false manifestations of the false god Baal. You see, God is saying that Elijah gets it. God isn’t all about destruction and violence. Jesus’ message to the disciples in the boat is the message of God, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.”

Now, if I were to stop there, I think I’d, once again, miss the real point that God is getting across. Because, the very next thing that happens for Elijah is that God tells him that he has a plan and that it involves him choosing his successors and being taken up in a fiery chariot, presumably to heaven although that word isn’t explicitly mentioned. The point is that, even though it’s not the plan that Elijah would want, God still had a plan that worked out in the end. I don’t know about you but, so far, 2020 isn’t going the way I planned. I wouldn’t have planned a global pandemic that keeps forcing us to cancel and adjust things. I wouldn’t have planned for us to be sitting in a less than half filled church with masks on worrying about particulates. I wouldn’t have done it this way. And, even though we may be tempted to sit back and question whether God even has a plan, we can hear in the first reading that he does and we will hear it and see it unfold, not in the noise of the coronavirus or the election or our fears but in the quiet spaces where we encounter God. God has a plan, and we can see it unfold if we stop paying attention to the fires in our lives and, instead, let the one true God unfold it for us.

18th OT A: We must not fear to ask for help.

Friend

Peace be with you.

In a previous life, I was a short order cook. I wasn’t very good at it but I did it every morning during one of my summers at college starting at 6:30 and going until 2:30 and possibly 3:00. It was a particularly difficult summer, too, because I also drove medications to nursing homes from 5:30-10:00 or 11:00. I’d get home just in time to fall asleep and wake up and do it all over again the next day. I found the cooking job frustrating and rewarding at the same time. My boss would come every day and bail me out if I got behind but he wanted to sit out front and entertain people so I always felt guilty asking for help. I can remember one day when I just kept seeing more and more tickets going up and more and more people coming into the restaurant and I kept falling further and further behind. There were several points when I wanted to open the door to the kitchen and ask for help but I just kept working and falling behind until the owner finally opened the door and asked, “How are you doing? It looks like you could use some help.” I said yes and stepped aside as he took over and bailed me out. I became his assistant watching the old master put out perfect over easy eggs with hot buttered toast and a crispy hash browns. After about an hour, it slowed down and he turned and asked if I could handle it from here. I assured him I could and he said, “Don’t ever be afraid to ask for help.”

We all know what it’s like to be hungry. We all know what it’s like to be thirsty. I would guess that, in this time of covid-19, we’ve also experienced being hungry somewhere and thinking that we would ordinarily stop somewhere to get a snack but we should probably just wait until we get home. God is speaking through the prophet Isaiah to very hungry people, people in exile from their land, people facing a “new normal”, a phrase I’m sure we all hate by now, a people in slavery to their neighbors, the Babylonians. In every way, God should be telling them how disappointed he is in them and how they need to take their punishment for their wickedness. But, instead, he is inviting them to a feast. Now, this isn’t just significant because it’s food. It’s significant because you only invite your friends to feasts. So, God is reminding them that they are still his people, that he still has a close relationship to them even if they feel isolated and alone.

Similarly, in the gospel, Jesus sets up this banquet in a deserted place for people who have come to him to be healed. Notice, by the way, that Matthew starts by saying this is how Jesus responded to the death of John the Baptist. Remember that John’s death also happened at a banquet, but Herod’s banquet was filled with powerful people and ended with a drunken murder of a murder. Jesus’ banquet is filled with people who were sick who had come to be cured and ends with a miracle.

So much of my life, I think good things happen to me because I’m holy or moral. Or at least I’m not as bad as other people. Isaiah reminds us that it’s the lost who are closest to God. Jesus reminds us that the sick are the ones called to this miraculous feast. We come here injured but not broken and longing for the healing that only Jesus can provide in his body, blood, soul, and divinity offered to us in this Bread from heaven.

2EA Peace drives out fear

When I was a senior at Loras College in Dubuque, in order to graduate I had to take an oral comprehensive exam, meaning I had to meet with three professors and, for an hour, answer any and all possible questions they would want to ask about every philosophy class I had taken in the past year and I was supposed to be able to answer all their questions to their satisfaction even if I hadn’t taken the particular subject with that professor. It was an incredibly intimidating experience. I was scheduled to take my comprehensive exams on a Friday afternoon. The plan was to take the exams and go off to have a pint with some friends. I had been studying a great deal, especially two weeks prior to the test, preparing for this day since I knew that it was key to my graduating from college.

On the day of the test, I walked into the room that I thought the exam was to take only to find it dark and empty. I looked at my watch and realized I was about five minutes early so I thought to myself “Well, the professors must be in class and will be coming soon” I took out some note cards I had carried along, sat at a table, and began studying. After a few moments, I looked down at my watch and it was about five after. I thought, maybe I was wrong and the test was going to take in my advisor’s office. So I walked down to his office and knocked on the

door but no one was there. I began to fear that I had written down the wrong day or wrong time so I checked my day planner and it was right there in black ink. Still, I feared I had written down the wrong time or day or building. So I went to one of the other professors who was to administer the exam and knocked on it and there was, again, no response. Feeling more anxiety than ever, I went to the last professor’s door and again received no response. Finally, I looked on an old syllabus and found my advisor’s home telephone number. His wife answered and told me he was in Chicago for the day. I remember thanking her, hanging up the phone and feeling rage and fear. I was so angry that I just wanted to scream or throw my hands up because my professor had apparently forgotten all about my exam, which meant I was not going to earn my degree, which meant I wasn’t going to graduate on time, which meant I wouldn’t enter seminary in the Fall and wouldn’t become a priest and my whole world was coming to an end.

I wonder if these were some of the feelings Thomas was feeling between these two appearances of Jesus. Thomas was left out of the resurrection. We don't know why Thomas wasn’t in the room that evening when our Lord appeared. Maybe he was in the Temple at prayer, sheltering in place in his own locked room. We do know what his reaction was when the disciples came to him with this story that Jesus has appeared to them and said to them those words of comfort. Thomas felt betrayed. He must have felt afraid to, afraid that the Lord had risen and that he had missed it or fear that his friends were lying to him. He must have felt hurt at the possibility of being left out of something so important done by his close friend and confused at what was being said and amidst all of this pain Thomas makes the ultimate statement of disbelief “Unless I probe his hands and side I shall never believe.”

This is the power of fear. We’ve lived in a sea of fear ever since this pandemic started. We may be watching the news and hearing that it’s going to last eighteen months or two years and wondering how we’re going to survive staying at home that long. And then we hear other politicians who seem to think everything is going to go back to normal next week and we don’t know who to believe. If we look on social media, we may see people putting forth all kinds of theories about how it started and how you can prevent it and you just don’t know who to believe. If you have someone in your life who is sick, whether it’s of Covid 19 or some other illness, you may be afraid of how you can take care of them and support them. You may worry, especially if they’re a person susceptible to immune problems and breathing problems, about inadvertently giving them the virus. There is much fear out there right now.

Fear indeed has a lot of power and many emotions tied to it. Our challenge as Christians is to live in this fearful world while living in the hope of the resurrected Jesus Christ. It is a challenge that calls us to move from fear to forgiveness by faith in Jesus Christ. It is a call that liberates from living in fearful situations: situations like abuse, danger, hatred and other situations that cause fear. Our Lord calls you to be free of these situations to be able to live in that hope. When you are safe, there is a temptation to hold on to that anger and fear but our challenge as Christians is to lean how to forgive, learn how to let go. Because, hate, anger, fear, and all these kinds of emotions paralyze our lives if we become fixated on them. They make us focus on something instead of focusing on our relationship. They are especially damaging to our faith lives, the life in relationship to God.

Now, back to my story, I had thought my advisor was setting definite plans when he was, in fact, just setting forth a goal for me. When he returned, we made plans to set a definite date the following Friday and, thankfully, I passed the test, I graduated on time, went to seminary, and got ordained. And all that fear did nothing but complicate things. Today, let us hear God’s healing call that says, “Peace to you, whose sins you forgive are forgiven.” Let us who have been forgiven by God fall on our knees and say, “My Lord and My God”.

5 LA Object Permanence of the Resurrection

Friends

Peace be with you.

Many of you probably know, somewhere between 4-7 months, a child goes from only knowing what’s in the world by what they see to knowing that someone or something is there even if they can not see it. They call it object permanence. In those first few months, if you get annoyed by the sounds of an annoying toy or if a child becomes fascinated with an electrical outlet, all you have to do is remove the toy or remove the outlet from his or her sight and suddenly it doesn’t appear. However, once object permanence is established, you risk a temper tantrum for removing the object of temptation, especially if it was something that they were taking great pleasure in exploring or if they’re short on sleep.

St. John’s story of the death and resuscitation of Lazarus is extremely vivid and full of details that are definitely worth pondering and remembering. For instance, whereas St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke would have most likely simply started this story from Bethany, St. John starts two days in advance in the Northern part of Israel called Galilee. We know from the other gospels that Galilee was where Jesus did most of his ministry and that Bethany was the place he would stay, instead of Jerusalem, when he either visited the temple or did ministry in the southern part of Israel, called Judea. St. John starts this story when Jesus heard that Lazarus, his friend, is sick. Jesus knows that the illness will end in death so he...waits for two days. It says that he knew the people in the south were trying to kill him so he wanted to wait for things to calm down. So, he waits two days to go. St. Thomas says, “then let us all go up and die with him.” It seems a cynical remark but, in truth, we can hear a willingness on the part of St. Thomas and the other apostles to follow Jesus in death, which they most certainly will do when they are all martyred as one of his followers. See how subtle that is? It sounds like a cynical remark that all of us probably would have made at the idea that two days is enough to calm the anger against Jesus, but instead it points to the fact that they will all be martyred like Jesus even before Jesus has died.

We’re not sure exactly how long it took them to make it to Bethany. The next time-frame we are given is when Matha, of Mary and Martha fame in the Gospel of St. Luke says Lazarus has been dead for four days. In any case, Jesus arrives and there’s a parallel to that earlier story from the Gospel of Luke about Martha and Mary, but also a bit of contrast. You may remember that story as Mary choosing the better part by sitting contemplatively at Jesus’ feet while Martha is wearied about many things, rushing around the house trying to be the good host. The parallel is that Martha is the first to speak to Jesus. Like in the story when Jesus visits them, Martha is also the most active, running to meet him when he is still outside the city.

Now, we know they would have buried the body of Lazarus outside the city because it was illegal to bury them inside. That’s why, on the day of Easter, Mary Magdalene has to go to the tomb outside the city to try to anoint Jesus’ body. So, Jesus may have been making a beeline to the tomb of his friend and was intercepted by Martha. Their interaction speaks to the place that Martha has grown as a person. She says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But…” She adds a “but” to this statement, “But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” There is a statement of faith, of hope, and of love. This is a different Martha from the resentful host trudging around her house. Martha is one with faith in Jesus, declaring that she knows Jesus can do this because God listens to him. Jesus then declares to her that I am, one of his famous “I AM” statements from the Gospel of John, “I am the resurrection and the life” and she responds that she has come to believe in him and so she calls her faithful sister, Mary.

Now, Mary brings with her a group of professional mourners who would have gone from funeral to funeral mourning with people, whether they knew them or not. That’s why they are crying with her, not because they really have a strong connection to the family but because they think it’s their job to go and make the family feel like it’s alright to cry and mourn. What Mary says sounds very similar to what Martha says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” However, there's no “but” at this point. Unlike the earlier experience of sitting at the Lord’s feet in quiet contemplation, her apathy comes through. She’s absent. It’s been four days since her brother has died and she’s lost any hope that he will come back.

In response to Mary, Jesus gets perturbed and weeps. Unlike the professional mourners, he weeps because his friend Lazarus has to die. Even though Jesus knows that all of this is being done for the glory of God, he weeps at what his friend had to go through. But, he also weeps at the lack of faith surrounding from Mary and those with her.

Which is where the third interaction takes place. Storytelling is built on the rule of three, three interactions between Jesus and the sisters in this case. Jesus asks that the stone be rolled away, and this time it’s Martha whose doubts are brought forward as she worries about a stench. Martha is the one who believes but also asks Jesus to help her unbelief, as it says in the Gospel of St. Mark. I believe but I don’t want it to be tested. I don’t want to have to prove that when we roll away the stones we’re not going to smell decay on the inside.

So, Jesus gets perturbed again, frustrated that the one who so proudly said she believed is now saying that she doesn’t believe, won’t put her actions of faith behind her statement of belief. At this point, Jesus says “Lazarus, Come out!”, calling him by his name for the first time since he arrived instead of just calling him the “dead man”, Lazarus comes out wrapped in his burial cloths. It’s like the burial cloths point to the fact that this is a resuscitation instead of a resurrection. He has come back to life, but Lazarus will die. This is definitely a sign by St. John of the resurrection but I like the detail that the body is still wrapped, he is still bound by the laws of death of this world. People still come to faith in Jesus because of the resuscitation of Lazurus.

Death is a confusing thing and, certainly, in this time of Covid-19, there is death all around us. There is the metaphorical death of our freedom to be able to go where we want and be with whom we want and feeling trapped in our house and, yet, I know some people are experiencing actual death of loved ones because of this disease as well. I think it’s not the worst thing in the world to contemplate the reality of death, that each of us will likely face this evil. There are two things that come to my heart during this time. The first is that, if we are with a loved one who is most likely headed toward death and we call upon the Lord saying, “Lord, if you are here, my brother or sister won’t die.” Remember that Jesus waited two days to go to see his friend and that, in that time, Lazarus did in fact die. It was because he knew, as it said, that we would see the glory of God. Resuscitation is great but Resurrection is better. Resuscitation ends but resurrection is eternal. It gives us hope.

St. Thomas Aquinas offered four reasons to believe in the resurrection. I offer the second of his four reasons that I think directly hits us right now. He says, “By removing the dread of death, since we believe that there is another, better life to which we shall come after death, it is evident that no one should fear death or do anything through fear of death. Not that we find death to be something that we long for or yearn for or try and bring about by our own actions. We all have to rely on God to be the author of our lives. But it shouldn’t be something that we dread either, something that we are terrified to face as a reality. Resurrection should give us a sense that death is, as it said in the readings, a sleep, waiting, anticipating. It’s a real sense in faith in an object of permanence. The world tells that that, once you die, that is the end. That all we need to do is to look outside and see things passing away, our cars die, our computers die, things die and, once they do, they end. And yet, we who have faith in the Object Permanence of the resurrection know that death is a reality but is also not the end. It is something that we’ll all have to go through that will lead us to everlasting life. So, as we contemplate this, don’t forget the Object Permanence of the resurrection.

3 LA Reconciliation as the sacrament that satiates our thirst to forgive and be forgiven

Friends

Peace be with you.

This weekend was one of those weeks where there just seemed to be a cavalcade of work until I was able to sit down this morning and prepare a homily. And then nothing was coming to me. Up until 3:20 this afternoon, I thought I was going to have to walk to the pulpit and apologize because I didn’t have a homily. Then I thought about those television shows involving a character going to a counselor or a psychiatrist. There’s one guarantee with those episodes, the reason the person walked through the door is not the reason the person that is there. For instance, if you watched the West Wing a few years ago, you may remember the character of Josh going to see a psychiatrist because he got so angry at the president that he exploded in a fit of rage at him in the Oval Office. Throughout the rest of the show, you find out that Josh had cut his hand and claimed that it was from shutting a window too hard and breaking the glass when, in fact, it was because he had set down a glass of gin and broken it in his hand. Josh had PTSD from an assasination attempt on the president when he was almost critically wounded but, of course, that’s not the real reason Josh exploded. By the end of the show, you discover the he had been in a house fire when he was a child that had killed his sister and Josh still blamed himself for not doing anything to save his little sister. By the way, if this sounds familiar, it may be because the character of Randall is also visiting a psychiatrist on the show This Is Us after someone broke into his house and he beat the tar out of someone. I would guess that, as with Josh, we’ll find the roots are deeper to this than we expect.

So, what are the roots of the situation taking place in the gospel. In other words, what is bringing this samaritan woman out in the hottest part of the day in search of water? At the time, people, mostly women, got their water in the early morning because it was hard work carrying it back home. Plus, if you do it early, you may run into your friends and catch up on all the town gossip, sort of like their version of the water cooler. They could talk about walking into three stores and not finding any toilet paper and then asking why everyone is so worried about toilet paper. Or they may have complained about the fact that March Madness and Spring Training were both cancelled and wondered what, if any sports, they were going to be able to watch; professional bowling? Chess? Curling?

Which probably answers the question as to why she is out at this time of the day. She is self distancing, not because of a global pandemic but because she feels ashamed. She’s been married five times and the man she’s living with is not HER husband. Everyone in town knows it. They probably even talk about her in the morning when they’re getting their water. Most people probably avoid her, like we would do to a toddler who just sneezed on their hand and then immediately wants to give you a sign of peace.

You can imagine then how this moment must have felt after going out in the middle of the day and, while you’re hurriedly drawing water, along comes a foreigner whose people don’t have anything to do with you, who asks you for a drink. Samaritans and Jews don’t have anything to do with each other. Still, he asks for water. You’ve got water but you know a Jew isn’t going to drink your water because the vessels you have aren’t kosher. Suddenly he’s telling you that, if you’d asked him for water, he would have given you an endless supply of living water, better water than you’re gossipy neighbors get at this spring.

That’s where it gets a little weird because this man tells her that she needs to get her husband to haul it back to their house. In today’s world, that probably sounds very sexist but Jesus is really doing something powerful: he’s getting the woman to unveil what she is really thirsting for. She came for water but she was thirsting for forgiveness and reconciliation. “I do not have a husband” she says to Jesus. And Jesus acknowledges that and reveals himself as the Messiah and talks about a time when reconciliation will happen between her people and his.

What happens next is what I tend to find most instructive for where we are today. Remember all those people she’s been avoiding? Now, she runs to them with a mission. She has to reveal the messiah to them. Her method of evangelization is simple: tell her own story of forgiveness and then ask them if they have the same experience with Jesus. She has had a moment of referent spirituality and is inviting them to do the same. She allows Jesus to reveal himself to these people and invites them to go and see for themselves.



We are all thirsting to be forgiven by God. In reverence, let God reveal to you what you most want to have forgiven. You may not be entirely aware of what it is and it may go back many years and be something that has continuously plagued you. Bring that to the sacrament of reconciliation. Then go and tell others so they can believe for themselves and know that Jesus is the savior of the world.

1 L A The three pillars: Freedom in Christ

Friends

Peace be with you.

One of my jobs as your pastor is to provide a vision to focus our efforts in a particular direction. This probably seems a bit silly since the Bible contains many great vision statements. There’s the great commission that Jesus gives in the gospel of Matthew 28:19-20 “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” Or, Psalm 46:11: 1“Be still and know that I am God, exalted over nations, exalted over earth!” Actually, there’s so many that it becomes hard to choose only one. There are, of course, a few that won’t work. Proverbs 21:19 comes to mind, “Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and nagging (spouse).” So, one of my challenges is to be in prayer, both individually and with all of you, and hear God calling me to lead you to holiness in this place at this time. Pope Francis, in his recent Post Synodal Exhortation to the people of the Amazon said it best when he said, “Everything that the Church has to offer must become incarnate in a distinctive way in each part of the world so that the Bride of Christ can take on a variety of faces that better manifest the inexhaustible riches of God’s grace.

The vision I’m putting forth comes from a recent time of prayer during one of the quiet times at Mass. I was reflecting in church about what that vision would look like for this assignment. It was a 1% challenge moment of silence for me and these three things sort of floated to the front of my heart: Reverent Spirituality, Freedom in Christ, and Love of Christ. (repeat that) All three are interconnected but not confused. And, they keep being brought forward to me in different ways during prayer. For instance, on Ash Wednesday, I kept thinking about how Reverent Spirituality is intimately connected to prayer, Freedom in Christ is the goal of fasting, and the Love of Christ is a life lived out in almsgiving. St. Paul presented the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. Reverent Spirituality is based on a need to cultivate a deep faith in our lives. Freedom in Christ is imbued with hope. And the word “love” is rooted in the last one, Love of Christ.

In today’s readings, we hear about temptation. Adam and Eve are tempted by the serpent. Jesus is tempted by the devil. Where does this fit into this vision I’m putting forward? To see how, we have to listen deeply to the scriptures. One cynical way of looking at our world is that it is one huge temptation. I can think of three temptations that I see as being paramount; selfishness, distraction, and vices, but I’m sure there are others. Selfishness is seen in ancient literature as a curvature of the spine. It’s imbued in such maxims as “Charity begins at home” and “Treat yo self!” It is the idea that my will must be first, rather than the will of God. Distraction is the idea that, if I can’t constantly be happy. I can at least not have to be attentive to what I find to be tedious or difficult. Cell phones and other technology seek to distract us. Food can be a distraction, especially the stuff that’s not really food like candy, pop. and alcohol, Which leads us to the final temptation, vices. Vices are what happen when our temptations take priority over all else in our lives, despite the fact that we could definitely live out them. In a recent homily, I used the example of a person obsessively playing a computer game about a virtual family to the detriment of the relationship within her actual family. Or think of the person so addicted to methamphetamine that his teeth are falling out. You’d think there’d come a point when the person would realize they’re better off without it but that point never seems to come.

Instead of temptation, we seek Freedom in Christ. The world needs Freedom in Christ. Indeed, Christ is the world’s Freedom! And this freedom is exemplified in Christ’s temptation. I’m going to focus in on the first interaction that Jesus has with the devil because something interesting occurred to me as I prayed with it. Did you notice that the first thing the devil tempted Jesus with is bread? The Eucharist is also connected to the Fall of Adam in Eve in Genesis so it makes sense that the devil would try and use it in Jesus’ temptation. Eve takes the fruit, gives it to Adam, and they both eat. Take, give, and eat are three of four verbs used on the night of the last supper that become intimately connected to the Eucharist. Still, there’s one verb that is missing; blessed. A blessing is an act of thanksgiving to God for a gift given by him to us and the intention to use that gift in service of God. Adam and Eve didn’t bless the fruit because their spines were curving in selfishness as a consequence of their originally sinful act.

Jesus, in contrast, when tempted by the bread of the devil, sees the mockery of the Eucharist inherit in the act and, despite his hunger, seeks the freedom that comes from fasting from temptation. Freedom is based on the idea that we are made for great things and we shouldn’t settle for the paltry things the devil provides. Freedom in Christ seeks what is pure, good, and beautiful.



The sacrament of Reconciliation helps greatly with our search for Freedom in Christ. It allows us to be rid of the selfishness, distraction, and vices that weigh us down. I hope you will take advantage of one of our schedules times of reconciliation or give me a call and set up an appointment to experience Freedom in Christ, the Christ who called you to follow him in Reverent Spirituality and who calls you to go from here to live a life saturated with his love.

6 OT A: Holiness that surpasses the scribes and pharisees

Friends

Peace be with you. 

Back when I was in grade school, my older brothers had a Lenten tradition that I would occasionally get to participate in. Some of you may have had a similar tradition. During Lent, my mom was a little more stringent than the church and would make us fast, not only from meat, but also from eating between meals. The church only mandates that we do that on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Nonetheless, my brothers would wait until 11:37 on Friday night and call the local pizza place to order a sausage pizza that would be delivered to our house a little after midnight. We had fulfilled the law...barely. We were like the kid who’s asked to take his laundry to his room who puts in on the floor right inside his bedroom door or the kid that’s asked to pick up her toys who simply pushes them all to the corner of the room. It’s all about doing enough to make sure that you don’t get into trouble.

When Christianity was being formed, there was a debate within the church as to the role the Old Testament law would play. If you simply read St. Paul, you could get the impression that we should view the Old Testament as a museum: something that used to be important that is no longer. Yet, to balance this out, we have today’s rather lengthy gospel. Jesus begins by saying that the law hasn’t passed away. In fact, Jesus hasn’t come to abolish the law but to bring it to perfection by fulfilling it. He then shows what that fulfillment looks like by using a total of six examples, of which we hear four. First, don’t just avoid killing people, avoid becoming angry with your neighbor and do what you can to reconcile with him. Secondly, don’t just avoid committing adultery, don’t look with lust at someone, especially someone who isn’t your boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse. Thirdly, don’t divorce despite the fact that Moses allowed for it. Lastly, don’t just avoid swearing false oaths. Don’t swear oaths at all. Instead, just live your life in such a way that you fulfill the agreements that you make so that you don’t need to make oaths. Each of these examples takes a law that was already on the books and ratchets up the expectations. It definitely challenges the people who think that Jesus wasn’t about rules or laws but only cared that we be nice to one another. Jesus wasn’t a hippie pacifist. He expected that his followers obey the law and that they do so to a degree that others in the world didn’t.

Nonetheless, as I said before, there is a tension in scripture that is very much still present in the church today. Paul says that the law is unimportant, Jesus says that he is the fulfillment of the law and that his followers will follow every letter and then some. The way we feel the tension is, often, in certain hot-button moral issues. For example with the issue of homosexuality; Church leadership says that scripture and tradition are clear that, while gay people are to be loved and not unjustly discriminated against, homosexual acts are not morally good. Some theologians and many gay rights activists will quote Jesus saying, “Judge not, lest ye be judged” as though it means Jesus was a relativist, that almost nothing is immoral. So, the church advocates maintaining the law as it is and gets criticized for being judgemental and mired in the law,

To use another example, one of the demands that both the Old Testament and New demands is that we provide for the alien, or people we would today call undocumented immigrants. We are supposed to give them food and water, clothing, and even a place to stay if they need it. Still, often times the same people with whom we agree on the issues of gay marriage and abortion make laws seeking to inhibit catholic charities ability to reach out to fulfill this precept of the law. We are simply trying to recognize the dignity of human life present in immigrants and strangers just as much as it is in the unborn. 

In the end, the law was meant to define minimums for us; the least that we have to do to be okay in the eyes of God. Both Paul and Jesus agree that the problem with the law is that we shouldn’t make it the goal of our our lives to seek what’s the least we have to do to get into heaven. We should be constantly seeking to grow deeper in holiness through the acts of our lives and not rely on the minimums to decide how we treat other people. 

Let me give an example that I hear about quite frequently. I think of what happens when farmers notice a friend or neighbor who becomes sick or injured to the point they won’t be able to harvest their crop. There is nothing that says you have to fire up your combine, use your own time and fuel, and help that person harvest his crop. And, when you think about it, it would be advantageous for that neighbor to let the crop sit in the field and rot so there’s less corn or beans out there and their crop may be worth more. But that’s not the point. Someone is hurting and you can help so you do. 

If the goal of the scribes and pharisees was to define their holiness by the law in such a way that they always made sure it worked best for them, then if our holiness is going to be greater, we can’t be focused on what’s best for us. Our law must be to always do what’s best for the other. 

3 OT A: Walking in darkness one day and in light the next

Friends
Peace be with you.
About a month ago, I was able to take some time to see the movie Harriet. Sadly, it’s no longer in theaters but it’s starting to show up in some streaming services. The movie tells the story of Harriet Tubman, a slave who managed to escape from her southern slave owners to freedom in Philadelphia. Eventually she returned to assist slaves along the Underground Railroad to the freedom of the north. I was glad that the filmmakers retained her deep faith, at points attributing narrow escapes to divine visions. I was also impressed that they neither fetishize nor minimize the horrors surrounding slavery. At one point, Harriet wants to free her sister, Rachel, who is the primary house slave for her female slave owner and children. Harriet and Rachel get into a heated debate about what will happen to whom if she runs away and whether that matters. It was a good lesson on the complexities of life associated with making the right decision for ourselves while making sure that we don’t hurt those who are also affected by our choices.
Our first reading for today’s Mass probably sounds familiar. Jesus quotes it in the gospel for today. And it is also an option for Mass at Christmas. It’s a part of Sacred Scripture that we, as Christians, often look to as a bridge between the Old and New Testaments. It comes from the Book of the prophet Isaiah and is just 8 chapters in, so we’re still in the phase of this book in which the people are being warned to reform their lives or be prepared to be exiled. However, you may not entirely pick that up from the part that we just heard. It sounds very hopeful, that what seems to have been bad is getting better. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.
However, if we dig a little deeper, we quickly find that appearances are deceiving. Let’s start with Zebulum and Naphtali, these regions which are initially said to be degraded before the sea road is declared good again. Zebulum and Naphtali are two of Israel’s children, so these are two of the twelve tribes of Israel. Each tribe, when they enter the land given them by God, is given a piece of land they are responsible for caring for. Zebulum and Naphtali are given the most northern parts. The first group that attacks God’s people, the Assyrians, overrun and take over Zebulum and Naphtali and forcibly convert them to be non-Jewish, or Gentile, cities. The people that had lived there are exiled and the tribes of Zebulum and Naphtali cease to exist any longer. So, by degrading them, Israih is basically saying they’re destroyed, and yet the area has become one heck of a nice roadway as a consequence. No longer would the people of God have to stop and visit Zebulum and Naphtali. You can just pass by since it’s now controlled by the Gentiles. It’s kind like rejoicing at the death of a bitter relative because you will no longer have to worry about them showing up and ruining Christmas.
        Isaiah uses the destruction and overthrow of these regions to foreshadow the overthrow of their leaders, which happens a few years later during the Babylonian captivity. The King and his court are taken to Babylon where they eventually die. They are called, anguish, distress, gloom, and darkness, not great adjectives from a political perspective. Still, the darkness will be overcome by a bright light, according to the prophet, pointing to a future of rejoicing. The last verse say, “For the yoke that burdened them, the pole on their shoulder and the rod of their taskmaster, you have smashed as on the day of Midian.” You see, when the Israelites were arguing for a king way back in First Samuel, they were told that they would have to do all the work and the king would take both the credit for the work and the crops and animals they produce. It was God’s way of trying to talk them out of demanding a king. In this verse, God is envisioning a time when this situation would no longer exist and, instead, God would be their king and he neither needs glory nor produce. This is why we connect this reading so closely to the Christmas season.
         For Jesus, this is the passage that comes to mind when his cousin, John, is being removed from ministry and he is taking over. He is in the Galille, the name of the region that used to be called Zebulum and Naphtali. He announces himself the light for the people who sit in darkness and the shadow of death. What’s striking and somewhat connected to the mission of Harriet Tubman, is that Jesus has to get his people to see the Gentiles as people worthy of a relationship with God. This isn’t just a nice highway that one can pass through quickly without worrying about the usual hospitality expectations. There are people living there, people who deserve to have just as much hope for forgiveness of sins as the Jews did. He had to help his people see that the Gentiles were capable of being saved because they were people created in God’s image and likeness and, therefore, deserving to hear about the Kingdom of God.
       I think racism is, first and foremost, based on a notion of superiority, that one race is better than another by virtue of genetics or upbringing. The truth is that we all are in need of salvation, all of us have sinned, all of us need to repent. I think that’s why the Church encourages us to go to confession at least once-a-year and more often if we are conscious of committing a sin; to remind ourselves of our true light in Christ and to unite us as people who have sinned but are, nonetheless, united on a journey toward the kingdom that God alone can build for us.

Baptism of the Lord - A: Finding Jesus while serving the poor

Friends
 Peace be with you.
 Have you ever heard the story of St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers and lost souls? According to a legendary account of his life, while serving the king of Canaan, Christopher decided to go and serve "the greatest king there was". He went to his king, who was reputed to be the greatest, but one day he saw the king cross himself at the mention of the devil.So he went in search of the devil so he could serve him. He came across a band of marauders, really bad guys, one of whom declared himself to be the devil. So Christopher decided to serve him. But when he saw his new master avoid a cross by the side of the road and found out that the devil feared Christ, he left him and inquired from people where to find Christ. After inquiring of many people how to find Jesus, he found everyone pointing him in the direction of a hermit who instructed him in the Christian faith. Christopher asked him how he could serve Christ. When the hermit suggested fasting and prayer, Christopher told him he wasn’t interested in that. The hermit then suggested that because of his size and strength Christopher could serve Christ by assisting people to cross a dangerous river, where people were being swept away in the current or drowning in the attempt. The hermit promised that this service would be pleasing to Christ.

After Christopher had performed this service for some time, a little child came to him to ask him to take him across the river. During the crossing, the river seemed to become deeper and deeper and the child seemed as heavy as lead, so much that Christopher could scarcely carry him and found himself nearly drowning. When he finally reached the other side, he said to the child: "You have put me in the greatest danger. I do not think the whole world could have been as heavy on my shoulders as you were." The child replied: "You had on your shoulders not only the whole world but Him who made it. I am Christ your king, whom you are serving by this work." At this, the child vanished.

I think what attracts us to this story is the idea that Christopher gets duped by Jesus. He wants to serve the most powerful person and, ye, he finds that he’s isn’t even strong enough to carry a child across a stream. I would guess a fair number of parents can sympathize with Christopher on this accound. You think you have children to be able to pass on your wisdom and knowledge and quickly find you spend most of the time making sure they don’t hurt themselves and aren’t lying in their own filth.

 I feel like this feeling is connected to St. John the Baptist in today’s Gospel. We know from the Gospel of Luke that St. John was the cousin of Jesus. We know that Mary went to be with Elizabeth, John’s mother, when she found out they were both pregnant. What we don’t know, and is not clear from any descriptions found in Sacred Scripture, is what happened after that. In other words, we don’t know about any of the interactions that happened between Jesus and his cousin John before Jesus was baptized by him. This may be because John and Jesus didn’t interact much before this. Geography may have played a part in this. Jesus was from Nazareth, which is in the north of Gallilee and John the Baptist was raised in Jerusalem or somewhere close enough to the Temple that his Father, Zechariah, could have gotten to the Temple to carry out his priestly duties. What you may not know is that Herod the Great, at one point, removed the high priests and replaced them with some that would agree with him. Herod the Great had quintupled the size of the Temple, but some of the high priests felt he had overstepped his bounds and started speaking out against him and against Rome in general so Herod replaced them.

 We know all of this because of some writings that were unearthed in caves around the Dead Sea, to the extreme south of Israel, or the Dead Sea Scrolls. Most of the scrolls contain some of the most ancient versions of Sacred Scripture that exist. However, there are a few that indicated a kind of communal living of individuals who have been uprooted from Jerusalem by Rome. It’s possible, as some scholars have speculated, that John the Baptist was taken by his aging parents to live with this community deliberately disconnected from his family and the rest of society out of fear of Rome. One reason why this is attractive is because the community near the Dead Sea, unable to sacrifice animals for the forgiveness of their sins, emphasized an alternative tradition, ritual bathing, for the washing away of sins. That may be how John the Baptizer found himself in the middle of the desert, dressed in wild clothes like that of a religious order, fasting in a way St. Christopher never could, staring into the eyes of the Messiah for whom he had been telling people to prepare without recognizing the man as his cousin.

 John’s reaction is the kind of humility that comes with being in the presence of stardom. It’s the kind of feeling you get if you go to a live concert by your favorite musician or musical group and get to see live someone you’ve only seen on Youtube. Still, I can’t help but wonder how John knew Jesus was the messiah while St. Christopher had not clue. What made Jesus stand out for John and not at all to Christopher.

 I think it has to do with their expectations. Christopher was expecting a tough guy, a powerful king who could wipe out nations. John the Baptist is expecting one whom God had chosen, one closer to the first reading in Isaiah who won’t raise his voice or break a bruised reed or snuff our a smoldering wick. John had so immersed himself in Sacred Scripture that he knew the source of true power, unlike St. Christopher who though true power came from strength.

Still, I think it’s important to also pay attention to what unites St. John the Baptist and St. Christopher. In both cases, it was when they were in humble, loving service of others that they encountered Jesus. Both of these men may have benefited from the wisdom of St. Teresa of Calcutta, who looked into the decaying faces of lepers and saw the face of Christ. She could see how important it was to see service to the poor as, ultimately, service to Christ. In just the same way, each of us are called to serve one another and, so, serve Christ. How is God calling you to humble service of his Son in service offered to his little ones.

Emmanuel, God is with us. Christmas Vigil

Friends

    Peace be with you. 

    I am so glad to see all of you here tonight! Whether you are someone I see pretty much every weekend, someone I see occasionally, or someone I see very rarely, I want you to know how great it is that we come together this night/this day to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, son of God and son of Mary.

When I was in middle school, my parents took me on a vacation to visit my godfather who lived in Orlando. It was the first time I travelled on a plane. I can remember that plane ride because they weren’t certain one of the landing gears was down but, thank goodness, it was. It was also the first time I ever saw oranges and grapefruits growing on trees in people’s backyards. Both fruits even seemed to have a darker color coming directly off the tree. On the trip, my parents brought me to Sea World and we got to see many sea animals I’d never seen before. At the Orca or Killer Whale, show I noticed a man sitting with a very fancy video camera dressed all in black with a black mohawk and black sunglasses. I recognized him immediately as a professional wrestler named The One Man Gang. He was a meanie, one of the bad guys of the wrestling world. I pointed him out to my parents and my Mother gave me a piece of paper and a pen to get his autograph. I just shook my head, not because I was intimidated by his in ring persona, but because I thought to myself, “Why would someone famous want to meet me?” 

You see, as I shared in a bulletin column recently, this is one of my foibles. If I seem kind of snobbish or shy it’s because I don’t always think people will want to meet me. I suspect some of you are this way or maybe some of your kids or your relatives are this way. 

I would bet St. Joseph felt this way. In the Gospel of Matthew, which we just heard, he never says a word. In fact, as Deacon Robert correctly pointed out this past weekend, St. Joseph never says a word at any point in scripture. Yet, you get the sense that Matthew must have heard from St. Joseph, or someone who talked to St. Joseph, in order to write the gospel passage we just heard. At the time, there was a two step process for marriage, the betrothment and the indwelling. The betrothment isn’t exactly what we would consider being engaged in our culture. The couples would exchange promises in front of their family and friends and committ to a life together. Then, the husband would go off and build their house get a job or prepare a dowry to give to his future father-in-law. Then, after all of that was completed, which could take as long as a year or year and a half, the husband would come back and take his wife into his home and the two would, hopefully, build a family of their own. Our story is taking place between the betrothment and indwelling. During this time, Joseph finds out Mary is pregnant. Now, according to the Old Testament book of Leviticus, he could have exacted a capital punishment on Mary. It says that Joseph was unwilling to expose her to shame so he decided to divorce her quietly. He may have done this because he loved Mary and wanted what’s best for her by allowing her to go off and have the child in a place where no one would know. St. Thomas Aquinas and others thought that it’s also possible that Mary shared with Joseph the vision she received from the Angel Gabriel about how her son was to be special, a Son of God, and so Joseph thought to himself that he wasn’t important enough to be the father of such an important person so he was divorcing her so she could marry someone more important. 

If that’s true, it makes sense that the Angel had to visit Joseph in our gospel to explain that he has two important roles to play in this child’s life: first he is the one that will connect Jesus to King David. St. Matthew quotes the prophet Isaiah in which it is prophesied “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel.” This passage also connects the Messiah to being a descendant of the Old Testament King David. Second, it is Joseph who is given the job of naming Jesus. The fact that he’s told what to name his son shouldn’t be seen as making St. Joseph any less integral. The name Jesus means “God saves”. Joseph will be the first to declare the salvation that comes through Jesus to the world and will clarify that the salvation will not come through a political dynasty like his ancestor King David tried but a salvation through the forgiveness of sins. 

Perhaps the most important thing that is revealed to St. Joseph is that, despite his feelings of unworthiness, his son would be the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies that the Messiah would be called Emmanual, or God is with us. Joseph would know that God is with us every time he looked on the face of his child. That means that, rather than having to search all over the world for a God playing hide and seek with us, we have a God who is with us. We may feel, like St. Joseph, that our lives are too sinful or too boring or too exciting or too whatever for God to care about us. But God is with us. He is with us in the Eucharist, in the real presence of his Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. He is with us in the Bible, in the inspired Word of God given to the church to build up our faith. But he is also with us in the quiet of our prayer. He is with us in the smile of our wife or husband or children. He is with us to save us from our sins. God doesn’t care about prestige or power. He only cares about you. Please take some time today noticing the many ways God is with you. 

First Sunday of Advent Year A: Let us climb the mountain of the Lord

Friends

Peace be with you.

One of the regrets I have about my semester in Israel during seminary is that I never walked on the Temple Mount. Today, it’s a Muslim Holy Site now called, in Arabic, the Harem al Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary in English. The two most important buildings located there are the Dome of the Rock, which houses a rock which may have been the altar of sacrifice during the time of Jesus. Muslims point to what appears to be a footprint on the rock and say that it is the launching point for the Prophet Muhuammid right before he shot into heaven. Christians believe they’re actually pointing to chisel marks that we made during the crusades in order to send part of the altar of sacrifice back to as relics for altars but, who knows? The other building on the Noble Sanctuary is the Al-Aqsa Mosque, a large mosque that still welcomes many different groups of Muslims seven times a day to prayer. It is the most important site of Islam within Israel despite the fact that it’s not really all that impressive. It’s roughly the same size and height of Bellevue State Park, just without the trees and vegetation and wildlife. It does have a lot more security and a sound system that can be heard throughout the city of Jerusalem. Yet, I never quite made it up there to see things first-hand. Violence broke out between Israelis and Palestianians and it was seen as unsafe to walk to the Noble Sanctuary. But, just to give you a sense of its height, we were able to overlook it from several places within Jerusalem including the steeples of the Catholic Church of St. Anne, the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, and a number of other not-so spectacularly tall buildings.

Our first reading today, from the book of the Prophet Isaiah, predicts a time when that structure would be the tallest building in the world. It seems a little...exaggerated...especially in an area of the world which actually has mountains. What would cause the Prophet to see this lofty future for such an unremarkable place?

This passage is a poem. I know it might not sound like it in English, but apparently it’s clearly a poem in Hebrew, possibly even a song. The poem is less about high places as it is about what the people at the time would have associated with the Temple. To offer an analogy, imagine if I were to say that someday Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City or the Uni Dome or Jack Trice Stadium in Ames will be seen as a great stadium and everyone will want to stream towards it and say, “Come, let us watch real football and a real football team.” I would tacitly be saying everywhere else is going to be inferior to that stadium and that team. That’s kind of like what Isaiah is really saying in the first reading. Mountains are the dwelling places of the gods. Zeus was on Mount Olympus. Ai, the god of the Samaritans, was housed on Mount Gerizim. Isaiah is saying that all these other gods on other mountains, even ones that tower higher than the Temple Mount, will be dwarfed by the One True God located on his Mount.

This becomes even more clear if we continue reading and hear the results of the Temple being the highest mount: tools of warfare like swords and spears will be able to be repurposed for tools of agricultural production like plowshares and pruning hooks. And, rather than fighting, all people will solve their problems by bringing them to the Temple, where God himself will be their judge.

I think there’s something particularly significant to us, as Christians, in the heart of this reading. As I said before, the Temple was the dwelling place of God, a kind of Sacrament before there were sacraments if you will, the meeting place of God and humanity. In Advent we, likewise, celebrate the meetings of God and humanity, the dwelling place of God, and the origin of all sacraments in the coming of Jesus. He doesn’t come like a Marvel Superhero or a Supermodel or anything the world would consider “super”. He comes as a typical Jewish person, obedient to his Mom and Dad and observant of his religion in every way. Yet, he was lifted above all mountains on the cross and it causes, not just Jews but all people, to stream toward him.

We are invited, as Isaiah so prophetically put it, “that he may instruct us in his ways and we may walk in his paths.” Are we waking time with God each day to be instructed through Scripture and studying the Catechism or watching a Catholic video on the Formed website? Are we utilizing confession to be rid of what weighs us down so we can walk with the Lord? Our Lord invites us to come! Let us walk in the light of the Lord.

31 OC We belong to God because his imperishable spirit is in us.

Friends
Peace be with you.
Have you ever been in a room filled with people and felt completely alone or ignored, like you’re in one of those movies where you and die and come back as a ghost that only Whoopi Goldberg can see? It’s frustrating, isn’t it? You may start to ask yourself what makes you different than everyone around you and start thinking that difference makes you less important or even worthless.
This week, I’ve been thinking a lot about little Zacchaeus from our gospel today. His name means pure or clean but he’s far from pure or clean. We know this because he is a tax collector at the time of Jesus. You may remember that tax collectors weren’t paid by the government but, instead, increased the amount a person owed and kept the difference for themselves. It was common for tax collectors to charge more to those who were less likely to beat him up, like widows, orphans, and the poor. If you steal from a powerful person, you risk a powerful response. And, since St. Luke emphasized that Zacchaeus is “smaller in stature”, I would guess he’s really pointing to how Zacchaeus especially took advantage of the least powerful. It’s, therefore, especially interesting, that St. Luke includes this story when he tends to emphasize the poor and oppressed, or the “little ones” as Mary calls herself in the first few chapters of this gospel. Why would he tell this story wherein a guy who victimizes the poor comes out looking like the hero?
I’d like to think it’s because St. Luke knew the Old Testament, and thus would have known the passage we heard in the first reading. This passage could be summarized by saying that God is all powerful and all merciful, two things that seem contradictory. If God is all powerful, he not only made everything but determines if something remains existing, including each one of us. But, instead, God doesn’t simply wipe people off the face off the earth whenever we fail to love him or our neighbor. Why? The answer to that question comes at the heart of this reading, “But you spare all things, because they are yours, O Lord and lover of souls, for your imperishable spirit is in all things.”
Let’s unpack that sentence for a second. On the one hand, the Most High doesn’t destroy people who sin because they belong to Him, as it says in Psalm 95, we are God’s people, the flock he shepherds. There’s a level of ownership that God has over us and all of creation, which may make us at least a little ill at ease. I don’t like the idea of someone, even someone I love, feeling like they own me. I get nervous by technology companies tracking my every move. I get annoyed when people think they deserve an immediate response to a question or request that could have waited or could have been answered in a different way. The idea of someone owning us harkens back to the days of slavery, when someone could be owned. Is this the implication that the Wisdom writer wants us to draw: That we are God’s slaves? Hardly! Actually, the writer of wisdom completes this by saying ...they are yours, O Lord and lover of souls, for your imperishable spirit is in all things.” God’s Spirit is in us. He has put a part of himself in us.
Now let’s go back to the story of Zacchaeus and see if this may help us understand why St. Luke, the gospel writer who tends to focus on Jesus’ help for the poor, tells a story about Jesus being merciful to someone who often took advantage of the poor. St. Luke could see, in the poor, people who were owned by God because he put part of himself inside of them. And, this story of Zacchaeus coming down from the tree, he could see a person learning to see the image of God in others.
This reminds me of how important it is to not allow the busyness of life or work or misguided thoughts of superiority to stop us from paying ttention to people who are often overlooked, the person up a tree like Zaccheaus or the person having a rough day standing behind us at Benders. God is calling us to reach out and include people into his community of forgiveness. How can we be sure to take the time to notice the imperishable spirit present in others so as to be an agent of God’s forgiveness for them.

30 OC The one who serves God willingly is heard

Friends
Peace be with you.
While studying in the Holy Land, it was common for women to be sitting on the ground with a child sleeping close by with a sign stuck in a box or basket saying she and her child were sick and asking for help. We would often throw some money at her feet and she would thank us. One day, two of my classmates were going down to the Church of All Nations, which is located in the Garden of Gethsemane. Along the way, they noticed one of these women stand up, pick up her child, and start walking quickly in that same direction. They walked about a half-block behind her until they got close to the church, at which point she turned and opened the back door of a shiny, black Mercedes-Benz. She put her child in the back seat and removed her robes to unveil that she was quite well-dressed and looked very healthy. Then, she climbed into the front seat and drove off. That was the last time we gave money to any of these women.
As I look back, I can’t help but wonder if we overreacted. I mean, what if she was the exception? What if every other of these women were, in fact, a sick widow struggling to take care of her child? What if she was loaned the car by a friend or what if she was sitting there begging for a friend, a proxy of sorts for a friend too sick to even beg?
A similar thing happened much closer to home recently. There was a picture on Facebook of a guy mowing a lawn next to a picture that appeared to show the same man holding a “homeless vet” sign. The second picture appeared to be taken on the corner of Dodge Street in Dubuque between Chick-Fil-A and Chipotle where homeless people commonly stand. The person on Facebook told people not to help the man because he was mowing his own lawn at his own house and is, in fact, not homeless but ripping people off. I couldn’t help but wonder if the person posting knew that for sure or was making assumptions. What if the homeowner had offered to give him money if he mowed his lawn? Or what if the homeowner allowed him to live there in exchange for these services?
I’m betting most, if not all, of us don’t want to be ripped off. If we help someone, we want it to be someone actually in need and not someone just pretending to be. Our sense of justice says that we should feed hungry people who cannot feed themselves but we can’t be responsible to feed those who are perfectly capable of doing so themselves. We may take in a family member or close friend who loses a job or gets a divorce or has something else happen to them that causes the person to be homeless but we all bristle at the thought of paying for housing for people who can readily afford it.
In the first reading, Sirach is struggling with similar things. This is part of a section dealing with what is true and false worship involving how best to fulfill the rules surrounding almsgiving. On the one hand, God doesn’t play favorites and doesn’t always favor the poor if they are at fault. But, he also doesn’t ignore the widow or the orphan simply because the rest of society tends to do so. Instead, God looks to whether the person willingly serves Him and whether the person is lowly.
It seems to me that Sirach is, in part, saying that we shouldn’t be so concerned that someone is worthy of our gift; that we shouldn’t demand the person give us an accounting of what they used the gift for or prove to us that they really needed it. Sirach doesn’t see what we call charity to be something separate from the notion of holiness but interconnected with it. It’s part of being in a covenant. A commentary I read put it this way, “In covenant theology, we are all responsible for one another, the well-fed are obliged to address the needs of those who suffer misfortune.” That means giving to the poor and oppressed is actually a prayer, an act of honoring the image and likeness of God present in each person, especially the poor.
Can we see the image of God in a woman and her child begging in the streets of Jerusalem? What about in that person standing by the side of the road in Dubuque? What about in a relative or neighbor who struggles with drug or alcohol abuse or brain health that calls and asks for help? In all of this, you may say that you don’t think the right answer is to just throw money at the person and walk away, and I agree. But what is the right answer? How can we honor God in those relationships? How can we make these experiences and others like them, especially the ones where the image and likeness of God is much harder to see because of anger or past hard feelings, an experience of worshipping God?

28 0C God speaks through the humble little one, even to the most powerful

Friends
Peace be with you.
Fr. Adam, my monk spiritual director, once told me a story about something that happened in April of 2005, during the period of time after the death of Pope John Paul II and before the election of Pope Benedict. He was meeting with the pastor of a protestant megachurch to do spiritual direction for his retreat. At the beginning of their session, Fr. Adam admitted that he was kind of obsessed with the process of choosing the next pope. The pastor said something about how it was going to be really hard to find a good replacement, someone as dynamic and energetic, as John Paul had been in his youth. Fr. Adam responded by telling him that actually we tend to avoid people with big personalities in leadership positions. We don’t want a movie star pope because he pulls focus from Jesus instead of drawing people to him.
The longer I’m a priest and the more I read scripture, the more I tend to agree with Fr. Adam. Look, for instance, at the first reading of today’s Mass. Now, before I begin, yes this is gonna be another one of those homilies where I’m gonna refer to more than what we just read for Mass. It’s gonna be a cold day tomorrow, so maybe it’d be good to spend some time reading and praying over the entirety of Second Kings chapter 5. It starts by telling us about this military commander named Naaman who is a trusted adviser of his King, the King of Syria, one of the Israelites' adversaries. Naaman is powerful enough to have servants and a wonderful wife but he also has a skin condition referred to as leprosy, which is ironic considering Naaman’s name means pleasant or beautiful.
One of the servants Naaman acquired in a battle with Israel is an unnamed Israelite girl, who informs Naaman that he should go to Israel and meet Elisha, God’s prophet, in order to be cured. We find out, in the course of the story, just how complicated this is because Syria has its own gods and their own religious services led by their own priests and prophets. Naaman has, apparently, gone to all of these people but they’ve been unable to cure him. So, Naaman is, understandably desperate. He goes to his King who gives him permission to approach the King of Israel and ask for permission to approach Elisha.
Setting aside the details of some political shenanigans, eventually, Naaman gets from permission from the King of Israel to go to Elisha. The prophet stays inside his house in prayer and sends a servant to tell Naaman to go bathe in the Jordan River. Naaman is insulted, at first, because Elisha refused to meet him and pray over him , presumably like his own prophets have done, and he can’t understand why he should bathe in the Jordan, considering the rivers in Syria are better than this dirty river. Still, one of his men says to him, “My father, if the prophet told you to do something extraordinary (or difficult), would you not do it? All the more since he told you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” I love this. I’ve been there. Someone asks me to do something unexpected and I act like it’s much harder than it is simply because I don’t entirely believe they’re right. I called Dubuque Religious Company on Friday to ask about the name of someone to refurbish some of the statues that have faded and have some of the plaster falling off. Tim, the owner, gave me a name and phone number of someone he thought could do it. It took me an hour and a half to convince myself to actually call the person. How would I know if the person is good at his job and is, at least not going to ruin these statues? Am I going to have to drive somewhere and see what he’s done before? Should I bring someone with me? Who would that be? How much is it going to cost? What if we can only afford one or two statues, what should be first? Do I need to convene a statue renovation committee to decide which should go first? Do I need to talk to the Archdiocese renovation committee and get their recommendation? Do I need to find out who donated the money for the statue in the first place and ask permission from their relatives to refurbish them? I had almost convinced myself that it wasn’t even worth the phone call because the project was too complicated when the voice of reason cut through and said it’s just a phone call.
It’s just washing in the Jordan River. Naaman does it, plunging himself seven times, as instructed, and he’s cured. He goes back to Elisha to thank him for the healing. Elisha greets him and Naaman says he’s not only been cured, but he’s been converted. He now only believes in Elisha’s God, the one true God, though, as a Syrian military officer, he’s going to have to pretend to bend down to the god of thunder, the chief god of Syria. Naaman offers all kinds of silver, gold, and clothing to Elisha, who refuses them. Some believe the prophet refused them because he realized he didn’t do anything, that is was god’s work all along. I agree but I think something deeper also happens because of his refusal.
You see, since Naaman wants to worship the one t4rue God, and a god’s dominion is tied to a specific location, Naaman brings two mule loads of dirt back to his home. Now, remember that little Israelite servant girl who recommended Naaman approach Israel’s prophet in the first place? She’s a person of faith and humility who lives in the difficult situation of being far away from the land of her God. Yet, because Elisha refused the gifts and Naaman, instead, brings these two loads of Isralite soil back to his house, she will be able to pray to the God of her fathers on their soil.
I hear in this the importance of listening to the little ones, whether that be people who are younger or people who are poor, or people who have less power than us. The little ones tend to be the ones who are easiest to ignore because they aren’t the squeaky wheels or the most beautiful person in the room. But, God speaks and acts through them more often than we expect. Think of the times we’ve had to stop ourselves from swearing because there were little ears in the room. Aren’t they really helping us be holier than we’d normally be if they weren’t there? Or think about the times when a person with special needs makes a suggestion to solve a problem that we either don’t take seriously or don’t entirely understand that turns out to be the exact right thing to do if we’d just paid attention in the first place. When we listen to the little ones, we humble ourselves and open ourselves up to the possibility that God can do amazing things with and for us. We become humble ourselves by listening to the most humble around us. Let’s all stop seeking to be a dynamic celebrity that everyone listens to and seek to be like God’s little ones.

27 OC God answers our prayers in his time and his way

Friends
Peace be with you.
Oftentimes, in the wake of mass shootings or some other tragedy, some people will make fun of the phrase “thoughts and prayers”. I understand that these tragedies often evoke an outrage at the inaction and misdirection of our politicians. I have sympathy for people who, during and immediately after a tense situation, express frustration that more wasn’t done to protect the innocent. However, one thing that concerns me is that the phrase “thoughts and prayers” has become, for some, synonymous with saying “oh well, there’s nothing that could have been done to stop this.” It’s engendered a real hatred for the phrase with one person recently telling me that people just need to be more creative than saying “thoughts and prayers” and another person saying that God hasn’t done anything so maybe it’s time we people do something.
        In my mind, the second of those two people, who implied that prayers have been ineffectual, has the most concerning attitude. Yet, if we look to the first reading, it’s nothing new. The first reading comes from the three chapters-long Old Testament book named haBAkuk or Habakuk as most people say. Habakuk is the name of the prophet to whom God is speaking in the book. One challenge we face with our reading is that, in summarizing it, they’ve left out the heart of what is being said. You see, what we have is the first question Habakuk asked followed by part of the answer God gave to a follow-up second question. Now don’t get me wrong. I understand that the reason it is redacted in this manner is because it seems to take God until Chapter two to actually answer the question Habakuk was asking. Still, I think it’s important for us to understand how anyone could go from this answer, essentially that God will do it in his own time, to the third and final chapter, which is a song of praise, without sounding like it’s the plot to a bad sitcom. We ask God why it’s taking so long to stop bad things from happening, God responds to hold your horses and that he’ll get around to it when he does, and then the song “Where o Where are you tonight starts playing in the background.” And yes, for those who were wondering, that was a reference to Hee Haw.
       So, what’s happening? Things are getting bad in Israel. The people aren’t following God’s laws and aren’t taking the time to develop a relationship with God. They can see an empire coming from the South and the East that both look like they are going to overwhelm them and Habakuk turns to speak on behalf of the people to ask God “Why do you let me see ruin; why must I look at misery? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and clamorous discord.”
       God’s immediate response is actually that it’s going to get worse. He says that those armies that are coming from the East will overpower you all and take some captive. It’s an incredibly dispiriting response when you think about it. But it’s one that I’ve experienced. You’re having a busy day and you just need a break and someone calls and complains that you haven’t done something for them and you think to yourself “well, it’s not like I’ve been sitting around doing nothing.” Or you or a loved one is diagnosed with cancer or some other illness and, right when you think it can’t get any worse, you find out that your son was in a terrible car accident or had a heart attack. You know what I mean, right. I’m talking about those times when you think it can’t get any worse and then you find out you’re still on the second floor of badness and you’re headed down to at least the sub basement if not the sub sub basement.
       Habakuk’s response, his second question, asks God how he can allow people to believe that he’s sitting back and doing nothing. Habakuk can understand punishing the guilty but he’s worried that the good will also get punished if he doesn’t stop them from being exiled. We’re kind of reminded of the passage from a few weeks ago when Abraham negotiated with God about how many people it would take for God not to destroy Sodom and Gemmorah. I’m also reminded of being in grade school when the teacher would be correcting the students for doing something that I hadn’t done but, instead of feeling justified in not talking when I wasn’t supposed to, I feel like I’m getting punished for other people’s bad behavior.

24 OC Idolatry is putting ourselves at odds with God.

Friends

Peace be with you.

The first reading for today can drive theologians crazy. It’s one of those readings that seems to reinforce the misconception that the God of the Old Testament is not the God of the New, that the God of the Old Testament is an angry, old man shouting “get off my yard” and the God of the New Testament is the smiling, tolerant Jesus pictured with wind blown, sun drenched hair as though he’s just stepped off his surf board. Aside from the anti-semitism in thinking the Old Testament is bad, remember that the only book Jesus knew as a Bible was the Old Testament and when he prayed to “Our Father”, he was praying to this God. So, there has to be a way to understand this passage that doesn’t assume the God of the Old Testament is bad or mean.

Yet, even knowing a bit of context for this passage doesn’t help. Right before this passage, Moses has gone up the mountain to meet with God and receive the 10 Commandments. While that happens, the Israelites meet with Moses second-in-command, Aaron, and convince him to make them a god. Aaron seems like the babysitter who isn’t entirely sure the parents would want their kids to drink Mountain Dew after 8:00 pm so he lets them do it but tells them not to tell their parents. He gathers all the gold they’ve brought with them and makes a golden calf, which the Israelites immediately proclaim to be their God. Apparently, it was quite common at the time of Moses for people to believe that both cattle were gods. I suppose any genus of animal that can provide great-tasting milk, ice cream, steaks, and hamburgers would seem like a god to most people.

Nonetheless, when the one true God looks down and sees the people with whom he is about to enter into a unique covenant worshipping a false God, the passage says that his anger flares up and it implies that Moses is holding him back. The way it’s phrased, it almost seems like Moses is standing in the doorway preventing an angry god from going out and beating the heck out of someone. God turns to Moses and says that he’s just going to wipe them off the face of the earth and get Moses a great nation.

During the second part of the passage, Moses talks to God about how God shouldn’t wipe out the Israelites because, if He does, everyone who saw them leave Egypt will think the one true God tricked them into leaving so that He could murder them in the desert. Moses also reminds God that He made a promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whose descendents these people are, that He would protect and build up their ancestors. The last thing that bothers theologians is translated as “the Lord changed his mind” but could also be translated as “the Lord repented” or the Lord turned his back.

So, you may at this point be asking what’s the problem here? There are three. First, this passage implies that God can have emotions. But, God doesn’t have emotions because God made emotions and God is unchanging but emotions are constantly changing. Part of what made Judaism different than the other religions is that God didn’t get angry one day and excited the next and sad the next. God made all these things and so was above them.

This is connected to the second problem, which is that God can’t change his mind. Something exists because it is in the mind of God. If God stops thinking about something, it ceases to exist. God can’t change his mind like I do when I think I'm gonna go away on a day off but stay home instead. God isn’t choosey. God is decisive. If God thinks something, it comes into existence the way God thinks it because that’s the only way something can exist, if it is the mind of the creator.

Lastly, and likewise connected to the other two, is that idea that Moses prevented an angry God from going down the mountain. Moses could not stop God from inflicting punishment. God is all powerful, all knowing, all seeing, eternal. Moses is...not. All God has to do is stop thinking about Moses or the Israelites for a scone or they’d all be gone.

So, how can we make any sense of all this?

Let’s start by acknowledging that, yes, God is all knowing, all powerful, eternal, unchanging AND that this same God created humanity to play a special role in creation. He created us distinctly from the rest of creation in his divine image. So, as God is making this pact with the Israelites through Moses, their first act is to turn away from God to make their own idol, and God allows them to do that. He isn’t going to force the Israelites into a relationship if they don’t want it. They’re going to have to learn the hard way that being in right relationship with God means loving God alone and not setting up a competitor. That’s, after all, what an idol is; a competitor with God.

Now, we may not have false idols like golden calves in our society or sitting around our house, but I know there are plenty of idols. What’s in our lives that dominates them? To ask that same question in a slightly different way, what do we first think about when we have some free time? Alcohol? Drugs? Pornography? Television? Gaming? Facebook? Tiktok (turn to a young person - that’s a thing, right)

What do we spend money on that we don’t really need and could give to charity instead? Or, again, to ask that in a slightly different way, what could we give up that would make our life simpler? Books?(That’s me by the way) Tools? Some things from our kitchen?

One last question, what do we think about when we’re in a boring meeting or listening to a boring homily? Right now, what are you thinking about? Food? The television? All of this could be idolatrous. It could be stuff that prevents us from drawing closer to God.



What if, instead, of God changing or turning back, Moses resolution to get the Israelites back to God meant they would no longer be in opposition but in line with God and God’s will in their lives. What if God’s anger was like trying to swim against the tide and his anger ceases because they aren’t trying to compete but are with him instead? That’s what I think is happening and what I think the challenge is for us: How can we get rid of the distractions in our life, the idols, so that we can put our focus where it belongs: on God.

22 OC Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord.

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ
Peace be with you.

       When I was still in the first five years of priesthood, I would meet with the Archbishop once-a-year so he could hear how things were going for his new priests. One time,  we met with him iat the American Martyrs retreat house in Cedar Falls. I entered the room right exactly on time and noticed I was one of the last ones to show up. The circle of chairs in which the brothers had sat were almost completely full except for the two places right next to the Archbishop. I started to move a chair from outside the circle when I noticed the Archbishop motion for me to sit next to him on his right hand side. So, I casually strolled over to that chair and sat down on his right. Immediately a million different Biblical verses went through my head including Psalm 110 “The LORD’s revelation to my lord:  “Sit at my right hand, until I make your foes your footstool.”
       To be someone’s “right hand man” is an expression meaning that you can be allowed on the side of their body with arm that they would normally use to protect themselves both because they trust you and so that you can protect them in battle. I felt important. At the time, I was a new pastor and felt that the Archbishop wanted me to sit next to him on purpose, because he wanted me to take a seat of importance. That feeling of self-importance lasted until I realized that actually it was just that the other priests are kind of like their parishioners. They wanted to be close to the door so they could be the first ones out of the room and into the social.
       There’s more to our gospel than a simple Miss Manner’s lesson on etiquette. Jesus is showing us an image of what it will be like in heaven. What is your image of heaven? I imagine if we were to take a poll, we would all have different answers to that question. The perfect game of golf? The perfect house? A good steak cooked medium rare with corn on the cob and chocolate cake for dessert? What if heaven actually was being totally devoid of all of that? No house. No car. No golf. And the way the meals are served, you have to sit next to a stinky, sick, homeless person that coughs a lot. That doesn’t sound much like heaven, does it. And yet, Jesus isn’t giving us advice on how we should set up our dinner parties. Not even a fundamentalist believes that. Jesus is trying to get us to realize the kind of humility that will be demanded of us in heaven. Heaven isn’t a Subway sandwich shop. You can’t pick and choose what you want and don’t want in heaven. You just get it the way it is and, to paraphrase what our parents used to say, you’ll be happy with it.
       So, what’s the good news about heaven? Why would anyone want to go there if you don’t get to do whatever you want to do whenever you want to do it? Do you remember what you hated most about Middle School or Junior High, depending upon what they called it when you were there? Remember how it seemed like the only way people could feel good about themselves was by ripping apart everyone around them. You can’t just feel good about yourself because you’re a person created in the image and likeness of God who is loved by God as you are. You have to feel good about yourself by noticing all the flaws of everyone around you and making fun of them for it. The crazy thing is that, even though it’s most intense in Middle School, don’t we sort of keep doing that throughout our lives. We should just feel happy about who we are and the gifts we have been given but we spend an awful lot of time complaining about the people around us and how many good things they have. I think part of what Jesus is saying is that heaven will be a place where we don’t care about others having more than we do or being treated better than us, a place where status doesn’t matter and where we learn the freedom of being truly humble. A place where “every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”