Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Tara Bradford Photography

Bread of Life

Today, and for the next four Sundays, the Gospel of Mark is put aside for the gospel of John to begin an a four-week meditation on Jesus as The Bread of Life.

Having just begun the Atkins diet, I couldn't help but laugh a little at my restriction of not being able to have bread (or pasta, etc...).   The feeding of the five thousand, however, marks a pivotal moment in all the gospels as Jesus moves out of the Galilee, his home "turf", and begins to head for Jerusalem.  The gospel resonates well with the Old Testament reading from the second book of Kings where the prophet Elisha feeds the multitude despite a skeptical servant.  Elisha is revealing God's abundance and care for his people.  Leftovers is a powerful sign that God provides more than enough.

In John, Jesus performs the actions that are the foundational actions of the Eucharist.  He takes, gives thanks (blesses), and gives. This dynamic extends beyond the meal into how we live the Bread of Christ we receive in communion.  Taking: All we have that is good, God has given us, or rather all that is good participates in the life of God.  The Eucharist comes from the Greek word meaning thanksgiving, so when we participate in Holy Communion, we participate fundamentally in an act of thanksgiving in response to God's goodness.  Blessing: By receiving what God has to give us, it is only natural to sense God's blessing.  One of my parishioners after receiving communion, instead of saying the traditional "Amen" to "The body Christ", says "Amen. Thank you, Jesus"; she gets it!  She is responding to the blessing of God's goodness in Christ.  Gives: What we receive, what we respond to in thanksgiving, isn't meant to be hoarded.  God's blessings can only be shared, not kept.  But the wonderful thing about blessings is that sharing them only enhances them, it doesn't deplete the store.

Given this awareness, the "miracle" of feeding the five thousand (families) is less miraculous in the supernatural sense, but a miracle nonetheless.  Jesus' actions of sharing what little he had caused a wave of sharing that resulted in not only everyone getting his or her fill, but in an abundance signified by the leftovers.  This is how God's blessings work; lots of leftovers to be taken and shared from our meal.  What communion is all about is living the dynamic of taking, blessing and sharing.  When we say we are a Eucharistic community we proclaim that we are a community that freely exchanges God's blessings as a way of meeting the world with the Good News, blessings from our life together.

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Good Shepherd

As the metaphor goes, we are the sheep, Christ is our shepherd.  Since the resurrection and ascension, those following in the tradition of the Apostles are the appointed shepherds and are supposed to be "good".  What we find, however, is corruption of every kind, with islands of hope; in short, we are not so much focused today on "separating the sheep from the goats" as the good shepherds from the malevolent ones.  We should also be challenged to move beyond our hierarchical concept of the shepherd as found in the Church, and look for shepherds among the sheep.  Sheep make excellent shepherds.

Jesus calling to be shepherd was in response to his "pity", but the translation loses the deeper sense of empathy Jesus feels for the crowd's need. The crowds of Jesus' time, like ours, represent people hungry for hope.  They hope for healing, hope for inclusion into God's kingdom, for the Shepherd who is there Lord who will provide for their needs, "from nothing I shall want".  In short, the expectation is that Jesus is the possibility of a better life.

The Gospel of Prosperity is a perversion of Jesus' good news, but people fill congregations to hope for a better life.  In our culture, a better life usually implies a life filled with more things and greater power.  Jesus' good news wasn't that you would get rich following him, or that one would become more powerful in society, but that there was a pathway to God's kingdom that he was walking and invited others to experience in his response to "come and see". 

In Mark's gospel, this section serves as a transition between the return of the 12 from having been sent forth (last week's gospel reading) and the next section of Jesus feeding the 5,000.  It is plausible that some in the crowd had followed the disciples who had returned from their mission, people who wanted to meet Jesus and see, first hand, who this person was.  But the crowds were vast, the disciples tired from the mission, so Jesus invited them to "rest awhile".  But people followed the progress of the boat and crowded the shore ahead of them. 

Unlike the popular "Gospel of Prosperity", Jesus' call wasn't material empowerment, but his good news was that the Kingdom of God/Heaven was possible now, among those who seek it.  This was the core of Jesus' message.  Making Jesus relevant to the crowds who come to Christianity out of desperation (is there really any other way?) isn't a matter of telling them how wealthy and great everything is going to be, how powerful they all will become, how their stock investments will be fruitful after prayer; Jesus' relevancy is hidden in finding community and telling our stories, in sharing graces and, as Paul says, "Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn."  Salvation is here among us.  It isn't a beam of light from the cosmos; it is a journey of vulnerability and celebration.

Jesus' shepherding led people to shepherding; the sheep became shepherds.  Following the Good Shepherd gives us value not because we are excellent sheep, but because we are loved by our shepherd who is good.  From this love, we are called to shepherd one another, to respond to the need in our brother and sister, and to open the Kingdom to everyone.  The Good News is that you are loved; you count.

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Companions for the Journey

Many scholars believe Jesus' sending of the twelve was a post-Easter addition to the gospel.  Frankly, it doesn't matter much, I suppose because we have inherited that tradition of mission from Jesus' ministry and vision of God breaking into our lives on earth as a healing presence.  The missioner facilitates this "inbreaking" (to use a phrase I have always disliked, but use anyway).

An acquaintance from a former career whom I had not spoken with in years telephoned me the other day.  Since we talked last, she had endured two bad marriages and cancer.  She felt that God was punishing her, and she wanted to know if God could forgive her.  I went over God's single-mindedness to reach out and heal and forgive though this often rocky relationship He has had with humanity.  Essentially, God is all about healing and forgiveness, of moving as close to us as our free will allow; that the phrase "the Kingdom of God" isn't a posthumous reality, but something we can help build today, in our daily life.  I recalled the verse from Jeremiah "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." She didn't need me to find God because he desire was sufficient; she has already been found.  I helped her with a confession and assured her of God's love.  In short, my mission was to heal, because of God's great grace poured out on the Cross.

The disciples were sent out in pairs.  This was genius, having suffered the loss last year of our pastor and my friend.  We offered each other support and encouragement when it seemed our small mission church was a failure.  This last year, we ordained a deacon for our small parish, and I have a new companion in the ministry.  I think God knows me well enough that I could never do this on my own--this is a great grace I am thankful for each and every day.  The point is, God heals, he forgives and works incredibly hard to offer this to everyone.  The detail from "Creation" by Michelangelo shows two arms: one God's one man's  I have this detail hanging above my bed.

For years, I reflected on man's hand reaching out to touch God's half-hearted reach, until one day I recognized that it was man's half-hearted reach, not God's.  So much of the mission is stretching to reach.  At some point, leaving and "shaking the dust from your feet" isn't resignation, but rather allowing someone else to pick up where you left off.  Very often, working alone it is much more difficult to know when to leave, but with a companion, God's voice is made an audible, if not visible, reality.  This is why the person who refuses both the blessing and burden of community is much more likely to have every whim validated by one's desire.

Our mission, then, is the delivery of God's graceful presence; we are all missioners who can do this if we can first find the grace that has been given us to share.

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Ordained Ministry: Sufficient Grace

"Because our value is a gift, we don't have to prove ourselves, only to express ourselves, and what a world of difference there is between proving ourselves and expressing ourselves"--William Sloane Coffin, Credo

Jesus utters that famous line in Mark today: "A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house".  It is a bitter pronouncement, tinged with frustration.  It is remarkable that the author of Mark observes "So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people . . . ."  Who wouldn't consider any healing a "mighty deed"?  A closer inspection of the gospel doesn't reveal Jesus' inability to heal, but his inability to bring people to faith in spite of the healing.  The incredulous response Jesus received was because he was a local boy.  Somehow, imagining someone we know well-being spiritually advanced is difficult.  We don't do well seeing the extraordinary spring from the ordinary, but Jesus' birth and the arc of his life were spent revealing to the less-than-ordinary, the extraordinary.  Jesus' amazement at his hometown community's lack of faith leads him to appoint twelve disciples to go in pairs to extend his ministry.  It is a crucial transition in Jesus' ministry from being the sole font of healing and wisdom to establishing a community of healers and preachers. 

Paul's confession of being "content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints" could have come from the mouth of Christ just as easily.  One of the huge traps of the spiritual life for preachers, teachers, and priests is the "messiah complex"--the belief that we are God's greatest conduit for spiritual transmission.  This gospel reminds me well of even Jesus had to confront failure and lack of faith.  His response, however, is telling.  Instead of simply throwing up his hands and leaving, he moves away from himself to entrusting the mission to those closest to him.

People come to faith experiences with remarkable variety, but they almost always involve other, non-ordained people.  Relying on church leaders, ministers or priests to impart faith is a losing proposition.  At best, we plant seeds and touch people with God's grace-filled love at vulnerable times in their lives, but this is not the exclusive territory of church ministers.  Everyone is called to this ministry.  People may come to me for confession, but frequently they seek the religious brother or other non-ordained people to seek God's presence in a less formal way.  Being ordained keeps one occupied with church finances, organizing liturgies, and administrative tasks, such that it is easy to forget that our first responsibility is to nurture our relationship with God.  Henry Nouwen, a wonderful source of wisdom for ordained clergy, wrote  that "in order to be of service to others, we have to die to them; that is, we have to give up measuring our meaning and value with the yardstick of others"(The Way of the Heart).

The drive to be a success in the religious life is more pernicious than "secular" life.  Nouwen's "yardstick" is the size of one's congregation, the number of books, speaking engagements, and theological degrees.  The measure of holiness can easily become the measure of what common society values; but social value is earned, fought for, and then displayed.  Spiritual value, or worth, springs from faith, the awareness of our value to God.  William Sloane Coffin, the wonderfully gifted preacher, wrote that "God's love doesn't seek value, it creates value.  It is not because we have value that we are loved, but because we are loved that we have value.  Our value is our gift, not an achievement" (Credo).