Mary, Mother of God

It has become fashionable in some circles to refer to Mary as “the mother of Jesus” rather than the more traditional appellation “Mary, mother of God”.  The aim of such a change is clear; it was to diminish the strength of the connection of Mary to God. Mary, as it is reasoned, is human, therefore it is proper to emphasize her human connection to God as a human: Jesus. Unfortunately, this harkens back to an old heresy: Nestorianism. This heresy denies Mary carried God in her womb. Rather, it asserts that Mary only carried Christ’s human nature; however, the Church rightly teaches that Mary carried the whole person of Jesus in her womb, not simply a “nature”. This teaching was affirmed at the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus which countered the Nestorian heresy: “According to this understanding of the unconfused union, we confess the holy Virgin to be the Mother of God because God the Word took flesh and became man and from his very conception united to himself the temple he took from her" (Formula of Union [A.D. 431]). 

Why is this teaching so important? Because it tells us something essential not only about Mary but about how “for God, nothing is impossible”.

As Mother of God, Mary carries Jesus as the second person of the Trinity to present Him to the world. God did not choose to manifest Himself as human fully formed, but chose to enter the world through His own creation; He was not created anew but submitted to being born a human that we might find a way to divinity. As St. Paul writes in his letter to the Philippians:

5In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6Who, being in very naturea God,

did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

7rather, he made himself nothing

by taking the very natureb of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

8And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself

by becoming obedient to death—

even death on a cross!

9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

and gave him the name that is above every name,

10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

11and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father

Mary’s participation in “The Great Condescension” of God, suggests a way of being in relationship with God, a spirituality par excellence if you will. Mary’s role is to lead us more perfectly to Christ, and Christ’s role is to unite us to God. What are these “leads” Mary provides?

Firstly, she became vulnerable to God’s will. She proclaims "I am the Lord's servant. May everything you have said about me come true."  She not only did the will of God, she willed the will of God. This is every Christian’s goal. Uniting to God’s will requires allowing God to work in us, even in the times we are least sure and most afraid. Like Mary who could not fully comprehend how this would turn out, her great faith in God’s goodness gave her the power to participate in humanity’s salvation.

Secondly, Mary’s role was not passive. Very often Mary is presented as singularly inactive. Luke 2:19’s famous observation of Mary “pondering these things in her heart” in response to the unfolding of God’s plan as the shepherds told their tale is not a passive participation, a “wait and see” approach.  Submitting one’s life to Christ is anything but passive. Mary’s “pondering”, in Greek “sunballousa” suggests the activity of gathering and comparing. Luke’s famous “Song of Mary” in 1:26 suggests Mary’s joy and sense of mission that extends to us today:

His mercy extends to those who fear him,
    from generation to generation.
51 He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
    he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
52 He has brought down rulers from their thrones
    but has lifted up the humble.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things
    but has sent the rich away empty.

Mary’s gift to us is not only Christ but also the wisdom of a life so intimately associated with God’s plan for humanity’s salvation. It is a spirituality of humility but not inaction, it is a spirituality of “pondering” and response. In short, Mary’s life offers us a life of complete wholeness as we allow the Spirit to work in us. Meister Eckhart said it best: We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born.

The Nativity of the Lord

"Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David, a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger."

 I want to begin this Christmas season by focusing on the call of the shepherds rather than moving right to the Nativity.  In fact, if you follow the various gospel readings that the Church offers, you would find the vigil Mass (afternoon of the 24th) through the daytime Mass (Sunday mid-morning) the Christmas story and the theology of the Christ across three of the four gospels--quite a rich fare which few, unfortunately, experience.

Back to the shepherds, then.  Shepherds were a despised lot in Jesus' time. You can lump them in with tax collectors, prostitutes, and Samaritans.  Of course, as we have seen throughout God's interaction with humanity, this makes them prime candidates for a special grace.  So, it was to them the invitation was extended.  The much-discussed "wise men" or magi, come later (probably didn't arrive until a year or so after the birth).  

So, as the story goes, as with all angelic visitations, it begins with fear.  It takes a lot to scare a shepherd who defends his flock from any number of hazards; they are a grizzly lot.

But, as the gospel records, "...they were struck with great fear".  The appeal of the angel not to fear is based upon the message of a savior that will "be for all the people."  This is followed by a "multitude of the heavenly host" singing "Glory to God in the highest."  Quite a night for the shepherds, and some essential truths about the nature of God and salvation for us tonight.

Like God's appointing David as king (the least likely candidate), God's favor rests on Mary, Joseph, outsiders like the Magi and shepherds.  Notice the absence of anyone really important like Temple priests, scribes, Pharisees, important legates or even the chief priest.  God's dealing once again with the complete outsiders, widely believed to be outside of salvation history.  How ironic, then, that these were the people most intimately associated with God's arrival as the Christ.

If Advent has sharpened our senses for seeking justice and finding a place with the poor to be in the right place; this visitation of the shepherds reminds us that we are now in the right place at the right time---with the poor, alone, late in the night. Dismal.

But it is with the outcast, far from the comfort of daylight, deep in the night, that God's greeting arrives proclaiming joy and salvation.  Like so much of what God has done in his relationship with humanity: "Who woulda thought?"

In your deepest moment of darkness and doubt,  when your prayers are bouncing back off of the ceiling, ridiculing your attempt to reconnect with God after seemingly failing every time, I want to remind you that those prayers that you think mock your devotion made it through.  They were in God's heart before they ever left your lips. Like the shepherds, the most unlikely folks in the most unlikely place, God finds us.  Search no further than your need, your loneliness, your feelings of being left out. For the still small voice of God speaks to you here, now, inviting you to come home and find the sign of God being with you in the most humble of circumstances.  Join with Christians worldwide to not give up following the light until it rests over the manger where Christ is to be found---in the most unlikely place, at the most unlikely time. 

Fourth Sunday of Advent

It's All in the Family

            Today’s Old Testament short reading needs a bit of background:

 So, the Jewish world is divided during the time referred to by Isaiah; the northern and southern kingdoms.  The northern kingdom is Israel and the southern one is Judah (of which Jerusalem is a part and where the Temple is located).  To make a long story (a few thousand years) shorter, Israel’s king was in cahoots with the king of Aram to lay siege to Jerusalem.  Judah’s king (Ahaz), against the advice of the prophet Isaiah, makes an alliance with Assyria saying “I am your servant and vassal. Come up and save me out of the hand of the king of Aram and of the king of Israel, who are attacking me.”  Ahaz gives the Assyrian king treasure from the Temple (and palace) as an incentive to help.  Ahaz knows this is wrong to rely on outside help, and Isaiah counsels unconditional faith and reliance on God; Ahaz piously refuses. Ahaz’s son Hezekiah became the “savior” of his people, likely the child referred to by Isaiah in his prophecy to Ahaz:” …the young woman [also translated virgin] shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel.”  Hezekiah restores the righteousness of Judah and defeats the king of Assyria.  He re-centralizes the Passover worship and invites all tribes to Jerusalem for Passover and restores righteous rule in Jerusalem.

            Both Matthew and Luke pick up on this narrative framework in their account of Jesus’ birth. God’s help for Judah was of great comfort to the early Christians who, like Judah, were under “siege”.  Jesus’ birth under the Davidic line assures Matthew’s audience of a savior that is the final fulfillment of God’s promise of salvation, the ultimate Emmanuel.

            Although Jesus did not make much of his ancestry---probably to de-emphasize the nature of his reign as spiritual rather than temporal---the post-Easter Christian community re-emphasized this as a source of authority and claim on messiahship.  The Davidic emphasizes in the New Testament emphasizes Jesus’ lowly, earthly life when contrasted with the risen savior of the Resurrection (Reginald Fuller).

            The remarkable birth of Jesus as a convergence between the earthly lineage and divine is a great symbol as to the genesis of our restoration with God through Christ’s earthly ministry and the subsequent indwelling of the Holy Spirit; God with us, after the Resurrection, becomes God within us. Christmas is the promise realized to its fulfillment in the post-Easter community.  We have become part now of the Davidic line, through Christ, and by God’s adoption of us as co-heirs (not heirs!) with Christ of God’s promise of salvation. As the saying goes, God has no grandchildren; Jesus is our brother. We are family by God’s choice.

Third Sunday of Advent

“Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”—John the Baptist asking about Jesus

  The most striking part of today’s gospel is John’s disillusionment with Jesus embodied in his question sent as by messenger to Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”  Jesus’ reply, however, is even more striking.  Instead of simply saying, “Yes, I am he”, he asks the messenger to report back to John what he has seen:

“…the blind regain their sight,
the lame walk,
lepers are cleansed,
the deaf hear,
the dead are raised,
and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.”

            Notice Jesus isn’t saying “I give the blind their sight, I heal the lame”, but is directing the attention to the acts themselves as evidence of God’s presence surrounding his ministry.  Jesus isn’t trying to prove his divinity, he is announcing God being in their midst; practice before doctrine.

            The Kingdom of Heaven is, above all other things, built upon acts of healing and justice as signs of God’s presence.  To find the Messiah, you need to look where the Messiah hangs out: with those who are outcast, sick, with those who are poor.  God’s kingdom, as Jesus proclaimed to Pilate “is not of this world”, but what he didn’t explain was that it can be found in this world. He knew that the hardness of Pilate’s heart would prevent him from seeing God’s grace in action because like so many, Pilate would have looked for the Messiah as groups of devoted Jews looking to establish a new political order.

            Like many of us, John found it difficult to believe that God’s justice does not involve some new political order, a new way of organizing society, yet another manifesto that if we interpret it correctly and follow it faithfully, are guaranteed “heaven on earth”; that is not the kingdom of heaven. The Kingdom is built around a way of being in this world but not being of this world. 

            It is telling the reaction of the crowd who encountered Jesus in John’s place.  In the next section of the gospel, after Jesus declares “…blessed is the one who takes no offense at me” we see the crowd leaving and Jesus calling out to them:

“What did you expect to see?  A reed swayed by the wind?  Then what did you expect to see?  Someone dressed in fine clothing?  Those who wear fine clothing are in royal palaces.  Then why did you go out? To see a prophet?”

            Jesus then affirms John’s role as the preparer of the way while proclaiming “The least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he”. It is time to begin our journey on the way rather than to stay preparing the way.  It is time to follow God’s trail that leads to the poor, the diseased, the discarded humanity who are beacon’s for God’s presence in our world today. When we are in the presence of these people, away from power and influence, we find the Christ child.

Second Sunday of Advent

Ready the Way of the Lord

"His winnowing fan is in his hand; he will clear his threshing floor"(John the Baptist)

Today, we make a shift from focusing on the “end times” to the other end of our journey, preparing for the coming of Messiah!  It is a preparation that harkens back to the time when John the Baptist was preparing the way by preaching repentance in the wilderness, but it is also the preparation we live today that anticipates the revelation of God’s kingdom more perfectly.

            We begin our story as we Christians often do, with our Jewish brothers and sisters who first heard and responded to God’s revelation.  Isaiah’s text celebrates the arrival of the perfect king with three sets of distinguishing virtues: deep wisdom and understanding, might and counsel, and knowledge and fear of God—virtues of intelligence, practical ability and piety.  What more could one ask of a leader?  Alas, this hope faded over time. 

            With the birth of Jesus, King of King and Lord of Lords, Emmanuel—God-With-Us, the kingdom was not fully realized, but Jesus’ coming set in motion the building of the kingdom.  Just as John pointed the way of Messiah, Jesus pointed the way to God’s Kingdom, and the Holy Spirit continues to guide us and provide us with hope.  John’s “reading of the way” now is transformed into our mandate to “walk the way” made by Jesus for a people who were originally known as “People of the Way”.

            John’s preparation of repentance for the coming of Jesus the first time is still valid today for us who set out on the way of Christ.  Before we plot a course, we have to know where we are in relationship to our destination; that is why repentance is part of Advent.  Repentance, as the word suggests, orients us a hundred and eighty degrees from our present course; it turns us around and gets us going in the right direction. John uses the image of the winnowing fan separating the valuable wheat from the waste of the chaff.  The chaff is the lighter and unusable part of the wheat and must be separated from the valuable kernel of the wheat itself.  Often this is preached as a metaphor for God punishing the unrighteous as “chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire”.  While this may be valid, for us it is also an opportunity to see a more personal dimension to repentance. The chaff is all those things that accumulate in our lives that obscure the true wheat of Christ; the Good News.  Though the ministration of the Holy Spirit, the Breath of God, we can let go of all that is not Good News both for ourselves and for others. Advent is a time for looking at what we cling to that keeps us from paying attention to our destination, for dulling our sense of direction as well as destination.

First Sunday of Advent

"Stay Awake!"

 Today begins Advent, a time of preparation to receive Christ at Christmas, but it is more than referencing the past. It also connects with our hope of Christ's return and the inauguration of God's reign. Jesus proclaims in Matthew: "Therefore, stay awake!" What are we watching for? Are our heads turned heavenward, searching the skies for Jesus returning in glory? Remember the angel's advice after Christ's ascension?

And as they [his disciples] were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. They also said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way you have watched Him go into heaven (Acts 1:11).

    

Our mission as watchers involves looking for the dwelling of Christ among us now by the power of the Holy Spirit. We need to be alert because it is often difficult to see Christ through the layers of sin that surround others that are unappealing. Perhaps we may have difficulty seeing Christ in others because we first must acknowledge Christ within ourselves as the lowly beggar, the control freak, or other undesirable.

     Let that be our beginning, then. Let us look for Christ where he is least likely to be found, both in others and in those places in our lives that need healing from sin. Let us not be afraid of venturing out into the dark or inwardly into the dark places in ourselves. Let Holy Scripture be a place to start, and let your prayer proclaim, "Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path" (Ps.110:105). On this path, we will encounter Christ in the most unexpected ways as we journey in Advent, for Christ's appearance over two thousand years ago was equally hidden and unlikely. Who would expect God among us in a backwater town, among farm animals, shepherds, and pagans, in the middle of the night?

Solemnity of Christ the King

There is that famous line from Mel Brooks's movie History of the World: Part I, "It's good to be king!"  Being king brings up beautiful imagery of elaborate court ritual, absolute authority, and feasting; sounds a lot like the institutional church!   But Jesus' words to Pilate betray this image of opulence.  When asked about his kingdom, Jesus replies "My kingdom does not belong to this world" (New American Bible).  Another translation has it as "My kingdom is not of this world"(New International Version).  The sense of Jesus' reply is that his kingdom is neither the kingdom of Rome nor the kingdom envisioned by the religious authorities; both groups lose.

The Solemnity of Christ the King that embraces Jesus as king is relatively new.  It was established in 1925 to counter what the Church saw as an increasing tendency to worship human wisdom and power, which was loosely defined as modernism.  By later positioning the solemnity at the end of the Church's liturgical year in 1969, it further enhanced its standing as the summit of Christ's rule, and, implicitly, the Church as Christ's kingdom.

The songs and imagery associated with this celebration, however, often blunt the irony of Christ as king.  The common representation is a resurrected, non-bloody, Jesus hovering (rather than being nailed) on the cross.  The image of Christ as king is ironic because he is the king with a crown of thorns with a procession of humiliation and a knightly court of cowards.  It seems, as St. Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians  "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God."

The ironic image of Jesus as king nailed to the cross speaks of a different kind of power than the power of earthly kingdoms.  In a general audience at the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI suggests power of God’ which is different from human power; it reveals, in fact, His love.” 

"The power of God's kingdom as embodied by Jesus' death isn't exclusively revealed by the resurrection, although the saving power of God is most apparent here. It is the magnitude of God's love for His creation in self-sacrifice that shows Christ's real power as king. " 

The ultimate love is the love that sacrifices self for another. This is the real power that defines Christ's kingdom.  This is why evil can never ultimately triumph over good; evil avoids self-sacrifice.  Evil always seeks what is best for the self over and against the other.  It destroys community and ultimately destroys itself.

Self-sacrificing love, on the other hand,  is the ultimate Christian act where one falls into the opened arms of Christ on the cross, trusting in the power of God's ability to bring life from death.  Christ's kingdom, indeed, is not of this world, but it is for this world.  Nothing is of more importance than conforming ourselves to this likeness of Christ as King.

Twenty-sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Who Can Separate Us from the Love of God?

The list of “apocalyptic” world-ending prophecies is a storied history of disappointment beginning with Simon Bar Giora, an Essene, around 70 C.E. to Warren Jeffs in 2012.  It is probably not unreasonable to suggest that humanity has been predicting the “end times” since we could conceive of such a thing. Opening the lid (the meaning of apocalypse) on the date and time seems to be a way of expressing an ending one can control, a way of assuring the suffering that someday “every tear will be wiped away.”  Far from gloom and doom, the “end times” seem to suggest a great reconciling; good for the insiders, but sad for the ones who aren’t part of the “in-crowd.”  That’s the problem with much of how we understand recent apocalyptic predictions: we’re always saved.  Malachi’s vision of the apocalypse, however, brings judgment on his people as many of the Old Testament prophets did.  The “in-crowd” constituted those who remained faithful and obedient, honoring God’s law and worshiping God with sincerity and trust.  Let’s face it; it is a lot easier to sacrifice a diseased animal than a healthy one, to give a bit less than ten percent, or to go outside the Law when it was convenient.  The difficulty of remaining faithful is the history of salvation.

            In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is also declaring a vision of destruction; sometimes called the “Mini Apocalypse” because it deals only with the Temple destruction as a final event; however, the Temple was the world for the Jews.  Like the vision of Enoch, though, apocalyptic visions tend to accumulate events and expand as time goes on.  Nation rising against nation, kingdom against kingdom, earthquakes, famines, and plagues were all a reality for the first century Jew. The early church knew much of being “hated by all because of my name” and the experience of standing powerless before one’s adversaries.  Indeed, Christians found themselves “led before kings and governors.”  In Iran and other places hostile to the Gospel of Christ, Christians continue to be jailed, tortured and killed.  In September of 2013, BBC Radio quoted Archbishop Welby speaking of persecution in Egpyt and Pakistan:  “The appearance is often deceptive but I think Christians have been attacked in some cases simply because of their faith,” he said.  “I think it is true to say – and also in Peshawar – that we have seen more than 80 martyrs in the last few days. “They have been attacked because they were testifying to their faith in Jesus Christ by going to church”(The Telegraph.co.uk). It is puzzling, then, when Jesus declares “…not a hair on your head will be destroyed. By your perseverance, you will secure your lives”.  Seemingly, the suffering and death of tens of thousands of Christians stand in testimony against such an optimistic prediction.

            The turn comes in realizing that death is not equated with destruction for Christians.  Who can destroy us?  Who can destroy what connects us to the immortality and eternity of God? Our perseverance is being Good News, of finding refuge for ourselves in our community of faith that includes the Blessed Trinity, all the saints and our brothers and sisters of our faith community.  Martyrdom is a communal affair; perseverance is never in isolation of the support and community offered by the Church on earth. The sacraments tie us to this eternal source of grace and belonging that is tangible, physical, bridging the temporal and eternal.  Who can now separate us from the love of God?

Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost

“Never put a period where God has put a comma”—Gracie Allen

Zacchaeus was just about the most despised Jew among the Jewish people living in Jericho. He was the Chief Tax Collector; he ran the crew of collectors that exploited the poor and grew rich off of the weakest of society. Is it any wonder, then, when Jesus decided to stay at Zacchaeus’ house that his disciples grumbled; they had good reason to grumble. Once again, we have a story that puts conventional wisdom to the test and puts on display “God’s foolishness”(2 Corinthians).

The structure of the story can help us enter the story and sort out this “foolishness”. First, Jesus calls Zacchaeus by name. No matter where we are in life, no matter how distant from what others recognize as God’s favor, we are being sought-out like a shepherd for a single lost lamb.

Zacchaeus climbed a tree to see Christ.  Earlier in Luke, just after Jesus responded to the disciples’ request “to teach us to pray” with the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus says “So I say to you: Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened” (11:9-10).

Having been found, Zacchaeus’ response was to make reparation for his sins. Rather than simply confessing, he changed his life. Our response to our calling is a changed life; repentance means turning around.  Salvation is preceded by repentance, but it is the saving Grace of God that brings us to our knees; it is God’s loving us that allows such a repentant attitude. We can only repent if we can experience the depth of God’s love.

As Christians, our mission is the mission of Christ: Seek the lost and let them see God’s love for them, and the place to begin is with your own “lostness”. In our adoration of the Body of Christ, it is we who are in the tree trying to get a glimpse of Jesus, and it is Christ who speaks to our hearts: “Today I will come and stay with you”.

Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost

Gustave Dore - The Pharisee and the Publican

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."  Oscar Wilde

Last week's posting has an epigraph from Meister Eckhart, one of the church's great mystics, who famously wrote that if you only had a single prayer to pray, "Thank you" would suffice.

This week, we continue with the general theme of prayer with the righteous Pharisee as an exemplar of how not to pray and the sinful "publican," or tax collector, the one whose prayer for mercy was answered.  As usual, the unexpected is central to this parable, but this is not one of Jesus' many Kingdom parables; it is, rather, a parable about relating directly to God.

      Jesus famously had told his disciples how to pray with the gift of the Our Father; however, he doesn't answer the question when asked by his disciples how to pray directly.  Instead, he tells them what to pray for.  Today's gospel moves into one's disposition in prayer, the how, that is directed at all of us because gift easily becomes possession (Daniel Harrington, S.J.).  

     The Pharisee's prayer was more horizontal than vertical; that is, his prayer was gratitude for not being connected with sinners, of being an island of righteousness.

O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity --
greedy, dishonest, adulterous -- or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.

His gratitude springs from "not being like the rest of humanity," it begins in separation, focusing on his side-view of a sinner.  And the tax collector was a sinner.  Let's not make him into some noble hero.  Tax collectors were famous sellouts in Jesus' time.  They were Jews who profited from their association with the Romans and were allowed to keep whatever more they could collect from their fellow Jews and had the power to have non-compliant Jews arrested.  As with most people invested with such power, the power was abused, and these folks were famously despised.  The Pharisees were a group of religious scholars who were trying to bring the average Jew hope by helping the average person live a righteous life through the commentary on the Torah that translated the Law into practice. St.Paul is, perhaps, the most famous Pharisee to become a Christian.  The Pharisee's pride grew from being socially, educationally, and religiously set apart from the people he was called to lead.  I think there is a lesson somewhere in it for me as a priest, and for anyone in a position of authority within the church.  I can imagine such pride was incremental and crept in as he appropriated each compliment and praise received from the people he helped, growing like a wildfire until it consumed him in the deception that what they adored was him rather than God's gift to him.  The tax collector had no such delusions.

     The tax collector's prayer was vertical; off at a distance, and prostrated, he couldn't even see or hear the Pharisee.  The tax collector's sins were too painful for him to list.  He simply prays "Have mercy on me, a sinner!" Scripture says he went away justified; God forgave his sins not because he was a righteous person, but because he prayed from his poverty rather than his wealth.  The Pharisee prayed from what he considered his great possessions: his righteousness. Like the widow only putting a penny for the Temple collection, she gives all she has.  She isn't donating a small portion of her wealth; Jesus observes in that parable that "she gave from her poverty."  In prayer, we must pray from our poverty because this is our state in relation to God.  We have nothing to stand on but clay feet, but it is the same clay God formed, it is human clay, and it is the source of true humility and genuine gratitude because God has redeemed it in Christ.  

     It is when we pray from our poverty that we tap the riches that God has given to us.  Time and time again, God's grace seeks out the humble, the lowly and the dispossessed.  Throughout salvation history, God visits the least regarded and comes to visit and give great comfort.  There is something in the nature of God that desires such intimacy like that of a mother caring for her sick child. We don't need to be great and notorious sinners to attract God's notice, but merely to be people who understand they share the lot of humanity in the struggle to image the Divine. The Oscar Wilde quotation "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars" comes to mind. Our prayer is always a cry for mercy when we begin with being grateful for having the vision of the stars from the gutter.

Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost

Ten had Faith; One had Gratitude

            Today's reading from The Book of Kings and the Gospel of Luke highlight healing and the outsider.  In Kings, Naaman, a Syrian, is healed by Elisha as a sign of God's blessing to those outside Israel.  In Luke, of the ten healed of leprosy, it is only the Samaritan that returns to give thanks.  Both the Samaritan and Syrian have the dubious distinction of being least-favored, not part of the "Chosen Ones", yet God's blessing rests on them.

            In the gospel story, the ten lepers are outside the city and cry to Jesus not directly for healing, but for mercy.  Such a cry reveals the connection between illness and a loss of favor with God; if you were sick, you had lost favor with God.  Jesus doesn't pray for them, but simply commands them to journey to a priest to be certified as being healed.  They had to begin the journey still uncured.  It was on their way that they were healed; it was their faith that got them moving.

            Faith requires us to act as if what we proclaim has already been brought about.  This is why there is always an element of the absurd in living a life of faith.  St. Paul speaks of this in 1 Corinthians, chapter 1:

 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, ²³ but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.

What, then, is the point of returning to give thanks if everyone was healed?  The other nine didn’t return to a leprous state because gratitude can only be a gift, not a requirement.  The gratitude of the Samaritan was rewarded by a relationship with Christ, a personal encounter one-on-one the other nine did not establish.  The Samaritan’s gift was relationship---the ongoing and direct connection to God.

            This story also serves to highlight another reality of the Christian life.  While a Christian may have faith, faith enough even to heal, that doesn’t mean she or he has that intimacy and closeness that those whose faith is sustained by gratitude enjoy.  Gratitude is what sustains us when we are not healed, for whatever reason; when our prayers seem to go unanswered.  Gratitude is what allows us to pass the blessings of our faith to others.  The other nine were healed, but how many lived that restoration and “returned Glorifying God in a loud voice”? One.

            We are called to “Glorify God in a loud voice” by displaying our gratitude, living our life as a gift from God that we can share with the world, with the “foreigners”, the outsiders who cannot lay claim to any blessing other than the one we can give that comes from God.

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

“'If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.'"  Luke 16:31

                Sometimes when I am not presiding at Mass, my mind wanders (actually, it wanders when I’m presiding, too, on occasion).  What I imagine seeing is a great white light descending from the crucifix and a low, soothing voice proclaiming: “Everyone here today who is sick is healed; everyone who cannot pay your monthly bills, your debts canceled; everyone whose relationships have become broken is healed.”  Of course, there is stunned silence, and then great rejoicing.  The Eucharist becomes energized with profound thanksgiving as befits its name.  Thousands flock to the next Mass, etc…you get the idea.

            These daydreams arise, I suspect, from what I call “faith fatigue.”  So often in our daily lives, we are confronted by problems and suffering that overwhelm us and our perceived ability to make a "meaningful" response.  As the psalmist laments in Psalm 73:

“This is what the wicked are like-- always carefree, they increase in wealth. Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence.  All day long I have been plagued; I have been punished every morning.”

            This story of the rich man, Dives, and Lazarus was familiar to Jesus’ time and was used to encourage its listeners to act with justice towards the poor.  But, in true form, Jesus re-works the common line of “treat the poor with justice” by revealing the source of why folks fail in living with compassion towards the poor.  Jesus uses the story about the rich man(Dives) suffering in the afterlife and Lazarus resting comfortably in “Abraham’s bosom,” a type of Heaven, as being more than a punishment-reward story; it is more than a kind of “poor man’s revenge” tale.  The story gets at why people ignore the prophetic in their lives.  I say “prophetic” rather than prophets because prophecy comes to us in many different forms.

            The gist is that spectacle will not convince if people are not disposed to see it.  In other words, you can’t grow faith from spectacle. Using the typical figure of a “leap of faith,” William Sloane Coffin once preached “First you leap, and then you get wings.”  One must embrace Faith before “Moses and the prophets” become credible sources of wisdom.

            It would seem self-evident that treating the poor with justice is an ethic that needs no faith; however, what constitutes “justice” is always the part most easily rationalized.  Jesus, after all, is famously quoted that “the poor you will always have with you.” This, taken from when the poor woman anointed Jesus’ feet at Bethany with expensive perfumed oil and the disciples were indignant at the apparent waste of something that could have been sold and used to help the poor.  The lesson in connection to what constitutes “justice” reveals that it isn’t simply a matter of raising money and giving it away, but living your “justice” as something that flows from one’s worship of God.  To paraphrase a famous advocate and social justice worker, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, “God has not called me to be successful; he has called me to be faithful.”  The social justice of the Christian is animated by how we view every human, not just the poor ones. It comes from a faith lived that is oriented towards loving the world, but its source is distinctly divine.

            If we would simply do good to avoid punishment in the afterlife, then our works are in vain; such dedication to humanity cannot be sustained out of fear, but only out of love.  The saints were all first in love with God before they loved humanity with such passion.  We seek the Kingdom first in relationship, a living and dynamic relationship with the Divine so that the words of “Moses and the prophets” mean more than yet another voice “crying out in the wilderness” telling us to act with justice.

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

"You cannot serve both God and mammon"--Jesus, Luke 16:13

The word “mammon” means more than money.  At its root, it implies anything that we rely on for our life.  Luke Timothy Johnson suggests in his commentary on Luke that Jesus might have been using the word as a bilingual pun with the word for faith.  An intriguing prospect; instead of the pairing of God vs. Money, it now is a pairing of “what we place our faith in other than God” versus “our faith in God.”  This isn’t to suggest that we can safely exclude money from our understanding.  Clearly, given the context of Jesus’ teaching to his disciples, money is the key element; however, it does broaden our concern not to exclude anything else that we might place our faith in other than God.

            As in Jesus’ time, money is a fundamental source of security. Money provides for our basic needs, but it can also afford us an independence that is inimical to the gospel.  Paul Piff, a psychologist at UC Berkeley, recently completed a study which suggests that the wealthiest Americans are less likely to engage in ethical behavior than the poorest. Most striking was, however, the relative likelihood of giving to charity.  Piff found The wealthiest Americans donate 1.3 percent of their income; the poorest, 3.2 percent.  Piff speculates that the poor live dependent upon one another more than the wealthy.  In a nutshell, independence from one’s neighbor is the defining social aspect of being rich.

            The gospel understanding of wealth regarding insulating the wealthy from the community is at the heart of Jesus’ and Amos’ admonitions in today’s readings. William Sloane Coffin once declared in a sermon “To believe you can approach transcendence without drawing nearer in compassion to suffering humanity is to fool yourself. There can be no genuine personal religious conversion without a change in social attitude”.  This is key in today’s gospel. 

            The spiritual toxin of wealth is the building of barriers between oneself and those who suffer. But we can do this wall building, to some extent, without great riches.  All it takes is the desire to avoid those who suffer, and make it a priority to avoid any form of suffering at all cost. If the gospel teaches us anything, it teaches us to join in the mess and suffering of those on the margins of society, to need less so that we may share more of what we have.  Wealth, for St. John Chrysostom, was associated with thievery:  

"Not to share our wealth with the poor is theft from the poor and deprivation of their means of life; we do not possess our own wealth, but theirs." [St. John Chrysostom (+ 407 A.D), On Wealth and Poverty, p. 55, SVS, Crestwood, NY 1984]

For Christians, the wealth we have to share is the amount we have that we do not need.  Jesus needed nothing and admonished his disciples to “carry nothing with you.”  Poverty as a Christian virtue isn’t the poverty of not having enough, but rather it is the grace of not seeking more than we need.  The widow who gave from her need was blessed rather than the person of means giving proportionally less from his wealth.  One gave in faith; the other gave secure in the knowledge that his sacrifice could not result in any hardship. Ultimately, for the Christian, it is the giving of our greatest gift, our life, for others.  To live for others and with others, is the real ethic of Christian wealth. God gave himself to humanity, all he had to Jesus, that we might have all that God has; he has held nothing for himself. He came into the world poor, and died with only a purple cloak on loan, but gave humanity the gift of Himself.

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Lost and Found

"God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home.”
 ---Henry Nouwen The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming

              The longer of today’s gospel reading includes the Parable of the Prodigal Son.  Because we will hear that parable again in the season of Lent, I have decided to save it for later; however, I will mention it, since it is known by every Christian. It has a unique place with the other two parables: the Parable of the Lost Coin and the Parable of the Lost Sheep.  Atonement is the common thread that unites these three parables.  For those who need brushing up in theological-speak, atonement is God’s action to save humanity through Christ’s sacrifice. An easier way to think of atonement is at-one-ment; that we are united to God through the suffering and death of Christ who sacrificed himself for humanity.

Both parables today end with the idea that the salvation of a single sinner is vital.  Put another way: God is saying, “I’m saving humanity one soul at a time.”

            Often when we consider salvation, we think of a blanket of mercy encompassing the entire globe, kind of like a divine dome of safety.  But what today’s gospel parables suggest is a very personal salvation, of God seeking the one who needs to be found.  It is the personal image of the shepherd placing the lost sheep on his shoulders and carrying it home; it is the picture of a woman who has lost one of ten coins lighting a lamp and sweeping the house for the single lost coin.  God’s salvation is universally offered not through a vast network of spiritual energy, but as an individual initiative.

            The personal aspect is further enhanced, though, with the very clear notion that God is in pursuit of us.  He is looking for us like some beleaguered shepherd or a miserly woman who refuses to give up a single coin; there is no “acceptable loss” count with God.  That God seeks the individual is tough for us to imagine.  The eternal creative and redemptive force of the universe worries that a single human might slip through the cracks unnoticed is extraordinary.  Very often I encounter people who say with great exasperation, “I looked, and I haven’t found God.”  The good news, I tell them, is that is okay, He is looking for you, too, and I doubt he will fail.  They look at me incredulously and usually say something like “If that is true, what is taking so long.”  I put my hand on their shoulder, and say “Welcome home; you are found.”

            Being found by God isn’t what most people think.  It isn’t accompanied by the trumpet sounds of angels or a large hand descending through the clouds to tap one on the shoulder.  Rather, it is that we are found, slip away, and are found again in a cosmic game of hide-and-go-seek with God. We are found, experience the joy of a new love and then are drawn away when times get tough, or things go wrong, and wonder why God isn’t with us.  God is always with us and has never left since the day we opened our heart to Him. Rumi, that great Sufi mystic tells of God’s closeness:

God is "what is nearer to you than your neck-vein,"
You have cast the arrow of speculation afar off.
O you, who have made ready your bow and arrows,
The game is close to you, and you shoot too far off.
The further a man shoots, the further off he is,
And the more removed from the treasure he seeks.
The philosopher kills himself with thinking,
Tell him that his back is turned to that treasure;
Tell him that the more he runs to and fro,
The further he is removed from his heart's desire.
The Almighty says, "Make efforts in our ways,"
Not "Make efforts away from us," O restless one.

Finally, God is in the image of the Prodigal Son’s father who has sighted his son from afar, and lifts up his garment and runs out to greet him.  How can God find us again? Sit still.  Open your heart and call to mind who last showed you love, and to whom you loved last; God is in your midst.

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

How much is this going to cost me?

               

“…grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: "ye were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.” ---Dietrich Bonhoeffer The Cost of Discipleship

                I think it is important to notice in today’s gospel that “great crowds” were following Jesus.  Let’s face it, after curing the sick, raising the dead and “sticking it to the man” publically, Jesus’ popularity grew, and the setting of today’s teaching parables is the home of a local prominent Pharisee on the Sabbath.  Jesus wasn’t there for a salon of philosophers, but to cure the Pharisee of “an abnormal swelling of his body”.  This time, it is Jesus asking the difficult question: “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?”  The gospel records that everyone remained silent, and Jesus healed the man. This healing was preceded by last week’s gospel of the Parable of the Great Banquet that was chiefly about humility.  Today’s gospel follows and is about the cost of discipleship.  Imagine the great interest in what Jesus had to say on the heels of healing on the Sabbath, and healing a Pharisee to boot! But instead of handing out applications for discipleship and encouraging his audience to enlist, Luke’s gospel shows Jesus admonishing his followers to consider the cost of discipleship; that following Him involves renunciation, the “hating” of one’s family, and one's security, and “yes—even life itself.” What follows is a couple of illustrations of the prudence of calculating the cost; ironic, since the demand from Jesus is that unless you give up everything, you cannot be a disciple of his. Notice the two actions that are essential: carrying one's cross and renouncing all that you have.  If your hands are busy holding on tightly to things, or even to relationships such that you can't  pick up your cross, you need to let something go; multitasking is as dangerous behind the wheel as it is in the spiritual life.  It is called a divided heart.

            Of course, Jesus isn’t suggesting that one hates his family as a precondition, but rather be willing to find one’s security and honor apart from one’s family—a tall order in first-century civilization.  Those without families were those without standing in society, without security.  This is what Jesus means by “hating” one's family.  But what about “life itself”?   Jesus knew the ultimate cost is martyrdom.  Jesus knew he was headed for the cross that awaited him in Jerusalem, and he knew those who followed him could suffer a similar fate.  Even today, Christians around the world are being martyred for their faith.

            A genuine sacrifice of Christians today, though, is not primarily the sacrifice of one’s life in a decisive moment but comes less apparently in the sacrifice of oneself lived for others over a lifetime.  The gradual giving away of one’s youth and figure to mother a family; the life of those dedicated to living among the poor to ease their suffering, or to love the stranger whom no one has time to love.  We can sacrifice our time to listen to a friend whose life is a train wreck, or go without something we like to share what little we have with a stranger who has even less.  Let our fasting also arise from refraining from eating that we may be free to stay longer with one who needs us rather than default to the need for bodily sustenance.  These “crosses” may not make headlines, but they transform the hearts of those for whom we sacrifice, and they change us; that is the point of Jesus’ message: to sacrifice “even life itself” for others outside our family, friends and those for whom we are naturally inclined to sacrifice. So many of us, myself included, are not condemned by our great lives of scandal and sinfulness, but our regular lives of prudent engagement where sacrifices are far to carefully planned and controlled.  Christianity, when lived as good news for the world, is less about acquiring interior peace and tranquility in mystical rapture, and more about realizing that mystical rapture is always preceded by sacrificial love. What transforms us into a disciple is ultimately our commitment to following Christ on the way to the cross and praying every step of the way for a resurrection.