Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

"Strive to enter through the narrow door"

            The image of the narrow way, or gate, is treated in both Matthew and Luke; however, Luke’s account, the one we are reading today, provides a fuller context than Matthew’s gospel, but Matthew’s gospel is important to consider as well when trying to understand what Jesus is saying.

            In Matthew, Jesus adds: “For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. ¹⁴ But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”  In this gospel, it seems the restriction isn’t so much the size of the opening but that it's difficult to find.  They both have an image of struggle associated with salvation. The context in Luke is Jesus answering the question, “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?” Such a question was part of a current theological concern of Jesus’ time among the Jews as to who among the Jewish people were the “chosen ones,” the remnant to be saved.

            Typical of Jesus’ style of turning questions in an unexpected direction, he responds with an answer directed towards the questioner as a person rather than to the question with an abstract answer.  Jesus uses the image of one knocking on a door and the master of the house not opening the door because he does not recognize the petitioner’s voice. What began with a question of abstraction has become personal.   Despite the petitioner's protests, who identifies himself as part of a crowd who “ate and drank” with Jesus and witnessed Jesus in the streets, this casual association was not enough.  It is rather difficult to make it through a narrow door when part of a crowd.  Again, Jesus reinforces the personal dimension of salvation; crowds aren’t saved; individuals are saved.

            The protection of membership in a particular group, the Essenes, the Pharisees or Sadducees or whatever, isn’t enough.  Salvation is recognition, personal recognition by Christ. If the master of the house did not open the door because he didn’t recognize the voice of the petitioner, we also keep our hearts closed to the voice of God who is trying to enter our hearts.  How many times has Christ stood patiently at the door of our hearts knocking, and we have kept him out?  Is it any wonder then he cannot recognize our voice as part of a crowd? The narrow door isn’t narrow because God wants to keep people out; it is narrow because salvation is realized one person at a time; it is a relationship, not a theological abstraction, that is the way to salvation.

            Finally, Jesus adds the paradox that many who consider themselves first will be last, and the ones who are least will be first.  The pride that results from considering one's salvation guaranteed through association seems to Christ, at best, suspect. All of us who enter the narrow door do it one at a time, clinging on the hem of Christ’s robe who recognizes us because we recognized him when he knocked, and we opened the door of our hearts.  Ultimately, though the door may be narrow, as the hymn reassures us, "There's a wideness in God's mercy." We approach the narrow door alone but walk through it with Christ.

The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

The Divine Arsonist

"I have come to set the world on fire"--Jesus

         Today’s readings strike us as particularly harsh, especially the passage from Luke’s gospel (paralleled in Matthew) of family division and strife as a consequence of following Christ; how can this be good news? The old phrase, “No cross, no crown,” comes to mind.

        Paul’s famous teaching about the kerygma, or preaching, of the cross, proclaims “For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. . . . For since in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs, and Greeks seek for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. . . . God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong . . .” (1 Corinthians 1:18, 21-25, 27).

      Paul observes that “those who are perishing” see the cross as foolishness.  What a powerful observation!  A sign of “perishing” is dismissing the cross of Christ as foolish.  This superficial understanding can only be penetrated by faith because “the foolishness of God is wiser than men.”  Men see the destructiveness of fire, God sees what survives the fire, and redeems the ashes.

      The “cloud of witnesses” of which Paul writes in Hebrews includes the great Fathers of our church who witness to this “baptism of fire”.  St. Cyril of Alexandria refers to the “fire of baptism” as the Holy Spirit.  St. Ambrose relates the image of Pentecost, with the Holy Spirit appearing like flames above the apostles.  Fire and water, two of the most basic elements, are combined in our baptism to signify both the physical purity and spiritual purity of our initiation. Fire is also the sacrifice of martyrdom, which is the ultimate test of our love; are we willing to die for the gospel of Christ?  Are we willing to lay down our lives in our service to Christ?

      The wildfires that seem so destructive, and indeed destroy many homes, also have a natural function of renewal.  When fires clear the dead underbrush, they can cleanse a forest and actually help it to thrive.  When the fires are artificially delayed by well-intentioned firefighting, the undergrowth accumulates such that when there is a fire, say every fifty years, it burns so hotly that it loses its benefit and destroys the forest rather than help it to thrive.  So it is in the spiritual life.  When one’s focus is to avoid suffering, to insulate one’s life from the “fire”,  when great suffering comes, we are ill-equipped to face it because we have not endured the suffering of lesser trials and temptations.  Our faith must be nurtured in our daily lives of more endurable sufferings and difficulties for the sake of our journey as ambassadors of God’s love to the world. We must learn early to find our refuge in God’s love among the community of the faithful so that we can grow to find our refuge in God alone. Among all of this suffering, we are being directed into the embrace of God’s love in the crucified Christ, which delivers us to the resurrected life, the life of a forest renewed after the fire, of hope rather than despair, of a fire-born faith that can sustain the heat of loving our enemies and keeping the flame of faith alive in our hearts.

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

"Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me." (Ps. 138)

     I recall one of the stories of the Desert Fathers in which a young monk asks his spiritual father, his abba, why his prayers are so ineffective; he prays but rarely gets what he asks for. The monk asks his disciple to take an old, dusty basket and bring him some water.  The disciple obliges but gets no farther than a few steps before the basket leaks the entire contents of water out, and so he must return to refill it.  He does this several more times and soon realizes the futility of using the old basket to carry water.  He returns, sullen, unable to accomplish his abba's request.  He explains his great effort to try and keep the water secure but that the basket will not hold the water.  His abba nods in agreement. He asks the disciple if he noticed anything different about the basket since he took it to the river.  The disciple says "Yes, it is now clean."  The abba says "Yes, it has been cleaned by the water passing through it while you were filling it. God answers our prayers by first purifying our hearts, not granting us our desires. Only a pure heart can say with faith, "Your will be done."
     What we usually mean by "God does not answer prayer" is "I didn't get what I asked for." For some Christians (and anyone in a fix), prayer can be little more than a spiritual ATM.  Not to discount the need to ask God for those things we need and desire, but all prayer should be with the proviso Jesus used in the Garden: "Not my will, but your will be done"(Luke 22).  Suppose Jesus, in perfect communion with the Father, humbly submitted to his Father's will when scared, anticipating a gruesome death, and feeling abandoned. How much more should we be willing to pray under the condition that it is God's will?
     In today's gospel reading from Luke, Jesus is asked how we are to pray, and Jesus follows up with the "Our Father"--a prayer not invented by Jesus but passed along from John the Baptist, who taught his disciples a prayer from the wilderness. The Our Father can be used not simply as a text for our prayer but as a small catechism on how to pray:

"Father hallowed be your name."
Prayer begins with acknowledging God as Father, or more accurately, Jesus uses the word abba---" daddy" to bring into sharp focus the intimacy with which we can approach God.  God is both supremely holy, but through Christ and the Holy Spirit, supremely accessible to us; we should begin every prayer not only with the awareness of God's holiness but with the great gratitude that we are, as St. Paul says,"heirs of God", God's children (God has no grandchildren).

"Your kingdom come."
Other gospels add "your will be done, etc..."  To first pray for God's kingdom is to honor Christ's central mission, to make the kingdom realized by his disciples, and to spread this grace to all. We must, as Thomas Merton wrote, "will the will of God"; our prayer must first raise our consciousness to seek first the Kingdom before all else.  As my spiritual father said many years ago, it is necessary "to pray for the Kingdom of God to come, not the Kingdom of Todd"!

"Give us each day our daily bread."
The "bread" is understood by biblical scholars to point to the Messianic banquet, the eschaton, the final culmination in history of the establishment of the Kingdom for all eternity.  The prayer asks for that realization to be daily; the eschaton isn't only historical, it is eternally present and accessible by grace. We should earnestly pray for this spiritually sustaining need as we realize the need for physical nourishment.

"Forgive us our sins for we forgive everyone in debt to us."
This part of the prayer isn't so much a quid pro quo as it is an admonition to be mindful of the need to avail ourselves of God's mercy so we can extend it as part of the building up the Kingdom.  We need to continue to seek God's merciful grace, not as a reward for forgiving others, but we need to seek God's grace so that we can forgive others. If we live in gratitude for God's mercy to us, forgiveness can be genuine because it is an extension of the divine forgiveness of God. If this dynamic was working perfectly, I doubt we'd need to include it in our prayer, but it isn't, and we continue to find forgiveness tough at times, so our focus ought to be seeking God's mercy for our lack of mercy towards others.  The "Jesus Prayer" is a great help: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."  This ancient prayer, far from being self-abasing, abounds in the awareness of God's great mercy and our constant need of it.


"Do not subject us to the final test."
The Greek word used for "test" is peirasmos, which suggests the trials of the Messiah; the afflictions of the mission of Christ; it isn't suggesting that God is the source of our temptations (God never is the source of temptation--James 1:13).  We pray to be fortified in the life of trials for the sake of the Kingdom and that we might not "be subject"...or perhaps a better word would be "subjugated" to the final test---be overcome by our struggles.  Make no mistake, anyone considering confronting the world's evil would do well to begin with the evil in one's heart.  Satan rejoices in the self-righteous protester who can use an agenda of "social justice" to embitter the heart and render it lifeless in the pursuit of effectively hating one's enemies, but for a "good cause."  Real spiritual combat occurs in the recesses of one's heart, not on the street facing one's enemies.  Do you want to destroy your enemies?  Love them! Where is the enemy now?

The second part of the gospel sets up the short narrative of one who, because he was persistent in appealing to his friend, got what he needed.  So "For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened". We need persistence in prayer to cleanse our hearts like the water sifting through a dirty basket; it takes a lifetime of seeking and knocking to realize whom we sought was always with us, and the door has always been open.

Second Sunday after Pentecost

Do This in Remembrance of Me

Today’s readings from the Old Testament and the gospels seem to focus on the miracle of resurrecting the dead; Elijah in 1Kings and Jesus in the Gospel of Luke are both miracle workers.  To be sure, these readings do deal with resurrection, but the resurrection of the two dead sons is only temporary.  In time, these young men will again succumb to death as does every human.  What, then, is the author of Luke and 1 Kings trying to get us to understand?

Each story really begins around a mother’s experience of abandonment by her son’s death.  In 1 Kings, the mother who has hosted Elijah the prophet is filled with anguish believing that the prophet’s visit has brought God’s retribution upon her for some undisclosed sin by killing her only son.  Likewise, in Luke, the widow’s son has passed away and the woman is now alone.  The widow-mother in 1 Kings laments to Elijah

“Why have you done this to me, O man of God?

Have you come to me to call attention to my guilt

and to kill my son?”

The phrase “to call attention” is more literally translated “to bring my sin to remembrance” (RSV). The Greek phrase for remembrance is key; the word is anamnesis and suggests more than bringing up a past thought.  The word carries with it the connotation of bringing a past reality to the present---resurrecting an old wound of an undisclosed sin.  Elijah immediately passes the buck and blames God, but he also pleads “O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.”  The boy is resurrected, and the story ends with the widow joyfully announcing:  “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.” This realization is the crux of the story, and the concept of "word" is crucial.  The Hebrew notion of "word", dabar suggests the “word-action” of God.  The same essential meaning of the Greek logos of John’s gospel that created the world.  God’s word brings life, not death.

In the literal rendering of this story, the truth could be quickly eclipsed by focusing on the extraordinary event of the raising of the dead. The truly eternal life, though, is the revitalization of the widow’s faith that God’s love is real and

present in her world, now, through the prophet's "mouthing" the "word".  In Luke, Jesus’ deep-seated compassion for the widow brought her son back to life but also gave the woman the eternal gift of hope and trust in God’s goodness.  The proclamation that “God has come to help his people” is the crowd's response, not unlike the widow’s response in 1 Kings. Both stories turn on the faithful response of God's chosen ones (Elijah and Jesus).  Would that each person you meet recall the encounter with such joy!

Each Sunday we participate in an “anamnesis” in the memorial of the Mass when we proclaim: “Christ has died.  Christ has risen.  Christ will come again”.  These phrases engender hope in the faithful.  For as St. Paul reminds us “If we have died with Christ, then we shall live with Christ”.  They can be an occasion for us to participate in the Thanksgiving that is called Eucharist as we recall the crucifixions Christ has raised us from, so we can secure the hope of Christ's coming into the lives of so many who wait patiently for hope.

We too share in some part of the vulnerability of the widows when we can’t see God’s will in the mess of our lives, in its pain and seemingly arbitrariness of destruction.  This “widow’s soul” of feeling vulnerable and abandoned is like a great beacon for God and the faithful.  In our grief, God’s great compassion is at work around us like God’s call to Elijah and Jesus’ profound feeling of compassion.  It is precisely when we feel abandoned that we need to draw near to our community, the Church, and the Mass.  Christ’s healing sacrificial power made present at every Mass begins this great healing and salvation. Never underestimate the strength of the faithful’s gratitude in being able to work God’s great healing power in our lives.

Pentecost

The Language of the Holy Spirit

". . . they were confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language."

The first action at Pentecost had to do with the paradox of a single group of men from a particular region speaking so that others who spoke many other languages heard them in their own language.  Perhaps the message was one of universal salvation.  Scripture simply says the Spirit ". . . enabled them to proclaim. . . .  the mighty acts of God." What could be mightier than the gathering of all nations to the loving call of God?

Too often the call one hears in one's own language can lead one to assume God's call is exclusive to him or herself; that the others couldn't have got it right because God is speaking so personally to me! But the language of the Holy Spirit which is heard in all languages is the language of the Cross and the Empty Tomb.  The language of the Holy Spirit is loving sacrifice and triumph over death.

The Spirit's long embrace of love is "as a flame of fire".  This simile suggests it is a passionate, dynamic and living presence.  Candles, "eternal flames" of remembrance, the sanctuary lamp, all mirror this reality of a living, present God.  Each of us, born like an unlit candle, becomes a light with God's touch at baptism and is the sustaining presence that burns brightly in dark places where light is sorely needed.  As Jesus proclaimed "I am the light of the world"(John. 8:12), so too we are called to live as "Children of the light"(Ephesians 5:8-19). This light, as St. Paul reminds us takes the form of the many and various gifts of the Holy Spirit; yet, 

As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ.For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body,
whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.(1Cor.12:12-13)

And in "this one body" we work out our salvation light's gift of God.  Too often diversity is looked upon with suspicion by the institutional church and among Christian denominations.  Instead of looking at one another with a sense of mystery and awe at the diverse workings of the Holy Spirit, we assume error because of the difference.  Very often this difference is mistaken for a lack of unity; what, in fact, it is is a lack of uniformity.  What living system exhibits uniformity?  When, then, is a "difference error"?  The Spirit is also our teacher and what is not of God will always manifest itself as a force pulling people away from the peace, love, and hope of Christ.  St. Paul writing to the Galatians (Gal.5:22) declares: "...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness,s and self-control. Against such things, there is no law.”  

 In 1 Corinthians, Chapter 13, after discussing the “many gifts, one Spirit,”  Paul writes elegantly of the primacy of love as evidence of the Spirit’s presence:

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
¹³ And now these three remain faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.


Love is the language of the Holy Spirit and the sure sign of God’s dwelling and the source of our comfort, instruction, healing light, and salvation. 

The Ascension of the Lord

Now What?

          Ascension has all the makings of a story’s end.  Jesus, who has been crucified, and now resurrected, is once again with his disciples teaching them to anticipate the arrival of the Holy Spirit. Then in a moment of great transcendent glory, departs “lifted up into the clouds”.  We have been following the story since Christmas and Jesus’ birth. Now it is only fitting that as we watch him ascend, there is a feeling of completion; the drama will certainly end with the arrival of the Holy Spirit.

            In truth, the story continues; the kingdom has arrived (Jesus is eating with his disciples as evidence of the arrival of the kingdom in Mark’s gospel, but is not adequately translated according to a prominent biblical scholar). The story continues, though, to the Eschaton and the righteous judgment of humanity and the end of earthly history.

            The ascension completes the human ministry cycle of Jesus but begins the reign of Christ within the Church. The Kingdom is more than a representation of Christ to humanity, it continues as God’s presence among us. For Christians, the Holy Spirit gives us communion with God the Father and Son, we now “abide” with God. For non-believers, we become more than simply messengers of doctrine, we have the potential to be Christ’s presence.

The liturgical cycle reflects this well. Most of our time is spent after Pentecost. This is the time to compare our lives with the life of Christ and his ministry.  The Advent-Christmas cycle we revisit God’s incredible love for humanity and the birth of Jesus. Then, in the Lent-Easter cycle we celebrate the mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection, ascension and the spark of the Holy Spirit which sets the Earth ablaze with God’s Kingdom once again. The final chapter has not been written, and there is much work yet to be done.

Third Sunday of Easter

Sheepish Leaders

If you knew God was speaking to you, it is likely you would listen. It is even more likely that you would be trembling in fear and, like countless times in the Bible, have to be encouraged not to be afraid. 

In the Gospel of John, we hear Jesus speaking as the Good Shepherd, which makes us sheep. Sheep have the reputation for being rather dull, but I suppose if you look at the course of history from the outside, say the way an alien race might see us, perhaps the sheep would come out ahead.

In the gospel reading, Jesus does not lead with a conditional statement: “If my sheep hear my voice”, he says “My sheep hear my voice”; it is a declaration. As a matter of fact, real sheep (not metaphorical ones) have been reported to be as good as people in distinguishing others in a crowd (Sheep 101.info). So why use sheep to make his point?

As in most of Jesus’ figurative statements, he uses something familiar to his audience; however, like Paul and Barnabas in the first reading, his audience was divided: some followed, some thought he was a nut.

The Gospel of Christ isn’t a very attractive philosophy. Following is, for us, a becoming, a transformation into someone who recognizes Christ by his “voice”. Where do we hear Christ’s voice?  Most clearly, we hear the voice of Christ in those who are oppressed, who are marginalized and unjustly punished, who are poor in spirit and materially poor (the two often go together).  It is the “least of these”; but to put this phrase in context from the 25th Chapter of Matthew, the “least” are his disciples. Following Christ puts us at the end of the line, so the poor become not always those outside our community, but those inside our community as well. It is in our poverty, the ordinariness of our daily lives, that Christ speaks, and we respond.  Last week, Christ said to his disciples “Feed my sheep”; we are those sheep; we are those shepherds.