Welcome to CatholicPreacher! I use this page as a type of archive of my thoughts for my Sunday homily.

Sunday, February 28, 2021

Second Sunday of Lent


 

"No Cross, No Crown"

We Catholics seem to love suffering, or so my Protestant friend is fond of saying.  I often retort, "No cross, no crown," which brings a raised eyebrow and suggestion to change the topic.  But, I must admit that it is as easy for Catholics to mistakenly evolve a spirituality of suffering for suffering's sake as it is for Protestants to evolve a "gospel of prosperity" where financial gain and material wealth are the goals of being a Christian.  Both views are distortions of Jesus' mission.
     In the first reading is Abraham's almost-sacrifice of Isaac.  Of this parable, early Judaism focused on the element of God testing Abraham, but with time, shifted focus to see the sacrifice in light of Isaac's willingness to submit to the will of his father and offer himself as a type of sacrificial lamb, a theme later picked up by the early Church's understanding of Jesus' Christhood.  The Pascal Lamb, as you recall, was the sacrifice for the deliverance of the Jews in captivity from  Egyptian oppression; where the blood of the lamb was sprinkled across the lintel of the door as a sign for the Angel of Death to pass over and spare the household.  What began as an understanding of Isaac's sacrifice simply as an act of blind compliance evolved into a deeper, more mature meaning of giving of oneself for the sake of others.
     This notion was picked up in Isaiah's Suffering Servant and is the character Jesus most closely aligned himself and his ministry around.  This understanding of Christ's mission as a servant who suffers for humanity is the foundation of Mark's gospel, which sought to counter the tendency of the early Gnostic-Christian communities' focus on Jesus' divinity revealed in the Transfiguration as the pinnacle revelation of God to humanity, not the suffering on the cross and resurrection; for the Gnostics, Jesus' divinity eclipsed his humanity and made the cross a distraction on the way to the crown.  That is why in Mark's gospel, Jesus continually cautions his believers not to reveal his Christhood because it is only in light of his suffering and resurrection that his mission is significant; he is the Suffering Servant Messiah, not the Warrior King messiah portrayed in Isaiah.

"But he was wounded for our transgressions, 
he was bruised for our iniquities; 
upon him was the chastisement that made us whole,
and with his stripes, we are healed."

Christ's suffering was in the service of reconciling us to God, of bringing everyone into communion.  Jesus didn't seek out this suffering; he prayed, "Let this cup pass from me," while his disciples slept in the Garden of Gethsemane.  But Jesus also added to his prayer, "Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done."  To some extent, suffering is always a mystery; however, some suffering is beyond our comprehension.  If we suffer and cannot discern its origin, or it is out of our hands, we should pray for the trial to pass and include our willingness to submit to God's will.  We must, however, also not shy away from suffering in the pursuit of justice and love.  In the face of injustice, ours is not a retreat into Quietism, into a passive acceptance of the suffering of ourselves and our neighbor, but to face the suffering that will come when we face the oppressor and the rejection that will come when we give our hearts away to the love of our enemies.  The Crown only has ultimate significance in light of the love from the Cross.

Sunday, February 21, 2021

First Sunday of Lent




 Follow Me.  I Know the Way Out.


Hunger, powerlessness, and inadequacy:  These are the weak spots Jesus struggled with.  Very often, we focus on the battle and Jesus’ subsequent victory and overlook the temptation of the desert itself.

For us, going into the desert for forty days would involve a backpack full of food and an ample supply of water. Jesus had no such store of supplies. He was alone and fasting.  Fasting allowed him to experience need.  On a deeper level, Jesus experiences the profound understanding that, though the Son of God, he needs other people, and that centering one’s life around physical desires is a great deprivation (Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God). Bread is a figure for the communion of friendship and community. This deprivation of human contact is a crucial part of his “desert experience”. He could turn those rocks to bread, but he would eat alone. Notice Satan does not want to give Jesus bread (communion) he simply is tempting Jesus to assuage his physical hunger.

 Jesus’ next vulnerability was his feeling of powerlessness.  Exploiting this, Satan offers Jesus complete domination over the world’s countries in exchange for devotion.  Look at what being submissive to God had gotten him: hunger pangs and loneliness. Milton’s Satan would have whispered into Jesus’ ear: “Better to rule in hell than serve in Heaven”.  He replies to Satan, quoting again from Deuteronomy: “You shall worship the Lord, your God, and him alone shall you serve.”   How often our fear of being powerless leads us to believe that getting power is the answer rather than seeking the Kingdom and serving God. Too often, even “good causes” can become soiled with the ego of creating a utopia.

 The final temptation came in the form quite unlike all the others.  It was the showdown.  In the desert of despair, with no visible sign of God’s presence, and Satan close at hand, the desire to experience God’s care and concern in some manifestation becomes Jesus’ greatest vulnerability.  Just give me a sign of your love!  Everyone feels this, especially when things are not going well.  Satan’s answer was to call God’s hand and turn Jesus’ test into God’s test.  Now it is Satan who is quoting Scripture:

“He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,”
and:
 “With their hands, they will support you,
lest you dash your foot against a stone.

Satan quotes from Psalm 91, and Jesus responds with a third passage from Deuteronomy: You shall not put your Lord God to the test”.  The very source of his reasoning---Holy Scripture—was turned against him.  How often do foes of God’s love and unconditional grace bend scripture to turn it from a source of healing love to a weapon? 

This round of Bible Darts over, Satan departs “for a time” suggesting that the tenacity of Satan grows, not diminishes, with defeat.  Being holy and being hounded has a long tradition of being paired. But like Jesus, we may be for a time in the desert; however, simply because the journey gets tough doesn’t mean we walk it alone.  At every turn, the community, animated by the Spirit, joins us and reminds us that we follow Christ into the desert. Consider the well-known story among those in recovery from addiction:


A man had fallen into a pit and could not escape. The first person who passes by offers him comforting words and moves on. The second person writes a prayer for the man and drops it into the pit and also leaves. The third person jumps into the pit with the man. Astonished, the man in the pit yells “How is this supposed to help?! Now we are both stuck here.” The man replies, “Yes. But I have been down here before, and I know the way out”.  

Sunday, February 14, 2021

Sixth Sunday after Epiphany


 Sacrament, Not Magic


We continue this week with the healing ministry of Jesus, but with Mark’s focus on Jesus not as a wonder-worker, but on Jesus the preacher of the Good News.  These last few Sunday’s we have seen the miraculous healing power of Jesus as the Christ as an extension of himself as the Word of God, spoken to humanity and proclaiming the Kingdom. We have also seen Jesus admonish those he has healed to keep the secret that he is the long-awaited Messiah; so how do today’s readings complement and further our understanding of Jesus’ ministry and mission?
The passage from Leviticus provides a background for Jesus sending the leper to the Chief Priest to attest to being healed and declared ritually pure and fit for worship.
What is fascinating is how blatantly Jesus’ command to tell no one is disobeyed. Mark’s emphasis on the element of secrecy suggests that there is a time when the conditions would make this revelation understandable. Healing may be a sign of the Kingdom, but the one, final act of healing of Jesus’ victory over death that heals the entire world has yet to take place, so there is a concern that people will not fully grasp that their healing is more than a personal triumph over disease, by a skilled physician/wonder worker, it is a preview of the eternal healing of God’s sacrifice of Himself. 
 This universal act of salvation is what we partake of through the sacraments.  The sacraments that have a healing dimension are the Anointing of the Sick, Eucharist, and Reconciliation.  Our healing, like the lepers, is God’s reaction to a suffering world.  Jesus wasn’t a messenger, Jesus is God among us in history as a man in a particular place and a particular time, but God is also forever Spirit sent by Christ to continue animating the People of God in the Church.  The sacraments, then, become the special places of contact where this grace is bestowed upon us.  Sacraments are not magic; they are animated by the Church's faith of which we are a part.  That is why people who have not been baptized do not receive the sacraments, not because they are being rejected from God's grace, but because the sacraments work off of a faith they have yet to experience.  A desire for a sacrament, in and of itself, always points first towards baptism.  In extreme cases, baptism followed by the Sacrament of the Sick is a great grace and the person's faith is strengthened by the faith of the Church to which they now belong. 
 If the sacrament was really a magical incantation, no faith would be required.  The Body of Christ, the Church, into which we are baptized, becomes our great source of strength when our individual faith waxes and wanes as it does in the course of our spiritual journey.  We can approach God and the sacraments that the faith of the Church and the Spirit which animates our community will always provide the supplement to my faith when it is weak. 
The leper in today’s story approaches Jesus with the words “If you wish, you can make me clean”.  Christ’s will is exemplified in the ways God touches us and offers healing as part of the Body of Christ in the sacraments.  Today’s Anointing of the Sick becomes our response to our need of healing in body and soul, and the power of God’s love through the community of the Church announces “It is my will.  Be healed".