Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

 

"You cannot serve both God and mammon."

The word “mammon” means more than money.  At its root, it implies anything that we rely on for our lives.  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 is now 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 that 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 that 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.

Exaltation of the Cross

 

The Way of the Resurrection 

     Sunday's celebration of the Exaltation of the Cross has resonances with Good Friday in that the Cross, with Jesus upon it, is at the center. As Paul points out in scripture, the crucified Christ is a scandal to non-believers. Why would it be a “scandal”? Why would they care?

     They care because, if true, it has rather uncomfortable implications. If it is true that Jesus was God’s presence on earth as a human, then God’s own creation crucified its creator! What’s more, God allowed that to happen. Christ is the Cross. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life of God, and we are called to follow him to the cross. But the story, as we well know, is not complete.

     We follow Christ to the cross so we can follow Christ through the cross to the resurrection. So, the cross is not the goal of the Christian life, but resurrection; however, to be resurrected, one must first be crucified. Saint Paul suggests that “...if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his “(Rom.6:5).

     Specifically, St. Paul preaches that we need to crucify our “old self” with Christ. In other words, we must seek the death of the false self, the self that rejects the Good News of Christ. Paul’s poetic language can be a bit difficult to navigate, but in essence, it is part of Paul’s notion of the “new man", the person who is reborn in Christ by “crucifying” the old one.

     Few, if any of us, will be called to be physically tortured and to die for the Gospel, but we know of Christians for whom daily this is a reality in Syria and other parts of the Middle East. Most likely, ours will be the daily sacrifice of our selfishness and self-centeredness in favor of a life of grace, of living for others the way Christ lived for the world. That God’s grace triumphs over sin and death is the Triumph of the Cross.

Fourteenth 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” publicly, 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, which 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 one has.  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 so 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 too 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.

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

 

Gates Narrow and Wide

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. Nevertheless, Matthew’s gospel is also important to consider 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 as 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 providing an abstract answer to the question.  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 that “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 that 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 to 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.

Eleventh 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.

Ninth 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---a term suggesting the closeness one has to a familial "father" to bring into sharp focus the intimacy with which we can approach God.  God is both supremely holy 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 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 own 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.

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

 

"Mary has chosen the good part."

     Both the parable of the Good Samaritan and today's story of Martha and Mary are unique to the Gospel of Luke. Preceding both these sections is Jesus' encounter with the scholar of the Law. In this encounter, Jesus' response connects us immediately to the scholar's question, "Who is my neighbor?", and provides the foundation for further meditation on the nature of Christian service in today's gospel account of Mary and Martha.  

     Luke's gospel uniquely combines "Love the Lord your God..." with "Love your neighbor" to be a single expression of what is the greatest commandment; it is the great Commandment of Love.  In the other two gospels, "Love your neighbor" is appended to the first admonition, "Love the Lord your God...", as being similar to the first; Luke makes them identical, which is characteristic of Luke's gospel ethic of loving the least and the last as a manifestation of the Kingdom.  The parable of the Good Samaritan clearly develops this theme, but on its heels comes the story of Mary and Martha, which attenuates the missionary zeal of "good works" with the realization that the Kingdom made manifest develops from the Kingdom within.  In short, true hospitality begins at the feet of the guest rather than in the kitchen.

     What does hospitality have to do with justice? Too often, those dedicated to pursuing justice for the poor proceed with hatred rather than love, and seek to define the needs of the poor rather than first listening to and understanding them. It is easier to organize a march for the poor than to listen to the poor; experiencing the poverty of my neighbor does not lead me to hate the rich, but should lead me to understand the one I am seeking to serve.

    Jesus doesn’t admonish Martha to stop what she is doing, but to avoid being contemptuous of Mary, who has “made the right choice”*: first, listen to the one who is being welcomed.  Genuine hospitality is connected to justice because before "restoring" what has been lost, the true servant endeavors to discover what the guest needs.  William Sloan-Coffin, a great Christian and proponent of social justice, remarked that "The Bible is less concerned with alleviating the effects of injustice than in eliminating the causes of it."

   Christian action must, necessarily, spring from a profound connection to a sense of personal grace experienced as an encounter with the Word, Jesus Christ. Our non-profits, acts of charity and political action committees must spring from this core reality of orienting ourselves as servants towards those we serve first, or we risk becoming jaded do-gooders whose mission to accomplish something worthwhile is done on the backs of those we deem impediments to our mission statements.

     If we truly desire to serve the poor and seek justice for the oppressed, it cannot begin on the streets with signs, but it should start at the foot of the Christ, in the heart of Mary, the listening servant.

*Luke Timothy Johnson Sacra Pagina suggests this is a better translation than the traditional “Mary has chosen the better part” because it is couched in the rhetoric of a moral choice.

Holy Trinity

 

"Batter my heart three-person God"
--John Donne, "Meditation 14"

The Holy Trinity is challenging because the official declaration of God's identity as "three persons one God" appears to contradict our understanding of what it means to be a person.  For many, such language brings up popular images of "multiple personalities" in a single person suffering from a mental disorder.  There is a quotation from the spiritual masterpiece The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis that gives us a great place to start:

"What good does it do to speak learnedly about the Trinity if, lacking humility, you displease the Trinity? Indeed, it is not learning that makes a man holy and just, but a virtuous life makes him pleasing to God. I would rather feel contrition than know how to define it." Book 1, Chapter 1

The first thing we should recognize is that any theological understanding finds its ultimate meaning in the goal of all Christian life: to allow God to transform us daily into becoming more the Christ that has dwelt in us since baptism. With that in mind (and heart), let's consider today's readings, how the blessed Trinity is revealed in them, and the implications for our life in Christ.

One of the essential characteristics of the Trinity is relationship, and God's "aseity", or uncreated, perfectly actualized being. Wow, that sounded like the beginning of a seminary essay!  Scripture implies not only God's uncreated nature, it also gives us an experience of God as moving away from self into humanity in the form of revelations (the Prophets) and redemptive action (Jesus as Christ), and acting within human nature in such a way to recognize in oneself, and one's neighbor, the Divine.  This three-part structure: God-self, God-revelation, God-within humanity, becomes the basis to reflect our experience of God's relationship to humanity.

Deuteronomy speaks of God's existence in both heaven and earth, acting in both revelation and redemption.

...fix in your heart, that the LORD is God in the heavens above and on the earth below, and that there is no other... that you and your children after you may prosper, and that you may have a long life on the land . . . ."

In Paul's letter to the Romans, he explicitly writes of God in terms of Father, Spirit, and of being "heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ"
The text takes an interesting turn, then, and suggests that this relationship is only fully recognized (The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit) "if only we suffer with him".  Paul is suggesting that we will be led by the Spirit into the sufferings of Christ to enter into the glory of the Father.  How often do we regard God as aloof and incapable of suffering because of the attribution of "perfect".  Something perfect does not suffer, but God as the Christ, did suffer (contrary to the rather insipid claim of the Gnostics) and does suffer.  The reason God suffers, for Paul, is clear: we are all God's children.  God suffers because of His great love for his creation and his perfect love expressed in our free will to walk away from our inheritance like a petulant child walks away from Disneyland to play in the backyard on a dry, brown lawn with broken toys in the summer heat to spite his parents.

In Matthew's gospel, the Trinity is explicit in the triadic baptismal formula with the promise that the role of the disciple is to teach the world "all that I have commanded you".  If you remember, three weeks ago, Jesus commanded his disciples: "love one another".  The mission, then, of both the Church and the individual, is one of "going out" into the world, as Christ and the Father "went out" of themselves---God in creation, revelation, and redemption, Christ in perfect obedience to the Father. This centrifugal force of the Spirit, though, is only possible as a fruit of loving one another--the centripetal force of the inwardness of God's presence within us and Christ's presence in the community of the faithful.  What draws us together leads us to the mission.

The mission will "batter" us, to quote the epigraph from Donne, but we live because we are embraced by God's Spirit in following the battered Christ resurrected.  Donne's pleading seems masochistic until one realizes that to join in this family of God's children, the way of life and glory is also the way of suffering and death for love of the other, embodying the practice of the Trinity.  Who could ever understand such love?

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 involved 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, that the others couldn't have gotten 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 triumphing 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, and the sanctuary lamp all mirror the reality of a living, present God.  Each of us, born like an unlit candle, becomes 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, the light's gift of God.  Too often, diversity is viewed with suspicion by the institutional church and within 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 as disunity; what, in fact, it is a lack of uniformity.  What living system exhibits uniformity?  When, then, is the 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, 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^[a] 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. 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,^[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing....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, and salvation.

The Ascension of Our Lord, Jesus Christ

 

Now What?

Ascension has all the makings of a story’s end.  Jesus, who was crucified and is 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, he departs, “lifted up into the clouds”.  We have been following the story since Christmas. 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 to the Eschaton and the righteous judgment of humanity, culminating in the end of earthly history.

The ascension completes the human ministry cycle of Jesus and 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 a 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.  In 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.

Sixth Sunday of Easter

 

Keeping Our Word

Jesus’ farewell address has the curious phrase, “Whoever loves me will keep my word” (Jn. 14:23).  We all understand how to keep our word, but how is it that Jesus asks us to keep it? In the Gospel of John, Jesus is the Word, in Greek, the Logos of God.  The Son in the Trinity is the Word of God; the Son proceeds from the Father as God’s Word, his expression of perfect love for all creation.  Just as words that come from us reveal ourselves to the world, so the Word (Jesus) proceeded from God the Father as a revelation of God’s true nature.

Keeping Jesus’ word is nurturing God’s promise of salvation that Jesus’ life embodied as a sign of grace, God’s great love for His creation in general, and humanity in particular. The world can know God most intimately through Jesus the Christ, though God reveals Himself in many other ways and to many other people; however, our faith tells us God’s preeminent and perfect revelation of Himself is through Jesus.

The second part of today’s gospel anticipates the gift of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit.  Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as the Advocate or someone who acts on another’s behalf.  The Spirit, then, is how we can keep Jesus’ word to us and God’s Word to humanity.  Jesus’ reference to peace in declaring, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you.”  The world offers us a sense of peace that can only be temporary; the peace of Christ is eternal peace, but it isn’t a peace that leaves us in a type of protective spiritual bubble that inoculates us from the difficulties of life.  The Reverend A.J. Muste, a famous American clergyman who preached peace, said, "There is no way to peace. Peace is the way."  

 We stand upon the foundation of peace that allows us to face the world in all its chaos and turmoil because keeping Christ’s peace means venturing into a violent and broken world with Good News when all around us is falling apart.  William Blake’s famous line from “The Second Coming,” “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold,” is the bad news of the peace the world gives.  The peace of Christ is the center that holds for eternity and extends out into the world, and draws everyone in like foundlings brought from a storm into a warm, protective, loving home. Alleluia, Christ is risen!

Fifth Sunday of Easter

 

A New Commandment?

Jesus tells his disciples that he will leave them shortly. He doesn't have instructions, an organizational plan, or even inspired writings. He simply gets their attention by declaring he is giving them a new commandment: "Love one another." 

Interestingly, he doesn't repeat an earlier reference to the "greatest commandment" in response to fancy rhetoric from a Pharisee to love God and neighbor.  This commandment is more in line with the needs of the community of the faithful. Because if the community is not animated by love, love of God and love of neighbor grow out of fiction. What Christ is trying to establish is what grounds the community: love. Doctrinally, the Church is founded on Christ, which is all well and good, but it isn't a very practical statement without this "new commandment". Just as the popular phrase "believing in Jesus" doesn't help understand what one must do with this belief, reciting doctrine or dogma can't substitute for love. Christianity is not merely a creed.

In our first reading, we get a sense of the heady times in the early Church. That although "it is necessary to undergo many hardships", people saw the love of Paul and Barnabas that drew them to worship Christ, which is to say, to join them on this "way".  They "opened the door of faith" by inviting them to share a journey animated by love based on sacrifice.

It is easy to get lost in the rhetoric and rituals of Christianity and forget that resurrection is only through crucifixion. Sacrificial love caps God's revelations of prophets and kings, and ultimately of his revelation through Christ. To obey God's final commandment is to love his creation (including oneself) with all the passion we can muster and all the grace we can take.

Fourth Sunday of Easter

 

Sheepish Leaders

If you knew God was speaking to you, you would likely 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 do not always see 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.

Third Sunday of Easter

 

He Reveals Himself in This Way

This is an incredible story that resonates with an earlier account of Jesus giving fishing advice to fishermen. In Luke chapter 5, Jesus has the disciples “put out for deep water” and fish. The boat was overwhelmed with fish. Also in Luke’s account, Simon Peter was the “voice” of the disciples and “fell down at Jesus’ knees saying ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” In today’s gospel, however, Peter launches himself half-naked into the water and swims ashore ahead of the rest, only to be confronted by one question asked three times: “Do you love me?”. Three times, Peter affirms his loyalty, which some commentators suggest is an undoing of Peter’s denial of Christ three times. Whatever the case, it is significant that Jesus is recognized in the miracle and in serving them. He does not tell them he will make them fishers of men as he did previously, but this time he tells Peter, “Feed my sheep.” As Christ has fed them, literally, he is sending them into a life of serving those whom they “catch.” For us, it isn’t a numbers game; it isn’t simply about how many fish we get, it's about serving those attracted to Christ. How will they recognize the risen Christ who has already risen and ascended into heaven? They will see Christ risen in our lives of service and communion, of mission and faith.

Divine Mercy Sunday (Second Sunday of Easter)

 

Resurrection and Woundedness

It was important to the early Church that the account of Jesus' resurrection did not become a "ghost story."  Some followers of Christ could not reconcile his divinity with his humanity and concluded that Jesus, being divine, could not have truly suffered on the cross; a wounded God is much more difficult to worship. Luke writes in the tradition of Christians who share the conviction, handed down by the Apostles, that Christ's humanity and suffering did not detract from his divinity.

When Jesus invited his Apostles to touch his wounds and then to give him some cooked fish to eat, his intent was clear: "It is I myself."  During Good Friday, we venerated the Cross and meditated on the wounds of Christ, as those wounds were the sins of humanity being put upon Christ. Today, we see Jesus, the resurrected Christ, but we also see his wounds. Jesus was resurrected with his wounds.

Being resurrected doesn't mean we jettison our wounds, or, as Hamlet put it, "shuffle off our mortal coil"; the resurrection has transformed our wounds, not removed them.  We carry our wounds through our baptism into our new life in Christ, and we often take on new wounds.  What is markedly different, though, is as Christians, we live with our wounds visible, proof of our resurrection.  We can share the painful wounds we've received because we live in a new body, the body of Christ.  Love has conquered death, our wounds are no longer harbingers of death: proof we have not died, but that we live.

What being resurrected means for us is living with the confidence that love overcomes death.  That our wounds present in our new life in Christ become a source of great hope for those whose woundedness has led to death.  Like Christ, we can live a life that removes the defensive imperative to cover our wounds and move to dominate, to control, and accumulate wealth.  Our life in Christ shows the world another way: the way of Jesus displaying his wounds to his followers as the beginning of their spiritual journey as people of the Resurrection.

Easter Sunday of the Resurrection

 

He is Risen!

The older I get, the less concerned I am about the historical facts of my faith.  Don't get me wrong, if I could know some historical fact regarding the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, I'd jump at the opportunity; it's more a matter of accepting the inherent limitations of living a life of faith regarding the type of knowledge faith reveals.  I see so many folks trading their faith for a type of intellectual dishonesty that makes bizarre claims in an attempt to find empirical backing for what they claim to already believe.  Based on biblical passages, Harold Camping calculated the exact time for Christ’s return. For Harold, this wasn’t faith but empirical truth. He convinced others.  The time came and went.  Nothing.  Another date was set; his calculations were a bit off the first time.  The time came and went.  Nothing.  Finally, Camping admitted he got the whole thing wrong and will no longer make any further predictions.  Humiliated, alone, and pilloried in the press, Harold Camping takes his first step towards resurrection: crucifixion.  

There is no other way to resurrection than through crucifixion.  This is the substance of my faith when I proclaim each Sunday, "He was crucified, died, and buried.  On the third day, he rose again by the scriptures." 

Crucifixion forces our hand to break our plans for an orderly and carefully controlled life and puts us at the feet of the cross or on it.  We will likely never have empirical, historical evidence of Jesus’ bodily resurrection; this is faith. Still, one thing is eminently probable: Jesus was killed on the cross by Roman and religious authorities who were threatened by the instability of challenged metaphors: Jesus said he was a king, and Jesus said he was the Messiah.  The only possible way Jesus could walk to the cross was a faith born not in what would come after but in the sustaining relationship of love he had with the Father.  Jesus' fear and feeling of dejection in murmuring the 22nd Psalm, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me," ends with the 31st Psalm: "Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit."  

The Resurrection is what happened after.  The disciples witnessed it according to the accounts of Scripture.  But my faith finds its foundation in the resurrections I've experienced in others and in myself that have their origin in The Resurrection. 

Easter is the "difficult birth" of a faith borne on the cross of one who died two thousand years ago and claimed to be a king and Messiah. Still, the millions of new lives hewn from the roughness of the Cross are witness to a deeper and more profound truth than an historical event, and the Resurrection has lived long after Jesus walked the earth.

Good Friday of the Lord's Passion

 

We Call this Friday Good

Good Friday is when we recall that even Jesus' closest disciples fled into the night and sought refuge away from the Roman and Temple authorities for fear that they too would be arrested. What a spectacular failure of faith.

Today is a day we move deeply into meditating on our need to tell God, like Jesus, hanging on the cross, to pull off another miracle, save yourself, and save us! No? We’re out of here! I’m not going to end up like that!! 

     Peter’s famous denial three times echoes Jesus’ earlier query, also three times: “Do you love me, Peter?” Peter responded then: “You know that I love you!” Now, fearful of his life, he replies, “I know nothing of this man you refer to!” This person is the disciple upon whom the Church is built: Peter, called “Rock” by Jesus, crumbles into sand at the crucifixion. 

     The cross is a spectacle of human folly, failure, and faithlessness. "Yet, in spite of that", as T.S. Eliot wrote, “We call this Friday good.” Its goodness lies in God’s total submission to his love for humanity in the person of Jesus. It is the goodness inherent when we willingly suffer for another person, perhaps a stranger, or even an enemy. Today, we contemplate how we respond to being asked to suffer for another, or whether or not the possibility of suffering sends us scurrying into the night, renouncing God. 

     “How could God allow such suffering ?” many ask and imply this is the cardinal weakness of Christianity. Perhaps the better question is “Why would God be willing to enter into our world of suffering?” The mightiness of God isn’t a lifeboat dropping out of the sky for survivors floating in a tempest; it is God falling into the water next to us to show us the way to dry land. 

     God with us, “Emmanuel”, means God suffering for and with us. God does not want to “save” us as much as he intends to be with us. We want to be “saved”, just as Jesus wanted to escape suffering; it's only natural. No one suggests that to follow Jesus we should seek out pain, but rather, following Jesus, we will enter the suffering of a suffering world with a resounding affirmation: “Yes” to being with the poor and hopeless, the excluded, imprisoned, tortured, and sick. “Yes” to the suffering of the world, and all its messiness and dysfunction. The Cross’s affirmation is entering into the heart of the suffering world and walking with those who suffer to find God calling us into his embrace, arms stretched out on the cross, now embracing us in all of our horror and pain, failure, and humiliation. Today, we come to the cross to be embraced by Christ and to be resurrected with him.

Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion

 

A Passion for Humanity

Today, we begin Holy Week. We see the Passion from Jesus' entry into Jerusalem to rolling the stone to seal the tomb. On Monday, we rewind to six days before Passover, followed by Tuesday and Wednesday with the Passover meal and Jesus' subsequent betrayal by Judas. Holy Thursday is the day Jesus washed his disciples' feet and told them, "If I, therefore, the Master and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet." Good Friday, we again meditate on the Cross. Today and Friday, we speak of the Lord's passion and God's love for His creation.

Passion.  The word evokes reckless adventure, impulsive romance, gestures too big to fulfill, and the brief but intense relationship of Romeo and Juliet.  This word places Jesus in the tradition of the foolish Romantics—an itinerant preacher from the margins schooled by his radical cousin (John the Baptist) and led to make one final, dramatic gesture to get his message out: die as a martyr.  But Jesus’ death was unlike the death of many of the martyred faithful to come.  His death wasn't for a cause, but for a relationship.  God fell hopelessly in love with humanity and inserted Himself to be with His own creation to deliver this message of healing, love, and forgiveness.  God’s power isn't the power of Zeus with lightning bolts from the heavens, but God’s message is now simply “Return; I love you”.

Throughout Holy Scripture, God has struggled and seemingly failed many times, just as His people have.  It has been an on-and-off-again cosmic love story between the Creator and His creation since humanity was first created and was given a choice not to love God.  This dance between Creator and created culminated in His great and defining act of love: self-sacrifice on the cross.

Today’s gospel reading recounts this journey to the cross with Jesus as God leading the way, experiencing the pain and abandonment of His creation, the physical pain of gruesome, ignominious death, giving into the abyss of his own uncreated end-all for love.  But in this remarkable journey, he found a few responding with courage: Simon of Cyrene shared some in your suffering, the women who gathered at the foot of the cross and stayed there long after the men had scattered for fear of being arrested, the felon who believed because he, of all people, responded to the suffering of an innocent man, and finally the Roman centurion who saw in this suffering man God’s love.  This is pretty intense stuff

Rather than struggling to believe, many struggle to disbelieve because God’s affirmation of his creation, of saying “yes” to the cross, is the ultimate folly for a world seeking safety over communion.  God as Jesus, crucified, dead, and buried.  Stay tuned.