Do it NOW!

The writer of Mark’s Gospel was, apparently, an American.  Yes, that’s right, an American.  How can we tell?  We know he was most likely American because of his obsession with the word “immediately”.  Mark’s Gospel is the shortest of the 4 canonical Gospels, but he uses the word “immediately” at least 40 times in the telling of his story.  How does this make him an American?  Because you and I are also caught up in our own sense of immediacy.  We want what we want right now.

When I was a child, I remember having to reheat leftovers either on the stove or in the oven.  The black and white television took a minute or so to warm up and produce a picture: I know this because I was sitting there in front of it eating my Swanson fried chicken TV dinner, where everything was already portioned out for me.  And whether it’s instant potatoes, oatmeal, grits or pancake mix in an aerosol can, the world of immediate relief from hunger surrounds us always. We live in a society that doesn’t want to wait. When we want something, we want it immediately, the sooner, the better.

Mark’s telling of the Gospel story ought to be the first one we turn to because, like I’ve said, Mark was an American himself and he understands the need to hurry from one story to the next without wasting any time.  The other thing about Mark is that he understands the concept of calling 911: there’s an urgency in his writing that is more than just a sense of being in a hurry.

Our lives are full of tasks to be completed, some are higher priority than others, but they all need to be completed.  Whether we’re talking about doing laundry, taking out the trash or doing our income taxes, we understand that our tasks have an inherent sense of priority about them.  And, if something more urgent comes along, we will put them aside and deal with the most pressing issue—like when our cell phone interrupts a conversation, for example.

While Mark uses the word “immediately,” it’s clear from the context that the underlying sense is “urgency.” The fishermen all leave important tasks to follow Jesus. Their response is more like the way we answer a phone than it is to the way we take out the garbage.  Mark is calling us to experience the fullness of our life in an urgent kind of way, to be thankful in the extreme, to be mindful of the grace of God that surrounds us.  And that’s a hard thing to maintain, this sense of urgency about those wonderful gifts of God that surround us at all times.

Peter and Andrew appear to be poor fishermen who cast their nets from the shore. They have no boat, simply a small fishing net. James and John, on the other hand, appear to be from a fairly successful fishing family – where there are not only boats but additional hired hands. All four seem to be committed to their livelihood as they do the important work of mending nets between fishing expeditions.

But all four respond with such a sense of urgency that we cannot help but wonder about their response.  Did they know Jesus from a previous encounter or was he a total stranger?  What was the tone of his voice?  Was this one of those urgent calls for help we might hear as we approach someone in the midst of an emergency? Although we might discuss the possibilities inherent in the story, we don’t want to overlook Mark’s point in telling us the story in the first place:  namely, it’s this same Jesus who is calling us in the here and now.  It’s the same Jesus who is waiting for our own response to his call.

“Follow me” is not just an invitation extended to the Disciples; it’s also an urgent call to reorient our lives to God. It is an invitation to consider our vocation in life, not just our occupation.  So, if you are a fisherman, Jesus calls you to fish for people. If you are a carpenter, Jesus is telling you to stop building houses and start creating homes. If you are a healthcare professional, Jesus is asking you to take account of the hearts and spirits of people, not just their bodies. If you are a teacher, Jesus is reminding you that you are not called to teach subjects to students but to teach students about subjects.

Sometimes following Jesus will require a change of profession, sometimes leading to ordained ministry or doing missionary work. But more often than not, it is simply a call to a change of mind-set, a reorientation of our lives as we respond to the urgency of the gospel message.

Over the centuries, there have been many groups of people who heard that sense of urgency and sold all their possessions as they waited for the return of Jesus – only to be disappointed by his failure to appear. It’s not that He didn’t appear– it’s that he appeared in a form in which they failed to recognize him. They misunderstood what the heck Mark was talking about.

Here’s the bottom line: Jesus is calling each of us and all of us to live with a sense of urgency in our lives – a sense that each day and each moment is important in terms of the coming Reign of God.  The hard part of that is letting God determine our priorities as we open ourselves to the blessings that come from leaving some things behind. 

Invariably God calls us to newness of life and a fresh vision and bright shiny path on which to walk, and we’re aware of that.  We look forward to that and we truly want that.  But what we don’t think about are those many things we leave behind when we turn to follow Him.  We tend to oversimplify and see those things as “bad” or “unworthy” and sometimes that is exactly what they are.  More often than not, however, those things were really good things to begin with, like fulfilling careers that paid the bills and allowed us to have a sizeable 401K for our retirement.  Like having one ministry or another that was fulfilling in many ways and which we were sad to leave behind.  It’s not that these things were bad, they were good!  But there’s a huge difference between doing good things and doing the right things for us.

As I look around Fort Wayne, I see many good ministries going on: clothing banks, food banks, new parent training, teaching English to refugees who speak only their native tongue and need English in order to get better jobs for their families.  These are all good things, and we could literally burn ourselves out getting involved in as many of them as we can.  But is that what God wants from us? Or are those the “good things” that could get in the way of what God REALLY wants from us?  Is doing ministry that is comfortable to us part of God’s plan, or is it just our plan that we’re hoping God will eventually buy into?  One of the right things that you and I are involved in is the growth of this parish and its ministries.  We’re about to embark on an ambitious new path that will provide spiritual support to people recovering from drug or alcohol addictions.  We’ve prayed about this and it needs to happen here because the only other program like it is, sadly, tied to a judgmental form of Christianity that rejects a significant population of hurting people.  This is not okay, so we are stepping up to minister in a positive, affirming, soul-enriching way that is open to all people.

Despite challenges, once we see and embrace the RIGHT things, our life becomes crazy simple.  God is inspiring us, Jesus is calling us by name, and the Spirit is giving us all the testosterone (also known as grace) that we need to make our response effective.  The more we can put aside our own fears, hesitations and questioning and the more we can just be open to what it is God is trying to tell us, the more peace we will find and the more certain we will be as we move from doing good things to achieving the right things.

A Simple Prayer

This is from one of my sisters in the Order of St. Benedict, Sr. Joan Chittister.

Great God, who has told us “Vengeance is mine,” save us from ourselves, save us from the vengeance in our hearts and the acid in our souls.
Save us from our desire to hurt as we have been hurt, to punish as we have been punished, to terrorize as we have been terrorized.
Give us the strength it takes to listen rather than to judge, to trust rather than to fear, to try again and again to make peace even when peace eludes us.
We ask, O God, for the grace to be our best selves. We ask for the vision to be builders of the human community rather than its destroyers. We ask for the humility as a people to understand the fears and hopes of other peoples.
We ask for the love it takes to bequeath to the children of the world to come more than the failures of our own making. We ask for the heart it takes to care for all the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq, of Palestine and Israel as well as for ourselves.
Give us the depth of soul, O God, to constrain our might, to resist the temptations of power to refuse to attack the attackable, to understand that vengeance begets violence, and to bring peace–not war–wherever we go.
For You, O God, have been merciful to us. For You, O God, have been patient with us. For You, O God, have been gracious to us.
And so may we be merciful and patient and gracious and trusting with these others whom you also love.
This we ask through Jesus, the one without vengeance in his heart. This we ask forever and ever. Amen

Becoming a Mother of God

(This is the homily given at Holy Redeemer on New Year’s Eve, prior to the Burning Bowl Ceremony)

The name “January” comes from the Roman god Janus, the god with two faces, one looking to the past and the other looking to the future. It is fitting for us, then, to look back over the past year that is about to end and also to look forward to the fresh year that is about to begin for us.  How have I spent the past 365 days of my life?  Did I use them to advance my vocation in life, have I come to a clearer vision of what it is God wants from me?  Did I use them to enhance the lives of those whom God sent me?  Was a able to find balance between my bodily needs, my spiritual needs and my intellectual needs?  What things did I achieve last year and what did I fail to achieve? How can I consolidate the achievements of last year while learning from the failures?  It is only through searching our souls and by asking the hard questions of ourselves that we come to some perspective on ourselves and discover things we need to change as we enter into another year of life.

There are people who tell us that there is no point making new year resolutions because most people just don’t keep them for very long. While that may be the case, there are some who do manage to keep them and part of being human means we have a need to set goals in order to have a life that is satisfying.  We also need to review our lives from year to year because, as Socrates says, the unexamined life is not worth living.

Tomorrow’s newspapers will be full of individual and collective new year resolutions, but most of them are nothing more than wishes. What is the difference between a resolution and a wish? A wish states the final destiny, and a resolution identifies a specific process or series of steps needed to reach that final destination.  A wish says this is where I want to end up; a resolution says this is the road I will take. The wishful person says “I want less stress in my life” and the resolved person says “I commit myself to going to the gym and eating more wholesome food.”  The wishful person says “I want more peace and love in my family this year” and the resolved person says “I will mend relationships that are strained and I will spend more time with my family so that we get to know each other better.” In other words, our resolutions take work in order to bring them to fruition.

The Gospel today presents Mary as an ideal disciple of Christ—she is the kind of disciple we all wish to be, but few are willing to commit to the path.  Mary was prepared to do whatever it took ever since the angel told her she was going to bear a Son.  And after Jesus was born and the shepherds came with their strange story about angels and heavenly choirs, Luke tells us that, “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).  Twelve years later, after the boy Jesus is found in the Temple, Luke tells us again that, “His mother treasured all these things in her heart” (Luke 2:51).

Mary was a woman who was open to hearing the word of God in her everyday circumstances; she treasured it and made time to meditate and ponder it. Catholics have called Mary “full of grace” for over 2,000 years, and we remember well that she consciously chose to cooperate with the grace of God.  She listened to her life circumstances, she heard the voice of God there, she discerned her truth, she submitted her life to the word she received.

The Second Vatican Council taught us to look upon Mary as the Church’s most perfect disciple.  Today’s ancient feast honors her as Mother of God, a title given her at the Council of Ephesus in 431.  But what does that have to do with us?  Can we, like Mary, become model disciples?  Can we, like Mary, become “Mother of God?”

The men in this church are shaking their heads, but I assure you, gentlemen, not only is this possible, but some Fathers of the Church have said that, without becoming a “theotokos” a “Mother of God” we can’t be considered Christian.  “What does it matter,” Anselm writes, “if Christ was once born to Mary in Bethlehem but is not born by faith in my soul?”

Jesus himself says: “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and put it into practice” (Luke 8:21).  This clearly means that those who are committed to him are indeed mothers and brothers to him.  So this idea of our becoming a “mother of God” seems to go back to Jesus himself.  Today’s liturgy presents Mary to us as the first of those to become mother of Christ through attentive listening to his word, which she, for her part, “treasured….meditating on them in her heart.”  How do we become, in a concrete real sense a “mother of Christ?  By hearing the word and putting it into practice.  St. Francis of Assisi writes, “We are mothers of Christ when we carry him in our hearts and our bodies through divine love and pure and sincere conscience; we give birth to him through holy works, which should shine as an example before others!”

Looking back over the past year, we see instances when we did react just like Mary did: we heard the word of God within us and we fearlessly put it into practice.  There were other times when we were less attentive and much less committed to living the word we received.  That is the past.  Tonight we stand on the threshold of a fresh start, an opportunity to release the things that hold us back, a chance to listen with fresh ears to the word of God revealed to us.  We never know for certain when we come to our last year on earth; for some of us here tonight or listening in tonight, this may be our last year.  So since that is a possibility, let us tonight, release those things we need to finally let go of and resolve to choose the better path in this coming year.  The word of God, the seed of God’s Reign, is planted continually within our hearts.  Let us open ourselves to becoming fertile soil for the divine word of God, that with our mother, Mary, we will someday be able to say with a clean conscience, “I was simply the servant of the Most High.  I merely allowed God to do with me as He willed.”

Christmas 2011

Today is the culmination of Advent’s desire to see the face of God, to experience the meaning of Emmanuel, “God With Us”, to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that God has come to meet us where we are and to love us as we are.  Whether we’re swept away with the holiday spirit or not much interested in shopping or going to the malls, the holy day is here for us to bask in its divine light.

When we think of that first Christmas, we tend to romanticize the idea of being born in a stable and having no crib but a manger—a place from which animals ate grain.  We have elaborate and beautiful nativity scenes, much like the one here at the front of church, and that tends to reinforce these idealized notions of what that holy night was like.  If we were to update the story, being born in a stable is as romantic and pastoral as being born in a shed behind someone’s garage in a lower middle-class neighborhood.  It’s neither appealing nor picturesque.

The shepherds themselves  weren’t part of a larger group we tend to see as “the noble poor” either.  They were uneducated, rough and tumble characters who smelled of perspiration and animal dung.  They lived a life on the fringes of the villages and towns, and were seldom thought of in anything but demeaning terms.  Our God made it clear from the beginning that the message of inclusive love and acceptance was not going to be proclaimed to the religious establishment, nor to the upper class.  It was to the ones living on the margins of society that the Good News was first proclaimed.

This tells us something important about Christmas.  Our God sees deep beneath the surface appearances of life, into the very heart of people and things.  It doesn’t matter to God what we wear, where we shop, what our level of education is, or whether we are celebrating Christ’s birth in a vast house on fancy china or having Christmas dinner at McDonald’s drinking from a paper cup.

The message of the angel laid the groundwork for all that Jesus was later to teach: “Fear not” the angel said.  God did not send Jesus to intimidate, condemn, frighten or overwhelm us.  Had God desired to send a warrior Messiah, He could have done so, and you and I would have been overcome with fear at the onslaught of God’s army, conquering everything in its way.   But instead of a mighty earthly leader with political connections and financial resources, he sends a helpless Babe wrapped in rags, sleeping in a barn.  Instead of forcing us to bow down in fear, He invites us to stand up in love.

The Gospel of John, which we have just read, describes Jesus as the “light of the world”, a light that the darkness is unable to extinguish.  If there is darkness in our hearts or minds this evening, let us allow the light of Christ to enter in and dispel it with love, hope and goodness—at least for this one holy night.

John’s Gospel describes Jesus as the “fullness of God”, so if right now we carry within our heart feelings of inadequacy or insufficiency, let us release those illusions and allow ourselves to see the truth that God’s goodness, grace and strength are filling us, right now, to overflowing—at least for this one holy night.

The same Gospel proclaims to us that the Eternal Word of God descended to earth from the heavenly realm and made His abode with us.  If we are feeling alone, frightened, or forsaken tonight, let us choose instead to rest in the belief that Our God has already pitched His tent with us as our friend, our companion on the sometimes rocky road of life, our brother who is always there –at least for this one holy night.

Jesus comes to us and meets us exactly where we are, without judgment, without condemnation, without forcing himself on us.  We remember the words of the angel, “Fear not!”  We remember that these very words are the ones spoken most often by Jesus in the Gospels.  We have for too long lived in fear of so many things, so tonight, in the glow of this holy feast, let us surrender all our fears to the Child who comes to us in the guise of powerlessness, revealing to us the truth that we, too, are born anew this holy night.  We are the presence of Christ in the world.  And by our gracious acceptance of God’s plan for us, we recognize our divine vocation in this world.  At least for this one holy night, if not for the rest of our lives.

Second Coming: A Midweek Reflection

Growing up in Appleton, Wisconsin, I looked forward each year to the way College Avenue was transformed each holiday season, with 50 foot angels blowing their trumpets across all four corners of all the downtown intersections.  It became known as “The Avenue of the Angels” and people from all over the state would come to town just to see the spectacle.  Standing on the campus of Lawrence University and looking west down College Avenue, I see a shimmering, golden tunnel formed by the tinsel angels, a magical pathway of lights and garlands leading us all to Christmas.

As I continue walking, retracing my boyhood steps toward the downtown shops displaying lighted candles and snowmen, I wonder if Jesus will make his triumphal way down a street like this at his final coming.  And if he does, how will I feel as I stand here along the curb?  Will I be happy, or worried, or wishing I had just a bit more time to get ready?  I hate the idea of having unfinished business left forever undone: apologies never spoken, prayers never offered, thank you’s never delivered.

Nearing the bottom of the Avenue, where the old Viking Theatre used to be, I turn around.  In the distance I see the cupola of Lawrence University and the other buildings of Appleton’s skyline.  They stand against a great white bank of clouds that glow from underneath.  Jesus’ words come to mind: “You will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.”  Maybe he’ll come on some mighty clouds like those just above the Aid Association for Lutherans building.

But as I continue walking the Avenue, I change my mind.  I think the Lord will certainly come right down The Avenue of Angels, the curbs of my beloved city lined with crowds shouting and clapping and dancing for joy.  My grandparents, my son, and all my deceased family and friends  will finally be at my side again.  And we will welcome him.  And it will once again be Christmas, but this time forever.

This, then, is the hope of our Advent: that the Lord we worship is coming again to show us that life will have the last word, that love always triumphs, that miracles still happen—even in the cold of December, along a brightly lit corridor of candles, snowmen and tinsel angels.

Ut in omnibus glorificetur Deus,

Fr. Michel

Remember

When I think back over my life and all the Christmases I’ve spent, a lot of memories come flooding back:  the smell and taste of Grandma’s cookies, the sense of joy I felt as I trimmed the family Christmas tree, breathing in the aroma of a freshly cut spruce, walking with my own young sons at night while thick snowflakes floated gently all around us.  It goes without saying that these holiday memories we carry within are a crucial part of our experience of Christmas.  And though we may feel a twinge of sadness for those innocent days that are gone forever, we are grateful for having met key people in our life who showed us the meaning of love, and how simple acts of kindness change everything.

Like our personal memories, the Church itself invites us to remember, to keep the memories of the past alive and to allow them to inform and shape our present.  The Church remembers the messianic predictions of the prophets, and the unique role of John the Baptist.  It is John who is our personal voice of Advent: he reminds us that the coming of Jesus is an important development in the relationship between God and ourselves.

John and his message not only appear at the beginning of the Jesus’ earthly ministry, they also appear at the beginning of every Christian’s desire to follow Jesus, for those who want to walk with Jesus, for all those who want to find their way out of the  wilderness and into the promised land of wholeness and healing.

John came to point out that the way of the Lord must be prepared, and that way is not simply a highway in the desert, it’s a highway in our hearts, it’s both a step and a direction we must be willing to take if we are to be ready for Christ’s coming.

A man was studying the principles of Zen but felt he was making almost no spiritual progress, so he sought out a Master, and asked him what he needed to know to have a contented life.  “I have studied the sacred scriptures, and I have visited the greatest teachers in the land,” the man said, “but I have not found the answer I seek.  Please teach me the way.”

At this point the Zen Master had tea brought in to serve his guest.  He set a cup in front of the visitor and filled it to the top and then kept on pouring and pouring so that the tea ran over the rim of the cup, across the table, and cascaded down onto the floor.

The visitor watched until he could not longer restrain himself.  “Its overfull, stop, no more will go in!” he cried out.  “Like this cup”, the Master said, “you are full of your own opinions and biases. You don’t even remember who you are.  How can I give you anything more until you first empty your cup?”

How, then, can we welcome Christ, how can we enter the Reign of God with him, if we have no room in our hearts for him, if we are so full of our own ideas and hurts and ideas, if we’ve forgotten who we are, if we are not prepared?

The conversion that John calls us to embrace is about turning our heads around and going in a new direction.  We’ve tried going our own way, insisting that God approve of our choices, and that hasn’t worked for us.  We’re still in the wilderness.  In order to see the Lord we need to change direction and be willing to leave our personal wilderness behind.  It is not what is outside us that defines our wilderness, rather it is what is on the inside.  Wilderness is the product of our own action and inaction, and that is why the Church calls us to remember.

At Christmas time, when we have forgotten to prepare for Christ, it’s easy to perceive that we lack so much, it’s easy to feel left behind by the joy of the season, it’s easy to feel lonely and isolated.  Buying things with our MasterCard or VISA isn’t going to help because the teacup we are trying to fill can only be filled by God.  Only God can reveal to us the truth that we have every spiritual blessing needed to live joyful lives of service.  Only God can set us free and ease our burdens, and He does this by helping us to remember all that God has done for us in the past.

Remembering is at the heart, not only of Advent, but of the whole Christmas season as we retell and meditate on the story of Christmas.  We recall Gabriel’s visit to Mary, the birth in a cave at Bethlehem, the visit by shepherds who have just seen a multitude of angels and come now to worship the newborn King.  There are the wisemen from the Orient with their mysterious gifts that reveal the truth of who this Jesus really is to us.

Retelling these stories helped the early Christians to gain perspective on their own lives.  Recalling how Jesus suffered helped them endure persecutions they themselves were enduring.  Remembering his miracles and healings gave them courage to call on him for help whenever they were in need.   And today our own remembering of the prophecies and of the words and deeds of Jesus helps us make sense of our own experiences as well: each person’s life is a story, a part of the one beautiful love story recounted in the Scriptures.  When I am facing a difficult experience or trying to deal with tragedy, it helps if I can remember that I am part of the ongoing story of God’s faithful love, and, even if I can’t understand it at the time, I can believe that my whole life makes sense because it belongs to that larger story.

Yesterday, as I made my way through a crowded Kmart store that was full of shoppers, I made a point of going down every aisle that pertained to Christmas decorations.  I wasn’t really in a holiday frame of mind and I didn’t need to buy anything except a $2 package of spare light bulbs for the Christmas tree, but I thought I would take a look at all the sparkly, pretty things anyway.  And I remembered every other Christmas store I’d ever been to, from my earliest years as a little boy.  The smells of cinnamon and pine filled my nostrils and brought back a flood of memories.  And for a couple minutes, I was that little boy again, captivated by the lights and baubles and filled with anticipation of the Christmas miracle.  I rounded the corner a bit too fast, and almost ran into a young woman with her son.  “Excuse me, sir”, she said.  And it hit me that I wasn’t a little boy, I was a middle-aged man, a taskmaster to some of my students, a father to three sons,  a grandfather to two young boys, and a “sir” to strangers.

I said a quick “thank you” to God, thanking him for so many magical Christmas memories, and for letting me know that my story is still part of that one great story—God’s endless love affair with humanity.

Advent is that time we are called to remember who we are, and where we are going.  We’re invited to walk with Christ through the wilderness, through the forgetfulness to a place of light and clarity.  As soon as we begin walking with him, we find that John the Baptist was right:  our path is made straight, the low valleys in our way are raised up, the mountains and hills we feared crossing are made low, and the roughest places in our hearts are smoothed out.  All because we emptied ourselves a little and remembered who we were.  All because our God chose to walk with us.

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, her debt has been paid.  AMEN

 

 

Triumph of the Reign of God

In Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 25, Jesus is gathering his faithful followers for one of the last teaching seminars of his career.  He’s spent a lot of time trying to get his disciples to understand the “Reign of God” concept: what it is, who’s in it, what’s needed from people to actually make it work.  To make certain that they really “get it”, Jesus returns to fundamentals, and in the process he helps us to understand how our lives are to be lived.

We spend our lives trying to discern right from wrong, good from bad, healthy from harmful, and there comes a time when our choices and conduct will merit judgment. Jesus reminds us that the day is coming when we will stand in the awesome presence of God and have to answer the question, “Well, what have you done with everything that was given to you?”  I consider myself an outstanding b.s.-er on essay exams, but I’m afraid that at that point, I would have very little to say in my defense.  All of us are perhaps a little fearful of having to respond in that moment of total honesty.

The knowledge of knowing we will have to give some kind of accounting for ourselves should have a positive impact on our choices.  One morning in 1888, Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, the man who had spent his lifetime amassing a fortune from the manufacture and sale of weapons of destruction, awoke to read his own obituary.  The obituary was a result of a simple journalistic error–Alfred’s brother had died, and a French newsman carelessly reported the death of the wrong brother.  Any person would be disturbed under those circumstances, but to Alfred Nobel the shock was overwhelming.  For the first time, he saw himself as the world saw him–”The Dynamite King,” the great industrialist who had made a fortune as a merchant of death and destruction.  This, as far as the public was concerned, had been the legacy of his life, and to his dismay, none of his other aspirations related to breaking down barriers of separation between people and nations were even mentioned in the obituary.  As he read his obituary with horror, Nobel realized he would have to reorder his life in order to make his real beliefs obvious to everyone.  He used every bit of his fortune to create the most valued and prestigious prizes given to those who do the most significant work in the cause of world peace, the arts, and sciences.  Nobel had read his obituary with shock and surprise, much as those at the King’s right hand are surprised.

The King in the Gospel story makes it clear that as they served others, they were in fact serving him.  Like them, we are often not aware that an act of caring has any effect beyond the present moment.  We touch each others’ lives in unseen ways, but like ripples on a pond, all of our actions impact all those around us.    And just like in the Gospel story, it’s usually about seemingly insignificant things.  “I was hungry and you gave me food,” the King says to those on his right.  For most of us, our opportunity to please God will not be the result of some benevolent act that impacts all of humankind.  It will be a small act of caring directed toward an individual, because it is precisely in the smallest of acts that love is revealed.

Henri J. M. Nouwen, noted theologian, author, professor, and speaker, made a move from the faculty at Harvard Divinity School to the staff at Daybreak–a residential community for mentally handicapped people.  The transition from working with the world’s brightest to laboring invisibly with people the world considers completely inconsequential was dramatic. Instead of teaching or lecturing, Nouwen started each day by helping others out of bed, bathing and dressing them, helping them feed themselves.  Nouwen writes, “Most of my past life has been built around the idea that my value depends on my accomplishments.  I made it through grade school, high school, and university.  I earned degrees and awards, and I made my career.  Yes, with many others, I fought my way up to the lonely top of a little success, a little popularity, and a little power.  But as I sit beside the slow and heavy-breathing Adam (a resident of Daybreak), I start seeing how violent that journey was.  So filled with desires to be better than others, so marked by rivalry and competition, so pervaded with compulsions and obsessions, and so spotted with moments of suspicion, jealousy, resentment, and revenge.”  Nouwen had studied and written and lectured about Christ for many years; in serving people who needed him, he came to actually hear  the voice of Christ.  “Just as as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

Today we celebrate the crowning of the liturgical year, the Feast of Christ the King, or a better title, Feast of the Triumph of the Reign of God.  We look forward on this day to the final coming of Christ, whether that be in some cosmic event or in our own private death experience.  Regardless of how and when, we can be sure that each of us will face our God someday and fumble for words when asked what we did with all the gifts we had at our disposal.  And at that moment, we will see the great scheme of interconnectedness that runs through the universe, connecting each of us to all the rest of us, past, present and future.  We’ve been so busy trying to sing the song of our lives, working out the verses as we go along.  The refrain for that song, however, will not be complete until we enter the fullness of the Reign of God, where we will sing in a cosmic chorus of unity and love in the presence of Christ our King.

Parable of the Talents in Matt. 25

Here’s the bottom line:
Jesus says that if someone should happen to give you large sums of his
money, the right thing to do is to make a lot of risky investments and hope
that your huge risks will result in huge rewards.  He is also saying that the wrong thing to do is to play it safe and keep the money in your basement where market fluctuations won’t harm the value of the principle and will insure that the investment is safe.  This is because
Jesus likes the idea of a global financial meltdown and his “faithful disciples” on Wall Street were just trying to live the Gospel values as fully as they could.  This is our lesson for
today, so let us do likewise.  Amen.

OK, so maybe I’m being a bit hasty.  Perhaps there’s something else
going on here.  Last week we heard a parable about lamp oil that had nothing to do with oil.  The week before it a parable about a wedding garment that had nothing to do with fashion.  We’ve considered a parable about vineyards that had nothing to do with
winemaking and before that we reflected on day laborers’ rate of pay that had nothing to do with employment policy.  So….maybe today’s parable about investments and money has nothing to do with investments and money.  Just sayin’…

This reading provokes some interesting questions, but the primary question is, “Who is Jesus?”  I don’t mean who is Jesus in the parable, because obviously Jesus is the master who takes a vacation.  I mean, who is Jesus to you personally?  Who is the Jesus of your understanding?  How we answer that question determines how we live in relationship with him and with his God.
The third servant in our parable saw the master as harsh, somewhat greedy and
demanding, and therefore the servant acted out of fear.  If the principle is lost, the servant thinks, my master’s anger will be unleashed on me.  To avoid the master’s rage, the money is hidden away, and ironically, it’s that very decision that brings the servant’s worst fears to pass.  We don’t really know much about this master, but we know the servant’s perceptions.  Maybe the servant was mistaken in having this negative view of the master.
First of all, how harsh, greedy, or demanding could he be if he entrusted so much money to three lowly servants?  It’s only an accident of the English language that ‘talent’ has its own meaning separate from the actual, biblical one.  This parable is not talking about gifts or abilities; it’s talking about money, and a lot of it.  One talent is worth fifteen years’ wages
for a laborer.  In modern terms, we’re talking roughly four hundred and fifty thousand dollars per talent, or roughly  3.6 million dollars.  What kind of harsh, greedy, demanding person entrusts that kind of money to three unskilled houseworkers?
Second, the other servants didn’t seem to share the opinion of the third servant.  They don’t act out of fear, but out of hope and expectation.  They were given a chance to show their competence, and they were glad to have the opportunity.  Yes, there were risks
involved, but they apparently thought that if everything went awry, their master would certainly understand.  So, they did their homework, did some research online perhaps, and decided how to be as responsible as possible in making their investments.  The master of their understanding was different from the master of the third servant’s understanding, even though it was the same master.
Third, we have the words of the master to guide us: “Well done, good and
trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in
charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.”  Trustworthy.  The master is not joyful because of their success and he never mentions the fortune he’s just made.
He is overcome with joy because of their trustworthiness.  They acted in good faith, and it’s that good faith that’s rewarded.  The third slave wasn’t punished because he didn’t
make any money; he was punished because he didn’t act in good faith.  He didn’t act in bad faith, either.  He acted in no faith.  And that’s important, because this parable is talking about the kingdom of heaven, not as it is on earth in some distant future, but as it is on earth right now.
Who, then, is the Jesus of your understanding?  Is he someone that you’re
afraid of, someone that you need to hide yourself from, someone that’s going to
judge you for your every little fault or failure?  Is he the company that
you don’t see very often, so when you do you put on your best clothes and be on
your best behavior, and engage in idle chitchat, avoiding everything of
substance because it might crack the veneer of acceptability you’ve
affected?  If that’s the Jesus of your understanding, then no wonder
you’ve been afraid to invest of yourself, your real self, in the cause of the
Reign of God.
The harsh, greedy, demanding Jesus that some people perceive is not the Jesus
of my understanding.  The Jesus of my understanding sees that I’m capable
of a lot more than I give myself credit for, and has given me the tools I need
to work in and for the Reign of God.  He’s also helped me see that I contain a treasure within myself, the living Word of God, that he wants me to share, along with a decent amount of his boundless love that he wants me to invest.  And the kingdom of heaven is not like Wall Street, where a risky investment, or even a relatively safe one for
that matter, might lose most or all its value.  The kingdom of heaven, the kingdom that is here on earth right now, waiting for its completion with the return of our King, never loses value.  If you put something into it, something will always be there for someone to partake of, to share.  The only way to lose is to not participate at all.
The treasure is not ours at all, it turns out, it’s God’s.  Jesus has entrusted it to us to manage and invest until his return.  We’re not going to be judged by how big a church we purchased or how many poinsettias were on the altar at Christmas time, or how much money we have in the bank.  It’s not our success he wants; it’s our faithfulness.  Every Mass we say, “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again” and until that day arrives, we must simply trust that the future is already in God’s hands.  Let us risk and move in ways that are new and maybe uncertain, sinning boldly (as Luther might have said), opening up our lives and our talents for the sake of others.  Let us practice justice and mercy when the world calls for retribution and violence, and let us do all this with no fear of failure.  Because when Christ does return—whether that happens in a global event, or in a very private event at our death–we will experience the full truth that the
kingdom of heaven is not Wall Street, and God’s love is not limited in the least.  It is, in fact, the origin of everything that is. Amen.

 

What to Say About Those 10 Foolish Virgins???

The readings from the lectionary for this Sunday are kind of a downer if you think about it.  The second reading, from 1 Thessalonians, is about dead people and whether or not they will be able to participate in the Day of the Lord.  The Gospel reading is an urgent warning about the need to be constantly prepared.  It seems to be saying that if
we’re not completely ready and prepared, we are screwed! But rather than
focusing on the negative, let’s look at the positive message of hope these
readings contain.
Hope.  The word itself only comes up explicitly only once in readings
today, and that’s when Paul cautions the Thessalonians not to be like those who
don’t have any.  If we look for underlying themes, however, we can see that it’s hope that ties these readings together.
Hope is a good thing.  We have  hopes for our children, for our families, for our careers.  We hope that the stock market will recover enough so that we can retire as we’d planned.
Each and every one of us has a hope that’s specific to our own wants and needs.  That’s one of the things that’s so great about hope: there’s enough for everyone.  As followers of
Jesus, we have come to know that hope is nothing more than trusting that what God has done for us in the past He will continue to do in the future.

When we think of what God has done for us in the past, we might think about stories
contained in the scriptures, but we should also think about events in our lives
that threatened to ruin us, but somehow we managed to survive.  These are our own miracle stories, our own stories of faith.  When we think of what God will do in the future, we know only that we will die, but nothing more.  The present is what’s most real to us, because it’s all we’ve ever experienced, and it can seem far removed from God’s activities, past and future.
The truth is, the present is just a tiny, slim little moving edge separating the vastness we call the past from the vastness we call the future.  Ten minutes ago my reading the gospel lesson was in the future.  Five minutes ago it became the past.  Even if I read it again now, it would be a different, separate event.  I can’t bring the past into the future.  I can’t ranscend the present.  But God can.
Frequently, at Mass, I say, “The Lord is with you!”, meaning, God is with you
right now.  The same is true when we sing the Agnus Dei: “Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world…”  This is something that the Lamb is doing right now, on that thin little edge.  Yes, the Lamb’s saving activities happened 2,000 years ago, but they continue to happen in the present moment.
Our culture understands hope as a feeling that what we want to happen will happen.  Our plans for our families.  Our careers.  Our stocks.  Our retirement plans.  Think how different our lives might be if we put our hope in God first, and then other things and people.
The Thessalonians certainly had their hope in God, but they were expecting
things to be accomplished according to their timetable.  They feared that those who would die before Jesus’ return might have their hopes dashed.  Paul assures them that God’s plan transcends every barrier, even time, even death. The Gospel, too, is all about waiting and waiting.  God doesn’t go by our timetables—which is frustrating and annoying.  As an old
Sister once confided to me, “God is good, but He’s not prompt!”

There are other times when we get caught up in life’s stresses and worries and lose
sight of the true source of our hope.  But even though we don’t know the day or the hour, the fact is that the bridegroom will come.  And if we forgot extra oil for our lamps?  This might be a weird thought, but why do ten people need ten separate lamps in the first place?  Couldn’t they just share their light?  Maybe the primary mistake of the foolish bridesmaids isn’t that they forgot oil, but that they had become so fixated on their supply that they stopped watching for the Bridegroom altogether.  Their hope wasn’t in the coming of the bridegroom; their hope was in having enough oil.

Whenever we celebrate a baptism, the newly baptized is given a lighted candle to
sybolize the need to let the light of Christ grow within us, so that others might see God revealed in us.  Others who at any given moment do not have oil in their own lamps can be illuminated by the lights of the baptized, and encouraged in their own faith to fill their own
lamps with oil.  That is called witnessing to our faith, and we are witnessing to the hope we  have in God’s goodness.

We can’t make someone else believe or have faith, but we have been given a truly
awesome gift, and we’ve been told to share it.  It’s not so we can get together and sing songs and participate in liturgical rituals—as important as those things are—it’s about moving out beyond our own comfort zone and reaching out to others.
We’re talking about the light of faith, so there is always enough of that to go around.  Every Easter Vigil, as the paschal candle is brought into the church, we see the miracle of light
demonstrated for us.  At first there is only one flame, the Light of Christ, but then one by one we light our own candles from the one flame and suddenly the whole church is ablaze with light.   And it all started with a single little flame, in the same way you and I can bring light if we so choose.
We are loved.  We are encouraged.  We are blessed.  We are participants in God’s salvation which comes through Jesus Christ our Lord.  And we know this because we have gone to the Lord and received the word of eternal life.  And that word tells us what God has done for us in the past.  God  has brought us this far without dropping us on our head. There is no reason to think He won’t continue to do the same thing for the rest of our life, and even into eternity.
That is why we’re here, gathered around this table:  to declare to each other that, no matter
what, we carry that hope deep within us.

 

Anniversary Challenge

(Homily given 10.30.11, on the occasion of the 4th anniversary celebration for Holy Redeemer Catholic Community, Fort Wayne, Indiana.)

Today will be the briefest homily I have ever given, so don’t doze off or you’ll miss the
whole thing.  On this 4^th anniversary of the founding of Holy Redeemer Catholic Community, in this week when I was first ordained to the priesthood and had my hands bound—literally—to the chalice that would contain the Blood of Christ, the one I would use for the rest of my earthly life, and in this week when the Gospel reminds of us to be
humble as we walk with God….I feel the time is long overdue when we need to discuss something of utmost importance.

We need to talk about monkeys.

There’s a great short story I read called, “The Monkeys Not Seen” and it’s the true story
about a Southern grandfather who had a pet monkey which he kept in a cage under
a magnolia tree.  Kids from all over northern Florida came to see this monkey, and there was one young boy in particular who lived some 80 miles away who had never seen a monkey, but desperately wanted to.  One day Grandpa received a heartfelt letter from the boy in which he expressed his burning desire to see a live monkey.  So, Grandpa
drove down to the city of Carrabelle on muddy roads in his old Model A Ford to
fetch the boy and bring him back to see the monkey.

The boy sat in the rumble seat, and the roads were rough. They got as far as Tallahassee,
and the boy got car sick. He got really sick, vomiting over the side of the car repeatedly.  Finally, he was so dehydrated and exhausted that Grandpa felt he had no choice but to turn around and return the boy to his home.  He never did see the monkey.

But, the author Bailey White writes, “For the rest of his life, he haunted the docks and
the bait shops of Carrabelle, a pale, wraithlike creature with fluttering hands and a radiant look in his eyes, telling anyone who would listen to him about the time he almost saw a monkey.”

The truth was that the monkey was NOT at all friendly. In fact, he was mean, and scruffy,
and had a pinched little face that would hiss and spit whenever a stranger got near him.  But in the boy’s imagination, he was a glorious creature with flashing eyes, shimmering fur and a tail that could do almost anything.  Perhaps he even imagined that the monkey would have reached through the cage and touched him gently on the cheek.  Bailey White
concludes, “The very best and finest monkeys, the monkeys that bring you the purest joy – those are the monkeys you must never see.”

You and I need to deal with the real world, but we need the image of a perfect monkey as
well. I don’t know how long I’d last if all I had was the real world where we constantly struggle with limits and road blocks and uncooperative people, maybe even evil or corruption. We need to hold in our hearts the image a perfect world where everything is reasonable, meaningful, peaceful, trustworthy and in order. That’s what inspires us. If you’re like me, it seems that every so often I get a taste of it. There are moments when God feels very near and all is well.

In 2007 there were a handful of people present in this church for the first Mass
offered in a new kind of Catholic parish. We didn’t know what the heck we were doing.  I didn’t realize then that I would lose all my Roman Catholic friends, that the priests with whom I was friends and with whom I had worked for a decade would avoid me in public,  that the Diocese would attempt, behind the scenes, to have us evicted from this place.  I simply trusted that the God who had been calling me to priesthood since I was 8 years old would somehow make this project of His work out exactly the way it was meant to.  I prayed only that I would have the humility and courage to get the heck out of God’s way—and that is still my prayer!  I was naive then, and starry-eyed about the future of this parish.  I am STILL naive, still starry-eyed about this ministry and my vocation, but I have come to know that there are times when I am called to face my own personal, dirty, mean old monkeys.  I have also come to believe that , through grace, they can be cleaned up and tamed, because I also carry within me the image of that perfect monkey.

Holy Redeemer Catholic Community was born because a few people believed in the truth
that Catholicism cannot be reduced merely to an institutional structure, that the principles and teachings of Vatican II were worth fighting for, worth being persecuted for, worth proclaiming despite the objections of those who want to turn back the clock and pretend the Council never happened.  For many forward-thinking people who are waiting for the day when the People of God make decisions for their church, when women and men are treated exactly the same, when the sacrament of human love is respected in all its myriad forms, that day is today.  We have in our minds the perfect Church and
every time we gather, we humbly sing the truth of our vision, the truth of what
the Church ought to be everywhere.  The truth is the truth; it’s as simple as that. As I tell my students all the time, standing up for truth, attempting to live the truth is a potent power that has rocked foundations, changed society, and transformed the world.   People have given their reputations, their livelihoods, and some their very lives in the quest for truth, and my prayer for all of us gathered here today is that we will step up and choose to create a parish that will continue to create lasting changes in people’s lives right  here and now.

It’s time to let that monkey out of his cage.

 

r Catholic Community.)