November 30, 2008

1st Sunday of Advent

 

Isaiah 63:16-17, 19; 64: 2-7; Mark 13:33-37

 

What would God do if he came down?  What would you want God to do?   I asked that question to the pastoral council last week during our prayer before our meeting.  We were meditating on the first reading from today from Isaiah.  “Oh that you would rend that heavens and come down, with the mountains quaking before you, while you wrought awesome deeds we could not hope for....”

 

I think the whole council, myself included, sort of stumbled on the question.  After some awkward silence one person said he looks to God for guidance.  Another said she looks to God for hope, in particular hope in life after death.  I chimed in that I look for a sense of blessing and knowledge that God’s love is with me.  I’m not sure that any of those answers rises to the level of Isaiah’s words at the start of our Advent season.  “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, with the mountains quaking before you, while you wrought awesome deeds we could not hope for....” 

 

These words of Isaiah are an impassioned plea for the return of God’s favor.  A people once blessed with prosperity had been living in exile for 70 years and were feeling lost, unconnected to God and asked God to come and bestow his favor on them once again and make them free.  If you asked them what they wanted God to do they’d say something like “Bring us home again.  Put our oppressors and captors to flight.  Help us to live again as your people.”  Does that resonate with your spirit?  We are not living in Babylon waiting to return to Jerusalem, but we have a yearning to be at home with God and his people, and we have oppressors in our world.  We can look at it on a personal and a world wide level. 

 

Personally, we struggle to live selflessly, charitably, lovingly even as we know that our best self is just waiting to shine out with these qualities.  We can struggle so hard to be better, but our frustrations with ourselves and drive us to the desperation of Isaiah who say “Why do you let us wander?”  In other words, I’m trying to fix myself but you Lord have had a hand in the way I am so come and bring me back into your image–you have to do it!  And we have personal oppressors.  We have a culture that begets a person being trampled to death at a Wal-Mart in New York as people rush to get a bargain.  We have individuals in our lives who make us feel small and unblessed.  Come Lord down from the heavens and assure me of your blessing and make me shine as your beloved daughter or son!

 

World-wide what does it mean to call on God to break open heaven and come down to work wondrous deeds?  I look to Mary and her Magnificat hymn, which she sang on the edge of God coming as savior to her People.  “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord...he has come to the aid of his lowly servant...he has confused the hearts of the proud and lifted up the lowly....he has given the hungry every good thing and sent the rich away empty....”  This is a song of one who sees what a savior of the world will do.  Those are the wondrous deeds God will do after rending the heavens.  She does not see simply her life but her life in God, not just the life of her family but her family in God, not just the life of her nation but of her nation in God.  She sees a waiting world of unfairness, disrespect for the lives of the defenseless, where evil too easily triumphs over simple goodness.  Isaiah calls for God to make things right.  Mary rejoices that God is doing just that.  We can use this Advent to join this chain of faith that God will act and will change us so we can join him

 

 

November 23, 2008

Feast of Christ the King

 

Matthew 25: 31-46

 

This week I was in Chicago visiting my friend who is a retired priest living on the near north side.  One day he had a physical therapist come in to help him for an hour so I took the opportunity for some physical therapy of my own, a brisk walk into the downtown area.  I saw some neat things.  A big building with a navy blue and orange “34" on the back of it turned out to be the Walter Payton Memorial college prep high school.  A few blocks from there on La Salle Street I noticed a line of people seemingly waiting for something.  I looked at the front door and it was the St. Vincent Center of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago.  It was about 4:40 in the afternoon and the line was longer than I had first thought.  It went down an entire block and then bent and went around to the end of the other block with people still coming to stand in line.  Someone in line confirmed my suspicion when I asked him what the line was for.  “To get somethin’ to eat and get out of this cold!”  As I kept walking with my eyes on a new skyscraper next to the Wrigley Building, the goal of my walk, I prayed for the fellows in line and in genuine gratitude that my Church was doing God’s work. 

 

At the Ecumenical Religious Ctr in Eau Claire there is a piece of art hanging on a downstairs wall.  It is rather abstract but you get the idea that is portrays people who are suffering.  And over their figures is one word, “Inasmuch.”  (Maybe that’s supposed to be three words, in as much.)  I could tell the students who knew their Bible from those who didn’t when I asked them what the art was referring to.  The ones who knew said it referred to today’s Gospel.  “In as much as you did it to the least of my brothers or sisters, you did it to me.”  I was always disappointed when students had no idea what it meant–even after I told them–because it is so central to our faith.  One of the basic answers to the question “Why be good to others?” is found in this Gospel.  We are good to others because Christ lives in them.  We help whom we can because Christ lives in them.  When we have to say no to others’ needs, we have a heavy heart afterward because we know that Christ lives in them. 

 

It is what separates the sheep from the goats.  Be good to people because you want to; ideally, because you want to be Christ to them.  But such high motivation failing, be good to them because it helps you get to heaven.  This is a very good story to know in case anyone ever attacks your Catholic faith because “you Catholics think that you can earn your way to heaven by your deeds, when really it’s by faith alone.”  I don’t want to encourage people to get into fights, and it is true that without God’s decision to save us we will not be saved, but this Gospel in Matthew 25 makes crystal clear that what we do matters.  I don’t see how we can come to any other conclusion. 

 

In The Last Temptation of Christ, Nikos Kazantzakis tells of an encounter between and old man and Jesus.  (Paraphrased from ch. 22)  He is over 90 and comes to Jesus saying “I have led a good life, I have kept the laws of God and our People, and I have begged God to show himself to me, but still I wait, wait and wait to see God.  Why has he never shown himself to me?”  Jesus tells him a story.  “There was a large marble throne on the eastern end of a large city.  And over years and years and years many kings sat on this throne.  1000 of them were blind in the left eye, 1000 of them were blind in the right eye.   1000 of them could see from both eyes.  Each of them wanted to see God and asked God to show himself to them, and each of them died disappointed.  When the kings had died a pauper, barefooted and hungry, came and sat on the throne.  He spoke to God.  ‘Our eyes cannot look directly at the sun lest they be blinded, so how could we possibly look directly at you? Have pity on me Lord, temper your strength, turn down your splendor, so that your humble servant may see you.’  And–listen old man!–God became a loaf of bread, a glass of water, a warm coat, and a woman nursing her child.  And the pauper stretched out his arms and exclaimed ‘thank you! thank you!  You have made yourself bread, water, a coat and my wife and child that I might see you!  Thank you for your beloved and many faced face!’  And the old man who heard the story turned and disappeared into the crowd.” 

 

The old man didn’t like the story.  Maybe you liked it, maybe you did not.  Often it is easier to worship the image we create of a God too far away to see or touch.  Jesus gives us another image today.  God is as close as the next person who needs you.

 

 

 

 

November 16, 2008

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

 

 Matthew 25:14-30

 

It’s probably a familiar story to most of us.  I was sharing with our staff this week that it was probably the first Gospel story I learned in 1st grade religion class.  We all got yellow strips of paper and we wrote down the gifts God gave us, our “talents,” and then we were encouraged to put them into action.  It’s a lesson worth learning.  Indeed one of the big factors in my becoming a priest was seeking an answer to the question “How can I best use the gifts, the passions, the skills God gave me?”  Of course the assumption behind such a question is that God gave us our talents to make the world a better place or, in Jesus talk, to further the Kingdom of God.

 

As the story is typically interpreted, the villain in the story, or maybe that’s too strong a word for him,  is the one who buries his talent out of fear and does not use his gift.  And true enough, we know that fear is the enemy of the spiritual life that keeps us from trusting in God and taking chances out of fear that our security will be jeopardized or we will be somehow diminished.  Insofar as this man represents fear, we should not imitate him.  There is another way to see this character, and the whole parable, however.

 

This second interpretation is clearer in Luke’s telling than Matthew’s where the master who entrusts the money to his servants is clearly a bad fellow, but even in Matthew’s story some things don’t add up very well.  Lending money with interest was against Jewish law so why would the man tell the servant “at least you could have put the money in the bank to gain interest...”?  And why would it have been a good thing for the man to have done that?  Isn’t it rather harsh of the wealthy man, who got his money back after all, to condemn the fellow who buried the talent and even, in Luke’s account, have him executed on the spot?

 

What if...the fellow who buried the money just decided he wasn’t going to play this game.  What if he just felt it was time to dig in his heels and not cooperate with the plans of a bad guy?  We know that this can take guts.  Not going along with peer pressure when we were teens to do things we knew were wrong and didn’t really want to do.  To not join in the chuckles at racist or sexist jokes at work.  We may not be wailing and grinding our teeth afterward, but it can put us on the outside.

 

When I was in 4th grade I was a bit of a tyrant with my friend Marty Vogel.  I think because my brother was a tyrant with me, I just decided to pass it on.  For some reason, Marty let me have power over him and I enjoyed it.  I’d say, “Go push Trisha Walsh” and he’d do it.  “Get me a cookie,” and he’d do it.  After a couple weeks of this he finally dug in his heels.  I asked him to do something like get my jacket for me and he’d just had enough.  I insisted and he balked and walked away.  The funny thing is that I ran after him and begged him to forget our power arrangement as I suddenly realized that real friendship was more important than having control over someone.

 

So Marty’s and my story had a happy ending, but the Gospel story is not a happy ending.  The servant is thrown out into the darkness outside where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.  Often enough, indeed too often, good people suffer.  Those who put people before profit risk their jobs or status.  People who put service over power and mercy over competition, may end up with less money.  People who put love of all people over loyalty to a few can find themselves mocked and hated by those few.  Sometimes, those who cling to Gospel values are the odd ones out.

 

 

November 9, 2008

Feast of St. John Lateran

 

Ezekiel 47:1-2,8-9,12; I Corinthians 3:9c-11,16-17; John 2:13-22

 

A few years ago the high school orchestra was using our church space for their spring concert rehearsal and concert.  I came walking through the church at night after one of their rehearsals and was horrified to see that all of the percussion accessories (drumsticks, clackers, tambourines, triangle, etc) were all piled on our altar.  I don’t know if that would horrify you or not, but it really got to me.  It’s not like I was angry at the students or teacher because I’m sure they just didn’t know, but I wrote a letter and put it on the conductor’s stand that basically said, “Hey our altar is sacred and not a place to store percussion accessories.  It is where we offer mass every day which is  the center of our identity as Catholics.  As the place of offering it is also symbolic of Christ himself...so please don’t put your tambourines on it.”  I got a very nice letter and phone call back from the conductor and in the end I was glad that people seemed to learn something about reverence and sacred space.

 

On this Feast of St. John Lateran we pause to consider sacred space in our lives, reverence for our churches as well as reverence for our vocation to be church to others. In that dual sense of the word Church is both building and people.  We hear of Jesus becoming a bit unglued when he sees the irreverence in the Temple.  With his whip cord in hand throwing over trading tables, I could imagine him snapping a drumstick in two or putting his fist through a tambourine...or maybe not.

 

I remember my summer as a boy scout chaplain in 1991.  We had a chapel service each day at 1:00.  That year in seminary I had been studying about the power of symbols to touch our hearts and minds and so at the first service of the week I would bring something like a pine poplar branch and say that I heard the wind blowing through those trees so beautifully that it reminded me of the whisper of God in my soul and then place it on an altar I reserved just for sacred symbols.  During the rest of the week I invited others to bring symbols forward, and they always did.  A feather, a rock, a beaded bracelet...each with a story.  One I remember was a bag of skittles presented by a camp counselor because two years earlier he stole skittles from the camp store and was dismissed, but that year he had been given a second chance that meant the world to him.  At the end of the summer, I had to clean up the altar area.  I had a hard time with the symbols because I knew each of their stories and the spiritual lives of the scouts and counselors associated with them.  I burned what I could, buried some other stuff and finally had to throw away the plastic items.  I ate the skittles.  When I walked away from that space for the last time I was sad to leave because I knew I was leaving sacred space behind, made sacred by the stories of people who loved and longed to know God.

 

It’s no different with this space.  We not only share some of our faith stories here, we share again and again THE faith story.  We focus on our central symbol which is all that and more, the true presence of our God with us as Eucharist.  People tell me, “I was married in that church,” or “my whole family was baptized in that church.”  Sacred space.  And so we show reverence here, and when we leave we hope that reverence is not lost, because the whole purpose of this sacred space is so that we can know the sacred space in our selves and in others, that we are indeed temples of the Holy Spirit, as St. Paul says. 

 

There is reverence in bowing and kneeling in a church.  There is reverence in patience and being considerate of others.  Indeed, the only purpose of our sacred space here is to be sacred space for others out there.  I wish you the grace of experiencing God within these walls, and of being the presence of God outside these walls. 

 

 

 

November 2, 2008

All Souls Day

Wisdom 3:1-9; Matthew 5:1-11

 

On Monday the temperature got down into the low twenties by the time I walked out near midnight.  I was going to skip a walk that day but my conscience got the better of me as it reacted to my consumption of nearly a whole bag of Sun Chips (Harvest Cheddar).  Gotta walk those calories off, you know.  Anyway, it was a short walk to the boat landing just shy of the highway 25 bridge.  I wanted to go there in advance of the Newman student gathering on Thursday when we would gather there to remember our dead and chant the litany of the saints.  That spot is always beautiful at night, with its view of the downtown street lights.  This night was particularly beautiful.  With no moon, the stars were jumping out of the sky and I was treated to a full view of Orion the Hunter to the east. My first thought was “Wow, winter already??”  Then I just settled in to enjoy the view and remember the many winters past I shared with Orion.

 

Orion was always to the south (it must drift that way as winter progresses) during my walks home from basketball practice in high school.  It marked the season for me. Seeing this same constellation come around again for another year gave me reason to pause.  It made me grateful that God had held me in my imperfect life all these years.  It made me pause to wonder how I had used the gift of my life in the time between those high school basketball practices and now.  It made me wonder what I will be doing when as many years that have passed between then and now pass again.  I’ll be 71 in as many years, God willing. 

 

And I realized that sooner or later the years will run out.  We think about these things on a cold starry night.  We think about these things on All Souls Day.  Just behind our remembrance of our beloved dead is the awkward truth that we will join them one day.  Death will come to each one of us with its inevitable question, “How did I live?”  Was my soul a “soul of the just”?  Did I show mercy and make peace? 

 

For whatever reason, the question in my head this day of All Souls is “Did I rely on God as my strength?”  At the time of death we will fully rely on the mercy and love of God.  In the meantime, while still here below, it is our choice. 

 

 

October 26, 2008

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

 

Exodus 22:20-26; Matthew 22:34-40

 

This Friday night six Stout students and I went to serve at a Catholic Charities homeless shelter in Minneapolis.  As we were driving through downtown St. Paul I caught sight of the cathedral and asked if the students had ever been inside.  Most had not, so we pulled off at Marion St. for a visit.  It is awesome to walk into that enormous space. It was a little before 6:00 and a bunch of people were seated and getting ready for a mass.  I asked a guy near the edge, “Is it a wedding?”  Yes it was.  So we sort of walked behind where most of the people were sitting and took in the magnitude of that space and the stained glass windows as the organ played a slow beautiful tune.  I was glad to share that moment with the students and then had the idea to go see the Peter and Paul icons on the north end, and so as I looked up at the enormous dome above me I started to cross the center aisle behind the assembly.

 

A fellow in a suit walked anxiously toward me but with a smile and asked “Are you here for the wedding?”  It was a curious question or, better, a generous one.  I was dressed in beat up sneakers, sweat pants and a Carhartt jacket.  “Um, no, I’m just here to see the cathedral,” I said with my own smile.  “Oh, that’s great, he said, but if you wouldn’t mind not crossing the middle aisle there is a wedding procession going on.”  That organ music I should have recognized as a wedding processional.  Oops. I walked back to the student smiling to myself and thinking two things: that was a real nice man who approached me and I bet a very good Christian.  And second, when we look up all the time we miss some important things right in front of us. 

 

Two hours later, after cooking and serving a spaghetti dinner at a homeless shelter, we were far from the polished marble, stained glass and smell of votive candles at the cathedral.  We were sitting on floors that needed mopping, no windows and the smell of people who needed a shower badly. 

 

Except for a few mavericks among us, I bet most of us would be more comfortable in the cathedral than the homeless shelter.  And yet I glory in the fact that they are both part of the Church.  Money from the Archdiocesan Annual Appeal goes both to polish the cathedral marble and mop the shelter floor.  Jesus is clear.  We have two duties: to love God and to love our neighbor.  That’s why that guy who asked me not to walk across the middle aisle was a hero for me. I could just tell that he got that idea.  Being in a cathedral is no excuse not to be kind and generous to the shabby looking guy who walked into your presence.  In fact, being in a cathedral demands that we act that way.  Maybe “being in a cathedral” is a great metaphor for all of us when we are aware that God is with us and we have God’s blessings.  From this disposition, this “being in a cathedral,” we love our neighbor, we serve, we extend God’s blessing to those who do not know it.

 

The ancient Israelites in Moses’ time knew this.  They could have gloried in their status as God’s chosen who had received the Ten Commandments and were being led out of slavery into the Promised Land.  But we hear in the first reading that God wanted them to be clear on one thing: they were to be compassionate to those in need.  While it is important to be fair, it is even more important to be merciful.  If your neighbor owes you money and you take his cloak from him as security until he can pay you back, fine. BUT, you have to give him his cloak back each night, “for without it how will he keep himself warm at night?”  God’s people must be compassionate.

 

Religion is never meant to put us above others.  It is to put us with others.