29 August 2010

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Luke 14:7-14

In the Gospel we hear about social maneuvering. People jockey for position to feel important, either by looking for seats of honor at a banquet or by inviting important people to their own banquet in the hope of gaining later rewards from them. Jesus' message is quite clear: Do good things because they are good, not because someone will notice or someone will repay you.

This is only a good option, though, if we starting with a sense that we are filled with spirit. If we rely on ourselves to fill ourselves up with things like achievement, status, possessions, money, affection of others–well, then our freedom is greatly limited because we are only serving ourselves and doing good for its own sake feels burdensome. But if we are filled with spirit, then it’s with a lively sense of freedom that we can pour ourselves out with good works without calculating the social impact or future benefit. We do good things because we want to. Filled with spirit, we can follow the pattern of Jesus' life, which was a continual self-emptying and getting low in the world, not high.

Socially, Jesus seemed comfortable relating to all people, but seemed to feel especially drawn to be with people others might have considered “low lifes.” Here’s a quote from this month’s Living with Christ: “Where others saw sinners, people on the fringe, public pariahs to be ostracized and cast out, Jesus saw human beings trapped in their own failure, desperately trying to be something better, awkwardly trying to make their way back into community.” He started out in heaven and ended up on a cross, before his ultimate elevation back to heaven.

Go to the seat of least honor. Give to people who will never be able to give back. Move down not up. God will raise you.

I saw a film this week starring Robert Duvall and Bill Murray called Get Low. Duvall plays a man who has a terrible reputation and whose presence strikes fear in the hearts of any who see him at those rare times he emerges from his hermit’s existence. The first meaning of the title “Get Low” is that he says it’s time to die, to “get low” six feet under ground in a grave, and so he arranges his funeral in advance and wants to be there for it. The money-strapped funeral director sees being deceased as a technicality for a funeral and agrees. At the funeral itself, the centerpiece is Duvall’s confession of one big sin of his life, the sin that had driven him to live as a hermit for 40 years. Finally taking two preachers’ advice that the only way to forgiveness was by asking for it, he humbled himself in front of a huge crowd and told them his story.

It seems to me that there are two ways we are called to ‘get low.’ Like Robert Duvall’s character, we need to find personal humility, courageously admitting times when we have not been the “good persons” that our egos always want to convince us we are. Getting low like this will bind us more closely to God and neighbor. When we humble ourselves sincerely this way, spirit rushes in to fill us. And once filled, we can ‘get low’ in the other important way, taking the lowest place at the table, truly serving those around us without concern for anything we might get back in the way of affection or goods. And we will know true freedom.

This pattern of getting low, humbling ourselves, as exalted is also the pattern of our mass. We begin by calling on God's mercy in view of our human weakness, we receive his body and blood to fill us, and we are sent to get low by serving others. In the eyes of the world that prizes domination and winning, getting low doesn't seem like such a reward. But to those who have known their need for mercy and received it, who have been filled with spirit and blessing, it is clear that getting low is what it's all about--it is the path to heaven.

15 August 2010

Feast of the Assumption of Mary

Luke 1:39-56

Yesterday my plan was to go for an hour-long bicycle ride just before sunset. When I went outside near 7:30 it looked a little dark but doable. I had to put some clothes in the dryer first, though, so I did that and a few other little things and when I came outside again it was pouring rain, so I abandoned my biking idea and read a book for a while. Forty minutes later I saw sunshine streaming into the room and figured I had a few minutes to do at least five miles or so. I went west and so returned looked east at the dark clouds and lightning that had once shown their force over Menomonie but which had now passed.

I remembered the song "Alleluia, the Great Storm is over." I remembered this feast we celebrate today, proclaimed a dogma of the Church in 1950 by Pope Pius XII, in part to restore hope to a world so recently devastated by the second World War in the past forty years. The Gospel is a sign of that hope. Mary, part of the Jewish family of faith waiting for a savior, a Messiah, to restore prosperity and peace to Israel, begins to understand that God has acted. People who have benefited from their deceit and crimes will be brought low, and the lowly simple people who have been knocked down will be raised up as God will fulfill the promises made to Abraham, Sarah, and their ancestors.

This is a feast for those who dare to hold a vision of hope even in the midst of difficulty, pain, despair, and confusion. It's a vision we hold in the midst of war that one day saner minds will prevail and lasting peace will come. It's a vision we hold in the midst of family discord, that God will support and bring fruit to any hard-wrought efforts at reconciliation we can muster. It is a vision we hold when someone we love has died, that the God who raised Christ Jesus from death and lifted up his mother to heaven, body and soul, we not leave our bodies and souls forever in the grave. In short the vision of the Assumption is the vision that creation, our life and our world, can and will be redeemed. The storms will pass.

I first heard this song years ago. John McCutcheon made it famous, though it was written by Bob Franke. John sang it at his mother's funeral and everyone joined in the chorus. It speaks of hope for us personally and uses many images from the Bible that people clung to for hope in difficult times. You might envision some image of hope--a passing storm, the Assumption of Mary, the Resurrection of Christ, the enduring love between you and another--while we sing this song:

[here's just two verses and the refrain:] "The thunder and lightning gave voice to the night. The little lost child cried aloud in her fright. Hush, little baby, a story I will tell, of a love that has vanquished the powers of hell. ...Alleluia, the great storm is over, lift up your wings and fly. ...Release for the captives, and end to the wars, streams in the desert, new hope for the poor. The little lost children shall dance as they sing, and play with the bears and the lions in spring..."

See the video @

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8okHK5W42ig

8 August 2010

19^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Luke 12:32-48

First a word on the beating. Violent imagery in the Bible is disturbing and somehow not in keeping with the image of the crucified suffering servant who preached turning the other cheek. I tend to see the image of the unfaithful servants’ beating as a sign, not of God’s sanctioning of violence but as the consequence of our own self-destructive tendencies. The scripture said the master of the house would come home and upon finding an unfaithful servant, “cut him to pieces.” Indeed, when we forget our communion with God, when we do not “stay awake” and open to God’s presence in our lives, we are figuratively “cut in pieces” because we have separated ourselves from our natural communion with God. Our actions have consequences. Bad actions or ignoring God has bad consequences, but it doesn’t mean that God is the one dishing it out; we have brought it upon ourselves. The Good News is that we can turn to God at any time and at any day and God will help put us back together again. He’s been broken and knows how the putting together again works. I think it's important to see it this way lest we ever justify beating anyone severely with a feeling of justification because that, according to a distorted view, is what God does.

I was in Milwaukee at a conference on the new mass translations this past week. My hair was really in need of a cut and so I made an appointment at a barber shop in a Marquette University dormitory. On the way there, I walked past Gesu church on Wisconsin Ave and heard bag pipes. It was a funeral that appeared to be for a man of some wealth and power. On the way back from my hair cut I went inside the church where there was still 30 minutes of visitation before the funeral mass began. The bag pipes had stopped, the line was long. There were five priests, presumably Marquette Jesuits, in view. It was a big funeral.

I went toward the back of church and picked up a worship aid and read the decorated obituary that I took from a pile near the signing book. As I started the obituary I heard a woman telling people excitedly “He used to give me a twenty dollar bill.” He cadence made me think she had a mental disability. I read on that this man, whose last name was O’Rourke, went to Marquette high school, then got an engineering degree from Marquette University and proceeded to successfully become the owner and operator of a manufacturing enterprise. “He gave me twenty dollars when I saw him,” I heard the woman say again, though no one seemed to care. I noticed that she and I were the only two in church without funeral-appropriate clothes on.

She got nearer the signing book and asked a man “Should I sign the book?” He shrugged his shoulders, so she signed her name and then asked “What should I print here, ‘homeless’?” The guy next to her shrugged his shoulders again, so I stepped up and said, “Yes, put that.” Then she told me that he gave her twenty dollars. “When did you see him–when did he give you twenty dollars?” “He gave me twenty dollars a lot. Right here. He came to church a lot. I’d see him here.” “Did you know he had died.” “No, I just found out when I walked in and saw his picture. I wondered what happened to him because it’s been a long time.”

And the picture started to form in my head. A man of wealth and power with a deep Catholic faith used to take a break from work and come to daily mass at this beautiful church on Wisconsin Avenue. Here he met a woman who told him probably what she told me later: that she was homeless but that for twenty dollars there was a woman on 26^th and Kilbourne who would let her stay at her place for a week. He gave her the twenty dollars regularly and often. His picture did show a kind face.

In the Gospel we here Jesus say “Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival.” He says that we do not know the hour. I think Mr. O’Rourke was a good vigilant servant, ready to respond. I think he heard the Gospel often at daily mass and was aware that he had been given much and that it was his duty to share what he had. I thought that I would like to live my life so that at my funeral, outside the circle of family and friends, a woman or man whom I had touched might wander in and grieve my passing. I turned to the woman and said, “I think he is looking down on us from heaven and he remembers you and he is really glad you came in to church today.”

1 August 2010

18^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Ecclesiastes 2:21-23; Colossians 3:1-5,9-11; Luke 12:13-21

I have more stuff than my barn can hold. I better build a bigger barn! We could make fun of that fellow for being greedy and not sharing. Or we could see in him the manifestation of our own fears that we will not have enough and of our tendency to accumulate more than we need. In the last year I bought a new bookcase because I ran out of room for my books, and I bought “the wonder hanger” off of television because I needed more room to hang my shirts and pants. And Qoheleth echoes: “Vanity of vanities.”

When this Gospel comes around every thing years I wonder how a third world person or anyone in poverty hears it. Would they resent my lifestyle contrasted with theirs? Would they act any differently if wealth and abundance suddenly came them, or is it basically human nature to accumulate, either for the sake of enjoyment as in the parable or as a hedge against on uncertain future?

It seems to me that accumulating stuff or wealth can be bad on two conditions. 1. If it deprives others of what they need to live, or 2., (and more to Jesus’ point, I think), if it’s part of an overall confusion in our lives about what really is life giving. We have a thirst for the Infinite, for God, but sometimes we settle for so much less because it seems attainable and in our control, and so we go for earthly things and grab them. But being “rich in God” just isn’t about accumulating anything. It’s about gratitude for our physical lives, zest for living, finding meaning in what we do, knowing that we are doing right by our neighbor, and having the quiet satisfaction of inner peace. None of these things can be grabbed. Jesus presents us with a choice between fear and accumulation that will leave us wanting in the end, and trust and generosity that prepares us for eternal life and indeed gives us a taste of it even now.

Here’s a Jewish folk tale that counters the drift toward greed: Yitzhak and Benjamin were farmers, and brothers. Yitzhak had seven sons while Benjamin had no children. Each had a silo half full of grain. One day Yitzhak thought to himself. “I am so blessed. My farm is doing well and in my old age I will have all my children to provide for me. I am sorry for my brother Benjamin who has no children to provide for him. I think I will take a sack of grain from my silo each night and place it in Benjamin’s silo.” And this he did, for months.

Benjamin, at about the same time got to thinking. “I am so blessed. My farm is doing well. I worry about my poor brother Yitzhak who has so many children to feed. I think I will take a sack of grain from my silo to his each night for a while to help him out.” And this he did, for months.

After these months passed, each of the brothers separately wondered why the grain level in his own silo did not seem to decrease. But they didn’t think about it much. Then one night, under the darkness of a new moon, Benjamin and Yitzhak set out from their silos again to gift the other with a sack of grain. In the darkness, they bumped into each other! Immediately they realized what had been happening all along. They embraced, and on the site of that embrace was built the first Temple of Israel.

Rather than holding on they held loosely. Rather than growing rich in grain they grew rich in God. The richness of life in God begins with a sense of being blessed with abundance and filters through the insight that I cannot possess it like a thing. I can only let it flow through me and change my attitude from fear and the compulsion to accumulate to trust and the desire to be generous. John Shea suggests poetically that growing rich in God is like lying on abundant land and letting the grain grown right through your body without ever thinking of the barn.

25 July 2010

17^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Luke 11:1-13

What do you want from God? What do you want from God? Our readings occasionally bring this question to mind and it is a vital question to ask, because its answer truly lies at the foundation of our spirituality. The Gospel, upon a quick reading, seems to suggest that whatever we ask for God will give us if we keep asking. The thing is, we know that this is not true. We don’t always get what we want from God. Rather, what we get is what God wants to give us.

I remember having great joy when I discovered something about this Gospel reading. I read the part about knock and the door will be open, ask and it will be given to you, and I grew anxious because of all the evidence to the contrary in my own life and in people a lot more faithful than I, who have prayed for cures, for marriages to get better, for people not to die of starvation. And then I read the last line: “If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”

Why did reading that bring me joy? Because I found out what God gives away. It’s not the “A” on the report card, a winning season, or even more important things like cures and prevention of accidents. What God gives away is the Holy Spirit. God gives away himself.

This made me happy not because I liked the idea right away. More often than not, when I’m in sort of automatic piloting my life, what I want from God is to feel good, and to have things go my way. When I’m hurting, I’d like to be able to say prayers to God and have the hurt go away. But that image of “God the Favor Granter” is not what Jesus seems to be moving us toward and exemplifying himself. Rather, our crucified and risen savior show us God who gives himself away to us so that we can experience the loving presence of the One who brings life from death, and who urges us to move away from sinful self-absorption to a life centered on love of neighbor. The joy I get from this is from suddenly wanting something different from God. When I’m rooted in Christ, I don’t want simply to feel good but to experience the fullness of life in God, knowing that it might even include suffering.

So what will this look like in my life? I imagine myself having terminal cancer. I will appreciate the prayers of others that it will be gone. But even more I will appreciate the presence of friends who know that dying isn’t the end of the world, and that even worse than painful suffering is the experience of being alone and unloved. And in their care will be the Holy Spirit sent by God. I’m sure I will pray for that tumor to somehow melt away and be gone. But even more, my prayers will be that I can trust in the friendship of my dying and rising God. I’d pray not to get too self-absorbed but be able to continue to be a loving presence attentive to the sacredness of every person I meet. And what today’s Gospel tells me is that when I pray for those things of God, consistently and often, they will come to me.

For all of us today, the Gospel can nudge us away from holding an image of God who grants special favors to a God who gives himself away to us, so that we might be more like him, and more with him, no matter what life brings our way.

18 July 2010

16^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Genesis 18:1-10; Colossians 1:24-28; Luke 10:38-42

Two years ago my friend Bob who is a retired priest in Chicago came up to visit and I wanted to be a great host. It was a perfect day, clear and low 80’s, to crack out the grill and have a picnic table dinner. I don’t do that often, so it doesn’t always go smoothly. Like that day, for instance. I had it all in my imagination: sitting at the table in the shade of the walnut tree, a little classical music (which Bob likes) playing softly in the background, a couple bottles of beer wet on the outside from condensation, the coals getting red hot and ready while I took care of drizzling some olive oil and garlic on long-sliced zucchini…a perfect summer late afternoon meal.

Well, Bob didn’t really want to go outside. He wanted to watch baseball in the lazy boy. A good host, I forced him to go outside. He saw one mosquito less than a minute after he sat down and it was as though he feared the plague coming from them and got up to sit back inside. Fine. So there I was alone on the patio, still committed to making the perfect meal while being attentive to my guest by shuttling in and out of the house asking what the score was. But in all honesty I was angry at my guest for not going along with my vision of a nice patio experience. All this was aggravated by the fact that the coals had trouble lighting, and the long-sliced zucchini kept slipping through the grill and onto the coals. By the time we had something ready to eat the dream I began the preparation with had shattered and I chewed the meal more firmly than was necessary with clenched jaw.

Bob came again this year, and we faced the same situation. But I had learned from two years ago. I asked him what he felt like eating. “Something light, maybe soup and a sandwich.” I did not ask if he wanted to eat outside. I asked if he liked BLT’s and he said yes. While he watched a baseball game I went to the store and got some tomatoes. Back at the house, we talked loudly, he from the lazy-boy and I from the kitchen while I warmed the soup, microwaved the bacon, toasted the bread, etc. I asked if he wanted to eat at the table or from the lazy-boy. He surprised me by choosing to come to the table. I cut the sandwiches in two, and we shared a little red wine. The food maybe wasn’t as good as it could have been, but the meal couldn’t have been better.

It’s easy to fall into the trap that Martha apparently fell into. We want be liked, we want to impress, we think that it’s by doing something great that we can make a good impression on someone. When things don’t go smoothly the self-centeredness of this apparently other-centered work is exposed. Resentment forms. We forget the one thing that is necessary—to be attentive to the one who is right in front of us.

The essence of hospitality is not to fill the other with all the good things we have to offer, but to leave room in our hearts and minds for what the other offers us—his or her stories, his or her desires. It’s easy to see this Gospel story as a condemnation of being too busy, but it’s not busyness that’s the problem. With hearts open to what is holy in our midst, busyness can be a good thing. We need people to be out there doing good things. Last week Jesus heard the Great Commandment to love God and neighbor from the scribe and responded to him DO this and you will live. Doing is important.

To Mary I would say, “Mary, it’s great that you acknowledge the goodness of sitting close to Jesus and soaking up his presence. I hope that his presence leads you to do great things and little things like helping your sister more often.” To Martha I would say, “Martha, you heard what Jesus said. Don’t take it as a condemnation of being active and serving others. Take it as warning given with much love that you need to root your service in love. You don’t have to prove to anyone that you are good. You don’t have to earn anyone’s love and respect. You are good. You are loved. Remembering that, keep on with your important hard work and service that the world, your sister, and even Jesus needs.

11 July 2010

15^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Luke 10:25-37 (The Good Samaritan)

I wanted to imitate the pro bicyclers who were in town a few weeks ago, and so I tried biking up this super-steep hill that was part of their route. I feared doing it for the two weeks that I had the idea to do it, and that fear never left me until my bike and I made it to the top. The pros probably took that hill in thirty seconds. For me, it was more like five minutes, and when I was done I needed a rest. I got off my bike and laid it to the side of the road and lied down next to it. It felt good to lie down, but I couldn’t stay in the ditch because soon the bugs came for me in force. It was a country road and a windy day, so I lied down in the road instead and there were no bugs and it felt really good lying there with my helmet still on and acting like a pillow. Then I heard a car coming way in the distance. It felt really good to lie there, but I imagined seeing what the driver was seeing–bike on the side of the side and bike rider spread out on the road–and I thought I better pop up right away to ease his concern. Quickly on my feet, I turned toward the approaching pick up truck and waved. The driver stopped and I beat him to the punch, saying “I’m fine–I was just taking a breather.” We both gave a laugh, I think both grateful that the person lying on the road was ok. I thanked him for stopping and we both moved along in different directions. So that was my real life Good Samaritan for the week.

The message of the Gospel is not hard to decipher, really. We’re supposed to help people out when they are in need. It follows right on the Great Commandment to Love God and Love Neighbor, and so it’s clear that Jesus thinks this is a very important story to tell. You’ve probably heard the important historical detail in the story that the two people–the priest and the Levite–who pass by the man in need are just doing what they must according to the religious laws of the day in order to maintain ritual purity to be part of the Temple sacrifices. So, a major point, and one that Jesus tries to drive home in many other places as well, is that simple compassion, the reflex to help someone in need, should take greater priority than keeping a religious rule. By that logic, if you’re driving to mass and see someone in distress, the best thing to do is help the person, even at the risk of missing mass. In a strange twist, you might actually need to confess the sin of going to mass, if you ignored someone in peril along the way.

Another detail of the story that I find interesting is that the scholar of the Jewish law asked Jesus “Who is my neighbor?” presumably because he wants to know whom he has to love, but the story ends with Jesus saying, “Who was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?” Jesus isn’t telling him the types of people he has to love–he suggesting that he has to be the type of person who loves everybody–who is willing to be neighbor to all. I think, as he so often does, Jesus wants us to love like God loves.

Why do we reach out to help others? I thought of three reasons. 1. It makes us feel good. It usually does make us feel good to help others. The problem is that if this is our only motivation it will never enter our character to be good Christ-like people for we will remain self-centered, only doing what feels good to us. 2. Because we know it is right or for the Love of God. That’s a motivation that is often applauded by us. I remember how Mother Teresa responded to a man who said he wouldn’t do the work she does for a million bucks. She said, “I wouldn’t either; I do it for Jesus.” But you know, I think the Good Samaritan is pointing to an even deeper motivation to help another: 3. Because we want to. We know we have caught the spirit of Jesus when we want to help, and when we are naturally “neighbor” to others. A lot of the time we will probably have to just ask for strength to be good, but in those golden moments of living as children of God, we find ourselves helping others simply because we want to, and God’s life flows through us.

Meister Eckhart said something along these lines 700 years ago: “If our will becomes God’s will, that is good. If God’s will becomes our will, that is even better.”

4 July 2010

14^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Luke 10:1-12, 17-20

Numbers usually mean something in the Bible. Jesus sent seventy-two disciples out to proclaim the Kingdom of God. Why 72? Like so many things about Jesus, it has to do with his Jewish background, particularly the story of Noah and the flood and the repopulation of the world after the flood. Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, and if you count all the names of the sons of these three men, you come up with seventy-two. So, as Jesus sends these out and ponders their mission, he has in mind a re-seeding of the world with a message of peace to all. And since this seventy-two represents the whole human race from whom we are all descended, we also should identify with these seventy-two, for we are of the original seventy-two, Noah’s grandchildren who repopulated the earth.

What stands out to me about the mission of the seventy-two is that it’s all about establishing good relationships with others. The emphasis is on quality not quantity. It’s not a race to see how many people they can preach to. Rather, Jesus tells them not to flit about from one house to the next but to stay in the same house that welcomes them and to eat and drink what is offered to them. That little detail of mission tells me a lot. It tells me of the tremendous good that can come from simple visiting with another.

I was amid great frenzy yesterday when I decided it was time I needed to buy some fireworks for when I visit with my nieces later this week. I drove over to exit 19 near Baldwin. First, I went to a convenience store to buy some bananas and it was a very active place as so many were filling up en route to their July 4^th destinations. I was in the happy position of not being in a hurry while in the midst of so many who were. The fireworks place, as you can imagine, was even more frantic, a late Friday afternoon two days before July 4^th. I imagine they do over 50% of their annual business this weekend. I took in the scene of the dozen or so check out clerks–all busy–and the mountains of spark throwers, noise makers and smoke bombs beyond them all with people grabbing for them. It had the feel of panic-buying. I grabbed a big $19 that looked good to me and put it under my arm. Later I saw that it was labeled “Atomic Rain” and had a picture of a mushroom cloud on it. Not wanting to give the impression to my nieces that I thought nuclear bombs were cool, I put it down, exchanging it for a similarly priced item called “Spring Garden.” I’m such a softie.

Soon my arms and hands were full and I was stepping around people with their shopping carts and heading to the cash registers. I overheard a fellow talking to his wife, saying that he used to really like fireworks but that the thrill had worn off. You could tell he was similarly amused by the frenzy. He saw me and said, “Hey, you know they have carts so you don’t have to carry them all.” I told him that I considered it a personal challenge to get all of this to the register without a cart. He shrugged and said, “Suit yourself.” As he turned I got his attention again and said, “But I appreciate your concern and the good advice.” And I really did. In the midst of a world with everyone grabbing for themselves, a little compassion for another goes a long way.

Maybe you saw in the newspaper Saturday morning the story about the release of Thomas Jeffereson’s original working draft of the Declaration of Independence, the signing of which we celebrate this weekend. The big news was that when referring to this new people who would come to be known as “Americans,” he wrote “subjects.” He was still thinking in terms of the new Americans as subjects to the royal crown of England. But you will not see the word “subjects” in the Declaration because he thought better of it, erased it and wrote “citizens.” It matters how we see ourselves. Like in that fireworks store, are we just one of the throng grabbing for ourselves and fighting over which one is best with others, or are we like the fellow who noticed another and tried to help. Are we like the seventy-two, seeking to be the voice and touch of Jesus. Are we citizens of his kingdom?

27 June 2010

13^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

1 Kings 19:19-21; Galatians 5:13-18; Luke 9:51-62

The disciples James and John are so like us. The Gospel makes them sound foolish, but it’s very common to act like they act. Some people were rude to them and so they come back with critical, judgmental words about them and they ask Jesus “Do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?” It seems that they are coming to be aware of their power. But a little power is a dangerous thing if not channeled properly, and so Jesus rebukes them. We don’t know if James and John received this rebuke cheerfully or if they were muttering under their breaths along the way, but the message from Jesus is clear. Followers of Jesus must learn to return curses with blessings. We do not play the game of getting back people who have been rude to us or hurt us. Living in the Kingdom Jesus proclaims, under the love of God that come to us even in our imperfections, can we come to understand that all people are flawed, and as St. Paul wrote to the Galatians, “if you go on biting and devouring one another, beware that you are not consumed by one another.” Our natural inclination to get back at someone who hurts us, understandable as it is, only hurts us more. The Path to Life is what we act out in this Eucharist: Receiving the gift of God’s life, being made into one Body, so that we might share in God’s mission of peace and reconciliation.

Our energy for this mission is what is mainly addressed in the first reading and Gospel. Typically, we have a desire to follow the way of Jesus, but not quite yet or not quite with all of our hearts. Something is holding us back. There is a story about St. Augustine whose walk to holiness included a tremendous struggle with his own body to be chaste. In the midst of his struggle he famously prayed “Lord, make me chaste...but not yet!” He knew how he wanted to be, but he was afraid to let go of his need for certain pleasures. He was not ready to do what Elisha did. After initially resisting Elijah’s call for him to follow and be a prophet, and upon hearing Elijah’s rebuke, he took the symbols of his old life and destroyed them. He built a fire with his wood plow and roasted his oxen and gave the meat away–a dramatic cut with the past. We hear similar resistance in the Gospel as people want first to do this or that before following Jesus.

I had a strong experience of clinging to the past this week when some good people were trying to help me clean up my office. One issue among many is the stockpile of old magazine that I have. Some I’ve read and I want to keep the good information in them. Most I have not read but feel that I might get to read them some day and that in their pages might be something that I really need to hear, that will change my life and my ministry for the good, and that might be the key to unlock some knowledge wonderful beyond my dreams!

It’s not the keeping of old magazines that’s the problem. The problem is my fear that if I throw them away I will be somehow diminished. Maybe you can relate to that with other things: If I don’t have this car, this computer, this piece of jewelry, this house, this hobby, this medal or trophy...I will somehow be less. It’s those kinds of fears that keep us from being free.

If we’re ever caught in these sorts of fears I think it will help to remind ourselves of who we are in Christ Jesus. As a Christian I have died to an old self that is tied to things, the esteem of others, the need to be important, and such. And I have Risen to a new self that is rooted only in the life and love of God and thirsts only to pass on God’s compassion and service.

Do I live like this? Do you live like this? Probably the best any of us can say is “sometimes.” And in those times we have known his glory as our own, and shined as the people we are meant to be.

13 June 2010

11^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

2 Samuel 12:7-13; Galatians 2:19-21; Luke 7:36-44

The most chilling part of the story is what Jesus tells the Pharisee: Those who have not been forgiven much cannot love much. We don’t want to be like that. I think that something deep in us really wants instead to be like that woman. We want to be able to love lavishly and freely. We want to be able to love much because we have been forgiven much. The only difficulty for us, though, is that in order to experience this freedom and forgiveness, we have to look at and notice our sin. It is the seriousness of sin that forms the background of this important gospel story.

Because of our sacrament of confession and the popular use of the notion of sin in our world, we tend to associate it with isolated incidents of doing wrong. It helps me to take a wider view of it, though. Dorothee Soelle gave a great definition of sin, comparing it to ice: “Sin is like the ice age, the slow advance of cold, a freezing process which we experience and try to forget...It is the absence of warmth, love caring, trust. It is the destruction of our capacity for relatedness... It means being separated from the ground of life, having a disturbed relationship to ourselves, our neighbor, the creation and the human family.”

I took a bike ride on the trail with friends several years ago. I thought I was in better shape then they were, but very soon after starting out I thought “Boy, this is a rough pace to maintain.” A few miles into it I was sweating profusely and my two companions were cool as cucumbers. They were calming chatting as they pedaled while I just got out a few words between gasping breaths. Heck, I thought maybe I was having a heart attack. Finally I said “I gotta stop!” So we stopped. I checked my tires to see if they were inflated, and they were. But what I did notice was the smell of burning rubber. I followed my nose to find out that my tire, instead of whirring freely while rotating round and round was pressed up against the frame of my bike. Basically my ride thus far was like I was biking with my brakes on. I adjusted the wheel, and we continued our merry way with no more gasping.

I think sin is a little like that. We have three characters in our story: Simon the Pharisee, Jesus and the woman who was a sinner. Simon notices right away that the woman is a sinner but seems not to think anything is wrong with himself. He goes on acting as though the “bicycle” is just fine. As a result, he will never know the freedom of extravagant love. The woman knows something is wrong and seeks conversion.

It seems there are two paths to knowing forgiveness. The most common, reflected most directly in the first reading is when we, like King David, simply see the truth of our lives and say “I have sinned.” We might think that there is no way to forgiveness without that admission. And yet, we hear Jesus tell the Pharisee, “It is because this woman has loved much that she has been forgiven.” What comes first the forgiveness or the acts of love? I think the divine life to which we are all called is a flow of receiving and passing on love and blessing. Maybe it doesn’t matter whether it starts with us giving it or receiving it as long as we jump into the flow like a jump roping hopping into the rope being turned by two friends on the playground.