28 June 2009

13^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Wisdom 1:13-15; Mark 5:21-43

The Book of Wisdom boldly proclaims a God of Life today. “God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.” The author of this book goes on to say that it was by the “envy of the devil” that death entered the world. It is one of the great mysteries how to explain a loving God in the midst of a world with death and suffering. What the author of Wisdom wants to make clear to us is that we can trust God is all-loving and wants to share his life with us that we might have richness of days.

I have been riding my bicycle a lot these weeks of summer. Typically, I head south of town on 9^th Street and end up on County Y for a good span. I had a bit of an epiphany last week while riding this stretch which includes the cemeteries of St. Paul’s and Peace Lutheran churches. Perhaps it will sound weird, but as I past the many grave stones and reflected on what they represented, I said to myself something like, “There is death, but I am alive. One day my body will by lying in the ground, but I am alive now.” And I felt the strength of my legs pushing my bicycle forward and my lungs taking in oxygen, and my eyes seeing the beautiful sky and trees, and I thought “It is good to be alive,” and then “It is quite a miracle and a privilege to be alive...to see, feel, smell.” Life itself seemed so precious.

Then I wondered how would feel if my body weakened and I was no longer able to bicycle in the country. Would I still be grateful for the gift of life? And I thought I would. And I went down the list of growing limitations, until I imagined myself unable to communicate, and unable to walk or see, but simply able to be aware of my heart beat and my breathing. And in this moment of prayer I felt certain that even then the miracle of life would be so amazing as to make me add grateful wonder to my experience of beating heart and breathing lungs.

In the Gospel reading we have two characters who know the wonder of life and who reach for it with passion. Jairus begs Jesus to help his daughter who is in danger of death. The unnamed woman with a hemorrhage takes a risk and graphically reaches out for life because she knows how precious it is. I don’t envy their pain but I do envy how much they value life, but I marvel and am inspired by the way they reach for life.

In Holland earlier this month I was on my own for a day because my hosts had their work to do. Honestly, I was a little afraid to leave the house, which surprised me but was true. I just thought “Well, I don’t speak Dutch, I might get lost, I might feel stupid...” and I convinced myself that sitting in the living room reading my book was the best choice. Thankfully I have a conscience that told me “Hey you’re in Holland and you paid good money to get here, so get out and experience it!” So I went into town and the grocery store. I tried to be friendly saying How-da Morgen to people who generally responded with a smile and a “Hello.” It wasn’t until the day was over that I realized I should have been saying Hoo-da Morgen and that instead of saying “Good morning” to people I had been saying “Cheese morning.”

Nonetheless, I had a good day of adventure and experienced a lot more life than I would have reading my book. Jesus tells the worrying crowd in the Gospel: “Don’t be afraid; just have faith.” It seems like a great rule for life. We are given one privileged life span here on this earth. Do you, like me, sometimes forget how precious this is? Shall we not put aside fear and put our faith and our best selves forward to really live the life that God so generously shares with us? Like Jairus calling for Jesus or the woman reaching for his clothes or the priest walking out the door into a foreign land...might there be greater life awaiting you if you reach for it?

21 June 2009

12^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Mark 4:35-41

It’s nice to be back after my European adventure to the Netherlands. I had great hosts and everything went smoothly until the last hour when I got a bit lost moving from the train to the airport terminal. I insist that there was no left arrow sign, which made me keep going straight until I knew for sure I was getting father from where I was supposed to be. I went up to a counter where some people were smiling. I’m not sure why I used this phrasing, but I asked “Do you know where I’m supposed to be?” She said, honestly, that she did not. I smiled and asked the more obvious question how to get to the airport terminal, and then I was on my way.

So, I was briefly disoriented, unsure of how to get where I was supposed to be. This is a common enough experience, though often much more serious. Sickness disorients us. Grief and loss disorient us. Having a family member behave in destructive ways without knowing how to fix the situation disorients us. Being unemployed or faced in other ways with financial stress disorients us. We might wonder if we’re doing things right or faithfully. We might wonder if we are moving in the right direction to where we’re supposed to be.

The Gospel story today is a very vivid story of disorientation and fear. There is a storm at sea and the apostles are frightened. Jesus doesn’t seem to care and is in fact sleeping on a cushion during the time of the apostles greatest fear. Mark’s addition of that detail about the cushion adds a lot to the story for me. It heightens the apostle’s irritation with Jesus, like they’re saying “We’re fearing for our lives over here and you’re relaxing on a cushion!” What Mark reports is irritation enough, though, as they say to Jesus “Don’t you care?”

It’s one thing to believe in God and another thing to believe that God cares. If you’re willing to take a risk, I invite you to pray over this scene with your imagination in the coming week. Paint the sea scene, feel the wind, the boat lurching and taking in water, feel the panic...and notice Jesus snoozing away on the cushion. It’s a bit of a risk to pray this because when it comes time to address him with your fear and your accusation that he does not care, it might bring up things in you: times you’ve suffered without feeling the Spirit’s consolation; times you’ve prayed and prayed for something that did not happen. The question “Don’t you care?” might become very personal. But it’s worth the risk. Just like in human relationships, always just being nice and not taking the risk to give voice to our frustrations keeps relationships pretty superficial. The apostles grew closer to Jesus than anyone and maybe in large part because they asked him “Don’t you care?”

Of course, our faith is that he does care. My friend in the Netherlands just wrote a book about proclaiming the Good News in parishes. I asked him “What is the Good News?” He said something like “That our God is a God of Life and that with God wants to share that life with us.” God does care. God does have power. In times of stress we can look to God to shepherd us toward peace. In times of darkness, we can look to God to bring the light. And of course it is most central to our faith that God brings life from death.

In this reflection, I have asked two important questions: “God, do you care?” I encourage you to pray into this question to deepen your relationship. The other question was “Where am I supposed to be?” For starters, I think you’re supposed to be right here now, so congratulations. But looking to the future, it seems that it isn’t so important where we are as it is with whom we are. Are you with, heart and soul, the one who has the power to calm the sea and who shepherds you through darkness to light and from death to life?

June 14, 2009

Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ

I Corinthians 10:16-17; John 6, 16-18

[I’m away on vacation this weekend, but here is an image from a few years back to share with you. Pax, tk]

When I was in second grade, my best friend, Mark Mohlinetzky told me that his dad was being transferred and so he would be moving to Arizona. We’d both seen on TV or heard somewhere about the supposedly Indian custom of becoming “blood brothers.” Two people who wanted to pledge friendship for life would cut their wrists and press them together them together so that the blood from each would go into the other. Mark suggested we do that before he left for Arizona.

I was afraid of cutting myself, but decided to go along with it. Then he picked a scab off of his hand until it bled, which seemed like cheating to me, but I didn’t say anything. I used his penknife to cut my finger tip, and then pressed my fingertip to his hand for a minute.

Maybe that sounds gross, but the point is that we wanted to form a bond with each other to mark our friendship. We celebrate something similar on this Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ. Jesus wants to form a bond with his friends and with all humanity, and so he suggests something that is quite shocking to them: “You must eat my flesh and drink my blood if you are going to have my life in you. I have life from the Father, and if you want this life, you must receive my flesh and blood from me and eat it.” Some people thought it was gross, and left. Others perceived that there was something deep going on. Jesus wanted his life to pass into them.

Our Eucharist enables his life to pass into us. Just as we want to be part of the lives of people we love, Jesus longs to be part of our lives. He wants to bond with us and be a part of us. It is similar in this way to becoming a “blood brother.”

June 7, 2009

Trinity Sunday

I really don’t like to dance, but at least I’m not as afraid of it as I was as a teen and young adult. At high school dances I would stare blankly but secretly marvel in envy at my peers who could get out on the dance floor and really move to the fast songs. The turning point for me came when I was twenty-six or so. My best friend was married that day, we had finished the meal at the reception, and DJ had been playing dance songs for a good fifteen trying to cajole people onto the floor but without success. That meant fifteen minutes of guilt for me because that’s what fear does to me when I give in to it. My conscience was telling me “Tom, this is your best friend’s wedding and you can add joy to it if you go out there and dance. Or, you can sit in fear and add no joy to this day.” Darned conscience.

So I got up and asked my friends sister to dance, then his other sister, then his other sister and before I knew it I had quite a sweat going and the dance floor was full. People must have thought, “if that guy can get out on the floor, I guess I can too.” As is so often the case, something that I would have been too afraid to do for myself I found the courage to do because I was doing it for someone else–to add to the joy of my friend’s wedding.

On this Trinity Sunday, I recall that the early Church thinkers answered the question “What does the Trinity do, the One God and Three Persons?” by saying “They dance.” The Greek term was “epichoresis.” The Father, the Source of All Being is Love, and the object of his love is His Son, and as the Son receives the Father’s love and rejoices and loves the Father back, the Spirit is generated, the Spirit being the love between Father and Son.” Again, it is love which draws them out toward each other. And eventually that love was so great that it spilled over into Creation and the Son Himself eventually took on flesh and dwelt among us.

Trinity is one of those things that can seem anywhere from confusing to fascinating, but rarely of practical use for us. What does the Father loving the Son and the Son’s love of the Father generating the Spirit have to do with us?? Well, I often say that the goal of Christianity is to make us more like Jesus. Another way to say it is that the goal of Christianity is to enable us to share in the life of the Trinity.

This is most clear to me at the end of our Eucharistic Prayer. What’s happening when we hear “Through Him, with Him and in Him, all glory and honor is yours almighty Father, forever and ever”? We are saying that just as Jesus offered his life in love to the Father, so now we–through with and in him–pledge to offer our lives in love to the Father.

Whenever we do something for the sake of love we share in the life of the Trinity. It could be dancing at a friend’s wedding; it could be playing a video game you can’t stand with a child who loves it; it could be sharing your wealth with others who need it. You fill in the blank. For the Christian, it’s us on that altar too as the love we receive we offer back and witness the loving wrap of the Spirit in the Dance of Christian Life.