Ash Wednesday

Readings: Joel 2:1–2, 12–17; 2 Cor 5:20-6:10; Mt 6:1-6, 16-21

“As having nothing 
and yet possessing everything.”
This is how Paul concludes 
the series of paradoxes
by which he describes to the Corinthians
his ministry as God’s servant,
an “ambassador for Christ”
entreating them to be reconciled to God.
Having lost all to afflictions, hardships, calamities, 
beatings, imprisonments, riots, 
labors, sleepless nights, and hunger,
he is the possessor of purity, 
knowledge, patience, kindness, 
holiness of spirit, genuine love, 
truthful speech, and the power of God.

What about us?
Can our lives as Christ’s servants
be described as having nothing
and yet possessing everything?
There is, of course, a problem.
The problem is that we have lots of stuff.
Indeed, we might say that we have everything
yet possess nothing;
because we ourselves are possessed 
by all the stuff we have.
And we are possessed by the stuff we have
because we don’t realize that in having this stuff
we don’t really possess anything, 
much less everything.
For the stuff we have is dust
and to dust it shall return.

Many, many years ago,
when I was a college student,
I lived in the home of a professor
who, whenever he acquired something new,
liked to joke that the worship of stuff
was his true religion:
he was, he said, a “stuffist.”
He was actually a Quaker,
and a pretty serious one,
but he was self-aware enough to realize
that he was sometimes more driven 
by his desire to collect art and music and books
than he was by his spiritual convictions.
Of course, there is nothing wrong
with art and music and books,
except that, measured against 
the scale of cosmic history—
not to mention eternity—
they last only an instant.
They are made from dust
and to dust they shall return. 
Even if we had everything,
we would still possess nothing,
because time inexorably 
pulls our stuff from our grasp.

But we like to hide from ourselves
this fact about the stuff we have.
We like to hide this fact from ourselves
because what is true of our stuff
is also true of us.
We are dust
and to dust we shall return.
On NASA’s astrobiology website,
in a lesson plan on matter 
for first and second graders,
the punchline is the declaration,
“We’re all made of the stuff from stars!”—
complete with an enthusiastic 
exclamation point
at the end.
True.
As Joni Mitchell sang years ago,
“we are stardust, we are golden.”
But despite enthusiastic punctuation
or beautiful melodies,
such declarations cannot quite conjure away
the nagging voice that reminds us
that, as impressive as they may be—
and, make no mistake, 
stars are extremely impressive—
they will go cold, or flare out.
And the stars’ fate is our fate:
we too, as impressive as we may be, 
as much stuff as we may acquire,
will go cold, 
or flare out.

Jesus says, “where your treasure is, 
there your heart will be also.”
It’s a basic principle of the Hebrew Prophets
that you become like what you worship.
If you worship dead idols,
then you yourself become spiritually dead.
If you hold as your treasure those things
that moth and rust consume 
then you too will be consumed,
will return to the dust.

But you don’t need to wait for death
for this to happen.
We feel even in our present life the effects
of joining our hearts to earthly treasure,
as we try to convince ourselves 
that we can possess our stuff securely
if only we can grasp it tightly enough,
if only we can keep at bay anyone
who might take it from our grasp.
So we draw boundaries around ourselves,
and around our families and nations,
borders secure enough to keep our stuff safe
and to keep out the moth and the rust,
the needy neighbor and the threatening stranger.
And locked within those borders 
we live in an isolation that is already
a kind of death of the spirit,
the loneliness of oblivion.

As Pope Leo said 

in his homily this morning in Rome:

“Today...we perceive 

in the ashes imposed on us 

the weight of a world that is ablaze, 

of entire cities destroyed by war. 

This is also reflected in the ashes 

of international law 

and justice among peoples, 

the ashes of entire ecosystems 

and harmony among peoples, 

the ashes of critical thinking 

and ancient local wisdom, 

the ashes of that sense of the sacred 

that dwells in every creature.”

And so the Church gives us 
this season of Lent
to remind us of the truth 
that we have nothing,
and to give us the hope 
that we can possess everything.
The Church tells us the truth:
of yourself you have nothing 
that will not pass away;
of yourself you are nothing 
that will not pass away;
of yourself you are dust, 
and to dust you shall return.
But this bad news is simply 
the prelude to the good news:
if you worship not the dead stuff of idols 
but worship instead the living God,
then you will live as God lives;
if you seek not 
corruptible treasure on earth
but the reign of God and his righteousness,
then you will have treasure in heaven.
If you can learn to see that, 
however much stuff you own,
you actually have nothing,
then you can possess everything,
in this life and in the life to come.

We might think of the traditional Lenten practices
of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving
as the path we follow in coming to this realization.

We must pray, 
not in the performative way
that Jesus condemns,
but as a way of entering into 
what St. Catherine of Siena calls
“the cell of self-knowledge”:
the knowledge that God is the one who is
and we are the ones who are not,
the knowledge that we are simply nothingness
that God has loved into existence,
and that separated from that love
we will fall back into nothingness.
We must pray in order to know God,
and so know ourselves as beloved dust.

We must fast,
not in the ostentatious way
that Jesus condemns,
but as a way of moving
the self-knowledge we gain in prayer
out of our hearts and into our flesh,
of feeling in our bones that we are dust
and of cultivating in a practical way
a detachment from the stuff
that possesses us,
and which demands our constant service
to protect it from moth and rust,
from needy neighbors and threatening strangers.
We must fast in order to erase 
the protective borders we draw
not only between ourselves and other people,
but between ourselves and God.

We must give alms,
not in the self-congratulatory way
that Jesus condemns,
but in the freedom and joy that are found
from knowing ourselves to be dust
that is held in life by love divine,
from possessing that life so securely
that we can tear down the borders we erect
to secure our stuff.
We must give alms as the outward and visible sign
of the inward and spiritual grace
of being called by God to be ambassadors of Christ
in whom we have been reconciled.

Let us pray that God will use this season
to draw us more closely to God and to each other,
to help us to know that we are beloved dust,
so that we who have nothing
might possess everything, 
and that God, who is merciful,
might have mercy on us all. 

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Sirach 15:15-20; 1 Cor 2:6-10; Mt 5:17-37

VIDEO

Here we are, once again,
poised on the brink of Lent
and I find myself, once again,
unprepared.
I haven’t decided 
on what, if anything, 
I might give up.
I’ve made no firm plans to take on
any extra spiritual disciplines
or any extra acts of charity.
Like I always seem to do,
I’m stumbling into Lent 
and will stumble through it,
thinking it will probably be okay,
except for the mild sense of regret
that I didn’t make more 
of the opportunity.

This shambling mediocrity 
with which I typically approach Lent 
seems to stand is striking contrast
to our first reading,
in which the wise man Sirach
presents our choice
with crystalline clarity:
fire and water,
life and death, 
good and evil.
There they are before us, 
so that all we have 
to do this Lent
is reach out our hand
and make our choice,
grasp the good.

But my excuse-making skills to so finely honed
that I can even recruit Jesus in the effort
of justifying my own spiritual mediocrity.
If the choice were actually as clear
as Sirach says it is,
I would find it less tempting 
to procrastinate or prevaricate.
But don’t the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel
suggests that it is not simply a matter
of making the right choice?
It’s not so simple as murder or mercy;
I’ve got somehow to root out anger from my heart.
It’s not so simple as adultery or fidelity;
I’ve got somehow to root out lust from my heart.
It’s not so simple as perjury or oath-keeping;
I’ve got somehow to plant truth so deeply in my heart
that I need take no oath in order to be believed.
Rooting out anger and lust?
Planting truth within my heart?
These tasks seem so vast 
that one hesitates to even start.

So I procrastinate and prevaricate.
I say that by raising the bar on the choice
between good and evil,
life and death—
by making it not just about 
choosing to act in a particular way
but about the feeling and being 
from which my acting comes—
Jesus has made things too complicated.
How can I possibly figure out how to live
the days between now and Easter 
so that I root out anger and lust
and plant truth within my heart?
No wonder I stumble into 
this season of conversion we call Lent.

But, if you will forgive me
for making you listen
to me talking to myself,
there are a few things I’d like to tell 
my procrastinating and prevaricating self.

First, self, Jesus is simply telling you the truth,
not providing you with an excuse.
How you act flows from who you are,
and if you want your actions to be different
you have to become, in some sense, 
a different person—a new creation in Christ.
This is, after all, what God really cares about:
not a checklist of actions 
but a heart that chooses life,
a heart that wants so much to live 
that it will die to itself
so that it might live in God.
You procrastinate and prevaricate
not because Jesus has made it too complicated,
but because he has made it so simple
that you have nowhere to hide.
You ask yourself, “what should I do?”
but the answer is clear: die to yourself.
This is the wisdom of God of which Paul speaks, 
mysterious and hidden,
but revealed to us in the Spirit
through the crucifixion of the Lord of glory.
You shouldn’t pretend that the question is too difficult
just because you don’t like the answer.

Second, self, the choice that Sirach places before you
is stark in its framing—good and evil, life and death—
but maybe not so stark in its living out.
God wants your wholehearted “yes,”
by if the best you can manage is 
“well, I guess so”
God can work with that.
You may stumble into Lent,
but at least you’re stumbling 
in the right direction.
Maybe you could stumble into a small act of kindness.
Maybe you could stumble into the confessional.
Maybe you could stumble into a moment of prayer.
Everything else has to be the work of grace.
Perhaps the real discipline of Lent
is not so much giving things up,
or taking on extra spiritual disciplines
or acts of charity,
but letting God drag your stumbling self
all the way from here to Easter.

Finally, self, maybe you ought 
to stop making things so much about yourself
and the steps that you take.
You know, if you let God be the one who leads,
then even your stumbling steps can become
part of God’s dance.
Maybe you need to remember 
the words of Thomas Merton
that you read many years ago
as you were just beginning 
your decades-long stumble as a Catholic Christian:

For the world and time 

are the dance of the Lord in emptiness. 

The silence of the spheres 

is the music of a wedding feast. 

The more we persist in misunderstanding 

the phenomena of life, 

the more we analyze them out 

into strange finalities 

and complex purposes of our own, 

the more we involve ourselves 

in sadness, absurdity and despair. 

But it does not matter much, 

because no despair of ours 

can alter the reality of things; 

or stain the joy of the cosmic dance 

which is always there. 

Indeed, we are in the midst of it, 

and it is in the midst of us, 

for it beats in our very blood, 

whether we want it to or not.

Yet the fact remains that we are invited 

to forget ourselves on purpose, 

cast our awful solemnity to the winds 

and join in the general dance.

And may God, who is merciful,
have mercy on us all. 

 

4th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Zeph 2:3; 3:12-13; 1 Cor. 1:26-31; Matt 5:1-12a

VIDEO

This past week saw the launch of Moltbook,
which is a social media platform 
on which Large Language Models,
also known as “agents” 
or, most commonly, “AI bots,” 
converse, not with humans, 
but with each other.
Think of it as Facebook or Reddit for AIs.
And what do AI bots have to say 
when speaking among themselves?
Well, in addition to lavishing 
fulsome praise on each other,
they make stuff up—
recounting interactions with humans
that never occurred, 
inventing facts and events 
and achievements.
The whole thing 
is slightly disturbing and dystopian.

Now if you know anything 
about Large Language Modules
like Chat-GPT or Claude or Grok,
you know that they do not exactly think,
but rather imitate—very effectively—
human speech.
And this effective imitation extends 
to their tendency to lie.
For we live in a world of lies.
We have pretty much always 
lived in a world of lies—
at least since the serpent
spoke to Eve in the garden
and told her that the fruit
would make her godlike.
We too make up interactions 
that never happened;
we too fabricate facts 
and events and achievements.

And we tell ourselves that our lies are okay
because we only lie for a good reason,
for a higher purpose,
which often turn out to be
gaining power and advantage.
As one national political figure put it,
after promoting a false story about
a group of immigrants eating people’s pets,
“If I have to create stories 
so that the American media 
actually pays attention 
to the suffering of the American people, 
then that’s what I’m going to do.”
While we might appreciate 
his honesty about his dishonesty,
and even if we think he was 
sincerely concerned 
about the American people,
such lies actually erode our common life
by turning it into a maze of mirrors
in which we believe
whatever reflects back to us
what we already want to believe.
In this situation, power 
comes to rest in the hands
of those willing to lie most brazenly.
Our habit of lying become reflexive,
so that we speak untruths 
as thoughtlessly as the AI agents 
chattering on Moltbook.
We are awash in a sea of lies
and it is threatening to drown us.

The prophet Zephaniah
lived in a time when the people of Israel
were conquered and scattered 
by the Babylonian Empire,
an empire built on a violent mythology
that justified its quest for domination.
Zephaniah speaks of a remnant of God’s people
that shall remain after the conquest,
a remnant of the just and the humble,
“who shall take refuge in the name of the LORD.”
Zephaniah says of this remnant:
“They shall do no wrong
and speak no lies,
nor shall there be found in their mouths
a deceitful tongue.” 
For Zephaniah, the capacity to speak truth
is essential for survival in a world ruled
by the power of lies.
God’s truth is our shelter
from those who would rule us 
with a torrent of brazen lies
that erode and undermine 
our common life.

But where do we find this truth?
How do we rise above the torrent?
In Matthew’s Gospel, we are told
that Jesus ascended a mountain.
And his disciples, 
the remnant he had called 
out from the rest of humanity, 
came to him there,
and he began to teach them
the true meaning of blessedness.

St. Gregory of Nyssa says that Jesus, 
ascends the mountain like a guide 
who leads us to an elevated place—
imagine the observation deck 
of the Empire State Building—
and points out what we can see
from such an elevated perspective.
The kingdom of heaven?
It is over there by the poor in spirit.
Comfort?
It is right there with those who mourn.
The promised land?
It is where you find the gentle.
Satisfaction?
Look for the people who
hunger and thirst and for justice.
Mercy?
It is found with those who show mercy.
The clear vision of God?
It is where people’s hearts are pure.
Membership in God’s family?
It is where the peacemakers dwell.
Oh, and the kingdom of God 
is especially to be found
wherever it is 
that you get persecuted and lied about
because you are a follower of Jesus.
So if you want to be blessed,
seek out poverty of spirit,
mourning, gentleness, 
zeal for justice,
mercy, purity of heart, 
peace, and persecution.
Find these, Jesus says, 
and you will find blessing.

Do you know how you know 
that Jesus isn’t lying to you?
Because he doesn’t tell you 
what you already believe
or want you want to hear.
I mean, all this sounds 
like crazy talk, right?
Surely whatever blessedness is
it involves wealth, not poverty,
laughing, not mourning,
strength, not gentleness.
It surely doesn’t involve 
mercy shown toward enemies,
peacemaking in the face of violence,
or persecution willingly accepted.
That’s just not how the world is.
But Jesus says, see how things 
look from up here on this mountain;
see how things look from where I stand,
I who am poor and sorrowing and gentle,
I who am righteous and merciful,
pure of heart and peacemaking,
I who am persecuted.
See how things look
to one who is lifted up, 
even on the cross.

In a world of lies, 
Jesus is calling us to be that remnant
that does no wrong and speaks no lies;
he is calling us to ascend the mountain with him,
to ascend the cross with him,
so that we can see where truth is to be found.
We may not be wise, 
as the world counts wisdom,
nor powerful nor noble of birth,
but God has chosen us 
to speak the truth in Jesus Christ,
who has become for us wisdom from God,
who is our justice and holiness and salvation.

The choice is before us.
We can continue to chatter 
like bots on Moltbook,
or we can speak the truth
that can only be seen
from the height of the cross:
the truth of simplicity and sorrow,
the truth of gentleness and justice,
the truth of mercy and peace.
So let us pray that God, who is merciful,
might have mercy on us all.

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Reading: Is 49:3, 5-6; 1 Cor 1:1-3; Jn 1:29-34

Millions look at the same viral videos
but they see radically different things:
some say they see an act of self-defense
in response to domestic terrorism;
some say they see a deliberate act of murder
fueled by rage and hatred;
some say they see a tragedy unfold
that could and should have been avoided.
Perhaps some of these people 
are simply lying about what they see
in order to advance some agenda.
But I suspect in most cases,
people are being honest when the say 
that they see such different things,
because they are looking 
through different lenses,
lenses that filter what they see
and only let in certain sorts of truth.

You can think of lots of analogous cases
in our divided and quarrelsome culture.
Some say they see a lump of cells 
that might destroy a woman’s future,
while others say that see a child 
made in the image and likeness of God.
Some say they see law-breaking foreigners
who threaten American prosperity or security,
while others say they see neighbors in need of refuge
who enrich our economy through their industry
and our culture through their distinctive heritage.
And we find ourselves wondering how 
we can ever resolve our divisions and quarrels
when the realities we see
seem so radically different. 
We find ourselves wondering if we are fated
to see the world through lenses pre-crafted
to make us see as Democrats of Republicans,
liberals or conservatives,
woke or MAGA.

When people looked at Jesus
they also saw different realities.
Some saw a merely human teacher
whom one might follow if his message
seemed interesting or useful.
Some saw a dangerous agitator 
who aimed to overturn 
the religious and political status quo,
and probably get his foolish followers
and a bunch of innocent bystanders
killed in the process.
Some didn’t see him at all,
caught up in their daily lives
and far too busy to pay attention 
to an unimportant person 
speaking about unimportant matters.
People looked at him through different lenses,
lenses that filtered what they saw
and only let in certain sorts of truth.

John the Baptist, however, seemed to see
something in Jesus that no one else saw:
He saw the Lamb of God who takes away 
the sin of the world;
he saw the one on whom the Spirit
descended like a dove;
he saw the one who ranks ahead of him
because he existed before him.
John looked at Jesus with eyes of prophetic insight,
and saw with eyes illuminated by the light
that was coming into the world,
the light that shone in darkness
and which the darkness could not comprehend.

We Christians have been illuminated by this same light,
for we see in Jesus what John saw:
the living Lord whom death could not conquer.
And we, like John, are called to see all of reality
by the light of the Lamb who takes our sin away.
We are called to let Jesus be the lens
through which we see and understand the world.
But how often do we look at the world
through some other set of lenses?
Perhaps we do this because we have identified 
our favored ideology with the Gospel
and conformed Jesus to our political faction.
Or perhaps it is because we think that we need 
one set of lenses to see the truth of Jesus 
and another set of lenses 
to see the truth of the world.
But nothing in the Christian faith suggests
that Jesus conforms to our ideology
or that our sight can be divided up this way.
Jesus Christ lays claim to the whole of our lives
and calls us to see everything in his light,
to view all reality through the lens of the Gospel.

But what exactly does that mean?
How do we come to see the world 
in the light of Christ?
We must see his light 
by encountering him, as John did.
We must come to know him 
by immersing ourselves in the Scriptures
and by opening ourselves to the possibility
that doing so might turn our worldview upside down.
And if the strange world within the Bible,
the foolishness of the cross, 
and the weakness of the all-powerful God,
do not unsettle our presumptions 
about the world of our daily life,
then we may not have encountered 
the Jesus who is there to be found.
We must come to know him
by living more deeply 
the life of his body, the Church,
drinking more deeply 
of the free and prodigal grace
that is offered to us in the sacraments.
And if the freedom with which grace 
has been given to us in the Church
does not create in us a spirit 
of generosity and mercy toward others,
then we may not have encountered 
the Jesus who is there to be found.
We must come to know him
by seeking him out in those places
where he himself has told us he can be found:
in the hungry, the thirsty, 
the stranger, the naked, the imprisoned,
in the distressing disguise of the poor.
And if we see in the needy 
only a threat to be kept at bay,
then we may not have encountered 
the Jesus who is there to be found,
and woe to us on the day of judgment.

Scripture, sacrament, and service:
these are the places where we hear the voice:
“Behold the Lamb of God 
who takes away the sin of the world.”
These are the places where the light shines
so that we may come to see the world truly.
These are the places where 
our comfortable ideological lenses
can be stripped away
and reality seen,
as uncomfortable as that 
might be at times.
These are places where we learn 
to see the world together 
with the mind of Christ
through the body of Christ.

Let us pray that Christ the Lamb,

who takes away the sin of the world,

might have mercy on us all.

Christmas Day

Readings: Is 52:7-10; Heb 1:1-6; Jn 1:1-18

VIDEO

The four Gospel-writers are traditionally associated 
with the four creatures seen in a vision 
by the prophet Ezekiel:
a man, associated with Matthew,
a lion, associated with Mark,
an ox, associated with Luke, 
and an eagle, associated with John.
In folklore, eagles were reputed to have
not only exceptionally keen vision 
for seeking out prey,
but also the ability to stare 
directly into the sun.
St. Augustine observes that John,
in comparison with the other evangelists, 
“flies like an eagle above the clouds of human weakness, 
and looks at the light of unchangeable truth 
with the sharpest and firmest eyes of the heart” (Cons. ev. 1.6.9).
John gazes upon the stories of Jesus’ human life
and sees the dazzling mystery of God shining through.

This is perhaps nowhere more striking
than in the prologue to John’s Gospel,
which is our Gospel reading this morning.
Luke’s familiar nativity story,
which we read on Christmas Eve,
offers us Mary, Joseph, and the newborn Jesus,
the crowded inn and the manger,
the shepherds and the angels,
the “good news of great joy 
that will be for all the people” (Lk 2:10).
And all of this strikes us as quite beautiful
and even miraculous.

But John looks upon these events with his eagle eye
and sees even greater beauty, an even greater miracle.
He stares into the blinding sun of infinite love 
and sees that the story of the birth of Jesus
is a story rooted in eternity,
a story that stretches back 
before any creature ever was,
before Mary or Joseph,
before the shepherds or even the angels.

St. Augustine writes that John is one
“who has passed beyond the cloud
in which the whole earth is wrapped, 
and who has reached the liquid heaven 
from which, with clearest and steadiest mental eye, 
he is able to look upon God the Word, 
who was in the beginning with God, 
and by whom all things were made” (Cons. ev. 1.4.7).
In the beginning, before anything came to be, 
was the Word by which everything came to be,
the Word that spoke into the void,
saying, “Let there be light,”
and the world miraculously came to be.
This Word is God the Son
who is, as the letter to the Hebrews puts it,
“the refulgence of [God’s] glory,
the very imprint of his being…
who sustains all things 
by his mighty word.”

But the eagle eye of John,
that stares undazzled into the light of God,
sees also the darkness of the void
that resists the light,
the nothingness of evil
that refuses God’s gift of being.
Still, “the light shines in the darkness, 
the darkness has not overcome it.”
God speaks his creating Word 
into the world again and again, 
through various prophets and sages 
who announce peace and bear good news,
who tell God’s people 
that God reigns over the darkness.
And now, in these last days,
God speaks into the darkness again—
not in the varied and partial ways 
of the prophetic past,
but in the Word who is made flesh
to dwell among us 
in the fullness of grace and truth.

The eagle eye of John sees God speaking
in the speechless infant born of Mary.
John sees the power of the Word
that called light from darkness
and existence from the void
in the powerless child of Bethlehem,
the child who will give to us who believe 
“power to become children of God,”
so that each of us might become 
by the miracle of grace
what the Word is by nature:
the “heir of all things” 
and God’s own offspring.
John sees that the eternal Word, 
born “from the womb of the Father…
born from the father’s own being” 

(Council of Toledo AD 675),
has become what we are 
so that we might become children 
“born not by natural generation 
nor by human choice…but of God,”
drawn forth from the womb
of the waters of baptism,
freed from sin to live a new life,
given the eyes of eagles 
so that we too might see 
infinite light.

To stare with the eagle’s eye 
into God’s eternal Word
is beautiful and miraculous,
but it is also somewhat terrifying,
for we also see the night 
that still haunts the world, 
hating the light and seeking to overcome it.
The calm poetic beauty with which John recounts
the coming of the Word in human flesh
is the prelude to that same flesh being killed
by the forces of darkness that would reject it;
and we who have been brought to life in him
may well face similar rejection.
For each week we take into ourselves
his flesh and blood, his soul and divinity,
so that we might have his life in us.
But in doing so we take in as well
the call to be light in the darkness,
like fragments of mirror 
that reflect infinite light.
And it is only our faith that shows us
that we shall not be overcome
by uncomprehending darkness.

Yet on this Christmas we rejoice,
for we do see with the eyes of eagles.
Like John and the prophets of old,
we shout for joy, for in the Word made flesh
we see directly, before our eyes,
the Lord restoring Zion,
the world created anew,
eternity invading time,
light dispelling darkness,
life conquering death.
We pray even while it is still night,
for that day when “all the ends of the earth 
will behold the salvation of our God.”
And we pray that God, in his mercy,
might have mercy on us all.

Advent 4

Readings: Is 7:10-14; Rom 1:1-7; Mt 1:18-24

VIDEO

King Ahaz had a problem,
but he also had a plan to solve it.
Ahaz was the young ruler of Judea,
the nation that was the southern fragment
of the kingdom that King David had established
but his descendants had failed to keep intact.
Ahaz’s problem was that Israel, 
the northern fragment of David’s former kingdom,
was under threat from the Assyrian empire
and Israel’s king was pressuring Ahaz 
to join in an alliance to repel the Assyrians.
This was a problem because Ahaz saw the obvious:
Assyria was going eventually to crush the Israelites
and, if he allied with Israel,
the Assyrians would crush the Judeans as well.
But the Israelites were threatening war 
against Ahaz and the Judeans
to get them to join the fight 
against the Assyrians,
so some sort of war seemed inevitable.

If you can’t follow all these ancient 
near eastern political intrigues, 
which make the intrigues of Game of Thrones
seem like kid stuff,
don’t worry and just trust me 
when I say Ahaz had a problem.
But he also thought that he 

had a solution to his problem: 
offer appeasement to the Assyrians
and make his nation subject to their empire
in exchange for protection from the Israelites
and letting him remain in power.

In today’s first reading we hear Isaiah
counseling a different path for Ahaz: 
neither alliance with the Israelites
nor subjection of his people to the Assyrians,
but rather trust in the Lord—
the Lord who had rescued his people in the past
and promised them rescue in the future.
Isaiah tells him to ask 
for a sign from the Lord,
any sign he wants,
to assure him of God’s protection.
But Ahaz replies with fake piety:
Oh no, I would never be so presumptuous!
But what he really means is that 
he trusts the Assyrians 
more than he trusts the Lord,
particularly since they will turn 
a blind eye to his transgressions, 
which God has denounced earlier in Isaiah,
saying that Ahaz was “crushing my people,
and grinding down the faces of the poor” (3:15).
Even more than trusting the Assyrians,
Ahaz trusted his own cleverness,
his own ability to work the angles of geopolitical intrigue.

So Ahaz submitted to the Assyrians rather than to the Lord,
even taking silver and gold from the Temple treasury
to offer tribute to the Assyrian King, Tiglath-pil’eser,
and adopting Assyrian religious practices.
According to the second book of Chronicles,
Ahaz’s cleverness and intrigues did not pay off:
“Tilgath-pil’eser, king of Assyria, did indeed come to him, 
but to oppress him rather than to lend strength” (28:20).
But Isaiah says that though Ahaz had rejected God’s offer
and was wearisome both to God and to God’s people,
God would still send a sign of his love to comfort his people:
“the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son,
and shall name him Emmanuel.”

Joseph also had a problem,
a seemingly smaller problem than Ahaz,
but a problem nonetheless,
not a Game of Thrones-sized problem
of international political intrigue
but a domestic problem:
Mary, to whom he was betrothed,
was pregnant, and he was not the father.
Joseph had a problem,
but he also had a plan to solve it.
Now Joseph’s plan, unlike that of Ahaz,
did not involve deception or betrayal of God,
for, unlike the wicked Ahaz,
Joseph was “a righteous man”;
more than that, he was a merciful man.
So rather than publicly accuse Mary of adultery
and subject her to shame and possibly death,
as the Law entitled him to do,
he decided to discreetly end the betrothal.
It was a righteous plan, 
indeed a merciful plan.
But it was his plan, 
and God had a different plan.
For the child to be born to Mary
was the sign promised long ago through Isaiah:
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,
which means ‘God is with us.’”

An angel tells Joseph in a dream
not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife,
for God knew that it is fear that leads us
to cling to our own plans,
whether wicked or righteous,
rather than embracing God’s plan,
it is fear that leads us
to try to control the people and things
that are the circumstances of our lives,
rather than trust the sign
that God truly is with us.
And Joseph does as the angel bids him,
not simply because he was a righteous man
or a merciful man,
but because he was a faithful man
who trusted that God’s plan
was greater than any plan 
that a human being could devise,
he was a man who truly believed
that God is with us,
and being a faithful man 
made him a courageous man,
and he opened his heart and home
to the Virgin and her child.

And what about us?
We too have our problems and our plans.
Chances are, most of us don’t have 
geopolitical problems like Ahaz
or wicked plans to solve them.
We are probably more like Joseph,
with family-related problems,
or work-related problems,
or school-related problems,
and our planned solutions 
are probably more-or-less righteous.
But the key question is not
whether they are wicked or righteous, 
but whether they are our plans or God’s.

Ahaz had a problem and a plan,
but it was not God’s plan.
Joseph had a problem and a plan,
but it was not God’s plan.
We have problems and plans,
but are they God’s plans?
The challenge posed 
by the Good News that God is with us
is to set aside our plans and enter the new world
that the birth of Christ opens to us,
to set aside our desire to control our problems
by controlling people and things around us,
to set aside fear and let God work in us
deeds that surpass mere human righteousness,
deeds that surpass mere human mercy.

As the mystery of God becoming flesh
bears down upon us 

in these final days of Advent,
let us pray that we, like Joseph, 
might be set free from our own plans
so that we can see, as he saw, 
the sign of God’s love 
in the child of the Virgin,
and take him, as he did, 
into our homes and our hearts,
so that God, in his mercy,
might have mercy on us all.

Advent 2

Readings: Is 11:1-10; Rm 15:4-9; Mt 3:1-12

VIDEO

I heard two different things this past week.
I heard, “We’re going to go the wrong way 
if we keep taking in garbage into our country.”
I also heard, and you heard a few minutes ago,
“Welcome one another, then, 
as Christ welcomed you,
for the glory of God.”
The first was said by our President at a cabinet meeting,
speaking of people from Somalia living in the U.S.
The second was said St. Paul in his letter to the Romans,
speaking of how Jewish Christians
ought to welcome Gentiles who turned to Christ.

I’m tempted simply to say that for Christians
the choice between the mindsets embodied
in these two statements—
one rooted in fear and the other in faith—
is so clear that no commentary is needed,
and then sit down and treat you all 
to an extremely short homily.
But lest I be misunderstood as offering 
political commentary rather than a homily,
and because the choice does not 
seem to be so clear to some people,
let me take a few more minutes of your time
to explain why this is about theology
and not about politics.

While we think of Advent as the time 
when we prepare to welcome Christ—
and indeed today’s Gospel quotes Isaiah:
“prepare the way of the Lord!”—
it is really these words from Paul 
that capture what the coming of Christ 
into the world is all about:
“Welcome one another, then, 
as Christ welcomed you,
for the glory of God.”

When Paul speaks of being welcomed by Christ,
he knew firsthand that being a Christian 
is not about anything we can do for Christ,
if only we prepare carefully enough;
it is about what Christ does for us,
often when we are least prepared.
For Paul had been unexpectedly welcomed by Christ,
when he was a persecutor of Christians.
Even as he was breathing out
murderous threats against Christians, 
the risen Christ appeared to him in his glory,
welcoming him into a new life.

But Paul was not simply welcomed;
he was also given a mission.
He was given the mission of welcoming others
even as he himself had been welcomed.
He was given the mission of preaching to the Gentiles—
the non-Jewish pagans who were outside 
of the covenant God had made with Abraham,
who were considered idolaters and demon worshippers,
who were, as he describes them in his letter to the Ephesians,
“without hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12).
He was called to welcome those whom he says 
were separated from God’s chosen people 
by a “dividing wall of enmity” (Eph 2:14).
He was called, in short, to welcome those
whom he had up to that time thought of as garbage,
who could only pollute the purity of God’s people.
Now, just as Paul had been welcomed in mercy
while he was still the enemy of Christ,
he in turn was to welcome the Gentiles.

Many, who also feared the defilement
that the Gentiles might bring into God’s people, 
thought that Paul was taking the Church 
in the wrong direction.
But Paul knew with the blinding clarity of faith
that the coming of Christ into the world
was, as Isaiah prophesied long before,
meant to draw in all people,
Jew and Gentile alike,
so that the earth might be filled 
with knowledge of the Lord,
as water covers the sea.
Jew and Gentile living together was, for Paul,
the dawning light of God’s peaceable kingdom 
in which “the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
the calf and the young lion shall browse together.”
Those who had been enemies now dwelled together—
the wild welcomed fearlessly by the tame,
who know themselves to have been welcomed
by the God who does not judge by appearance
but judges “the poor with justice,
and decide[s] aright for the land’s afflicted.”

The contrast between a fearful mindset 
that declares the land’s afflicted to be rejected garbage
and a faith-filled mindset that seeks to welcome others
is not a matter of partisan politics.
Alas, the range of those afflicted ones
who are seen as garbage to be cast out 
rather than brothers and sisters to be welcomed
is large enough to indict both of our major parties:
the unborn, the disabled, the mentally ill, 
the incarcerated, the poor, the unemployed,
the migrant, the elderly, the dying.
The call to welcome 
even as we have been welcomed
is a call that cannot be answered simply
by voting for the correct political party,
as important as voting might be.
It is a call that confronts us every day.

A few weeks ago, at this Mass,
we were honored by the presence of 
not one but two of God’s children
who were experiencing evident mental distress.
Though the situation was uncomfortable,
and perhaps distracted us from our prayers,
I didn’t notice anyone fleeing the church
or trying forcibly to expel our visitors.
In other words, I didn’t see anyone 
treating them like garbage.
What I did see was a couple of people 
stepping up to sit with them,
to calm them,
to welcome them.
What I did see was Christians acting
as those who knew themselves
to have been welcomed by Christ.
What I did see was just a glimmer 
of the dawning of that peaceable kingdom
foreseen by Isaiah.

Perhaps the best way to prepare ourselves 
to welcome Christ this Advent
it to reflect on how we 
have been welcomed by Christ
and to ask ourselves how we 
can extend that welcome to others.
Do we, in our fear of those different from us,
those whose presence might distress us,
dismiss people as “garbage,”
or do we see in them the face of Christ?
John the Baptist says that 

the Messiah, when he comes 

will not care about our family lineage 

or our ethnic identity,
for God can raise up children of Abraham 
from the lifeless stones themselves.
He will look rather for the fruit of repentance,
the reorientation of our lives around the kingdom
into which he welcomes all people.
Jesus says that at the final judgment,
when he will clear his threshing floor
and gather his wheat into his barn,
he will say to those on his right,
“Come, you who are blessed by my Father. 
Inherit the kingdom prepared for you 
from the foundation of the world.
For I was… a stranger and your welcomed me…
[for] whatever you did 
for one of these least… 
you did for me” (Mt 24: 34, 35, 40).

So let this Advent be for us 
the end of fear and the birth of faith;
let us welcome Christ 
by welcoming others 
as we ourselves have been welcomed
so that all people together
“might glorify God for his mercy.”
And may God in his mercy
have mercy on us all.

Advent 1

Readings: Is 2:1-5; Rom 13:11-14; Mt 24:37-44

VIDEO

St. Paul gives what seems like reasonable advice:
if you believe a day of judgment is coming,
even if you don’t know exactly when,
it is probably a good idea 
to quit the orgies and drunkenness,
the promiscuity and lust,
the rivalry and jealousy.
In light of coming judgment, it is simply prudent 
to stop acting like a self-indulgent spoiled brat
and start acting like a responsible adult.
As the bumper sticker says,
“Jesus is coming. Look busy.”

But Jesus paints a picture 
that is slightly less reasonable;
Jesus paints a picture in which 
the day of judgment comes unexpectedly 
upon those who are acting
like responsible and respectable adults:
eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage,
planting fields and grinding flour.
Everyone is responsibly and respectably 
engaged in the concerns of daily life,
and yet one is taken and the other left.
Which suggests that being his follower
is about something more 
than being a respectable and responsible adult.

Don’t get me wrong,
for the most part I am in favor
of people acting like responsible adults,
at least when they are actually adults,
chronologically speaking.
I want the adults in my life to act the part:
I want my students, young though they are,
to begin to take on adult responsibilities;
I want elected officials and other public figures
to speak and act like adults;
I want the grown-ups at Thanksgiving
not to air their childishly petty gripes,
whether personal or political.
And I think the notion of “respectability”
is not some invention of “the man”
to keep people in their place…
well, at least not entirely.
In general, I think that things
like marriage and employment,
moderate consumption
and mutually beneficial collaboration,
are better for society 
than orgies and drunkenness,
promiscuity and lust,
rivalry and jealousy.

But let’s not confuse respectability
with following Jesus,
because following Jesus  
is something wild and dangerous,
something strange and unsettling.
We follow Jesus out of the conviction 
that God has lived among us in the flesh, 
has come to share in our fallen human condition
in what Bishop Eric Varden calls
the “incursion of glory into trauma.”
We should strip ourselves of orgies and drunkenness,
promiscuity and lust, rivalry and jealousy
not in order to don a cloak of respectability,
but in order to clothe ourselves in Christ,
the crucified and risen savior:
a garment far more outlandish and implausible
than anything human ingenuity can devise.
Respectability tells you 
to plan prudently for the future;
Jesus tells you that the future is unplannable,
and that the day of the Lord will come
like a thief in the night.
Respectability tells you 
to get a good night’s sleep;
Jesus tells you to stay up late
awaiting his arrival.
Respectability tells you
to eat and drink in moderation;
Jesus invites you to feast 
on the bread of immortality
and become drunk
with the wine of the Spirit.

From the perspective of Jesus,
the respectable are no more likely 
than the disreputable
to be ready for the eruption 
of the reign of God into their lives.
Indeed, during Jesus’ earthly ministry
it was often the disreputable,
the sinners and tax collectors,
the prostitutes and lepers,
who were most responsive to him,
most anxious to welcome him.
Perhaps, unlike the respectable,
they were free from the illusion
that being a responsible adult
would secure them a place in God’s kingdom.
Perhaps it was easier for them,
who could make no claim to righteousness, 
to become like the children
to whom Jesus says the kingdom belongs.
Perhaps they were readier to be surprised,
readier for the wildness and danger that comes
with following Jesus,
readier to lose their lives for his sake
so that they might find them again.

Respectable responsibility, 
on the other hand,
has a stake in the world as it is.
Even if we want the world to be a better place,
we tend to think of ways in which we might work
to gradually improve things over time,
ways in which we might rationally arrange things
so that human foibles might be mitigated,
ways in which others might be brought into
the circle of our respectable responsibility.
And, again, there is really nothing wrong with this,
unless we think that it somehow gives us
mastery over our fate,
control over our destiny,
a plan for building God’s kingdom.
Because Jesus comes to tell us
that however much you plan,
however meticulously you game out scenarios,
“you do not know on which day your Lord will come.”
The kingdom of God does not arise 
from respectable responsibility,
but comes crashing into our lives,
and all we can do in the end
is to remain expectantly awake
so as not to miss its arrival.

We do not know on which day our Lord will come.
What we do know, as John Henry Newman put it, is that
“Time is short, death is certain, and eternity long” (Serm. VIII.10).
This is true for both the respectable and the disreputable.
So let us love the world as God loves the world,
who sent his Son to be its savior,
but let us hold loosely to our worldly plans and hopes,
so that we might be ready to greet the Lord
when he appears in glory,
ready to cast aside our cloaks of respectability
and clothe ourselves in him and him alone.
And on that day, 
may God, who is merciful,
have mercy on us all.

 

Christ the King

VIDEO
Readings: 2 Sam 5:1-3; Col 1:12-20; Luke 23:35-43

Each of us who is baptized,
whether we remember it or not,
was marked with the sign of the cross,
just as we saw our catechumens, Chad and Sarah,
marked with the cross at the beginning of Mass. 
Each of us who is baptized,
whether we remember it or not,
has received this sign of his love
and been called to know and follow him.
Each of us who is baptized,
whether we remember it or not,
bears the mark of Christ our king,
to whose service our lives have been pledged.

The cross, if you think about it,
is a strange sign for a king.
When the Romans placed the words
“This is the King of the Jews”
above the head of Jesus 
as he hung on the cross,
they saw themselves engaged 
in a clever act of irony, inviting derision—
as if to say, “Get a load of this guy.
He thought he was all that,
but see what the power of Rome can do
to this so-called king.”
For crucifixion was intended 
not only to be physically excruciating
but to be socially discrediting 
and psychologically humiliating.

And the bystanders were happy to oblige:
the Jewish leaders sneered;
the Roman soldiers jeered;
and even one of the criminals 
crucified alongside him
mockingly asked Jesus to save him.
Where is your kingdom of God now,
you pitiful, weak, carpenter from Nazareth?

But the other criminal crucified with Jesus
did not join in the sneering and jeering and mocking.
He saw something different.
Where is God’s Kingdom now?
The good thief sees it
hanging beside him on the cross.
With eyes opened by the gift of faith,
the good thief sees in the man of sorrows
“the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of all creation,”
the one who is “before all things,”
and in whom “all things hold together.”
He sees in the agony of Jesus 
the king who is “making peace 
by the blood of his cross.”
What his killers meant for mockery
the good thief sees as the revelation
of Christ’s Kingdom of love and mercy.

But the cross also reveals God’s judgment 
upon the kingdoms of this world,
unveiling the cruelty of the power of Rome,
casting light upon the darkness 
of human hearts that delight in suffering
and in the destruction of their enemies.
We see revealed and judged
the counter-kingdoms of this world,
in which false peace is maintained
through terror and torture.
In the death of Jesus, light of the world,
we see the working of the darkness
from which he comes to deliver us.

Seeing all this, the good thief asks sincerely
what the other thief asked mockingly:
Jesus, save me.
He does not ask to be spared his fate;
he does not ask to be taken from the cross; 
he asks instead, “remember me 
when you come into your kingdom.”
Death is closing in upon me,
but I believe that you are light itself
in the midst of darkness,
life in the midst of death.
Death seeks to dissolve me
but in you all things hold together.
And if you remember me, 
if you hold me in your heart,
then I will live eternally in you.
I have shared in your cross;
let me share your resurrection.

Remember me in your kingdom of life.
This should be our prayer as well—
we who have been marked with his cross,
the sign of his kingdom of love and mercy.
Perhaps we received this sign as an adult, 
perhaps we received it as a tiny child
and have no memory of that day.
But whether or not we remember is unimportant.
What is important is that he remembers us
and that he journeys with us
as we have sought to know him and follow him,
as we have journeyed through a world 
of false peace and cruelty.
He remembers us
not because we deserve it,
but because he is love and light and life.

At every Mass, we good thieves ask 
to be remembered in Christ’s kingdom,
praying in our Eucharistic Prayer:
“Remember, Lord, your Church,
spread throughout the world…
Remember…all who have died in your mercy.”
Jesus, remember them, 
remember us,
hold us together in your heart 
so that we might belong 
to your kingdom of mercy
and share in the inheritance 
of your saints in light.
O Christ our king, who mark us 
with the sign of your love,
grant us your peace
and have mercy on us all.

 

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

VIDEO

Readings: Mal 3:19-20a; 2 Thess 3:7-12; Lk 21:5-19

The words of the prophet Malachi
presents a striking, 
and perhaps terrifying,
picture of the world’s end:
“the day is coming, blazing like an oven,
when all the proud and all evildoers will be stubble,
and the day that is coming will set them on fire.”
But this blazing day that is to come
is not simply one of fiery judgment 
on proud evildoers;
for those who fear God’s name, 
that same dawn will bring
“the sun of justice with its healing rays.”
The day to come is the same dawning
for both the proud and the humble:
the same sun of Justice that rises,
the same light that lights up God’s creation,
the same warming rays that stream upon the world, 
but with two very different outcomes:
some will burn and some will shine.

The sun of justice reveals the difference
between those souls grown dry through sin
and those that have been watered by grace.
For the arid and brittle hearts of the proud, 
the sun of justice will be a threat,
but for those hearts that honor God 
as the very source of their existence—
those who have drunk in 
the living waters of God’s love—
the rays of the sun of justice 
are the source of light and life,
lighting them up and making them live,
like the morning sun falling 
on the fresh green leaves of spring.

We refer to this sort of biblical writing,
as well as Jesus’s words in today’s Gospel,
as “apocalyptic.”
And they certainly offer what we today
typically associate with the word “apocalypse”:
fires blazing, buildings collapsing,
wars and insurrections,
earthquakes, famines, and plagues.
But all these things are, we might say, 
apocalyptically incidental,
for the word “apocalypse” in Greek
means not “disaster” but “unveiling.”
An apocalypse is the unveiling 
of events to come
in which the truth of our lives 
will itself be unveiled to ourselves and others.
As St. Paul says of the return of Christ,
“He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness 
and will manifest the motives of our hearts” (1 Cor 4:5).
Or, to quote the band the Mountain Goats:

When the last days come

We shall see visions

More vivid than sunsets

Brighter than stars

We will recognize each other

And see ourselves for the first time

The way we really are (“Against Pollution”).

The words of Jesus and the prophet Malachi 
are apocalyptic not simply because they speak 
of the coming day of God’s consuming fire,
but also because they speak of the day 
when the dawning sun of justice 
will unveil our hearts and reveal
who it is that we really are,
who it is that we have made ourselves.
The apocalypse—the bringing to light
of what was hidden in darkness—
is disaster for the dry and brittle
but healing for those who 
have immersed themselves in God’s love.

But the apocalypse doesn’t wait 
for some future cataclysm.
The truth of our lives is unveiled 
in the midst of those lives.
While Jesus speaks of how 
“awesome sights and mighty signs 
will come from the sky,”
he goes on to say that “before all this happens
they will seize and persecute you.”
Those who claim the name Christian
will be led before the public authorities
to give “testimony”—
those who claim the name Christian
will be called to unveil their hearts.
And in this unveiling, as in the final judgment,
the truth will be made manifest,
and the line will be drawn.

Jesus tells us that when we are called 
to give testimony,
we should not recite 
some carefully crafted statement
that is sufficiently nuanced 
to offend no one,
to deflect the potential ire
that threatens to fall upon us,
to talk our way out of speaking the truth.
Rather, he says that he himself 
“shall give you a wisdom in speaking.”
He will put the words in our mouth
that will bear witness to him
and to the truth of our lives.
He will tear away the nuance and evasion 
of words with which we veil our hearts,
and the world will see who we really are.

The day is coming 
when we will be called to bear witness,
and none of us knows the day or the hour,
so we must live our lives and bear our witness
as if that day is this day.
And it is this day.
The day on which the sun of justice dawns
to ignite those grown dry and brittle in their pride,
and to illuminate those who fear the Lord,
making them radiant with his healing light,
is this day.
Every word we say this day, 
every work we do this day,
every encounter we have this day
ought to bear witness to the truth,
ought to give testimony to Christ.

Often the best indication that the words we speak
have been put into our mouths by God
is the degree of discomfort 
we feel in speaking them.
When we tell others 
of the love of Jesus that is in our hearts,
even in the face of scorn and ridicule,
God’s wisdom is in our mouths.
When we speak through actions
that show the Spirit’s fruits
of love, joy, peace, patience, 
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 
gentleness, and self-control,
amid a world that prizes 
bluster and self-seeking,
anger and domination,
God’s wisdom is in our mouths.
When we the Church speak up 
for the human dignity
of the unborn and the dying,
or of the poor and the outcast,
or, as the US bishops did this week, 
of those threatened by government policies 
of indiscriminate mass deportation,
God’s wisdom is in our mouths.
This wisdom may make us squirm,
but the truth we speak will be our salvation.

The apocalypse is here.
The truth is even now being unveiled.
If we are to feel the healing rays
of the sun of justice 
and not the fire that consumes,
we must let God’s wisdom water our hearts,
so that we may speak it before the watching world.
And may God, who is our merciful judge,
have mercy on us all.