4th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Zephaniah 2:3; 3:12-13; 1 Corinthians 1:26-31; Matthew 5:1-12a

VIDEO

It’s been a bad week for those of us
who want to believe 
in the essential goodness of human beings.
We had three mass shootings in California,
leaving a total of nineteen people dead
in Monterey Park, Half Moon Bay, and Oakland.
Then, on Friday, the Memphis police
released video of the deadly beating of Tyre Nichols 
by five police officer earlier this month—
a brutal and deliberate attack
by those who are supposed to “protect and serve.” 
We can add these deaths to the pile created
by the unjust war being waged in Ukraine
(over 42,000 dead and counting)
and the ongoing callous disregard for human life
at its vulnerable beginnings and endings
that seems to characterize our society,
and we have to ask, 
what is wrong with us?
What is this rage to destroy,
to snuff out the precious of life
that God has bestowed upon us?
The world seems to be wicked without relief,
and we human beings endlessly inventive
in the evil we do.

But through the welter of the world’s wickedness
we hear the voice of Jesus:
Blessed are the poor in spirit…
Blessed are they who mourn…the meek… 
those hungry for righteousness…
the merciful…the clean of heart…
the peacemakers…the persecuted.
Like a whisper at the edge of our consciousness—
a consciousness consumed by a constant stream
of undeniable examples of human evil—
we hear the voice of Jesus saying:
this is not the way the world has to be;
this is not the way that you have to be.

As Jesus begins to preach to the disciples,
whom he has just called to leave their old lives
and follow him on the path to God’s kingdom,
he speaks of the blessedness of those 
who live entirely on the love of God,
who see the evil that people do
and hunger for a world that is different,
who never let bitterness win out over mercy,
who see peacemakers persecuted 
and yet persist walking in the way of peace.
He says to them: this is who I am,
and this is who I am calling you to be;
blessed are those who can see 
the reality of the world’s wickedness
and yet love in the way that God loves.

But Jesus doesn’t just say this 
to the disciples he has called.
His voice also reaches 
the crowd that has gathered
and is, as it were, eavesdropping 
on the words he speaks to his disciples.
For the crowd too must wonder 
at the world’s wickedness
for which there seems to be no relief.
And they wonder as well at the small band
of scruffy fishermen
who have left everything
to followed this rather strange rabbi,
who is without educational pedigree
or priestly status.
It all seems rather foolish
and yet… something echoes in their hearts: 
this is not the way the world has to be;
this is not the way that you have to be.

Blessedness…
the blessedness those whom the world deems foolish.
Could it be that God has chosen the foolish to shame the wise?
Could it be that God has chosen the weak to shame the strong?
Could it be that God has chosen the lowly and despised 
to humble our pride and end our boasting?
Could it be that this strange teacher
and his ragtag band of fishermen followers
hold the solution to the world’s wickedness?
Could it be that his word 
will take root and bear fruit
in the hearts of his disciples?
Could it be that human beings
can turn away from hatred and violence
and live the blessedness he proclaims?
The crowd listens in, 
waiting for a sign,
hoping for relief.

The crowd is still listening.
Though the world seems ever sadder,
its wickedness ever more intense
and ever more inventive of new ways
of crushing the spark of human life,
people are still listening in
as Jesus speaks to his disciples.
His words overheard still echo in their hearts,
words that speak of a human goodness
that evil cannot eradicate,
a blessedness
that the world cannot crush.
The crowd still looks to us,
the followers of Jesus,
to see if the word 
will take root and bear fruit in us,
waiting for a sign,
hoping for relief.

We live our lives as Christians
before the crowd’s watching eyes
and listening ears.
What do they see?
What do they hear?
Do they see those who, in poverty of spirit,
acknowledge their dependence on God
and live lives of purity and justice?
Do they hear voices 
that mourn the world’s wickedness
and yet still proclaim mercy and peace?
Do they experience in us the possibility
that the world does not have to be
this sad place of hatred and violence,
that we do not have to be these people
trapped in anger and despair?
Do they find in us a reason to hope,
a reason to believe that at the heart of the world
there lies not wickedness but blessedness?

We, of course, are not the world’s savior.
We are not the hope of the world.
We will not relieve the world of its wickedness.
But Jesus, the wisdom of God,
who is the world’s righteousness, 
sanctification, 
and redemption, 
has called us by his grace 
to a blessedness
that bears witness to his power 
to transform lives
and transform the world.
Let us listen to him and learn from him
and pray earnestly to him 
that his word 
may take root and bear fruit is us,
so that God in his mercy
might have mercy on us all.

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 49:3, 5-6; 1 Corinthians 1:1-3; John 1:29-34

VIDEO

John the Baptist, 
who featured so prominently 
in our Advent liturgies,
returns to us today as we embark 
on what the Church calls “Ordinary Time.”
Only now the word he speaks to us
is not “prepare the way of the Lord,”
but “behold the Lamb of God 
who takes away the sin of the world.”
The time of preparation has passed
and we are told to cast our eyes
upon the savior 
for whom we have 
been preparing.

But the life of a Christian
doesn’t really divide up neatly
into preparing and beholding,
as if, after a period of preparation
we are now ready to behold.
For what we are bidden to behold
is a mystery so profound
and a love so immense
that our minds fail in comprehension.
We are called to behold the Lamb 
who bears not simply our sins,
but the sin of the entire world,
the servant to whom God says,
“I will make you a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach 
to the ends of the earth.”
In beholding, we find ourselves
pitifully unprepared, 
totally incapable of receiving 
the one whom we behold,
not simply because of our sins
but because of the surpassing greatness of his love.

Think of how the words of John the Baptist
feature in our liturgy each week.
Before communion we are invited 
to behold the Lamb of God,
to behold the one who takes away
the sin of the world.
And how do we respond?
“Lord, I am not worthy…”
I am not worthy even though
I have confessed my sins 
and acclaimed your glory.
I am not worthy even though
I have listened to your word
and professed my faith in response.
I am not worthy even though 
I have offered my prayers 
and gifts at your altar
and cried out to the Lamb 
for mercy and peace.
I am not worthy even though
I have spent the entire liturgy
preparing for this moment,
because when now confronted 
with the reality
of the mystery of God’s love
present body and blood, 
soul and divinity,
in the power of the Spirit,
all my preparation seems as nothing.
I am not worthy to have you 
enter under my roof
not because I am sinful,
but because your love is so great
that the house of my soul cannot contain it.

We might be tempted to think 
that what is called for
is more preparation, 
more work to be done
before we can receive him,
more earnest effort on our part 
to enlarge the house of our soul.
But this is not the word
Christ speaks to us at that moment.
Rather, he says “blessed are those
who are called to the supper of the Lamb.”
Blessed are those called to feast on the one
who takes away the sin of the world.
Blessed are those to whom he says “come,”
to whom he speaks the word that is healing 
for our cramped, little souls.

For when Christ enters us sacramentally
the walls of our souls are pressed outward
by a love exceeding every human love,
the love that encompasses all,
the love that takes away the sin of the world.
The book of Sirach (24:21) says,
“He who eats of me will hunger still,
he who drinks of me will thirst for more.” 
The supper of the Lamb,
expanding our souls, 
only makes us hungrier—
hungrier to love him
and hungrier to love as he loves:
loving the enemy and the sinful,
loving the outcast and the stranger,
loving scandalously and without measure.

The life of a Christian
doesn’t divide up neatly
into preparing and beholding,
but there is a kind of rhythm to it.
We prepare,
we behold,
we receive,
and in receiving we are drawn into
a more rigorous kind of preparing,
a more perceptive sort of beholding,
a more profound way of receiving.
We confess our sins, knowing that,
despite our firm resolution of amendment,
we must still strive not to sin again.
We hear God’s word, knowing that, 
because we see still dimly, as in a mirror,
we must always listen to it anew.
We receive God’s grace, knowing that,
if God’s Spirit is to lodge in us,
then the house of our soul 
will once again have to be enlarged.

Becoming a Christian is not 
a one-and-done affair
in which, having prepared,
we now behold and receive.
The life of a Christian is not a straight line
but a kind of forward-moving spiral,
in which preparing, beholding, and receiving
are recurring moments along the way
of our pilgrimage into the mystery of divine love.
Thanks be to God that Jesus,
the pioneer and perfecter of our faith
joins us on that spiraling journey 
to the supper of the Lamb.
Lamb of God, 
who takes away the sins of the world,
have mercy on us and grant us your peace.