14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Ezekiel 2:2-5; 2 Corinthians 12:7-10; Mark 6:1-6

I don’t typically look to summer blockbusters or superheroes
for the starting point of a homily,
but in light of today’s readings
I could not help but think
of the new “reboot” of Spider-man
that debuted this past week.
The villain in the movie,
the one-armed mad scientist Dr. Curt Conners,
is driven to harness the regenerative power of reptiles –
you know, the way that lizards can regrow their tails –
not only so that he can regrow his own missing arm,
but so that he might create, as he puts it,
“a world without weakness.”

Well, as usually happens to mad scientists,
Dr. Connors’s ambitions involve him
in some serious technological overreach and
(spoiler alert!)
he ends up turning himself
into a giant reptilian monster
and terrorizing New York City
until Spider-man comes along
to save the day.

As I said, I don’t usually look for wisdom from movies,
particularly not from ones
in which the main character dresses in Spandex,
but in this case I think that,
in addition to some awesome 3-D special effects,
we have a genuine insight:
our desire to create a world without weakness,
no matter how well intentioned it may seem,
will in the end destroy our humanity,
because in this life
weakness is part of our human condition.

It was the rhetoric of ridding the world of weakness
that accompanied Hitler’s murderous campaign
to cleanse the world of so-called inferior races.
It is perhaps a desire for a world without weakness
that accounts for the fact that at least 70% of pregnancies
in which the fetus is diagnosed with Down Syndrome
are terminated.
It is the quest for what we might call
“a Church without weakness”
that leads some to desire a smaller, “purer” Church,
presumably one that is rid of all those
who might struggle with the teachings of the Church
on various matters of faith and morals.
And it is the desire for a self without weakness
that leads us either to deny our own frailty,
or to loath the frailty within ourselves
that we cannot deny.

Our second reading,
from Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians,
is one of the New Testament’s profound reflections
on the grace of living in a world of weakness.
Paul says that God gave him
a “thorn in the flesh,
an angel [or ‘messenger’] of Satan” –
in order to remind him of his weakness.
This might refer to a physical disability
or perhaps to some sort of moral temptation
to which Paul was prone,
but, whatever the nature of this “thorn,”
when Paul prays three times to have it removed
God says in reply, “My grace is sufficient for you,
for power is made perfect in weakness.”

Power is made perfect in weakness.
St. Thomas Aquinas comments
that this is “a remarkable way of speaking,”
sort of like saying
“fire increases in water” (Super 2 Cor. cap. 12 lec. 3).
But this remarkable way of speaking
should be, for we who are Christians,
our native language,
because it allows us to speak eloquently of God’s grace.
If we boast of our weakness –
if we acknowledge our fragility –
then, Paul tells us,
the power of Christ will dwell in us.
The power of Christ is not a power
that makes a world without weakness
but rather a power that makes its dwelling
within our world of weakness,
a power that inhabits weakness,
in order to offer a way through weakness
into God’s embrace.
The cross shows us
the perfection of power in weakness in all its mystery,
for it is our faith as Christians
that through the cross of Jesus
God has poured out the power of grace,
a grace abundant to save an entire world of weakness.
And when we know our own weakness we are set free
to embrace the very power of God.

When we accept our own weakness
we are also set free to accept the weakness of others,
to give up our dream of the perfect spouse or child,
our dream of the perfect Church,
our dream of a world without weakness.
To know your own weakness is to have God’s Spirit
open your heart to others
in compassion and mercy.

What is your weakness?
What is the thorn in your flesh?
In a sense, it doesn’t matter.
What matters
is that we all live in a world of weakness.
What matters
is that God invites us today to know our weakness
so that we may know fully
the power of God’s grace at work in us.
We should not seek a world without weakness,
for when we are weak –
when we know our own helplessness
and our need for mercy –
it is then we are strong in mercy
through the power of God.

Trinity Sunday

Readings: Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40; Romans 8:14-17; Matthew 28:16-20

When we think about salvation – 

what it is that we mean when we say 

that we are saved through Christ – 

most people probably think in terms of the death of Jesus

and our sins being forgiven.

This is of course true – 

our sins have been forgiven through the death of Jesus – 

but the language of the Bible concerning salvation and

the images used to depict our rescue from the human condition

are much richer than that.

In our second reading, 

from the letter to the Romans, 

Paul uses adoption as an image for salvation.

He says that those who are led by the Spirit of God

are sons and daughters of God:

the Spirit of God he calls a “Spirit of adoption.”

In the ancient world the concept of family 

was wider than our modern notion of the nuclear family.

There were a number of ways 

one could be a part of a family:

families included not only parent and children, 

but also the servants or slaves 

who worked in the household.

In fact, in the Roman world, 

abandoned infants were more likely 

to be taken into families as slaves

than to be adopted as heirs.

So Paul, writing to the Christians in Rome, 

wants to assure them 

that they have been brought into God’s family 

not to be slaves, but to be children and inheritors 

of eternal life in God’s kingdom.

We are not to serve God out of fear, as a slave would,

but out of a love that is a reflection 

of the loving generosity

that God has shown to us in our adoption.

Paul says that this Spirit of adoption makes us

“heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.”

The Spirit of God, Paul says,  

makes us cry out to God 

using the same name that the Gospels tell us

Jesus himself used: “Abba, Father.”

What Jesus was by his very nature – 

the only begotten child of God 

and heir to God’s kingdom –

we have become 

through the grace of the Holy Spirit,

the Spirit of adoption.

This is what it means to be saved:

to be inheritors with Jesus of eternal life

through our adoption in the Holy Spirit.

I know that a number of people in our parish

know very directly what this says about God’s love.

Whether adoptive parents or adopted children,

they know how deep that bond of love can be,

how gracious and grace-filled this act of generosity is,

how expansive of the bounds of family,

reaching out beyond the bonds of nature

to create new bonds of grace.

Adoptive parents and adopted children

and even those parents who,

entrusting their children to someone else’s care, 

have surrendered their children for adoption,

know in a particular way 

how great is the power of God’s love. 

But why talk about this on Trinity Sunday?

Shouldn’t a Trinity Sunday homily be an attempt

to explain puzzling words in the Creed 

like “consubstantial”

or to find some lame analogy 

for the three persons and one nature of God,

or at least to talk about St. Patrick and shamrocks?

Why talk about adoption?

The doctrine of the Trinity 

is not advanced mathematics for Christians

in which we somehow make one and one and one 

add up to one.

The doctrine of the Trinity 

is the mystery of our gracious adoption 

by the Holy Spirit 

by which we become coheirs with Christ

of eternal life with the one 

whom we can now call “Abba, Father.”

The doctrine of the Trinity tells us that, 

just as children are adopted into the love 

that binds together the members of their adoptive family,

we have been adopted 

into the mystery of interpersonal love

by which the Father, Son and Spirit are one God.

This is why in our Gospel today 

Christ commands his disciples 

to “make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

To become a disciple of Jesus 

is to be adopted into God’s love

and our baptism in the name of the Trinity 

is our ritual of adoption.

So let us on this Trinity Sunday give thanks to God

for the Spirit of adoption that has been given to us,

the mystery of eternal love of which we are heirs.

Easter 5

Readings: Acts 9:26-31; 1 John 3:18-24; John 15:1-8

Maybe it is just a phenomenon of middle age,

but I sometimes find myself walking into a room

and having to stop and ask, “what was it that I come in here for?

What was it that I was going to do?”

More significantly, and this too might be a phenomenon of middle age,

I sometimes find myself stopping in the midst of my daily life,

in the middle of some part of my job or some family chore,

and asking myself, “why am I doing this?

What is the larger context that made this activity make sense?”
I think it's what they call a mid-life crisis.

But whatever our age, I suspect all of us have those moments

when we pause in the middle of our everyday tasks

and ask, “why am I doing this?”

I find this is no less true in the life of the Church.

It is possible to find ourselves pausing 

in the routine activities

associated with this thing we call “Church”

and asking “why am I doing this?

What was it that I come in here for?”

Maybe you are someone whose participation in the Church

is focused mainly on coming to Mass 

and trying to live a Christian life.

Or maybe you are one of those more “activist” parishioners,

who volunteers to help with all sort of parish activities.

Or maybe you are even what might be called 

a “professional” Catholic,

someone who works for the Church

or devotes most of your time to Church-related activities.

Whatever the nature and level 

of your connection to the Church,

I suspect all of us have those moments

when we pause and ask, 

“What was it that I came in here for?

What was it I was going to do?”

Whether your involvement is on the level

of being a “professional” Church person

or an “activist” parishioner

or even of simply coming to Mass

I think we can all lose sight of the larger reality

that helps us understand 

why we are doing what we are doing;

we can all lose the broader context

that makes this whole Church thing make sense.

And when this happens, we can become discouraged.

We focus on all the imperfections and disappointments

that go along with Church life.

If your contact with the Church is mainly coming to Mass

it might be changes in the translation of the liturgy 

that you stumble over

or silly and annoying homilies

or political stands taken by the Church 

that you disagree with.

If you are an “activist” parishioner

it might be a sense of being under-appreciated

or of frustration that there are not more people

who share your level of commitment.

If you are a “professional” Catholic

it might be anger at clueless or even bullying superiors

or what you perceive as the lack of response 

among those you serve.

Whether we are correct 

in our feelings about these things or not,

whether the things that irk us 

are truly irksome or not,

if we make them the focus of our attention,

without keeping in mind the larger context,

this is a recipe for discouragement 

and disappointment

that will end either in a perpetual state 

of low-level bitterness

or even an eventual abandonment 

of the Church entirely.

It is only if we keep in mind the larger context

of all the myriad activities 

that go into this thing called Church

that we will find the Church life-giving.

But what is this larger context?

Today’s gospel puts it very simply:

“I am the vine, you are the branches.

Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit,

because without me you can do nothing.”

If we forget that the Church

is really about our unity in and with Jesus Christ

then we will be overwhelmed 

by the Church’s human imperfections,

which is really a matter of being overwhelmed 

by our own imperfections.

If we lose a sense of the Church

as the reality of our being joined together in Jesus Christ

through the sacraments and the scriptures 

and our love for one another,

then disappointment and disillusion are inevitable.

If we cannot see the Church first and foremost

as that which connects us to each other

and to the one without who we can do nothing,

then it is just one more sphere of petty politics.

So when we find ourselves asking 

concerning our life in the Church

“what was it that I come in here for?”

perhaps we need to step back and look for the reality

of the vine onto which we have been grafted as branches,

the vine that unites us to one another,

the vine without which we can do nothing,

the vine that is the risen and living Jesus Christ. 

Easter 2

Readings: Acts 4:32-35; 1 John 5:1-6; John 20:19-31

Thomas said he wouldn’t believe
until he saw the body.
And who can blame him;
it seems, after all,
a pretty incredible story.
Thomas said he wouldn’t believe
until he touched the body of Jesus
with his own hands,
saw its wounds,
put his fingers in the nail holes,
put his hand into the wound in his side.
Thomas said he wouldn’t believe
unless there were some way
in which he could experience for himself
the concrete presence of the risen Christ.

Thomas said he would not believe it,
and who can blame him?
Why should we believe something
without at least some evidence?
Why should we believe
not only that death could not defeat Jesus,
but that his very body itself was raised to life?
If his body still lives, show it to me.

In the Gospel today,
Jesus gives Thomas what he asks for:
“he said to Thomas,
‘Put your finger here and see my hands,
and bring your hand and put it into my side,
and do not be unbelieving, but believe.’”
And Thomas responds
with one of the boldest confessions
of faith in Jesus
in the entire New Testament:
“My Lord and my God!”

So much for Thomas;
he got what he asked for.
But what about us?
Jesus said, “Blessed are those
who have not seen and have believed.”
And yet, we still want to see;
we still want something tangible
to make this incredible claim more credible.
If Jesus is truly risen, then where is his body?

“The community of believers
was of one heart and mind,
and no one claimed
that any of his possessions was his own,
but they had everything in common. . . .
There was no needy person among them.”

Among the first disciples in the city of Jerusalem
the new life of the risen Jesus was palpable
in their love for each other,
in the concrete actions that showed that love,
in their unity of heart and mind.

If Jesus is truly risen, then where is his body?
At Corpus Christi parish in Baltimore Maryland
people give many hours of their time
planning liturgies,
toiling over budgets,
preparing music,
distributing food,
taking communion to the sick and shut in.

If Jesus is truly risen, then where is his body?
At Corpus Christi parish in Baltimore Maryland
people gather to pray
for themselves and for the world;
they sing their songs of praise
to the God of life;
they initiate children and adults
into Christ’s family;
they take, bless, break and share
Christ’s Eucharistic body and blood;
they mourn with each other in sorrow
and rejoice with each other in gladness.

I do not mention these things
in order to flatter you.
We all know that we,
both as individuals and as a community,
are far from perfect,
that we often fail to be a clear sign
of the dying and rising of Christ,
that we can be as petty or ill-tempered
or lazy or selfish as anyone else.
Sometimes it takes an act of faith
to believe that we are
what our name proclaims:
Corpus Christi, the body of Christ.
But our faith tells us that by God’s grace
we are that risen body,
that in our best moments
the Spirit of truth finds a way
to bear witness through us
to the truth that Jesus Christ is truly risen,
that his body lives.
And not only in us,
but in the many members of Christ’s body
throughout the world.

Like Thomas, the world will only believe
if it can see the risen Christ for itself.
St. Thomas Aquinas said,
“nothing shows the truth of the gospel better
than the love of those who believe”
(Super Io. cap. 17 lec. 5 no. 2241).
So let us seek to love one another,
let us open our hearts to the Spirit
who can make of us that risen body,
so that the world might see,
so that the world might believe,
that Christ is truly risen.

Easter Vigil

Readings: Genesis 1:1-2:2; Exodus 14:15-15:1; Isaiah 54:5-14; 55:1-11; Baruch 3:9-15, 32 -- 4:4; Ezekiel 36:16-17a, 18-22; Romans 6:3-11; Mark 16:1-7

Why are you here?

Could you not think of anything better to do 

on a Saturday night

than to come to church for two-and-a-half hours

and light candles and listen to huge chunks of Scripture

and bless water and remember you baptism

and celebrate the Eucharist late in the night?

Why would you do such a strange thing?

What have you come looking for?

Maybe you came because your life is going well

and you want celebrate the joy that you feel in you heart.

Maybe you came because you seek solace 

for the sorrow you carry 

and cannot seem to  put down.

Maybe you came because you always come,

because at some point you fell hopelessly in love

with the liturgy and lore of Christ’s Church,

and despite the ups and downs of your faith

you simply cannot imagine Easter without the Vigil.

Maybe you came because of all three.

I know that our parish as a community 

and we as individuals

have in the past year celebrated 

new births, new jobs, new homes, new friendships:

all of which we come to celebrate in the joy of this night.

I also know the some of us have suffered losses:

frustrations at work, financial troubles,

illnesses, anxiety, disappointments, deaths.

We bring these things too to this night.

For “this is the night,

when Christ broke the prison-bars of death 

and rose victorious from the underworld.”

This is the night 

in which the stone that sealed the tomb 

where hope was buried

is rolled away.

If you brought joy with you,

let this night increase your joy a thousand-fold.

If you brought sorrow,

let this night drown those sorrows

in the flood of new life 

that has burst forth from the tomb.

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

But what about tomorrow?

What about the next day?

What about when Easter is over 

and we are back in the midst of our daily lives,

back in the midst of our everyday joys and sorrows? 

Notice that in Mark’s account of the resurrection

the women do not see the risen Jesus –

rather they see only the empty tomb 

and the stone rolled away,

a sign of hope.

Remember the message 

that the women who find the empty tomb

are given to carry back to the disciples:

“He is going before you to Galilee;

there you will see him as he told you.”

Galilee:

the obscure province 

where they first encountered Jesus;

the place of their daily lives 

as fishermen and tax collectors;

the place that they left 

to follow Jesus on his journey to Jerusalem

where the great drama of death and resurrection 

would be played out.

Back to Galilee,

back to daily life,

back to their everyday joys and sorrows.

This is the night, 

in which we have been given a sign of hope,

a tomb burst open.

But when you leave here tonight

you will return to your own Galilees,

your own daily lives,

your own joys and sorrows.

The message of this night is that, 

“there you will see him, as he told you.”

Why are you here?

Because this is the night:

the night of the great drama of death and resurrection,

the night when we are given a sign of hope

that we cannot live without.

But tomorrow, 

and the next day, 

and the day after that –

as you celebrate your daily joys

and struggle with your daily sorrows –

in that place of your daily life,

“there you will see him, as he has told you.”

On this night of nights

may God bless you 

as you go forth to Galilee

to meet the risen Jesus. 

Palm Sunday

Readings: Mark 11:1-10; Isaiah 50:4-7; Philippians 2:6-11; Mark 14:1-15:47

What a waste.

An entire alabaster jar of expensive perfumed oil

broken and poured upon the head

of an obscure rabbi 

from one of the more distant and impoverished districts.

It could have been sold

and the money spent for some practical purpose.

What a waste.

In a few days he would be dead anyway.

What a waste.

Jesus arrived in Jerusalem to the joyous cries of the crowds,

ready to accept him as their king, as David’s heir.

Now could have been the moment

when he leveraged his political capital

and brought change that we could believe in.

What a waste.

He squandered that political capital

by claiming to be more than a king,

by claiming to be the Christ, the son of the Blessed one,

by claiming that God is his Abba, his father.

And now he is publicly tormented in a shameful death.

What a waste.

“Though he was in the form of God,”

the eternal Son, fully sharing in divinity,

“Jesus did not regard equality with God 

something to be grasped.

Rather, he emptied himself,”

pouring himself out like the perfumed oil 

from the woman’s alabaster jar,

“taking the form of a slave, 

coming in human likeness, 

humbling himself. . .

becoming obedient to the point of death, 

even death on a cross.”

What a foolish, senseless waste.

But the foolishness of God is wiser than worldly wisdom.

“The Lord God is my help, therefore I am not disgraced;

I have set my face like flint, 

knowing that I shall not be put to shame.”

Because he willingly poured out his life

for love of God 

and for love of each and every one of us,

“God greatly exalted him,”

raising him up and revealing him 

to be the Lord of creation;

raising him up so that the lives of all those

who have poured themselves out 

in the cause of love,

like precious ointment from an alabaster jar,

might rise also with him,

their lives not wasted

but truly found, truly saved, even unto eternity.

Lent 3

Readings: Exodus 20:1-17; 1 Corinthians 1:22-25, John 2:13-25

Both our second reading and our Gospel

speak of our human desire for some sort of sign.

In John’s Gospel the people ask Jesus for a sign

that would help them to understand 

his mysterious actions in the Temple

and to know whether or not to believe in him.

In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians,

he says that the Greeks will not believe 

without rational arguments,

and his own Jewish people will not believe 

without signs.

The word “sign,” in the New Testament,

carries some pretty heavy theological freight –

meaning something like a “miracle” or a “mighty deed” –

something that is an indicator of God’s presence and activity.

It might help, however, to step back just a bit 

from these theological meanings

and to think about signs in their more mundane sense:

as things that help us figure out where we are

and that point us in the right direction.

One thing about signs in this mundane sense

is that you have to keep your eyes peeled for them,

and sometimes they can be very hard to see:

I certainly have had the experience of driving at night,

perhaps through heavy rain and high winds,

not entirely sure that I am even moving in the right direction,

and squinting through my foggy windshield

trying to read names on street signs

but finding myself unable to see one.

I don’t know if it’s a prayer or a cry of frustration,

but I have found myself muttering under my breath,

just give me a sign!

Not the heavens opening up,

not an angel with a flaming sword,

but just something to point me to where I need to go.

You also need to know how to read the signs:

to know that the squiggly black line

means the road is about to get curvy

or that what looks like a “T”

means that your road 

is about to dead-end into another road.

You have to make sure 

that you’re not so busy looking for one kind of sign –

say, a sign with a street name –

that you don’t miss another, 

perhaps more important, sort of sign –

say, a Stop sign.

Misreading signs, or reading the wrong signs,

can be a dangerous business.

Now many of you are perhaps thinking,

Why don’t you just get a GPS?

Why squint through your windshield 

on a dark and rainy night,

trying to catch a glimpse 

of a road name or highway number

to reassure you that you are moving in the right direction,

when you can have the dulcet tones 

of your Global Positioning System,

perhaps speaking in the voice of your favorite celebrity,

telling you, “turn right ahead” or

“you missed your turn; turn around and go back”?

Well, maybe a GPS would be a good idea for driving,

but in matters of faith 

there is no Global Positioning System.

As far as I can tell, 

God does not sit on your shoulder

and say “turn right ahead”

or “you’re dating the wrong person; 

turn around and go back.”

As far as I can tell, we have only signs 

that we must try to read and interpret

without ever having vision 

as clear as we would like it to be:

that is what we mean by the word “faith.”

The people in our Gospel who ask Jesus for a sign 

are not wrong in asking;

their error lies in not understanding 

that when he says,

“Destroy this temple 

and in three days I will raise it up”

he is saying that his death – 

the destruction of the temple of his body –

and his resurrection to new life on the third day

will be the true sign of God’s power

and the only real basis for faith in him.

The Greeks are not wrong for wanting wisdom

and the Jews are not wrong 

in seeking signs of divine power;

the error is in not seeing, in the crucified Jesus,

“Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

The cross is the sign that shows us the path to true life,

the sign that we must discern in faith.

St. Thomas Aquinas said that whoever wishes to live fully

only need look to the cross

and reject what Christ rejected there

and desire what Christ desired there.

What Christ rejected was all attachment 

to riches and honor and glory;

what Christ desired was love, patience, humility

and obedience to God (Sermon 6 on the Apostles’ Creed).

In this way, the cross truly is a sign 

that directs us on our journey toward God.

There is no cosmic GPS for the journey of faith,

no magic voice to guide us through each and every turn.

Indeed, the journey of faith often takes place

on what seems to be a dark and unmarked road

with heavy rains and strong winds.

But when the road seems darkest 

the cross of Jesus still shines forth,

showing us where we are, 

pointing us in the right direction,

and revealing to us the path to true life.

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Job 7:1-4, 6-7; 1 Corinthians 9: 16-19, 22-23; Mark 1:29-39

In our first reading, Job sounds pretty unhappy –

and with good reason.

He is a righteous man 

who has lost his wealth and his family

because, unknown to him, 

God has allowed Satan to test him.

He has no explanation for his misery

but he will not accept the conventional wisdom 

offered by his friends

that prosperity in this life is a reward for goodness

and that suffering is a punishment for evil,

since he is suffering and yet knows he has done no evil.

The only conclusion he can draw 

is that human life on this earth

is simply a life of drudgery,

that he is like a slave who can expect 

no justice from his master,

that his life is like the wind

and that his days will end 

without hope or happiness.

In other words, having rejected the idea 

that the misfortunes that we suffer

are a just punishment for our wrongdoings,

he seems to have come to the conclusion

that there is no reason why some prosper and others suffer.

And yet Job refuses to break off his dialogue with God,

hoping against hope that God will provide an explanation.

The book of Job manages in the end 

to give Job something like a happy ending,

with his property restored,

without falling back into the idea 

that prosperity in this life is a reward for goodness

and that suffering is a punishment for evil.

When God finally speaks with Job 

this is only to strengthen Job’s conviction

that the reason why there is so much suffering in this life

is ultimately a mystery to us.

And  we have not gotten very far in the centuries since

in dispelling that mystery.

Even those people of great faith 

who can sincerely say

in the face of their own tragedy and suffering

that everything happens for a reason,

that everything is a part of God’s plan,

cannot claim to know how specific tragic events fit into that plan.

The passage of the centuries has not really increased our ability

to find reasons for our suffering or the suffering of others.

Knowing that worldly attainment is temporary 

and wealth tenuous

does not take away the difficulty 

of losing a job or a home.

Knowing that relationships are fragile 

and hearts are fickle

does not lessen the pain 

of a broken marriage.

Knowing that death is the common lot 

of all human beings

does not eliminate the fear and grief that grips us

when faced with the death of someone we love.

I suspect all of us here have, at some time,

found ourselves in a darkness like Job’s.

I suspect that all of us have, at some time,

found all of the proffered explanation of the world’s pain

as unsatisfactory as the arguments made by Job’s friends.

And while we might someday be able to say

that everything happens for a reason,

that everything is a part of God’s plan,

this is really more a statement of faith and hope

than it is an explanation of tragedy, pain and suffering.

And in our Gospel today,

we find Jesus smack dab in the middle 

of our tragedy, pain and suffering.

He enters into Simon’s house 

and heals his mother in law:

“He approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up.”

As word of this healing spreads, Mark tells us,

“they brought to him all 

who were ill or possessed by demons”

and “the whole town was gathered at the door.”

The whole town. . .

the pain and suffering of an entire community 

brought to Jesus,

so that he could heal them of their illnesses,

so that he could free them of their demons.

He doesn’t offer them any explanation for their pain,

but plunges into the midst of that pain

to heal what is wounded and to drive out what is evil.

He is there with them not to explain 

but to grasp their hands and help them up.

God’s answer to the question of human suffering

is the healing presence of Jesus.

But it remains a mysterious answer.

Tragedy, pain and suffering remain with us

as long as we are on our pilgrimage toward God’s kingdom.

The presence of Jesus with us on that journey

is no guarantee of immunity from pain and suffering.

Indeed, Jesus himself drinks deeply 

from the cup of suffering on the cross;

God incarnate shares the lot of Job and of all who suffer,

definitively refuting the idea 

that prosperity in this life is a reward for goodness

and that suffering is a punishment for evil.

Jesus speaks to God on behalf of generations of humanity

when he cries out, 

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

But he also speaks to those same generations on behalf of God;

in his resurrection he speaks a word of comfort and a call to faith.

The mystery of human suffering remains,

but in Jesus that mystery has been taken up into God

so that it may be healed,

so that he might draw near to us, 

grasp our hands, 

and help us up,

so that we might continue with him 

on the journey to God’s kingdom.

Epiphany

Readings: Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6; Matthew 2:1-12

When God made the covenant with Abraham

and established the Israelites as God’s people,

God made clear that this was not simply 

for the benefit of Abraham

or of the nation that his descendants would become,

but it was for the blessing 

of “all the families of nations” (Genesis 12:3).

Over the centuries the Jewish people 

came to think of this

in terms of the “pilgrimage of the nations”

that we hear spoken of in our first reading:

“Nations shall walk by your light,

and kings by your shining radiance.

Raise your eyes and look about;

they all gather and come to you. . . .

the riches of the sea 

shall be emptied out before you,

the wealth of nations 

shall be brought to you. . . .

all from Sheba shall come

bearing gold and frankincense,

and proclaiming the praises of the Lord.”

In other words, if the descendants of Abraham

are faithful to their covenant with God

then they shall be a light to the “nations” – 

the Gentiles –

who shall see that light and come in pilgrimage,

bringing with them all the riches of their cultures,

to worship and serve the God of Israel,

the one true God,

under whose rule all the nations of the earth

shall become one people of God and live in peace.

This was the hope.

This was the dream.

This was what the Jewish people 

looked for God’s anointed one,

God’s messiah,

to do.

When the messiah came, 

he would make Israel

a light to the nations,

to draw all the families of nations 

into God’s family.

The nineteenth century Jesuit poet, 

Gerard Manley Hopkins,

in a journal that he kept while on retreat,

remarked, after spending a day 

meditating on the events of the Epiphany –

the story we have just heard in today’s Gospel –

that the Jewish people had looked 

for the pilgrimage of the nations,

but, “when it came it brought 

an unexpected circumstance with it,

as God’s works always do” 

(Sermons and Devotional Writings, 269).

This is something worth pausing over, for just a moment:

when what they had been hoping for from God

came to pass: 

“it brought an unexpected circumstance with it,

as God’s works always do.”

As God’s works always do:

isn’t this always the way?

What we hope for,

what we wait for,

what we pray for,

never arrives 

in quite the way that we expect it to.

In the case of the story of the Epiphany,

the pilgrimage of the nations

is represented by the three Magi

who come from the east 

seeking “the newborn king of the Jews.”

But they do not find him in King Herod’s palace,

but in the humble dwelling place of Mary and Joseph;

the savior does not arrive with the splendor of a king,

but with the humility of a child;

his parents are not powerful and secure,

but weak and threatened, 

and soon enough in flight for their lives.

“It brought an unexpected circumstance with it,

as God’s works always do.”

The one who summons the world’s nations

to bring their gifts to the God of Israel

and to become part of God’s people

appears among us as what St. Augustine called

the verbum infans – which we might translate as

“the infant Word, unable to speak a word.”

He is offered gold and incense, 

because he is king and God,

but he is also offered myrrh, 

a spice used in burial,

because he is a king who will rule 

and a God who will save

by living among us as one of us

and by giving his very life for us.

Unexpected circumstances indeed –

circumstances that should drive home for us

that truly it is God who is at work here,

in that typically unexpected way that God has.

It should remind us also that, 

while the work of God in our lives

is also a part of these unexpected circumstances,

God’s work in us is not a puzzle to be solved

but a mystery to be pondered and celebrated:

the mystery of God’s Word found in a speechless infant,

the mystery of life found in death,

the mystery of power found in weakness,

the mystery of the love that unites us as one people of God.

Advent 2

Readings: Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11; 2 Peter3:8-14; Mark 1:1-8

Advent is, of course, a time of expectation –
expectation of the birth of Christ
but also of his second coming –
and in today’s first and second readings
we have voices that present us with images
of the coming salvation of God
that involve a cosmic transformation
of the very fabric of the universe.
Isaiah tells us that, “Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill shall be made low,”
and, even more strikingly,
the Second Letter of Peter says that,
“the day of the Lord will come like a thief,
and then the heavens will pass away with a mighty roar
and the elements will be dissolved by fire,
and the earth and everything done on it will be found out.”

These voices remind us that world as we know it
is merely temporary, not eternal,
and that the very fabric of reality will be transformed
in the marriage of heaven and earth –
transformed by God in a way that we cannot even imagine
and so we must speak of it in metaphors
of valleys being filled in and mountains being laid low,
of heavens roaring and the elements being dissolved in fire.

After presenting such dramatic images Second Peter asks,
“Since everything is to be dissolved in this way,
what sort of persons ought you to be?”
In other words. . . so what?
If this is all true, how does it affect my life now?
Peter answers his own question,
saying that if this is true we should be,
“conducting [our]selves in holiness and devotion,
waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God.”

Waiting and hastening.
These two things might seem incompatible.
How is it that we can patiently wait for something
and yet still impatiently seek to hasten its arrival?
Even more, how can we,
by acting with holiness and devotion,
do both things at the same time:
both waiting and hastening?
In answer to his own question
of what people we ought to be
in the face of God’s coming transformation of the world,
Peter says our lives should be a hastening that waits
and a waiting that hastens.

We need somehow to work for the world’s transformation
while at the same time waiting for that transformation,
which only God can bring about in God’s own time.
That day we work to hasten
is what Second Peter calls “the day of God” –
the day whose coming belongs entirely to God and not to us.

A hastening that waits and a waiting that hastens:
what Peter says about the kind of people we ought to be
might at first sound quite strange and paradoxical
but perhaps it is not so unfamiliar as it first appears.
Think of the process of growing from a child into an adult.

Of course for me that was a long time ago,
so I think of this in terms of my more recent experience
as the parent of teenagers.
I know that, as a parent, I want my children
to work at developing into adults
and to act like the adults they are becoming,
How many times have I said,
“you’re too old to act this way”?
At the same time,
I want them to be patient with themselves,
not to rush too quickly into adulthood,
but to let it arrive in its own good time.
How often have I said,
“Sorry, you’re too young for this”?
I want them both to wait for adulthood
and to hasten toward it.
And this is not, I hope,
simply one more unreasonable parental demand
because, oddly enough,
these two things often occur simultaneously
in a hastening that waits and a waiting that hastens.
Sometimes it is a step toward maturity to recognize
that you are not yet mature enough for something
and that the most adult thing you can do
is to let yourself be a child for a little while longer.
At other times maturity involves stepping forward in faith
into a risky new experience,
despite all hesitation,
trusting that, whether your succeed or you fail,
it is all part of your becoming an adult
though it may require patient waiting before you can see that.

Maybe if those of us who are adults
can recall how it was that we became adults
we can have some idea
of the sort of persons we ought to be
as “we await new heavens and a new earth
in which righteousness dwells.”
If we listen to the voice of the apostle Peter
calling us to cultivate lives
of holy waiting and devoted hastening,
then the Advent season can be for us
a time both of anxious yearning for the world’s redemption
and of patient waiting to receive it as God’s gift.