20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 56:1, 6-7; Romans 11:13-15, 29-32; Matthew 15: 21-28

VIDEO

The story we hear today from Matthew’s Gospel
is also found in the Gospel of Mark,
where the woman is identified
simply as “Syro-Phonecian,”
that is, a Gentile or non-Jew.
But Matthew specifies that she is a Canaanite,
and so draws our attention
to that long and deep history of hatred.
between the Jews and the Canaanites.

The Canaanites were the people 
who occupied the land 
that God gave to the Israelites,
and it was only after long years of bloody conflict
that the Israelites had come to possess that land.
And even then the Canaanites remained
a constant threat to the purity 
of Israel’s exclusive devotion to their one God, 
tempting the Israelites to worship 
the many gods of Canaan.
Of course, from the Canaanite perspective
the Israelites were invaders 
who had taken their land 
and destroyed their cities
and killed their people.
Such hatreds do not die quiet deaths,

and centuries of uneasy coexistence
had not lessened the enmity between
Canaanites and Jews.

All of which makes it surprising
that this Canaanite woman
would not only ask for help
from a Jewish holy man,
but would cry out to him 
as “Son of David”—
David, the Israelite king 
who had taken the city of Jebus
from the Canaanites
and renamed it “Jerusalem,”
the City of David.
What must the name of their conqueror
have felt like in her mouth?
How bitter must it have tasted?
And what hope could she have had
that a Jewish title of honor
on the lips of a Canaanite
might sway this holy man to help her?
What desperation could have led her
to such a seemingly futile act of border-crossing,
to step out of her place as a Canaanite
and into the world of the hated Jews?

Well, as much as she might 
have hated the Jews, 
she also loved her daughter,
and her daughter was in trouble.
Her daughter was not simply in trouble,
but was tormented by a demon,
captive to an evil spiritual power
and beyond human help,
beyond even the help of the gods of Canaan.
Her mother’s love led this woman
to think impossible thoughts:
perhaps the God of her enemies
could do what her gods could not. 
Her mother’s love led her 
to an impossible place:
the borderline between her world
and the world of her hated enemies.
Her mother’s love led her
to an impossible action:
to step across that border
and speak the language of her enemy—
“Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David!”

The reception she received was really 
pretty much what a Canaanite might expect.
The holy man’s disciples 
asked him to send her away, 
back across the border 
she had crossed in her desperation.
The holy man himself said 
everything one might expect 
from one of the Canaanites’ ancient enemies.
His concern was not with her
but solely with his own people:
“I was sent only to the lost sheep
of the house of Israel.”
Precious resources should not 
be wasted on foreigners,
and particularly not on the hated Canaanites:
“It is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs.”
Nothing he said gave hope
that anything she said
could break through the wall 
that separated their two peoples.

Yet her love for her daughter
pressed her forward in a desperate act of faith:
“Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps
that fall from the table of their masters.”
Perhaps, just perhaps, 
this man was not her enemy;
perhaps, just perhaps,
he could be her savior.
Impossible thoughts,
in an impossible place,
give birth to an impossible act:
an act of faith in the God of her enemies,
an act of faith in the God of Israel.
And he says to her impossible words: 
“O woman, great is your faith!
Let it be done for you as you wish.”

The Gospels are full of miracles:
feedings of multitudes and walking on water,
healings of the sick and the calming of storms—
impossible things that so dazzle us 
that we might miss the quiet miracle
of this woman led by God’s grace
across the border of ancient hatreds
into the unknown country of faith.
The desperate love for her daughter
that pushed her forward
was no mere natural love,
but was God’s grace already at work in her,
awakening what seemed an impossible faith.
This is the great work of God,
which tears down walls of hatred,
which crossed borders of enmity;
which conquers fear and unbelief.

This miracle is given to us as well.
God’s grace can lead us across borders 
of hatred, fear, and resentment;
God’s Spirit can reconcile us to God 
and with one another;
God’s love can bind us into one body,
living stones that together form 
a house of prayer for all peoples.
We too find mercy unmerited 
and healing undeserved. 
May God have pity on us and bless us;
may he let his face shine upon us,
and may God, who is merciful,
have mercy on us all.

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: 1 Kings 3:5, 7-12; Romans 8:28-30; Matthew 13:44-52

VIDEO

We all want a lot of different things.
This seems to be part of what it is to be human.
Other animals have pretty limited sets of desires.
My dog, for example, seems to want food and sleep, 
twice-daily walks when he can sniff everything in sight,
and cuddles on the couch in the evening,
and all of these wants are, more or less,
controlled by instinct.
But we human beings are a different story.
We want food and shelter,
but also new cars and an end to world hunger,
recognition by our peers 
and something worth watching on television,
the latest cell phone and a happy marriage,
for our neighbor not to mow his lawn 
at 7:00 AM on Saturday
and for Vladimir Putin 
to withdraw his troops from Ukraine,
to enjoy eternal life in heaven
and to pay off our mortgage.

And each day we discover 

new things to want.
We are desiring machines 
who seem to desire most of all
more things to desire.

Now some people would tell you 
that all of this wanting is bad,
that it is materialistic or selfish 
or a recipe for disappointment.
But this doesn’t seem quite right.
God made us to desire the good,
and it is precisely because things are good
that we want them;
it is their goodness that draws our desire.
And we don’t want just material things;
we want spiritual things like joy and peace.
And we don’t want things just for ourselves;
we want good things for those we love,
and even for the world as a whole.
And while you can avoid disappointment
by avoiding desire,
you do this at the cost of losing
those good things that only come
to those who seek them out.

No, the problem is not with wanting things;
the problem is figuring out how to bring
some kind of order to our desires.
Because sometimes our desires 
are in conflict with each other.
Can we continue to consume 
a never-ending stream of products
and still hope to end world hunger?
Can I sacrifice all for my work
so as to gain recognition from my peers
and still have a happy marriage?
In the vast array of things we want
there is friction and conflict,
a need to prioritize our wants
and even to sacrifice 
some desires for others.
But how do we discern 
which of our wants is better,
which good is more worthy?
Unregulated by the instincts 
of our fellow animals,
our wants can come to seem
like a chaotic ocean 
in which we might drown.

This is why Solomon,
when invited by God 
to ask for whatever he wants
does not ask for a long life or for riches,
nor even for the defeat of Israel’s enemies.
He asks for an understanding heart.
He asks not for something 
from the long litany of wants
that we human beings can easily generate,
but for the gift of wisdom,
that gift of insight
into what is right and what is not,
what is good and what is better.
He asks for the wisdom 
that allows us to know our highest good
so that we can bring order to desire
by judging all things in light of God,
who is the source and goal of all our desiring.

This wisdom is the treasure 
hidden in the field of all our many desires,
it is the pearl of great price,
for which we should be willing to give up
everything that we have or want.
For all of those things,
as good as they may be,
are limited in their goodness.
They clash with each other,
they wear out and vanish.
Only the infinite goodness of God,
the eternal source from which flows forth
the manifold goodness of creatures,
can shed on us the light of wisdom
that will allow us to bring order to our desires,
to see what is good and what is better
by seeing them all in light of what is best.

Jesus does not simply teach this wisdom
in his parables of the hidden treasure
and the pearl of great price.
He lives it in his life,
which is wholly given over 
to the proclamation 
of the good news of God’s kingdom,
and he lives it in his death,
enduring the cross and its shame
for the sake of the joy that lay before him.
Jesus gives all he has for the love of his Father,
and in doing so he gains all,
not simply for himself,
but for all of us,
winning for us eternal life,
becoming the firstborn
among many brothers and sisters.

Being a Christian is not, in the end, 
simply about giving things up;
it is about gaining everything 
by gaining God.
St. Paul tells us that all things 
work for good for those who love God.
If we give our heart to God above all else
then we will know how to love properly 
all those things that are less than God
by desiring them for the sake of God;
we will see them in the light cast
by the eternity that Christ has won for us
and so be able to choose the better 
for the sake of the best.
So let us give our all 
for that pearl of great price,
the treasure of the wisdom 
revealed in Christ,
and may God who is merciful
have mercy on us all.

15th Week in Ordinary Time--Tuesday

Readings: Exodus 2:1-15a; Matthew 11:20-24

I recall meeting once with a couple 
that was preparing for marriage.
The groom was a convinced atheist
who liked to argue theology,
and his future wife,
an equally convinced Catholic Christian,
had spent many hours 
answering his objections
with saint-like patience.
The groom asked me,
“If God really wanted me to believe in him,
why wouldn’t he simply appear to me
and tell me that he exists?”
I replied that maybe God was not the kind of being
who appeared and disappeared willy-nilly,
that maybe there was something
inherently hidden and mysterious about God.
To which he responded: 
“Well then, why wouldn’t he send 
some kind of messenger,
someone truly trustworthy 
and without ulterior motive,
to tell me that God existed.”
At which point I simply 
pointed at his fiancée 
and asked him what more 
he was looking for.

My clever response did little to change his mind,
perhaps because it wasn’t as clever as I thought,
or perhaps because, 
even when we say we are looking 
for proof or evidence,
what really needs changing 
is not our minds, but our hearts.
Jesus does not say to Chorazin and Bethsaida
that if Tyre and Sidon had seen his mighty deeds
they would have taken up new opinions,
admitted that God was operating 

without secondary causes,
or adopted a properly orthodox Christology.
No, he says, “they would long ago 
have repented in sackcloth and ashes.”
So often our purported “intellectual difficulties”
are immune to proof and evidence
because it is our hearts 
that are mired in patterns of desire 
from which we cannot break free,
habits of self-love that we are loath to give up,
fears that hold us back from the risk of faith.
Pascal said of the probative power of miracles,
“[T]here is enough evidence to condemn 
and not enough to convince; 
and it seems that those who follow it 
are motivated by grace and not reason, 
and that those who shun it 
are motivated by concupiscence 
and not reason” (Pensées §423).

It is good for us who are theologians
to remember that the world
is not looking to be convinced
by a clever response or even a good argument.
The world is looking for the sign of Jonah,
the sign of love that empties itself
and emerges victorious from the tomb.
The world is looking for the grace of Christ
that alone can offer new life.
Let us pray that we ourselves
will receive that grace,
so that we can offer ourselves,

in union with Christ,
for the life of the world.
And may God, who is merciful,
have mercy on us all.

 

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 55:10-11; Romans 8:18-23; Matthew 13:1-9

In the book of Genesis, 
after Adam and Eve have 
eaten from the forbidden tree,
God pronounces a number of “curses”
upon the human race—
conditions that will prevail
as human history moves forward, 
signs of our fallen state.
Among these is what God says to Adam:
“Cursed is the ground because of you!... 
Thorns and thistles it shall bear for you,
and you shall eat the grass of the field.
By the sweat of your brow
you shall eat bread,
until you return to the ground,
from which you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return” (Gen 3:17-19).

This forms the background 
of Jesus’ parable of the sower.
The soil in which the sower sows
is stony, thorny, shallow, 
subject to scorching sun
and ravenous birds.
Farming such land was difficult, unrewarding work.
A peasant farmer in Jesus’ day could expect at best 
a four or fivefold return on the seed he sowed.
The world in which the parable unfolds 
is a world marked by the effect of human sin,
a world marked by the curse of Adam.

In our second reading, 
Paul describes the same world:
a creation, “made subject to futility”
and “groaning in labor pains 
even until now.”
We not only see the curse of creation
in the inhospitable earth 
from which we wrest our living; 
we feel it in ourselves:
“we also groan within ourselves
as we wait for adoption, 
the redemption of our bodies,”
the bodies of dust
that will to dust return.
The hopes and aspirations 
on which we live
bear meager fruit, 
if they bear any fruit at all.
Even we who have put our faith in Christ
and have been joined to him through grace
share in this universal groaning.
Our lives are not immune 
to the frustrations of living
in a world of stony, thorny, shallow soil.
We who have been joined 
to Christ the new Adam
still live amidst the devastation 
wrought by the old Adam.

In the context of the parable of the sower,
which Jesus goes on to explain as an allegory
of the scattering of God’s word in the world
and the mixed response it receives,
we might think of the frustrations found
in our own attempts to spread God’s word.

On a large, societal scale, 
there seems to be in our own country
an increasing indifference, 
and in some quarters outright hostility,
to the Gospel that the Church proclaims.
Some of this the Church has brought on herself,
through failing to live out the Gospel,
whether from laziness and lukewarmness,
or from preferring to protect our institutions
rather than embracing the radical call of the Gospel
to faith, hope, and love.
Some of it, however, 
is because the soil in which we sow
has become stony with cynicism,
thorny with self-indulgence, 
and shallow with false ideologies 
that promise salvation
but cannot save us from ourselves.

On a smaller, more personal scale,
we look around us and notice 
that there are people missing—
friends and acquaintances who once joined us in worship
but who must have found something that they think 
is more rewarding to do with their Sunday mornings.
I am mindful especially of those of us 
who are parents with adult children,
and who sometimes dutifully, sometimes joyfully,
sowed the seed of the word in our children
by bringing them to religious formation,
making sure that they received the sacraments,
praying for them and with them,
even discussing the faith with them 
and engaging in works of charity with them,
only to see them gradually drift away,
or even angrily and dramatically depart,
and join the ranks of those 
whom sociologists call “nones”—
those who are religiously unaffiliated,
and often claim to be religiously indifferent.
Parents can find themselves asking,
“Could I have done more?”
and groan in pain 
at a sense of having failed
to produce a rich harvest of faith 
within their children.
 
But the parable of the sower 
is not about the failure of the sower,
but about his success.
Despite the curse of Adam,
despite the devastated earth,
despite the groaning of creation,
the sower’s labors bring forth
not the usual four or fivefold harvest,
but thirty or sixty or a hundredfold.
Our psalm today speaks not 
of a cursed, devastated, groaning world
but of fields that “shout and sing for joy.”
God promises through the prophet Isaiah,
“my word shall not return to me void,
but shall do my will,
achieving the end for which I sent it.”
Threaded throughout the rather bleak assessment
of the world’s condition that our scriptures offer us
is a persistent note of joy and abundance,
a constant reminder that though the world is,
as the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins puts it,
“seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil”
still, by the grace of God and the gift of the Spirit,
“there lives the dearest freshness deep down things.”

Our ability to believe in the freshness 
of these deep down things
even amid the world’s devastation
depends on seeing two things.

First, the sower in the parable is God, not us.
Of course, we all have our role to play
in sowing God’s word,
in giving an account of the hope that is in us
and bearing witness with our lives.
But were our hopes only in our own efforts,
then our groaning would be the whole story.
The point of the parable, however, 
is that it is Christ 
who sows the word in us 
and in the world,
Christ the new Adam 
who can bring forth an abundant harvest
even amid the curse wrought by the old Adam.

Second, we are still in the middle of the process;
we are not yet at the end of the parable.
Though no doubt there is unwelcoming soil,
we should not presume that we know where that is;
we should not presume that what we can see
reveals to us the still hidden work of the Spirit.
The time of harvest has not yet come
and the thirty, sixty, hundredfold yield
still remains in the future. 
We do not yet know 
where the seeds of the word
will take root and grow.
We do not yet know who will prove
to have been good or bad soil.

So when we look around us 
and lament the absence
of those who once were here,
of those who might be here but are not,
we should, even as we seek 
with patient persistence
to sow the word,
take heart from our faith
that the sufferings of this present time 
are as nothing
compared with the glory of God’s mercy 
still to be revealed for us,
in thirty, sixty, 
and hundredfold abundance.

Trinity Sunday

Readings: Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9; 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; John 3:16-18

VIDEO

In our second reading today,
St. Paul exhorts the Corinthian Christians,
“Greet one another with a holy kiss.”
Paul was not simply instructing them on etiquette,
but was referring to the ritual exchange of a kiss
as a part of their gathering for worship.
This is what we today refer to as the “sign of peace,”
though in the early centuries of Christianity
this took the form not of a handshake
or, as has become common 
in these post-pandemic days,
a friendly wave,
but of a kiss—a kiss on the lips.
In the ancient world, 
to exchange a kiss 
was to exchange breath—
what in Greek is pneuma
and which also means “spirit.”
To exchange a kiss, to share breath,
was to share with another
the very force by which one lives
and so to be bound together
(this is one reason we make a big deal
about the kiss between a bride and groom). 
Of course, in those early centuries
Christian worship was sexually segregated,
with men on one side of the congregation
and women on the other,
so that men only kissed other men
and women other women;
nevertheless, this practice 
raised some eyebrows
and led to rumors
about Christian worship
involving scandalous orgies.

You may be wondering,
what all of this kissing and scandal 
and breathing and bonding
has to do with the mystery of the Trinity,
which we celebrate on this day.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux, 
in a sermon on the Song of Songs,
sought to explain the verse 
in which the bride says
“let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth”
by way of reference to the Holy Trinity.
He wrote: “If, as is properly understood, 
the Father is he who kisses, 
and the Son he who is kissed, 
then it cannot be wrong 
to see in the kiss itself the Holy Spirit, 
for he is the imperturbable peace 
of the Father and the Son, 
their unshakable bond, 
their undivided love, 
their indivisible unity” (Sermon 8.2).
Just as the kiss shared by lovers
is something that 
comes forth from them both
and joins them together 
in one love,
in one life,
so too the Spirit comes forth
from the Father and from the Son 
and is the bond of love in which 
they live eternally as one God.
Bernard writes, 
“Thus the Father, 
when he kisses the Son, 
pours into him the plenitude 
of the mysteries of his divine being, 
breathing forth love’s deep delight” (Sermon 8.6).
If the Holy Spirit is the kiss 
uniting Father and Son,
then, according to St. Bernard, 
when the bride in the Song of Songs says
“let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth”
it is the soul asking to receive the kiss
shared between Father and Son—
that kiss of imperturbable peace, 
unshakeable bond,
undivided love, 
and indivisible unity.
Our souls cry out to be united to God
by sharing in the love uniting Father and Son,
the kiss of his mouth that is the Holy Spirit.

But the Spirit that unites Father and Son,
and unites souls to God,
also unites us to each other.
Paul wrote earlier to the Corinthians,
“in one Spirit we were all 
baptized into one body” (1 Cor 12:13).
The first Christians believed
that the breath—the pneuma—
that they exchanged in the holy kiss
was nothing less than the Holy Spirit, 
which each had received in baptism.
The ritual kiss spoke of peace
because it was the symbolic sharing
of the one Spirit that each had been given.
The kiss they shared with one another
was the kiss of imperturbable peace, 
unshakeable bond,
undivided love, 
and indivisible unity
that is the Holy Spirit,
the Spirit who with the Father and Son
lives an eternal life of peaceful bliss.

In the liturgy of the Byzantine Church
the peace is exchanged 
immediately before the creed is said,
the creed in which we profess 
our faith in God as Trinity.
Rather than our own 
somewhat pedestrian invitation—
“let us offer each other the sign of peace”—
in the Byzantine liturgy the deacon says.
“Let us love one another, 
that with oneness of mind we may confess,”
and the people reply, “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: 
Trinity, consubstantial and undivided.”
To truly confess the Trinity
we must love the Trinity,
and to love the Trinity
we must love one another.
As St. Bernard puts it,
the Spirit as revealer of God’s truth
“not only conveys the light of knowledge 
but also lights the fire of love” (Sermon 8.5).
To truly confess the Trinity
is to share with one another 
the Spirit we have been given
by using the gifts that the Spirit 
has bestowed on us
in service to one another;
it is, as St. Paul tells us today,
to encourage one another,
to agree with one another, 
and to live in peace with one another.

I am not suggesting that we start 
kissing each other on the mouth
at the sign of peace.
But for us, no less than for the first Christians,
our ritual exchange of peace is a visible sign
of the unity in love that we celebrate
on this Trinity Sunday,
the love that unites Father, Son, and Spirit,
the love that unites our soul to God,
and the love that unites us 
within the one body of Christ.
So let us love one another, 
that with oneness of mind we may confess
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: 
Trinity, consubstantial and undivided.
And may God, who is merciful,
have mercy on us all.

Ascension

Readings: Acts 1:1-11; Ephesians 1:17-23; Matthew 28:16-20

VIDEO

I once heard a story—
which may or may not be true,
but which I sincerely hope is—
about a folk Mass celebrated in the early 1970s
for the Solemnity of the Ascension
where one of the songs was 
“Leaving on a Jet Plane.”
You know the one:
written by John Denver
and popularized by Peter, Paul and Mary,
with the chorus,
“I’m leavin’ on a jet plane.
Don’t know when I’ll be back again.
Oh babe, I hate to go.”

I sincerely hope this story is true,
because it evokes so well the heady years
immediately after the Second Vatican Council
when Catholics everywhere were trying
to figure out what it meant
to open up to the modern world,
to breathe new life into our liturgies,
to find a way to unite ourselves
to the joys and the hopes, 
the griefs and the anxieties 
of the people of today—
a time when it actually seemed 
like to might be a good idea
to sing a song in which 
someone is referred to as “babe”
at the holy sacrifice of the Mass.

But I also hope it is true
because it captures how Christians 
have struggled, down through the centuries,
to grasp the mystery that we celebrate on this day.
People have always searched 
for words and images from our world
that might express the event 
of Christ’s heavenly exaltation.
During the Middle Ages, 
the Ascension was often depicted 
as a bunch of people 
standing looking up at a cloud
from which dangled a pair of bare feet.
This, in its own way, is as comically goofy
as singing “Leaving on a Jet Plane,”
and seems likewise to fall far short 
of the deep mystery
that confronts us on this feast.
For the Ascension of Christ is perhaps
the most mysterious 
of the mysteries of our faith.

Part of the problem for us perhaps has to do 
with our modern picture of the universe.
When people thought of the earth
as the center of the cosmos
and heaven located somewhere 
up there, beyond the sky,
it might have seemed natural
to think of the Ascension
as an act of celestial relocation,
and maybe feet hanging from a cloud
seemed a lot more plausible.
But we no longer think of the earth
as the center of the universe,
and it is harder to imagine 
that heaven is located 
somewhere beyond the sky,
or even that it can be thought of 
in terms of location at all.
Which does make you wonder 
why singing “Leaving on a Jet Plane”
seemed like a way to speak to modern people.
The account of the Ascension from Acts
suggests that even in the first century
this was not really 
about Jesus being in the clouds;
the angels say at the end,
“Men of Galilee,
why are you standing there 
looking at the sky?”
In some ways, 
our modern picture of the universe
only makes clearer that the Ascension
is not a puzzle about Jesus’s celestial location
but a mystery that is far, far deeper.

What makes the Ascension
the most mysterious
of the mysteries of our faith
is that it speaks of humanity 
being taken up into the eternal life of God.
The mystery of the Ascension 
is that the resurrection of Jesus
culminates in the fullness of his humanity,
both body and soul,
being enfolded in the life
of Father, Son, and Spirit,
that life beyond time and space
that gives life to all creatures.

But the mystery is greater still,
for by the enfolding of the humanity of Jesus
in the eternal life of the triune God
our humanity too 
beholds that ageless beauty
that makes all things beautiful,
hears that silent music
that sounds in all creation,
tastes that heavenly food
upon which angels feast forever.
In the Incarnation, 
the eternal divinity of God the Son
is enfolded in our humanity; 
in the Ascension,
our humanity is enfolded in his divinity,
so that his destiny is our destiny.
We pray today in the Eucharistic preface:
“he ascended, not to distance himself 
from our lowly state,
but that we, his members,
might be confident of following
where he, our Head and Founder,
has gone before.”

Dante Algieri, at the end of his Divine Comedy,
beholds a vision of the Holy Trinity,
represented by three colored circles
that are mysteriously one,
and looking more deeply within the middle circle
his eyes are transfixed by what he calls 
“our human likeness.”
He sees the ascended humanity of Christ:
he sees matter within spirit,
time within eternity,
creation within the creator.
And with this, words now fail Dante:
the poetic prowess of which he was so proud,
a prowess exceeding even that of John Denver,
collapses before the mystery he beholds,
not because his human mind
fails to fathom the mechanics 
of the celestial trajectory
by which Christ arrived in this place,
but because his human heart is seized
by the immensity of the love
that took on human flesh to be with us,
that sought us in our lostness to save us,
that sorrowed, and suffered, and died
so that we might have life 
and have it abundantly
within the very heart of God.

The mystery we celebrate this day
is not how Jesus could fly off into a cloud—
with or without a jet plane—
but how God could love us so much
that we poor creatures of clay 
could have hope to one day shine,
enfolded in the glory of eternal life.
The mystery of this day
is simply the mystery of every day:
the mystery of the love that is God
shared in mercy with us sinners.
May God who is merciful
have mercy on us all.

Easter 5

Readings: Acts 6:1-7; 1 Peter 2:4-9; John 14:1-12

VIDEO

I’d like to think that the sacred order of deacons,
into which I was ordained sixteen years ago this month,
had its beginning in some sublime and glorious moment,
perhaps in a vision of the heavenly liturgy
and those who serve at it.
I’d like to think that,
but our reading today from the Acts of the Apostles,
traditionally seen as the story of the appointing
of the first seven deacons, 
suggests instead that the diaconate originated 
amid squabbles among early Christians 
about food and language:
a moment not sublime and glorious
but mundane and messy.

The situation is this:
the Apostles continued the Jewish practice
of a daily food distribution (like a soup kitchen)
to those in their community
who were consistently in dire need:
orphans, landless immigrants, and widows.
A dispute arose between those disciples 
who spoke the Hebrew dialect called Aramaic
and those who spoke Greek,
who had likely grown up 
outside of the land of Israel.
The Greek-speakers felt 
that the widows of their group 
were being overlooked 
because those in charge were Aramaic speakers.
Even though everyone involved was a Jew,
and, moreover, Jews who shared the belief
that Jesus was the Messiah,
they still found that differences 
of language and custom
threatened to divide them. 
So the Apostles appointed seven Greek-speakers
to help with the daily distribution.
Tensions eased,
“the word of God continued to spread,
and the number of the disciples in Jerusalem 
increased greatly.”

Anyone who has worked in the Church knows
that this sort of thing is not unusual.
We may all be brothers and sisters in Christ,
but our fallen natures 
still tend to show themselves,
not least in our tendency to see 
those who do not speak our language
or share our customs
or hold our political views
or belong to our social circles
as outsiders whose concerns 
are not our concerns, 
those whom we can overlook.
We who are the Church—
which is all of us—
spend a lot of our time dealing
with the fallout 
of our fallen humanity.
The destiny of the Church 
may be sublime and glorious,
but what it takes 
for the word of God to spread
and the number of disciples to increase
is often mundane and messy.

The First Letter of Peter
seems to focus our attention
more on the sublime and the glorious,
speaking of the Christian community
as “a spiritual house” built of “living stones,”
with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone.
It speaks of how we have been called to be
“a chosen race, a royal priesthood,
a holy nation, a people of his own.”
The image of this spiritual house 
and this royal priesthood
is so sublime and glorious
that it is hard to believe that the path to it
could involve things as mundane and messy
as settling squabbles 
between Greek speakers 
and Aramaic speakers.
We might think 
that because this living temple is “spiritual”
it cannot involve concrete material concerns
like who gets fed and who goes hungry,
whose voice is heard and who is silenced,
who is empowered and who is disempowered. 
But repeatedly in the book of Acts
it is precisely the messy and mundane struggle
to resolve these sorts of issues
that defines what it means 
to follow the way of Jesus. 

When Jesus says that he 
is the way and the truth and the life 
that leads to the house of his Father,
we must remember 
that the way that is Jesus 
is the way of cross and resurrection.
Jesus is not a way around
the ordinary and extraordinary struggles 
of life together,
but he is the way through them.
He is the living stone rejected by the builders,
who endured the suffering of the Cross,
and if we are to be the living stones 
of which his spiritual house is built
we must become like him.
The way to the Father’s house 
is through the Cross,
and for us the Cross is often found 
not in great and dramatic suffering
but in life’s mundane messiness:
the struggle to love and live with 
those whom we can’t understand
due to language or culture 
or personality or life experience,
those whose needs 
are unfathomable to us,
those we find pushy or insensitive,
insecure or irritating, 
irrational or sometimes 
just plain weird.

If life in the Church has taught me nothing else,
it has taught me that I am the Cross 
that my fellow Christians bear.
In my unfathomable neediness,
my irritating insecurity,
my uniquely personal weirdness,
I am being borne by all of you.
And all of you are being borne by me.
And we cannot put each other down,
because while we are the Cross
we are also the living stones
from which God’s house must be built.
That is what it means to be God’s pilgrim people.
That is what it means to be the Body of Christ.
That is what it means to be the Temple of the Spirit.
It is to bear the Cross of each other 
in the mundane messiness of our common life,
as we walk the way that is Jesus Christ,
crucified and risen,
journeying together to our Father’s house.
Let us pray on this journey
that God, who is merciful,
might have mercy on us all.
 

Easter 3

Readings: Acts 2:14, 22-33; 1 Peter 1:17-21; Luke 24:13-35

VIDEO

“He was made known to them 
in the breaking of bread.”
Not when he appeared beside them,
walking along the road;
not when he interpreted to them 
what referred to him
in all the Scriptures;
not when he accepted 
their invitation to stay with them,
since it was nearly evening
and the day was almost over;
not even when he sat down 
with them at table.
But only when he took bread
and blessed
and broke
and gave.

Not just bread,
but broken bread.
Not the artfully shaped loaf
fresh from the oven;
not the neatly sliced Wonder Bread
in its plastic sleeve;
not even the perfect round host,
right-sized for individual consumption;
but bread broken and torn,
passed from human hand to human hand.

Why the breaking of bread?
Why this act to open their eyes 
to his risen presence?
Why this act to open our eyes
to his presence among us today?

We know him in the breaking of bread
because to know Jesus Christ 
is to know him crucified and risen,
which is to know him as the one 
broken by human hands,
the one whom we killed,
“using lawless men to crucify him.”
It is to know him as the one
whom his Father would not 
abandon to the nether world
nor let his flesh see corruption.
It is to know him as 
the spotless unblemished lamb,
known and loved by his Father 
before the foundation of the world
but revealed to us in these last days.
We know him in broken bread
because we know him 
as the reconciling sacrifice
that rescues us from futility
and makes our peace with God;
we know him as the one who seeks out
those who would flee his presence;
we know him as the one 
who lets his life be broken
so that each of us might have a share in it.

We know him in the breaking of bread
because we cannot know him 
in our isolation 
but only in our gathering.
Christ cannot be known in my bread,
but only in our bread—
we pray, “give us this day our daily bread”—
and in order to become our bread
Christ must be broken and shared.
As St. Paul writes, “The bread that we break, 
is it not a participation in the body of Christ? 
Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, 
are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf”

(1 Corinthians 10:16-17 ).
As St. Thomas Aquinas teaches, 
“The unity of the mystical body 
is the fruit of the true body received”

(Summa theologiae III q. 82 a. 9 ad 2).

Our unity in Christ involves the breaking of his body.
This truth is perhaps obscured by the custom
of using individual host for communion,
but even so, at every Mass, 
the priest ritually breaks the bread
as we sing to Christ the Lamb who was slain,
begging him for mercy and for peace.
For it is only by the gift of his mercy and peace
that we are united to Christ the head;
it is only by his mercy and peace
that we who are many can become one body
by sharing in the bread that has been broken.

He is made known to us in the breaking of bread
because our unity in Christ is a costly unity,
a unity of sacrifice and sharing.
It is costly because it is our unity 
within the body of the one who, 
though risen,
still bears the marks of his breaking,
the one who makes his flesh the bread of heaven
by consecrating it on the cross to God.
It is costly because if I am to eat 
the bread of heaven,
I must give up my bread for our bread,
and in so doing I may find myself 
in communion with those 
whom I don’t very much like,
but whom I am called to love 
as Christ himself.

Sacrifice and sharing,
consecration and communion:
these pretty much sum up what happens
each time we break bread,
each time we celebrate the Eucharist.
And they pretty much sum up the Christian life.
The broken bread Christ gives to us
draws us into his sacrificial love
by drawing us into the life of his body.
In every Eucharist we celebrate 

we can see this happen,
for in the breaking of bread
the veil is pierced 
between this world and God’s eternity,
and our eyes are opened.
And like those disciples at Emmaus
we return to the road,
carrying with us the news of resurrection,
fragments of the bread of heaven
scattered in the world 
in the time of our sojourning,
but yet united to him and each other
in faith, hope, and love.
Lamb of God, 
whose breaking makes us whole,
grant us mercy,
grant us peace.

Holy Thursday

Readings: Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14; 1 Corinthians11:23-26; John 13:1-15

Preached at Corpus Christi Church, Baltimore.

The book of Genesis mentions in passing
that Joseph, the son of Jacob,
whose brothers sold him 
into slavery in Egypt,
was given a wife by the Pharaoh,
a woman named Asenath, 
daughter of an Egyptian priest.

That is pretty much all we are told about her.
But the human imagination being what it is,
a Jewish writer living around the time of Jesus
took these few verses and invented
an entire romance about Joseph and Asenath,
which Christian writers later took and adapted.
The story involves the couple 
facing trials and tribulations,
not least because Asenath 
is the daughter of a priest serving false gods,
and so an unsuitable match
for a descendent of Abraham like Joseph,
as well as the fact that she lives secluded in a tower,
scorning the advances of the many young men
who are beguiled by her beauty.
Her attitude changes, however, 
when she happens to catch a glimpse of Joseph,
but he still rejects her because she is an idolater.
The archangel Michael intervenes,
visiting Asenath and giving her 
a miraculous honeycomb to eat,
which he declares to be 
the bread of heaven
and the cup of immortality.
Joseph shows up, 
having also been visited by the angel,
who tells him of Asenath’s liberation from idolatry.
There follows a good bit of embracing and kissing,
described in some detail.

What does any of this have to do with Holy Thursday?

A pivotal scene occurs when Joseph and Asenath
go to the house of her father to make official their betrothal.
Like any good host in the ancient middle east,
Asenath’s father calls for a maid to come wash Joseph’s feet,
but Asenath will have none of it.
She says to him, “your feet are my feet, 
and your hands are my hands, 
and your soul is my soul, 
and another shall not wash your feet”
(Joseph and Asenath §20).
The washing of feet is, for Asenath,
an act of spousal intimacy.

When Jesus washes the feet of his disciples
he is abandoning his role as rabbi,
since teachers did not wash 
the feet of their students,
and he is taking up the role of spouse:
the role of one whose flesh 
has been joined to their flesh,
one whose soul 
has been joined to their soul.
At that last supper with them before he dies
Jesus does not stand among them as teacher
but joins himself to them as spouse,
in the most intimate of bonds.

I think anyone who has participated 
in the washing of feet on Holy Thursday,
either as the washer or the one washed,
has sensed the intimacy of this act.
This is what makes it 
somewhat uncomfortable, 
somewhat embarrassing,
since those involved are often
relative strangers to one another.
This is also what give it its power.
Christ becomes our spouse,
and we are joined to him
and in spousal intimacy with each other.

This, of course, is what happens at every Eucharist.
Not only the yearly ritual of washing feet
but the daily ritual of the Mass
is about the intimacy of Christ with us,
and our intimacy with each other.
In sharing the eucharistic banquet
we eat the bread of heaven
and drink the cup of immortality;
Christ’s flesh becomes our flesh,
and we become one body with each other,
joined together through our union in him.
On this night, 
and indeed at every Mass,
Christ says to us,
and we say to each other,
“your feet are my feet, 
and your hands are my hands, 
and your soul is my soul.”

But this night is not simply a night of intimacy.
It is also a night of betrayal.
Indeed, it is a night of intimacy betrayed.
Both Judas and Peter,
whose feet Jesus washes, 
to whom he has joined himself
in spousal intimacy,
will, each in his own way,
soon betray Jesus.
To betray someone with whom 
you have become one flesh and one soul
is to engage in that self-destroying action
that we call mortal sin.

I spent most of yesterday afternoon
reading through the Maryland Attorney General’s
report on sexual abuse by Catholic clergy
over the past sixty years.
It is nearly 500 pages that document
gruesome horror after gruesome horror,
both the acts committed
and the callous treatment of victims
who courageously reported these crimes.
But most of all, 
it is nearly 500 pages of intimacy betrayed,
because nearly all of the abusers were priests
who used their status as those 
who are anointed to represent Christ,
as those who celebrate
the sacrament of eucharistic intimacy,
to prey upon vulnerable children and adults.

I do not have an explanation or an excuse,
nor even an apology adequate to the betrayal.
But on this night I will say two things.

First, if we wish to see Jesus in our midst,
we should look to the victims of these crimes,
for it is in them that we will find the ones
in whom intimacy was betrayed:
it is in them that we see the Man of Sorrows;
it is to them that the Church has played the role of Judas;
it is for them that we must seek justice and healing;
it is to them that we must say
“your feet are my feet, 
and your hands are my hands, 
and your soul is my soul.”

Second, we end this night
on which we commemorate Christ’s intimacy with us
in a moment of fear and uncertainty.
We end in waiting, in flickering fear-filled hope.
At this moment of betrayed intimacy
it is hard to see how God can make a path forward.
But the hope of Easter,
the hope of our lives as disciples,
is that betrayal is not the last word.
The hope of Easter 
is that God is greater than our sin;
that God can bring sinners to repentance 
and turn victims into survivors.
The hope of Easter
is that what lies ahead of us is an empty tomb,
the stone of betrayal rolled away,
our intimacy in Christ restored.

But on this night,
as we wait for a resurrection

we cannot yet see,
the task before us is clear:
“I have given you a model to follow,
so that as I have done for you, 
you should also do.”

Palm Sunday

Readings: Matthew 21:1-11; Isaiah 50:4-7; Philippians 2:6-11; Matthew 26:14-27:66

Last year, the philosopher Agnes Callard
published a column in the New York Times
reflecting on the phenomenon of social media pile-ons,
or what are sometimes referred to as “Twitter mobs.”
Someone says something 
that others find in some way offensive,
and critique cascades into denunciation, vilification,
and even death threats
as more and more people join the chorus,
convincing themselves that the offending party
must be shamed and somehow expelled 
from the realm of public discourse 
in order to restore purity
to the community constituted
by right-thinking people.

In her column, Callard counsels her friends
that, if such a thing should ever happen to her,
they should not rush to defend her from the mob,
as consoling as she might find such a defense.
As she provocatively puts it,
“If you care about me, 
let them eat me alive.”

She says this because of her conviction
that there is no way to argue a mob out of its rage,
out of its passion to shame and vilify,
since the logic of the mob is an illogic,
an irrational conviction about 
the unique evil of a single person
and how the elimination of that person 
will purify the world.
The mob convinces itself that it represents 
the right-thinking people of the world,
when in fact it isn’t thinking at all.
To act collectively against the mob,
to try to shout down its angry cries,
is simply to enter the mentality of the mob,
to succumb to its contagion.
As Callard puts it:
“You imagine that you are fighting against the mob, 
but actually you are becoming a part of it. 
Within the mob there is no justice 
and no argument 
and no reasoning, 
no space for inquiry or investigation. 
The only good move is not to play.”
The only good move, we might say, 
is to let the rage of the mob 
burn itself out.

Jesus seems to agree.
Throughout the story of the Passion,
Jesus refuses to play the mob’s game.
His actions fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy:
“my face I did not shield
from buffets and spitting.”
When one of his followers draws a weapon
to defend Jesus from the large crowd
who have come with swords and clubs to arrest him,
Jesus says, “Put your sword back into its sheath,
for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.”
When questioned by the high priest’s council,
which has transformed itself
from an instrument of justice
into an agent of mob violence,
Jesus remains silent, except to quote scripture:
“From now on you will see ‘the Son of Man
seated at the right hand of the Power’
and ‘coming on the clouds of heaven.’”
When dying in agony on the cross,
with the crowd reviling and mocking him,
he again speaks no word but God’s word, 
crying out in the voice of the psalmist:
“My God, my God, 
why have you forsaken me?”

Of course, there is a key difference 
between the mob Agnes Callard is speaking of
and the mob Jesus confronts in the passion story.
Callard’s mob is a virtual mob,
and its threats, by and large, are virtual threats:
the prospect of public shaming
and expulsion from the realms
of right-thinking discourse.
You can stoically resign yourself to such shaming
and wait for the mob’s anger to burn itself out.
But the mob Jesus faces does not want 
to shame or “cancel” or “de-platform” him.
It wants to kill him. 
The silence of Jesus,
his refusal to defend himself
or let his friends defend him,
is not simply a strategy 
of waiting out the mob’s rage
by enduring its shame.
For the rage of this mob will consume him,
not simply metaphorically,
but literally. 
The irrational, unjust, cruel conviction
that he must be removed 
from the realm of life itself
crashes over him and crushes him.

Stoic patience and resignation cannot save him.

Resignation cannot save him,
but resurrection can.
“I have set my face like flint,
knowing that I shall not be put to shame.”
Jesus faces the mob, defenseless and silent,
for he knows that humbling himself
for the cause of God’s kingdom,
“becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross,”
is the prelude to glory.
The ultimate answer 
to the violence of the mob,
to its irrationality, injustice, and cruelty,
to the contagion of sin that affects our race,
is God’s vindication of Jesus

by raising him to new life,

so that every power 
on heaven and earth and below the earth
would bow down before the humiliated one
now glorified.

As we enter this most holy of weeks,
let us set our faces like flint,
walking with Jesus 
on his silent, defenseless journey
from the shame of death 
to the glory of resurrection.