Advent 4

Readings: 2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16; Romans 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-38

King David has big plans.
He has conquered the Canaanite city of Jebus,
renaming it Jerusalem—“vision of peace”—
and making it the royal capital.
He has brought the Ark of the Covenant,
containing the tablets on which
God had inscribed the ten commandments, 
to Jerusalem and placed it in a tent,
making his capitol city the religious,
as well as political, center of his kingdom.
And now he dreams of raising a noble Temple
that would house the Ark—
indeed, would be the House of God.
David, of course, couches his big plans
in pious terms of doing something for God:
“Here I am living in a house of cedar,
while the ark of God dwells in a tent!”
And maybe David even believes 
his own pious rhetoric;
perhaps he sincerely wants 
to do something great for God.

But God knows David’s heart
better than David himself.
God knows how often our big plans
of doing something great for God
are tied up with our desire 
for greatness for ourselves:
for renown in our own day
and a legacy that will last into the future.
And God knows the lengths 
to which we will go 
in order to secure 
that renown and that legacy.
In the version of this story found
in the First Book of Chronicles,
God says to David:
“You may not build a house for my name, 
for you are a man who waged wars 
and shed blood” (28:3).
God reminds David that it is not he
who has done great things for God,
but it is God who has done
great things for him:
taking him from his humble status 
and making him a king of great renown
ruling over God’s people.
Moreover, God promises him
that God will secure his legacy,
that God will ensure that his line 
of descendants shall not die out,
that God will raise up from his lineage
a kingdom whose throne will endure forever.

Mary has no big plans.
She is just a young woman
betrothed to a carpenter,
probably planning a simple wedding
and hoping for a happy marriage.
Whatever dreams she has
are dreams not for herself
but for her people—
seemingly impossible dreams—
dreams that God’s promises 
will come to pass,
that God will raise up from David’s line
one who will restore God’s kingdom,
will free God’s people from Roman occupation,
will make a world where people like her,
people who rule nothing and no one,
can serve their God
and live their lives in peace.

Mary has no big plans,
but God does.
Indeed, it is precisely because 
she has no big plans for herself,
no dream except the dream of God’s kingdom,
no hope except the hope of serving her God,
that God can draw her 
into his plan,
into his dream,
into “the mystery kept secret for long ages,”
but now about to be made manifest in her.
“Hail, full of grace!... 
you have found favor with God…
you will conceive in your womb and bear a son…
and the Lord God will give him 
the throne of David his father…
and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
These words will upend Mary’s life
and any plans she may have had,
for who could plan for such a thing?

Yet while Mary has not planned for this,
she is prepared for it,
because God’s grace has cultivated in her
openness to whatever God will do,
acceptance of however God might act in her life.
What God had promised to David—
a kingdom that would endure forever—
will come to pass within Mary,
because her plans are God’s plans,
her hopes are God’s hopes,
her dreams are God’s dreams. 
Indeed, something greater
than what was promised to David
will come to pass in her.
For she herself will become 
the Ark of the Covenant, 
the tabernacle enclosing God in the flesh,
the womb of God’s eternal kingdom.

And what about our big plans?
Probably most of us 
aren’t much like David;
we don’t think in terms of building 
an empire and an everlasting legacy.
But how much are we like Mary?
How much do we set aside 
our plans for securing our own, 
small-scale renown and legacy
within our own little empires—
our jockeying for promotions,
our amassing of nest-eggs,
our seeking of recognition,
our bending others to our wills?
How willing are we 
to hope God’s hopes
and dream God’s dreams,
to suspend our planning
so as to prepare our hearts 
to receive the living God,
to let him dwell in us
and upend our lives?

The Advent season is almost gone;
only a few hours are left.
But in God’s grace there is still time.
There is still time to prepare 
by setting our plans aside,
so that we might let grace open us up
to the eruption of mystery into our lives,
God’s dream kept secret for long ages,
but now revealed to us in Christ.
There is still time 
to dream God’s dream
because God is merciful.
So may the God of mercy
have mercy on us all, 
and to the only wise God, 
through Jesus Christ
be glory forever and ever. 
Amen.

Advent 2

Readings: Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11; 2 Peter 3:8-14; Mark 1:1-8

We hear today from the Second Letter of Peter,
“The earth and everything done on it 
will be found out.”
St. Augustine, picking up on the idea
of everything being revealed, 
wrote that in the new heavens 
and new earth that we await,
“The thoughts of our minds will lie open 
to mutual observation…; 
for [the Lord] will light up 
what is hidden in darkness 
and will reveal 
the thoughts of the heart.” (Civ. Dei 22.29).

Now that’s a terrifying prospect.

Think of how you would feel about someone
looking at your internet search history.
Even if it contains nothing 
outright illegal or immoral,
it likely contains some things 
that are acutely embarrassing,
like when we searched for recent pictures 
of a high school girlfriend or boyfriend,
or when we Googled some stupid question
like “who is the governor of Maryland?” 
or “who would win a fight 
between Batman and Superman?”
or when we searched for 
some scrap of celebrity gossip, 
or even Googled ourselves to find out
if the world is taking notice of us 
(this apparently is known as “ego-surfing”).
And some of our searches 
are not just embarrassing;
some of our searches are heartbreaking,
revealing sorrows we hold deep within:
“How do I know if my spouse is cheating?”
“What are the signs of child abuse?”
“What is the survival prognosis 
for pancreatic cancer?”
“What happens after we die?”

Contrast your internet search history
with what you see on social media.
Whenever I look at Facebook or Instagram.
it seems like everyone I know
is living their best life.
They are eating in restaurants that serve
exquisitely prepared dishes;
they are visiting places 
of cultural importance
or great natural beauty;
they are celebrating significant milestones
and impressive career achievements;
and their kids and grandkids
are saying the cutest things imaginable.

The world of social media allows us 
to curate the self that we show to the world,
to hide our thoughts and actions 
so that no one knows our pettiness,
our vanity, our foolishness, our triviality
or the deep sorrow on which we put a brave face.
But, Peter tells us, everything done on earth—

every action taken, every thought thought—
will be found out on the day of the Lord,
which comes like a thief,
dissolving the elements in fire,
dissolving the pretenses behind which we hide,
dissolving the curated self-image 
that we show to the world,
and revealing the search histories of our lives 
for what they are:
searches for meaning and love and fulfillment
that have often been futile and misdirected
and tragic and sorrowful.

On the day of the Lord 
everyone will know
that I’m just faking it.
I’m not living my best life;
in fact, my life is a mess,
my dinner is burnt,
my vacation was stressful,
my career feels like a dead end,
and my kids drive me crazy.
And on the day of the Lord I will know
that everyone else is also faking it,
that they’re not okay;
that their lives are no less messy than mine.
The day of the Lord promises to be
profoundly uncomfortable for everyone.

But in the midst of our messy lives,
in the midst of our fears 
about them being unveiled, 
the word of God says to us today, 
“Comfort, give comfort to my people…
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem.”
God is coming:
racing through the desert of our pretense,
crashing into the wasteland 
of the carefully curated lives 
we present to the world;
filling in the valleys and leveling the mountains
that we use to hide our messy realities
in all their vanity and foolishness, 
their triviality and sorrow.
God comes not to condemn
but to comfort;
not to scold or shame us 

for the messiness of our lives,
but to join us in the mess,
to show to us the love for which 
we have been searching, 
to bear the sorrow of our sin 
so that we might be saved,
to know the brokenness of our hearts 
so that they might be mended.

Everything done on the earth shall be known
because until it is known it cannot be healed.
Shame and secrecy are evil’s greatest weapons,
because they allow evil to hide from the light
that would destroy it.
It is no accident 
that the sacrament of Reconciliation
involves bringing into the light
everything that we would like to keep hidden,
laying openly before God, 
present through the ministry of the priest,
the search history of our lives,
the misdirected desires and foolish choices,
the secret sorrows and unspoken regrets.
Dorothy Day said of confession,
“You do not want to make too much 
of your constant imperfections and venial sins,
but you want to drag them out to the light of day
as the first step in getting rid of them” (The Long Loneliness).

In Advent we celebrate 
the coming of light into the world,
the light that reveals everything done on earth:
the search for love and meaning, 
the search that has so often gone astray
into vanity and foolishness, 
triviality and sorrow.
We celebrate the light
that comes to guide us to the truth,
the truth about ourselves,
and the truth about the God
who turns shame into glory 
through the power of his mercy.
So let us pray in this Advent
that God who is merciful
would have mercy on us all.

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Prv 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31; 1 Thes 5:1-6; Mt 25:14-30

VIDEO

“Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting.”
The Book of Proverbs offers this 
as advice for finding a wife,
and it is not bad advice.
In fact, it’s pretty good advice
for finding a husband as well.
Childhood tales of a happily ever after
with a Prince Charming 
or a Sleeping Beauty
may have lodged deep in our psyches,
and good looks and smooth talk
can give us a momentary romantic thrill,
but over time looks fade, 
and the challenges of daily life
are not typically met
by sweet nothings 
whispered in our ears.
Far better, Proverbs tells us,
to find someone 
who has practical skills
and a generous heart,
someone who possesses inner beauty
that time cannot bear away.

This, of course, is not just 
good advice for seeking a spouse;
it’s also good advice for living a life.
For experience tells us 
that time runs in only one direction,
and as it runs it takes its toll
on the superficially charming 
and the passingly beautiful.
And our faith tells us 
that time itself will one day end,
that “the day of the Lord will come
like a thief at night,”
and that we will not be judged
on the basis of our charm and beauty,
but on what use we have made of the time
that God has entrusted to us.
Like the master in the parable,
God has given us a measure of time,
and on the day of Christ’s return
we will have to give an accounting
of how we have spent that time:
whether we have hidden it away
in a futile attempt to preserve it,
or have taken the risk of spending it
in service to God’s kingdom,
reaching out our hands to the poor,
and extending our arms to the needy.

We know our time is limited.
We believe we will be asked 
for an accounting of that time.
Why, then, do we not feel 
more urgency about our lives?
Why do we continue to say, 
“peace and security”
as the tumultuous day 
of Christ our Master 
draws ever nearer?
Why do we dig a hole in the ground
and bury our lives beneath trivialities,
which may be charming and beautiful
but which time bears inexorably away?

This is a question that I ask myself.
If I truly believe the things I say that I believe—
things that I say every week in the creed,
things like “he will come again in glory 
to judge the living and the dead 
and his kingdom will have no end”—
why then does my life look 
pretty much like the lives of those 
who do not believe this?
Why, if I am a child of light and day,
do I live my life like a child of darkness and night?
I don’t mean by this that I am some great sinner;
in fact, my sins are somewhat embarrassingly mediocre.
No, to live like a child of darkness and night
is simply to live a life of drowsy indifference,
a life that might have a kind of 
superficial charm and beauty,
but which lacks a sense of urgency,
lacks a sense that eternal life itself is at stake
in what transpires in this brief span of time
that God has entrusted to me.
Why is God not at all times my top priority?
As one of the early desert fathers put it,
“Why not be utterly changed into fire?”

This is one of the great mysteries of the spiritual life.
What is holding me back from living a life
like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Ignatius Loyola,
like St. Teresa of Calcutta or St. Oscar Romero,
like venerable Mother Mary Lange 
or servant of God Dorothy Day?
How can I see the power of God at work in them
and not want God to work in me in that same way?

But I do want God to work in my in that way.
And I suspect you do too. 
We human beings, however, 
are complicated animals.
We are somehow completely captive 
to deceptive charm and fleeting beauty
even as we feel an urge 
toward a goodness that is true 
and a beauty that is eternal.
We say to ourselves “peace and security,”
even as we suspect that the Lord is coming
to overturn our lives.
We bury our time beneath trivialities
even as we long to hear those words,
“Well done, my good and faithful servant.”
How do I let the part 
that hungers for holiness
direct my life,
and not the part 
that drowses in indifference?

Alas, I fear I don’t have an answer.
Like I said, we’re complicated animals.
But I do know this:
I know we must lean 
upon the grace that comes to us 
through Jesus Christ. 
I know we must pray that his grace 
would grow in us a yearning for him,
a hunger for his holiness, 
a longing for the day of the Lord,
the day when Christ will speak to us
the truth about our lives.
I know we must pray 
that these will not have been lives 
of deceptive charm and fleeting beauty
but lives utterly transformed 
by the fire of divine love.
I know we must pray that God, 
who is merciful,
might have mercy on us all.

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Ex 22:20-26; 1 Thes 1:5c-10; Mt 22:34-40 

Writing to the Christians in Thessalonica,
converts from paganism,
St. Paul commends them for having
“turned… from idols
to serve the living and true God.”
Idol worship was common in the time of Paul;
indeed, the Jewish people 
were thought to be oddballs
because the temple where they worshipped 
contained no representations of their God.
But the Jews were adamant that their God,
the living and true God, 
could not be represented 
by something made by human hands,
and that those who practiced idolatry
worshipped gods who were dead and false,
glittering products of craft and ingenuity
that could neither see nor hear,
could neither give love nor receive it.

For St. Paul, as for all Jews,
the problem with idolatry 
is not that God has no image.
Indeed, the book of Genesis tells us
that human beings are created 
in the image and likeness of God,
so images of God are all around us.
The problem with idolatry 
is that it ensnares us in the illusion
that the images of God that we create
are the true image of God,
so that we are relieved of the burden
of having to honor
the image of God that God creates,
the human images of God 
we encounter in our daily lives.

The Jewish alternative to the worship of idols
is summed up by Jesus in today’s Gospel:
the true way to worship God
is to “love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart,
with all your soul,
and with all your mind,”
and to “love your neighbor 
as yourself.”
Love of God and love of neighbor
constitute, in their unity,
what it means to worship God.
All other acts of worship—
prayer and fasting,
ritual and sacrifice—
are nothing without these two,
because we find the true image of God,
the image not made by human hands,
in the person of our neighbor 
and in ourselves.

Of course, avoiding idolatry
is nothing so simple 
as not making physical images of God.
We can craft idolatrous images of God
with our minds as well as with our hands.
We can imagine God 
as a heavenly police officer
enforcing our rules,
or a divine therapist
salving our consciences,
or as cosmic life-coach
telling us that we can have it all.
We can imagine God 
to be a god who suits our needs,
a god who serves us
rather than the God whom we serve.
Such a god, no less than a statue of Zeus,
is an image fashioned by human beings,
and to set up such a god
in place of the living and true God
is no less an act of idolatry.
Indeed, for most of us
it is a much more common, 
much more tempting, 
form of idolatry.

But even if we banish 
these false images of God 
from our minds,
this is not enough to avoid idolatry.
We must not only avoid honoring false images;
we must also properly honor the true image.

We honor the true and living 
image of God in ourselves
when we give up on the idea that we are self-made:
that our accomplishments are somehow our own,
that we owe nothing to anyone,
perhaps not even to God.
This is a false image of ourselves,
for a true image is one that always reflects
and is dependent on that of which it is an image.
No less than the human-made idols in a temple,
the image of ourselves as self-made 
is an image that is lifeless and false,
a glittering product of human craft and ingenuity
that can neither give nor receive love.
To know myself as an image of God
is to know my true worth and dignity,
it is to know my own existence as a gift
that I neither earn nor deserve.

We honor the true and living 
image of God in our neighbor
when we see that they too exist as divine gifts:
gifts to themselves and gifts to us.
Among the first laws that God gives to the Israelites
after they have been freed from captivity in Egypt
are laws protecting widows and orphans
and foreigners living among them.
These, whom scripture describes 
as the “little ones,”
are groups uniquely vulnerable:
foreigners have no tribe to protect them,
widows have no husbands,
orphans no father.
Each of them is subject 
to abuse and exploitation,
to being used by the powerful
to enrich their coffers
or indulge their appetites.
Even if not actively exploited,
they are all too easily 
overlooked and abandoned
by those who ought to come to their aid.
But God does not overlook them;
he says to the Israelites,
“If ever you wrong them 
and they cry out to me,
I will surely hear their cry.”

Perhaps the problem is that we presume 
that the image of God
is to be found only 
in the great and powerful—
in those self-made people
who have clawed their way 
to the top of the heap—
and not in those 
weak and vulnerable ones 
who lie crushed 
and shattered in their wake.
But this too is idolatry,
for it fails to see that the image
of the true and living God, 
is to be found in these little ones 
above all others.
For God has shown their image 
to be his image
by taking vulnerable flesh 
and dying on a cross,
abused by the powerful
and abandoned by his friends,
abandoned by all but his Father,
who heard his cry and raised him to new life.

God calls us today to turn away from idols:
the idol of a god who suits my needs,
the idol of myself as self-made,
the idol of my needy neighbor 
as one whom I am free 
to exploit or overlook.
God calls us to turn 
to the true and living God,
to love that God with all of our 
heart, soul, and mind
and to love our neighbor as ourself.
May this God—
living, true, and merciful—
have mercy on us all.

 

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 25:6-10a; Philippians 4:12-14, 19-20; Matthew 22:1-14

VIDEO

I am always struck, 
when reading Matthew’s version
of the parable of the wedding feast,
by how violent and disturbing it is.
Luke’s gospel includes the same parable,
but there it is a pretty straightforward story
of people refusing an invitation to a great feast
and other people being invited in their stead.
But in Matthew’s version
we have emissaries murdered,
cities destroyed,
and guests who are underdressed
being cast into the outer darkness.
Luke’s simple story of the abundant feast 
to which God invites us,
and the importance of accepting that invitation,
takes on in Matthew a dark and somber coloring.

Matthew’s parable shows a world 
in which people act 
against their own self-interest:
what do the unwilling invitees gain
by killing those servants
who brought them the invitation?
It shows a world in which people
more than match evil for evil:
why destroy the innocent
alongside the guilty
in retaliation for murder?
It shows us a world beset by,
as the prophet Isaiah puts it,
“the veil that veils all peoples,
the web that is woven over all nations.”
It shows us a world 
enclosed in the shroud of sin 
and entangled in the mesh of mortality.
It shows us, in short, our world.
It shows us how we reject and react and retaliate.
It shows us how even the joyous event
of a wedding banquet
can be turned into 
one more manifestation
of the evil in which we 
are enclosed and entangled.

But the parable does more that,
for if that was all it did 
then it would hardly be good news.
The image of the wedding feast
draws our minds to God’s promise
that this sad, violent world 
will one day be transformed.
It draws our minds to Scripture’s promise
that God “will provide for all peoples
a feast of rich food and choice wines,”
the promise that God 
will wipe the tears from every face
and that death itself will be destroyed.
And it draws our minds 
to our liturgy’s promise that, 
even now, 
in the midst of all this sin and sorrow,
we are blessed to be called 
to the supper of the Lamb,
who bears away the world’s sin
and gives to us his peace.
Even now, beneath the veil 
and within the web that death has woven,
the Lamb of God feeds us with himself,
sustaining us each week in his banquet of love,
a feast of rich food and choice wine.

Matthew’s version of the parable
weaves together in a striking fashion
the promise of the wedding banquet
with the violence and sorrow 
that shrouds our world,
as if to remind us that death’s defeat,
which is already won for us 
in the resurrection of Christ,
is something that is not yet 
fully realized in us.
It reminds us that the Lamb’s peace
is truly present to us in this meal,
but veiled under sacramental signs
that only faith can discern.

But what about that 
underdressed wedding guest
who is cast into the outer darkness?
How does he fit into the picture?
It does seem strange that someone
who was dragged in from the streets
should be faulted for not wearing
something suitable for a royal wedding.
But in Scripture, clothing 
is never merely clothing.
The Psalms speak repeatedly 
of the righteous being clothed
with joy and salvation,
and the wicked being clothed
with shame and dishonor.
In the New Testament, St. Paul speaks
of clothing yourself with compassion, 
kindness, humility, 
meekness, and patience.
He speaks, above all, 
of clothing yourself with love,
which, he says, 
“binds everything together 
in perfect harmony” (Col 3:12-14).

If the wedding banquet 
is the Lamb’s high feast,
then surely love is the festive garment
in which we should be clothed.
It is not enough to be invited
out of the sad world of sin and death
and into the joyous banquet of life; 
it is not enough even to accept the invitation
and to gather with others to celebrate.
As St. Paul says, 
“If I comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge…
but do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give away everything I own… 
but do not have love, I gain nothing” (1 Cor 13:1-2).
For it is love that carries us out of this world of death
and into the banquet of life,
and it is the lacking of love that leads
out of the banquet into the outer darkness.
In the face of the violence and sorrow of the world,
we who have been invited must clothe ourselves in love.

But where do we find this love?
After all, are we not those 
who have been called in from the streets,
who arrive unprepared and unworthy?
But, St. Paul says in our second reading today,
“My God will fully supply whatever you need,
in accord with his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”
We come to the banquet with nothing,
but if only we ask 
God will clothe us 
in joyful wedding garments 
of compassion, kindness, humility, 
meekness, and patience.
Above all, God will clothe us in his love.
And finding ourselves in such bright array,
we can reflect the light of God’s love
to a world enclosed in the shroud of sin 
and entangled in the mesh of mortality,
so that every tearful eye might hope to see
that day when all the saints will sing
“This is the LORD for whom we looked;
let us rejoice and be glad that he has saved us!”

 

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Sirach 27:30-28:7; Romans 4:7-9; Matthew 18:21-35

Does anybody lie on his or her deathbed and think, 
“Gee, I wish I had spent more time being angry”?
Do people reach the end of their lives
and regret not holding more grudges 
or exacting crueler revenge?
Maybe some people do,
but I suspect that most of us, 
facing the end of life,
find the things that angered us 
suddenly seem trivial,
and the grudges we held 
and the revenge we exacted
look like a petty waste
of our precious time.
These things, like us, 
are swept away by time.
So why do we live our lives 
cultivating anger, 
holding grudges,
and seeking vengeance?
For it seems as if our world
is awash in an epidemic of anger.

Perhaps this has always been the case,
but the public expression of our anger,
of our grudges and vengeance,
seems particularly prevalent in our day.
We live in an era of performative anger,
where what we call (without irony) “social media” 
is often the arena for 
the most anti-social sorts of behavior.
We have declared open season
on those who differ from us
in their political affiliations,
and in their racial and cultural identities
and vent our spleens at people
whom we don’t really know.
This epidemic of anger 
has even infected the Church,
with people hurling 
accusations of heresy at others,
turning difference into division
and positioning themselves 
as defenders of the true faith.
I can hate you because of
who you did or didn’t vote for,
what you did or did not do 
during the pandemic,
how you do or do not respond
to what I think is the most pressing issue
in the world or in the Church.
We live in a time
when unforgiving anger 
has become a virtue.

St. Thomas Aquinas said that there is 
a kind of zealous anger that is not sinful,
and may, in fact, be praiseworthy,
because it shows that we have 
a finely-tuned sense of justice.
But even if he is right about this,
let’s be honest:
most of the anger 
that we encounter in the world today
is not of the zealous, praiseworthy sort,
but is simply the impulsive aggression
that results from too much dopamine
and too little serotonin in our brains.
It can be addictive, however, 
since we tell ourselves it is
a manifestation of righteous zeal,
and don’t we relish feeling righteous?
Don’t we use our displays of anger
to proclaim to the world our righteousness?
I have a hunch that the unmerciful servant 
in the parable Jesus tells in today’s Gospel
was convinced that he was simply 
displaying his commitment to justice,
even as he clamped his hands on the throat
of his fellow servant.
As the book of Sirach memorably puts it,
“Wrath and anger are hateful things,
yet the sinner hugs them tight.”

Perhaps we could medicate ourselves
out of this impulsive aggression,
out of our anger and grudge-bearing.
But the wise man who speaks 
in the book of Sirach 
offers a different sort of remedy:
“Remember your last days…
remember death and decay.”
He knows that few of us 
will lie on our deathbed 
and think, “Gee, I wish 
I had spent more time being angry.”
He calls us to live our lives 
conscious of that moment 
when all of our anger
will seem kind of pointless,
all of our grudges 
will seem kind of petty,
all of our vengeance
will seem merciless and cruel.
He exhorts us, as the old Latin adage goes,
momento mori—“remember that you will die.”
Remember that moment 
when everything will melt away,
including the pretense of righteousness
that is rooted in the poisoned soil of our anger,
and we will stand before the righteous judge.
“Could anyone nourish anger against another
and expect healing from the LORD?”

Remember death…
Not simply because it reminds us
of how everything ends,
even our anger and grudges.
Not simply because it reminds us
that we will one day face the righteous one
whose mercy will be measured out
according to the mercy we have shown to others.
Remember death because it reminds us that
“whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.”
Sirach bids us “remember your last days…
remember death and decay”
so that we might remember Jesus Christ,
who “died and came to life,
that he might be Lord of both 
the dead and the living.”
We remember death 
so that we might remember
that Christ has conquered death,
has conquered wrath and vengeance,
and has made us his own.
We remember death because 
even there Christ claims us,
and to belong to the Lord Jesus
is to let his mercy flow over us 
and through us,
washing away our anger 
and its phony righteousness
and filling us with his gifts
of faith, hope, and love,
gifts that we are called 
to share with others.
To belong to the Lord Jesus 
is to show to others
the mercy he has shown to us.
May God, who is merciful,
have mercy on us all.

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.