9th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Deuteronomy 11:18, 26-28, 32; Romans 3: 21-25, 28; Matthew 7: 21-27

On this last Sunday before we enter the season of Lent

our Gospel reading offers us the conclusion

of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount,

which we have been hearing for the past five Sundays.

Jesus has been laying down for us

the challenge of being his disciple:

the challenge to be poor in Spirit,

to be salt of the earth,

to turn the other cheek,

to love our enemies,

to not worry about tomorrow,

to seek first the kingdom of God.

This is the challenge that we take with us

into the Lenten season,

as we prepare to celebrate the great mystery

of the salvation that comes to us

through Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection.

That’s a pretty long to-do list.

You had better get busy.

But in today’s Gospel,

Jesus concludes the Sermon on the Mount with a warning.

He speaks of those who are very busy with their to-do lists –

saying, “Lord, Lord,”

prophesying in Jesus’ name,

driving out demons in Jesus’ name,

doing mighty deeds in Jesus’ name –

and he tells us that he will say to them, “I never knew you.”

He never knew them

because they were too busy with their to-do lists

to stop and to listen and to come to know him.

He contrasts them with the person,

“who listens to these words of mine and acts on them.”

The problem is not that they are busy with their to-do lists,

but that they have assembled those lists

without first listening to the words of Jesus.

They have not listened to him

so that they might come to know him

and to know what it is that he is asking of them.

Notice the kinds of things that are on their to-do lists:

prophesying,

driving out demons,

doing mighty deeds –

big, flashy things that might make you

the first-century equivalent of a celebrity,

with a million people following you on Twitter.

Compare this with the picture of the disciple

that Jesus has sketched for us

in the Sermon on the Mount:

poor in spirit,

merciful,

peacemaking,

and even insulted and persecuted.

Not the sort of person

who is likely to be tweeting their latest mighty deed

done in the name of Jesus.

So maybe the first challenge of Lent

is not one of working our way

through our to-do list of mighty deeds,

but simply of listening to the words of Jesus

as these come to us through the scriptures

and in our prayerful reflection.

For if we act before we listen,

our to-do list is more likely to represent our agenda than Jesus’;

it will end up being a lot more about glorifying ourselves

than about glorifying God,

even if we drape our deeds

in the fig-leaf of piety,

saying “Lord, Lord.”

Jesus goes on to say in today’s gospel, however,

that listening is not enough.

If we want our house to be built on solid rock

rather than on shifting sand

we must not only listen to his words,

but also act on them.

We must not act without first listening,

but we also must not listen without then acting.

The demanding picture of the disciple that Jesus’ gives us

in the Sermon on the Mount

is not simply an ideal that we are to admire

but a concrete set of instructions

that we are to embody in our lives.

We will, of course, fail.

We will be prideful

rather than poor in spirit.

We will hold grudges

rather than be merciful.

We will try to defeat our opponents

rather than be peacemakers.

We will surrender our ideals

rather than face insults and persecution.

As Paul reminds us in our second reading,

“there is no distinction;

all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God.”

But he also goes on to say that we are justified –

put back on the right path –

by God grace, “through the redemption in Christ Jesus.”

I suspect that your Lent, like mine,

will end up being something of a disappointment.

Prior experience tells me

that I will try to act without first listening,

or I will listen, but never get around to acting,

or, perhaps most likely,

I will fail to do either much listening or much acting.

But if we can manage to listen even just a little

to the words Christ will speak to us over these next six weeks

we will hear of his power and his glory

that is revealed in suffering and weakness.

We will hear of “the righteousness of God

that comes through faith in Jesus Christ”

and we can hope for some share in his righteousness,

not because we have said “Lord, Lord,”

or because we have done mighty deeds in his name,

but because we have listened and acted on our faith –

our faith in the mighty deed of God in Jesus Christ

by which we have been saved.

This Lent, let us make listening to Jesus and acting on his word

the solid rock on which we build.

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Isaiah 58:7-10; 1 Corinthians 2:1-5; Matthew 5:13-16

Salt has been on my mind this week.

Not only has it been all over our streets,

melting ice and messing up our cars,

and not only do the new dietary guidelines

released by the federal government

say that we Americans,

in addition to consuming too much fat and sugar,

consume too much salt,

but it is also a central image

in this week’s Gospel reading.

Jesus tells his followers

that they are “the salt of the earth,”

evoking a whole web of associations

that human beings have with salt.

Salt is almost certainly the oldest seasoning

used by the human race:

we have archeological evidence of facilities

for the refining of salt

as early as 6000 BC.

Of course, salt was used for more

than making Neolithic french-fries tastier:

salting was for many centuries

the only way we had to preserve food from decay and corruption.

Salt was, in fact, so valuable

that a wide variety of cultures have used it for religious purposes:

in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome

salt mixed with water was offered to the gods;

in ancient Israel,

salt was included in grain offerings and burnt offerings;

salt was used to purify and to exorcise,

but it also symbolized the table fellowship of a shared meal.

So when Jesus tells his followers

that they are the salt of the earth,

he is, as is the case with any good metaphor,

saying a number of things at the same time.

True disciples give our world its savor;

they are the element preserving the world

from decay and corruption;

they are an offering to God;

they are a foretaste of the day

when humanity will be gathered around the table

in God’s kingdom.

But, having told them that they are salt,

Jesus also warns them:

“if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?

It is no longer good for anything

but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”

If the disciples of Jesus lose their power to season and preserve

then they are useless,

they have no purpose,

and, like salt with no flavor, they will be cast aside.

We ought to be careful here, however.

We cannot simply assume that because we see someone

cast out and trampled underfoot

that he or she is salt that has lost its taste

and become worthless.

Remember that Jesus is saying this

immediately after telling his disciples

“Blessed are they who are persecuted

for the sake of righteousness,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

For Jesus, it is precisely those who,

in the eyes of the world,

have been cast out and trampled underfoot,

who are the true salt of the earth,

who give life its savor,

who preserve the world from decay and corruption.

In our second reading, Paul tells the Corinthians,

“I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling,”

not bringing with him words of human wisdom

but only his faith in Christ crucified,

Christ outcast ,

Christ trampled underfoot.

And it is only in this way

that we can proclaim the Gospel of grace.

This completely turns the logic of the world upside down.

Those whom the world might think of as failures,

who are willing to be persecuted for the sake of righteousness,

are the true salt of the earth

and possessors of the kingdom of heaven.

Earlier this week I saw a remarkable photograph

taken in Cairo’s Tahrir Square,

where anti-government demonstrations in Egypt

have been centered.

A large number of Muslim demonstrators kneel in the square,

performing the prayer that Muslims make five times a day.

They are encircled by a protective perimeter

formed by Coptic Christians

who stand with hands joined to ensure

that their fellow protesters

are not disturbed or attacked as they pray.

These Coptic Christians are a minority in Egypt,

and at times have been persecuted by their fellow Egyptians,

perhaps even by some of the very people they are now protecting.

But, by their actions,

they show themselves willing to look beyond that history

because they recognize the cause of righteousness

and are willing to risk, quite literally,

being cast out and trampled underfoot.

It is by actions such as this that the disciples of Jesus

show themselves to be the salt of the earth,

a light that gives light to all the world.

It is those who fear and flee

the persecution that often accompanies discipleship

who are the salt that has lost its flavor

and must be cast aside.

Saint Augustine wrote that

we should not fear being trampled underfoot in this world

as long as our spirit is rooted in heaven

(The Lord’s Sermon on the Mount 1.6);

For it is our being rooted in God

that allows us to live as Jesus’ disciples,

to embrace the risk of being persecuted for righteousness sake,

and to be the salt that flavors and preserves the world.

Baptism of the Lord

Readings: Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7; Acts 10: 34-38; Matthew 3:13-17

There are two days in the Church year

when the sacrament of Baptism is brought into sharp focus.

One is Easter.

As most of you know,

it is the practice of the Church to baptize adults at Easter,

during the Easter Vigil, which is the high point of the Church year.

Here, we see Baptism in the context of our celebration

of the dying and rising of Christ,

as the sacrament in which we die with Christ to sin

and are raised with him to new life,

making us members of his body, the Church.

This is a way of thinking about Baptism that will, I hope,

seem familiar to many:

Baptism cleanses us of original sin

and makes us part of the Christian community.

We might call this the “Easter meaning” of Baptism.

The other day on which Baptism is brought into sharp focus is today,

the feast of the Baptism of the Lord.

Here the focus is not on the dying and rising of Christ,

but on Jesus’ own baptism,

which is recounted by Matthew in today’s Gospel reading.

This feast, no less than Easter,

ought to shape our thinking about Baptism,

because it fills out the meaning of Baptism

and gives us a fuller understanding of our own Baptisms.

While the Easter meaning of Baptism

looks to the conclusion of Jesus’ earthly ministry,

today’s feast points us to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry

and to his baptism as the inauguration of his public life

as the servant and witness to God’s kingdom.

Having spent some thirty years

living what our tradition calls the “hidden life” in Nazareth,

Jesus comes to John to be baptized.

Coming up from the water, the Spirit of God descends upon him

and the voice of the Father speaks:

“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

Jesus is publicly identified

as the one spoken of in our reading from Isaiah:

“Here is my servant whom I uphold,

my chosen one with whom I am pleased,

upon whom I have put my spirit.”

Thus begins Jesus’ public ministry as God’s anointed one.

As our second reading, from the Book of Acts, puts it:

“God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power.

He went about doing good

and healing all those oppressed by the devil,

for God was with him.”

If we think of Baptism in this context,

we can see that our Baptism, no less than Jesus’,

ought to be the inauguration of a life of service and witness.

In Baptism, we are not simply washed of original sin

and made part of the Church,

but we are given a job to do,

a way of life that we are to live.

In Baptism, we too become God’s beloved sons and daughters,

and we are given the task of ministering in Christ’s name.

And what it means to minister in Christ’s name

is to let Jesus’ manner of service and witness

become the pattern for our own service and witness.

Our reading from Isaiah in many ways sums up Jesus’ ministry:

“he shall bring forth justice to the nations,

not crying out, not shouting,

not making his voice heard in the street.

a bruised reed he shall not break,

and a smoldering wick he shall not quench,

until he establishes justice on the earth.”

When we think of Jesus’ ministry in light of this passage from Isaiah,

what stands out is his gentleness, his patience,

his willingness to bear with the weak and faltering

and his unwillingness to use force as a way of establishing justice.

This is the ministry and witness to which we are called in our Baptism:

a way of life characterized by the same sort of

gentleness,

patience

and compassion

that Jesus showed.

Of course, we must not forget

that it was this path of

gentleness,

patience

and compassion

that led Jesus to his cross.

We ought not to mistake the gentleness of Jesus for weakness

nor his patience for inaction.

Indeed, the service and witness of his compassion

was so threatening to the religious and political leaders of his day

that he had to be eliminated, being nailed to a Roman cross.

And we have no reason to believe that the ways of the world

have changed all that much since Jesus’ day,

and if we follow faithfully the path of Jesus

we should not be surprised

if we too face opposition,

if we too must carry the cross.

And it this way, the meaning of Baptism

that we draw from today’s feast

is linked to the Easter meaning of Baptism,

because it is the ministry that is entrusted to Jesus at his baptism

that will lead him to the suffering of the cross

and the glory of resurrection.

And for us too, faithful to the way of Jesus

and trusting in God grace,

our Baptism initiates us into the ministry of Jesus

even as it makes us sharers in the mystery

of his cross and resurrection.

For many of us, our Baptisms may have been a long time ago,

but it is never to late to recommit ourselves to the way of Jesus,

the way of gentleness,

patience

and compassion.

Holy Family

Readings: Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14; Colossians 3:12-17; Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23

Today, on the Feast of the Holy Family,
we continue to celebrate the mystery of the Incarnation –

our belief that God the eternal Son,

through whom all things were made,

became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth;

in Jesus Christ God has lived a human life.

But more than that, today’s Gospel reminds us that

in Jesus Christ God has chosen

to live a certain kind of human life.

This morning St. Matthew presents us

with what is still in our world

an all-too-familiar human story:

a family fleeing violence in their homeland

undertakes a journey involving great peril

to seek refuge in a foreign land

where they may not speak the language,

where their religion and culture and ethnicity

may appear to their neighbors to be alien

and perhaps even threatening,

where whatever social or economic status

they had in their homeland

may not translate into similar status in their new home,

where they may find themselves living on the margins of society

without any way to move into the mainstream.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph find themselves

among the ranks of history’s refugees,

among the “displaced persons”

who throughout history have had to choose

between violence at home and exile in a foreign land.

There are many other all-too-familiar human stories

involving families:

families locked into cycles of poverty and social marginalization,

families torn apart by broken promises and old hurts,

families that are scenes of physical and emotional violence

rather than havens of peace.

These all-too-familiar human stories remind us

that all of us are in some sense “displaced persons”

who live our lives exiled from all that we had hoped

those lives might have been.

The mystery of the Incarnation is that God,

the creator of heaven and earth,

of all things visible and invisible,

has chosen to live among us

and to make this all-too-familiar human story his own.

God, who is supremely rich,

the source and center of the world’s existence,

chose to be poor,

exiled,

threatened,

marginal,

defenseless,

betrayed,

abused

and ultimately to die on the cross.

Without ceasing to be God,

the Word becomes flesh and dwells among us,

sharing the joys and hopes,

the sorrows and anxieties,

of the human race.

As Saint Catherine of Siena put it:

“You, God, have clothed yourself in our humanity,

and nearer than that you could not have come” (Dialogue ch. 153).

God becomes human, sharing our human poverty,

so that we humans might come to share in God’s riches.

God becomes a displaced person,

so that we might find in God the place where we truly belong.

The mystery of the Incarnation is just this simple

and just this mysterious:

God has joined us in our exile

to transform that place of exile into our true home,

to make us members of God’s holy family.

And if this is true, then we ought to live with each other

in a way that reflects this mystery.

The letter to the Colossians tells us:

“Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved,

heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,

bearing with one another and forgiving one another.”

This too is something supremely simple . . . and mysterious.

It is something simple because this way of living

has been shown to us by Jesus –

in the face of the all-too-familiar human story

of betrayal and disappointment,

he chose to live a life of openness and compassion;

in him we have been shown what a truly human life looks like,

we see what it means to find our place in God’s family,

to be sons and daughters of God.

How we ought to live together is as simple as the story of Jesus.

But it is also something mysterious,

because we know

that we can live this truly human life,

that our place of exile can become our true home,

that we can find our place in God’s family,

only if we open ourselves to God’s grace.

We can be compassionate,

kind,

humble,

gentle,

patient,

forgiving

only if we, as the letter to the Colossians says,

let the word of Christ dwell in us richly –

if we, like Mary and Joseph, have Jesus with us in our land of exile.

As Paul reminds us,

“whatever you do, in word or in deed,

do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus,

giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

In the Incarnation, God did not simply live a human life,

but God lived the all-too-familiar human story

of exile and rejection.

And the joy of Christmas is that in living that story

Jesus has rewritten it,

Jesus has transformed it,

Jesus has triumphed over it

and so has made this our land of exile

into the place where God dwells richly among us,

making us into the holy family of God.

Advent 3

Readings: Is 35:1-6a, 10; Jas 5:7-10; Mt 11:2-11

“Are you the one who is to come,

or should we look for another?”

This is the question that John the Baptist,

imprisoned by King Herod and facing execution,

sends his followers to ask Jesus.

“Are you the one who is to come,

or should we look for another?”

This question is a puzzling one.

Why would John, whom we heard last week

confidently heralding Jesus’ coming,

suddenly seem to doubt that Jesus really is God’s anointed one?

Having proclaimed him the one who is to come,

why would he be sending his followers

to ask if Jesus is really the one who is to come?

Has he forgotten?

Does he think he might have been wrong?

Early Christian theologians were puzzled by this as well,

and tended to think that John

was not really asking a genuine question,

but was posing the question rhetorically,

for the benefit of his followers.

In other words, he knows the answer,

but he wants his followers to hear the words

from Jesus’ own lips

so that they will know, as John knows,

that Jesus is the one who is to come.

I have always found this interpretation of John’s question

somewhat dissatisfying,

probably because I find disingenuous rhetorical questions

somewhat irritating,

as if John were trying to be sly,

by pretending not to know something that he knows perfectly well.

Pope Gregory the Great, in the late-6th century,

took a different approach to this story.

As he interprets it, John is asking a genuine question.

He has no doubt that Jesus is the promised Messiah,

since he had clearly declared this at the beginning of the Gospel,

when he served as Christ’s herald.

But now, at this point in the story,

John is seeking to know something different.

John is facing execution at the hands of Herod;

he knows that he will soon depart this life

for the realm of the dead.

Thus, Gregory says, he is asking

whether he will also be Christ’s herald among the dead,

whether Christ, who had come into our world as God with us,

would also be God with us even in death.

As Gregory puts it, it was as if John were asking,

“Just as you deigned to be born on behalf of human beings . . . ,

will you also die on our behalf” (Homily 5).

I will admit,

Gregory’s interpretation might seem like just as much of a stretch

as the interpretation that says

that John is asking only a rhetorical question.

Yet there is something about it that makes sense to me.

Facing death, John is confronted with a new question:

how deep does your faith in Jesus go?

He believed fervently that Jesus had come into this world

to share our human life.

Now John wants to know,

has he come also to share our human death?

In our Gospel last week John had declared,

“the one who is coming is mightier than I.”

Now John asks, “just how mighty are you?

Are you mighty enough to conquer even death?

I am about to go into the darkness.

Will you be there?

Are you mighty enough to follow me into that dark place

and bring me back to the kingdom of life?”

Will you be there to say to me,

“Be strong, fear not!

Here is your God, he comes with vindication;

with divine recompense he comes to save you.”

John is asking for the gift of faith, to believe that,

even into the mystery of death,

Jesus is the one who is to come.

He will come with his light to dispel death’s darkness.

And as with John, so too with us:

we too ask of Jesus,

“Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”

Are you the one who will come to me

in the darkest places of my life?

Will you be there when I am in pain,

when I am alone,

when I am terrified,

when I am confused,

when I am in the valley of the shadow of death?

Are you the one?

Are you mighty enough to share my weakness?

You who deigned to be born on behalf of human beings,

will you also die on our behalf?

Joining me in death, will you lead me back to life?

We pray in this Advent that God would find us ready,

expectant,

waiting to receive Jesus.

But perhaps even more we should pray

for a deeper faith that it is Jesus who is ready,

expectant,

waiting to receive us.

Let us pray this Advent

that God would find us ready to believe

that no place is so dark that God in Christ is not there,

ready to meet us with joy and gladness,

ready to set sorrow and mourning to flight.

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: 2 Maccabees 7:1-2, 9-14; 2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5; Luke 20:27-38

“You can’t take it with you.”

That is at least part of Jesus’ reply

to the Sadducees in today’s Gospel.

The Sadducees were a group within Judaism

who held to a very traditional interpretation of the Law

and who, in particular, rejected what they considered the novel idea

that in God’s kingdom those righteous one’s who had died

would be raised to new life.

We see this belief testified to in our first reading,

from the book of Maccabees:

“the King of the world will raise us up again to live forever.”

For the Sadducees, this idea was a dangerous innovation

that undermined their more traditional view

that people were rewarded or punished by God in this life.

So they pose to Jesus,

who teaches this dangerously innovative idea of resurrection,

the following puzzle:

If a woman’s husband dies, and she marries his brother,

who in turn dies, and she marries another brother,

and so on and so forth through seven brothers

(if I were the seventh brother

I would think twice before marrying this woman),

when the dead are raised to new life,

whose wife will she be?

Jesus’ answer to the Sadducees is twofold.

The first part of his answer is to make clear

that the kind of life led by those

whom God will raise from death to new life

is something quite different from the sort of life we live now.

Those who live in the kingdom of God

“neither marry nor are given in marriage.”

No doubt in God’s kingdom we will still love

those whom we have loved in the time of this life,

but the institution of marriage itself,

tied up as it is with creating households and raising children,

is for this world, not for the kingdom.

People say, “you can’t take it with you,”

and it would seem that, according to Jesus,

marriage is one of those things you can’t take with you.

The second part of Jesus answer to the Sadducees

is that we believe that the dead shall be raised

because we believe that our God is the God of the living;

what it means truly to live is to live in relationship with God

and God’s relationship to those whom God loves

cannot be defeated, even by death.

As Paul says in our second reading,

“the Lord is faithful;

he will strengthen you and guard you.”

Those whom we think of as dead are not dead to God,

and when God’s kingdom is manifested in its fullness

we shall see and know the fullness of life

that is enjoyed by those righteous ones

who have died in God’s cause.

While the saying “you can’t take it with you”

applies to many things in this world,

it doesn’t apply to our relationship with God.

In fact, it seems that this relationship

is the one thing you can take with you.

So Jesus’ response to the Sadducees is to remind them

that the things we think of as making up the fabric of our life –

institutions like marriage,

political structures,

economic systems,

and even the outward forms of the Church –

are in fact simply temporary bulwarks

that we construct against the terrifying reality of death,

and in the age to come they will give way

before the one reality that is the true fabric of our life:

God’s love for us.

You can’t take these things with you

because you don’t need to take them with you;

in the fullness of God’s kingdom,

God’s love alone will unite us with God and with each other

and we will not need those temporary structures

that form the fabric of our lives in this world.

But, of course, we do not yet live

in the fullness of God’s kingdom.

In the time of this life

people still marry and are given in marriage,

they vote and run in elections,

they invest and spend money,

they gather weekly as Church

to hear God’s Word spoken in human words

and to encounter God through sacramental signs.

In the time of this life these things,

provisional though they be,

are the warp and woof from which our lives are woven.

In the time of this life these things,

provisional though they be,

are of crucial importance

to the life that we hope to live in the kingdom of God.

In the time of this life these things,

provisional though they be,

are the means by which we bear witness in this age

to the life we hope to live in the age to come.

Though there will be no marriage in the kingdom of God,

how we live our committed relationships in this age

can become a sign

of how we will live our risen life in the age to come

if we live those commitments

with integrity and honesty and self-sacrifice.

Though there will be, thank God,

no politics or economies in the kingdom of God,

how we inhabit the political and economic structures of this age

can become a sign of our dwelling in God’s kingdom

if we inhabit those structures in such a way that we always look,

not to our own concerns and well-being,

but to the concerns and well-being

of the poor, the outcast and the defenseless.

Though there will be no need

for sacramental signs in the kingdom of God,

how we gather as Church in this age

can become a sign of the heavenly liturgy

that we will celebrate in the kingdom

if we give ourselves generously and without reservation

to the worship of God.

Marriage, power, money,

even the outward structures of the Church. . .

you can’t take them with you

into the risen life of God’s kingdom.

We can, however, use them in this age,

in the time of this life,

as a means by which we begin to live that risen life now.

They are the strands from which

the fabric of our lives is woven,

the lives that we are called to place

at the service of God and neighbor.

Next week we will be asking you to consider again

your financial support of our parish.

I always tell people that if they do not give more money

our doors will not close,

our current staff will not have to be let go;

we will find a way to make do.

But that is not why we give.

We given because even though

both our money and our parish community

are simply provisional realities,

neither of which will go with us into God’s kingdom,

the two of them together

can become a sign of that kingdom here and now.

You can’t take it with you,

but you can use it now in such a way

that it becomes a sign

of the risen life we will lead in the age to come.

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: 2 Kings 5:14-17; 2 Timothy 2:8-13; Luke 17:11-19

There are many interesting issues raised in today’s Gospel –

concerning healing, gratitude and so forth –

but I want to begin with one question:

why is it that, when the ten lepers ask Jesus to heal them,

he tells them to go show themselves to the priests?

According to the book of Leviticus,

it was the role of the priests in the Temple

to examine those who had been afflicted

with the disease of Leprosy

in order to see if they had recovered,

so they could be re-admitted to the community of Israel.

When Jesus tells them to go and show themselves to the priests,

he is telling them to do what the Law of God required them to do.

So perhaps we ought not to be so hard on the nine lepers who went on their way

without so much as a “thank you” to Jesus.

They were, after all, doing what was right

in the eyes of their religious tradition;

they were doing what was expected of them

as good Israelites.

But one leper came back. Why?

Well, he was a Samaritan.

As you may know, the Samaritans

were something like second-cousins to the Jews

who worshipped the God of Israel,

but did not worship at the Temple in Jerusalem

or accept the Temple priesthood.

What is surprising

is that he would have approached Jesus in the first place,

for at the time of Jesus there was a great deal of hostility

between Jews and Samaritans

and the fact that Samaritan

would have gone to a Jewish holy man for healing

can only be a sign of just how desperate he was.

But it is not surprising that he would have felt no great urgency

to fulfill Jesus’ command

to go show himself to the priests,

since Samaritans did not think much

of the priests in Jerusalem to begin with.

He knew that he was an outsider,

and that even now that he had been cleansed of his leprosy

he was still an outsider.

But being an outsider helped him to see

something that the insiders missed;

it allowed him to see that it was Jesus who had healed him

and it was to Jesus that he was to give thanks.

His nine fellow-lepers were so well schooled

in their traditions and customs

that they seem to have been blinded

to what God was actually doing in their midst.

They were so focused on religious business-as-usual

that they missed something truly extraordinary:

the kingdom of God present in the healing ministry of Jesus.

“Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?”

The insiders could benefit from the perspective of the outsider.

This valuing of the perspective of the outsider

is a theme that runs throughout the Old and New Testaments.

Those who are not settled

within the well-worn patterns of religion and culture

bring to us fresh eyes with which to see

what God is doing in the world.

Prophets like Jeremiah seem deliberately

to make themselves outsiders

so as to better hear the Word of God.

This insight is an integral element

in the long-standing Catholic tradition

of openness to and advocacy for migrants and refugees.

In his 2003 Message on the World Day of Migrants and Refugees

Pope John Paul II called this openness part of,

“the Christian duty to welcome

whoever comes knocking out of need.”

In other words, it is nothing less than what we must do

if we wish to hear on the day of judgment:

“Come, you who are blessed by my Father.

Inherit the kingdom prepared for you

from the foundation of the world.

For I was hungry and you gave me food,

I was thirsty and you gave me drink,

a stranger and you welcomed me” (Matthew 25:34-35).

But this openness is more than a matter

of simple Christian charity,

for we are called not simply to give to the outsider,

but also to receive from the outsider,

to receive from the outsider a fresh perspective

on ourselves, our world, and our God.

Pope John Paul went on in the same message to say,

“Such openness builds up vibrant Christian communities,

enriched by the Spirit with the gifts brought to them

by new disciples from other cultures.”

We cannot be complete without the other, the outsider,

who can see us in a way that we can never see ourselves.

In the foreigner who returns to give thanks,

who perceives God present

in a place we never thought to look,

we learn something new about ourselves and about God.

We have seen this in our own parish community,

in all that we have gained in the past few years

from our Filipino parishioners,

who have enriched us with their customs

and given us fresh eyes with which to see

what God is doing in the world.

They have helped our parish to become more Catholic,

more universal,

through the Missa de Gallo,

Our Lady of Perpetual Help,

and most of all their prayerful presence among us.

I believe it is particularly important

to recall our Catholic tradition

of openness to and advocacy for migrants and refugees,

and our Catholic belief that we are enriched

by those who come to us as outsiders,

as questions of immigration reform begin to come to the fore

in America’s political debates.

Immigration reform is a complex issue,

and I would not presume to suggest in this forum

how we should go about balancing

compassion,

justice,

and concern for the common good

in the enacting of legislation.

People of good will can differ on these issues

and on details of various proposals.

These matters are complex and the correct solution is not always obvious.

But politics can get ugly,

and sometimes we can get ugly along with it.

Sometimes we can get locked into the framework of American politics

and forget that we are first of all Catholics.

But, as Paul reminds us in our second reading,

the word of God is not chained,

and today God's word reminds us that

there are some things that we as Catholics can never do.

We can never use the stranger in our midst as a political football

in order to gain an electoral victory.

We can never demonize those we perceive as outsiders

or to use them as scapegoats for a host of social problems.

We can never convince ourselves that we “insiders”

have nothing to learn,

nothing to gain,

in welcoming these “outsiders.”

We as Catholics can never forget

that Christ is to be found in the stranger that we welcome

and that it is sometimes the foreigner among us

who sees that to which we are blind,

who recalls to us what we have forgotten,

and who reminds us to return to give thanks to God.

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Amos 8:4-7; 1 Timothy 2:1-8; Luke 16:1-13

How do you react in a crisis?

When you find yourself at a crossroads

and are confronted with events

that threaten to turn your life upside down,

what do you do?

Where do you find the resources to know how to act?

In today’s gospel Jesus tells the story of a man who is faced with a crisis

that many people today are also faced with: the impending loss of his job.

Of course, in his case he is about to lose his job

not because of an economic downturn

but because he has been squandering his employer’s money.

But what is important is that he doesn’t panic but rather, true to form,

sets about securing a golden parachute for himself.

He does this by, as it were, cooking the books to help out those

who are in debt to his employer,

so that when he is turned out on the street

they will all owe him a favor

that he can cash in.

Funny enough, by means of this craftiness,

he earns the admiration of his employer,

who is probably none too honest himself.

The rich man praises his dishonest employee for his prudence;

the Greek word is phronesis,

which is the name the philosopher Aristotle gives

to the disposition of the mind

by which we know how to act in a particular situation

so as to achieve a fulfilling life.

And in this case, the dishonest employee certain shows phronesis,

particularly given that his own understanding of “fulfillment”

seems bound up with having material possessions.

Indeed, he does not hesitate;

it is as if he had been preparing for this crisis his whole life,

and he knows exactly how to respond.

Earlier this week, the Church offered for our consideration

the story of another man facing a crisis.

Last Thursday was the feast of St. Cyprian of Carthage,

who was a bishop in North Africa in the third century AD.

Cyprian had guided his flock

through a period of severe persecution under the emperor Valerian

until the time came when he too was arrested

and put on trial for being a Christian.

At his trial the Roman governor of the province told him

that if he would perform a ritual sacrifice to the emperor,

signifying his renunciation of the Christian faith,

his life would be spared.

Cyprian responded, “I will not do so.”

The governor said, “Consider your position,”

to which Cyprian replied,

“In such a just cause there is no need for deliberation.”

The governor then decreed that Cyprian would be executed,

as an example to other Christians,

to dissuade them from resisting the emperor’s decree.

So the sentence was carried out.

Like the dishonest employee in Jesus’ parable,

Cyprian too does not hesitate;

it is as if he had been preparing for this crisis his whole life,

and he knows exactly how to respond.

What makes us capable of responding in a crisis,

and what determines how we respond?

How do we acquire prudence or phronesis?

Jesus says,

“The person who is trustworthy” –

the Greek word is actually pistos or “faithful” –

“in very small matters

is also trustworthy in great ones;

and the person who is dishonest in very small matters

is also dishonest in great ones.”

In other words, we prepare for great moments of crisis

by means of the little choices we make each and every day,

the choices that form our character,

that make us the people that we are.

The dishonest employee in the parable

spent his life being dishonest in small matters,

and when the moment of great crisis comes,

he is dishonest then as well.

St. Cyprian spent his life seeking God’s grace to be faithful

and when the moment of great crisis comes, he is faithful to the end,

boldly professing Christ even in the face of death.

This single moment of boldness

grew out of a multitude of small acts of love,

thousands of brief prayers for grace and assistance,

hundreds of occasions when he gathered with God’s people at Christ’s altar

to be strengthened by the Eucharist.

These are perhaps small matters, taken singly,

but they were for Cyprian

what prepared him for the decisive moment

in which he would witness to Christ at the cost of his life.

The Roman governor said Cyprian would be executed

as an example to others.

As sometimes happens, he spoke better than he knew,

for he meant that Cyprian’s death would be a warning to other Christians,

but instead, Cyprian became for them an example

of a truly fulfilling life: a life of faith.

He became an example of how being faithful in small matters

can lead to faithfulness in those moments

when everything in our lives comes together as if at a crossroads,

a moment of crisis.

It is not so different with us here today.

Many people in this parish have had to face moments of crisis,

when everything comes together as at a crossroads:

the death of someone they love,

the loss of a job or a home,

the painful ending of a relationship,

the realization that they or someone they love suffers from an addiction,

moments of doubt about themselves and even about God.

And I have seen them respond

with a faith and a resilience that is astonishing.

Of course, in the end all of this is a matter of the sheer grace of God,

freely given to us out of love.

But this is not a grace that is suddenly dumped on us in that moment of crisis,

but a grace that works its way into our hearts and minds

over the course of a lifetime,

as we have sought to be faithful and hopeful and loving in small matters.

So let us pray for the grace to live our lives in such a way

that when the decisive moment comes,

and it seems as though the meaning of our entire life

hangs on how we respond,

we will be able to speak and act in a way

that shows us to be who we have become:

faithful disciples of Jesus, who live by his Spirit.

Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Readings: Rv 11:19a; 12:1-6a, 10ab; 1 Cor 15:20-27; Lk 1:39-56

Although we habitually speak of heaven as “up” and of hell as “down,”

I suspect that most of us know, as most Christians have always known,

that neither place can be reached by traversing a physical distance.

Indeed, a number of years ago

Pope John Paul II reiterated the traditional Christian view,

saying, “the ‘heaven’ or ‘happiness’ in which we will find ourselves

is neither an abstraction

nor a physical place in the clouds,

but a living, personal relationship with the Holy Trinity”

(General Audience, Wednesday 21 July 1999).

In other words, “heaven” is not so much a place

as it is a state of being.

It is good to remind ourselves of this

when we celebrate a feast such as the one we celebrate today.

Today, the feast of the Assumption, we celebrate our belief

that Mary, upon her death,

was taken body and soul into heavenly glory.

Already in the 451 AD, when the Emperor Marcian

asked the bishop of Jerusalem

to bring Mary’s bones to Constantinople

so that they might be placed in the cathedral there,

the bishop responded to his request by saying that,

“Mary had died in the presence of the apostles;

but her tomb, when opened later . . .

was found empty

and so the apostles concluded that the body was taken up into heaven."

Universal acceptance of this belief

developed over the centuries in the Church

until it was solemnly defined by Pope Pius XII in 1950

as part of the official body of teachings of the Catholic Church.

Now one might imagine this event

as one often sees it depicted in art:

with Mary slowly rising up into the clouds,

perhaps with angels beneath her feet,

giving her an extra boost.

But if heaven is not a physical place,

but rather a state of being in perfect relationship with God –

a state that involves a radical transformation

of our entire self, body and soul –

then these artistic imaginings

must be understood as precisely that:

acts of the human imagination,

in which we attempt to depict for ourselves

realities that go beyond what our minds can fully grasp.

So when we speak of Mary being “assumed” or taken up into heaven,

we aren’t really talking about a direction to which we can point

or a distance that we can traverse.

Mary is not, literally speaking, “up there”

because heaven is not, literally speaking, “up there.”

But it is not too hard to imagine

why people have spoken that way over the years.

There is something about the sky –

or, as we sometimes call them, the heavens –

that speak to us of that exalted state of being

that we might call “heavenly glory,”

that state of being into which Mary has entered.

This summer, while on vacation in Northwestern Colorado,

in one of those increasingly rare places

where there is no electrical lighting for miles around,

I was amazed by the night sky.

In contrast to Baltimore, where at night our stingy skies

might favor us with at best a glimpse of the Big Dipper,

there the stars were strewn across of sky with reckless prodigality.

Their number and their variety were almost more

than the mind and senses could take in;

the immensity of the space of the sky

was like a pool into which one could fall forever.

I was put in mind of the words

of the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins:

“Look at the stars! Look, look up at the skies!

O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!"

It was as if in the sky above us

God had provided the whole world

with a symbol of heavenly glory.

The night sky spoke of a mystery

in which there is always more to discover,

a pearl of great price

for which it just might make sense to risk everything,

a standing invitation

to join the fire-folk dwelling there in glory.

It made it possible to imagine

that that which spread itself out above me

was not merely a sky,

but was indeed the heavens.

What better place to imagine Mary,

“a woman clothed with the sun,

with the moon under her feet,

and on her head a crown of twelve stars”?

Surely of all Christ’s followers, Mary is among the fire-folk,

those in whom God’s grace has kindled the fire of divine love.

St. Augustine wrote:

“My weight is my love.

Wherever I am carried, my love is carrying me.

By your gift we are set on fire and carried upwards;

we grow red hot and ascend” (Confessions, 8.9.10).

Mary loved God,

and that love has carried her into heavenly glory.

It is perhaps fitting that,

on this feast of Mary’s being taken up

into the mystery that we call heaven,

our Gospel lets Mary herself speak

of the love that burns within her,

the divine gift by which she is carried upward.

She sings in her Magnificant, her song of praise to God,

of the love that casts down the mighty from their throne

and has lifted up the lowly.

Mary is lifted up in her lowliness

because she said “yes” to God’s love,

said "yes" to the invitation

to become the mother of Jesus, God with us.

But this feast is not just about Mary,

for Mary is not only the Mother of God,

but also the first disciple,

the first to say “yes” to Jesus Christ.

And all of us who say “yes” to Jesus stand with Mary:

we have hope that Mary’s destiny in heavenly glory

will also be our destiny;

we have hope that the unimaginable joy of eternal life with God

will be ours as well;

we have hope that we too will be among the fire-folk

who burn with divine love.

So heaven may not be “up”

and hell may not be “down,”

but the next time you happen to be away from the city’s lights

and the night is particularly clear,

and you find yourself beneath that great symbol of heaven,

“Look at the stars! Look, look up at the skies!

O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!"

Imagine Mary among the stars in glory,

and imagine yourself there too.

16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Genesis 18:1-10a; Colossians 1:24-28; Luke 10:38-42

In the Christian tradition,

today’s Gospel has usually been understood

in terms of two different sorts of Christian callings –

the calling to the life of active service, represented by Martha,

and the calling to the life of contemplative prayer, represented by Mary –

and the relative superiority of the life of contemplation to the life of action.

But if we read this story from Luke’s gospel in light of our first reading,

which is the story from Genesis

about Abraham’s reception of three mysterious angelic figures

who bring him unexpected tidings

of the impending birth of Isaac, his son,

then the story of Mary and Martha can also be read

as a story about hospitality.

In particular, it is a story about our hospitality

and the hospitality of God.

In our parish of Corpus Christi

we tend to think of ourselves as a pretty hospitable bunch,

welcoming all sorts and conditions of people into our community

and seeking to live together the good news of our salvation in Jesus Christ,

good news that inspires us to reach out to the stranger.

Indeed, the annual event of Artscape allows us to show our hospitality

by offering our church building as a venue for performances,

as well as offering the building itself

as one of the significant works of art in the city of Baltimore,

a space that speaks through the medium of art

of the fundamental mysteries of our Catholic Christian faith.

And, in the past few weeks,

we have had the additional opportunity to flex our hospitality muscles

in welcoming Fr. Marty as our new pastor.

It is precisely these sorts of occasions

that invite us to reflect on what it means to be hospitable.

In the ancient world, receiving hospitality was necessary for survival

when one found oneself a stranger in a strange land

and hotels, motels, and bed and breakfasts had not yet been invented.

The first reading notes that Abraham sees the three visitors,

“when the day was growing hot”

and that he offers them shade and water, as well as food to eat.

In a harsh physical environment, receiving and offering hospitality

can be a matter of life and death.

In this case, the three visitors

are messengers or angels sent from God,

so it is not so important that they receive hospitality

as it is that Abraham offers it to them.

Indeed, throughout the Old Testament God tells the Israelites

that they are to show hospitality to strangers

because God has shown hospitality to them,

taking them in when they were wandering strangers without a homeland.

Part of what it means truly to receive God’s hospitality,

is to show hospitality to others.

In the Gospel, Martha reacts to the arrival of Jesus

in a way not unlike Abraham

reacting to the arrival of his three guests:

she runs around, getting things ready,

becoming in the process, as Jesus notes,

“anxious and worried about many things.”

Indeed, she gets herself in such a state

that she asks Jesus, her houseguest,

to take her side in an argument with her sister:

“Lord, do you not care that my sister

has left me by myself to do the serving?

Tell her to help me.”

Think about this for a second:

someone comes to your house

and you try to drawn him into a domestic dispute.

This is hospitality?

It sounds more like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

It would be as if we asked our newly-arrived pastor

to take a side in some long-standing feud among parishioners,

and I know none of us would ever do something like that.

Martha may think she is the one being hospitable,

but in fact she has tried to put Jesus, her guest,

in a very uncomfortable position.

Moreover, she is so busy doing things for Jesus

that she cannot take the time to be with Jesus, her guest,

except to pop in to complain about her sister.

We might be inclined to forgive Martha these breaches of hospitality

since she, like many of us, is burdened with much serving.

Also, she is, after all, only doing what she thinks is expected of her

as a woman in the household.

Indeed, she probably presumed that, as a woman,

all that she could offer a religious teacher like Jesus

was her anxious, worried activity.

What she cannot imagine –

but which somehow Mary can imagine –

is that Jesus wants her to be with him,

in the position of a disciple,

sitting at his feet

and learning from him the mysteries of God’s kingdom.

Mary chooses the better part

because she chooses to be with Jesus;

she gives her guest the one thing that he really wants:

herself as his disciple.

True hospitality, Jesus seems to be saying,

is not so much a doing-for as it is a being-with.

In our everyday acts of hospitality,

all of our anxious and worried activity –

cooking food, making beds, cleaning bathrooms –

must at some point come to a stop

so that we can finally do the one thing

at which all our activity aims:

being with our guest;

giving ourselves to him or her by opening ourselves

and truly listening to what our guest has to say.

And when the one whom we are welcoming is God,

it is even more the case

that the only thing we really have to give

is our attentive presence.

We cannot really do-for God;

but we can certainly be-with God.

It is as if we show God hospitality

by accepting the hospitality God offers us.

That, after all, is all that God really desires.

And in the hospitality that we as Christians show to others –

whether through opening our church at Artscape,

or welcoming couples who wish to get married here,

or inviting people who want to explore the Catholic faith

to consider the RCIA process,

or even celebrating the arrival of a new pastor –

what we are really doing is inviting them to join us

in accepting God’s hospitality,

to join us in being-with God by being-with each other.

For it is in giving and receiving such hospitality

that we truly are corpus Christi: the body of Christ.