Holy Thursday

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

“Jesus loved his own in the world

and he loved them to the end.”

So John begins his account of the last supper,

which presents us with the striking scene

of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet.

“He loved them to the end.”

Not simply the “end” in a chronological sense –

the point at which something ceases –

but the end in the sense of a goal that has been reached,

a process that has been completed,

a task that has been finished.

Knowing that his hour has come

in which he is to pass from this world to the Father,

Jesus does the work God has given to him,

a work that can only be fulfilled by love,

a work whose completion he will announce on the cross

when he declares, “It is finished.”

The washing by Jesus of his disciples’ feet

is not simply an example of service;

it is an enacted parable of his whole life.

The water that he pours over his disciples’ feet

is the living water that he offered

to the Samaritan woman at the well;

it is the water that will flow forth with blood

when his side is pierced on the cross;

it is Jesus himself,

pouring out his life for his disciples out of love,

for it is through such love that he accomplishes the task

that his Father has given him to do.

Only when he has poured out his life

for the life of the world

can he say “it is finished;

I have loved them to the end.”

It is finished,

but it is still going on:

Jesus continues to wash our feet today,

as he pours out his life for us

through the living water of baptism

and in the Eucharistic feast of his body and blood.

Jesus still washes our feet

because he gives himself totally

for each and every one of us,

holding nothing back.

And this is what he commands us to do as well:

“I have given you a model to follow,

so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”

Our participation in the ritual of washing feet

is an enacted parable of our own willingness

to give ourselves totally

for each and every one of our brothers and sisters,

holding nothing back.

But there’s the difficulty.

We see in Jesus the completion of love’s task

but we also see in ourselves love’s failures.

As every person knows,

no matter how fully we seek to love

there seem always to be those moments when,

even with the ones we love most deeply,

we say, “I can’t tolerate another moment.

I can’t forgive that hurt.

I can’t love that far.”

We see in ourselves the pride,

the grudges,

the prejudice,

the lack of patience –

all of the things that stand in the way

of giving ourselves totally in love,

the the things that keep us from saying

“it is finished;

I have loved them to the end.”

We know that as much as we try to reach that goal,

we always seem to stumble.

And this is why we cannot simply wash feet,

but must also let our feet be washed.

Our only chance of loving as Christ loved,

of pouring out our lives

and holding nothing back,

is to let ourselves be loved by him:

to let him bathe our stumbling feet

with his own mercy.

On the night before he died,

Jesus gathered with friends and betrayers,

some of whom were one and the same people.

He knew the failures of love.

He saw it in Judas.

He saw it in Peter.

He sees it in us.

He knows that the feet he washes

are feet that will stumble,

yet he washes them anyway,

to bathe us in his own life poured out.

And bathed in his life we, in our own imperfect way,

can join him in love’s task,

called forward into another day’s living by his great cry of victory,

“It is finished;

I have loved them to the end.”

Lent 4

Readings: 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9

Confronted with a man who was born blind,

Jesus’ disciples ask,

“who sinned, this man or his parents?”

A devastating earthquake hits the island of Haiti

and American televangelist (and sometime politician) Pat Robertson

asks whether this might be because of a pact

the Haitians had made centuries ago with the devil.

Who sinned, the Haitians or their parents?

An even stronger earthquake

and the resultant tsunami

pushes Japan to the brink of a nuclear crisis

and the governor of Tokyo asks

whether this might not be divine punishment.

Who sinned, the Japanese or their parents?

We might think that faced with such misery

we would never raise such questions

but it is a natural human response to misfortune

to ask why such things happen,

to ask who is to blame,

to seek some past action on someone’s part

that would justify the pain and suffering

that has occurred.

We desire to find order in the world;

for if we can figure out how misfortune and disaster

are connected to someone’s past action

then the perplexity that accompanies such events

might be dissipated,

and we can restore our belief

that the world really is, despite all appearances,

a reasonable, just and orderly place.

But Jesus approaches the misery and misfortune

of the man born blind

in a different way:

in response to his disciples’ question

he says that, “Neither he nor his parents sinned;

it is so that the works of God

might be made visible through him.”

Jesus then spits on the ground, makes a muddy paste

and, rubbing it in the man’s eyes,

heals him and restores his sight.

I don’t think Jesus is saying

that God blinded this man from birth

just so that Jesus could come along, decades later,

and heal him.

Rather, he is indicating to his disciples that,

when confronted with human suffering,

they are asking the wrong sort of question.

They are seeking an explanation

of where misfortune comes from:

Why was this man born blind?

Why must the suffering of the poverty-stricken people of Haiti

be magnified by a terrible earthquake?

What did the people of Japan do

to deserve a catastrophic tsunami?

But these sorts of questions are unanswerable,

or at least whatever answers God has to them

are probably not the kind of thing

we mere mortals might understand.

Instead, Jesus redirects the attention of his disciples

from asking about the reason for suffering

to the ministry of alleviating suffering.

The source of the misery and misfortune of the man born blind

remains hidden.

What is visible is the healing, saving, enlightening power of Jesus.

What is visible is the ministry of Jesus, the light of the world.

Into the darkness of the man born blind, Jesus brings his light

both to heal the man’s physical blindness

and to give to him the eyes of faith,

so that he might recognize the power of God

in the one who has healed him.

Having been enlightened by Jesus,

the man becomes himself a source of light,

bearing witness to Jesus

before those who would oppose him.

This remarkable transformation from darkness to light

is echoed in our second reading,

from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians:

“Brothers and sisters:

You were once darkness,

but now you are light in the Lord.”

Notice that Paul says to the Ephesians

not simply that they have received light in their darkness,

but that they have become light.

The light that they have received

they are now to share with others.

In other words,

now that they have received Christ’s light

they are called to share in Jesus’ ministry

of healing, saving, and enlightening.

Notice that in today’s Gospel Jesus says to his disciples,

“We have to do the works of the one who sent me while it is day.”

Not I, but we –

the disciples are called to share

in Jesus’ ministry of light in darkness.

Faced with human misery and misfortune,

whether that of the man born blind

or the disasters of our own day,

true followers of Christ

must not let the inevitable questions about “why”

keep them from answering Jesus’ call

to join in his ministry of light:

“Awake, O sleeper,

and arise from the dead,

and Christ will give you light.”

Through the light of Christ,

we become light.

And, transformed into light,

we can respond to the call

that he gave to the disciples

who witnessed his transfigured glory:

“Rise, and do not be afraid.”

Rise, and join me in being light

in the darkest places of human misery and misfortune.

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.