A Wedding Homily

Readings: Ruth 1:1-11, 14-18; Romans 12:3-18; John 15:9-17

A wise friend of mine once said

that marriage is not about standing face-to-face

gazing into each other’s eyes,

but rather is about standing side-by-side,

facing the world together.

This idea runs somewhat counter

to popular, romantic notions of marriage

that focus exclusively on the love of the spouses for each other.

Don’t get me wrong; this love is important;

C___ and G___ would not be here today

if they did not love each other.

But marriage does not simply link two people together.

Rather it places the couple

within a much wider network of relationships

that can be extremely complicated.

When you marry, you are marrying not just your spouse,

but also his or her family, friends, colleagues,

sports teams, favorite musicians, and even ethnicity.

Indeed, one of the challenges of marriage

is learning to negotiate that complexity.

But it is also part of the richness:

when I got married, I acquired not only a wife,

and eventually children,

but what was to my mind

an extraordinarily large Irish Catholic family,

a set of expectations about how and where

holidays should be celebrated,

and a professional football team I was expected to root for.

This has always been the nature of marriage,

as we can see in our first reading,

which tells the first part of the story of Ruth

from the Old Testament.

She is a foreigner, a Gentile,

who marries into a Jewish family

and as a part of all this

becomes a worshiper of the God of Israel.

When her husband, her original link to that family, dies,

she is offered by her mother in law, Naomi,

the chance to cut her ties to them

and go her own way,

back to her own people

and her own gods.

In what to our ears

sounds like something one might speak to a spouse,

Ruth tells Naomi, “Wherever you go I will go;

wherever you lodge I will lodge.

Your people shall be my people

and your God, my God.

Where you die I will die,

and there be buried.”

For Ruth, her marriage had placed her

within a web of relationships, traditions and beliefs

that permanently altered who she was as a person.

Marriage calls us not simply to be faithful to our spouse,

but into a wider faithfulness,

a faithfulness to family, friends, sports teams,

and even to God.

This is why in the Catholic tradition

we call marriage a sacrament:

it is a sign that points beyond itself

to an ultimate reality –

the reality of God’s love.

It points to the reality that,

as St. Paul said in our second reading,

“we, though many, are one body in Christ

and individually parts of one another.”

But in order to be a true sign,

it is not enough for C___ and G___

to love one another,

or even to love

each other’s family and friends and sports teams,

but they must love in a particular way.

What St. Paul writes to the Romans

is a pretty good description

of the love that married couples

ought to have for each other:

“Let love be sincere. . . .

love one another with mutual affection;

anticipate one another in showing honor. . . .

Rejoice in hope,

endure in affliction,

persevere in prayer. . . .

Rejoice with those who rejoice,

weep with those who weep. . . .

If possible, on your part, live at peace with all.”

In John’s Gospel, Jesus puts it even more succinctly:

“love one another as I have loved you.

No one has greater love than this,

to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

C___ and G___,

that is what you are doing here today:

laying down your lives for each other,

entrusting your lives to each other,

saying, “wherever you go, I will go.”

Your lives now belong to each other,

and in belonging to each other

you belong to the whole world.

In loving each other sincerely and faithfully,

you will be a sign to the world

that true happiness is found

not in power

or in prestige

or in possessions,

but in the kind of love

that will lay itself down for another,

in the love that seeks

to live in peace with all.

What you do here today is, I know,

important to you.

It is important to your families.

it is important to your friend.

But even more than that,

it is important to the world:

a world that desperately needs a sign

that love can overcome hate,

that generosity is more powerful than greed,

that peace can prevail over violence.

You can be that sign.

In what you do together here today,

in what you do tomorrow,

in what you do for the rest of your lives,

you become,

in what will often be small

and undramatic ways,

a sign from God,

a sign of hope.

As Jesus said to his disciples, I say now to you:

“Go and bear fruit that will remain.”

May God bless you.

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: 1 Kings 19:9a, 11-13a; Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14: 22-33

Somehow, somewhere people came up with the idea

that the chief motivation behind the belief of Christians

was a sense of comfort in this life

and the promise of even more comfort in the next.

In this view, Christianity is for those who cannot face

the harsh realities of this world

and so hope for a better life in another world.

Christians are smug and complacent in their faith,

sure that they know all the answers

and have a firm footing in life.

I can speak only for myself,

but this is not my experience of being a Christian.

For me, the Christian faith seems at times

to make my life

much more complicated,

much more of an effort,

and, in a way, much more uncertain.

Faith places an infinite demand upon me

because it is assent to the truth of the infinite God,

a God whom we can never comprehend or control.

As the twentieth-century theologian Karl Rahner once said,

Christians are those

before whom the abyss of existence opens up –

those who know that they have not thought enough,

have not loved enough,

have not suffered enough.

So do not let anyone tell you otherwise:

to step out in faith

is to step into that abyss of existence.

Think of Peter in today’s Gospel:

Jesus had made the whole walking-on-the-water thing

look pretty easy

and this seemed like a good opportunity

to demonstrate that he,

alone among the apostles,

really had faith;

so Peter succumbed to his impetuous nature

and stepped out of the boat.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

And for a while, it continued to seem like a good idea;

as Peter began to walk across the water toward Jesus.

But then he began to focus more on the wind and the waves

and the watery abyss beneath his feet

and he began to doubt

and he began to sink.

And suddenly the idea of stepping out of the boat

and into the abyss

began to seem like not so much of a good idea.

When I read this passage earlier this week

I thought, “yes, that’s exactly what it’s like.”

When I think about my life as a Christian,

I sometimes feel as if I have foolishly, impulsively,

climbed out of the boat,

inspired by God-knows-what impulse,

and I realize

that the waves are much higher than I thought

and the wind is much stronger than I thought

and the water is much deeper than I thought.

And I realize that I cannot think deeply enough

to grasp the mystery of God.

I realize that I cannot love passionately enough

to be worthy of the love that has been shown to me.

I realize that I cannot suffer willingly enough

to take upon myself the pain of others,

the pain of our world.

I stand suspended

over the infinite depth of divine mystery

and, as my fear takes control,

I begin to sink

and the only prayer I can utter

is to cry out, like Peter, “Lord, save me.”

And then there is Jesus

who grasps our hand and says,

“Take courage, it is I;

do not be afraid.”

As with Elijah in our first reading,

God comes to us not in a strong and heavy wind

or an earthquake

or a fire

but in a tiny whispering sound

that says “do not be afraid.”

God comes to us in the person of Jesus.

In Jesus Christ,

God has reached out to us with a human hand,

amidst the wind and the waves,

to catch us and hold us up over the abyss.

It is not our thinking

or our loving

or our suffering that can save us,

but only Jesus,

“who is over all, God blessed forever.”

If we trust in him,

if we cry out to him, “Lord, save me,”

we can trust that the storm will not overcome us,

the abyss will not swallow us up.

The Christian faith is hard,

not because it is complicated

but precisely because it is so simple.

All that it asks of us is that we see the world as it truly is,

to embrace the abyss that is the mystery of God,

and to trust the tiny whispering sound that says,

“Take courage, it is I;

do not be afraid.”

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

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

As Christians we believe

that God has spoken a word of grace to us,

and we are invited to respond to that word

by bearing the fruit of the Spirit.

In our Gospel reading,

God’s word is depicted as seed

that is scattered widely across on the earth

so that some falls on the path

and some falls on rocky ground,

and some falls among thorny weeds,

with only about a quarter of it falling on good ground.

These different sorts of soil

reflect different sorts of responses to God’s word,

some of which produce fruit and some of which do not.

The seed that falls on good ground produces an abundant harvest,

“a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold,”

by a process that seems to be natural and even effortless.

We might think that Jesus is saying

that while all people might not be good soil

in which his word can take root,

if you are good soil, then the fruits of that word

will be readily apparent;

if you are good soil then you will produce spiritual fruit

with the same ease with which seeds sprout from good soil.

And if you are finding life difficult and full of struggle

then maybe it is because you are not good soil.

This is not, however,

the implication that we should draw from this.

In our second reading, Paul also speaks

of how we live in response to God’s word.

Here the metaphor is not

that of the seed germinating in the soil

but of a woman laboring in childbirth:

“We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains

even until now;

and not only that, but we ourselves,

who have the firstfruits of the Spirit,

we also groan within ourselves.”

Paul speaks of “the sufferings of this present time,”

to which all of creation is subject,

and makes clear that

even those who have received God’s word with joy –

those who are “good soil” –

still share in that suffering.

Put in terms of our Gospel parable,

Paul is saying that we may indeed be the good soil

on which the seed of God’s word has fallen,

but we still groan along with all of creation

in our bringing forth fruit,

just as a woman must labor

in bringing forth her child.

The process of bearing fruit is not always,

and maybe not ever,

an effortless process.

As Jesus reminds us in John’s Gospel,

even the seed that falls to earth

only sprouts by means of a kind of death:

“Amen, amen, I say to you,

unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies,

it remains just a grain of wheat;

but if it dies, it produces much fruit” (John 12:24).

I dare say we all have those moments

when we find ourselves groaning,

awaiting redemption,

asking ourselves and asking God,

does it really have to be so difficult?

We might even have those moments

when we ask ourselves

whether the sheer difficulty that we experience

in trying to be faithful to God’s word

might be a sign that we are not, in fact, good soil,

but are rather the rocky path,

or the shallow earth,

or the weed choked thicket.

We find ourselves unemployed,

and our faith wavers.

We groan under the burden of

a debilitating physical or mental illness,

and we wonder whether God has abandoned us.

We suffer the loss of someone we love

and we ask ourselves whether we really trust

that God is a God of life.

If we groan in our suffering,

does this mean that our faith is shallow

and our souls choked with weeds?

Paul seems to say, “no.”

Suffering in this life

is something we share with all of creation,

and why some suffer and others seemingly do not

should never be taken as a sign of who is and is not

the “good soil” that receives the word.

In fact, we have no idea why life’s sufferings

seem to be so unevenly distributed

and I suspect that the answer to this question

will remain a mystery to us in this life.

Paul, it seems to me, is trying to get us to shift our question.

He is trying to get us to ask not,

“where does this suffering come from,”

but rather “where is this suffering leading.”

We can see our sufferings

either as the last agony of one who is dying

or as the laboring of one who is bringing new life to birth;

our groaning can simply be a cry of despair,

or it can be a calling out to God.

The difference between the good soil and the bad soil

is not that one suffers and the other does not,

that one groans and the other does not,

but rather that the good soil suffers and groans

in faith, and in hope, and in love,

trusting that the trials and sorrows of this life

are, in a mysterious way that we cannot now clearly see,

the birthpangs of the good soil,

laboring to bring forth the fruit of eternal life.

Ascension

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

The event that we celebrate on this feast,

the Ascension of Jesus into heaven,

is recounted in our first reading, from the book of Acts.

Our Gospel reading, from Matthew,

doesn’t mention the Ascension

but rather tells us of the risen Jesus

commissioning his disciples

and promising to remain with them always.

Even though Matthew’s Gospel does not recount

the event of the Ascension,

there is a deep connection between this story

of the commissioning of the disciples

and Jesus' ascending to the right hand of the Father.

Matthew tells us that when the disciples saw Jesus,

“they worshipped, but they doubted.”

What is it that they doubt?

They don’t seem to doubt Christ,

since it says they worshipped him.

Perhaps they doubt their own capacity

to carry out the mission Jesus is giving them.

It is, after all, a daunting task he gives them:

“make disciple of all nation. . .

teaching them to observe

all that I have commanded you.”

Not, “make disciples of some nations”

or “make disciples of as many nations as you can,”

but “make disciples of all nations.”

Not, “teaching them to observe

some of the things I have commanded you”

or “teaching them to be just a little bit better,”

but “teaching them to observe

all that I have commanded you.”

This is a pretty tall order.

No wonder they doubted.

How is it possible for their small band

to make disciples of all nations?

How could they even remember,

much less teach others to observe,

all that Jesus had commanded them?

Perhaps it was these two “all”s

that caused them to doubt.

But the commission

to make disciples of all nations

and to teach them to observe

all that Jesus had commanded

is matched by two other “all”s in Jesus’ words:

“All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me”

and “I am with you always,” –

the Greek is literally “all the days” –

“until the end of the age.”

As if in answer to the disciples’ doubts

about their ability to go to all the nation

and to teach them all that Jesus had commanded,

Jesus reassures him that he has “all power”

and will be with them “all the days”

and that they should therefore

not doubt their ability to carry out

the mission that he is giving them.

And it is in this second pair of “all”s that we find

the true meaning of this feast of the Ascension.

 

As St. Paul says in our second reading,

the Father of glory has raised Christ,

“far above every principality,

authority,

power

and dominion”

and has “put all things under his feet”

so that now he “fills all things in every way.”

If we think of this feast simply as saying

that Jesus has gone to live with God

somewhere above the clouds,

then it might seem as if the Ascension

places Jesus at a greater distance from his disciples

and calls into question his claim

that he will be with them all the days,

until the end of time itself.

But if we think of the Ascension

as Jesus’ full sharing in divine power

then, rather than being a departure,

it is what Pope Benedict has called

“the beginning of a new nearness.”

Jesus in his humanity is now present

to all times and places

just as God is present always and everywhere.

The Ascension tells us that the one who was born of Mary,

taught and healed,

suffered and died,

is as near to us as he was to his disciples

two millennia ago;

indeed, he is in some sense nearer to us.

He is present to us

because he has received power to fill all things.

And if he is with us then we need not doubt

that he will bestow upon us what we need

to fulfill the mission that he gives us.

It is easy for us to fall into thinking that we Christians

are followers of someone who lived a long time ago

and who remains with us only in the form

of some interesting stories and intriguing ideas.

But the feast of the Ascension tells us that this is not true;

when we say that Jesus has ascended to the right hand of God,

we are not saying that he has left this world for some other,

but that he is present in this world

with a new nearness,

sharing with us the power of his risen life.

Where is the ascended Jesus?

Not calling out to us across the centuries,

but speaking to each of us directly

in the words of Scripture.

Where is the ascended Jesus?

Not somewhere above the clouds,

but placing himself in our hands

in the Eucharist we celebrate.

Where is the ascended Jesus?

Not managing some cosmic bureaucracy

but consoling and challenging us

through our fellow Christians

who are his body, the Church.

Like the disciples, we too worship . . .

and doubt.

We come here to worship,

because we believe in him,

but we also doubt that we can do all that he asks of us.

But the feast of the Ascension calls us

to cast those doubts aside

and believe that the one

who “fills all things in every way”

is present to us with a new nearness,

even until the end of time.

Easter 3

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

If you will indulge me for a moment of grammatical reflection,

think about the word “hope” in relation to verb tenses.

Hope is normally something we speak of in the present tense,

as when we say, “I hope it won’t rain tomorrow”

or, as in our second reading today, when St. Peter reminds us

that our “faith and hope are in God.”

While hope is always directed to the future,

we normally think about it

as something that is going on in the present.

Hope in the present tense is a hope that we possess –

a living hope.

But our first reading gives us an example

of hope spoken in the future tense,

when Peter quotes Psalm 16, saying,

“my flesh, too, will dwell in hope.”

It seems at first a bit odd to speak of hope

as something we will have in the future,

as if we were to say, “tomorrow I will hope it doesn’t rain.”

Maybe what we have here is something like a hope for hope –

a hope that we do not yet experience, but which we desire.

What about hope spoken in the past tense?

What about when we say, faced with our soggy picnic,

“I had hoped that it wouldn’t rain today”?

Or, perhaps, “I hoped that this job interview would work out,”

or “We were hoping that the tumor was benign,”

or “I hoped we would grow old together.”

In every statement of hope placed in the past tense

we hear echoes of a story

of disappointment

or disillusion,

of broken dreams

and abandoned aspirations.

This is what we hear echoing in the words of the disciples

as they converse with the unrecognized Jesus

on the road to Emmaus:

“we were hoping

that he would be the one to redeem Israel.”

These are words full

of the pathos of hope in the past tense:

“we were hoping. . . ,”

with the implied-but-unstated conclusion:

“. . . but now we hope no longer.”

These words sum up the shattering effect of the crucifixion

on Jesus’s followers:

they speak of a heritage of hope

that had been bequeathed to the people of Israel,

a hope for a savior who would free them from oppression;

they speak of the hope that in Jesus

all of God’s promises would be made good;

they speak of the death of that hope on Mount Calvary

and its burial in the garden tomb.

Perhaps only a hope of such comprehensive grandeur –

a hope that everything would be set right –

could come crashing down with such devastating force.

The disciples’ words speak of a hope

that has been so thoroughly snuffed out

that even the reports of the women

about the empty tomb

cannot bring it back to life.

Indeed, in their disappointment,

the very presence of Jesus walking beside them

goes unrecognized.

But, of course, the story does not end there.

We are told how, as they walk along together,

the risen Jesus explains to them

the true meaning of that heritage of hope

that had been so disappointed:

how it was “necessary that the Christ should suffer these things

and enter into glory.”

While this is not enough to reawaken their hope,

to allow them to recognize the risen Jesus,

it moves them just enough to ask this stranger

to stay the night with them.

Perhaps this is a case of hope in the future tense:

his words awaken in them a desire to someday hope again.

And so, as night falls, Jesus sits at table with them,

takes the bread,

says the blessing,

breaks it

and gives it to them.

And then their eyes are opened;

they recognize him in the breaking of the bread;

hope is reawakened in them

and they can see the truth of the risen Jesus;

the hope that was just a memory,

something that seemed irretrievably past,

becomes a present reality

as they receive the bread of life at Christ’s table.

And it can be that way with us, as well.

As we come to recognize Christ at the table of the altar

our hopes that had fallen into the past tense

can be spoken again in the present tense.

We who said, “we were hoping. . . ,”

with the implied-but-unstated conclusion:

“. . . but now we hope no longer,”

can know in the breaking of the bread

the presence of Christ, risen and alive,

just as those disciples at Emmaus did.

And a hope that knows the risen Christ

is a hope that can be spoken in the present tense.

We are surrounded by things

that seem to offer us hope:

medical breakthroughs

that promise cures deadly diseases,

forecasts of economic revival

that could fulfill out material wants,

and even the killing of a particularly evil man,

whose death might promise

an end to violence and terror.

But all of these hopes

can so easily slip into the past tense.

For all of our medical breakthroughs,

we still die.

Every economic revival

is followed by a downturn,

and our material wants remain insatiable.

The killing of one evil man

typically generates two or three more,

ready to take up his mission of violence and terror.

And we find ourselves saying, “We were hoping. . .”

But as Christians we believe

that the hope that we receive at this altar –

a hope that is born in the breaking of the bread,

a hope that is raised up with the risen Jesus –

is a hope that is always spoken in the present tense.

Christ is risen,

giving us a hope that will never die again.

So let us leave behind all illusory hopes,

which so quickly slip into the past tense,

and cling to the one hope

that rises with Christ and lives forever.

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.