11th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Ezekiel 17:22-24; 2 Corinthians 5:6-10; Mark 4:26-34

VIDEO

“With many such parables
he spoke the word to them.”
So, what exactly is a parable?
Well, it is kind of hard to say.
We typically think of a parable as a story
that is supposed to teach us something. 
And certainly some of the most famous 
parables of Jesus are stories,
like the good Samaritan or the prodigal son.
In the Gospels, however, some things 
that get called parables
are not really stories at all,
but more like proverbial sayings:
“if one blind person guides another, 
both will fall into a pit.”
And sometimes, as in today’s Gospel
a parable is a simple comparisons:
the kingdom of God is like 
how a tiny mustard seed
grows into a large plant.

Moreover, what exactly it is 
that the parables are supposed to teach us
is not always clear.
In the Gospels, 
one thing all the parables seem to share
is that they confuse their hearers.
This is true even of the parables that seem
to convey clear moral lessons.
We might think that 
the parable of the good Samaritan
is telling us to come to the aid 
of those who are in need,
but to Jesus’ Jewish audience
the very idea of a good Samaritan
would have been baffling 
and even scandalous,
like a story about a good terrorist.
And a seemingly clear bit of advice—
don’t let blind people 
lead other blind people around—
prompts his followers to say,
“Explain this parable to us,”
perhaps because they were wondering
who it was that were supposed to be blind leaders.
And even today’s parables about growing seeds
seem to cause some sort of confusion,
since Jesus has to explain them later 
to his disciples in private.

One commentator I read stated,
“Each parable… contains one main point 
that is its basic message.”
But this is clearly wrong.
Parables seem to invite 
multiple interpretations,
even conflicting interpretations.
Rather than delivery devices 
for a basic message,
the parables of Jesus serve 
as instruments of perplexity,
mean of making us ponder,
ways of revealing to us 
just how little we understand
about God and the ways of his kingdom.
They are less likely to make us say,
“Oh, now I get it”
than to prompt us to ask,
“Do I really understand 
what is going on at all?”

Today’s Gospel reading
explicitly calls our attention 
to the limits of our understanding:
the farmer doesn’t know 
what hidden process
leads the tiny seed under the earth
to sprout and grow into such a large plant.
It prompts us to ask:
if the power of a seed to grow 
is hidden from us,
how much more hidden 
is the power of God’s kingdom?
If we are startled by the contrast 
between the smallness of the seed 
that we put in the earth
and the greatness the plant that grows from it,
a plant in which 
the birds of the sky can find a home,
how much more startling is the contrast
between the dead body of Jesus, 
planted in the tomb,
and the immensity of the kingdom 
that springs forth from it in his resurrection,
a kingdom of people drawn 
from every land and nation,
every culture and way of life?

The mind cannot comprehend such mysteries.
Those who await the fulness of God’s reign
must learn how to live 
with perplexity and mystery,
must learn, as Paul put it, 
to “walk by faith and not by sight,”
to trust in Jesus to lead them 
through the darkness of unknowing
into the light of the Kingdom.
Parables show us just how much
we do not know,
how constricted our imaginations are,
how much we must walk 
by faith and hope and love
and not by sight,
how much we must rely on Jesus 

to guide us through the darkness. 

Speaking for myself,
I find that the more I ponder 
God’s ways in the world
the more perplexed my mind becomes,
the more I realize how much

I don’t know about by own life,
where it comes from and where it is going.
Our lives are a parable 
that God is telling,
and as with the parables in the Gospels,
we at best half-understand them.
In our lives we are often perplexed
as to what God’s point is,
what God is up to,
where God is leading us.
Why is there so much hatred 
and violence in the world?
How in the midst of violence and hatred
are people still capable of great acts of love?
Why have I lost someone I love to death?
What have I ever done to deserve
such faithful friends and family?
Why have my hopes and dreams
not come to pass?

The Gospel today tells us,
“to his own disciples 
he explained everything in private.”
Perhaps in this life
we will never find answers
to the questions that perplex us.
But in the midst of perplexity and unknowing
Jesus speaks to those who follow him
in the secret recesses of their hearts,
and if we turn to him in prayer
we will receive,
if not always an explanation, 
at least a word of consolation,
a word of encouragement,
a word that can strengthen us
to continue to follow him on the way.
For he is the way,
and our life is a seed we have been given,
a seed we have been asked to plant in faith,
a seed that must die with Christ 
and be buried with him, 
so that something that is
beyond our power to imagine
can grow from it.
We walk by faith and not by sight,
but we walk with Jesus,
and he will lead us.
So let us pray that God,
who is merciful,
would have mercy on us all.

Pentecost

Readings: Acts 2:1-11; 1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13; John 20:19-23

VIDEO 

A friend of mine tells 
of an elderly priest he knew years ago
who, expressing caution about
the growth among Catholics 
of the Charismatic Movement, 
described the Holy Spirit as 
“one of the trickiest persons of the Trinity.”
Even those who might be more enthusiastic
about the charismatic renewal in Catholicism
would surely have to agree that the Spirit can be tricky.

Indeed, we might even see some similarity
between the Holy Spirit and those figures in folklore
that scholars refer to as “tricksters.”
In folktales, tricksters are sometimes gods,
like Loki in Norse mythology,
or animals of particular cunning,
like Brer Rabbit in African-American traditions
or the coyote in Native-American stories.
I suppose in contemporary American mythology
the most notable trickster would be Bart Simpson.
Tricksters like to stir the pot and create chaos,
to shake up the normal order of things
and mock the power of established authorities.
They are usually morally ambiguous troublemakers
who are depicted as causing mischief, 
but also as embodying freedom and creativity.
As the writer Lewis Hyde put it,
tricksters are boundary-crossers,
blurring distinctions between
“right and wrong, sacred and profane, 
clean and dirty, male and female, 
young and old, living and dead.”

Though I hesitate to push the comparison too far—
the Holy Spirit, after all, is not exactly Bart Simpson—
I do think that the Spirit plays in the Christian story
a role similar to the trickster in mythology and folklore.
The Spirit is a boundary-crosser and a troublemaker.
At the baptism of Jesus, the heavens are opened
and the Spirit descends like a dove,
crossing the boundary between heaven and earth,
between the divine and the human,
to manifest Jesus as God’s beloved Son
and send him forth 

on his troublemaking mission.
On the evening of that first Easter
Jesus breathes out the Spirit upon the disciples, 
crossing the boundary between 
the resurrected life that he now leads
and their fearful, huddled existence,
giving to them his troublemaking peace
and the power to share that peace with others.
On the day of Pentecost,
the Spirit once again crosses the boundary
between heaven and earth,
descending from the sky 
with “a noise like a strong driving wind”
and resting on the apostles in
“tongues as of fire.”
And in crossing the boundary 
of heaven and earth 
the Spirit also crosses boundaries
of culture and language,
as the apostles begin to speak to the crowd
gathered “from every nation under heaven”
in a Spirit-filled language
that each can hear and understand.
And the trouble that causes
is recounted in depth in the book of Acts.

We are told that the crowd 
on that day of Pentecost is, 
as so often when tricksters are at work, 
“confused.” 
People are supposed to stay
in their cultural and linguistic boxes,
but now the pot has been stirred,
the old categories and division are blurred.
This kind of boundary-crossing
is profoundly disorienting.
But at the same time, we are told,
the people in the crowd 
are not simply confused;
they are astounded and amazed,
because they are able to hear together, 
despite their differences,
of the mighty acts of God.

St. Paul assures us that our God
“is not the God of disorder 
but of peace” (1 Cor 14:33).

But he also tells us that 

“the peace of God… surpasses 

all understanding” (Phil 4:7),

and after the risen Christ 

wishes his disciples peace

he shows them his wounds,

the price of all his troublemaking.

So, what is for God power

might seem to us weakness,
what is for God wisdom
might seem to us foolishness,
and what is for God order
might seem to us 
disorder and chaos and trouble.

And this is perhaps most evident
in what is that tricky Spirit’s trickiest work:
the body of Christ that is the Church.
For the Spirit blows into the Church
the most unlikely assemblage of people,
from the four corners of the world
and from every race and language:
men and women,
rich and poor,
thinkers and doers,
morning people and nightowls,
athletes and couch potatoes,
city-dwellers and suburbanites,
Republicans, Democrats, 
Baby Boomers, Gen-Xers,
Millennials, Zoomers,
and even Steelers fans…
all baptized into one body,
and all given to drink 
of the one tricky Spirit.

Sometimes it looks and sounds
like chaos and disorder.
When parishioners from churches
throughout the city of Baltimore
packed this Cathedral a few weeks ago
for the final listening session
of the Seek the City to Come process
it seemed at times to be pretty disorderly,
and pretty noisy,
as different voices from different places
spoke of their unique experiences
in their irreplaceable parishes.
But the hope we must bring 

to such listening
is that what will emerge 
from that welter of voices
is the voice of the one Spirit.
As with everything at every moment
in the long history of the Church,
we live in hope that it is
the boundary-crossing trickster Spirit 
who is at work;
we live in hope that it is
not simply a clamor 
of anxious human voices
but the sound of the strong 
driving wind of the Spirit 
that we hear;
we live in hope that, 
when all is said and done,
we will be able to see
different spiritual gifts but the same Spirit,
different forms of service but the same Lord,
different workings but the same God
who works them all.

On this feast of Pentecost
let us pray that that trickiest Person
of the most Holy Trinity
would shine within our hearts,
breaking down the boundaries between us,
making us into the one body of Christ,
enlivened by the Spirit.
And may God, who is merciful,
have mercy on us all.

Vigil of Pentecost

Readings: Genesis 11:1-9; Exodus 19:3-8a, 16-20b; Ezekiel 37:1-14; Joel 3:1-5; Romans 8:22-27; John 7:37-39

VIDEO

Collapsed towers and confused tongues;
fire and thunder and trembling mountains;
the sun turned to darkness,
and the moon to blood;
a valley filled with rattling bones 
reassembling themselves
into spiritless bodies;
all creation groaning in labor pains 
even until now.
Welcome to the feast of Pentecost.

The ancient Vigil of Pentecost
offers us what appears to be 
catastrophic image 
after catastrophic image
as it prepares us 
for the descent of the Spirit.
It might feel more like 
a dystopian disaster movie
than the arrival of the Paraclete.
It might feel more 
like catastrophe than comfort.

This word “catastrophe,” 
which we associate with 
the sudden arrival of bad fortune,
comes from Greek
and means literally an overturning.
It is a catastrophe when peoples’ lives 
are turned upside down
by wars or natural disasters,
by serious illness or personal tragedy,
by fickle fortune
or deliberate deception.

But the greatest of all catastrophes is sin,
which overturns the order 
of our very existence,
as we try to place ourselves above God,
above the one who is 
the source of our existence.
The 14th-century mystic Julian of Norwich
wrote, “Adam’s sin was the greatest harm 
ever done or ever to be done 
until the end of the world.”
In rejecting the true source of life,
we overturn the order of creation,
so that what we call life is nothing but 
one long catastrophic decline into death.

The arrival of sin in the world 
is a catastrophe, an overturning.
The arrival of the Spirit is likewise 
a catastrophe, an overturning,
but of a radically different sort.
It is the comforting catastrophe,
because the Spirit takes the world
that we have turned upside down
and turns it over once again;
the Spirit comes
to overturn our overturning,
to blow into our lives like a whirlwind
that dispels our disobedience,
and sounds like thunder and rattling bones,
breathing itself into the living death
that we call life.
The Spirit arrives 
with catastrophic comfort
that can seem to us quite uncomfortable
because what we take to be 
the proper order and peace of the world
is actually the disorder and strife of sin.
We think it is only right
that the strong should oppress the weak.
We think it is only right 
that we should amass all the wealth we can.
We think it is only right
that we should live for ourselves first,
and judge others on the basis
of how useful they are 
to our life projects.
We grow comfortable with the world’s fallenness;
we make our peace with sin and call it order.
And when the Spirit blows into this fallenness
and blows apart this illusion of order,
it seems to us to be chaos and peril.

But the fire and the thunder 
and the trembling of the mountain
are but the echo
of God’s call to his chosen people:
“if you hearken to my voice…
you shall be my special possession…. 
You shall be to me 
a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.”
The sun turned to darkness,
and the moon to blood
are but signs of the day on which
the Spirit shall be poured out on all flesh,
so that everyone who calls 
on the name of the Lord
will be saved.
The valley of rattling bones
is but the prelude to impending resurrection,
when the Spirit will come from the four winds
to breathe new life into our bodies.
The groaning of all creation
is but the sound of the Spirit
who prays within us 
with sighs too deep for words
as we await the redemption of our bodies.
The catastrophic comfort of the Spirit 
shakes apart the world of sin
and wakes us from the slumber 
of its false promises of peace.

And once we are awakened by the Spirit
we can hear the voice of Christ:
“Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink.”
Come to me and drink of my grace.
Come to me and receive the Spirit
of wisdom and understanding,  
of right judgment and courage, 
of knowledge and reverence,
of wonder and awe.
True life is found not in dreams
of power and wealth and self-seeking,
but in a gift freely given.
The Spirit awakens us 
to hear the voice of Christ 
calling us into his body,
so that the deep thirst of our souls 
might be quenched,
and his love in us 
might be kindled, 
and our weary hearts 
might know true peace—
his peace, 
which surpasses all understanding.
May God, who is merciful,
have mercy on us all 
and grant us peace.

 

Loyola University Baccalaureate Mass

Readings: Jeremiah 29:11-14; Philippians 1:3-6, 8-11; John 15:9-17 

VIDEO

We began in boxes.
We didn’t think we would,
but then on August 6, 2020
we got the word: 
classes for the Fall semester—
for most of you, your first semester—
would all be online.
So there we sat on Zoom,
staring at each other in our little boxes,
swallowing our disappointment 
and wondering if we 
would ever get out of them.
And we did get out of them,
slowly at first:
during the Spring semester
in our boxes only half the time,
meeting every other class in person
in spaces too large for real connection
and with masks hiding our faces.

But eventually 
we left our boxes behind
and we got into regular classrooms
and around seminar tables,
and the masks came off
and friendships formed,
and we began to learn together.

This is the story of the Class of 2024,
but in some ways, it is the story 
of every undergraduate class
that I have ever taught 
in my thirty years at Loyola.
They have all begun enclosed in boxes:
boxes of their limited experiences
and certain ideas they have 
about themselves and their world,
boxes that may seem 
comfortable or comforting
but are also constraining and isolating.
And what we who work at a university 
try to do over the course of four years
is get our students out of those boxes.

This is, I think, true of every university,
but it is true in a particular way
at a liberal arts university like Loyola.
You arrive in the box of thinking 
“I’m not a STEM person”
and we will make you take math.
You arrive in the box of thinking 
“I’m really focused on becoming an accountant”
and we will make you take philosophy.
You arrive in the box of thinking
that you know something
and, well, we won’t tell you that you know nothing,
but we will show you that what you know
is but a tiny speck compared to what you could know.

We call them “the liberal arts”
because they involve cultivating the skills 
necessary to live as a free person, 
which includes the skill 
of overcoming our isolation
by becoming curious about human experience 
in all its variety.
The ancient Roman writer Terrence,
who began life as a slave from northern Africa
and ended it as a celebrated playwright,
famously said, Homo sum, 
humani nihil a me alienum puto. 
For those whose Latin is a little rusty,
this means, “I am a human being, 
I consider nothing that is human alien to me.”
We want you to be free,
and so we have pressed you to get out of your box
and live your life against a broader horizon,
the horizon of all of human thought and experience.

But Loyola is not just a liberal arts university;
we are a Catholic and Jesuit liberal arts university,
which means that the education we offer
is set against a horizon far vaster 
than even the totality 
of human thought and experience.
Your education has been set against
the horizon of the infinite love that lies
at the very heart of existence, 
the love that, as Thomas Aquinas would put it,
people call God.
When St. Paul writes 
to the Christians at Philippi
that his prayer for them is
“that your love may increase ever more and more 
in knowledge and every kind of perception, 
to discern what is of value,”
he is not praying that they will study math,
as good as that is,
or that they will read philosophy,
as good as that is,
or that they will come to appreciate
the vastness of the world of human experience,
as good as that is.
He is praying that the love that is God
would come to possess them,
so that their lives might expand
beyond the limits of the human
into the divine.
He is calling them out of the box
of the humanly possible
to live in the dizzying freedom 
of the children of God.

This is the most important thing
that Loyola had to teach you.
This is the magis, the “more,” 
of which St. Ignatius spoke—
not simply the endless striving 
for human achievement,
but the ever-greater glory of God.
The great Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner
said that the Christian is one before whom 
the abyss of existence opens up,
one who knows that he or she
“has not thought enough, 
has not loved enough, 
has not suffered enough.”
The magis at Loyola 
is not about a smooth path 
of continuous quality improvement,
or rising U.S. News rankings,
or the implementation of strategic plans;
and for our graduates 
it is not about higher salaries,
or bigger houses,
or more fame and recognition.
The magis means 
thinking and loving and suffering
until we find ourselves 
lost in the wilderness of God,
out of all the boxes in which 
we have packaged ourselves,
confronted by Jesus, 
the one who in living and dying
shows us that being possessed
by the love that is God
asks from us 
nothing less than everything:
“No one has greater love than this, 
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
If we have not taught you this
then we have taught you nothing,
and you are still in the box you arrived in.

This might sound kind of harsh, 
and pretty terrifying,
as if all we have prepared you for
is a life of hardship and sacrifice,
which is what most people 
go to college to avoid.
But here is the mystery,
the mystery revealed 
in Jesus’s cross and resurrection: 
it is precisely in laying down your life
that you can take it up again in freedom.
The ultimate box in which we encase ourselves
is the illusion that freedom means 
being in charge of our own lives,
rather than giving those lives away
in love of God and neighbor.
And to emerge from that box
is finally to find a life worth living:
not a life of higher salaries
or bigger houses,
of more fame and recognition,
but a life that brushes up against
eternal love.

God says through the prophet Jeremiah,
“I know well the plans I have in mind for you…
plans for your welfare and not for woe, 
so as to give you a future of hope.”
God’s deepest desire for all of you,
and most especially for our graduates,
is that you emerge from your box
to know that love for which
you will lay down your life,
so that you might truly have
a future of hope eternal.
I pray that God’s desire for you 
might be fulfilled, 
and that God, who is merciful,
might have mercy on us all.

Easter 5

Readings: Acts 8:26-40; 1 John 4:7-21; John 15:1-8

There is an ancient legend about St. John, 
evangelist and beloved disciple,
that is recounted by Thomas Aquinas 
at the end of his commentary on John’s Gospel.
John, who was the one apostle 
not to die a martyr’s death,
lived to a ripe old age.
When he was no longer able to walk,
he was carried to the church by the faithful
so he could teach them.
And he taught only one thing:
“Little children, love one another.”
Thomas Aquinas adds,
“This is the perfection 
of the Christian life” (§2653). 

The conclusion Thomas draws 
from this apocryphal story
rings true not only with the Gospel 
and the Letters of John,
but with Scripture as a whole.
We hear this morning from
the First Letter of John:
“If we love one another, God lives in us, 
and his love is perfected in us.”
As Aquinas uses the term, 
“perfection” is not 
some unobtainable ideal,
something true only of God;
it is in fact true of anything 
that fully realizes the kind of thing it is.
A knife is perfected by being sharp,
a racehorse is perfected by being fast,
food is perfected by being 
both tasty and nutritious.
For something to lack these perfections 
is to fall short of being 
the thing that it is meant to be.
And, seemingly, the life of a Christian
is perfected by loving others;
and not to love is, for us Christians, 
to fall short of being 
the thing we are meant to be.

Perhaps this leads us 
to breathe a sigh of relief.
Love? 
Who knew that perfection was so easy?
But of course, it’s not so easy.
And St. John, even if he did,
at the end of his life,
teach nothing except 
“little children, love one another,”
knew that love, as Christians understand it,
is something quite arduous and demanding.
It might seem quite easy to love God,
especially if the God we love 
is simply an abstract notion,
an omnibenevolent higher power
whom we encounter as a distant, hidden force.
But Christianity requires also love of neighbor,
the insistent close-at-hand human presence 
that demands of me 
some sort of concrete response.
 
Maybe this difficulty is why 
love is not simply suggested,
since suggestions are something
we feel free to ignore,
but commanded.
“The commandment we have from him is this: 
those who love God must love 
their brothers and sisters also.”
And the brothers and sisters 
whom we are called to love
might not seem to us very lovable.
They will probably seem weird 
or annoying or grubby 
or threatening or alien.
To love my neighbors 
in their insistent proximity 
will involve my heart traveling 
some distance from where it is
to where God wants it to be.

In our first reading,
the story of Philip baptizing 
the Ethiopian eunuch,
we get some sense of the distance 
the heart must travel
in order to reach the perfection 
of the Christian life.
Philip is a “Hellenist”—
that is, a Greek-speaking Jew
from the diaspora, outside Judea.
The Ethiopian is, well, an Ethiopian, 
which in the ancient world 
was a generic term
for anyone with black skin. 
Ethiopia, moreover, 
stood in the ancient imagination
as a place that was far distant 
and almost unimaginably exotic.
The Roman writer 
Pliny the Elder claimed 
that there were Ethiopians 
who were twelve feet tall,
and that they “never spit, 
do not suffer from 
headache or toothache 
or pain in the eyes, 
and very rarely have a pain 
in any other part of the body.”
They might as well be 
from another planet.
And in the Old Testament, 
when the writers want to speak 
of something as being at a great distance,
they say it is as far as Ethiopia,
in the same way we might refer 
to something being in Timbuktu
(which, in case you don’t know,
is an actual city in Mali).

But the Ethiopian’s distance from Philip
is not simply geographical or cultural.
For this Ethiopian is a eunuch,
and even though he is reading 
from Israel’s scriptures
his status as a eunuch would prevent him 
from joining in Israel’s worship,
for eunuchs were excluded from the Temple.
Philip’s heart must travel some distance
in order to be perfected by loving this Ethiopian,
in order to see him as a brother for whom Christ died
and welcome him into fellowship through baptism.
And so the story emphasizes 
at every moment
that it is the Spirit 
who is propelling Philip,
for only the Spirit can guide us 
across such distance.

Given events in the world today,
it is hard not to be struck by the fact
that the setting of this story
is the road that runs 
from Jerusalem to Gaza.
What better symbolizes for us
the seemingly impossible journey
that the heart must make
to the perfection of love
than traversing the road 
from Jerusalem to Gaza?
What better captures for us
the seemingly intractable complexity
of creating not simply a cessation of violence
(which would in itself be something)
but the creation of true shalom,
the true peace of God 
that is the fruit of love?
What situation better sums up
how cultural and religious difference
can erect barriers that block 
the path to love of one another?
 
The road from Jerusalem to Gaza
marks a journey whose distance is too great,
a journey that we cannot make on our own.
And while we see that unmade journey 
vividly displayed 
in the current conflict in the Middle East,
we also have roads from Jerusalem to Gaza
in our own nation,
in our own homes,
in our own hearts:
Intractable racial divisions,
long-festering family conflicts,
the gap between the good 
that I know I should do
that the evil that I actually do.
All of this and more
tells us that the love for one another
that is the perfection of the Christian life
often involves a journey 
too far for us to make.

But though we cannot ourselves
make that journey,
the Spirit can.
Though we cannot 
cross that distance,
the Spirit can.
For the Spirit,
who can traverse
even the infinite distance 
between God and us,
binds us to Jesus
and make us abide 
in his love for the Father
and the Father’s love for him,
so that the flow of love 
that is the life of God
begins to flow through us
and begins to flow from us
out across the distance 
that separates us from one another,
even the distance from Jerusalem to Gaza. 

Jesus tells us in the Gospel: 
“apart from me you can do nothing.”
But if we abide in him
through the Spirit…
well, who knows what is possible?
“Beloved, let us love one another.”
Let us love the weird, annoying, grubby, 
threatening, alien other,
“because love is from God; 
everyone who loves 
is born of God 
and knows God.”
And this is the perfection
of the Christian life.

 

Easter 4

Readings: Acts 4:8-12; 1 John 3:1-2; John 10:11-18

VIDEO

This has been a tough week 

for Catholics in Baltimore,
as the prospect begins to sink in 
that the Church in the city could go from 
sixty-one parishes 
to twenty-one.
It has been especially tough
for those parishes that, 
in the current Seek the City proposal,
are slated to be closed and merged
into other parishes.
But even in parishes that are likely 
to remain as worship sites
there is a pervasive sense 
of shock and grief and, yes, anger
at the idea of nearly two thirds 
of the parishes in the city closing.
Fallen human nature being what it is,
some may be gloating that their parish
has, as they see it, “survived” 
where others have not,
but that is generally not 
what I have heard from people.
The Catholic community in Baltimore 
is tightly knit:
we know each other’s parishes;
we have worshipped at them over the years
at Baptisms and Communions and Confirmations; 
we have admired the beauty
of their buildings and their people;
we are, as today’s Gospel puts it, 
one flock with one shepherd,
Jesus Christ himself, 
and so we bear each other’s sorrows
and share each other’s loss.

Many may feel that the Church
is abandoning the city,
like the bad shepherds of whom Jesus speaks: 
those who work merely for pay 
and have no concern for the sheep,
who see a wolf coming and run away,
leaving the sheep to be scattered.
Let me say that while this feeling
is understandable,
I don’t think that is what is going on.
Perhaps I have simply, as they say,
drunk the Koolaid,
but I do believe that, 
while I may agree or disagree 
with this or that 
specific recommendation,
the Seek the City process 
has been a good faith effort 
to address the needs of a shrinking flock
and laying the groundwork for the flock to grow.

But let’s not let the shepherds 
off the hook entirely.
I will not deny that we clergy
must bear our measure of blame
for the state of the Church in the city today,
and for people’s skepticism 
regarding anything we say about it.
Obviously, the abuse scandals 
have driven away members of the flock
and engendered cynicism 
among those who remain.
But also, and even more,
we clergy have all too often 
simply not risen to the task 
of forging new forms of ministry 
amid depopulation and disinvestment,
high crime rates and pervasive poverty;
we have ourselves succumbed 
to despair and inaction and cynicism
at the sight of emptying pews.
And, at the heart of it all,
we have sometimes 
simply not loved God enough
to lay down our lives for God’s flock.
And for all this I can do no more than, 
like Job, to repent in dust and ashes.

But while, as always, 
there is plenty of blame to go round,
and while we should be honest 
about our failures,
laying blame and wallowing in failure 
are not what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is about.
It is about the stone rejected by the builders
that becomes the cornerstone of a new Temple
in which we worship God in Spirit and in truth.
It is about the love of God bestowed on us
even while we lay dead in our sins,
making us God’s children.
It is about the assurance 
that we have a good shepherd
who will never abandon us to the wolves,
a shepherd who lays down his life for us,
a shepherd who takes up that life again
so that we can be taken up with him
into the glory of eternal light.

People need to be allowed to feel 
the darkness of this moment;
they need to be allowed to grieve
and even to feel anger.
But if we are to be Christians,
darkness, grief, and anger
cannot be the final word.
In the midst of darkness,
we cannot forget the promise of light,
the light that streams 
from the risen body of Christ.
St. John writes in our second reading,
“Beloved, we are God’s children now;
what we shall be has not yet been revealed.”
We can and should look at demographic trends
and population patterns in the city,
measure pew space and count numbers,
think through what is possible 
and what is plausible,
but the fact is that we don’t know
what God’s plans are 
for the Church in Baltimore:
what we shall be has not yet been revealed.
And it is hard to live without knowing.
But we do know we are God’s children now;
we know that we have a good shepherd;
we know that a stone rejected
has become the cornerstone;
we know that God brings life out of death
for we have met the risen one on the road
and felt our hearts—
weighed down with darkness, grief, and anger—
burn within us with the fire of his love.
We know that he is risen,
and we are risen with him,
and nothing can separate us from his love.
This is the faith that will carry us through
the difficult months ahead,
for this is the faith that will carry us
through death into eternal life.

Holy Thursday

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

Preached at Corpus Christi Church, Baltimore.

So here we are,
embarking on these three
most holy of days.
As disciples of Jesus Christ
we gather with him once again,
just as his first disciples did 
on the night before 
he was handed over
to suffering and to death.
We gather with him once again
in an anxious hour of uncertainty.
We gather with him once again
to eat a meal like those in flight
into an unknown future.
We gather with him once again
in a moment when memory 
reaches back into the past
to retrieve hope 
in God’s power to save.

But what if memory is not enough?
Our human memory 
is prone to fading and forgetting,
and to nostalgia and confabulation,
and even when we remember well
we can never remember well enough
to stop the flow of time,
to make our lives secure from the future 
that bears down upon us.
For those first disciples,
the memory of God’s salvation
of their ancestors
could not forestall what was to come,
could not forestall betrayal and denial
and scattering and cross and tomb.
Our memory is not enough.

But thanks be to God 
that tonight is not about our memory
but about God’s memory,
not about how we remember Jesus
but about how Jesus remembers us.
It is true that in our Eucharist 
we remember God’s saving work
and the night of Jesus’ handing over.
But more than that,
we ask God to remember us:
to remember the Church throughout the world,
to remember us who gather in this place,
to remember those who have died,
those who once gathered with us 
but who have now passed beyond our sight:
Sr. Marge, Frank Callahan, Larry and Mary Alma Lears, 
Vince Gomes, Tom Ward, John and Mary Jane O’Brien,
Henry Tom, Frank Hodges, Kathy Hoskins, 
Shirley Allen, Irene Van Sant and Jim Curran,
and so many more.
Tonight, as in every Eucharist, 
Christ re-member us,
makes us his members once again:
he gathers us from our scatteredness 
and knits us once more into his body—
Corpus Christi.

“He loved his own in the world.” 
Because Jesus remembers each one of us, 
he holds us together in his heart,
and in that heart we find a refuge
from an anxious, unknown future.
He treasures us in his heart,
which like our hearts suffers human pain
but which also burns with the love of God,
burns with the primal love 
that called the cosmos out of nothingness,
burns with the eternal love
that knows no shadow of change.
We are his most beloved possession
and he will not let us go.

“He loved his own in the world 
and he loved them to the end.”
Though in that anxious, uncertain hour
his disciples did not know what was coming,
they must have sensed that the end was near.
But this is the Good News
of these three days:
the end is not the end 
if he loves us.
And he does love us.
The whole meaning 
of these most holy of days
that we are celebrating
is that the end is not the end.
Beyond the tomb there lies
the risen glory of the lamb once slain,
a glory that we cannot imagine,
and in our moments of deepest distress
can scarcely believe.
But believe we do.
We believe that beyond the end
we will find the fire of that love, 
human and divine,
that burns without end
within the heart of Jesus.
We believe that beyond the end 
there lies new life,
a new life we live already 
through the sacramental signs
that Jesus gives to us this night.
We believe that beyond the end
there lies the day of the Lord,
the day of resurrection,
the day whose sun knows no setting.

Jesus loved them to the end
and Jesus loved them through the end.
Held within the heart of Jesus,
he carried them with him 
through the end that would seem 
to have shattered their communion 
with him and with each other
to call them once again
into the adventure of discipleship,
the adventure of life with him, 
of life in him and with each other.

St. John wrote, “Beloved, 
we are God’s children now; 
what we shall be 
has not yet been revealed.”
We cannot see beyond the end.
But though we cannot see we can still believe,
and we do believe that because he loves us—
to the end and through the end—
the end is not the end,
but simply one more step
in the adventure of life 
with God and with each other.
And so we pray,
all good thieves together,
“Jesus, remember us
when you come into your kingdom.”

Lent 5 (Third Scrutiny)

Readings: Ezekiel 37:12-14; Romans 8:8-11; John 11:1-45

VIDEO

With the story of the raising of Lazarus,
we find ourselves arrived 
in our Lenten pilgrimage
at the edge of the mystery.
We find ourselves confronted 
with a final sign
pointing us toward 
our destination and our destiny:
the incomprehensible love of God
poured out into the world
in the cross and resurrection of Jesus,
and the promise of sharing 
in God’s own deathless life.
We find ourselves at the place 
where the one who is 
resurrection and life
stands at the place of death 
and cries, “come out!”

This is the time, 
this is the place
where the promise of God 
heard in our first reading
resounds once again in our ears:
“O my people, I will open your graves 
and have you rise from them 
and bring you back to the land of Israel.”
I will open your graves—
graves of sin,
graves of sorrow,
graves of doubt—
and bring you back to the land of promise.
In calling us to holiness and joy and trust,
Christ calls us not to some unknown destination
but back to our true homeland.
For we are made for holiness and for joy, 
we are made for trust and for life with God,
yet we, like the prodigal son,
have wandered from the Father’s house
and found ourselves in a land of exile,
found ourselves in a tomb of our own fashioning.
But now we stand in a time and in a place
where Jesus can be heard calling to us:
“come out!”

We celebrate today the third and final scrutiny
with those who will be baptized at the Easter Vigil.
These catechumens,
along with the candidates for reception
into the full communion of the Catholic Church,
have been journeying for many months:
studying the scriptures and traditions of the Church,
and learning the discipline of prayer,
journeying with each other
and journeying with Jesus
to this place and this time.
They each have a unique story 
of their journey:
they are young and old,
men and women,
with various occupations and interests;
some are complete newcomers to Christianity,
some have been coming to Mass for years
(in one case, for decades).
But it is the one Spirit of the Father 
who raised Jesus from the dead 
that has called them
to this place and time.

Despite what the name might suggest,
the scrutinies do not involve any sort of quiz,
where we examine our catechumens 
to see if they have learned 
enough about Catholicism
to be worthy to join our ranks.
Let’s be honest:
how well would most of us do
if we had to take such a quiz?
In any case, this is not a matter
of knowing a bunch of information,
but of knowing themselves
and knowing Jesus.

The scrutinies are an invitation,
not just to the catechumens but to all of us,
to look deep into our hearts—
hearts that have been hardened by sin,
hearts that have become tombs in which
holiness and joy and trust lie buried.
They are an invitation to listen in the silence
for the voice of Jesus
piercing though the stony walls 
of our hardened hearts,
calling to us, “Come out!”

Our tombs may be deep 
and their walls may be thick,
built of stones of sin and sorrow and doubt,
but it is the one who is himself 
resurrection and life
who calls to us.
Listen.
He is calling:
Lazarus, come out!
Tom, come out!
Lamar, come out!
Madison, come out!
Jackson, come out!
Shawn, come out!
All you who are sinful, 
sorrowful, 
doubtful,
come out!

Today we are standing with them 
at the edge of the mystery:
the mystery of Christ’s passing over
from death to life,
the mystery of our passing over
from death to life.
And in that mystery,
the call to come out 
becomes a call to come in.
Come out from the place of exile,
come into your true homeland;
come out from a life of shadows,
come into the clear light of eternity;
come out from the tomb 
of your own hardened heart,
come into a life 
of holiness and joy and trust.
Enter the wedding feast 
of the Lamb once slain
and now gloriously reigning,
the banquet of abundant life
that has been prepared for you
from before the foundation of the world.
Come out.
Come in.
Feast.
Rejoice.

Lent 3

Readings: Exodus 20:1-17; 1 Corinthians 1:22-25; John 2:13-25

VIDEO

Christianity is weird.
And if you take it seriously,
it will make you seriously weird as well.
This is the good news.

Of course, 
this might not sound like good news.
After all, most of us
(even here in Baltimore)
don’t want to be weird;
we just want to fit in and get along.
We never really outgrow 
that fear that lodges in us
around the time we enter Middle School—
the fear of being mocked as a weirdo:
not liking the right things,
not wearing the right clothes,
not listening to the right music.
Despite our culture’s strong emphasis
on individuality and authenticity,
at the end of the day 
we are remarkably conformist:
we tend to follow
paths that will win for us 
the approval and admiration 
of those around us. 

St. Paul tells us that
“Jews demand signs 
and Greeks look for wisdom.”
We all want signs that confirm 
that we are on the proper path
toward strength and security;
we all want wisdom that will enable us
to navigate the world as it is.
What we don’t want is a sign
that becomes an obstacle we stumble over
and which makes us change our path;
what we don’t want is a wisdom
that suggests that the world as it is
might not be the world 
that we should be striving for.
But this is the sign and this is the wisdom
that Jesus offers us,
because what he offers us is the cross:
“a stumbling block to Jews 
and foolishness to Gentiles”—
something so counter 
to the desires and expectations of the world
that to those who seek signs of power
it looks like weakness,
and to those who seek words of wisdom
it sounds like folly,
and to those of us who just want to fit in,
who want to like the right things,
and wear the right clothes 
and listen to the right music,
who just want to get along 
without being thought weird,
is seems like a recipe 
for an extremely unhappy life.

Of course, over the centuries 
we have found ways to tone down 
the weirdness of Christianity,
to cover over the cross,
to accommodate the Gospel 
to worldly understandings
of power and wisdom.
We have turned the law of God 
into common sense advice
that will ensure a healthy and happy life
and the smooth running of society,
rather than the commanding voice of the Lord
calling us to offer our entire selves 
as a living sacrifice to God.
We have turned Jesus into a teacher 
of sensible moral lessons,
or a savior who has suffered 
so that we won’t have to,
rather than the disruptive prophet
who interrupts religious business as usual
and offers his body, crucified and risen,
as the true temple that we must enter
if we wish to worship God in Spirit and in truth.
We have made Christianity into a force of stability
that guarantees happy marriages and strong nations
and all the other things that we consider normal desires.

But the Gospel is not so easily normalized.
The figure of Jesus 
discovered in the pages of Scripture,
the life of the Spirit manifested
in that collection of oddballs we call
the communion of saints,
the peculiar practices of the Church,
which week by week invites 
those who have died in Christ
to feast on his flesh and blood—
all of this makes it hard to deny 
just how weird Christianity is.

We might think of Lent 
as our annual invitation
to turn from the world’s power and wisdom
and rediscover and re-embrace 
the weirdness of the Gospel.
We begin by smearing ashes on our heads
and being told that we must die; 
and we conclude by lighting candles in the dark
as we spend hours listening to old stories
about a universe being built from nothing,
a son nearly sacrificed at God’s behest,
an army drowned by miraculous waters,
and a tomb found empty
and a dead body mysteriously missing.
And in between we strive 
by fasting, prayer, and works of charity
to wean ourselves away 
from the world’s normality
so that we might enter into that weird world
where weakness is strength
and foolishness is wisdom,
where the dead don’t stay dead
and faith, hope, and love abide.

Christianity is weird, 
and if you take it seriously
it will make you seriously weird as well.
It will make you love like Christ loved
by placing on your shoulders the cross,
the yoke that is easy and the burden that is light
because it is the weight of love 
pressing down upon us
even as it bears us upward to God.
It will make you weak and foolish
with the power and wisdom of God.
In these days of Lent,
may God, who is merciful,
have mercy on us all.

Lent 1

Readings: Genesis 9:8-15; 1 Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:12-15

VIDEO

In celebrating the first Sunday of Lent
we hear each year the story 
of Jesus’ temptation in the desert.
The Gospel of Mark’s account, however,
which we have just heard,
seems quite brief and spare
in comparison with the versions
we find in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew.
It makes no mention of Jesus fasting,
or of the great hunger he felt at the end of forty days,
or of the dramatic threefold temptation by which
the devil seeks to exploit his hunger.
It may strike us as lacking something 
by comparison with the accounts 
found in the other gospels,
but I believe its stark simplicity
has at least two advantages.

First, its spareness is both
evocative and provocative.
Phrases like “tempted by Satan”
or “he was among the wild beasts”
or “the angels ministered to him”
describe little but suggest much,
and they provoke us to ponder 
what they might mean.
How was he tempted?
What were those wild beast?
What could it mean to be 
ministered to by angels?
These words provoke the imagination,
because they have so much space in them
that the imagination might fill.

And as our imaginations fill in the story,
drawing upon our own experience,
we become a part of it:
our story merges with Jesus’ story.
The temptations of Jesus become 
my temptations:
my compulsive and chaotic hungers,
my overweening pride and ambition,
my desire for admiration and control.
The wild beasts around Jesus become 
the challenges and perils that I face:
my inability to do the good that I know I should do,
my discouragement in the face of disappointed hopes,
my struggles with misunderstanding, conflict, and rejection.
The ministrations of the angels become
my experience of the many and varied ways
in which God’s fills me with his grace:
friends and family who continually
support me in my struggles,
strangers who speak to me 
just the right word at just the right moment,
the Church and her sacraments,
in which and through which
I have fellowship with Jesus himself.

The evocative and provocative simplicity
of Mark’s account of Jesus’ sojourn in the desert
suggests that what Lent invites us to do
is to join our stories to the story of Jesus;
to let the story of his journey 
from cross to resurrection
envelop our stories,
to let Jesus be the Ark in which we make
our forty-day journey,
so that our weakness might become strength,
our struggle might become victory,
our dying might become living.

Though Mark’s story of Jesus’ temptation
invites us to enter imaginatively into it,
and through it into the story 
of Jesus’s cross and resurrection,
it also has the advantage of reminding us
that we are not the heroes of the story.
God is.
The story’s silence 
on what Jesus does and says in the wilderness 
reminds us that what we do 
through our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving
is not really what Lent is about.
Lent is about what God does for us.
If Mark’s story included 
Jesus’ extraordinary feat 
of fasting for forty days,
or his oh-so-clever responses 
to the devil’s temptations,
then the invitation to enter into the story
might itself become a temptation:
the temptation to imagine that our fasting
and our responses to temptation
are what Lent is all about.
But Mark’s story of Jesus in the desert
focuses us instead on the action of God:
the way God shelters us and provides for us,
and through our Lenten discipline
makes us partakers
in the victory of Jesus,
who, as St. Peter says,
“suffered for sins once,
the righteous for the sake 
of the unrighteous,
that he might lead you to God.”

The early Christian theologian Irenaeus
wrote that God created human beings
not because he needed us 
to do something for him 
that he could not do for himself,
but because he wanted 
to bestow on us his blessings; 
he calls us to serve him
not because he needs our service
but because by becoming servants
of so glorious a master
we come to share in his glory.

The disciplines of Lent are not
something we offer to God
but rather something God offers to us.
They are a chance to turn our focus 
away from ourselves 
and toward God,
away from what we can to
and toward what God can do.

So let us enter with Christ 
into the Lenten wilderness;
let us confront temptation and peril
with him to protect us
and his angels to minister 
to us in our need.
Let us pray and fast and give alms,
confident that God, who is merciful,
will have mercy on us all.