Deacon Dan Wright

Sunday Sermon: On Nonviolence and Healing Divisions

In many ways the parable of the Good Samaritan makes for a fitting reflection for us today because the subject matter that it deals with directly is how we should respond to violence. It is no secret to any of us that violence continues to plague our nation and our world. With the tragic and senseless killings that have occurred over the past month, which fall into line with far too many other tragic and equally appalling acts of violence, it would not do us justice to turn our attention and reflection to some other topic that is perhaps more appealing or of a more spiritual nature. No, as the Body of Christ, we must deal with the sad and difficult events that have come to pass.

The question for us is how do we as Christians respond to senseless acts of violence in our world. Do we exchange violence for violence? Do we huddle in fear or arm ourselves in preparation for something worse to come? In many places in scripture it is overwhelmingly clear that our response is always to be one of courage. Indeed, these are times that call for extraordinary courage from all of us.

While it would be easy to point to many places in scripture which clearly show that courage is the path Christians are to take, I believe that reading today from Luke, which recounts the parable of the Good Samaritan is especially appropriate because it shows us what we are to do in action.

Nonviolence is a noble tradition in our faith. We see it in the actions of our Lord himself in his passion and recall that he taught us that we are to turn the other cheek if someone is to strike us. We also see nonviolence at work in the lives of the saints and they dedicated their lives to healing, progress, and building a better world. Nonviolence is the foundation of all peacemaking, and every Christian action should be directed to a world where peace reigns above all things. After all, our Lord himself is called the Prince of Peace. I think that it’s appropriate to recall modern-day peacemakers, Catholic peacemakers such as Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton come to mind, but also Saints John Paul and John XXIII whose programs and actions led to great peace in the world. We also might consider that great Protestant voice of nonviolence from the Civil Rights era, Martin Luther King, Jr. who insisted upon nonviolent means.

It is incumbent upon us to have not only an attitude of nonviolence, the attitudes of those I just mentioned and many others, but also we must learn to live lives that demonstrate nonviolence and peacemaking in how we relate to others and in how we respond to others. The parable of the Good Samaritan reveals the actions of one who lived in an ethnically divided world, one who was considered to be an outsider, and as such was marginal person in society. Yet our Lord chose this one as the example of mercy in how he responded to the victim of violence.

Much of how the world sees us and how it judges our actions will have to do with how we respond to violence in our world, and especially how we respond to the victims of violence. Jesus’ command to the scholar of the law was that he was to go and do as the Good Samaritan had done.

In reflecting over the past month, even before the events in Orlando and Dallas, and before the shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota, I have been concerned for some time about the degree of division in our nation. Frankly it goes far beyond us and encompasses the whole world, but we see it clearly. There is division in neighborhoods, and churches, even in our families. It’s time that we must begin to take action to end division, or it will only get worse.

We should not be afraid to talk about racial healing. It just so happens that the Diocese of Austin offers regular get-togethers to with a very diverse mix of people in meetings called “Courageous Conversations on Racism.” As a service to you I plan to make sure that the next meeting is announced here in the parish. Each of us needs to begin making friends with people who are different from us and we need to learn to listen and hear their concerns. The Courageous Conversations meeting is a good place to start.

Of course there are other sources of division that strike closer to home. Often we see it in how we present ourselves to others in social media. We should bear in mind that the Internet creates a wall of separation that doesn’t exist in face-to-face encounters. People say things in comments that they would never say to someone in person. Too often I see things posted on social media that are intended only to divide and incite anger. This is not how Christians should interact with one another or present ourselves to the world.

In dealing with people whose views differ from ours we don’t always have to insist on being right in our particular positions regardless of how strongly we may feel about them; we don’t have to be staunch and immovable when it comes to relating to others. A good practice, and a challenge for all of us, is to begin making friends with people who differ with us. For starters I think we can begin by making friends with someone whose political views differ from our own. That might sound crazy but go and take a couple hours and have a coffee with someone you know who is on the opposite side of where you stand on things. Sit down with them and be their friend. This is how we are going to begin healing divisions.

I want to leave you with this instruction. It bears repeating:

You shall love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart,
with all your being,
with all your strength,
and with all your mind,
and your neighbor as yourself

 

The Story of Two Widows Revisited: A Theology of Mercy

It’s finally here. School is out for the summer, most graduations have taken place, and soon many of us will be off on our summer vacation adventures. In the life of the Church the major liturgical seasons are now behind us and we can now settle in for the long season of ordinary time. It’s a good time to reflect on what is most important and to bear in mind who we are to be as Christians in the ordinary times of our lives.

Today’s readings contrast the events in the lives of two widows separated many long centuries. From the time of Elijah the prophet to the time of Jesus eight centuries had passed. We hear in the Old Testament reading from the Book of Kings of Elijah raising the child of the widow of Zaraphath and then in Luke’s gospel we hear of Jesus raising up the child of a widow of the city of Nain, which is the site of the modern-day Arab village of Nein near the traditional site of the mountain of the transfiguration, Mt. Tabor.

What might we gather from the two stories could range anywhere from trusting in God’s miraculous abilities to prefiguring the Resurrection of God’s son, and interestingly also Mary’s son given that Mary has been traditionally believed to have been widowed since we hear nothing of Joseph in Jesus’ adult life. We might also see the gospel story as an affirmation of the ministry of Jesus when we compare the proclamation of the widow of Nain, “A great prophet has arisen in our midst,” with the proclamation of the widow of Zaraphath concerning Elijah, “Now indeed I know that you are a man of God. The word of the Lord comes truly from your mouth.” Certainly no one would fault you if what you took from these stories is that God is to be trusted in the direst of all situations, so undoubtedly God may be trusted with the ordinary events of our lives. However, I think there is something more, but it may take a little work getting to it.

You may or may not recall, but eight months have passed—thankfully not eight centuries—since we also heard in last liturgical cycle of the widow of Zaraphath compared to another widow in Jesus’ time who in giving only two coins, which was all she had, gave more than all those who had given great offerings that amounted to a small portion of their wealth. In that comparison it was Elijah who asked the widow to bake him a meal of bread from the tiny amount of flour that was the last food she had as her son lay dying. In both of those stories the widows gave their all. They gave everything in an act of faith to those who they perceived as being the messengers of God.

To truly understand what is going on here we need to get at what it was like to be a widow in the ancient world, both in the time of Elijah and in the time of Jesus. In those times being a widow had significant differences from being a widow in modern times aside from the experience of grief in having lost one’s spouse by death. Unless there was some wealth left behind, which typically may have have been left to the children and administered by a member of the community, and unless there was family present to share the burden, being a woman left alone, especially one left with children, was a dire predicament. In those days there were no social plans to offer assistance. There was no welfare state to make sure that widows did not live in destitution. There were none of the structures present that we value today. True there were biblical admonitions about widows, but there were no plans or programs. A woman might remarry, but there was strong superstition about marrying widows.

The fact is that poverty was much more of a reality ancient times than here in suburbia, and the Book of Kings only amplifies the situation by setting the story of the widow of Zaraphath in a time of tremendous famine and drought. What I want Ito get across today is that being a widow in biblical times likely meant being a marginal person. A widow was potentially someone who lived on the fringes of humanity. She was likely the poorest of the poor.

Even in such bitter situations as living in famine and abject poverty, even in the face of having lost their spouses and being left with nothing and no one to take their part or assist them, even in the face of now losing the last hope they might have had, their children, these widows, these marginal women living on the fringes of society, trusted in God, hoped in God, looked to God and believed that God would deliver them, if not in this life then in the next. These poor little ones were God’s own daughters. They were the favored ones among all others. Yet, and this may come as a surprise to you, I do not believe that God demands that we must be poor like these widows in order to gain divine favor. Perhaps we might aspire to be something like them in their faith, but if faith is related in any way to one’s life experiences then I somehow doubt that we who live comfortable lives of wealth and plenty are going to come anywhere near the faith experience of the widows, nor would we likely desire it since it would entail experiencing life as harsh and unmerciful, especially in how others would relate to us.

Thus we are left with a question. It’s a bit of something for us to figure out for ourselves on our own, so I won’t offer you many examples. It has everything to do with how we carry on our lives if we are serious about being the children of God.

The question to consider has to do with how these widows affect our lives. What difference do they make to us? It should be clear to us that God is oriented toward people like the widows in today’s readings. God cares deeply about the lives, experiences, pains, trials, and every day difficulties of marginal people, of people living on the fringes of our world. The logical step for us to take is to understand that if God cares for the poor little ones of the world, then it is our responsibility as Christians to imitate the actions and attitudes of God. We, then, who live lives filled with plenty are to be oriented toward those who need God’s mercy most, which is only fitting in this year that the pope has proclaimed as a jubilee year of mercy. If there are any people for whom our first inclination would be to reject or otherwise assign a second class status for any reason, we should reexamine our attitudes and align ourselves with the attitude of God.

Our job, then, is not to become poor, rejected, despised, or unwanted. Rather it is to embrace those completely who experience life as such. This is true mercy. If we feel that we are in any way being coerced to care for the poor of the world then we should ask whether our hearts are truly part of the Christian experience.

What we are to do remains up to us to decide in the ordinary times of our lives, for these are the times that will judge us.

Sunday Sermon: Meeting the Real Jesus in Lent

As we begin the discipline of Lent we are reminded in the Gospel on this Sunday, our first Sunday of the season, of the weaknesses of our human nature and with of our being prone to temptation and failure. Even Jesus, in his humanity, faced temptation, though he overcame it by his professing and believing the word of scripture.

The readings today reveal a sharp contrast to human weakness in the awe and power of the Almighty who delivered the Hebrew people from the land of Egypt with “strong hand and outstretched arm,” and with terrifying signs and wonders. The lesson for us is that we, like Jesus, may overcome temptation by professing and believing the word of God. We are to incorporate Christ into our lives, but to do this we must be aware of who Jesus really is. We must be aware of what Jesus is about and who he truly stands for in our world today.

I suppose it’s fitting to begin the season of Lent by considering the 40-day fast of Jesus and his temptation during that time. Each year we begin a journey in Lent in which our goal should be to come through it somehow different than when we began. We should come through Lent spiritually stronger and ready to take on greater tasks. We should come through with a closer and more intimate knowledge of the person and work of Jesus.

We might not ordinarily think of Lent as being a goal-centered time, but when we consider it as such it has much in common, by analogy, with an athlete’s intensive training for a championship event. Certainly Jesus in his withdrawal and departure into the desert experienced a time of purification and strengthening. It is not that he had need of purification, or that divinity wasn’t strong in him already, but that he was willing to submit his humanity before God in order for God’s will to be accomplished in his ministry.

It’s not enough that during Lent we merely go through the motions or pass through the season taking in the purple color and yearly themes, whether they be our annual giving up of something, or our fasting, our abstaining from meat on Fridays, or even our prayer and almsgiving—all of which are good things in themselves—rather, Lent should effect in us a reality that transcends religious observance and ritual repetition. Lent should help us come to terms with that which hinders us from being the people that God wants us to be. In Lent we must be willing to identify our weaknesses and to struggle with them. We must find that which will allow us to overcome those things that prevent us from identifying our true role and mission.

We tend to experience Lent as individuals, which is a natural outcome of the introspection of self examination. However, rather than experiencing Lent as something that is ultimately individual or personal in nature, we should perhaps see it from the viewpoint of our identifying with the mystical Body of Christ. The 40 days of Lent have much more in common with Jesus’ 40 days in the desert than we may realize, and in that Jesus’ retreat into the desert becomes our retreat as well.

I think what today’s lesson really stands to teach us has to do with how Christians—including all denominations—practice being Christlike in the world: in our relation with every person and every thing in the created order. The goal of Lent, then, is to become more like Jesus, but it may be that we are in need of clarification as to what being like Jesus really means. There is a phenomenon in the world of our remaking Jesus in our image. We see it in the way that Jesus is portrayed in art, which shouldn’t be cause for concern. However, where it is present in a way in which we must be cautious is when we remake Jesus to fit our preconceived ideas of what is morally right in terms of how we deal with others, especially with those who may at variance with our traditional values and self identity.

For example, if we somehow get it in our heads that Jesus came into the world to establish a staunch or judgmental religiosity with an attitude that rejects others as outsiders, sinners, or otherwise somehow unworthy of our embrace, then it may be that we’ve been listening to the wrong voice in the world. It may be that we are not hearing Jesus at all.

The message today is very much about what we hear, but it’s about hearing God’s voice; hearing it in the scriptures, and in the times in which we live, and in the events that unfold each day. The message today is also about allowing the word to be in our hearts, and what that means isn’t that we have to have the bible memorized but that we have to believe the word we hear; we have to internalize its significance so that it becomes an automatic response in us, just as Jesus responded to the tempter, and so that we may judge every situation with prudence and mercy, and at the same time to be courageous when we encounter that which is opposed to the true meaning of Christ among us. Consider Jesus’ responses to the tempter.

Our most serious temptations in the world today are very much like the temptations that Jesus faced in his 40 days in the desert. They are the temptations to abandon the mission of Christ in favor of a false mission. In many ways the tempter wanted to see a magical display of power from Jesus. Perhaps sometimes we would like to avoid hardships magically and see easy answers to life’s trials. However, faith, even Jesus’ faith, is not about having magical powers that make everything right at the snap of one’s fingers.

Jesus came to establish a rule of justice and righteousness on earth. In that he came to the hungry of the world. He came to those without food. We have to be concerned about hunger in the world. While an omnipotent or magical being might use his power to turn stones into bread, doing so would remove all solidarity with those who experience the reality of hunger on a daily basis and have no way to do anything about it. So, rather than turn stones into bread, Jesus turns to the word of God saying, “One does not live on bread alone.”

Jesus came to the powerless of the world, and while an all-powerful being, or even a powerful human being, might take earthly riches in his hands and sit the throne of every kingdom and bask in glory, to do so would be to leave the poor and powerless of the world alone to die in misery without hope. So, rather than take power Jesus chose to submit to God’s power and serve the one to whom the poor little ones cry out in their agony. He chose to serve the God of the destitute and unwanted, of those judged as sinners, slaves and children of slaves, aliens and outcasts, those branded as illegal or illegitimate people, prisoners, refugees, the sick and dying, and those who felt that for too long their lives had simply not mattered. For Jesus these poor ones mattered more than all the earthly kingdoms. He did not succumb to a temptation that would have left them alone.

Jesus came to proclaim the word of God knowing full well that too often prophets and saints meet with a violent end. Indeed the angels could have protected him but he chose to walk the path set before him even though a cruel cross awaited him at the end. He chose to reveal truth to eyes blinded by illusions even though he knew truth would be rejected and that he would be despised and ultimately killed.

Jesus spent 40 days getting ready to accomplish God’s will. Lent is our invitation to spend 40 days with Jesus. This year instead of experiencing Lent as just another passing church season, let us make a commitment to meet the real Jesus in it.

Advent Spirituality: Journeying with Mary to Bethlehem

Each year Advent presents a time for a particular spiritual journey. In order take the journey, and in order to see our destination, we have to be able to clearly grasp what it’s truly about and separate it out from the winter holiday Christmas tradition that the majority of us celebrate—with enthusiasm—each year from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day. Advent presents us with something of a different spiritual character than the greeting of winter with red and green and all of the familiar festivities.

I recall as a child hearing people talk about having the “Christmas spirit.” We would ask, “Have you got the Christmas spirit yet?” I suppose what we were inquiring about had to do with having a certain feeling that goes along with all the holiday trappings: the music, the food, shopping, decorations—the list could go on indefinitely. For some, especially those who are not in touch the true nature of the Christian holiday, it might come as a surprise to learn that the spirituality of Advent is really something altogether different.

Advent shares something in common with Lent in that it is a journey to a particular destination. In Lent we walk with Moses in the wilderness, and with Jesus to Calvary, and arrive finally to an empty tomb that reveals the hope of eternal life. In Advent too we journey toward a destination, and that destination also bears within it the hope of eternal life. In Advent we journey following a star shining in the darkness, and in the spirituality of the season what lies at the end of the journey is our true focus and all the other celebrations of the season fail to even come close.

The claim might easily be made that the spirit of the winter holiday season, as opposed to Advent, is not a true spirituality at all, but rather it’s mostly sentimentality coupled with some lovely traditions that few of us would ever want to abandon. Still, there’s much more if we only look a little deeper.

To find the spirituality of Advent we journey along the way with Mary. I think this especially gives Advent a certain Catholic character. We journey toward Bethlehem, and walking the pathway with the mother of Jesus we also walk with the prophets and patriarchs in a procession that traverses time. It extends from the beginning of salvation history—from Adam searching for what he had lost—to each one of us, and what makes it especially spiritual isn’t how it feels at all. Rather, it’s the connection that’s created in it by our joining ourselves with all of humanity, looking beyond what makes us different and separates us from others and instead seeing what truly connects us and makes us one.

In walking the Advent journey with Mary, in learning the true spirituality of the Nativity, we learn to be poor in spirit. We walk with one who had absolutely no expectations whatsoever of being the Queen of Heaven, but rather with one who, aside from the birth of the Messiah, would have been nameless in a sea of others who were poor and powerless and on the outside of things deemed important in her time. I imagine Mary as a young woman whose face may have shown signs of a difficult life. She was likely different from our pale-skinned and blue-eyed icons. What was important about her was that she was one whose heart burned true with worship, love, and adoration for the Almighty God. She had no voice in the world except to say yes to God. In saying yes to God she says yes to the justice of God who comes to the poor little ones, born among them as one of them.

Reaching, searching, looking into the depths of Mary we also find the essential things about Jesus. We find a spirituality that we may embrace. It is an Advent spirituality because it’s prophetic. It comes heralding justice, a justice where, in Mary’s own words, the poor and lowly are lifted up and the rich are sent away empty. I can only imagine that such a spirituality might not enjoy great popularity in all circles nowadays.

We might bear in mind here at the close of Advent that the invitation to Advent spirituality, to journey with Mary to a crude stable where a newborn infant is placed on the hay of a feeding trough, is a spirituality that reaches beyond our winter holiday. It’s an invitation to look at life in an entirely different way. One in which we find those who are like Mary living in our world today, and stand in solidarity with them.

The Story of Two Widows: A Theology of Sacrifice

Personal sacrifice is not something we often typically elect to reflect upon. Most likely, the subject of sacrifice is generally something we avoid. Perhaps this is because we don’t normally like to let go of what we have. Yet sacrifice—the kind that God asks of us—is, in fact, a letting go or surrendering of something we possess that has a certain value to us. It is sometimes even a relinquishing of what we cherish greatly.

As far a topic for teaching us the ways of God goes, it’s important enough that all three of our readings today reflect on the topic of sacrificial giving. We have the story of two widows who were actually separated from one another by several hundred years, but having something essential in common with one another: namely, their almost complete lack of any material goods. Both widows lived in a state of poverty so destitute that it would be as unimaginable to us as our wealth would be to them. It might shed light for us to think of the ramifications of widowhood in the ancient world. We might typically think of the women in the widow narratives as elderly women, but clearly, at least in the Kings reading, this wasn’t the case. The woman’s husband had evidently died and left her alone with a child. The bitterness of her situation in life is clear in her telling the prophet that she will go and die with her child.

Sandwiched in between the two widow narratives we find a reminder in the Letter to the Hebrews, our second reading, of the offering or self-sacrifice of Christ to bring about salvation for many. It is theologically rich as a source for Christian soteriology—our view on salvation. The pericope is intended to remind us of the sacrifice above all other sacrifices, but also, when it’s analyzed, we can see that the sacrificial giving described by the Hebrews author has something in common with the sacrifice of the two widows. It is a total self-sacrifice, and as such it is not an experience that any of us can easily step into, or for that matter neither is it one which we would even remotely desire to experience because of the degree of self-emptying or self-giving. Yet sacrifice is exactly what God desires from us because it is the sign—the proof, if you will—of our being in relation with the God whom we are to love above all things. Sacrifice is the sign of our having been transformed by making contact with God. Scripture reminds us that the sacrifice God desires more than anything from us is a deep inner change, a contrite heart and broken spirit, but again I don’t think this is something easily imagined. It comes with a huge price.

I recently read in James Tabor’s Restoring Abrahamic Faith that the three great themes of the Hebrew bible are steadfast love (akin to mercy or grace), justice, and righteousness, and that all else is mere commentary on these. In my analysis the attainment of these is only possible through the sacrificial giving of oneself. The two widows we heard about in today’s liturgy offer themselves in that manner, and thus they reveal love, justice, and righteousness, but moreover they reveal the response that evidences the authenticity of those themes. However, what they gave was only that which they had given to them in the first place. They had no great wealth, no fortunes, no material treasure, yet relatively they gave everything they had, and they did it because they were in relation with God. They understood that a god with whom one cannot or does not relate in a real way is no god at all but a mere idol. Love is the total gift of everything that one has. To be in relation we must love.

It may be baffling to most of us that these poor ones, widows, one of which had been left alone in a severe famine to starve with her baby, gave so much. They gave all they had though all it amounted to was a piece of bread in one case, and just a few pennies in the other. The rich onlookers may have scoffed at the sacrifice of the widow in Mark’s gospel, but relatively it amounted to much more than many gifts of abundance from the wealthy.

In the widow narratives we can see justice at work, and it serves to remind us that our sacrifice must include justice to be acceptable to God. It is clear that justice is something we do and not just a concept to which we assent. Justice, in the case of the widows, shows us that fairness and equality are not the same thing. Relatively they gave very little—we might say almost nothing—but yet they gave more than anyone else. To be in relation we must practice justice in our world today, and if anything the widow narratives make it clear that economic justice is of utmost importance. The authentic church, rather than being about wealth and power, is all about humility and service. Justice, in authentic Christianity, is about a preference for the poor and marginal of the world. It is about our letting go of the things and ideals to which we cling in order to be on the side of those who actually need love and mercy, those whose lives demand justice. It isn’t enough to be merely aware of hunger and poverty. To be in relation we must do justice; we must live it.

Returning to the New Testament letter to the Hebrews we are reminded that the sacrifice of Christ was to take away sin. Sin is that which prevents the actualization of righteousness. It comes from our inability to give of ourselves. We may want to look righteous—to have the appearance of godliness—but actually to be righteous will take much more than having the right looks. Righteousness, as the gospel reminds us, has nothing to do with fancy vestments and long robes. Nor does it have to do with dressing a certain way on Sunday or having the right posture during prayer. It has nothing to do with seats and titles of honor. Rather, it has everything to do with the giving of ourselves.

God places us into being and holds us there. Whatever we have, consider it to be great or small, it is the gift of God. God self-reveals to us continually. From the unfathomable depths of God’s being we receive. God gives to us from an inexhaustible source, and we are asked only to return the gift of what we have received. Righteousness is imitating the action of God. It is giving back the holy gifts that have been given to us. Righteousness entails love and justice, which means following the holy teachings that came directly from the mouth of God: teachings that command us to do, to give, to sacrifice. To be in relation we must be righteous.

In giving ourselves sacrificially as a way of life we begin to know God. It’s a step all who desire to walk with God authentically must take. With that said it may be stating the obvious to say that sacrifice is not a common spirituality these days. Rather it takes us back to a much earlier time, and it invites us into a relation of intimacy with the God of antiquity. As we encounter God we enter into a relation of reciprocity, and we come to know God as friends are known by one another. Though frankly the process of getting there may seem much like a wrestling match on a cosmic scale. Still, in the encounter, having put aside fears, we let go and come to be in relation with God as the one who was, and is, and will be—from the beginning to the end—the one who gives to us and to whom we must give back in return.

Sunday Homily: Spiritual and Physical Hunger - A Eucharistic Reflection

The following was delivered as my Sunday homily on August 2, 2015:

For the second week now we have readings that focus on food, being fed, and on the hunger of the people. In the first reading the people complain to Moses that they would have been better off in Egypt than dying of starvation in the desert. Yet God hears their cry and feeds them from heaven. There are two aspects of hunger with which we must deal. One is easy theologically. It is the spiritual aspect of hunger. What makes it easy is the abundance of grace provided in Jesus Christ. The other aspect of hunger is the real or physical presence of hunger in the world. It’s not so easy to deal with. However, to ignore it and focus only on spiritual hunger makes Christianity irrelevant to needs in the world.

First, I want to affirm that Jesus, who is the bread from heaven, holds everything we need spiritually. The abundance we learned about last week in the multiplication of the fishes and loaves speaks of the abundance of forgiveness, healing, and transforming power of God. The abundance of the multiplication directly speaks to the abundance that is Jesus the bread of life. Spiritually Jesus offers to share with us all that he has so that we too may become agents of forgiveness, healing, and transformation. Changing the world begins in our own hearts. This is true of both spiritual change and all other changes.

Recently in a conversation with a friend on a related topic I remarked that responsibility is the hallmark of Christian ethics. Our first inclination may be to think of responsibility as being able to take the blame for failures and sins. Sort of like when we admonish children to take responsibility—having three kids myself I can relate well. Taking the blame for something isn’t easy, but socially it’s an important thing to do when there’s been inequality and injustices. Yet another way of thinking about responsibility is the ability to respond to those in need, and it’s this type of responsibility that speaks most directly to Christian ethics: how we respond in our actions when situations place demands on us.

For many people in our world it is a world without the basic things that we take for granted like fresh water and enough food. One of the big concerns with the ecology of our planet is how what we do to the earth affects the poorest members of society. Disregard for the planet is disregard for our brothers and sisters with whom we should stand in solidarity. For many people the world is dry and barren, and hunger is a reality that we, in the comforts of suburbia, might have an extraordinarily difficult time imagining.

Knowing what to do about spiritual hunger is easy because we know where to go to be fed. Spiritually the lesson today is Eucharistic in nature because it is Jesus himself who satisfies our spiritual longing. Knowing what to do about physical hunger is more complicated because there’s not an easily identifiable fix. Really, the deepest meanings of Eucharist are fulfilled when we learn somehow to translate the spiritual into the flesh and blood world of daily events in which we live. The reality of Eucharist belongs as much to the world where there is physical starvation as it does to feeding our souls.

Again, knowing what to do is the difficult part for most of us. It’s going to require that we do things differently, and I’m 100 percent sure that systemic change is needed in the world. While taking on systemic change may seem to be somewhat nebulous, it’s not an impossible task. I know many people who are personally involved in making changes in the system. We tend to gravitate toward charity—one-on-one giving to those in need—when it comes to hunger or poverty. This is a beginning in what to do but it’s not the final answer. Taking a lesson from Eucharistic theology, what we do ought to be transforming just as Eucharist has the power to transform spiritually.

I believe that the will exists in the world today to destroy the roots of hunger. However, it will mean that we must be committed to change the world so that causes of hunger such as economic inequality and injustice disappear.

One of the many beautiful and important things about the Pope’s recent encyclical Laudato Si is that it considers the impact of environmental issues on the poor. We recall that the earth is the source of our food, water, and air. Part of our commitment is that we no longer tolerate seeing the environment destroyed. We might begin by making sure that our actions do not contribute to waste or disregard. This is true not only when it comes to food but also it applies to our natural resources. As my wife and I go through my neighborhood on our nighty walk I frequently notice several violations in watering restrictions. I could easily point out several houses that water nightly for a couple hours. Part of what has to change is our attitude of how we use things, and even more importantly about how we share with others, how responsible we are in our relationship with others.

While I don’t have all the answers on how to solve hunger in the world I do know that as people of faith we have to be involved. It’s our Christian responsibility to act in some way and to make it a habitual part of how we live. I know that our responsibility to others demands that we move beyond the mere spiritualization of our religion and make the hallmark of how we live be about how we respond to the real-life needs of others. 

The Symbol of Transformation

Here is yet another one, but more recent, that I missed posting.

Corpus Christi, or the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, is when we celebrate the real presence of Jesus in the sacrament of the Eucharist. As Catholics, real presence for us is a given. We believe that, in Eucharist, Jesus is real and present in ways that other denominations simply don’t realize or comprehend.

It’s one thing for us to say or believe that Jesus is really present, body and blood, soul and divinity, in the Eucharist, and it’s another for us to truly realize it in our living. Typically, when it comes to matters of the faith, I believe that understanding is something of a necessity for us. We need not shy away from understanding matters of faith. However, in the case of Eucharist, it’s not that we need to completely understand how it’s possible that the bread and wine we see and taste are the true body and blood of Jesus.

Like the Trinity, which we celebrated last week, Eucharist also involves the depths of mystery. However, it is not mystery in such a way that it eternally escapes our understanding. Yet, today I’m not really after an intellectual understanding of Eucharist, though I think it would make a great discussion and I’m willing to have such a discussion with anyone who would ever be interested.

The mystery of the Eucharist, that is, the mystery of the real presence of Jesus, is one that is affirmed to us in our experience of it—in our living it. I once heard it said that Eucharist is the great symbol of transformation. I discussed this in a class on the Catholic Catechism many years ago, and the mere mention of the word “symbol” associated with Eucharist was met with strong opposition because of the fact that there are many people, even theologically astute people of other denominations, who believe that Eucharist is merely a symbol. Therefore, any talk of symbol and Eucharist in the same breath was not well received.

However, much to the contrary, what I’m saying is not that Eucharist is merely a symbol in any way at all, but that it signifies much more than we may realize. Eucharist points to unfathomable depths that relate to human experience. To say that Eucharist is the symbol of transformation is to recognize that it has the power to enter into the world of our experiences—into our firsthand, pre-reflective lives, into our immediate experiences—and make of our lives something holy and righteous. Eucharist, the body and blood of Christ, has the power to make of each of us what we are not already. Remember that all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. God making something holy in us is similar to God creating the world out of nothing in the beginning. Eucharist is the sign of change, just as the bread and wine are changed at our daily celebration. Eucharist has the ability to create goodness where it is absent.

Years ago when I took up serious graduate study of theology I encountered difficulty understanding the importance and role that blood plays in salvation. There are many well-meaning people who hold that the whole blood thing is rather barbaric. They ask, “Why could an all powerful God not just simply save us?” So, I genuinely questioned for my own edification, “Why the importance of Blood?” I wanted to know the deepest meanings, the essential truth, but discussions with my classmates often failed to satisfy me. The response I heard most often went something like this, “Well, blood is about life, so the blood of the Lord is important because it’s all about life.” As important as life may be in the theme of Christianity, I don’t believe that’s the true importance of it when it comes to Eucharist.

We can go to Moses and to the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews for a better idea, which is nice since those are our first two scripture readings today. Moses instructed that the blood of slaughtered bulls be taken in large bowls and splashed on the people in the assembly, and on the altar of sacrifice. Think how things would look if we did that here! Blood, according to Moses, is the sign of the covenant between God and the people. It’s the sign of an unbreakable promise or agreement. Blood is the sign of a sacrifice or a payment having been made unto God, and it is the reciprocal seal of an agreement between God and humanity. Hebrews tells us that blood cleanses. However, upon reflection I would ask whether it is the blood that cleanses, or whether it’s the act of sacrifice itself—blood being the necessary sign that a sacrifice or payment has been made. Either way, it’s clear that a cleansing occurs and a covenantal agreement comes into being. It’s clear also that transformation happens in sacrifice. That which was broken is repaired. Where there was unrighteousness, righteousness springs up and filled the void.

Eucharist, in a great way, pertains to sacrifice though in this case it is a perfect sacrifice: a complete payment. Actually, our teaching is that Eucharist is indeed the very re-presentation of the unique sacrifice of the Son of God on the cross. Eucharist is about a covenant that far exceeds any covenant that the sacrifice of bulls might bring about. Eucharist is the sign of the promise of God’s being for us in ways that we only can begin to understand. Eucharist is about your lived experience and mine. It is about our lives and everyone else’s life being utterly transformed.

To say that Eucharist is the great symbol of transformation in no way diminishes our faith in what we do here at Mass. It doesn’t take away from our understanding of the real presence. Quite to the contrary, if we are transformed, if we are cleansed by the sacrifice of God’s Son, and if we become what we consume in Eucharist, then our lives attest to the power of God to transform not only bread and wine into the deepest essence of Jesus himself, but also of God’s power to transform the face of the whole world.  

Trinity: Revealing the Dynamic of Relationship

The following post was given as my Trinity Sunday homily a couple weekends ago. I was asked to put it online. I apologize for my tardiness.

The celebration of the Trinity is one of the events in the life of the Church that offers us an opportunity to reflect upon our understanding of God, upon the divinity of Jesus, and upon God’s working in humanity revealing a dynamic relationship.

As human beings we tend to be people who want to understand things. Long ago theology itself was described as faith seeking understanding. Yet our understanding of God in God’s self is something that eludes us. We recognize that our very talk about God constitutes a mystery above all other mysteries.

Though how we describe God as one being in three persons is mysterious, we should not allow it to be an excuse not to attempt to understand. Actually, the way that we understand God has great potential for informing us as to how we are to live our lives: it has great practical importance for us.

We would not be far from correct if we were to say that our celebration of the Trinity on this Sunday of the year is actually a celebration of relationship. Trinity allows us to see God, not as a solitary being that more resembles a lifeless ideal, but as living, dynamic, interrelatedness. Within the godhead there is true movement and reciprocity. We see it in Jesus’ praying to the Father, in his healings and miracles, and his breathing the Holy Sprit upon his disciples. It is that same Spirit which has brought us into relationship with Jesus and the Father whereby we share the divine life.

Having relationship with God constitutes experiential evidence for us. That’s a pretty big thing when we’re talking about divinity since a lot of people say they need proof when it comes to these sorts of things. While it’s not proof like a scientific proof, it is nevertheless an experiential proof. Another way of saying this is that our relationship with the Holy—with God—is such that it belongs to our life-world: where we live and move and have our being.

The relationship that is inherent in the Trinity is one that, when it is in us and in our experiences, compels us to look outward. God within us points us toward the world where we encounter life in all its nitty-gritty aspects. We come to know God by being in relation to what we encounter in life. We come to be in relation by giving and by allowing others to give, in other words, by loving.

Often we may think of relationship as primarily involving only those closest to us: our families or perhaps a significant other. However, the relationship that reveals God most perfectly occurs when we engage not only all other human beings primarily, but all creatures and all creation.

In reflection, the world of relationship in God becomes a pretty big world. It’s actually universal in scope, and its depth is entirely dependent upon our willingness to embrace God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—who compels us to leap in faith and embrace all others in divine relationship, a relationship in which God becomes evident to us by way of our own actions and interrelatedness with world in which we live.

Sunday Sermon: On Justice and Being Able to Say Black Lives Matter

Today’s gospel reminds us to listen for the prophetic voice in the world. It also reminds us of the call to repent from sin and turn to righteousness in preparation for the coming of the Lord. These themes are as relevant to our times as they ever have been or will be. Who are the prophets of our times? Do we recognize them as such and are we able to hear their voices?

In the first reading from Isaiah the prophet speaks of a radical leveling where all things are made even and equal: every valley filled in and every mountain and hill made low. The letter of Peter, which sounds a lot like St. Paul with the exception of the portion we hear today, speaks with no less force than Isaiah of the day of the Lord when the heavens pass away with a mighty roar, and the elements melt with intense fire. Truly the image is one that inspires nothing less than dread.

Now, there are a lot of folks who would have us believe that we should take the prophecies we heard today literally, along with many others. However, I’ve given it a great deal of thought; I’ve analyzed it and I’ve and put some serious study effort into the matter, and I believe that we miss the point when we take such biblical narratives as literal things that are going to happen. Oh, no doubt there will be earth-shaking events that take place during in our lifetimes—there have been those that have happened already, and many that we have witnessed in our lifetimes—there will be others and we will surely stand in wonder and awe, but still there’s a greater reality and a more immediate relevance if we understand the deeper symbolic truth being communicated.

Often we hear Advent prophecies and we put them off into the far distant future to a time we call “kingdom come.” Too often we believe that what matters most—at least in terms of faith and religion—is beyond this world and this life. It’s like this life and this world doesn’t really matter all that much and that our focus ought to be on heaven alone. I don’t think that’s the case really. This world has lasting value and it’s worth putting effort into it.

In Psalm 89 we are told that truth will spring out of the earth and justice will look down from heaven. While the verse—without a doubt—speaks to Christians of the incarnation of Jesus born two millennia ago, it also has to do with our birthing of justice right now in our world today.

It is the justice of God, complete with its peace and righteousness, fulfilled entirely in the utterance of truth, which levels the land flat. It is the lifting of those whose lives know oppression and injustice that is the great equalizer. It is taking the part of the poor little ones of Jesus’ favor that fills the valleys. God chooses to eradicate not the earth, but rather the world of injustices and unfairness.

Our times demand that we address something specific and particular to what our world is going through right now, that we speak to injustices taking place in our own streets. It would be a miscarriage of justice to speak of it and not to name it. It is the tradition of Christian peacemaking that makes this place the right place to say what must be said. We hear the voices that cry out but do we choose to listen? Can we actually hear them ourselves? Are we able to believe what they say to us if we do hear them by chance?

We must listen to those who tell us they are oppressed. We cannot turn a deaf ear or walk away in disbelief from those who cry for justice. Rather the times call on us to look deeply and see our own sin against justice and truth. Sure I’ve got my list of sins. We all do, but what is the greater sin that we commit? The voices of the prophets are crying out in our own streets today. They say, “Black lives matter.” However, we turn away, we step back from them, we distance ourselves and reply “…but all lives matter.” We refuse to hear. We refuse to say it with them. Indeed if we believe that every human being is a creation of God, then we too must say, “Black lives matter.”

St. Peter tells us of a new heavens and a new earth. These must be one born of truth, righteousness, peace and justice. It’s the justice of John the Baptist. It’s the Justice of Jesus, and it’s the justice of the voices crying in the streets that we must embrace in the here and now.

 

The Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Today offers us a special opportunity. It's not often that we wear red in the midst of Ordinary Time on a Sunday in the late summer, but each year on September 14 we do celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and this year it just happens to fall on a Sunday, a good day we might say to consider the salvation won for us.

The Exaltation of the Holy Cross celebrates God’s plan of salvation in both death and resurrection of Jesus, and for many it also celebrates the cross itself the instrument of salvation, an instrument to be venerated in itself.

In our exaltation of the cross we consider that while we venerate the cross, it is Jesus who is lifted up upon it. We consider that in today’s gospel Jesus tells Nicodemus that the Son of Man must be lifted up. At later place in the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “If I be lifted up, I will draw all to myself.” I would like for us, today, to reflect on the “lifting up” of Jesus.

Indeed, this feast, above others, offers us an excellent opportunity to consider how we lift up Jesus in our world today and to explore the deeper meanings implicit in that lifting up. We might also consider what it is that we will accomplish in lifting up Jesus in our times.

In the gospel reading Jesus connects his being lifted up to Moses’ lifting up of the bronze serpent in the desert, which we heard about in our first reading today. The lifting up of the serpent provided healing for any who would gaze upon it. The idea of healing, of reconciling and fixing what has gone wrong plays a crucial role in understanding today's message. Even in our times the symbol of the medical arts is a serpent mounted on a pole.

Because of Jesus associating his being lifted up on the cross with Moses’ lifting up of the serpent, we can understand the story of the bronze serpent as revealing a type of Christ.  It is a foreshadowing of Christian salvation. However, even more, the serpent reveals the presence of Christ long, long, before the time of his birth. It is an example of the in-breaking presence of Christ in the world coming from the time of completion. In the context of Christianity, it is Moses making Christ present. It reveals a theology of final hope.

Much of the deeper meanings of our feast today have to do with our making Christ present in our world—a world in which no one could argue against the need for healing and reconciliation. Therefore, we should ask ourselves what are the things that we do to lift of Christ. In other words, how to we show the world Jesus? How do we make Jesus present to the world?

Several years ago I was involved in the initial interviewing process of diaconal ministries for the diocese, and I had the opportunity to ask several aspirants how they personally make Christ present in our world. One particular fellow told me that he “wore Jesus on his sleeve” so to speak. He said that for him it was important not to be ashamed in any way of being religious. Therefore, he chose to wear a big cross and to let everyone know that he was a religious person by outward signs. I wonder how many of us have the same or a similar idea of lifting up Christ in this way?

Having come from an evangelical background and converting to Catholicism, I know that it’s common for many folks to believe in things like verbally witnessing, praying before meals and in public, even carrying bibles or maybe handing out tracts. I’m not one to criticize or judge others’ religious practices, but I’ve got to wonder whether this is really the best way to lift up Christ in our world.

In our own Catholic tradition we have our ways too of being religious as a way of presenting Jesus to others. We have our popular piety, our venerations and adorations, our private and public prayers. There may be some among us who feel that the Church has lost numbers because the old tradition of devotions has slipped into the past for many of us. We may say, “If we would only lift up the cross again in the old ways.” Frankly, I’ve even heard criticism that our parish church here doesn’t have a traditional crucifix, and probably on occasion there may have even been one or two serious discussions of replacing our “resurrection cross,” though the resurrection is also a strong symbol of Christ lifted up.

Without any doubt at all, I believe that it is absolutely imperative that we lift up Christ in our world today really and not just in symbolic ways. However, to be effective in this I believe that we must explore what it truly means to be Christ in our world because the image of Christ that the world sees is the face of the Christian religion that we represent in our actions and attitudes. Too often the image that we lift up is merely an idol. That is, it is a false image of Christ. Too often what the world sees is a small and hard-hearted Christianity, a weak imitation born out of false notions and judgmental attitudes. Too often we lift up not Christ but false religion in his place.

Just as looking upon the bronze serpent brought healing, so too our concern should be with healing and reconciliation. Too often in our world we Christians have gotten it into our heads that our role, rather than being reconcilers, is to be against all the damnable sinners and infidels of our society. However, this was not the message of Jesus! Far from it.

Jesus came and ministered to those who were most in need of mercy, and that too should be our role in the world if we wish to reveal the true face of Christ. It ought to be obvious to us that there is a world crying out in need, and if we are afraid to go into that world, if we prefer the cozy comfort of suburbia, and I have to say as much as I too like it, then we’re failing.

Jesus placed himself at the service of the poor of the world. It could not be more obvious that we too are to be at the service of whoever is on the outside, or the wrong side, of the society in which we live. This is certainly a large part of the message in Pope Francis’ exhortation, Joy of the Gospel.

To lift up Jesus in our world is to lift up those who are hungry, persecuted, brutalized, discriminated against, made marginal, or just denied the basic dignity inherent in every human being.

The New Testament reminds us that true religion is being at the service of widows and orphans. We ought to aspire greatly to religion that imitates Jesus in his self-emptying, as the reading from Philippians today shows us. His is the action of total love in that he makes giving complete. He pours out his divinity and takes upon himself humanity, but not just any old comfortable humanity. Rather he takes on the suffering of humanity revealed in the cross, but not only in the cross. Rather also in an ignominious execution on the cross.

Indeed to lift up Christ in our world today is to lift up the cross again. However, it is to do it again, and again, and again, in a habitual lifestyle that imitates the self-giving of God in Christ and his pouring out of himself. More than being about what the world considers to be religious, we have to go beyond and reveal Christ in how we heal and reconcile in our world today. It’s all about transforming the world through what we do, through our lifting up the true cross of salvation.