Deacon Dan Wright

Sunday Homily: Poverty, the Poor, and the Sermon on the Plain

This past Sunday we heard the Sermon on the Plain found in Luke. Besides being the best example of sermon length found in scripture, it is also the most difficult text to work with in preparing a homily. After all, it is the Lord’s own sermon. What can anyone add to it? What more can be said? Many years ago at the beginning of my journey as a convert to Catholicism I listened to a priest preach on the Beatitudes and his conclusion was that basically they show us where we miss the mark. While I don’t disagree with his assessment, I do hope that today’s gospel can show us more.

The sermon begins with poverty. Poverty sets the tone for all that follows. That in itself should set us back a bit, and make us think and consider the contrast between our comfortable state of life and true poverty, a state of having nothing, no home, no food, owning nothing, but also often a life where there is too frequently little hope; a life where oppression and subjugation are a daily reality. In the face of such a dire situation Jesus hands us the first and greatest contradiction in his sermon: he announces the blessedness of poverty.

It’s worth noting that the Lucan sermon differs qualitatively from Matthew’s account of the Sermon on the Mount. Here in Luke we have no qualifier of “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” It is simply the poor the Lord considers. These poor little ones are the captives he has come to set free, the ones to whom he proclaims liberation and a year acceptable to the Lord. The contradiction of the blessedness of poverty is followed then by yet more contradictions of blessedness—those of hunger, sorrow; of being hated, secluded, segregated and slandered. Those who experience such are blessed because they are simultaneously the object of liberation and the impetus for systemic change.

We should contrast this view of poverty and the poor with the popular “prosperity gospel” message. Prosperity gospel pronounces wealth to be a sign of divine blessing, whereas poverty reveals God’s rejection and curse. Undoubtedly the same view existed in the time of Jesus, but in his way of turning the world order upside down he shows a reality that differs starkly from what must have seemed as self-evident then as it does even now. Poverty is an undesirable experience. The idea that poverty could contain blessing runs so contrary to modern-day thinking that there is even a theological position within evangelicalism that accompanies prosperity gospel claiming the beatitudes are not meant in any way whatsoever for Christians. This is a key tenet within the evangelical idea of dispensationalism.

Here I want to add that evangelicalism is the tradition I came from, and that prosperity gospel is not necessarily part of what is on its own a beautiful spiritual expression. Rather prosperity gospel has entered as a perversion that serves only to bolster the inherent inequality of an unjust system and attempt to justify what is contrary to the gospel message. Prosperity gospel ignores that the dispossessed have a primordial role in salvation history. They are the “crucified people.” So, rather than being an indictment against evangelicalism, prosperity gospel is an indictment against a system that relies upon inequality and oppression for personal gain.

Perhaps the most difficult thing for us to understand is how poverty can in any way be a blessing. Not the poverty in spirit that offers the possibility of beatitude by grace to any who choose to possess the right frame of mind or attitude, but actual real poverty—the poverty of those who have lost hope, lost even the will to try and find a way out, the ones who experience complete despair, who no longer can find strength to rise each morning. They are the ones who have only God, with nothing left to grasp upon earth. Yet in the crucifixion of their experience they serve as Christ in our midst, both the cause and doer of justice. 

Worth noting also here is that the church teaches that we are to make a fundamental option for the poor. This too can be a hard concept to grasp. It speaks of spirituality being ordered toward the poor in a real way, one that seeks to liberate, to make systemic changes and eradicate oppression. It speaks of a life in the faith built upon the foundations of embracing the poor, sick, and dying, and not only embracing them but also working to understand and eliminate the causes of systemic injustices. 

Something also needs to be said about the second part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain that sets it apart from the Sermon on the Mount; namely, that it contains a list of woes following the beatitudes. I take the woes partly as a consequential warning. Those who grasp and cling to material comforts stand the greatest chance of total spiritual loss because they have set their sights on what is passing rather than on that which endures. It is also, and perhaps more, a warning to those who participate uncritically in the oppression of humankind.

Perhaps the simplest lesson to be had is that the deepest realities Jesus taught puts us far outside our feelings of comfort. He forces us to embrace realities that are starkly contradictory to the ways that we have come to accept as normative. The lesson is indeed spiritual as much as is it is a statement concerning the imposed poverty of injustice, and as such it invites us to experience discomfort. Furthermore, it invites us to be in a place we experience as unfamiliar and uncomfortable, one where we may extrapolate even beyond poverty, and find in the company of Jesus all who are on the outside of the current society’s acceptable class of individuals. When we find common ground with those on the outside, then we find beatitude.

Epiphany: the revolutionary light

The beginning of the year is a time traditionally to have resolve for the coming year. This seems to be even truer for the beginning of a new decade. Typically we reflect on the past, and perhaps on ways that we have been sidetracked and we make our resolve to make a difference or to do things differently.

While Epiphany celebrates the coming of the promised messiah and the visit of the Magi, it also speaks to us in the here and now and offers us opportunity to state our resolve in a way that goes beyond our personal or individual lives. Epiphany invites us to be a part of a future that is unlike anything that has been before. To make Epiphany happen in all of its promised splendor means that the inhabitants of the Earth join together in such a way that our actions are nothing less than foundation-shaking and even revolutionary. It sounds like quite a task, even one that might be impossible without something or someone to lead the way.

Epiphany celebrates the rising of a new star that shines a great light into the world. It is a light that is to illuminate every path; to show the way forward toward a future for generations upon generations ahead. While the prophecy of Isaiah in today’s first reading tells of the “wealth of the nations” being brought before Jerusalem, we recognize that the historic reality surrounding the birth of Jesus tells a different story altogether. It is the story of one who comes not to be glorified among the princes of the world, not one who is to celebrate wealth and political power, but rather one among the poor who brings reparation to the downtrodden.

Looking closely at the lectionary readings for today the idea of world power figures prominently. Epiphany challenges set notions concerning the ruling class and the dominant political and economic structures of the world. Does the light serve to glorify the power of wealth and kings or does it show a different way? Undoubtedly the invitation lies before us to change the structures of how things in our world work. We are to put ourselves into the workings of the world in such a way that we stand for the common good of our fellow people and put the future of the planet ahead of the concerns of amassing wealth, profit, and power.

An interesting question has to do with how we are to participate in rebuilding the world, in bringing reparation and planetary healing. It’s nothing less than sharing or participating in the salvific mission that we understand as a partnership, a duty, and an ethical obligation. In times past such participation may have taken on a much different theological understanding or approach, but part of what we always need is to interpret faith according to the demands of the times in which we live. Without such ongoing reinterpretation and engagement there is the threat of the loss of relevance. 

Surely our resolve comes into play as we look for ways to be partners in revealing justice to the world, as we look to making justice, and here we should read justice as reparation and restoration for the poor, the homeless, the marginal and struggling. Resolve requires courage if we are to change the world for the better, to light the world with the hope of lasting peace. 

Changing the world begins with changing ourselves individually. It requires that we see a bigger picture of where we live, what is important, and who is among our family. We move beyond being concerned about our personal interests alone. Rather, the resolve to have courage, to build a better world, means standing with others, as partners and co-workers with whom we share a common vision. 

Recent world events show clearly that we live in times when peace is threatened. Kings and demagogues make their ungodly play for power. We live in times where children cry out as the prophetic voice but the world fails to hear them. This new year the new decade offers the opportunity to follow a rising star, one that lights the way of peace and hope for all. Yet the question of who will find the courage to follow it remains to be answered.

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. 

On Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Amnesty

If ever I were asked to pick a theme for the Christian religion on the whole, I believe that theme would have to be God’s great clemency and forbearance in dealing with humanity. Another way of saying it is that in God there is complete amnesty.

Actually, I was asked recently to make a presentation on the topic of God for a class on Catholic teachings. The presentation was to take a couple hours. Regardless of the many possible things there were to say, I never seemed to be able to move too far from the concept of forgiveness and reconciliation.

My question at the presentation, and for us tonight, is whether there can really be true forgiveness without reconciliation. However, you need not fear. I don’t plan to take two hours with this homily, and actually I want to take it in a slightly different direction.

While it is important to consider that forgiveness without reconciliation, without a true mending of ways, is somewhat empty, the greater consideration has to do with how we actualize God’s clemency in our world today through our deeds, attitudes, and beliefs. Our being the agents of God in how we live—what we say and do—is indeed the litmus test of who we really are. We should not forget, as today’s gospel reminds us, that weeds have been sown among the wheat. Part of what we do each day, the way we treat others, even what we stand for or against, decides whether we are children of light or of darkness.

Every moment of every day provides opportunities to be like God. I know, being godlike ranks pretty high in aspirations of spirituality. However, that is exactly what living a life of righteousness entails. Still, there is something important, often missed, that needs to be pointed out to all of us, and I include myself. There’s often confusion about what being godlike looks like. We tend often to overlook the amnesty, lenience, mercy, and kindness that are the true aspects of God, and instead we go somehow to judgment as our model.

Too often our piety becomes a judgmental and halting hand, rather than a welcoming and reconciling embrace. Too often real need gets ignored because of lofty principles, at least as such in our esteem, that we feel we need to protect. The failure to be like God also lives out in the lives of us who are too quick to go to the letter of the law while giving no regard to the spirit of it, and rather than standing among those who were sown as good seed, we find ourselves fooled, duped, often by nothing more than irrational fear. We have frequently and without intention, unawares, and perhaps even out of a desire to preserve the strict sense of our religious purity or national identity, become the weeds growing among the wheat of the harvest.

Nevertheless, at any moment when we realize that our lives reveal more judgment than clemency, we may still say, “I repent of what I have become. I turn my back on my failure to be an agent of kindness, forgiveness, reconciliation, and peace.” Said in sincerity with the intention to do what is good, this counts for much.

The tone of the gospel today, more than warning us of the weeds among the harvest, warns us to be sure beyond a doubt that we have not been somehow tricked, even by our own willful complacency, into being the weeds sown among God’s harvest. Always we are mindful that we may at any time in our lives present ourselves to the God who allows repentance.

Our role is always to be those who hold the branches of peace, forbearance, and clemency in our hands. We must learn not to count the cost involved in reconciliation. We must learn to take a risk and live somewhat dangerously. We must learn to be forgivers who intend reconciliation as part of forgiveness. We must not say, “I forgive but I will never forget.” Still, with that said, it is not that we are ever to forget great evil that has been done. Much to the contrary, we must always be on guard against real evil.

Recently I went on vacation to Washington, DC and New York City.  While in Washington I had the opportunity to visit to the National Holocaust Memorial Museum. The museum visit was a good reminder of the need for guarding against evil, or in other words, of being certain that similar evil does not occur again. While there, the words “Never Again” took on a fresh meaning to me.

A good example has to do with how we react—both in action and attitude—to those who come to this nation to escape the dangers of crime and injustice, or most often just to make a better life for themselves. While in DC at the Holocaust Museum I learned about the voyage of the MS St. Louis in 1939. During the time of the Nazi occupation about a thousand Jewish refugees aboard the St. Louis sought asylum in the US, but once here they were turned back to Europe on account of strict immigration quotas. Many of those aboard the St. Louis perished in the death camps.

Being godlike means standing up not to allow something similar to happen again. What would we say to the passengers of the St. Louis today? Would we tell them that we cannot admit everyone? Would we mumble that our nation will be overrun by foreigners? Would we fear crime and violence on our streets?

As people of God, we cannot allow evil to triumph—great or small. Never should we be hard of heart, legalistic, or driven by ideologies of any kind that stand against the basic truth of goodness toward human beings in need. I recently heard that another word for tough love—in case that holds some appeal—is soft hate. Never should we be guilty of hate of any kind, and always we should be wise to its appearance as something else, something acceptable or good. Part of the lesson of the weeds among wheat is that evil loves to masquerade as good. Never should we refuse to do what is really good when that good can be done, and always we should be willing to unmask evil.

We all hold the ability to do miracles, and our single act of clemency, one act of acceptance, one single embrace, may be the miracle that someone needs at the time. At every moment we must look to the light and aspire to be saints, even better, to be angels in the lives of others. We hear a lot about fear, but we should keep in mind that the opposite of fear is courage. Do we want to be known as a cowardly people of fear, or as a great people of courage?

In being the people of God, the wheat among tares, we must learn to hear the groaning of the Spirit; of that which calls out to the Most High from the depths of basic human need. We must learn to give and forgive, to welcome and to heal, and offer our open arms without expectation of return. Our goal as the people of God is to rise to greatness; it is to live as a people of royal righteousness—a righteousness and courage that imitates God: a righteousness that cannot separate forgiveness from the acts of reconciliation. It begins with our prayer, our deepest personal prayer, for our own reconciliation.

Increase Our Faith: Sermon for the 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time

"If you have faith the size of a mustard seed…” Perhaps faith is one of the most misunderstood concepts in the Christian religion. We seem intuitively to know that we need faith. It’s something that all people who desire to live a godly life long for—it speaks to our deepest inner being—but what is it really that we desire? Is it that we should have all our doubts put to rest? Even the greatest of saints had their doubts. Or perhaps it’s that we long to see just one great miracle in our lifetimes. “ Oh, If I just had the faith! Then everything would be alright.”

The readings we have for today are clearly about faith, and to really get the message we need to look not only at today’s readings, but also we should consider where we have been liturgically in the past couple weeks.

Last Sunday we heard about the rich man and Lazarus, and how Lazarus laid suffering in the rich man’s door. He must have stepped over Lazarus every morning! The week before that we heard of the dishonest steward and those who trample the poor through cheating and dishonesty. Actually all these readings, along with the ones we have today are all about faith. Faith, or the lack thereof as it may be, becomes evident in the things we do and in the things that we fail to do.

What we sometimes need, when it comes to faith, is an eye opener. In today’s gospel Jesus provides the disciples with such an eye opener. I grew up with a literal interpretation of the parable of the mustard seed. I was told that if I had only a little faith, miracles would happen on a daily basis. In my Protestant evangelical upbringing I heard it all the time. Faith had to do with everything from gaining wealth and prosperity to overcoming incurable illnesses. Mustard seed faith was the key to everything. All one could want was possible by having mustard seed faith, or at least that’s what they told me.

I have to be honest. I never had that kind of supernatural faith. However, I did know of several Pentecostal preachers who could make people pass out by just touching them—of course this kind of thing was always suspect of trickery or prearrangement. Perhaps the faithful just knew what to do when the preacher touched them. Perhaps he knew if they had just the right very deep and intense prayerful look they were candidates for being “slain in the spirit.”

I did have someone pass out while I was preaching a couple years ago, but that was probably caused something else. I suspect it had more to do with a missed insulin shot than with supernatural power issuing from my words. My problem with faith when I was young wasn’t that I didn’t believe. Quite the contrary actually, it was just that no matter how much I desired it, regardless of how hard I prayed, no matter how much I contorted my heart and face, it wasn’t in my power to make the miraculous occur.

Nevertheless, I do wholeheartedly believe that faith leads us to realize unimaginable possibilities; that is, it leads to realistic possibilities that push the envelope in terms of what we would ordinarily consider. If we believe in something, something real and attainable in this world, and are willing to put forth the effort there’s a universe of pure possibility waiting. That’s a good thing, and I’m actually a lot more inclined to think of the mustard seed faith concept of my youth in this way nowadays. It’s the mystery of the power of God that makes the realization of faith possible. Not that it’s beyond our understanding, but that faith brings about a holy and transcendent experience. That’s the real meaning of mystery. It’s something that transcends what we would ordinarily expect.

In today’s gospel the disciples, somewhat impetuously, ask Jesus to increase their faith. As he often does, Jesus responds with hyperbole or overstatement to get his point across. The biblical literalists of my youth might have a hard time seeing it this way. In our translation that we heard today Jesus tell the disciples “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed” you could command this tree to be planted in the sea and it would obey. The Greek verb “have” in this section of the gospel is rendered in a tense, which older translations render as “had” in the sense of habitually having something. It is as though Jesus is saying to the disciples, somewhat accusatorily, “You say increase our faith, but I ask exactly what faith is it that I am to increase? If you had faith the size of a mustard seed,” he tells them, then “you could command the tree to be uprooted and planted in the sea.”

As they often do, the disciples are caught presuming something and they have to be corrected. In their being reproved—about assuming to have faith to begin with—we find something key to understanding faith. Jesus goes on to say, “When you have done all you have been commanded, say, 'We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.’"

We are to do what we have been commanded to do. It seems rather simple doesn’t it? We are to obey the commandments and love. For me this is the key not only to understanding today’s scripture but also the readings for past couple weeks. It’s quite interesting that in each lesson the actions of faith they are cast in connection with how we interact with those whose lives are affected by extreme negative conditions outside their control: poverty, or as the case is today with the Habakkuk reading, how we react in the face of violence. No doubt these are all concerns quite relevant to us in our world today. What are we to do when we come face-to-face with those whose lives are affected by forces outside their control? How do we react to them? The manner in which we treat others determines the reality of faith much, much more than the sheer mystery of the miraculous.

I want to close by reflecting on something I became aware of this past week. It’s not to accuse anyone. After all we all have room to grow. I like to think that we encounter God each day, and each day brings us a test of faith. I have a friend, a devout person, who comes to church with her young daughter. Her daughter has autism. The child has behaviors typical for someone with autism. She can sometimes be a little noisy, but nothing too bad. Certainly she is less noisy than crying babies, who we tolerate very well. My friend’s daughter is a person who understands that we receive Jesus in Eucharist. I taught her that myself. Just last week I learned that someone who came to church late sat near where the child and her mother were in the back of the church. When the person noticed the child making a slight noise she told the mother, “Your child is distracting me, make her be quiet.” The mother explained, “My child has autism, she can’t really help it.” Again the person said, “Make her be quiet.” So my friend took her child and left Mass.

The things in life that require the response of faith come to us in many guises, be it Lazarus in the doorway calling out for help, the poor cheated by the rich, or the violence of our times. Perhaps it may the voice of a child in our midst with a disability. We only begin to reach out and take a hold of faith; we only begin to increase it, when we allow it to cause us to act when we encounter injustice. Faith is truly faith when we act in the lives of those who suffer. The mulberry tree will indeed someday be planted in the sea, but that will happen only when we decide to repair our world.

Sunday Sermon: Connecting Humility, Righteousness, and Justice

As is always the case in our readings we receive a message today that conveys truth to us about living a good life. For me this week it’s a message that is difficult. Not because the words don’t come to me, but because of the gravity of the message itself. It is a message about what leads to peace in our life and ultimately to salvation. The message for today, at first glance, has to do with conducting our affairs with humility. It seems rather simple actually, “Be humble in how you live.” At least this is what we see on the surface.

If it is the case that the lesson is merely about living as a humble person, there shouldn’t be too much to unpack. A couple words should do and then we can move on to the rest of the liturgy. Maybe that’s what you were hoping for from me today. However, before being too hasty we should ask ourselves if we truly understand the deepest meaning. After all, it is an important enough lesson that Jesus took the time to teach it.

The gospel tells us that at the culmination of the week people were gathering for what was probably a Friday evening dinner at the home of a respected Pharisee where Jesus was a guest. They were observing Jesus carefully. It’s likely that he had chosen to sit in an unexpected place. Actually, Jesus was observing them too: he took note of how they chose to be seated, and perhaps the order in which they were being served. In his observation Jesus must have been interested in noticing who gets honor in our world and where we place our values.

Indeed more than being merely a lesson in mere humility, the importance of what Jesus had to say goes much deeper.

If I were ever asked to choose what I believe to be the most important thing that Jesus taught, I would have to say it is that we are to be righteous. Jesus believed that everything about our lives should reflect the righteousness of God. Though some might insist that salvation comes by grace, and while we realize that it is true that the mercy of God knows no bounds, our turning toward God, toward righteousness, is the thing that may count most in our final assessment before the throne of justice.

Recall the very last sentence of the gospel reading today. It says, “… You will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” I don’t believe that mere humility was what was being gotten at in the parable of Jesus. It’s too easy for us, and perhaps even a temptation for us pious or churchy types, to put on front of humility. False humility is no better than self-righteousness. True humility, like true righteousness, comes from authenticity. It flows from genuine experience: from life as we live it.

It is the righteousness of our hearts—our deepest innermost being—for which we will stand in judgment. Undoubtedly, we receive the command to do good in our world. Righteousness means doing good. In a world where events are often morally neutral we have the power in our free will to create goodness through our actions. It is also in our power to act in such a way that opposes good, which most often may mean choosing not to act at all. St. Augustine of Hippo taught that evil is only the privation or absence of good. It is not a thing itself. Ultimately the measure of righteousness is contained in how we relate to others. Too often we fail to see that our relationship with God is no better than the relationship we have with all others—all things, both people and creatures—whom we encounter in life.

In the gospel message today there is the implication that our world is upside down about what we value. There is a hint of what I think of as nothing less than a revolutionary intention in Jesus’ words. He lets us know, as he does time and time again, that he is going to turn the status quo around. It’s not just a shake-up that interests Jesus; rather, it’s an absolute earthquake of overthrowing the powers that be. It’s an ushering in of a new world of values: a new kind of human government. It’s a rule in which the underclasses find themselves on top. Now that’s probably not the kind of humility we may have been thinking about, is it?

What Jesus is doing in today’s gospel is letting us know that righteousness and societal justice are intricately, perhaps inseparably, connected. Pompous religiosity, especially the kind revealed in the temple hierarchy of Jesus’ times, and in the values of the priests and Pharisees, their structure, order, and bureaucracy had little or nothing to do with justice or righteousness. What can be said of our structures and hierarchies today? It is as if Jesus were telling us, “Don’t identify yourselves with the structures of power because they will ultimately fall away. Look instead to those who have no power, no wealth, no voice, and no rights. Look to those who suffer under the plight of war. Look to the victims of racism and at our own blindness to it.”

Beyond the obvious lessons for us of being good, being authentic, and even of being at the humble service of others, which we should do, there is more. Beyond considering and putting the concerns of others ahead of our own, which also we are to do, there is yet more. Even beyond our humble and pious bowing down before our most sacred shrines, there is the lesson about what we should really value most in life.

What Jesus demands will not be popular. It wasn’t popular in his time and it’s not popular in ours. He asks that we identify with those who struggle, with the underclasses and the outcasts—the ones we might prefer would go away or those whom we would prefer to keep out. Ultimately his message is revolutionary. It is one that connects righteousness inseparably with justice in the world. It is a message that does nothing less than turn the world upside down. It is a message that should turn our lives upside down as well. It puts our relationship with others first.

When it comes to the practical question of what we should do now the answer is clear: we are not asked to go out and start a revolution. The first action in becoming righteous is to repent of our former ways. Naturally, we take baby steps at first. We begin by being more accepting of those who are most different. We ask ourselves, “What do I really value most? Is there something about myself about which I have been blind, or is there someone—a class of people perhaps—whom I have been unable to see? Am I willing to turn and accept the least valued, the least wanted, of my fellow human beings? Am I willing to let them be my most honored dinner guests?”

Discovering and Accepting Truth as Spirituality: The Journey of Getting Our Facts Straight

For years I held that the stories of Christian martyrs and their persecutions were historical facts and thus to be accepted without question. However, I recently found an article on a new book by Notre Dame scholar Candida Moss, which calls the historicity of these stories into doubt. Moss is interviewed in the article.

Something that Moss said--just a simple statement--stood out to me, and in many ways defines the direction that my spiritual growth has taken me most recently. Moss says, "We... have an obligation to get our facts straight, however painful that might be." Sometimes it turns out that we make a discovery in our lives that goes against everything we ever held to be true. How do we handle it when that happens?

First, a maxim I have learned to live by is that we have nothing to fear in discovering and accepting truth. This holds even when what we discover seems to strike at the heart of what we believe and value. Jesus taught that his disciples would know the truth and the truth would free them. From the viewpoint of faith there is certainly nothing to fear in learning truth. Mine has become a religion of seeking and learning truth regardless of the cost. Truth has that kind of value.

Knowing truth helps us to be aware of when we are being manipulated for some purpose, and it exposes the dangers of falling for such manipulation. In searching for truth it is not that we are merely relying on facts without examining the subjective depth of truth claims, but that we allow the facts to speak to us from as many different variables of experience as possible. However, the subjective truth we experience has to be weighed against whatever the evidence that exists tells us.

Throughout my life I have found that belief often has to be adjusted, but doing so does not necessarily involve a loss in faith. Actually, the opposite tends to hold true more often, at least in my experience. Sometimes it is the case that the adjustment--the eye-opening experience--is what faith actually requires in order to continue to grow and be healthy. Any time our beliefs become such that we refuse to adjust them when truth calls for it, then those beliefs bear more the character of idols.

The case of martyrdom and persecution that I examine in tonight's reflection is a great example. Recently, over many months in the past year, I have heard the claim that the Church--the US Church in particular--is undergoing a time of great persecution. I have heard from the pulpit that we should not be surprised to see Christian bishops shed their blood in a year's time. From the first time I heard the claim of persecution I knew that something was wrong. I asked, "Where is the violence and the bloodshed against the Church right now? It may exist somewhere in the world but not here: not in the US Catholic Church." Moss aptly points out in her interview that we do a certain wrong to those who actually suffer persecution when we misuse it for our own purposes.

All true believers, and all seekers of truth, owe it to themselves to question those claims--both recent and historical--that have somehow gained a place of being beyond inquiry or doubt. What may be our outcome is a purified personal belief that better helps us see ourselves as a part of a plurality of religious truth where persecution on account of one's religion will scarcely be tolerated.

The journey of truth continues along the path: it never really involves loss. Truth is always a gain, and if it does involve exchanging some aspect of our personal belief--even if it is painful as Moss says--we have to treat it as an obligation. This only amounts to spiritual growth.

Revisiting St. Thomas the Apostle: Patron of All who Have Doubted

When I first began my blog about six years ago, I felt that the Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle was an important date for us to bear in mind as a community of believers. That post is still here, and I think that what I was getting at in 2006 is perhaps even more important to us now in 2012.

Many years ago, long before I had place to post my thoughts on the Internet, a wise priest told me that someday I would find my personal patron saint. Since then I've considered more than one who has indirectly influenced my life--people like Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta or perhaps Dorothy Day: people who gave their lives for the poor of the earth. In my search for serving in justice and charity these have stood out. However, I'm not sure now that I would consider them to be my patron saints. A personal patron ought to be one whose life somehow reaches deep to cross paths with our own. With a patron saint we make a deeply personal connection.

In 2006 on the feast day of St. Thomas I considered the doubt that existed in the world then. I considered what I read in the news of increasingly vocal opposition to belief, and moved by that opposition and unbelief I wrote to it. My point of view hasn't changed really at all: belief is now challenged more than ever it seems. In way that may seem strange to many Christian believers I tend to identify deeply with Thomas the doubter, and I identify with those who have a hard time believing. I think we tend to believe in the wrong things while we overlook the most obvious. If there has been a patron saint in my life it will mostly likely turn out to be St. Thomas the Apostle before any of the other noble inspirations I might mention here.

As with my earlier post, I still believe in looking beyond the empirical objective world for the deepest realities. I believe in and I look to qualitative experiences of the lifeworld, the "down and dirty" and "nitty-gritty" of life, to find the stuff of faith. For me faith can't be so much about the things that demand scientific proofs, rather faith is about life as it is experienced. If faith is about merely believing, about blindly accepting and following--without questioning, reflecting, or grappling with doubt--then I would be among those whose doubts are overwhelming. I might count myself among the unbelievers. However, I am a believer and I believe that life offers evidence daily in itself for what I believe in.

While opposition to Christianity in our world seems stronger than ever, the greatest challenges to faith don't necessarily come from anti-Christian or atheistic claims. The greatest opposition comes from our willingness to take hold of what is false and our unwillingness, perhaps our fear, to seek out the truth with clarity. It comes from our unwillingness to search beneath the surface and explore the deepest layers of experience. Faith is about having the courage to hang on when there aren't any readily available answers on the surface at the moment.

In 2006 I hinted in my post that there is a problem with being both an ideologue and a believer. The two are in opposition to one another. I hinted that we have to move beyond legalistic and political positions. Well here we are in 2012 and we aren't necessarily better off. I look around and I see those who claim to have faith battling those who they see as their opponents with politics and legalistic religion. We seem to want to put out the fire by pouring gas on it. Instead of faith we choose dogma. Instead of looking to the world and passion of human life we look to the dead letter of the law. Instead of Jesus, Christians choose politics. Humanity--like that of Christ--with all its earthiness, tends to be looked to last when we consider the stuff of faith. I think this is a huge mistake. It is part of the dupe of all dupes.

A few years ago when I learned of the doubts that Mother Teresa reportedly had in her life I was concerned. Now at this point in my life I am no longer worried about it so much. Doubt is part of belief and I actually would seriously question the faith of one who claimed to have never doubted. 

Indeed our world offers us a great deal to be doubtful about, though often it is in a negative and unhealthy way. Unfortunately sometimes the public expression of our faith, our religion, also offers us plenty to be doubtful about. Whenever certain quarters of Christianity begin to demand fanatic following; when so-called faith begins to demand ideological or political allegiance; when it overlooks the experiences of real-life people caught up in real-life struggles, then how can we help but feel a temptation to doubt and even to walk away in despair?

It's really no coincidence that I write this post on the eve of Independence Day after a long hiatus from blogging anything but an occasional homily. For me the greatest enemy of true Christianity is and always has been the idols we place before having faith in that which truly should be the ground of all we believe: the Holy.

We make our idols now not in the form of wood and stone, but in the form of nation, party, and ideology. We tend to elevate our ideals to the level of the things that are sacrosanct in the faith. We set aside the deeper and harder to grasp realities of belief for more concrete and graspable ideologies. We replace the word of faith with the notions of state and freedom. We place our banners and flags next to our shrine and our altars too often have become the soapbox of mere political wrangling or the places to honor and elevate ideas that are in no way equal to the mystery symbolized by those sacred places.

True belief makes certain demands or challenges on our part and we are better off by taking them. To be faithful we remain courageous when faced with challenges and doubts. We admit that we may not always have the answers. Faith asks us to take a position that might put us in a dangerous spot: it asks us to stand for truth in a time when eyes have become blind to it.

Faith demands that we have a vision of a world where there is fairness, peace, and justice, and in faith we work to bring those about. Faith demands that we take a position that may be unpopular because it doesn't lend support to the idols or the idolaters or to their ideals. Belief demands that we explore the texture of humanity, which never really comes in a neat and clean package, and that we look squarely at those things that tend to challenge us most; that is, at those things which cause us to be most fearful and most doubtful. Faith demands that we leave the idols and ideologies behind for the reality of life as we live it. Faith asks us to be honest about our deepest doubts, and faith opens a world for us where we can finally touch that which is most real.

It turns out that our greatest threats to faith, and our greatest threats to freedom--if that is what concerns us--is our all too easy willingness to accept an imitation of the real thing. We have to be like Thomas: we have to reach out and touch the humanity that has experienced the cross. We touch it by making contact with each other and especially with those who suffer. We recall that the all-in-all of our believing walked among us to teach us not to be Pharisees, scribes, or even good citizens of Rome. He came to have his hands, feet, and side pierced and he asks us to touch his humanity, and nothing aside from this will do. 

 

New Year's Homily: Being Blessing

We begin the year with a blessing, and whether it is a coincidence from the lectionary, or something planned, what better day is there to receive a blessing than the first day of the New Year?

The Lord Bless you and keep you! The Lord let his face shine upon you and be gracious to you! The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace!

So we start the year not only with a blessing, but with something of an invitation to look back on the past year and consider where our blessings have been. Perhaps we consider the blessing of being with family at Christmastime. We might also consider other blessings. Perhaps there was a wedding last year, or maybe a new baby came into the family.

Following along with scripture we consider the blessing that is Mary’s baby. We might also be inclined to consider the theological blessing, of which St. Paul writes to the Galatians: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law…”

On this Solemnity of Mary, who we call God-bearer or the Mother of God, we consider the blessing that she received, and we might pause to bear in mind how this blessing must have seemed. A young woman, still a teenage girl, pregnant without being married, gives birth--barely indoors--and exhausted from labor she puts her baby to sleep in a feed trough because there was no other place to lay him down besides the ground strewn with straw and dung. 

The first witnesses, we are told, were the shepherds. In those days there wasn’t much romance in being a shepherd. Being a shepherd probably carried something of a social stigma. Shepherds were on the bottom rung of life; they were the ones below all others. Yet God chose to reveal the glory of the angels to the poor shepherds. God chose, in the miracle of incarnation, to be born to a young teenage couple who were the talk of the town in a very negative way. God chose the poverty of a stable and a feed trough to reveal blessing.

As we move into the New Year our eyes turn to the future. I’d like it to be a year of blessing for myself and my family. I want my children to do well in school. I want a year filled with health and happiness for my wife and me. I’d like to have successes at work, and I pray for the blessing of a mild summer with plentiful rain. I have my New Year’s resolution list and a positive attitude. Still, I realize that for others the future might not seem to have much hope at all. Others are entering the year with sadness. For many there is no cause to be positive. Others are entering the year with poverty, hunger, and violence.  Where is the blessing for them?

I recently read an article from a professor who works at a Christian university here in Texas. He says that he often hears from students who say they feel as if they need to work on their relationship with God. They believe they need to spend more time in prayer and reflection. He says he likes to direct them instead to work on their relationships with other people. He says that too often we get taken in by a bait and switch and go after any number of so-called “spiritual” substitutes to bring ourselves closer to God rather than doing so by working on just being a decent human being to others.

The point that I take from this is to ask myself how I can bring about blessing to those who seem to have so little of it in their lives. Really, when I consider it, I realize that it’s too big for me to do alone.  I have to join with others to bring blessing into the world, but the decision to do it has to start with each one of us personally. We have to act ourselves; we have to focus, and we have to usher in the blessing for others. I think soon we will find ourselves joined by others or joining with them to bring about true blessing.

In our world today there are others with whom we must stand. It’s likely that we won’t have much in common with them. They’ll be different from us in many ways: maybe in language, color, religion, disability, or in their economic status. For them life has not been a blessing, but we, as Christians, as people of God, are the ones who are called to be the bringers of blessing.

Blessing involves a transformation, both within ourselves and one that we enact upon the world. To be a part of the blessing above all other blessings we go to the teenage parents, Mary and Joseph in the stable with the poor and outcast shepherds, and we stand and gaze upon the hope of the world lying in a feed trough.