Twenty - second Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 14:1, 7 - 14
One of the perks of being a physician is that you get honor.  When people call you doctor, that's honor.  When people suggest you go ahead of them in the cafeteria line (because they think you are really busy) that's honor.  And even in the gratitude of patients you receive honor.  I liked being honored.  I liked it when I would be invited to speak about my research, or give a grand rounds.  And one of the real shocks of retirement is that gradually the honor slips away and people see you more and more as someone who is old and out of touch and doesn't matter any more.  This part of life, for me anyway, is God's way of teaching me humility. 
Way back when we are babies we begin to value honor.  When we have learned to walk, or talk, or develop bowel and bladder control, we are complimented by our parents; that makes us feel good.  And so we go through our early years seeking approval, and it's such a strong instinct that when we don't get it, some of us lash out and are happy just to be recognized.  If I can't be the smartest, or the best athlete, or the have the most friends, I can always be the meanest or the most destructive.  And it's pervasive in society.  In our present society we are turned off by people who “blow their own horn”.  President Trump does that a lot, although I sometimes wonder if he is just trying to get a rise out of people – and succeeding.  In our society we value the show of humility; we like actors who receive an academy award or athletes who win trophies to attribute their success to others, even to God.  Paradoxically, a hero who seems humble is honored even more than one who doesn't. 
In Jesus' time, the society was even more sensitive to honor than we are.  Although there are passages all through the Old Testament advising people to be humble, those were mostly forgotten; It was important who you knew and how well you knew them.  It was almost like currency; the more honor you had, the more advantages came your way.  You could get a better dowry for your daughter; you could charge more for your goods; and conversely, those without honor soon found themselves at the edge of society.  So the people at the banquet are behaving normally.  And oddly enough, I don't think Jesus was telling them or us that honor is a bad thing.  In fact, he seems to say, if you really want to be honored, than at least show the appearance of being humble.  After all if the host invites you higher – your honor meter goes way up.
But then Jesus talks about something unthinkable.  Because one of the main reasons for inviting people to a banquet is the hope of being invited back.  You would invite someone a little higher than you, and expect reciprocity.  If someone accepted your invitation and didn't invite you back, you would be humiliated and they would be shamed.  That's just the way things worked
So Jesus invites his host to really break from the norms of the society – invite the poor, the widows, the orphans the crippled, the lame – they can't pay you back.  But you can expect your payment when the righteous are resurrected. 
2000 years later, that kind of hospitality is rare, and when it exists, it's kind of artificial and institutionalized.  I don't know about our bishop, but I bet he doesn't eat with a bag lady or one of those homeless guys holding a cardboard sign.  You can go down to the soup kitchen and get a meal, no questions asked.  In several parishes there are “sandwich ministries” where some members make sandwiches and distribute them to homeless people.  These are good things.  But is Jesus inviting us to something much more radical – to literally eat and drink with people we would rather not associate with.  After all, If I'm passing out food in a soup kitchen, I can go home to my own supper feeling good about myself.  If I invite them into my house to share my meal, I will end up nervous, doing a lot of extra work – and if I try to sit down after the meal and share a little wine and conversation, that's really unusual. 
Jean Vanier founded the L'Arche communities in which normal people and people with developmental disabilities or were mentally challenged lived together in a family environment.  I suspect that's kind of what Jesus was getting at. 
Am I going to go out and grab some people off the street to share my supper tonight?  No.  Are you?  No.  Does Jesus know this?  Yes.  So why does he give us this totally counter cultural advice?  I think it's to make us think.  You and I know that if we would begin to do what Jesus suggests, we would quickly become saints.  Because we would be doing this because Jesus asked it of us – obeying God like Mary did.  We would be doing this as a practical way to love our neighbor, exercising the virtue of charity in a remarkable way.  We would be doing this as a way of making up for our sins – Saint Peter says that “Love covers a multitude of sins”.  I don't give banquets, but if I did, I wouldn't know where to begin in inviting the people Jesus suggests I invite, and lets not kid ourselves, I probably wouldn't even think about carrying out Jesus' advice. 
And when I meditate on the second part of this gospel, or in fact many other suggestions Jesus makes in the scriptures, I fall back on the fact that I am not a very good Christian, if being Christian means doing what Jesus says to do.  And maybe that's Jesus' point.  We all have to learn deep in our souls that we are in need of a savior, someone who can make up for all the times I've failed to follow Jesus. 
There's a story about life after death.  It turns out that everyone is seated at a banquet with every kind of wonderful food and drink.  Our resurrected bodies are a lot like the ones we have now, except no one can bend their arms at the elbow.  Some people are spending eternity trying to get the food into their mouths.  Others or putting the food into the mouth of the person on the other side of the table, and being fed by him or her as well.  Everyone is just doing what they did on earth, and some are in heaven, and  some are in hell. 

Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 13:22-30

Which of the following statements do you agree with?

1. I'll go to heaven because all paths lead to heaven.
2. I'll go to heaven because I have faith.
3. I'll go to heaven because I am a good person, generally.
4. I'll go to heaven because I go to church and make my family go to church.

The man who asked Jesus the question today was probably thinking along these lines; there was a controversy among the Jews about who would be saved – some said you had to be Jewish and that was enough. Some, like the pharisees, said you had to rigorously follow all the commandments of Moses, otherwise you were lost. Still others said that it was even possible for gentiles to be saved, so long as they followed the seven commandments of Noah which were given to the whole human race. And of course there was a school of thought among the jews that once you died, you were dead – no life after death; the Sadducee.

Jesus actually answers that question, but not the way the man had hoped. Jesus says “you have to strive to enter through the narrow gate.” And he suggests that some who are trying won't be strong enough. Now if you had heard that statement in the Greek of Jesus' time – because that's the only record we have of what Jesus had been preaching in the Aramaic language – it would have sounded like this: you have to agonize like an athlete to enter. What did Jesus mean? I could point to someone like tom brady who is out throwing passes for three or four hours a day, when he isn't doing wind sprints or lifting weights. And we all know that anyone who achieves excellence didn't get there by accident, even a Kardashian.

First, striving means diligence. Deuteronomy says “seek the lord with all your heart”. There can be no compromise; there has to be passion. Second, striving means mental concentration. Each of us, every day, must make a choice. The man asking Jesus the question had not made a choice; he was still of the opinion that he didn't have to begin until he knew exactly what was expected. Not true. St Paul talks about “seeing through a glass darkly” and that's how we have to go about our lives – moving, not standing around. Third, striving means self-denial. Tom Brady could be doing other things that would probably be more fun. He has enough money. And the same is true of us – we have to care enough about becoming what God wants for us to put aside things that aren't helping, that may be standing in our way.

We are all very lucky. We get the grace of the sacraments. However, the church teaches that a sacrament is first of all a promise of God's grace – we might say, “virtual grace”. However, the way we respond to this act of love on God's part will determine whether the grace offered is received – “active grace”. Saint Augustine said, and I paraphrase, “God acts so that I may want what he offers me, and when we decide we want that, he cooperates with my wanting so as to perfect in me the gift he offers.” The church has always taught that while we receive a valid sacrament, it doesn't always mean that the sacrament has an effect in us. I remember a classmate in medical school. He had been admitted – he had the “virtual grace” to become a physician. However, he had graduated from college with a bachelor of science in economics, and spent a lot of time watching and playing the stock market. He did not pass his tests and ended up dropping out. He did not have “active” grace.

Jesus goes on to say in this gospel that our opportunity is limited. Of course we could die, or in fact lose our minds to Alzheimer's disease. But it seems as though God in a way can give up as well. In the old testament God “hardens pharaoh's heart” so that he resists the requests of Moses. But in the end, pharaoh hardens his own heart. And we see Judas as well; did God give up on him when he had totally rejected Jesus? I think it's a real possibility; if we go through life making no effort to actualize God's graces, does he stop? Surely there is always mercy, but only if we turn back to him.

Jesus also makes it clear that just listening to the gospel, going to church on Sunday, doing other pious acts is not enough; we have to cooperate with God's grace with faith, hope and indeed with love, because grace is God loving us, and he does so so that we will love him back.

Sometimes Jesus says things that imply that the vast majority of mankind will be saved. He talks about the fact that he came to save all men, and being God, can he be denied? In the consecration at mass, our priest repeats the words “for you and for many”. Jesus compares the word of God to a leaven that eventually leavens all the bread dough. But there are many passages which suggest otherwise, perhaps this being one, or the story of the penitent tax collector, or the story of the rich man and Lazarus. You can pretty much read these the way you want. What you can't do, according to Jesus, is be saved without your own struggle, a struggle like an athlete in training, a violinist preparing for a major concert. Your salvation is a gift of God, but you have to grasp the gift through your efforts. Another saying from Saint Augustine, “God chose to create you without your willing it, but chooses to save you only through your willing it.”

Have a plan of life. Daily private prayer and a little spiritual reading; weekly holy mass and communion: regular and frequent confession; periodic recollection through a retreat or a mission to see how you are doing. And its a good thing to have someone to talk about faith with; it helps clarify our thinking and nourish our enthusiasm. Then the grace that is waiting to break through and turn you into a disciple, into a saint, will be unleashed.

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

Luke 12:49 - 53
When we hear today's gospel, it doesn't sound like the Old Familiar Jesus.  In fact, it doesn't sound like Jesus in other parts of scripture, where he says things like “Peace I leave you” or “Peace be with you” or the peace I give is not like the peace the world gives.”  Here, he tells us he did not come to bring peace, but division.  He wants to set the world on fire, he wants to begin this process of setting family members against each other; he wants this so badly that it causes him anguish because it isn't happening already.  So what is going on?
Well, Jesus does bring peace.  In Hebrew that word is “Shalom” and is more than a truce between enemies.  It conveys rest, satisfaction, completeness, fulfillment.  And we have any number of saints to look at to see that giving oneself completely to Jesus results in just that kind of peace.  Saint Augustine, was raised by a Christian mother and pagan father in a time when most of the time you would not be baptized until you were an adult and made that choice.  Before his baptism as an adult, he flirted with different religions, taught philosophy had a son with his common law wife.  One day he had a mystical experience in which a child-like voice told him to take up and read.  He had a copy of Paul's letter to the Romans, and his eyes fell upon the line, “let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy.  Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”  After that he embraced Christianity wholeheartedly and soon became a priest.  Later in his life he would talk about his own experience and remind us that “Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee, O Lord.”  There is something about that kind of profound peace that those of us who aren't saints yet yearn for.  And there are so many other examples; We even see this happen with the apostles who after Jesus' death go from a fearful bunch hiding from the Jewish mobs to people who preached openly in the temple.  And we see martyrs cheerfully going to their deaths, because they have this peace.  So Jesus does bring peace, he brings shalom, to those who accept it.
But in this gospel Jesus is not talking about that kind of peace, and he is not saying that it is his intention to divide people.  He is predicting what will happen, though , and telling us that every human being who chooses to truly follow him can expect trouble, can expect that even those nearest and dearest will not understand.  And we see that happening as well. 
We know that following Jesus is counter cultural; it always has been, because the world is full of so many wonderful things, so many pleasures; and we all believe it is better to be wealthy than to be poor; and to be admired rather than ignored, and to be successful rather than to be a failure.  And yet Jesus on the cross is in pain, is poor, owning nothing but a loincloth; is ignored or even spit upon by those passing by, and is definitely a failure at being the kind of Messiah his people were expecting.  And yet he tells us to take up our crosses and follow Him.  Of course he promises that if we do this we will have eternal life, and if we don't we won't, but most of us are quite happy being of the world, because we think there is a compromise here.  We can have the good things of the world and still have eternal life.  I'm hoping that is true, needless to say, but I wonder how things will be when I am forced to make a choice, a hard choice, a choice that will divide me from my loved ones, or from the things that I love. 
And then I wonder what kind of Christian I really am?  How does Jesus see me?  I'm a pretty bland sinner.  When I go to confession, I have a hard time coming up with new sins; it's always the same old ones – I put off stuff I should have done, I spend more time on the computer than is good for me, I let my mind wander when I am praying – and I can't really think about anything that is terribly serious, although I know that that is probably true of most of us.  If I'm a typical penitent, it's a wonder the priest doesn't run screaming from the confessional out of sheer boredom.
But what if I had to confess what I have failed to do?  I passed a ragged man holding a cardboard sign saying “homeless vet”  and looked away.  Maybe he was faking it, but I guess if I had a choice I wouldn't spend my day like he does.  Or I think about someone who is going through a hard time and tell myself it won't be much help if I call her up with some words of comfort.  Or I feel the urge to extend my ministry as a deacon to a new venture, and decide not to.  Or here's one.  I write a line as I am composing this sermon and realize it would probably hurt someone's feelings so I cross it out and think of something less threatening.  I think if I had to confess all the times I've failed to live up to what Jesus calls us to do, it would be a long confession. 
I think this is what causes Jesus to express his frustration.  He knows he has a limited time to teach his disciples, and while he realizes that the moment is soon coming when he will take away the sins of the world through his sacrifice, he wonders whether it will make a difference.  One of the things about working in a nursing home is finding so many people who were raised Catholic, went to Catholic schools, even raised their children Catholic, but when asked about whether they belong to a church reply that they dropped out, they are indifferent, they are spiritual but no longer religious.  And if I were with Jesus I would say, “but look at all the people who still go to Church!  Look at all the great Saints that followed you and still follow you!”  And he would say, If that person was the only human being on earth, I would have still died for him, and it breaks my heart that he is rejecting what I want to give him. 
Today's gospel reminds us that if an outside observer could not tell whether we were a Christian or not, then we are doing something wrong; and it tells us that if our attempt to follow Christ causes us a little discomfort, we are on the right track. 

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 12:32 - 48

I think we all kind of agree with Jesus' statement, “Where your treasure is, there also your heart will be.” We know of people who work late hours to the extent of neglecting their families because their treasure is in building a business, or making a million dollars, or rising in the heirarchy of the office to a position of ultimate leadership. We know others who put alcohol or tobacco or even food ahead of their good health and ability to function as human beings. And how many families have been ruined by a gambling addiction? I remember a patient of mine who was totally deaf and lived with a caregiver. He owned a beautiful MG convertible which he had lovingly restored and in which he liked to sit. Of course it sat in his garage,because, being deaf, he couldn't drive, but it was his treasure.

Sometimes your treasure is something that seems good but you get carried away? We've seen examples of that recently when parents break the law in order to send their kids to the best colleges. And just last week we learned about how some wealthy families disown their children so that the kids can be eligible for grants for college tuition based on need. It said that there were a couple of law firms that actually specialized in arranging this.

But I think Jesus is telling us something a little different when you take the whole gospel into account. He begins by telling us The Father is pleased to give us the kingdom. In the first story about servants, he makes the point that the diligent servants who live in anticipation of the master's return will find the master himself waiting on them. He then goes on to promise that the master will put all his possessions in the care of the faithful servants. And he describes those faithful servants as the ones who know the mind of the master, who value what the master values.

So maybe Jesus is saying “where your treasure is, there also your heart will be” but also, it's within your power to change your heart, to train your heart, and with the promises Jesus has made on the Father's behalf, it would be in your best interest to do so, because what the Father has in store is greater by far than anything you might treasure otherwise. So how do we train our hearts?

The saints teach us that. Some had mystical experiences in which they claimed to have caught a glimpse of the next life – St. Paul among them. But not everyone is a mystic, and many other saints simply imagined, based on scripture, what the next life would be like. I think they all knew that what they dreamed about was probably not the way things would really be – but they had no doubt that it would be wonderful. So many saints, through their preaching and writing, have invited us to exercise our own imaginations. Some of that imagining, of course, gets translated to prayers and hymns, of which you are all familiar. So Jesus is telling us to train our hearts to long for the treasure which has been promised us.

I'm sure some of you have heard of St Paul Miki and the Nagasaki martyrs. In 1514 St Francis Xavier entered Japan and began a remarkable missionary effort carried on by subsequent Jesuits. Within a few years there were about 500,000 Christians in Japan, and it had a seminary and the beginning of a native clergy. But about 75 years later, the Shogun who ruled much of Japan ordered that Christianity be suppressed and rounded up twenty-six Christians all but four of whom were Japanese catechists, Jesuit brothers, and priests They had their ears and noses cut off and were crucified.

An eye witness who was a Christian wrote a description of the scene. Some of the martyrs sang hymns or prayed aloud; others shouted encouragement to each other. Paul Miki himself gave a sermon in which he prayed that the emperor would embrace Christianity in order to save his soul. One of the martyrs kept pushing himself upward on his cross, shouting “Jesus, Mary!” Can you imagine the scene? The point is, these martyrs had trained their hearts; they knew where their treasure was, they could hardly wait to take possession of what God had promised them.

Many Catholics and other Christians don't practice meditation. They think it's too hard, or they associate it with monks or sometimes eastern religions. I'm old enough to remember pictures in the news magazines of Mahatma Ghandi, the great father of Indian independence. Wearing only a loincloth he would be sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed. Meditation looked hard, otherworldly, not something we ordinary people did. But meditation is really pretty important to the Christian life. And it can certainly begin by thinking about God's promises to us and how wonderful it will be to find ourselves being waited on by Our Father, receiving from his hands the kingdom, being put in charge of all his possessions – What will that be like? What will it be like in our ultimate heavenly home?

Don't br a navel gazer. It's good to love your family and be diligent in the work you do. If you enjoy some of God's pleasures like a little wine and good food now and then, well, so did Jesus, so did his apostles, so do the monks in Spencer who brew that wonderful Trappist beer. G. K. Chesterton reminds us that in Catholicism, the pint, the pipe and the Cross can all fit together. For Catholics, we see that the good things of the world are down payments on the promises God has made, and so we enjoy them.

But work every day to train your heart to anticipate what God has in store for you, of which the good things of the world are simply shadows. Use your imagination. Speak to The Father and your favorite saints about them. And pray that on your last day you will strain toward heaven, calling out “Jesus! Mary!” because there will be no doubt where your treasure is and where your heart will follow.

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 12:13 - 21

We have a squirrel proof bird feeder in our back yard. In addition to attracting birds of all kinds, it is very popular with chipmunks, and squirrels that can't read the little sign that says squirrel proof. It goes something like this. The feeder is noted to be empty by my wife, who likes to watch the birds. Several reminders later, I go out to fill it. Soon one or two birds discover the seeds and before long there are many. This seems to attract the squirrels, one in particular, who is very large and likes to hang upside down on the bird feeder trying to reach in and pull seeds out. He is big enough to intimidate the birds, who all leave. I don't know how successful the squirrel is; I only know that on the ground chipmunks and smaller squirrels gather. The fat squirrel on the bird feeder eventually gets tired of hanging upside down, or scared by one of us coming out in the yard, and he must spend a lot of energy going up and down to the bird feeder and running frantically away when frightened. He doesn't seem happy, unlike the birds who share the feeder, or the chipmunks who find seeds the birds have dropped.

Today the first reading tells us about the futility of working for riches, and you couldn't be blamed for thinking that Jesus is saying much the same thing. But it's an interesting parable, because I don't think Jesus hates riches and wants everyone to give up our wealth to the poor and come and follow him. He asked that of only one person, the rich young man.

In the society in which Jesus lived, the richest people were the ones who ruled, and they were so far out of the norm that they might as well be living in another world. Probably in the other 99% of the population, the gap between rich and poor was much smaller; it was estimated to be about five-fold. In other words, if you had more than one room in your house and a few goats and a couple of acres of land and more than one change of clothing, you were pretty well off. Jewish law said that when a father died, his oldest son would inherit two thirds of the property, and the other sons would share the rest. Daughters didn't get anything; they were supposed to be married off. And indeed, rabbis were often called upon to adjudicate disputes. I suspect the man in question is disagreeing with his older brother (because the older brother divided up the wealth) about the relative worth of a goat versus a bit of land with an olive tree on it. That was when the dispassionate wise holy man would step in and be the judge and that's what the man expected Jesus to do.

But Jesus was having none of that. In the parable he tells, there are several hints that Jesus is not concerned about wealth or poverty here. First, do you notice that the rich man talks to himself? And if you were to have too much to put in your barn, you would probably build another barn, right? But this man plans to tear down the barns he has and build bigger ones.. After all, when you are rich you have to show it off, don't you? Out in Los Angeles, at least before it got ruined, the same thing was going on; someone who struck it rich would buy a ten year old mansion and tear it down so he could build exactly what he wanted. Our rich man is like that. And of course, he is closed in on himself; he has forgotten about time as he prepares for many years of eating, drinking and being merry.

Jesus is not against wealth, he is against greed. Greed simply means that you never think you have enough. Our whole society is designed to reinforce that feeling. Apple is getting ready to release a new iphone, and there will be millions of people who will throw away their perfectly good iphones to get Apple's latest. Someone did a study many years ago in which people who made 25,000 a year were asked how much they would need to live the American dream, however they defined it. The average person felt that 54,000 a years would do it. When you asked the same question of people whose income was 100,000, the answer was 190,000. So we are a greedy bunch of people and everything tells us that greed is good.

Jesus told the story of the rich man and Lazarus, and also remarked how hard it would be for a rich man to enter heaven. And down through the ages voluntary poverty has been held as an ideal for Christians. But there is a lot of good that rich people have done as well – hospitals, universities, and yes, churches would not be around without rich people who endow them.

Jesus concern is not wealth; it's what wealth can do. Wealth literally makes us blind, because we shift our attention from God and our neighbor to our wealth. It makes us unhappy, because we worry about losing it. I am retired, and I have a certain amount of money saved up. Every now and then I worry whether it is enough to see me through the next 15 years. As I get closer and closer to my last day, I find that I care less and less; but the point is, thinking about things like that makes me unhappy, and distracts me from where my attention should lie.

Are you greedy? I think we all have a little greed. We all think that if we had just a little more money, more power, more recognition, more pleasure, we would be happier. But we won't. Saint Augustine said that our hearts are restless until they rest in God. You can be rich or poor or in between, but if you have conquered the deadly sin of greed, you will finally find joy, you will finally be happy..

The squirrel in my back yard can't get enough seeds to make him happy, and he burns all his energy trying to get more. The birds and the chipmunks wait till he's gone and swoop in to eat enough to satisfy themselves. There's probably a lesson in that. Jesus, after all, showed us that we are to pray this day for our daily bread, not for tomorrow's or next week's. He told us to trust Our Father, who cares even about the birds in the air and the flowers in the fields, and how much more about you and I.

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 11:1 - 13

I barely remember the first time I prayed for something. I think I was about four, and my birthday was coming up, and I was hoping for a little toy bulldozer that you wound up and turned loose. They were made of metal and could push things around. That of course is a quality a four year old admired. I was not yet in school, but my parents made sure that I said my prayers at bedtime and I guess I began to see that prayer was a great shortcut to getting what you wanted. And in fact at my birthday I had the bulldozer; like magic. I learned a very important lesson. And as time went on, I had other prayers answered, usually for stuff I wanted; and I didn't notice the coincidence that my prayer requests for various toys seemed to be fulfilled on my birthday or at Christmas. As I grew older I began to notice that not all my heartfelt prayers were being answered. And I learned several reasons for that. One was that God always answered prayers, but sometimes he said “no”. Another was that God knew that if He answered my prayer it would end up hurting me, so He didn't answer them. Still another was that someone else may have been praying for just the opposite of what I prayed for, and God either remained neutral or responded to the one who was most sincere. That was a good explanation as to why my team lost an occasional game to another team – God probably favored them, even though we had prayed to win. And the most pernicious of all, which I've heard on the lips of patients I've taken care of, or their relatives – “i guess I didn't pray hard enough”.

The scriptures don't always help. There is a passage in john in which Jesus says, :”If you ask the Father anything in my name it will be given to you.” Maybe that's my problem – I don't always remember to add “in Jesus' name” to my prayers. And we have this lengthy reading from Genesis, which seems to tell us that if you keep after God he might change his mind Sure seems that way. And Jesus tells us about the neighbor who will get bread from the householder if he bangs on the door hard enough, or how about the widow that keeps bugging the unjust judge until he finally gives in?

But the bottom line is that prayers are not always answered. Jesus himself prayed in the garden of Gesthemeni: “Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken away from me”. But it wasn't. And philosophers and theologians tell us that God is all powerful, all knowing, all good, all just and the list goes on. God does not change and His will which cannot be overcome, doesn't change either. What will be will be. Can we change God's mind? Not really.

So let us look at this Gospel passage again. The disciples say, “Teach us to pray”. Being good Jews they've been praying since their bar mitzvahs. They know the prayers. They know the postures; why are they asking Jesus how to pray? And notice Jesus' answer: “When you pray” Jesus knows they already pray. And I think an important question to ask is do we pray? Oh, yes, we come to Mass, we might say a few prayers now and then, but do we really make time to devote our attention to God alone even for a few minutes a day? Prayer is ultimately a conversation with God, not the words in a book or a Hail Mary repeated over and over again. I'm not saying these are bad – they aren't, they are good and important – but each of us needs to enter into that personal relationship with Jesus and that can't be gotten by anything other than actually sitting down and doing it.

Notice what Jesus' prayer is all about. He prays for the things that God wants; the petitions in the Our Father – and this is Luke's version, not the one we are familiar with – are exactly what God wants and is moving the world towards; we pray that God's kingdom come. I think that you will notice that most of the prayers of the church are like this. If we pray that God's will be done, it will. If we pray that we be forgiven our trespasses, they will be, because Jesus died so that we would be forgiven.

Jesus invites us to ask, to seek, to knock. And He tells us that these actions won't be in vain. But I think Jesus is saying something along the lines of “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those...” In other words, our prayer needs to be accompanied by action. If we pray for the coming of God's kingdom, what are we doing to bring that about? If we pray to end abortion and vote for pro choice politicians, I doubt that God takes us seriously. If we aren't asking, seeking and knocking, it won't happen, not so that we can see, anyway.

And I think the last thing to mention is that Jesus does make a promise in this Gospel passage. He says, “If you who are evil know how to give your children good things, how much more will the Father give good things to those who ask Him?” Oops, I think I misquoted that. It really says, “How much more will the Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” And that's the bottom line. Saint Paul tells us, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”

When we pray in Jesus' name we are praying as He did, seeking always to do God's will rather than our own. When God's Holy Spirit prays within us, that is the same Spirit that prayed in Jesus Christ, the Spirit that allows us to call God “Father” and that guarantees that He sees us as His own beloved sons and daughters just as He sees Jesus. If I am a child with parents that I love, part of me wants to please them, and if they are really wonderful parents, I want what they want, especially what they want for me. And that is the guarantee that Jesus gives us – if we ask for the Holy Spirit, it will be given to us, and He will teach us to pray properly; He will give us the mind of Christ, which always seeks to do the Father's will – as Jesus said, “My food and drink is to do the will of the Father”.

So pray that God will heal little Billy, or that uncle Ted will give up drinking and join AA, or that you will ultimately find true love. God listens. But at the same time, learn to pray as Jesus prayed, that God's will be done, that God's kingdom come; and put your money where your mouth is – if you are praying to pass an examination, you better be studying as well. If you are praying for better health, throw away the cigarettes and start exercising. Because you are the Body of Christ and you must want what He wants – enough to do something about it. And above all, find time every day to sit alone and speak to God and let Him speak to you. And say, “Lord, teach me to pray.”

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 10:38 – 42

My mother was quite a theologian. She listened to the scripture readings and the sermon at Sunday Mass and usually had a few choice comments afterward. In those days of deep and widespread Marian devotion, Mary was often the topic of a sermon, and held up as an ideal to which all women should strive. My mother would comment that it was probably easy for Mary to be an ideal Mom because she only had one kid and he was God. I heard that more than once. But another reading that she would become particularly incensed about was the one you just heard – where Jesus seems to put down Martha who has been slaving away in the kitchen while the menfolk are all in the living room drinking wine and talking theology – and her little sister Mary is right there with them. My mother sympathized deeply with Martha, and I think she figured this was one time when Our Savior was wrong, wrong, wrong.

My mother was probably not alone. I think we all can hold out a little sympathy for Martha, and we all can imagine the scene – Martha is rushing about trying to get supper on the table, and no one is helping. And it extends into the rest of life as well. I don't know how many times I've been in charge of something and could not get people to work with me – and I suspect that is true of most of you as well. They say that in the average parish, about ten percent of the parishioners actually do more than come to Mass on Sunday. We all lead very busy lives, and we all have different ideas of what is important enough to take up some of our precious time. Our beloved Tony Moran, whose funeral we just celebrated, was totally committed to the pro-life cause. He devoted hours every week on behalf of those children who are the most vulnerable of all. And he was frustrated because he couldn't even convince enough parishioners to participate in the life chain every year; all he wanted was a line of people a block long to stand on Longmeadow Street in front of the Church for an hour, and never did enough parishioners turn out to meet that goal. I wonder if he ever cried out, “Lord, tell my brothers and sisters to help me!”

What did Martha need when she cried out to Jesus? She wanted Jesus to use his authority to make Mary get out in that kitchen and get to work. Why Mary? Why not John or James or any other apostles? Well, kitchen work is woman's work, after all. Martha, being a typical first century Jewish woman, knew that women saved their souls in childbearing and taking care of the household, while it was men who were supposed to study the scriptures and wrestle with theological issues. Not only was Mary not doing the work she should be doing, but she was sitting with men as they listened and responded to Jesus' words. “Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?”

If you read the Acts of the Apostles or pick up the hints in the letters of Paul, you know that the first generation of Christians had many women who were leaders. We hear mention of Dorcas, who was a holy woman raised from death by Peter; we hear about Priscilla and Aquilla, a married couple who were missionaries, and who instructed Apollos, another missionary. And there was Lydia, a businesswoman who opened her home to Paul, making it the locus of one of the first Christian communities in Europe. In the greetings at the end of the Epistle to the Philippians, Paul mentions by name his co-workers, many of who are women. When Jesus told Martha that Mary had chosen the better part, he really started a revolution, which by fits and starts has proceeded down to today. Jesus, you see, does not see the kitchen as women's work, or what passed for scholarship in those days as men's work. This passage is revolutionary.

And at the same time, to get back to my mother's objection, Jesus is not demeaning the kitchen work, the work that seems to fall on women even today, even in our enlightened country. We need both, we need Martha to bake the Eucharistic bread and clean the church and wash the altar clothes and we need Mary to contemplate the words of the Lord and seek that inner transformation that can only happen when we sit at his feet.

No, Jesus is not demeaning Martha's work, or elevating Mary's choosing the better part. He says, “You are worried and upset about many things, but few are needed, and indeed, only one.” Jesus concern is for Martha's fragmentation, for her focusing on herself, for her refusing to accept his love, for her projecting her frustration on her sister. “Lord,” she says, “do you not care?” Lord, she might as well have said, don't you love me like you love Mary and those apostles you are sitting with? “Lord, tell my sister to help me!” she says. She might have said, “If you care about me please ruin her day.” And that is what Jesus is concerned about; Martha, in her frustration, in the context of the pressure she finds herself in, has forgotten the most important thing right now, the fact that Jesus, the Son of God, the Savior of the World, the Messiah, is in her house and she is not paying attention.

And while this little story was probably the beginning of the feminist movement and the start of the slow and steady erosion of the patriarchal culture that had existed for most of the history of the human race, the real point is that we are all Marthas, who forget that Jesus is not just here on the altar on Sunday, but he is in his people, he is moving among us, he is wherever Christians gather together, he is always with us as he promised to be – and we are out in the kitchen banging pots and pans and resenting the fact that no one seems to want to come to our aid. And it is then that we have to realize that only one thing is important, that we kneel at Jesus' feet and listen to his words and feel his love. And that was why our brother Tony persisted in his lonely ministry – because he was always aware of the one thing that mattered, that he was faithful to his calling.