Twenty seventh Sunday in Ordinary time, cycle A

Matthew 21:33-43

When I was employed many years ago, I worked for a company that had a “three strikes and you are out” rule.  If I wanted one of my staff to stop doing what he was doing or start doing something she wasn’t, and they did not respond to my requests, I would first of all give them a verbal warning --which I had to document.  This warning would lay out what I expected and when.  If the individual failed to meet expectations, then I would issue a written warning, which would contain the behavior I expected and a deadline for it.  This was supposed to be discussed with the employee, who could write a note to accompany it when I sent it to my own superior.  After the expected time I could fire the individual, unless my own superior intervened.  I never had much trouble with the people I supervised, except when we converted our institution to a computer system, and an employee who was also a friend refused to learn the system.  Fortunately we only needed step one.

Today you hear about a landowner who was obviously following a different system.  When the tenants beat and killed and stoned his servants, he doubled down and sent another batch, who received the same treatment.  When he heard about this, he sent his son, who was killed.  When the chief priests and elders heard the story, and Jesus asked what was the next thing the landlord would do, you heard their answer.  Jesus doesn’t confirm or deny it, and when you think about it the landlord had already demonstrated that he was a guy who always gave his enemies another chance.  And for us Christians that’s a good message -- Jesus is always paying the price for our sins, our transgressions. 

Some people see in this gospel passage the old idea that Christians replaced the Jewish people as the new favorites of God.  In fact this and several other passages in the New Testament tend to support that idea .  But Jesus is talking to the leaders, the chief priests and the elders.  Jesus himself would never agree that the Jewish religion was replaced by the Christian religion.  His point at the end of the passage is that the chief priests and elders were expected to bring about the kingdom of God and didn’t, and now that  goal will be  taken away from them and given to those who are Jesus’ mother and brothers and sisters -- those who hear the word of God and keep it.

What is this kingdom of God that Jesus is always talking about?  It's outlined in the scriptures -- even in the Old Testament  which doesn’t seem to have made an impact on the chief priests and the elders.  It’s a world where no one is hungry or thirsty or naked; it’s a world where everyone loves his neighbor as himself.  It’s a world where we don’t have wars.  It’s a world where everyone has what he needs to live, and has the opportunity to become the best person he could be.  And we shouldn’t leave out the fact that the kingdom is where God is truly worshipped by every soul.  In short, the kingdom of God is heaven on earth.  That’s what Jesus taught; that’s what he wants for mankind.

And this gospel should make us ask some serious questions -- what am I doing to make the kingdom of God present?  When I encounter people during my day, some probably need something I could give them.  Am I sensitive to this?  Obviously most people don’t show their needs, but we know that everyone needs affirmation, encouragement, recognition of a job well done, however small.  You don’t have to be an extravert to do these things, it just takes willingness and doing it.  What are you doing, what am I doing to bring about the kingdom of God?

And what is our parish doing? Is it doing enough?  Because despite the fact that we live in a very affluent community in a part of the country where hurricanes and winter storms aren’t too bad and summer isn’t too hot, in spite of all the blessings we already have, what more can we do to make the kingdom of God present in our town -- and we can do more than we are doing as a parish.  Twenty percent of our parishioners attend weekly mass.  How can we do something about that?  Some of our parishioners are lonely -- shut up in their own homes because they are no longer mobile; confined to nursing homes because they can’t take care of themselves.  Who are they and what can we do about them?  And we could go on and on.  

If you look at the scriptures and the history of our church, you can see that God is working among us to bring about the kingdom of God -- but through his people.  Let us consider whether we are worthy of the kingdom being given to us.  

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Matthew  21:28-32

Martin Luther was born into a family of modest means.  He was ambitious and very bright, and initially studied law.  Law in those days included a lot of religious law, and Luther started to become very disturbed by what he perceived as what God wanted him to do and what he had done so far.  He decided to dedicate himself to doing God’s will and to that purpose became an augustinian monk --same order as Pope Leo xiv, and earned a doctorate in Theology.  This did not help and his scrupulosity resulted in sleepless nights, losing weight, wearing hair shirts, and so on. Based on his reading of scripture, particularly of Saint Paul, he decided that what was necessary to enter the kingdom of heaven was faith.  And Paul said, "Abraham believed in God and this was credited to him as righteousness”. Paul also said, “we hold that one is justified by faith, apart from works of the law.”  IF you ask Google to show verses of the bible that support this idea, they are all in Paul, except one in the Acts of the Apostles.  However that was what Luther was looking for, and eventually he developed a critique of the Catholic church that led to the so-called Protestant reformation.  Luther felt that several books of the Catholic bible were not legitimate, and indeed the Protestant bible contains fewer books than our bible.  But ultimately he couldn’t get rid of the epistle of James, which contains the statement “Faith without works is dead.”  Some modern Protestant denominations go so far as to say that if you express faith in Christ and really mean it, you are saved and can’t be unsaved.  

Luther had a point.  In his time, and even when I was a kid, our church in practice seemed to emphasize works.  We had indulgences, novenas, scapulars, special prayers, all of which implied that you could get benefits by doing something -- including the benefit of avoiding hell.  On the other hand there were prayers and actions that could cut short your time in purgatory.   

Today Jesus contrasts a son who says “I won’t do it” and does it with one who says “I will do it” and doesn’t.  He is talking to the leaders of the Jewish religion, who would tell you that your closeness to God was measured by how well you kept the 632 commandments, with people who were the very opposite -- who had no use for any of the commandments.  Jesus does not mean that all sinners are closer to the kingdom than the leaders of the religion, but those who had heard John the Baptist and were carrying out what he taught.  The leaders had heard John and been unmoved; the tax collectors and prostitutes had heard him and been moved to change the way they lived.  

IF you look at the gospel passage today, there is a crucial difference between the two sons.  Jesus talks about the first son, who says no, and changes his mind.   He does not say the second son changed his mind.  The impression from the parable is that the second son never intended to do what the father had asked, he just agreed to shut the old man up.  The two sons are not mirror images of each other; the first son seems to be genuine; he says what is on his mind and later changes his mind.  The second, we suspect, is a liar from the start.  

Martin Luther rightly points out that simply doing stuff for God doesn't really get us anywhere -- after all if we do good, God is working through us; and certainly we can’t manipulate God to do what we want him to do.  The Catholic church was right in emphasizing Christ’s words, “by their fruits you shall know them”, and “Not everyone who says to me “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven”.  The chief priests and leaders of the elders and you and I need to ask whether we are changing our minds.  Does our faith express itself in what we do?  I suspect some of the chief priests and elders did good things and compared themselves favorably to the sinners they condemned.  Jesus is telling them and us that the most important thing is to change our minds, to look at Him and look at ourselves and see what still separates us -- and then with His help draw closer. It’s a dynamic relationship.  Our belief leads to action, and our action strengthens our belief.  And I guarantee you will never run out of things to change about yourself in your journey to Jesus. 

Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle A

Matthew 20:1-16

It wasn’t too long ago that Scott Adams passed away.  If you like comic strips you must remember “Dilbert”, the strip Adams wrote for many years.  Dilbert was a nerdy engineer, whose relationship with his pointy haired boss and his difficulty with the opposite sex made for humor that at least I appreciated.  And now and then he would branch off to the Alligator family or the Prince of Heck, who ruled an afterlife consisting of constant annoyances.  

Adams, shortly before he died, admitted that he didn’t believe in God or life after death, but had decided to hedge his bets by accepting Jesus as his Lord and Savior.  He said that he was doing this because he really would like to go on living in the heaven that people described, and as far as he could tell nothing more needed to be done than to accept Jesus -- a common teaching among many protestant denominations.  We will hope that Adams is enjoying heaven.

But I thought of him when I read this gospel.  And I noticed that I felt a little envious -- if that’s all it takes to get into heaven, I’ve certainly been banging my head on the wall for most of my life.  I’ve been working hard trying to grow in virtue and reject sin, and you probably have as well.  Can you think about other famous death bed conversions?  The writer Oscar Wilde was one -- after a very dissolute life of drugs and alcohol and sexual perversion, he converted to Catholicism almost on his death bed, and that seemed to be a real conversion.  But perhaps the most famous deathbed conversion was that of Saint Dismas, who was told by Jesus himself that he would be in Paradise that day, the day he was crucified.  

I think it’s interesting that the workers who worked all day don’t go to the landowner and say, “Give us more, we’ve done a lot more work than these others.”  Instead, they look at those who only worked an hour and tell the landlord, “You have made them equal to us!”.   To desire a revision in the original contract is not irrational, but that’s not what the workers were asking,  They were committing the sin of envy.  It reminds me of the story of the genie who popped out of the lamp and told the one rubbing it that he was a special kind of genie, he would grant any wish to the one rubbing the lamp and give twice as much to the man’s worst enemy.  The lamp rubber thought for a minute and said, “All right.  Make me blind in one eye.”  

Jesus starts this parable as usual --” the kingdom of heaven is like…” Maybe the parable is not about the workers at all, but rather about the landowner, who represents something about God.  And God says, “Are you envious because I am generous?”  Every week I go around and visit people in the nursing home.  I see Violet, whose brain works fine but who can’t even feed herself -- going on fifteen years now.  I see Beth, who can barely get from bed to wheelchair, and who is nearly blind.   In her younger years she was a dynamic social worker who loved to read.  I meet Bill, who is gradually losing his mind to Alzheimer's and knows it.  A man who contributed a lot to his profession and now leaves his room and can’t find his way back by himself.  I wonder if they envy me.  Do they have any reason to believe that God is generous?

When we look at the parable, the landowner owns the vineyard-- the workers have no claim on it.  The landowner keeps going back to the workers and inviting more to work in his vineyard.  You and I have no claim on God because of our behavior, because of our trying to live a good life, because of our prayers and participation in the sacraments.  One time Jesus was called “Good master” and he replied, “no one is good except the Father”.  That’s the bottom line.  You and I  and the people suffering in the nursing home and the Pope are not good, none of us deserve any of God’s favors.  But God according to Jesus loves each of us and loves us so much that he dies for us.  Rain falls on the good and bad alike,  And what message should we go home with, what is the gospel saying to us?  God loves me regardless of whether I’m worthy of his love, because I’m not.  If I have nothing else, I have life -- God gave me life because he thought I would like it.  And it may please God that I respond to his love in some way  by acting more god-like, but it doesn't change his love.  And with respect to life after death, I believe that God wants me to be with him for all eternity, and only I have the  p;ower to avoid that.  How will it be when I see Scott Adams in heaven?  Will I say “you have made him equal to me, how is that fair?"  Or can I bring myself to say, "Thank you for your love you give .”

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle A

Matthew 13:44-52

  Did any of you ever want to be a super-hero?  Wonder woman, Superman, those kinds of people?  I think a lot of kids, at least before the age of the cell phone, would dream about being super, being able to fly, to lift buildings, to have bullets bounce off of you or at least, in the case of wonder woman, off your bracelets.  Superheroes seemed to have it all, and even though the comic books we had told stories where they faced terrible opponents, also holding superpowers, our heroes always triumphed in the end.  We are born with the desire to triumph over obstacles; two-year-olds get frustrated when things don’t work out the way they want, and they let you know it.  I think we are designed to long for a life without limitations.

Very early on, though we learn that there are limitations.  We have to make choices in how we spend our energy, our time, our money.  And every time we make a choice, we leave behind what might have been.  IF you choose to get married to this person, you cut off the possibility of marrying another person.  If you choose to buy a Jeep, say goodbye to the Chevrolet.  

Today Jesus seems to be saying that the kingdom of heaven is a choice we make -- it’s within our reach, if we are willing to let go of everything else.  That certainly seems to be what a lot of saints did.  Saint Francis threw the clothes he was wearing at his father’s feet, renouncing everything to pursue the kingdom of heaven.  Saint Anthony of the Desert sold the significant property he inherited from his family and gave it all away, except for a stipend to a couple of widows to take care of his sister -- and then went out to live in the desert.  So many saints renounced everything to pursue the kingdom.  

But that’s not the whole story.  There have been lots of saints who didn’t renounce everything.  Saint Margaret of Scotland was a queen; Saint Henry and Saint Kunaginda were a married couple ruling over Bavaria.  The parents of Saint Therese of Lisieux, saints in their own right, had to struggle like every married couple to provide for their family and deal with living in the modern world.  Carlos Acuta was very middle class and had the latest computer games. For many saints selling everything you have to obtain the kingdom of heaven didn’t seem to fit their lives.  You and I might envy the saints who gave up everything, but we know we are more like those that had stuff.  

One way to get at what Jesus is saying is to go back and read all of Matthew’s chapter 13, which contains eight of the twelve parables Jesus gives us to understand the kingdom of God.  When we look at all of them together, we begin to understand that the kingdom is more valuable than anything we can exchange for it, as we hear in the parable of the buried treasure; that everyone is welcome in the kingdom but some choose to turn away, as we hear in the parable of the sewer; the kingdom starts small but grows, as in the parable of the mustard seed; the kingdom is meant to change the world, as in the parable of the yeast.  From parables in the other gospels, we learn that the kingdom is like a great party -- the parable of the banquet; we can be left out of the kingdom by getting too involved in other things -- the parable of the ten virgins, remember, five wise and five foolish; and God wants us to take risks to build the kingdom -- the parable of the talents.  The kingdom is where God forgives us for all of our transgressions but expects us to forgive each other -- the ungrateful steward.  Finally, the kingdom is a free gift, a gift that we don’t earn, a gift God gives to all who ask -- the parable of the workers in the vineyard.  Now if you don’t remember any of those parables, ask me later or go read about them, because when you put them all together you get a picture of what Jesus means by the kingdom.  When Jesus tells us the kingdom of heaven is within us, that means we have the power to shape ourselves into citizens of the kingdom by the way we choose to see ourselves, our neighbor, and the world in general.  If we truly recognize that we are loved beyond anything we can imagine, we can withstand whatever the world throws at us.  If we truly recognize that every human being is also beloved and made in the image of God, it will be hard to hate anyone or ignore their pain.  If we truly see that everything is a gift, our hearts will be grateful rather than envious; our prayers will begin with thanksgiving rather than petition -- and most of all, we will be happy and look forward to the ultimate happiness Jesus offers his followers in the next life.  And if we gain the joy of possessing the kingdom of heaven, we will see others catch the joy from us, because the kingdom of heaven is contagious.  

So now that you know what the kingdom is all about, go and tell others, like the head of a household who brings from his storehouse the new and the old.  

   

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary time, cycle A

Matthew 18:1-23

I have a patch of land in the back of my house that I care for.  It’s an area about twenty feet long by fifteen wide of grass, surrounded by bushes.  That’s the aspirational idea, anyway.  In truth the bushes are infiltrated with some horrible species of vine that I have to keep chopping back, along with other weeds.  But the patch of grass, that’s something even worse.  If you are looking from a distance it doesn’t look so bad, but up close, it’s not grass so much as various weeds growing in what appears to be mostly barren ground.  Over the course of  years I’ve worked on that patch of grass.  My son and I dug it all up, leveled it out, planted new grass seed, watered it faithfully, and for a couple of years it looked good.  Then it began to revert again.  I dug it all up and  bought those rolls of sod, which I laid down.  Looked good -- till a couple of years went by.  I hired an expert to come in and do what I could not do.  It turned out he couldn’t either.  And so for the last few years I’ve kind of given up.  I  mow it now and then and on hot days I water the patch a little but I’ve found the best way to deal with my patch is to ignore it, to watch it from a distance.  I’m either a terrible gardener, or this is really poor soil.  I favor that idea.

Growing up, my mother’s side of the family were excellent gardeners.  Mom loved to plant her garden in the spring and then force me and my sister to weed it.  My uncle Phil had an incredible garden -- whatever he planted grew abundantly.  In fact all ten siblings except my aunt the nun had beautiful gardens.  The secret was in the soil.  

If you wanted a great  garden, it began with the soil.  Nowadays  you can go buy bags of soil from the hardware store.  I always resent having to buy dirt, but we do -- and my wife can grow about anything if she puts her mind to it.  But my mom’s siblings would never have used their hard earned money to buy dirt.  The preparation of the soil was paramount.  It involved scattering dried cow manure over the area then spading it into the ground.  This aerated and fertilized the soil.  Every couple of years you laid down lime and worked that into the soil as well; it counteracted the acid.  And during the growing season you water the land -- and even that has to be done carefully so as to avoid erosion and leaching the nutrients out of the soil.

I suspect the people listening to Jesus were aware of what it takes to make good soil as well.  In today’s gospel Jesus talks about seeds and soil.  Some seed falls on the path where people walk; on the concrete sidewalk.  That seed has no chance.  Some fell on rocky ground where it couldn't put down roots.  Some fell into areas where weeds grew up and choked the new plant. But some seeds fell on good soil and yielded an abundant harvest.

Is Jesus telling us that it’s all just chance? It seems that way, sometimes.  There are parts of the world where the gospel isn’t heard  because preachers are thrown in jail or executed, like North Korea.  There are places where the whole apparatus of the state favors one religion and the Christian message is drowned out.  There are still places in the world where the message of the gospel can’t compete with the struggle of the people to just find enough food to stay alive - parts of Africa come to mind.  And there are places where the message of JEsus conflicts with the prevailing message of the society, where religion is laughed at, where men can be women, where if you are depressed you can have someone put you out of your misery by assisted suicide, where the  golden rule is do whatever you want because there are no long term consequences, there is no life after death. 

But there are things you and I can control;  we can control the soil on which the word of God falls for us.  My uncles and aunts, with hard work, could grow gardens that yielded enough produce to last through the winter.  They knew how to create good soil..  You and I do as well, with respect to the word of God that falls on our soil.  Faith is a fragile thing that needs tending.  You can choke it off with the cares of the world, with distractions like the internet, television programs, sports … you name it.  We can always find ways to amuse ourselves.   You can starve the faith by failing ot fertilize it.    Prayer, strengthens faith; training ourselves by fasting, by breaking bad habits, by adopting new habits, that helps our faith grow.  And growing in love of God by actively loving our neighbor, that is great fertilizer for our soil.  

IN our time there are so many parts of the world where the word of God is falling on bad soil and we can only hope that God in his own time will do what he has promised and bring all men and women into his heavenly kingdom.  But we can control our own soil, we can create the conditions for the word of God to bear abundant fruit -- and that’s where the making over of the world to become good soil begins. 

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle A

Matthew 11:25-30

  This passage is from Chapter 11 in Matthew’s gospel. It begins with the disciples of John asking Jesus if he is the Messiah or should they look for another.  Jesus doesn’t directly answer the question but praises John, and then goes on to say the least in the kingdom of  Heaven is greater than he.  Then Jesus talks about how “this generation” is never satisfied, and illustrates that by pointing out that the towns in which he has worked his great miracles have not become converted. Remember the gospel when Jesus drove the demons into pigs?  The people begged him to leave them alone.  Jesus implies that those who do follow him are not the wise and learned -- seeming to imply the Pharisees and the priests, but “little ones” -- people who aren’t wise and learned, the common people, the tradesmen, the outcasts.  

Jewish religious leaders had studied the scriptures and had come up with 613 separate commandments.  A good Jew was expected to know them and follow them.  They covered about anything you could imagine.  One of the commandments was to for each male Jew to write a copy of the commandments for himself.  Another was not to gather imperfect clusters of grapes from your vineyard.  Still another is not to eat a worm found in a piece of fruit.  In any event, the rabbi’s referred to all these commandments as a yoke.  You can imagine how a fisherman like Saint Peter looked at these rules.  And Paul was very proud of the fact that he was a stickler for following the law.

As Jesus looks out upon his followers as he is speaking he tells them in effect, that his yoke is easy, his burden light.  As you can imagine, this message was probably very popular.  

Jesus asks the crowds to learn from him because he is meek and humble of heart.  What does this mean?  Meekness is not cowering in the corner, or letting someone walk all over you.  Jesus was not that.  When you read the gospels you don’t see a coward; Jesus speaks his mind and works miracles and at least one time got kind of violent.  Meekness has within it being patient.  If I want something and am willing to wait for it, that’s meekness.  Jesus wants our hearts and wants us to join him in building up the kingdom of heaven, but he gives us time and opportunity and puts up with our failures.  Sometimes our image of God centers on his majesty, his power, and his judgment.  We think of God as someone who might smite you for going off the rails.  Jesus tells us that isn’t an accurate picture of God.  In the Book of Revelation we meet the souls who have been martyred and are waiting under the altar.  They say “how long till we are avenged?” and the Lord answers, be patient a little longer because there will be more joining you before the end.  Jesus is meek, and urges us to be meek.

Jesus is humble of heart.  A proud person sees the universe revolving around him or her. If there is an offense, the proud person refuses to forgive. “Who does he think that he is?” the proud person asks. He or she is not concerned with returning the sinner to a loving relationship. His or her only concern is with vengeance, getting the sinner back for the offense. That is not the way of the Lord. He is humble of heart. His concern is not with how he has been offended. His concern is how to rescue the sinner from the consequences of his sin.

Jesus is contrasting himself with the religious authorities of his day.  They had no patience with failure.  IF you were labeled a sinner, a Pharisee would cross the street to  avoid walking near you.  Forgiveness from your sin was an ordeal, involving sacrifice of an animal or a bird, the more the better.  And if you were a public sinner, like a leper you had to have a priest certify that you were reformed.  

And we all have a picture from the gospels of the religious authorities demanding recognition of their importance.  They would wear tassels on their clothing as the law prescriptive, but they’d make them long and ornate.  They would have someone blow a trumpet to call attention to their contribution to the temple treasury.  Jesus is not that, he’s humble of heart.  

When he invites us to take his yoke, he is promising to lend us his strength to face whatever we have ahead of us.  He offers to be our partner, our coach, as we go through life.  And he invites us to imitate him, because he is the only one who can reveal the father to us but asks only that we also must be meek and humble of heart so that we can receive his gentle help.  

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time cycle A

 Matthew 10:37-42

When I was growing up in Montana, my models were all the strong silent types who never asked anything from anybody.  You’ve probably watched a few of those old western movies.  That was really the way men behaved in public.  As I learned later, not so much in private.  But that attitude stuck with me most of my life.  I didn't accept help from other people unless I had no other choice.  But I guess God is trying to tell me something as I get older and begin to notice unwelcome changes in my ability to walk and notice the loss of strength and stamina.  The other day I nearly toppled over when I got up from a chair and had to grab my daughter’s arm  to steady myself.  

The gospel we heard today contains instructions Jesus gave to his disciples as he sends them out on mission.  You may remember he told them not to take extra clothing or money; they were to be dependent on the people to whom they were sent.  Think about that.  The disciples were without resources and totally dependent on strangers.  And Jesus promises that those who receive them receive Jesus and by extension, the Father.  He goes on to elaborate that those who extend hospitality to someone who is on mission share in the reward for the missionary.  And he reminds them that even when a cup of water is offered to a “little one" for his sake, that person will receive his reward.

As I read this section of the gospel, I think it’s telling us something about God the Father.  As the scriptures tell us elsewhere God loves his creation; he cares for the plants growing in the field, the birds of the air; he sends the rain to fall on the good as well as the bad.  Every time Israel disobeyed him, they ended up in trouble; and time and time again he rescued them.  Sometimes we think of God as arbitrary, or at least not constrained in any way.  Yet we see by these words of Jesus as well as many other examples, that God acts in predictable ways; he binds himself, so to speak.  And the speech about rewards for receiving others is part of that predictability.  If we give a drink of water to one of these little ones in his name, we will certainly not lose our reward.

So think about that.  If you give five dollars to help a missionary, you will receive the reward God gives to the missionary.  And by extension, you share in the reward God gives for all those who do his work when you support their work.  Now it’s a good thing to support people doing God’s work, and we shouldn’t be doing this to get rewarded.  Nevertheless God promises that we will be rewarded; he will act in a predictable way, either in this life or the next.  

I think that gives a way to see those first statements -- who loves mother or father more than me is not worthy of me, and so forth.  Our goal as Christians is to become other Christs.  Jesus certainly demonstrated in his life that he loved people.  When he wept at Lazarus’ tomb before raising him up, the bystanders said, “see how much he loved him”.  Every time Jesus healed someone he was demonstrating God’s love for that person.  The first epistle of John tells us outright that God is love, not that God loves.  So to become another Christ is to love like Jesus loved, and love others because we see Jesus in them.  

One of the things we see about Jesus is that he wasn’t the strong silent type who wouldn’t take help from anyone.  He sends disciples out on mission -- we read about him sending out the twelve, and later, 72 of his followers, and he still sends them out. Jesus fed the crowds in the miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fishes; and he washed the disciples' feet; and he fixed them breakfast on the shore of the lake.  Jesus offered hospitality.  But he received hospitality as well.  He accepted being waited upon by Peter’s mother in law.  He took advantage of the hospitality offered by Martha and her family, and by Simon the Pharisee, and by the two traveling on the road to Emmaus.  By his example he tells us to give to each other and receive from each other.  How would the world be if you and I took his example to heart.  Visitors to our parish would be welcomed, not ignored or avoided.  The clerk in the grocery store would be noticed and be thanked for her service.  Like Jesus we would see, really see, the presence of God in the people we encounter, because we love Jesus and want to honor him wherever we find him.

Jesus really wants a change in our hearts.  And it’s not easy.  It requires you and I to develop new habits, and that’s very difficult, that’s the cross we have to take up to follow him.  And in my own case, it’s very hard to let go of my self-image as that old western stereotype, the strong, silent type.  But as my body begins to fall apart, God is helping me to change that self-image, to realize that I am dependent on others and will be more so as time goes on.  I try to love as Jesus loved; but can I learn to accept the love of others as well? 

Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle A

Matthew 9:36 - 10:8

Next weekend is father’s day weekend and as some of you know I’m a father to six, a grandfather to 20, and a great-grandfather to one, soon to be two. I’ve watched a lot of little humans come into this world who are all in various states of developing as human beings. I’m still developing myself, if I believe my wife. I learn things from my descendants. My oldest grandson was given an incredible talent -- he can sit down at a keyboard and play anything by ear and has composed music as well. And he makes part of his living playing for his local church. My youngest granddaughter is playing the lead in her school play. I could brag on all of them but don't worry, I won't. What I'm most proud of, though, is the fact that everyone, including the ones married into the family, are practicing Catholics. I hope that never changes. I look forward to many family reunions in heaven someday.

Today Jesus looks out on the crowds who follow him. They were a ragged bunch. They were poor; lived on the margins, many not knowing where their next meal was coming from. And the point is, they were his kinsmen. Jesus was a proud Jew, if you could call him proud. The one thing the Jewish people had that no one else had was a highly developed ethical system. IF you read the Jewish scriptures, they aren’t very different from what Jesus taught, especially the commandments of God having to do with the orphans, the widows, the stranger in your town. They say that among all the people of the world at that time, the Jewish attitude towards women was the most enlightened. Jewish women, despite abuses, had a lot of rights. And as Jesus looked out on his kin, he felt deep in his gut sorrow for them -- because the Jewish priesthood which had been established largely to keep the law alive among the people, had become more concerned about ritual and keeping the flow of money coming. The people, Jesus’ kinsmen, were sheep without a shepherd.

Jesus longed to set things right for his brothers and sisters. In today's Gospel we hear how he proposes to do that. He appoints twelve of his followers to do what he’s been doing -- to go and set things right, to not only proclaim the kingdom of God, but to begin to bring it about. They have been given the power to heal the sick, cleanse lepers, drive out demons and even raise the dead. And Jesus, because he loves his own people, his Jewish brothers and sisters, tells them that this is where they are to begin bringing about the kingdom.

In the first century of Christianity, the vast majority of Christians were first or second generation Jews. The Jewish people outside of Jerusalem loved the idea that you didn’t need to go to Jerusalem and offer a goat in order to please God. Christianity taught that God came to you wherever you were, in the preaching of his disciples and in the Eucharist. Yes, even in the first century Christians believed that Jesus had instituted a special way for him to be present to them. Now the sacrifice that Jesus had made to the Father on behalf of the people could be re-presented anywhere in the world. Not all Jews joined the Jesus movement. And of course here we are, people who have been adopted into Jesus' family.

We Catholics, and to be frank, most Christians, sort of believe deep in their hearts that Jesus' movement is best left to the professionals -- priests, ministers, religious men and women, professional missionaries. The rest of us support them with money and sometimes a commitment of time. But Jesus didn’t appoint professionals to carry out his work of ministering to his brothers and sisters. The reason Matthew names the twelve is because the people of his time knew about these men and knew they did not have a degree among themselves, were not ordained like the priests, were not full time religious like the Pharisees. The twelve were like you and I. And Jesus started his movement with uncredentialed people. And his movement will continue to the extent that uncredentialed Christians go and do what Jesus did.

Did Jesus ever take away what he gave to his disciples? The ability to heal, to drive out demons, even to raise the dead? I don’t know if he ever did. Sometimes I think we have those abilities but are afraid to act upon them. But I think Jesus wants us to feel what he felt -- an almost physical pain when we see our brothers and sisters -- Jesus’ brothers and sisters - wandering around like sheep without a shepherd, because until we do, we aren’t going to be moved to do much to proclaim that God’s kingdom is at hand.

I look at my extended family and when I see things going wrong, when I see one of them hurting, I hurt as well. When I see a grandchild's faith shaken by something, I want to tell them that things will get better. Their pain is my pain, but their triumph is mine as well. That empathy we have with our own family members is how Jesus wants us to see all people. Because you and I are being called to gather the incredible harvest that is there, ripe for the taking for Jesus. You and I are the laborers, we are the answer to Jesus’ prayer.

Corpus Christi 2026

John 6:51-58

When I was about five, I remember being introduced to the idea of Holy Communion.. Because my birthday was in December and I could read a little bit, the sisters of Charity put me in first grade rather than kindergarten, a choice that affected my whole life, because all my classmates were six months to a year older than me, and let me know it. But I remember that I lived in my body -- I thought my soul was sort of like a balloon tied to my body with a thread -- I didn’t pay much attention to it. When I received my first communion I could feel Jesus presence in my body, sort of like a warmth radiating from the host all through my body. This went on for a very long time. Somewhere, probably when I begin to live in my soul and considered my body as that which caused me to sin, I lost that sensation -- but was reassured that the body and blood of Jesus, which I really consumed in Holy Communion, had all the accidents of bread and wine, so not feeling Jesus was pretty normal, I guess. My body was where I sinned, my soul where I encountered Jesus.

But today we hear Jesus astonishing words -- Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you shall not have life in you. And John the gospel writer translates the word “eat” with a greek word that describes the kind of eating that a starving animal might exhibit -- not the mannerly eating we expect of our children and ourselves.

If you go back to Genesis, God said, Let us make man in our image and likeness. He went on to say that we would be given dominion over all other creatures. And afterwards God looked at his creation and saw that it was good. Someone once said, “why did God give us bodies, which cause us to sin, which get sick and grow old and eventually die?” and someone else answered, “because he thought we’d like them.” The bodies God gave Adam and Eve were indeed bodies we would like -- never sick, never aged, no pain, no rebellion -- these two, a perfect man and a perfect woman -- could stand naked in front of each other and control all their feelings and impulses. It says, “they were naked but not ashamed”. When they chose to disobey God, he took away a lot of those good things about the body, among them the gift of immortality. And in a way, that was as mercy, because to live forever in rebellion against God is the very definition of hell.

And after the fulfillment of time, the word of God became a body. God took on a body in the womb of Mary, was born, nursed at the breasts of his creation -- lived a totally human life, including an agonizing death. In doing so, he glorified the human body and restored its immortality.

We Catholics and many other Christians believe that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. When we partake of this it is our bodies which digest this heavenly banquet. Jesus chooses to nourish our flesh and blood with his own. But Jesus is nourishing us with his resurrected body, his immortal and unlimited body.

I was thinking about all this when I asked myself the question, why do I know people who are good Christians who do not receive the body and blood of Jesus? It’s clear that you don’t need to receive Jesus to be a good Christian. I can accept that the reception of the Holy Eucharist, given the right disposition, can be an occasion of grace, a channel of God’s power to assist us in carrying out his work and helping us avoid sin. But probably all of us can think of a protestant brother or sister who shares our baptism, who clearly has the makings of a saint, but never receives the Eucharist.

We can certainly argue that God is not limited by our rules and is clearly at work outside our Church. But why do we say you have to receive the Eucharist at least once a year, and it’s a great thing to receive weekly, or even greater to receive on a daily basis. So here are some reasons to receive the Eucharist as often as possible.l

First, Jesus really wants to show us that he is concerned about bodies -- our body and that of our neighbor. So we should be concerned as well. As James the apostle tells us “If a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is that?”

Second, Jesus reminds us that he wishes to make us into other Christs -- and we can pray as we receive, “Let my hands be your hands, my heart be yours, let my love be your love”. So the eucharist is a reminder of what being a Christian is all about.

Third, we know that receiving the Eucharist does not make a person a Christian. We know that receiving the Eucharist unworthily can be a cause for eternal punishment, if we go by Saint Paul. But think of it this way. YOu’ve probably known people who show their love by offering food. I had a grandmother like that. The Eucharist is the way Jesus shows his love to his people by offering them his resurrected body and blood for our food. To receive this offering is a sign that we recognize his love for us.

On this Sunday of the body and blood of Christ, let us approach the Eucharist knowing that Jesus loves everything about us, including our bodies, which are destined to become like His own resurrected Body.

Pentecost, 2026

John 7:37-39

What feast was it when Jesus made this strange statement?  It was the feast of booths, or Sukkot, one of the three great feasts of the Jewish religion.  This feast celebrated how God looked after the Jews in the desert. Each family would build a shelter of sticks and leaves and during the eight days of the feast, would spend some time in the shelter, in memory of their dwellings during the long time of wandering in the desert.  Each day a priest would fill a jug with water, and the people and the priest would carry the water to the temple, where it would be poured into a large jug and allowed to run out an opening near the bottom.  While that was happening, the assembly would remember how God provided them with water, and they would pray for salvation, for relief of their sufferings, for freedom for their nation.  And then the people would take some of the water and drink it.  

And that was the context of when Jesus cried out, let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink.  The people were seeking their salvation in a ritual, but Jesus offered them the real thing.  And he promises more -- “rivers of living water will flow from within him who believes in me”.  John tells us that Jesus was referring to the Holy Spirit, who at that point had not yet been given to Jesus' followers.  

But the spirit has been given to us.  And on the feast of Pentecost, we need to ask, “what are we doing about it?”

I think most of us who go to church aren't bad people.  We recognize we have flaws, but when you study the saints, they all had flaws as well.  When you get past the saints of the early church, who are only known by their legends, we meet real people.  Saint Jerome used to become very upset with himself because he had a temper and a sharp tongue.  You can read some of his sarcasm online.  Saint Francis was such a poor administrator that the order he founded gave him an honorary title and appointed someone else to be the decision maker.  Thomas Aquinas made his companions go out of their way as they traveled back from more because he wanted to try a certain fish that could only be gotten out of a particular river; unfortunately when he ate the fish, he either choked on a bone or died of food poisoning – never made it home.  They were all very human.

So you and I are kind to people, usually; and we are reasonably generous with our time and our money; and we try to give good example, much of the time; and although we might have momentary lapses, we try to live lives of moderation.  Is that what it means to have the spirit, to have rivers of living water flow from within?  

Well, yes, in a way.  We know, as Saint Paul said, that everything good comes from God, so our goodness does as well, and the Holy Spirit is there pushing us along.  But what happened at Pentecost?  A handful of people, most of them illiterate, living at the bottom of the food chain, fearful and not knowing what to do, suddenly were transformed into great missionaries and martyrs, who would start a movement that involves a third of the world's population today.  

That's the same Spirit – has he gotten old and tired?  Has time and distance worn him down?  Looking at the saints again, we see what the spirit can do when we get out of the way.  Saint Theresa of Avila was a member of the Carmela order; she and the other nuns entertained visitors, read trashy novels, worried about their appearance – all despite being in a cloister.  About 15 years after she had joined this order, she began a process of reforming the order, a task to which she dedicated the rest of her life.   John xxiii was way past the age of retirement when he decided to let some fresh air into the church.  No one who knew him would have predicted that; he did not seem to have a rebellious bone in his body.  Andre Besset was a simple brother in the congregation of the Holy Cross.  His devotion to Saint Joseph and his welcoming presence as the doorkeeper led him to initiate the building of the shrine to Saint Joseph in Montreal. 

Each of us has some natural talent or gift that the Holy Spirit can transform into a supernatural blessing, if we cooperate.  Most of us, if we are honest with ourselves, can probably identify that gift.  I know a parishioner who never misses a chance to thank someone who has done him even a small favor.  He thanks his kids for obeying him, and his wife for fixing his meals.  And he is sincere.  My “thank you” threshold is not nearly as finely tuned as his.  Someone else has dogged persistence in his devotion to what he sees as his ministry – despite discouragement that would probably make me look for something else.  Another person has tireless energy so that she is all over the place serving shut-ins, driving people to appointments, bringing holy communion to the sick, and serving on boards of charitable organizations.  I think all of these people have allowed the Holy Spirit to turn on a talent or gift which they have.  We can see living water flowing from them.   The true sign of the spirit is that you become a blessing to other people. 

We need to find that natural talent we have and turn it over to the Holy Spirit, who will help us refine it and magnify it and make it supernatural.  Maybe we need some insight from a friend or from a spouse, to help us find it.  Maybe we need a dose of courage to begin exercising that talent in a better way.  Maybe we need someone, like a spiritual director, to show us how to grow that talent.  That's how the saints did it.  If you read the lives of saints, you find that most of them had someone in whom they could confide, from whom they could receive advice, encouragement, or correction.  Each of us has the makings of a great saint if we want to be.  We just need to let the Holy Spirit operate.  And he operates through our natural gifts.  

So today as we celebrate the moment when the Holy Spirit began the church, let us grasp the promise that Jesus made, that rivers of living water will flow from those who believe in him.  May the Holy Spirit do for us what he did for the apostles and the saints.  

Fourth Sunday in Easter cycle A

 Fourth Sunday in Easter, cycle A

John 10:11-10

As some of you know, Joan and I have a great-granddaughter.  In addition to making us feel really old, she is a delight to hold and talk to, although not much talking can be done with a ten month old.  Not too long ago I was holding her and she was going after my glasses and the pen in my pocket and whatever else drew her attention.  And I would put my finger on her nose and say “boop!” which amused her to no end.  However, after 20 minutes or so, she became restless and started glancing around until she caught the eye of her mother, at which point she started yelling “Mamama” until she was safely nestled in her mother’s arms.  

We human beings are restless, never quite satisfied.  Henri Nouewen, the author of the book “The Wounded Healer” said that there is no such thing as pure joy.  Even in our happiest moments there is a shadow, a fear, a jealousy, a restlessness inside us, no matter how young or old we are.  That old New England transcendentalist, Henry Thoreau said that most men lead lives of quiet desperation.  Probably it would be safe to say all of us do.  We can be distracted for a while.  We know what distracts -- drugs, alcohol, gambling; but indeed activities like golfing or playing other sports.  We can throw ourselves into hobbies.  But we all know these distractions only last for a little while and then we are back to our restless selves.  One of the most insidious distractions today is the cell phone.  I watched several teenagers leaving the high school a few days ago.  None were talking; all were immersed in what their phones were showing them.  No one was talking to the guy or girl walking along with them.  And cell phones are probably the reason that  in our country the average young  woman is expected to  have 1.6 children in her lifetime -- there won’t be any of us left in 400 years at that rate.  

In the gospel of John at the very beginning Jesus turns to two men who are following him and asks, “what are you searching for?”  And the whole gospel is an attempt to answer that question.  It finally is answered when Jesus asks Mary Magdalene in the garden, “Who are you looking for?” and as she stumbles through her answer, he interrupts her by calling her name, and suddenly her soul is at rest. 

Do you ever imagine what heaven is like?  I can go back in my memory and see the evolution of the idea of heaven in my own life.  Obviously as a little kid it was a place where I could get whatever I wanted and there were no rules to ruin my fun.  As a teenager it was a place where all the things wrong with my life would be corrected -- my skin problems, the fact that I was taller than everyone else, the fact that the cute girls didn’t seem to gravitate my way -- I had a long list.  In college I learned about the beatific vision, that heaven was when I would behold God in all his infinite majesty and beauty and I would need nothing else to satisfy my soul.  It didn't sound like a good time, though -- but I figured Saint Thomas can’t be wrong.  And over the years I discover that I don’t think about heaven much anymore.  I can’t imagine a way to fill up an infinite amount of time.  It’s like someone said, “some people want to live forever but can’t find enough to fill up a Sunday afternoon.”  And of course the older I get the more I resonate to those words that describe the next life as eternal rest.  

What are we looking for?  My great granddaughter has the right idea, and her mother satisfies that inner restlessness for now.  Jesus tells us today that he is the gate.  IN those days the shepherds would herd their sheep into an enclosure and take turns lying across the entrance.  The shepherd who blocked the entrance was called “the gate”.  And in the morning each shepherd would call his sheep and they would sort themselves out, and each flock would go with its shepherd in search of grazing ground.  My great granddaughter will learn, as she grows older, that all the places she looks, all the people she turns to, eventually will fail to satisfy that emptiness within.  And I pray that she, and you and I and everyone here in this assembly will eventually find that voice that will truly fill up the emptiness, the voice of the shepherd, the voice of Jesus, who will call us by name, as he called Mary Magdalene.   

Third Sunday of Easter, cycle A

Luke 24:13-35

It turns out Emmaus was a party town, something like a miniature Las Vegas.  For some reason the two disciples, one of whom was named Clopas, were taking that six mile walk from Jerusalem.  You get the feeling from the story that they lived there, but not necessarily.  It might have been an inn when they invited Jesus to dine with them.  But Emmaus was a party town where people made their money running gambling dens and selling wine and beer.

Clopas and his companion, probably his wife but I don’t know for sure, had been followers of Jesus.  Clopas is interesting because there is another man in scripture, called Cleopas, who seems to be an uncle of Jesus, maybe related to Joseph.  And it wouldn't be surprising if some of Jesus’ extended family were followers.  We suspect James and John might have been cousins.  Clopas and his companion were not apostles.  They probably would make a day of going out to hear Jesus when he was in the area, but the rest of the time it was ordinary work.  Jesus didn’t really ask for much, just that his followers believed in him.  For Clopas and his companion that meant paying more attention to the ten commandments, and especially the two commandments of the Lord -- love God with everything you’ve got and your neighbor as yourself.  Following those commandments was not as easy as it sounded, and seemed to open unending possibilities, but the disciples of Jesus were trying.

And then came the devastating moment when Jesus was arrested, tortured and crucified.  Some of the things Jesus had said toward the end of his life made it seem that he was the Messiah, and maybe more than that.  He said a lot of things that were just on the edge of blasphemy -- “I and the Father are One”.  “I am the way, the truth and the life.  No one comes to the father except through me.”  And the miracles.  Clopas and his companion had heard about them, probably did not witness them personally; but the stories of healings seemed to back up what Jesus claimed about himself.  But it seemed as though all that power, all those teachings, were really nothing compared to the power of the Jewish and Roman authorities.  

So when Clopas and his companion decided to go to Emmaus they were through with all this nonsense.  Emmaus was close to Jerusalem, but a long way away in its orientation.  Jerusalem was the center of the religion, the home of the temple.  Emmaus was the rejection of religion in a way -- a place that said, “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we all die.”  

In other parts of the post-resurrection story, we hear different reactions to Jesus’ death and the despair that his followers must have felt.  Peter and the gang decide to go back to Galilee, back to the place they started following Jesus.  They embraced the familiar, maybe remembering the excitement of those early days.  If you read the stories, you get the feeling that no one quite knew what to do.  But the resurrected Jesus is never far.  He’s hard to recognize -- almost like he keeps you from recognizing him until you've demonstrated some degree of faith.  Mary Magdalene didn’t believe Jesus had risen,  but she demonstrated great love in seeking the body to bury properly.  The apostles thought they’d seen a ghost, but they had good hearts and at least were trying to stay together.  Thomas may not have believed but at least he was willing to meet with his fellow apostles in that upper room.  And on the shore one of the apostles thought to himself -- that guy with the fish, he’s doing something that Jesus would do, he’s feeding us.  And so it is with the Clopas and his companion.  It was one thing to talk theology to pass the time on the road, but that didn't do much.  It was when Jesus sat down and broke bread that the scales fell from their eyes and they ran back those six miles convinced that they had seen the Lord.   

We know that at the Ascension of Jesus, which we will celebrate in a few weeks, this was the end of the period when He would appear ot his followers.  But he did tell his disciples that He would be with us all days until the end of the world.  He told them, and us that where two or three are gathered together in his name he would be there.  And he said, what you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me.  Jesus is still with us as he promised.  He is there when you and I get together over a parish event.  He’s there when we stop to help that lady who lives out of a shopping cart.  He’s there at a family dinner, the school of love, as Saint John Paul called it.  He’s there in you when you do something that Jesus would do in your place.  Jesus continues to reveal himself to us in many ways.  Let us pray that we will recognize him, especially in ourselves.  Saint Bernadette, whose feast we celebrated last week, had this to say: “Allow Jesus to dwell in your heart; he will owe you rent.  

  

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Second Sunday of Easter, 2026

John 20:19-31

Sometimes I envy Saint Faustina. There in her convent over several years she was given the privilege of conversing with Jesus. She left a diary full of things Jesus told her and we honor her, in a way, on this day, because she is the apostle of mercy. There have been many other saints who have had the privilege of some sort of communication with God, with Jesus, with Mary, or one of the saints. We hear about them because in some way they left something besides the stories of their conversations behind—perhaps founding a religious order, maybe leaving behind an important theological writing, or maybe dying a martyr for the faith. It’s as though God confirmed their witness by something else.

And of course there are saints that didn’t have direct communication with God or his saints, at least that we know about. John Paul II did not, apparently. Saint Paul of the Cross, who used to break into tears when he thought about Jesus’ passion, did not report any visions. You apparently don’t need to be a saint to have heavenly interventions. Saint Augustine had some kind of mystical communication before he was baptized. Saint Francis, whose real name was John but because he loved fine clothes he was called “Frenchy,” received the call to rebuild Jesus’ church before he tore off all his clothing and gave them back to his father. I suppose there are a lot of people that have heard heavenly voices who haven’t told us about them for fear of being locked up. Just for the record, I haven’t heard any messages myself. The nearest thing to a heavenly voice was when I was trying to decide if I had a vocation to marriage because I had met this really cute girl; and I had this inner voice tell me that “whatever you decide, I’ll still love you.”

Most of us are more like me than the great saints, I’m sure. I don’t know if the apostle Thomas ever had a special message like I’m talking about. After what happened in today’s gospel, however, he spent the rest of his life creating Christian communities up and down the shores of the Arabian Peninsula and into India, where he met a martyr’s death. But you and I probably aren’t going to be like Thomas, either. But this little story from the Gospel of John can tell us a few things.

Thomas was not with the other apostles when Jesus first appeared. There’s an old story about a young man sitting in front of the fireplace with his pastor, complaining that his faith was very weak and he wasn’t even sure if he believed anymore. The pastor said nothing, just threw a log on the fire which had burned down to glowing coals. In a few minutes the log caught fire and flared up. Your faith isn’t going to grow if you don’t hang out with faithful people. One of the martyrs of Japan, now considered a saint, initially took the emperor up on his offer to have his life spared if he renounced Christianity. As he watched his fellow Christians being put to death, he announced that he was a Christian after all and went to his death proudly. Make it a point to find a few faithful people to associate with, to become friends with, and see your faith grow. Join the Knights, the Ladies Guild, the Saint Joseph Society; make a Cursillo. Don’t be alone in your faith. And while there are exemplary married couples who strengthen each other, it’s still a good idea to look to people of the same sex to help you grow in faith. After all, our very souls are stamped male or female, and my wife will never understand what it means to be a male Christian, and vice-versa.

Second, Thomas recognized Jesus not because of his face or his voice. We learn from all the appearances of Jesus that there was something mysterious about him. Mary Magdalene didn’t recognize him at first; when he first appeared to the apostles, they thought he was a ghost. There on the shore of the lake, it took a while before the beloved disciple shouted out, “It is the Lord!” And Peter jumped in the water, clothing and all, to get to his side. And don’t forget the disciples going home to Emmaus. In all the appearances we see that initially he is not recognized, then he does something that makes them recognize him. He simply called Mary by her name; he ate fish in front of his disciples; he broke bread in that home in Emmaus; he prepared a meal on the shore of the lake. Thomas recognizes Jesus when he sees the wounds of the crucifixion. I think we can conclude that the glorified body of Jesus still bears those wounds. And maybe when Jesus moves among us we need to look for wounds; you and I need to look for him especially among those who are wounded—physically, psychologically, socially, or even spiritually—and our chances of encountering him will go up substantially.

So on this Mercy Sunday, let’s not give up on encountering Jesus. Let Saint Thomas the apostle lead the way. 

Easter 2026

John 20:1-9

The revised common lectionary was developed by scholars from many different denominations working together.  The whole three year cycle was actually based on the revised Catholic lectionary which was put out in 1969 after Vatican II.  So much of the year we will be hearing the same readings as our Episcopal and United Church friends. But this year on Easter Sunday we hear what we just heard, which comes from the original Catholic lectionary, and the people down the street will hear the rest of the story -- when Mary Magdalene returns alone to the tomb, meets Jesus after mistaking him for the pardner, and at his command going to tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead.  So I wondered, why don’t we get the whole story?  Why stop our reading with Peter and John witnessing the burial cloths folded neatly, and walking away wondering what it all means. 

The author of this gospel, John, is writing toward the end of the first century, sixty or seventy years after Jesus' crucifixion.  John’ gospel is organized very differently from that ofMatthew, Mark and Luke, who all follow the same time line; and John tells of miracles that are not mentioned in the other gospels, like the raising of Lazarus or the wedding feast of Cana.  And John at the end of his gospel tells the reader why he is writing -- not to give a history, but so that the reader may believe.  John is always concerned about belief -- which for him is the decision to base one’s life on something, even though you don’t have certainty about whether that is true or false.  So with that being said, the reasons our church doesn’t give us “the rest of the story” on Easter Sunday, but unfolds it during the following week, probably has to do with faith.

The story we just read emphasized the Resurrection as a mystery.  The early church quickly recognized that despite the evidence, the meaning of the resurrection required faith to grasp.  Even if you had been one of the 500 or so people who saw Jesus after his death, you would still need faith to see how this mystery applied to you.  John emphasizes Mary, Peter and the beloved disciple as grieving, anxious and uncertain.  The resurrection is not primarily something we see with our eyes, it’s a spiritual reality for you and I, who like Jesus’ first followers takes a while to become real to us.

It reminds us that the mystery of the resurrection is ongoing, as we’ll see during Easter Week.  If you were to read the gospels for the weekdays you’d see this unfold.  The mystery is still ongoing, we are still people who work to see what the resurrection means to us.  Finally, by leaving the reader with the disciple’s uncertainty, we are called to trust in the Resurrection as God’s gift;  the empty tomb  is the beginning of the journey of belief that follows the Easter event.  

We are like Mary, Peter and John.  We haven’t met Jesus in the garden; we haven’t walked with him to Emmaus; we haven’t seen the wounds in his hands and feet or eaten the fish he prepared on the lake-shore for his disciples.  We only hear of these events that convinced the first Christians to risk their lives to spread the news, to go happily to a martyr’s death, to transform the world with the good news that death was not the end.  But like them we can have their kind of faith, faith that informs all our actions, faith that preaches the gospel to everyone we meet, faith that assures us that we are loved unconditionally by so great a Father.  So on this Easter Sunday let us continue the journey into faith, the continuous effort to see how the mystery of the resurrection applies to you and me.  Happy Easter!

Fifth Sunday in Lent, cycle A

John 11:1-45

The Gospel of John is not like the other three gospels.  It is put together to tell us the meaning of Jesus -- it’s more theology than history.  The last few Sundays we’ve been seeing some of Jesus’ miracles described by John.  Today’s is the last one he describes.  John calls the miracles “signs” beginning with the miracle at the wedding feast of Cana.  In addition to the seven miracles, John also describes seven statements that Jesus makes beginning with “I am”.  Today’s statement is probably the most profound when Jesus tells Martha that he is the resurrection and the life.

As I read this gospel, I notice something else.  Jesus’ conversation with Martha is sort of an intellectual one.  It begins with Martha saying “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  And then there is a dialogue about resurrection; Jesus promises that her brother will rise, and she replies that, yes, she believes that it will happen on the last day.  Jesus replies that he is the resurrection and the life, and asks Martha whether she believes this.  She sort of does, agreeing that he is the Messiah but not affirming Jesus’ claim in so many words.

Mary’s conversation is very different.  It also begins with the words, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” but Jesus does not enter into a dialogue with her.  Instead, he becomes “perturbed and deeply troubled” and asks the mourners to show him where the tomb is.  And that’s when Jesus wept, bringing some of the bystanders to remark, “See how he loved him” and others to find fault with Jesus.  And John again emphasizes that Jesus was visibly disturbed as he commands that the tomb be opened.  

Martha protests, pointing out that by now the body of Lazarus would stink; but the stone is rolled back, Jesus says a prayer and calls Lazarus, who comes out of the tomb, and as the gospel says, “now many of the Jews who were with Mary believed.” 

So this is a spectacular miracle.  Four days was long enough to be sure that the soul had left the body and gone to the underworld.  No power other than God could reunite it with the body.  And everyone expected that rolling back the stone would release a stench, because  by now the body would have entered into a state of decay.  

But there are some other points in this story.  Lazarus and Jesus were friends -- not like the apostles were friends.  Lazarus was an ordinary guy, probably worked with his hands like Jesus did, and took care of his sisters.  I suspect Lazarus wasn't perfect.  Probably got upset with Martha who seems pretty bossy.  Probably would get upset with Mary in the near future, when she took the only valuable thing they had, a jar of fine perfume meant to be used on the bride at her wedding, and broke it and used it to anoint Jesus.  Lazarus was ordinary.  He would go to bed at night wishing he had used his day better; he’d be upset with himself for losing his temper now and then. He would wonder if God could really love someone as unpromising and unaccomplished as he was. 

When  Jesus hears about Lazarus, he is relatively safe.  He’s outside the part of Palestine that the Jewish authorities had the most control.  When he proposes to go to rescue his friend, Thomas voices what they all fear  -- to go to Bethany, a couple of miles from  Jerusalem, was to put themselves in severe danger.  But  Jesus goes anyway.  And I think he knows that this act will initiate the events that lead to his own crucifixion and death.  After all, John will tell us later, that the authorities decided to kill Jesus and Lazarus too, because so many people were coming to believe in him.  

As Jesus meets Mary the weight of what he is about to  do descends on him.  He's going to confront death itself, and in doing so will initiate the events which will end in his crucifixion.  And this is the point, Jesus is doing this so that his friend Lazarus might live.  Jesus is trading his one life for that of Lazarus.  He is going to ask his Father to call the soul back from the underworld into this decaying body, and the authorities will hesitate no longer, and within a few days he will be arrested.  

And perhaps that is the point that John is making -- not the raising of Lazarus from the dead -- we marvel at that, of course -- but that Jesus exchanges his life for that of his friend.  During these last few days of Lent, let us remember that what Jesus did for Lazarus he does for each of us.  He lays down his life in exchange for ours, not because we deserve it, but because he has chosen to be my friend and  yours.   

Fourth Sunday in Lent, cycle A

John 9:1-41

A miracle is when something happens for which there is no explanation.  In our age we can come up with explanations much more easily than those in Jesus' time.  After all, science now can answer questions that would have been impossible to answer years ago.  And if you know science and know something about statistics, you don’t have to worry about miracles -- you can make them go away.

Many years ago I had a patient with lung cancer.  Given his stage and general condition, he had about three months to live.  We didn’t have anything that worked in those days.  When I was discussing this with him, he said that all he wanted to do was stay alive until his granddaughter, whom he had raised, graduated from college.  That was seven months away.  He said he was praying for that.  Well, he made it, and he even got an extra month in.  At our last visit, he had lost about 50 pounds, needed oxygen, and couldn’t get out of his wheelchair by himself.  But he was cheerful, because he had seen his granddaughter graduate, but more importantly, he was convinced that he was the recipient of a miracle.  I wasn’t.  I knew that the prediction I had made was an average, and that there were people on both sides of that number, some who would die quickly and others who would go on longer than expected.  An average is an average.

But maybe it was a miracle.

I couldn’t come up with a scientific explanation for the man who was born blind and recovered his sight when Jesus smeared mud on his eyes.  So I asked my favorite artificial intelligence agent if she could find one (at least her voice sounds feminine) and sure enough after scouring the internet, she told me that psychological blindness was a very real thing, and there have been cases where a dramatic trauma cured the blindness.  So there you are. An alternative explanation.

And that’s what was happening back in the days of Jesus.  The apostles just accepted the fact that people with disabilities were probably sinners, or maybe their parents were -- after all some of the threats in the old testament suggest that curses on the parents travel down to the descendents.  Even though they had witnessed Jesus' miracles, a miracle for this guy was the last thing in their minds -- why would God work a miracle for a sinner, or the son of sinners?

The townspeople don’t believe in miracles either.  He looks like that blind guy, they say, but clearly he couldn’t be. No one has heard of a man who was born blind receiving his sight.  When they asked the man, he recounted his cure, but rather than believe, they brought him to the Pharisees. Our blind guy gives the same story, but the Pharisees answer that it couldn't be -- it happened on the sabbath, after all.  And God would never violate the sabbath, right?  So they ask the parents, who deny any involvement.  You would think they would be delighted, rejoicing that their son could see again.  But no, they say, “ask him yourselves, he is old enough to answer.  Their joy at their son’s cure was no match for their fear of being kicked out of the syinaogue.  

And back to the Pharisees.  This time on questioning the man born blind gives an argument that no one could refute logically.  “No one has ever opened the eyes of a man born blind.  If this man were not from God he could not do anything.”  That was the last straw.  They kicked him out the door.  

  Notice that the man born blind after being cured starts out  by attributing his cure to “a man named Jesus”.  As he is further questioned, he calls him a prophet. More questions, and he answers, he is someone from God.  And finally, he calls Jesus “Lord”.  

So maybe a miracle is not something that defies explanation.  Maybe a miracle is something that happens that challenges us to come closer to God, to know him better.  Maybe a miracle is when someone dear to us dies and we are challenged to make sense of the event.  Maybe a miracle is when something happens to us that requires all our efforts to stay faithfull, to trust in God -- and we do.  If that’s the case, God is working miracles all the time, miracles which are opportunities to become closer to Him.  In the story in the gospel, many people looked for other explanations rather than believe.  The man born blind does not.  He calls Jesus Lord, and will for the rest of his life.   

Second Sunday of Lent, cycle A

 Matthew 17:1-9

The apostles probably had a lot of different ideas about who Jesus was. Sure, he could work miracles -- they’d seen a few. At the time of the transfiguration, they had even seen miracles such as Jesus walking on water, quieting a storm, sending demons into pigs -- but you know human beings, then and now. The Pharisees witnessed his miracles and decided that he drove out demons by being in league with demons. And there were other healers in those days, pagan as well as Jewish. Could they heal as well? And if so, how? In any event, Jesus attracted a lot of people to follow him, but despite the miracles, a lot of folks decided it didn’t mean they should change their lives. And the apostles who traveled with Jesus couldn’t help but notice that he wasn’t that different from them; he got tired, he had to eat, walking on those roads he got dirty; on a hot day you could see sweat on his brow. And they would wonder -- is he just another healer? Is he a holy man, a prophet? Is he the messiah? And if he’s the messiah he doesn't look like a messiah! And they would ask, when is it going to happen? And he’d say, The Son of Man must suffer and die. It didn’t make sense so they would ignore it.

When I read about the transfiguration, I wondered how Jesus persuaded his disciples to climb the mountain with him. Maybe he invited all twelve but only Peter, James and John took him up on it. We know that later on when they came down the other nine were trying without success to drive a demon out of a boy. But it may have been nothing more than a desire to pray. We read many instances in scripture when someone ascends a mountain to pray. It’s a way to get away from the world and at the same time feel closer to God, even though we know God isn’t up there somewhere. Jesus is always making time to pray, where he can tune out the rest of the world. We read that after curing people in Peter’s village he withdrew to a deserted place to pray; and one time he told his apostles, after he had sent them out to preach and heal, that now was the time to withdraw and rest a while. You and I need this as well. I don’t know if you have a favorite place to pray or meet God on a regular basis, but one of the wonderful things that happens right here in Saint Mary’s is that there are times when we place Jesus on the altar so that people can come in and sit before him and pray.

When Jesus and his disciples get to the top of the mountain, the story tells us that he was transfigured before them, and was conversing with Moses and Elijah. Moses climbed a similar mountain to receive the ten commandments, and in his encounter with God he was transfigured as well; when he came down it says that no one could look at his face so he had to cover it. Elijah climbed a mountain and encountered God in a still small voice, not in thunder or lightning. And like Moses, he was changed and was strengthened to continue to do God’s bidding. Matthew and Mark both tell us they conversed; Luke tells us they conversed about what was to happen in Jerusalem -- his passion and death. In our moments of prayer when we sit in the presence of God we need to look carefully at our lives and ask God for wisdom and strength to face our futures, because there will be suffering, there will be death.

You can imagine how the apostles felt in the presence of this scene. Jesus, who up to then was their teacher, worker of miracles, and indeed, friend, is now revealed as much more than that, and it is all confirmed when the voice from heaven calls him “son”. Greater than Moses, the lawgiver; greater than Elijah, the prophet. Messiah, sure, but Son, a title given by God. Peter, sensing the miraculous nature of this moment, wants to prolong it and proposes that they build structures for the three. We human beings like to hold on to those moments that make life worth living. We remember anniversaries, birthdays, religious and public holidays, that in some way connect us with those great moments in the past. The Jews build little structures like the apostles were proposing during the feast of Succoth, to remind themselves of how they sheltered during their time in the desert with Moses.

But then the vision is gone and there is Jesus, dusty and sweating from the climb, his old self. And when those great moments happen to you and I, at some point we have to get back to the real world. Peter, James and John will never see Jesus the same way again; and in some way have been prepared to hold the little community together when Jesus is captured, condemned, suffers and dies. That’s what adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is supposed to do -- prepare us to re-enter the world renewed, strengthened and given wisdom.

So who was transfigured on the mountain? Jesus of course. But so were the apostles, who would never be the same. The presence of Jesus does that. And his presence is here in this Church all the time, but especially during adoration. Make it a point to come and visit him a few times during Lent, and be transfigured yourself.

First Sunday of Lent, cycle A

Matthew 4:1-11

As some of you know, Joan and I have a great grandchild, who as far as we can tell is the cutest little girl in the world.  She’s about seven months old now, and between her parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts, she gets a lot of attention.  I think she must believe she is the most important person in the world.  But that made me think about myself.  I’ve always believed, deep in my heart, that I’m the most important person in the world, in fact, that I’m the center of the universe, and I don’t know how the world could get along without me.  Now my brain tells me I’m wrong.  But that feeling of being at the center of things is common to all of us -- it’s human nature.

In today’s gospel, Jesus has just come from his baptism when he heard the words of the Father:  “This is my beloved”.  And then he goes off to fast for forty days and forty nights, the same number of days Noah’s ark was afloat; the same number of years the chosen people roamed around before settling in the promised land.  And it’s not surprising that he was hungry. 

Someone said that he was hungry, not just for food, but because after all this time fasting, he began to wonder if he really was beloved.  Jesus must have felt very mortal when he ended his fast.  Forty days is enough to make you lose a fifth of your body weight; it’s enough to make you feel so weak that you have trouble getting up from a sitting position.  The Spirit leads Jesus into the desert -- maybe the fast wasn’t entirely voluntary.  Jesus is hungry for food, yes, but also for reassurance that he is beloved.

Satan tempts Jesus, first telling him in essence, “If you are God's beloved, why don’t you turn these stones into bread?  And Jess answers, “Man does not live by bread alone.”  Another way to put it is: My being God’s blessed one doesn’t depend on whether I am full or empty, rich or poor, well fed or starving.

Satan then shows Jesus the kingdoms of the world and offers them all to him if he worships him.  In other words, “If you are God’s blessed one, why are you a nobody?  Because at this point in his life Jesus was just another peasant, putting in long days of hard work,  but never getting ahead.  That’s the way most people lived.  But Jesus replies, “I may be a nobody, but I can still be God’s blessed one.  Being blessed has nothing to do with fame or power.”

The third temptation is put forward.  Jesus is taken up to a tower and dared by Satan to prove he is blessed by throwing himself off the tower.  Because surely if you are blessed, Satan seems to be saying, God won’t let anything happen to you.  Jesus replies, in essence,  “Being God’s blessed one doesn’t have anything to do with special privilege, or miraculous blessings.  I’ll take the stairs, like everyone else.”  

Jesus decides that after all, he is God’s blessed one.  And you are as well, and I am, and each of us here, no matter what our circumstances.

And fasting is a chance to be feasting.  We trade earthly satisfactions for heavenly ones.  Fasting is a discipline to remove distractions and sharpen our spiritual senses.  When I was in fourth grade, we were all asked what we were giving up for Lent.  Most of us were giving up candy, sometimes more specifically, certain kinds of candy like Hershey bars.  One of my classmates volunteered that not only was she giving up candy, but the dentist told her to.  It isn't that candy and the other things we fast from are bad -- at least they shouldn’t be-or we shouldn't be doing them at all.  God likes to see us delighted by what he has put in front of us.  But he made them so that we would seek him as the one who gave them to us in love.  But we tend to get hung up by what delights us instead of looking beyond.  Saint Paul talks about those whose “god is the belly”.  When we give something up for a little while, we are acknowledging its goodness and our weakness.  We are making the choice to feast our spirit on our Father rather than feast our bodies on what God has made.  

Jesus, having fasted, is strong enough to resist the temptation to doubt his specialness, that he is the beloved of God.  And your fasting should do the same.  When you have completed your Lenten journey may you be even more convinced that you are God’s beloved, God’s special child.