Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 20:27 - 38

The other day I was visiting a 97 year old lady. She had been raised a Catholic, had raised her children Catholic, had been married in a Catholic ceremony to a good Catholic man, according to her, anyway. After he passed away, she continued to participate in the life of her parish, attending Mass and frequenting the sacraments. Until she developed cancer. She seems to have lost her faith for a while about that time. She told me that she talked to Jesus all the time, but she wasn't sure anyone was listening. The bottom line, though, was that she was at peace. All she wanted was to slip peacefully away without too much pain. And she didn't know what the next world would bring – whether she would be nothing, whether she would find herself in a life after death, whether she would be reincarnated – but she was absolutely convinced that God would take care of her, that God was concerned about her.

Today the Church calls our attention to life after death, first in the story of the seven sons who are all executed for clinging to their religion; and then with the story of Jesus' confrontation with the Sadducees and the story of the woman with seven husbands. The seven sons all expressed, in different ways, that they expected to have everything they would lose in their martyrdom restored because they had been faithful to the covenant. On the other hand, the poor woman who had been married to seven brothers was probably hoping that in heaven she would not belong to anybody.

When we first heard about heaven as little children, I think we all dreamed of a place where life would be very much like it was, except we wouldn't be sent to bed when things were just getting interesting, and if you saw a toy you knew you needed, you would get it. It would be a place where you could spend a lot more time with your favorite cousin. You could have a slice of your mother's apple pie whenever you wanted, instead of waiting around. Christmas would come more often. You could fly and have super-strength.

As time went on, many of us leave this idea behind – we realize that having things doesn't really make you happy, and our idea of heaven becomes more abstract, perhaps a state of existence in which we enjoy the beatific vision. Now I don't know about you, but the idea of staring at God for all eternity didn't excite my teenage soul very much. In fact, every conceivable vision of heaven falls short; we are left with what various philosophers and theologians have said in different ways; there is something in me that is never satisfied, never content, and heaven will be when that hunger or thirst is finally satisfied. Our hearts are restless, Augustine said, until they rest in thee, O God.

It's pretty obvious that the Sadducees wanted to trip Jesus up. They gave him the example hoping he would have to admit how absurd the whole idea of a life after death was. Whose wife would she be in the next life? Because she is defined by being the wife of someone. But Jesus does not take the bait. He says in effect that life after death is a reality, but not one we would be able to recognize. He compared those blessed souls to angels, but what did we know about angels, other than they don't get married? And we only know this because he told us.

Maybe some of the Sadducees were genuinely curious; maybe they wanted to see what Jesus had to say. Maybe they were sort of open to the idea that there might be life after death. But Jesus can't give them a satisfactory answer. He makes it clear throughout the gospels that if you want what he promises, you have to take up your cross, you have to develop a relationship with Him, you have to become his disciple. And the Sadducees wanted to know the answers without walking the walk, without making a commitment.

I think that's were studying the lives of the saints and martyrs helps. The Church assures us that they are in heaven; but it is because they chose to live like Christ, they chose to imitate his life, to become one with him. Because God will not raise up you and I, he will raise up the part of you and I that has become Christ, that has identified with Jesus, the part of us that he wants preserved for all eternity – his true son or daughter.

The monk Thomas Merton was asked if he really believed he would live forever. He answered that he was sure something of ourselves would survive after death, but we will probably be surprised by what this will be.

We Catholics believe in second chances. We believe that God will not turn us away if we die still hanging on to earthly things. But we cannot enter into the heavenly realm unless we have become Christ, and that becoming is what purgatory is all about. On the threshold of heaven we will see clearly what is keeping us from becoming one with God, and we will have the ultimate choice – to abandon what is keeping us from entering heaven, or to cling to what we loved on earth. And we will be given what we choose at that moment. And if we want to spend eternity with wealth, with power, with being famous, with pleasure, maybe we will have it – but we won't be happy. It's like the golfer who died and found himself on a perfect golf course. And every time he hit the ball, he would make a hole in one. Finally he said, “if this is heaven, send me to the other place!” And the answer came back, “you are already there.” We will come to realize that all the things which consumes our time and energy now are nothing compared to being one with God, and that lost possibility will be worse than swimming in a lake of fire.

A little girl had a plastic necklace that she treasured. It was shiny and made up of beads of different colors. Her father came to her one day and asked if he could have the necklace. “no” she said. Every day, he would come back and ask for the necklace. And she would say “no”. Finally she gave in and with tears handed him her treasure. And that was when he gave her a beautiful necklace made of gold and precious stones.

The Father wants us for his own. He wants us to choose him over all the other things we can put at the center of our lives. Not easy, but certainly possible. That's why we have saints, to show us how.

Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 19:1 – 10

Last week we met the pharisee who thought highly of himself, and the tax collector who recognized that he was a sinner. And indeed, we are all sinners, even those of you who aren't conscious of any personal sin. We are sinners because we live in a world where we benefit from a society which is not just or fair. We are sinners because we frequently compromise when it comes to our choices. We are sinners because we live in a world where we have more than enough food and other beloved children of God are starving. When we talk about sin, we see it as an offense against God or our fellow man. That's true, but beneath that is the fact that sin is missing the mark; we fail to do what we know we should, or we do things we know we shouldn't. And we are all guilty, we are all sinners; Saint Paul recognized that, and the tax collector recognized that, and begged God for mercy.

Today we meet another tax collector, or maybe the same one. It is unfortunate that most English translations of the original Greek seem to imply that Zaccheus has had a change of heart when he meets Jesus. Our translations say things like “I will give half of what I have to the poor, and if I've defrauded someone, I will pay them back fourfold.” But another way of looking at the story was suggested by John Pilch, a bible scholar, who points out that the Greek text is ambiguous; in English it would sound more like “I am giving half of what I have to the poor, and if I defraud someone, I am paying them back fourfold.” A minor difference, but it opens up whole new possibilities. There are two other clues in this puzzle. One is the name, Zaccheus. That means “the innocent one”. The other clue is that Jesus nowhere tells Zacheus to change his ways or to seek a different line of work. In fact, he seems to complement him when he calls him a son of Abraham.

John Pilch thinks that when Jesus tells Zacheus that he will be staying with him, and the people begin to murmur about the sinful status of the tax collector, Zaccheus is not addressing Jesus with his intention to change his ways, but defending himself against the hostile crowd. Zacheus is a chief tax collector. The way things worked in those days was that the Romans would levy a tax on a district or a town. Someone would come forward who would pay the whole tax, and that gave him the privilege of collecting the taxes locally. Tax collectors by Roman law were entitled to a percentage of what they collected. And they had Roman soldiers to back them up. And granted, a lot of tax collectors cheated. After all, very few people could read and verify whether the tax demanded was correct or not. Zaccheus, as a chief tax collector, oversaw those who actually went door to door, and they were the ones who might be guilty of defrauding the people in his name.

So Zacheus may be a good guy, a person who is holding down a lousy job so that it will at least be done honestly. And when he says, “I give half my possessions to the poor” he may be returning some of what he has a right to take for himself to people who otherwise would have nothing. Zaccheus is sort of a Palestinian Robin Hood, although he doesn't steal from the rich.

And Jesus recognizes this. In another part of the gospels, Jesus tells his apostles that “if any one loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come and make our dwelling with Him”. When he tells Zaccheus that he will be staying with Him, he is recognizing the goodness of this man whom everyone thinks is a thief and a tool of the Roman occupation.

This story only appears in the Gospel of Luke. Luke is concerned with those who are outcasts, those who are on the fringes of society. In Luke's gospel Jesus is always restoring people to society. It is a prophetic action looking forward to the time when all will be invited into the heavenly banquet. Jesus has, through words and actions, given blind people their sight, cured lepers, healed people who were paralyzed, cast out demons, even raised the dead. He has made it clear that people who were not Jews were welcome in the kingdom, even Samaritans. On the cross, he tells the repentant thief that he will join him in paradise on that very day. The way John Pilch reads this story, it seems to be part of the same theme that Luke keeps coming back to. So what can we take away?

First, Jesus is not concerned with your ancestry or how well you follow the purity laws. He is concerned with the heart, and Zaccheus has a good heart, even an heroic heart, because he gets no thanks for taking on this occupation in which he tries to do the right thing. Jesus recognizes that.

Second, when we read the story this way, Zaccheus is a good example for us. He is doing his job in an extraordinary way – using his position to make the burden of the Roman system less severe for the people for whom he took responsibility. I've met many people who have relatively thankless jobs but do them conscientiously and carefully, even though they could probably cut corners and not be noticed.

But what about the last thing that Jesus says – that he has come to save what was lost? Doesn't that imply that the usual interpretation is the case, that Zaccheus is a bad man who has a conversion experience when Jesus calls him? Well, we are looking at the story with twentieth century eyes; for us, being saved means going to heaven. But in Jesus' time, those who were lost were the ones who were hated, the ones who were ignored, the ones whom society felt were not honorable. And Jesus publicly recognizes that Zacchedus, the innocent one, is a son of Abraham – a remarkable complement – because of how he deals with his profession. A good Jew gave ten percent of his possessions to charity. Zaccheus gave half. A good Jew, if he defrauded someone, was required to return what he defrauded plus twenty percent. Zaccheus had a policy: if one of his collectors defrauded someone, he would pay back four hundred percent. Zaccheus puts the average Pharisee to shame. And by staying with Zaccheus, Jesus restores him to the status he would have in a just society; he saves who was lost.

Regardless of how you look at the story, we can pray that Jesus will come to stay with us as he did with Zaccheus, the innocent one.

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 18:9 – 14

Every time I hear this parable, I thank God I'm not like that Pharisee – self-righteous, smug, feeling superior to other people, lacking in humility – in fact, I probably have more humility than ninety percent of the population. So I thank God I'm not like the Pharisee. And I thank God I'm not like the tax collector, either. It's hard for me to go to confession, because I have a difficult time thinking up things I really need to confess. After all, you don't have to name every little sin to receive absolution, and that's about all the sins I can think of – putting off doing something I should do, wasting time on the internet, saying things that are true, but would better be unsaid. So I'm glad I'm not like the tax collector.

Obviously I'm not being entirely serious. But I think those are the two roots of my own sin – one is that I think I deserve a pass because I've always given part of my time and part of my treasure to the Church, and I don't think I've broken any of those ten commandments, at least in a serious way. The other root is that I have trouble coming up with sins that I've committed.

There are two things about this parable that we don't always notice right away. First, the Pharisee is not lying nor is he bragging to the people around him. The text says that he prayed “to himself” which doesn't mean that he thought he was God; it simply means what we would take it to mean – it's going on in his mind. And the other thing is that the tax collector doesn't even name his sins, nor is there any evidence from Jesus' story that he changed his ways. The only thing we know about him is that he realizes that he is mired in sin, he defines himself by sin. And he goes away justified.

Sin is always related to division. It's so obvious with the first sin, that of Adam and Eve. After giving in to temptation, Adam blames Eve, Eve blames the serpent; and Adam finds himself fighting with the earth to yield its produce, and Eve must undergo pain in order to bring her children into the world. And of course paradise is closed off for them. And the sad thing is that just by existing we participate in division. If we have an opinion about something, someone else probably has the opposite opinion, and our natural reaction is to see them as other, to divide. And if someone we know is living a superior moral life to our own, our reaction is not to praise them, but to look for excuses as to why we can't be like that, or to attribute their apparent moral superiority to pretense on their part.

Sin is the refusal to become fully human. It's that inner voice that tells me to stop trying, that my perfection is a hopeless dream. Sin is apathy – which is the opposite of being engaged with the world, the opposite of creativity. In fact, the state of sin is a lot like death.

It's hard for religious people to avoid the Pharisee's problem. In fact, James and John, two of Jesus' apostles, asked him if they should call down fire on the Samaritans who refused them hospitality. And you can probably think of other examples. All of us Christians, if we belong to a community, can look to things which characterize us, and when we look at other Christian communities, we find ourselves saying, “Thank God we are not like those … progressive Christians who are spending their energy trying to save the planet, but support a woman's absolute right to choose; or thank God we are not like those … fundamentalist Christians who use the bible as a science textbook and believe that anyone who isn't like them is at best a second class citizen. Or thank God we belong to the true Church and have the Real Presence, unlike those people down the street who are basically heretics.

One thing about Jesus is he was a uniter. He was always inviting people into the kingdom – lepers, blind people, paralyzed people; widows, prostitutes, Samaritans, pagans, and yes, even Pharisees. He ate with them, and many of the earliest converts to Christianity, including Paul, were Pharisees. His attitude towards someone's past was shown by his treatment of the woman caught in adultery – “Is there no one to condemn you? Then neither do I condemn you. Go and don't do this sin again.”

And Jesus did not like those who divided. Pharisees who would have nothing to do with someone who was ritually unclean; money lenders who prevented people from approaching God in the temple. It's true that Jesus said that he came not to bring peace, but to bring division – but he simply knew that when people chose to follow him, there would be a reaction among that person's friends and relatives; it was to be expected, and it still happens today.

So if I'm honest with myself, I'm like the Pharisee. It's natural for human beings to see the world in us versus them terms. It's the kingdom of heaven to see the unity between all human beings. Being a Christian is imitating Christ, trying to overcome barriers between people. It isn't natural, but that's what the Holy Spirit is all about – to transform us from ordinary human beings into people who have a share in the divinity of Jesus.

And if I'm honest with myself, I'm like the tax collector. I'm a sinner. It's interesting that so many of our saints as they grew in holiness considered themselves even worse sinners. It wasn't just a delusion, or putting on a false humility. It was the realization that we humans were tied to sin and by ourselves couldn't do anything about it. Jesus said, “the poor you will always have with you” and promised that his followers would suffer persecution and even be put to death. It's admirable that some people go to great lengths to make a little dent in the sinful world, and saints always try to do that. But in the end when we realize how tied to sin we are, it is only then that we realize we are in need of a Savior. It is only then that we can go home justified.

Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 18:1 - 8

Mother Theresa got n appointment to see the president of a large corporation and used her time to ask him for a sizable donation to her charities. He told her that this wasn't a good time for such a donation because the future of the company was a little uncertain. She thanked him and left. Later as he was leaving his office he saw her sitting there in the waiting room. “What are you doing here,” he asked. She replied, “You told me that it wasn't a good time for a donation, so I'm waiting here until it will be a good time.” She got the donation. She knew how to pray always. But maybe that's not what this parable is all about.

I don't want you to call me a heretic, but one of the things I don't like about Saint Luke is that he always tells us why Jesus told a particular parable. If you know something about how the gospels were put together, Luke, like the other evangelists, was writing the story of Jesus for a particular audience, in this case, for gentile Christians. Luke is also concerned about the poor, those who are outcasts, those who are neglected by society at large. When he tells the story of Jesus, he uses the information he has in order to make his point. Is the Holy Spirit there? Of course. Does Luke;'s gospel reflect what God wants us to know about his will for us? Of course. Does Luke's interpretation of why Jesus told a particular parable reflect Jesus' own reasons? Maybe not always. Because Luke has collected the parables Jesus told, and he has the framework of the Gospel of Mark, and he wants to show the Gentile Christians that they are as much welcome in the Christian community as the Jews, and he wants most of all to show those who read the story of Jesus that Christianity is about caring for those who can't defend themselves, those who are helpless, at the margins of society.

This parable on the surface seems to say that if we bother God enough, He will come through. If we pester and beg and nag, we'll finally win Him over. But our human experience is not like that. We all have had prayers that have seemingly not been answered; we've all been disappointed by God. Some of us finally give up and stop praying; others continue to pray, but make excuses for God. “God always answers our prayers,” we tell each other, “but sometimes the answer is 'no'”. And Luke is to blame, He is the one who tells us that if we nag God hard enough He will give in.

But for a moment imagine that you are hearing this story from Jesus' lips. You have not heard the introduction to the story that Luke gives. Look at the story with fresh eyes. Jesus makes sure we know that the judge doesn't fear God or man. And he is unjust. He takes bribes, he condemns innocent people, he can be bought. Does that sound like God? Not really. In fact, it sounds a little bit like a lot of people I know, people who might think about God on weekends but not the rest of the week. People who make compromises, people who look the other way when injustice is happening, people who don't want to rock the boat, who are great at coming up with excuses. “Those drug addicts brought their troubles on themselves.” “Those undocumented immigrants should have known better than to break our laws and enter our country illegally.” “I know that there are people who need help, but even if I gave everything I had it would hardly be a drop in the bucket.”. In fact, it sounds a lot like me. Saint John Chrysostom said that if we have two outfits and our neighbor has none, one of our outfit belongs to our neighbor. If that is the case, there are about nineteen people who have a share in my wardrobe. I am the unjust judge.

And who is the widow? Maybe the widow is God. Maybe the widow is standing outside constantly nagging at me to change my ways. Maybe no matter what I do, no matter how I try to shut her voice out, she never stops, she persists, she doesn't give up. She wants my sinful soul, she wants my heart, she wants me, and won't give up until I am hers or until I definitively reject her when I die.

Should we pray always? Of course. But we should pray in response to God's constant overtures to us. We should pray because we want to know what God wants from us, what is his will for us. And we should pray because we owe God, in justice, our whole beings, everything we have. And we should pray in the humility that we probably can't love God the way we should, but we can at least love Him in our own fallen, selfish and human way. And that may be enough, because the unjust judge responds, not because of justice, but because of shame, of fear, of public opinion.

God wants us and will take us no matter what our reasons turn out to be – just so we give ourselves freely to him.

The poet Francis Thompson was a drug addict and an alcoholic, and in order to keep body and soul together, sold newspapers on the streets of London. He had a conversion experience, stopped using drugs and alcohol, and spent the rest of his life between the tabernacle and helping other street people. He wrote poetry, and his most famous poem was the one he called “The Hound of Heaven”.

I FLED Him, down the nights and down the days;

I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears

I hid from Him”.

But God pursued him, in the words of the poem, "with unhurrying chase, and unperturbed pace, deliberate speed."

As the poem goes on, the author cannot shake the Hound of Heaven, who keeps pursuing him no matter what he says or does, no matter where he hides, until he finally gives up, at which point he surrenders himself to the relentless pursuer, who turns out to be a perfect lover.

If I am the unjust judge, there is no hope for me. But if God is the widow, there is hope, because God will not stop banging on the door and calling out to me until I answer with justice and mercy of my own.

Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 17:11 – 19

In my family we were taught from infancy to say thank you whenever we received anything, and you probably were as well. It got to be second nature, and could be said without actually thinking. When you move around among people similarly trained, you don't notice the thank-yous; but when someone doesn't say thank you for something obvious, it's very noticeable.

To me the story of the ten lepers is puzzling for that reason. Nine did not return to give thanks. Nine lepers had been spared an agonizing and slow death. They who had had to avoid healthy people, even members of their own families, could now return to them. Their hearts should have been overwhelmed with gratitude. After all, they had cried out in desperation to Jesus, probably having heard that he could heal people, and they had obeyed him when he told them to go and show themselves to the priests. I don't know how far they had gone when they realized they were healed, but it couldn't have been very far; the whole story seems to unfold in a short time.

Why did the nine not return? You can think of some possible reasons. Maybe they were so overwhelmed at their good fortune that they wanted to rush home to their families and couldn't wait. Maybe they were angry with God for all the time they had been lepers, and didn't feel grateful; they felt like it was about time God intervened. Or perhaps they felt like the miracle came from somewhere else; after all, all Jesus did was tell them to go show themselves to the priests. He didn't order the leprosy to leave their bodies; he didn't lay hands on them, he didn't do anything that they could see. Or maybe they were just ungrateful people. But nine out of ten did not return.

One thing we learn from this episode in Jesus' life is that God expects us to have grateful hearts. Jesus himself often thanked the Father for events in his own life; even though he is God, he noticed when something good was happening and thanked the Father, who is the source of all that is good. And that should be our default as well – to give thanks.

God doesn't need us to thank him. He pours out his blessings on saints and sinners alike. We don't hurt his feelings when we don't thank him. But like everything God wants from us, he wants us to be grateful precisely because it moves us in the right direction – towards him.

And I have a ways to go in the gratitude department myself. I don't remember to thank God for the constant blessings that come into my life – my health, my wife, my family, the fact that I live in a warm house and eat well and have a little extra to help out my grandchildren – there is so much I should be thankful for, and I should be thanking God for. And I don't, not as much as I should. And there are times when I am like those nine lepers and my interior attitude is “what have you done for me lately, God?” Or “there are a lot of things you could be doing, God, to make my life better; why don't you?'

But one thing we forget is that we should thank God for the bad things that happen as well. That's what I like about the stories of the martyrs. The martyrs of Korea sang hymns and encouraged each other with cheers as they hung upon their crosses. One martyr in China was kept in a bamboo cage and taken out and tortured every day. He could have stopped everything if he would have trampled on a crucifix. Instead he would sing a song of gratitude when he was returned to his cage. Saint John Jones of Wales was sentenced to be executed by hanging. At the scene of the execution the hangman could not find any rope. During the hour that he was looking for rope, Saint John Jones thanked God that he had another hour to preach the gospel to the people who had turned out to watch. \ A lot of the martyrs recognized the truth of what Saint James said: “Every good thing comes from God.” And Jesus promised over and over again that Our Father would not give us bad things; and that nothing happens without God permitting it; and God loves us with an uncompromising, infinite love. And that means that even when we are burning at stake, hanging from a cross, about to be beheaded, or rotting away in a prison somewhere, God is behind this and God wants us to go through this precisely because he loves us and somehow what we are going through will make it more likely that we will enter into union with God, that we will enter eternal life.

Granted, it's really hard to thank God for something devastating, like being diagnosed with cancer, or learning that you have Alzheimer's disease. It's hard to see that being fired from your job or having a child of yours leave the faith may be part of God's plan for your salvation. But if we keep those principles in mind, principles taught by Jesus himself, that God loves us, that nothing happens without God;s permission, that because He loves us he wants us with Him for all eternity, that he is all powerful and all knowing.

How do we thank God for catastrophe? It starts with developing a grateful heart. We practice gratitude by making it a point to reflect on the past. How often were there times when we dreaded what we were about to go through, and after the event, we realized that the outcome was good in the long run. And then we thank God for that. Once we begin to glimpse, however dimly, how God has worked in our lives, we have gratitude.

Gratitude is recognition of God's involvement in our lives. God wants us to be grateful because the more we recognize God's good work in our lives, the more we desire to respond to his love for us. Louis Martin, the father of Saint Therese of Liseaux, himself a saint, told his priest that he was concerned that he had had a wonderful life, and very little suffering, and how could he ever hope to become a saint without some suffering. A short time later he had the first of many strokes that lead to helplessness and the loss of his mental facilities. And he thanked God for that, and according to the Catholic Church he is enjoying the company of the saints for all eternity.

Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 17:5 – 10

This is one of those gospel passages that make you wonder how any of the apostles stayed with Jesus. They make a perfectly reasonable request. Jesus has been talking in parables – the prodigal son, the rich man and Lazarus, and several others we've heard. He just finished telling them that if they scandalized a child, it would be better that they have a millstone put around their necks and cast into the sea; and he told them to forgive over and over again, without limit. And the apostles, probably pretty confused by now, ask what you and I might ask – increase our faith.

And Jesus seems to reply with a flat out insult, and then a few verses in which he seems to compare the apostles to worthless slaves.

There have been many times I've wanted more faith. During my years taking care of cancer patients, how I wished I had the faith that allowed some saints to work miracles of healing. I still wish I had that kind of faith. And other times I've wished I had the faith to really understand some of the great mysteries of our religion – the Trinity, the Incarnation, how Jesus' death saves us, how Mary can be Virgin and Mother; what really happens when someone dies – what will happen when I die. And I've wanted the faith to see how to hate the sin and love the sinner – comes up all the time these days. And there have been other times when I've wished I had more faith because of my worries and anxieties – and I hear myself telling other people who are worried and anxious, “Have faith!”

Like the word “love” which can refer to my wife and children, to my car, to my job, to my pet, even to my favorite food, the word “faith” can mean a lot. And I guess you have to ask what Jesus means by faith. It seems like he often tells those who have come to him for a miracle that they have faith. He tells the foreign woman with the bleeding problem that her faith has made her whole. He tells his apostles in regard to the centurion who wanted his servant healed, “I have not found greater faith in Israel”. He tells a blind beggar, “Your faith has made you well.”. And what is common to all these individuals is that they turned to Jesus, trusting that He would do for them what he had done for others. For Jesus, faith is not working miracles, knowing how God can be one and three at the same time, or a remedy for anxiety and worry. For Jesus, faith is turning to him in trust.

And You all know that when I get confused by the gospel, I try to find out what it might have sounded like in the original Greek, and this is no exception. The words “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed” could be better translated as “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed – and you do”. Jesus is saying “You have all the faith you need” or maybe “you can't measure faith like a bunch of apples – it isn't quantifiable.”

And Jesus compares the life of faith to the life of a slave – and in those days slavery was taken for granted. Some people owned other people. Some were captives of war, some were people who had sold themselves in exchange for food and a place to sleep; and some were working off a debt that they could not pay in any other way. And we've met many slaves in the bible. A slave's life was not terribly exciting; some were treated well and some poorly, but you pretty much knew what you would be doing that day when you woke up. And you knew that if you did a lousy job, you might be beaten or mistreated; but if you did what was expected, things would go along as they had before. You would do your job, you would eat and drink and sleep and do your job again. And in those days, in that time, being a slave was preferable to starving or begging or other undesirable and even sinful ways of life.

And Jesus is probably telling his apostles that faith is not something you have, it's something you do. It's supposed to affect everything you do. It's the complement you offer when you didn't have to say anything. It's the taking time to listen to the person in the nursing home who doesn't make a lot of sense. It's getting up on Saturday morning and preparing food for shut-ins and people who are grieving. It's holding a pro-life sign in front of the abortion clinic on a cold afternoon. It's holding your tongue when you have the perfect words to put someone down who just said something you don't agree with. And you live this way because you trust Jesus, you believe that he can take little things that you do or don't do and make them great. And that's all that is expected of you – to do the little things and trust.

There is a current in Christianity that sort of expects that if I do something good, something worthwhile, something that brings the kingdom of heaven a little closer, I should be rewarded for that. The whole story of the New Testament is that we are given everything, free of charge, because Jesus took our place on the cross and conquered sin and death; we can only lose heaven if we choose that. But part of being a Christian is that we conform ourselves to Christ. We allow Christ to work in us and through us. And the good that comes from our actions really comes from Christ in us, working to do the will of his father. We just have to be open to all those moments every day that we can choose to act like Christ, or choose to act for ourselves. And acting like Christ is the default for someone who has been baptized into his life and death.

Their are several gospel translations around. When they all say slightly different things you begin to ask what did the original say? That's not easy to answer; the original is in Greek, and the Greek of 2000 years ago, with a totally different context than our own. But one scholar says that the words “unworthy servants” or “worthless slaves” really should translate as “slaves who aren't owed anything.” And Jesus is saying that when we do what we have been commanded to do, that is it's own reward.

Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 16:19 – 31

I look at Facebook four or five times a week. I don't put much on facebook but I enjoy seeing what members of my extended family post. And there are a couple of communities I enjoy – one is for permanent deacons. A few days ago I ran across something called “global rich list”. It's a calculator that allows you to enter your annual income, or alternatively your total net worth, and find out how you stack up against the rest of humanity. I'm ashamed of where that puts me – but I think you would be as well. Face it, we Longmeadow people, even relatively poor ones, are way up there in the top 5% in terms of how rich we are.

Today Jesus in a few words paints a picture of a rich man – dressed in purple, when the only way you could get purple dye was to collect a certain species of shellfish and extract the dye; and fine linen, which was very expensive because it was spun from very fine threads, which took a lot longer than the coarse material most people wore. And while our gospel reading says “he dined sumptously” the actual Greek text says “he made merry in luxury” or as we might say today, every meal was a party. So to me he doesn't look like a mean-spirited king or a conniving merchant – he looks round and silly and oblivious to his surroundings, thinking primarily of himself.

Lazarus is a caricature as well. In fact he sounds a lot like Job, from the Old Testament, who was reduced to sitting on a pile of manure scratching himself with a piece of broken pottery. And I think Jesus is deliberately painting these extreme pictures. Notice that Jesus names Lazarus, the only time a person in a parable had a name. And Lazarus means “God is my helper”.

Now it sounds like the rich man went to hell and Lazarus to heaven. But that is not what Jesus says. He says they both ended up in Hades – which means “the netherworld”. There was a common belief that people went to a temporary place after death. Some people said that's where you spent eternity; others said that you would eventually move on – perhaps to reincarnation, perhaps to resurrection, as some Jews believed, or perhaps to something more in keeping with our concepts of heaven and hell. But a lot of people including many Jews believed that you had one final chance to learn what you needed to learn and move on to a good end. And I think when we look at this story, we can see that.

After all, if Jesus is trying to show us how to avoid hell, we never find out why the rich man is there in the flames. If all he did was enjoy life and burn through his money, does he deserve eternal punishment? I hope not. And he calls Abraham his father, and Abraham refers to him as “My son”. The bond between the holy patriarch of the Jewish people and the rich man is not broken. And there is that interesting reversal; “you had your good things during life; and it's Lazarus' turn now.” This doesn't make sense – if laying around having dogs lick your sores and longing for the crumbs of the rich man's table is enough to have eternal happiness.

And with Jesus' parables we often try to see which character we relate to. We don't relate to Abraham, we don't relate to Lazarus, and I would venture to say we shouldn't relate to the rich man either. We may be rich, but rich as we are, I think most of us would not step over a beggar on our porch and most of us would not spend our money on horribly expensive clothing, and most of us would not have a wild party for ourselves and throw food on the floor every day. And most of us do try to give something back – money, time, talent – we aren't oblivious to the fact that there are people in trouble, and most of us try to do something about that.

I don't think the rich man is burning for all eternity in hell. I think he is learning a lesson. He starts out seeing that he is in torment and Lazarus is up there with Abraham. He recognizes that he is supposed to be there – he doesn't ask to get out, he just wants a drop of water. And when that doesn't happen, he finally begins to think of someone else – his brothers. And he says that if someone rises from the dead, they will surely repent. And in the context, if they repent, they will change the way they see things, they will see their own Lazarus and be moved to take pity on him. And Abraham says, in effect, now you are catching on, that's why they have Moses and the Prophets. And Jesus ends the story there.

So who should we identify with? I think it's the brothers. I think this parable is a reminder that the most important thing about religion after our duty to God is our duty to our neighbor, the neighbor who has a name, a name we don't yet know. The neighbor who is loved by God just as much as He loves us, just as much as he loves the greatest saints, just as much as he loves the Blessed Mother; because God loves with His whole being, with all the love of which he is capable. A few weeks ago we heard about how Jesus shocked the pharisees because he sat down and ate with sinners. This was not because the Pharisees wanted nothing to do with sinners. They had a saying: “It is a good thing to feed a sinner who is hungry. It is an evil thing to sit down and eat with him.” The Pharisees thought that shunning a sinner was the best way to bring him back to righteousness, to rejoining the community. Jesus disagrees. Jesus wants each of us to be responsible for our brothers and sisters – on a personal level. And that is a real challenge.

We each have our Lazarus. Do you know his or her name? Do you step around him or her when you go out of your house or place of work? Or will you change the way you see things, which is what repentance means. And reach out to him or her in love.

I think the rich man will eventually learn his lesson and join his brother Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham, because God is infinitely merciful. But you can think what you want. Just recognize your brother. Once you learn his name, you cannot do otherwise.