Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

 Luke 17:5-10

Jesus in the gospel just before this told his disciples to forgive “seventy times seven” which was way more than Mosaic law required.  Peter knew that law -- you were required to forgive someone who asked for forgiveness, seven times.  Peter and the others had witnessed a lot of Jesus’ sayings and teachings that seemed to turn their whole world view upside down.  And I think that’s why they said, “Increase our faith”.  

I pray that prayer a lot, and also the one that the father of the demon possessed boy prayed: “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief”.  We all have had times when we wish we had a little more faith, when it seems as though everything is trying to tell us that there is no God, that the universe is uncaring.  And of course there are plenty of people out there who have based their lives on those propositions.  We see people who outright deny anything outside the material world to those who might label themselves as members of a religion, but live lives that are very poor advertisements for being religious.  

But can you “increase” your faith?  I’m not even sure what that means.  If I decide that you have more faith than I do, it’s not because I can measure faith or even the consequences of faith.  I can only observe your behavior and then try to figure out why you behave that way.  And if you pray a lot and do good works and treat everybody with kindness I might conclude that you have a lot of faith.  But if you do good works and treat everybody with kindness and deny that there is a God or that you belong to any religion, I wouldn’t conclude that you have faith.  I think that’s what Jesus is talking about.  He joins right in with the notion that faith is something that you can measure, that can be increased or decreased.  “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed,”  he says, and then he gives an image that would probably make his observers laugh.Because a mature mulberry tree looks like it hugs the ground -- roots all over the place -- and Jesus pictures the tree in the sea, taking root there.  Kind of like imagining a whale crossing the desert.  

And then Jesus seems to sidestep the whole controversy.  He talks about the relationship between a servant, or as the original Greek said, a slave, and his master.  Slavery in Jesus’ time was not quite what happened in the deep south to people imported from Africa.  Sometimes it was voluntary, sometimes it was for a limited time.  Most slaves had nowhere else to go, and if reasonably well behaved, could come and go as they pleased as long as their work got done.  But the bottom line was that they lived to fulfill the expectations of their masters, not themselves.  That was the condition of slavery -- and in return they got board and room.  In those days it was not too difficult to escape if you really wanted to.  But again, where would you go?  Probably you’d find another master and hope things would be easier.  

Jesus is sort of saying, let’s not even talk about more faith and less faith.  Let’s talk about what faith is all about.  Faith is knowing what you are supposed to do, and then doing it.  And Jesus is saying, there is no merit in that.  If you do that, it’s the bare minimum, you are not entitled to a reward for doing what you are supposed to do.  People who go above and beyond that are the ones you are profitable slaves.  

IT makes you think of that other story Jesus told, about the master who gave his slaves money to take care of while he went away.  They could have run off with the money -- after all, Jesus wasn’t talking about a few bucks, but one of those coins was enough to take care of for six months or so.  The guy who got ten could have gone five years without working.  But the one who got one coin did the bare minimum; he took the care of the coin and gave it back to his master and got punished for not going over and above what was expected.  Those who did received rewards.  

Faith either exists or doesn’t.  Jesus frequently calls people to believe in him.  If you believe in Jesus, he promises a lot of things -- eternal life, for one.  Some of our protestant brothers believe that once you declare that you have faith, the rest is history.  Once saved, always saved.  But I think Jesus is telling us that having faith is sort of the bottom line and if it gets us anywhere, it’s the bare minimum.  If we are going to become slaves of God, which is sort of what faith means, that’s all well and good, but it’s what we do after that that determines what kind of servants we are -- do we do more than we are obliged to do?  Are we profitable?  Are we “good and faithful?”

Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 16:19-31

Like many of Jesus’ parables, this one raises a lot of questions.  The rich man ended up in hell, it seems, while Lazarus is in sort of a heaven.  Sometimes Jesus compares the kingdom of Heaven to a great banquet; other times to contented sheep.  Here he compares it to a place where Abraham, the ancestor of the Jewish people, lives and comforts those who have died.  And as for the flames of torment where the rich man went, I think Jesus was again making a comparison.  Someone once told the Dali Lama that if he didn’t accept Christ he would go to hell.  He replied that you couldn’t threaten a good Buddhist with hell because the whole point of Buddhism is to reach a state in which you have stopped wanting anything.  

But why did the rich man go to hell?  Why did Lazarus go to heaven?  When you read this gospel it’s pretty clear that the rich man enjoys life -- fine clothing, good food, probably doesn’t have to work too hard.  Kind of like you and I.  In fact you and I probably eat better and have more leisure than most human beings ever had.  We are certainly a lot better off than the vast majority of our fellow human beings.  I hope being rich and eating well is not a ticket to hell.  

And why did Lazarus end up in heaven?  Jesus portrays him as someone who is poor and hungry and miserable.  Does that get you into heaven?  

And finally, you have the fact that Lazarus lay at the door of the rich man.  I think we all see that Jesus is telling us that the rich man was aware of Lazarus and his misery and did nothing about it.  There are plenty of people within a few miles of Saint Mary’s who are miserable, and we aren’t doing a lot for them.  

And I think it’s interesting that the rich man doesn’t ask to get out of hell -- he knows he’s where he should be.  Someone once said that if you ended up in hell, you would know exactly why you were there and you would praise God for his justice.  

The real difference between the rich man and Lazarus is that one has everything and the other has nothing.  Jesus warned us about this -- he talked about how hard it would be for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven -- harder than getting a camel through the eye of a needle.  And the reason is that someone who has a lot of stuff is reluctant to let any of it go.  You and I know this from experience.  And the attachment to stuff, to the good things in life, can be so severe that we can’t let go -- even in the next life.  But in order to enter heaven, we have to let go.  Lazarus doesn’t have anything to cling to, he’s free to receive what God wants to give him because he is not attached; both his hands are free.  Jesus said that birds have nests and foxes have dens but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. Jesus has more in common with Lazarus than the rich man.  

So is Jesus warning us about the danger of possessions? Or is he warning us about the danger of neglecting our poor brothers and sisters? Or are we supposed to read into the story that the rich man was evil and Lazarus was good?  I’ve read a lot ao sermons that presume that is the case and go on from there.  But again, I don’t see it.  Jesus told the story so you and I could think about it and decided what we are going to do in response.

When we think about hell we imagine that the evil spirits want to bring more people to hell.  We ask Saint Michael to do something about Satan and his minions who proul about the world seeking the ruin of souls.  But our rich man, who has apparently never had a thought about someone else, now thinks about his five brothers.  One suspects that they are like the  rich man.  He fully expects that they will end up like him unless they change their ways. And he wants Abraham to do something to keep that from happening.  And Abraham points out that they already have everything they need to keep out of hell, to get to heaven -- Moses and the prophets.  Because God leaves us radically free to choose how we live, who we listen to.  If your great grandmother came back from the dead and told you to change your ways, you wouldn’t really be free anymore, because that would be a fact that you couldn’t ignore.  So we are left with Moses and the prophets, we are left with the good news of Jesus Christ.  And those five brothers or sisters  are out there, and you and I are their only hope, because we have the truth.  And one thing we can do is make sure that the people we meet see  that there  is something different about us, something worth learning more about, something worth imitating.  Maybe that’s what we should think about today.      

Twenty-fourth Sunday inm Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 15:1 - 32

This weekend we remember the terrible events of September 11, 2001, when almost three thousand people, including the hijackers, lost their lives.  Three of the planes completed their planned mission, destroying the World Trade Center and part of the pentagon.  The fourth, though, Flight 93, was a different story.  Because the flight had left later than the others, some of the passengers had heard what had happened, and had been told by the pilot that they would return to New York.  However, it became obvious that the plane wasn’t turning around, so a few of the passengers guessed the  truth and decided to do something about it.  Under the leadership of Thomas Burnett Jr., Todd Beamer, and flight attendant Sandy Bradshaw, apparently many of the passengers rushed to the front of the plane and using a fire extinguisher broke down the door to the cockpit.  In the ensuing struggle, the plane, probably bound for the White House, crashed into a field in Pennsylvania where everyone died.  Now the thing about this is that Thomas Burnett Jr. called his wife just before the events and said that he knew they were going to die.  

Burnett was the vice president of a medical device company, married with four children, living a pretty ordinary life.  But at a particular moment in his life, he threw everything aside, and carried out an act of heroism.  

In today’s gospel we see a contrast.  There is the prodigal son, about whom so much can be said.  He was obviously self-centered, cared very little about his father or anyone else in the family, apparently.  He asked for his inheritance, which would normally have come about after the father’s death.  It’s interesting that in the text Jesus says that the father “divided his property between them” suggesting that at the same time the prodigal son got his share, the older brother got his.  The prodigal son then goes off, spending lavishly, until his inheritance runs out.  The older brother, as we can tell if we read between the lines, stayed with his father, working on the family farm, not really changing his life even though now he technically owned the property.  He was cautious which is good; he was probably also scared of change, which is not so good.  

I was the oldest in a family of three children.  My parents, God bless them, did not have a wonderful marriage, but they stuck together and had good days and bad days.  But the effect on the oldest was to implicitly push him to choose sides.  The oldest also felt he had to be the stable one for his two sisters.  And the oldest worried a lot about what would happen if his parents split up.  All of this made the oldest super-cautious, a trait which persists even to this day.  I always envied people who seemed to be more spontaneous, less self-conscious.  But being super cautious is not the worst thing in the world.  

The oldest son reacts angrily when he discovers that his father has pulled out all the stops for the big party.  Killing a fatted calf is what people do when they were  entertaining royalty.  Putting a ring on his finger and dressing him in a fine robe likewise.  The father didn’t just welcome the ungrateful, spontaneous, careless son back into the house, he treated him like a king.  And the oldest son, the cautious one, is angry.  It is at this point that he receives an invitation from the father:  “All that I have is yours, but we must rejoice, because he who was dead is now alive!” And the story stops there.  

Was the oldest son able to put the past behind him and rejoice with his father?  Or did he continue to stay away from the rejoicing people, brooding in his resentment, unable to let go of his caution, of his sense of self-importance, in the face of what the father saw as truly a miracle: “The son of mine who was dead is now alive again!”..

I’m the older son.  I like stability; I’m cautious.  And if someone who doesn’t deserve it gets a sudden windfall, or escapes the consequences of his own actions, maybe I resent it a little bit.  And when I look at all the gifts that I’ve received down through the years, I tend to think I deserved them because I’m careful and industrious and frugal.  I forget that every good thing comes from the father, and he can do whatever he wants with his gifts.  

And I wonder what I would do if I was sitting on that plane and Thomas Barnett, Jr, and Todd Beamer and Sandy Bradshaw planned to rush the cockpit and give up their lives so that others would live. Would I join them or would I sit in my seat hoping against hope that somehow I would survive?  Caution and stability are good things, but there are times when they are not.  Let us pray that we can recognize those times.  Let us pray that we will go to the father’s party and welcome our younger brother home. 

Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 14:25 -33

There’s a lot of controversy over President Biden’s decision to erase 10,000 dollars' worth of debt from people who borrowed from government programs to go to college.  Some people say that without the debt they will spend more money and bolster the economy, and everyone will benefit.  Others say that the debt isn't really forgiven, it’s just shifted to taxpayers, people who paid off their loans, people who didn’t go to college because it was too expensive.  People who were responsible citizens and honored the contract they made to pay off their loans are now paying for people who aren’t being responsible.  I don’t know the answer, but nobody ever forgave any loans I took out.  Maybe it’s not too late.  I could use ten thousand dollars.  So the question comes up, does this have anything to do with the gospel or is the deacon just having a senior moment?

These are harsh words that Jesus has today, aren’t they?  I have to hate those near and dear to me, even my own life.  I have to take up my cross and follow Jesus.  I have to renounce all my possessions.  Maybe it’s time to look to alternative religions.  I can’t do any of those things.  Besides, Jesus is contradicting scripture.  We are told to honor our father and mother.  We are told to make room for the alien, to look out for the orphan and the widow.  And God himself told Moses and the people of Israel, “I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil; choose life” And I can look to the Old Testament and see that one of the rewards for obeying God was being given possessions.  God allowed Satan to deprive Job of everything but his life, and when he showed his faithfulness, God restored everything and more to him.  And you can see that God rewards Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, King David and many others with food things because of their obedience.  And we are always praying for good things to be given to us.  Jesus himself said that “Whatever we ask of the Father in his name will be granted.”

Well, you can imagine that many people have struggled with this passage from Luke’s gospel.  If you look in the footnotes of some bibles, they point out that it was kind of a Hebrew thing; to love one thing and hate another meant that you prefer one over the other.  God himself is quoted as saying “I loved Jacob and hated Esau” and yet Esau received a lot of blessings from God.  And there are those who point out that ‘to take up the cross” meant that you were living in the full knowledge that you would die, and all your decisions were made recognizing this fact.”  And renouncing all your possessions really meant that you were detached from them, that you would be unaffected if they were taken away.  I just hope no one steals Bishop Byrne’s dog, Zelie.  So we can say, Jesus, you were just exaggerating, weren’t you? I can still love my kids and try to avoid pain and suffering and get that electric car that the government is trying to get me to buy so I can save the planet.  

And our church has canonized people who had possessions, obviously loved family members, and perhaps took up their crosses, since everyone gets a cross now and then – but they are in heaven and didn’t seem to take Jesus literally either.

I think what Jesus is saying is impossible.  Even a monk has a rosary and a robe.  And maybe that’s the point.  Jesus is talking about what it takes to be a disciple and uses two examples which have to do with counting the cost of discipleship.  What person sets out to build a tower and runs out of material before he’s finished?  The answer, of course, is no one.  If you think you can build a tower without some sort of plan, you are foolish.  And the same is true of the king and the army.  No king would send ten thousand troops against twenty thousand.  That would be foolish.  Maybe Jesus wants us to see that we are bankrupt, we can’t do the things he asks, we can’t build the tower, we can’t conquer the enemy with our own resources.  

And that’s the difference between Christianity and other religions.  Different denominations understand it in different ways, it’s true.  But it all boils down t6o the fact that Jesus has already paid the price, he’s already done what we have to do to be disciples, to come after him.  And he’s given that to you and I.  For Catholics, that’s what the sacraments are all about.  When you receive a sacrament, you are accepting what Jesus has already done for you, You are allowing him to pay your bills.  You are allowing him to live in you, having done everything that the Father wants from you and me.  And the Father looks at you and I and sees Jesus, the one who pays the price.  

Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 14:1, 7-14

It’s hard for us to identify with the men that Jesus is speaking to.  In our society we honor people who seem to be humble, and we find those who strive for status kind of off-putting.  When someone gets all upset because of being disrespected, we don’t think much of them.  But this wasn’t the case in Jesus’ time.  It was a society where your position in society was very important.  There was a strongly reinforced pecking order.  Not only was there a sharp distinction between those who were in and those who were out, but the ones who were in were very sensitive to where they stood on the ladder.  Now a “leading” Pharisee was one whose teaching was respected, someone who had a lot of authority, someone who could give orders and expect them to be carried out.  And probably the leading Pharisee was a person known for his scrupulous attention to carrying out the law.  Now probably a carpenter like Saint Joseph wouldn’t have paid much attention to all this emphasis on being respected.  Most people just did their work and hoped for the best.  But here, the closer you sat to the head of the Pharisees, the more prestige you had.  

Now picture the scene.  The Leading Pharisee announces that dinner is served.  The men in the room, and they are all men, women wouldn't be eating in the same room, are trying to find a place near the head table.  And they are trying to do this while still looking dignified.  Two dive for a spot, one gets rebuffed, his face turns red, he moves down the table.  There is a lot of jostling.  By the way, they are reclining, not sitting.  No chairs.  You might have two guys reclining and a third will attempt to insert himself between the two.  So it’s a funny thing to watch.  And I think Jesus was amused.  Because his answer is not to be humble, his answer is to go to the bottom of the table and wait for the host to ask you to come up higher. Think of the prestige you would get -- the host calls you by name, invites you to come sit closer.  The guests that have snagged the good spots have to make room for you.  

Banquets like these were a form of entertainment.  If you gave one, you expected to be invited to several banquets given by your guests down the line.  So there was an ulterior motive, people didn’t do this out of the goodness of their hearts.  And that’s sort of the same thing; if you got invited to supper it was a sign that you were high up on the social scale.  After all, in the circles in which the lending Pharisee lived, it would be silly to invite someone who couldn't invite you; it would be a waste.  

But Jesus’ suggestion, that when they give a lunch or supper they should invite the crippled, the lame and the blind is not a new thought; the prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah had predicted that when God finally brought about the kingdom to come, these would be the very people who would take first place in the heavenly banquet.  That’s what Jesus is referring to when he says “you will be repaid in the resurrection of the righteous”.  

So what is Jesus doing here?  I don’t think he’s telling us to be humble.  Humility is a good thing, but being humiliated is not.  Humility after all is knowing ourselves as we really are.  We are almost nothing before God, but at the same time we are loved by God as though we were the only person on earth.  I can look at myself and see that in some ways I’m much more fortunate than many other people -- that’s just true, that’s not bragging; But at the same time, I know I won’t be around when California bans gasoline powered vehicles; I’ll be in my final resting place.  And that’s not bragging, that’s just true.  Humility is recognizing what is true and what isn’t and living accordingly.

But Jesus is talking about humiliation.  And that’s totally different.  Humiliation is a feeling I get when I believe something about myself and someone comes along and contradicts this with some action or word.  I’ve been humiliated a lot, but one time I remember was when I was driving with my new bride on a Montana highway, and I saw a police car and an ambulance attending to the victim of a car wreck.  I stopped the car and ran over, announcing that I was a doctor and I could help.  The paramedic attending to the victim told me to keep away and the policeman told me to get back in my car and get out of there, I was not needed.  

When you are humiliated, it’s a good thing.  It means you need to ask whether your view of yourself is in keeping with reality.  It’s a chance to grow.  And I think in this gospel you can see that Jesus is telling us that the best course of action is not to play the game, not to worry about how we look to others, not to pay attention to our standing in society.  Let others worry about that.  Otherwise we get caught in the trap of being humbled when exalted, and exalted when humbled, and we never find peace.

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 12:41 - 59

Today’s very brief gospel describes a cry from Jesus’ heart.  He knows that in the end God will triumph and evil will be overthrown.  But he also knows that getting to that point will be extremely painful, not only for himself, but for everyone who is with him.

Much of what Jesus tells his disciples suggests that he is bringing peace, that he is the source of unity for his followers.  Yet today he says he will not bring peace, but rather division.  How do we reconcile this?  The Christian world is certainly no example of unity, and even within the Catholic church there is a lot of division.  About sixty percent of Catholics don’t agree with things the Church says are non-negotiable.  If you are a regular church goer, and only 26 percent of people who call themselves Catholics are, you know what these positions are -- abortion is the destruction of human life; the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ, serious sin requires the sacrament of penance;  sex outside of marriage is a siin, and I could go on.  Of course the Church believes in all ten commandments, but takes a counter-cultural position on a few.  Most of us would agree that murder is bad, as is theft and adultery.  So the Church, like Jesus, seems to bring division.  

And I think that’s what Jesus is talking about.  There are things he says that have been recorded in the gospels that leave many of us, even those of us who try to lead good Catholic lives, a little bothered.  “Sell all you have and give to the poor,” he says, “and you will have treasure in heaven”.  “If your eye offends you, pluck it out…” you remember that saying.  “Whoever would be great among you must be a servant”.  “Blessed are you when people hate you…”.  

Now most of us hear these things and we water them down, and Jesus may have been exaggerating, it’s true, especially with that command of self-mutilation.  But there have been people who have listened to Jesus and tried with all their hearts to follow him.  Saint Clare, whose feast we celebrate this week, lived a life of complete poverty.  Saint Theresa Benedicta of the Cross, formerly Edith Stein, went cheerfully to her martyrdom, as did Saint Lawrence the deacon.  And just about any saint you can name lived an heroic, counter-cultural life that divided people, even those within the Church.  The point is that you can expect push-back, even from your loved ones, when you decide to take Jesus seriously.  And yet, that’s the division that he’s talking about.  Father against son, mother against daughter, and so on.  MY parents were pretty good Catholics, I would say.  But I remember coming home from college at Catholic University of America.  On the drive home I was going on and on about all the great insights I had gotten from my religion classes.  My mother became very upset and made it clear that she didn’t want to hear any of this.  I learned my lesson.  

Following Jesus will bring about division, and the closer you follow him, the more division you will experience.  Sometimes you will just be excluded from polite company, or considered a bit peculiar because of your beliefs.  Other times it will be real persecution; you may face beijing canceled because of your advocacy -- or even physically assaulted as usually happens at the March for Life in DC.  

So where is this peace that Jesus promised in some of his other sayings?  I think it’s different.  I don’t think we can expect global peace during the life of the human race.  It will only come at the end of the world.  People will try and there may be little pockets where peace breaks out for a few years.  And then Russia will invade Ukraine, China will threaten Taiwan, Saudi Arabia will bomb Yemen back to the stone age -- and war will break out again.  But there is a peace.  Saint Paul describes the Peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  It’s a mysterious peace.  It seems to come from forming a relationship with Jesus, a relationship of intimate friendship.  It doesn’t mean you have to be a monk or a martyr, but it does mean you have to cooperate with Jesus, who wants to form this friendship with you.  This is something anyone can achieve.  Recently I read a very simple plan for spiritual growth.  First, when you go to a restaurant, sometimes choose your second or third favorite thing instead of the first.  Second, when you are standing in line at the DMV, thank God for things.  Third, speak to Jesus throughout the day -- “I love you, Lord.”  “Thanks for taking on my sins and opening heaven for me.”  “Please help that woman who looks like everything she owns is in that shopping cart” -- and maybe I will as well.  You can have a dialogue with Jesus if you take the earbuds out of your ears and put away the cell phone for a few minutes.  This is what the saints did.  It’s what each of us can do.  And that will bring peace, the peace Saint Paul talks about, which surpasses all understanding.  

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 12:13 - 21

My wife and I are at that age when we are very much concerned about last things.  We’ve purchased our cemetery plots.  We met with someone at the funeral home.  We haven’t got everything done yet, but we are getting there. My wife’s father had everything arranged, even to the post - funeral luncheon for the people who attended.  She wants it to be like that for us.  On the other hand, I think it would be good for our kids to have to drop everything and spend a lot of time and effort getting me buried.  After all we’ve done for them, you know.  That’s what happened with my dad, who died suddenly at the age of 57.  

One thing we both agree on is that we have way too much stuff.  It wasn’t on purpose.  We’ve just gone through 56 years of marriage and raising a family, and not really throwing away much because we might need it.  I recently bought a battery-operated hedge trimmer for reasons which I could tell you about but won’t. And I decided to take one of my two electric hedge trimmers that required extension cords to the Longmeadow swap shop.  It hurt to give a perfectly good hedge trimmer away; now I only have two.  So as we go through our possessions, and especially our books, we keep wondering why we keep things and at the same time we feel pain when we part with them.  Is that a human reaction? Or is it a reaction of someone who lives in a privileged society and has never really wanted for anything?  Or is it just me.  Am I just a rich fool?  But I’m not the only one.  I once met a Jesuit priest.  Jesuits aren’t supposed to own anything.  When he had to get some personal necessities, he would go to his superior who would give him some money to buy toothpaste, or soap, or whatever.  He found himself hoarding the change from the purchases.  

A person named Marie Kondo wrote a book about decluttering.  YOu are supposed to pick up each item and ask whether it gives you joy or not.  If not, discard it.  If so, find a place for it where you can see it.  I think she’s on to something, but if I did that, I would probably reduce my stuff by about 10 %.  I gave away a lot of my books a couple of years ago but I still have a whole room full of books and then some.  

Several tribes of native Americans in the Northwest practiced a ritual called “potlatch”.  That’s a word from the Chinook language that means “to give away”.  And that’s exactly what it was.  People who had a lot of stuff were expected to periodically have a great big party to which they would invite all their relatives, even very distant ones.  There would be singing and dancing and feasting, and then the rich person would give away everything he had.  There was actually a sort of competition among tribal leaders – who could give away the most.  Now what they gave away was stuff.  It wasn’t land, or the means to make a living.  IT was things you accumulated.  In some tribes, once you turned twelve, you had your first potlatch and gave away all that you had accumulated during those twelve years.  

I’m not proud of all the stuff I’ve accumulated.  I’m even less proud of the fact that when I get rid of stuff, I have an emotional reaction.  It isn’t rational.  And I worry that it is one of the many barriers between me and God.  

Like all of us Christians, I want to be united with God for all eternity.  And according to the scriptures, that’s what God wants as well.  But there are barriers.  They all have to do with things that take God’s place in my life.  If I hold something of mine and it gives me pleasure, then that object is taking God’s place, at least a little bit.  God wants me to give him my whole self.  I want to hold back. 

So what should we do about our relationship to possessions?  After all, you can do a lot of good with stuff.  It’s not wrong to be rich.  Joseph of Arimathea was a rich man who provided a tomb for Jesus’ body.  There was a lady named Lydia who was wealthy and used her wealth to support Saint Paul.  The parents of Saint Therese of Lisieux were not poor at all, they ran a successful lace-making business.  And they are recognized as saints.  

As is usually the case, we can learn from the Blessed Mother.  When the angel appeared to her she was a teenager.  When he told her what God wanted from her, she replied, “Do to me whatever God wants” or “Be it done to me according to your word” which is a nicer translation.  And then she threw herself into allowing God to lead.  And God gave Mary the gift of being the mother of his son.  And God demanded that the gift be returned, and Mary freely returned the gift, though her heart was broken on that day on Calvary.  But she would withhold nothing from God.  

God does not ask us to be poor, to give away all our possessions.  But he wants us to see that everything is a gift, and I should be ready to give it away, to give it back, to pay it forward, at the first sign that it comes between God and me. So we should ask, this Sunday, what possessions of ours might interfere with our giving ourselves completely to God?

And if anyone would like an electric hedge trimmer, let me know.