Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 4:21 - 30

The summer after I was ordained a deacon, I took my family back to Montana. We went to visit my relatives in the little town of Belt. Two of my uncles and a cousin were farmers, and another uncle was a carpenter, but he was also the town plumber. They all decided it would be a wonderful thing if I could assist at the weekday Mass and give a sermon, and in fact they had already cleared it with the pastor. So I frantically scribbled some notes and got into an alb that hit me at the knees. Father had been working in his garden so he came in and stomped the mud off his feet and put on his vestments and off we went. It was obvious that father had not served with a deacon since probably seminary days, because we kept bumping in to each other. Finally I gave my sermon. After Mass my family took us all to the local diner where everyone – you guessed it – talked about the weather, crop prices, which kind of manure worked the best – things farmers know a lot more about than me. They did not try to drive me off a cliff, probably because I didn't say anything controversial or maybe because they weren't all that amazed at the gracious words that came out of my mouth.

This gospel always leaves me a little puzzled. Jesus goes back to his home town and preaches in the synagogue. We heard what he said last week, remember? “the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor...” And then he says, “today this passage is fulfilled in your hearing. And the reaction of the people is very positive. When they ask “isn't this the son of Joseph?” I hear a suggestion of pride in the local boy who made good. But then Jesus seems to read their thoughts, that they are expecting him to work miracles and healings in his home town even more than they've heard he's been doing elsewhere. And after all, Capernaum is up in gentile country; shouldn't Jesus be putting more effort into helping his own kinsmen? Jesus says no, and reminds the people that a prophet is not without honor except in his own country. So far, so good. But then as though he wants to rub salt in the wound, he points out that god sent Elijah to a pagan woman even though there was a famine in Israel; and sent Elisha to cure a Syrian leper even though there were plenty of Jewish lepers around. But why throw him off a hill? Why try to kill him for these words? I might have walked away angry or disappointed, but I can't put myself in the mind set of the people of Jesus town.

Perhaps there is a clue, though. When Elijah walked the earth, his biggest challenge was that king Ahab had married Jezebel and she had started to establish the worship of Baal in the land of Israel. I'm sure you remember when Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal and ended up slaughtering all of them. And things weren't much better in the days of Elisha, when the king, having executed all his blood relatives, also attempted to import a pagan religion. The context here is that Jesus is pointing to a time when god was no longer being honored in the land he had given the Jews, and consequently had taken his business elsewhere. So I don't know if Jesus was comparing his home town to the Jewish people of the past, or whether he was indicating that he was making no distinction between the Jews and the gentiles in his ministry, but whatever it was, they reacted with burning anger.

But what can we bring away from this gospel? One thing is that god is not a vending machine. The people of Nazareth really expected that their native son would answer their needs, pretty much because he was one of them. I think when we don't get what we pray for, we might feel a little like this – I've done everything you asked, lord, and now I expect something back. Heal my disease, save my marriage, help me find a better job. But when Jesus performs miracles in scripture, even in response to a request, it's always clear that it is on his initiative.

Another lesson perhaps, is just because we belong to the church which has the fullness of truth, which has the real presence of Christ, which has the sacraments, does not make us entitled. If anything, our being Catholics gives us more responsibility. During Jesus' time the Jews understood that they had a twofold mission – to honor god by keeping his commandments, all 613 of them, and to be a light to the gentiles. They were good at the first, but not so much at the second. And we Catholics are not very good at spreading the gospel in our own society, even though that was the last thing Jesus said to his apostles before he ascended into heaven.

And finally, how do we react when we are confronted with a truth that we don't agree with? I think somewhere in our teenage years we go from accepting what others tell us to questioning things we don't agree with. That's good in a way, but if it puts blinders on us it's not good. If you support elected officials who take moral positions contrary to what the church teaches, on the grounds that you've decided that the church at least in that area is mistaken, or maybe you don't even care,, this is a problem. The church has had two thousand years to think about how human beings should live, and the reason for its teachings has to do with human happiness, in this life and the next. If we are to be a light to the gentiles, then we have to show through our own lives that the teachings of Jesus through his church make our society preferable to what is out there. The early Christians won converts partly because the society around them could say, “see how they love each other.”. Unfortunately, when you begin to enumerate many of the church's teachings otherwise good Catholics will find at least one or two that they disagree with. And conversely, when we witness a friend, a neighbor, a relative who is living a life that endangers his or her soul, are we willing to be prophets to them, or do we say “it's none of my business”.

Jesus could walk through their midst and move on to the next town. I, on the other hand, am usually concerned about being thrown off the brow of the hill.

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle A

Luke 1:1 – 4; 4:14 – 21

When I was about five, my parents were gifted with a coffee table sized bible, clad in white leather, illustrated with copious color pictures, with space in the beginning for entry of major events in the lives of the children – baptism, first communion, confirmation, wedding, or ordination or taking vows in a religious order. I don't recall if it was ever opened except by my sister and I when we wanted to look at the pictures. After all, in those days you could be a perfectly good Catholic without ever cracking a bible.

Fast forward to the summer of my first year in college. I had landed a job with the state Fish and Game department as a general laborer. Our task was to grow grain around a small lake. The grain was there to attract Canadian geese to land on the lake. We also had to take care of Canadian goose chicks that would be released at maturity in the hopes that they would remember the lake when they migrated. The State of Montana was sparing no expense in its attempt to convince the geese to make this lake a stop over point so that future goose hunters would not be disappointed.

One of the other laborers was a guy about my age and was a devout, and as I quickly learned, knowledgeable Mormon. We had many discussions in which I took a beating because he could quote the bible and I could not, and he wasn't interested in what the Baltimore Catechism had to say. So I resolved to become more biblically literate that summer, and borrowed a somewhat smaller bible from my grandmother, which I don't think had been read either. And it was the official Catholic version of that time, written with a lot of thee's and thou's and behold's. I got through it but I'm not sure anything stuck.

In college I took a couple of scripture courses but it wasn't until many years had gone by when I began to take the bible seriously and not only read it but read about it. And that's how I became a bible geek. And you should as well. If it's the word of God, we should read it and understand it, right?

Today in the first reading the people have the law read to them. That meant they listened to a recital of the first five books of the Bible, which took about half a day. Then they recommitted to follow the law – the actual 613 commandments, including the seven commandments given to the human race before Moses came along, and especially the ten commandments. But the law contained other commandments as well in the form of the stories and object lessons. Lot's wife, for example, disobeyed the command not to look back and was turned in to salt. Moses was told to strike the rock to obtain water, but hit it twice, and God decided not to allow him to physically enter the promised land. Cain killed his brother and God made it so that Cain wandered the earth for the rest of his life. If you knew the stories, you had an idea of what pleased God and what offended Him. And the commitment the people made to follow the law made them a people; they were bound together by the law.

And that's one thing the Bible does for us; it is common ground for Christians. We can be much better citizens of the United States if we know something about how the government works and the common values enumerated in the declaration of independence and the Constitution. And we can be much better Christians, and have deeper solidarity with other Christians if we are familiar with the founding document of Christianity. By the way, we've just finished the week of prayer for Christian Unity.

Jesus is involved with scripture as well in the gospel passage we just read. Jesus reads a few verses from Isaiah, and then applies them to himself; in other words, he looks for God's will in the words of the prophet, and when he recognizes it, he begins his ministry. There is a way of reading scripture called “Lectio Divina”, which is something like what Jesus is doing. In the case of the Jewish people listening to the law, they want to understand exactly what God wants from them; in the case of Jesus, he is allowing the Father to speak to his heart through the scriptures. In Lectio Divina, or Divine reading, we read a passage; pray over it, think about it, read it again, try to put ourselves into the picture. Many saints began their careers through a similar process. Saint Anthony of Egypt, who founded Christian monasticism, heard the words “leave all you have and follow me” and knew the words applied to him. He sold his inheritance and went to live in the desert.

Find a way to bring the bible into your life, or deepen your appreciation if you already read it. Most of us hear the bible passages at Mass; single out one of them, preferably for the Sunday to come, and take it to your prayers every day. Or, concentrate on one of the gospels and read it through, two or three times in the liturgical year, along with a good commentary. This is the season of Matthew, by the way. I never get tired of comparing the first three gospels. It's so interesting to discover how each author tells the story of Jesus differently, and John is completely different. I think I made a big mistake when I first set out to read the bible. I read it straight through, from Genesis to Revelation, and that is probably the worst possible way. And of course a wonderful way to fall in love with the bible is to form or join a bible study group. As you and your friends meet to socialize and discuss a bit of the bible, you will find that all of you have different insights, and possibly some questions that in turn will lead to further insights.

We know the writers of the New Testament were quite familiar with the bible, and that's not surprising. But sometimes it is a little surprising to realize that Jesus read the books of the Old Testament and obviously meditated on them and used them in his own prayer life. That prayer he offers as he dies on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” is the first line of Psalm 22; rather than a cry of abandonment, Jesus was probably praying what in the end is a very hopeful prayer. So today I hope you will resolve to make the bible a part of your prayer life.

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

John 2:1 --11

The country of Bhutan is located high in the Himalaya mountains bordered by China on one side and India on the other. It’s a poor country with few natural resources. Several years ago the king decreed that instead of measuring gross national product or crime statistics or the fraction of people living above the poverty level, as is done in most countries, Bhutan would measure the Gross National Happiness quotient, which may sound silly, but the number was based on nine dimensions including what other countries measure. The idea was that the government would put its resources into improving the happiness of people, and what didn’t would be discontinued. I’m not sure how it’s working out, but it’s not a bad idea – happiness as the major goal of a government.

Today we hear the story of the Wedding Feast of Cana. The Church has Isaiah’s vision of what God intends to do with the world as the first reading, and I’m sure whoever set up the readings wanted us to notice that Jesus is doing what Isaiah promised that God would do. It’s also interesting that John the gospel writer starts this story with “on the third day”. You hear those words every time we recite the creed – on the third day he rose again from the dead. John, who is writing many years after the Resurrection and at a time when Christianity is established in many parts of the Eastern Roman empire, surely wanted us to think about the Resurrection by using these words. But again, what does this have to do with you and me?

Once Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you all these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy will be complete.” What is the difference between joy and happiness? It’s not entirely clear. One idea is that happiness depends on external circumstances, while joy is an interior state. But you can find happy people among the poorest people in the world, and miserable people who are healthy and rich; and I think you have to have joy in order to experience happiness. Certainly it’s hard to imagine a joyless person being happy.

John the gospel writer writes his story around seven signs. The other signs include healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, raising the dead, you know, stuff we expect Jesus to do. But for some reason he makes the first sign the transformation of water into wine at a wedding. At the request of his mother, don’t forget. I think we can conclude that Jesus wanted the young couple to be happy, as well as all the guests, who, if we read into the text, are probably losing their inhibitions and singing and dancing and maybe even wearing lampshades on their heads. Because the head steward is surprised that they are bringing out the good wine when everyone else is at the point where they are unlikely to appreciate it. And I suspect Jesus and his disciples were all enjoying the wine and the revelry – in another part of the gospels, he is accused of being a drunkard and partying with sinners.

You can’t be happy unless you are joyful. And Jesus, in the first miracle recorded by John, foreshadowing the Messianic banquet at the end of time; foreshadowing the joy his disciples will feel on the third day after his crucifixion, makes it possible for the party to continue, because he is full of joy and so is his mother who put him up to it. And so are the saints. Saint Lawrence was said to have said, “Turn me over, I’m done on this side” when he was being put to death on a griddle. Saint Thomas More, as he was about to lose his head, asked the executioner to spare his beard, because it hadn’t done anything to offend the king. Saint Thomas Aquinas was walking out to say Mass when the Blessed Mother appeared to him. As she began to speak, the story goes, he put his finger to his lips and said, “Shsh… I’m about to say Mass and this is the quiet hour.” You can see that joy is near the surface and in fact always bubbling over.

And Jesus tells us these things because he wants us to have joy. Joy means that we aren’t angry, we aren’t full of regrets, we aren’t anxious. Joy means that we live in the present, we gratefully accept what God is offering us right now, we are aware of his indwelling presence. And joy means that we learn to give ourselves up to others, because that’s where the greatest joy can be found. Some of my most joyful moments have come when I am putting myself out for someone else.

The Church is the body of Christ, the bride of Christ, the bearer of Christ down through the ages. The purpose of the Church is to carry out the will of Christ and the reason for the Church is that we might have joy and our joy will be complete. Not just in some heaven after we die, but right now.

Joy has to do with relationship. Those of us who have experienced marriage probably remember moments of joy at least when we first married and if we are fortunate, continued joy as we grow old together. Those of us who have been parents, remember the joy of holding a baby in our arms, of watching our child grow up. Those of us who have deep friendships know the joy of being with the friend even when there are no words exchanged. Much of what the church teaches has to do with relationships, summed up of course in loving our neighbor as ourselves. But of course the most important relationship is that with God and we Christians experience that through our relationship with Jesus, our elder brother, who says “Who has seen me has seen the Father”. And of course much of what the Church teaches has to do with forming and strengthening that relationship.

It’s a tragedy that so few people, even among faithful Catholics, do not take advantage of the treasure the Church has to offer. We seek joy in power, pleasure, possessions and prestige – the four p’s – and we struggle to make them ours only to find that once we have them, we just want more of the same. The treasure of the church on the other hand is satisfying, it’s lasting.

Today we should remind ourselves that Jesus is the lord of joy and has the power to turn water into wine. For who can not feel joy when they finally hear, deep in their hearts, those words that brought joy to Jesus and those words God says of us when we are baptized:: “This is my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.”

Baptism of the Lord, 2019

Luke 3:15-16; 21-22

The accounts of the baptism of Jesus in Matthew, Mark and Luke are very similar. There is no account in John. Matthew has a little dialogue between John and Jesus; John says, “I should be baptized by you” and Jesus replies, “let it be so for now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Now I have trouble with understanding Jesus’ answer to John, so I looked up several other translations of this passage. IN one, Jesus says, “do it, because God is finally putting things right beginning with this baptism.” another says “It’s the right thing to do. You need to baptize me to complete God’s saving plan.” I’m not sure those alternate translations help much. Jesus is baptized, the Spirit descends in the form of a dove, and God’s voice is heard saying “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.”

Down through the ages, this short account has raised many questions and fed a few heresies as well. If Jesus was sinless, why did he have to get baptized? After all, John’s baptism was a baptism signifying repentance. What did Jesus have to repent about? Or is Jesus just going through the motions, pretending to repent? That doesn’t seem right, does it? And we have the Spirit descending like a dove. Although the gospel of John doesn’t have an account of the baptism, John says “I saw the Spirit descend upon him like a dove, and the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “The one whom you see the spirit descend upon and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.” Does this mean that Jesus received the Holy Spirit at this moment? And was Jesus always the “beloved Son” and the Father is now recognizing this, or is there a connection between the baptism, the Spirit, and the recognition? There have been heretics down through the ages that have pointed to this passage and concluded that Jesus was just a human being who had been singled out by God. In any event, it’s important to understand this passage and see how it might apply to you and I.

The baptism of Jesus, though, is intimately related to our own salvation, so it’s worth a little time to break down what is going on here. First, we think of repentance as meaning that we are sorry for our sins. But that isn’t why John was baptizing nor why we are baptized. John’s baptism symbolized being born again; you would be immersed in the water and burst out, none of this pouring water over the head. Being born again meant that you were starting over, that you were seeing things with new eyes, that you wanted to personally recommit yourself to the ideals of your ancestors, who in that very spot had been led by Joshua from the desert to the promised land. John, after all, is preparing a new Israel to be led by a new Moses, to be ruled by a new David.

Jesus is baptized because he has entered into a union with this new people; as John says in his gospel, “the word became flesh and dwelt among us”, or as another translation puts it, “pitched his tent with us”. Saint Paul echos this when he says, “He was in the form of God but did not see equality with God something to be grasped at; rather, he took the form of a slave...” Jesus, the Son of the Father from all eternity, in intimate union with the Holy Spirit from before time began, has become one of us, like us in all things but sin. Jesus had to be toilet trained, learn to walk and talk and all the other things every human being must go through. His identification with us was complete. His humanity is our humanity. And when the Father sends the Spirit in the form of a dove, it is our humanity which receives the Spirit; it is our humanity which becomes capable of the Spirit living in us, praying in us, finishing the work that Jesus began as a human being – the creation and building up of God’s kingdom on earth.

John’s baptism was only a symbol; later Jesus will tell his apostles to baptize all nations; Ananias will baptize Paul and Philip will baptize an Ethiopian eunuch and Peter will order the household of Cornelius the centurion to be baptized. Baptism is no longer a symbol, it is a reality. Paul says, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

Our Church teaches that with baptism we become new creatures and we are sinless at that point not because we are forgiven but because we are brand new in the eyes of God. And at that moment the Holy Spirit begins to live in us in a special way, giving us the theological virtues of faith – which makes it possible for us to believe what God has revealed about himself through scripture and the Church; hope, which gives us the power to desire heaven and to place our trust in Christ’s promises, and to rely on the Holy Spirit instead of our own powers; and charity – which gives us the power to love God with all our beings and love our neighbor as ourselves. Notice that these virtues are potentials. Like anything, if we don’t exercise them, they won’t be worth much; but if we do, we become saints.

And all this is possible because Jesus, the only begotten son of the Father, became human, and received the Holy Spirit as a human being in John’s baptism. The very first sacramental baptism was the baptism of Jesus, at which time God made it possible for anyone who shared Jesus’ humanity to share his divinity as well. And before Jesus performed a single miracle or preached a single sermon or healed a single sick person, the moment he was baptized was the moment the Father proclaimed him the beloved Son in whom He was well pleased. And think about this: At the moment of our baptism God proclaims this about us. As John said in his first letter “we love God because he first loved us.”

When a person is born and placed in the arms of his or her mother, it’s normal for th4 mother to feel love at that moment. And when you and I are baptized, God loves us before we’ve done anything.

Epiphany 2018

Matthew 2:1 - 12

When we look at our manger scene, we see a newborn baby, shepherds, a few farm animals, Mary and Joseph, and of course, three wise men. If we read the actual scriptures, we see that the shepherds and the whole stable scene took place around the time of Jesus’ birth. But it was almost certainly another time when the Magi visited. According to Matthew’s gospel, Mary and Jesus are now in a house somewhere in Bethlehem. Herod later orders that all male children under two years old be murdered, so based on the calculations of the scribes and advisers to Herod, it’s possible that Jesus may have been as old as two years when this all took place. When we put the shepherds and the magi together we miss part of what each evangelist is saying: Luke who gives us the shepherds is saying that the Savior first becomes manifest to the outcasts, the lowly, the unclean – represented by the shepherds. Matthew introduces us to the magi, who are learned, upper class, and most importantly, gentiles. The Magi who come to see the Messiah have learned about his coming through their observations of the sky and possibly through some exposure to the Jewish scriptures. They show that God is extending his salvation to all men, and incidentally, God reveals himself to human beings in other ways than through scripture. So on this feast of the Epiphany we rejoice in the fact that we gentiles have been invited into the Kingdom along with the Jewish people.

Matthew tells us that the Magi brought Jesus gold, frankincense, and myrrh. They may have brought other things as well, or maybe the infant Jesus decided to play with the boxes that those gifts came in. But we know the gifts are symbolic. Matthew is speaking to Jews from his own Jewish tradition. Gold recalls David, the king. David was not the first king of Israel; that was Saul. David was not the most powerful king of Israel; that would be his son Solomon. In fact, much of David’s life was running; he ran from Saul and his army, and he ran from his son Absalom, who tried to take over the kingdom by force. David was obviously a sinner, having committed adultery and murder. But to the Jews David was first and foremost a hero. Under his rule the entire Jewish people had been united and finally achieved peace, and David had begun the effort to build the temple

Frankincense recalls the priesthood. Priests kept busy sacrificing animals in the temple. One historian said that over passover about 250,000 lambs were slaughtered. But priests also burned incense. The rising smoke symbolized the prayers of the people.

Myrrh was probably the oddest gift to give a baby. It was used to embalm the dead. So Matthew’s message in these gifts is to remind us that Jesus is king, high priest, and will die for us. But we can look at these gifts in other ways. The Magi, after all are bringing gifts to the Christ child. This is a good time for us to ask what gifts we are bringing?

Certainly there is always a need for our gifts of gold – our possessions, as it were. Our church needs our support of course, but there are plenty of poor people who need what we have so much of. Jesus told us that what we do for the least of our brothers we do for him. God has blessed most of us with abundance; we live in nice homes, drive late model cars, go on vacations – some of us are willing to pay more for a specialty coffee at Starbucks than it would take to buy a decent meal at McDonalds for someone who is hungry. Is there an opportunity in your life to be more generous? It’s a good time of year to ask that question. In fact, that would make a great new year’s resolution.

Frankincense is associated with worship. We come to the weekend liturgy faithfully. But giving God an hour of our time once a week is sort of the bare minimum. How are we advancing in our spiritual path? Do we have a time for daily prayer? Do we say the rosary? We claim to believe the Bible is the word of God; Do we open it once in a while? Do we commit to finding out more about our faith through spiritual reading or listening to some of those great CD’s that are in the back of the Church? How about a little time before the blessed sacrament; maybe we could commit to attending a weekday mass or two in addition to the Sunday liturgy. In fact, setting more time aside for God would be a good new year’s resolution.

Myrrh was used for embalming, but it was more than a symbol of death. It showed that our human bodies are sacred and were honored by this attempt to preserve them. The reason our bodies are sacred is because they are meant to be used to build up God’s kingdom on earth. How are we building God’s kingdom? Some of you are catechists, some of you work in the soup kitchen or with food for the soul. Some of us visit shut ins or those in nursing homes or hospitals. Jesus made it clear that when we carry out corporal and spiritual works of mercy it is as though we are serving him directly. How are you building up God’s kingdom? Is there room in your life to take on something that will bring God’s mercy to someone else? That would make a good new year’s resolution.

The Christ Child is God’s supreme gift to mankind. The Magi brought gifts to Him. What gifts can we bring him in this new year?

Feast of the Holy Family, 2018

Luke 2:41 – 52

I have twelve grandsons. The other day I was struck by how one of them is beginning to look more and more like his dad. Not only does he look like his dad, he walks like him, sounds like him when he talks, and shows the same sort of concern for others that his dad does. He has the same quiet sense of humor. And I realized once again how much more than biology goes into being a father.

As I was reading today’s gospel, I was struck by the fact that Mary refers to Joseph as “your father”. Now Luke who wrote this passage, also wrote the passage where the angel Gabriel assures Mary that even though she doesn’t have a husband the Holy Spirit will bring about the conception of the Messiah. Maybe we can write this off as shorthand – after all, Joseph has been the foster father. But maybe there’s something here to think about on the feast of the Holy Family.

I’m sure you remember the story, also in Luke, when Zachary was struck dumb by the angel for not believing him. When John is born, they ask Elizabeth what to name the child. She replies, “John”. But that’s not good enough. They go to Zachary who writes on a slate “His name is John” and at that point can speak again. The point is that only the father can name the child, and we know that Joseph was told by an angel that he was to name give Jesus his name. So certainly in that sense Joseph is father.

And then I thought about the fact that all through the Old Testament God is ruler, creator, shepherd, lover of Israel, Rock, Spirit, Lord, and yes, sometimes He is referred to as father; but father of Israel. Jesus in most of his teachings doesn’t stray too far from the Judaism that he was raised in; but he does bring something new to those teachings. Jesus first and foremost sees God as father. He prays to God, calling him “Abba” or as we would say, “Daddy”. He compares God to the father of the prodigal son. He refers to his closeness to the Father – “I and the father are one” “who has seen me has seen the Father”. He indicates that the Father and he work together – “My father and I will come and dwell in you”. And he says when dying on the cross, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”; and after the Resurrection, he invites us, through Mary Magdalen, to enter into this intimate relationship; he says, “Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my father and your father.” And that is the unique insight of Christianity, not just that God is father to Israel, but has an intimate fatherly connection with every person who wishes to enter into that relationship. Muslims are shocked when we say this – to them God is so “other” that it’s blasphemy to speak as though he has a human relationship. One Muslim said that the relationship between God and man was much more like the relationship between a human being and a pet animal. Christians beg to differ.

Jesus was divine but was fully human. Jesus, like you and I, was formed by his mother Mary and his foster father, Joseph. In those days as today, the mother was the main influence during the first few years of life, and then, for a son, the father took over. Jesus is depicted working in Joseph’s shop. That was probably close to the truth. But Jesus also attended synagogue with Joseph, listened to the scriptures, and certainly discussed their meaning with Joseph. Jesus surely was aware of Joseph’s habits of prayer and keeping the prescribed fasts. If Joseph was at says in the scriptures, a just man, that meant that he tithed his time and his money; he practiced charity. And when we read the scriptures and get an idea of what kind of person Jesus was, we probably see a lot of Joseph; we see a man who takes scripture and the law seriously; who thinks about what these things mean; who has concern for the blind, the lame, women, foreigners, children – people on the margins. We see a man with a sense of humor, a man who has loyal friends and who is a loyal friend. Jesus was probably so much like Joseph that it was no stretch for the people in his home town to say, “Isn’t he the carpenter’s son?”

Joseph was such a wonderful father to Jesus that Jesus thought one of the best ways to describe God was “Father”. We know that young people who grow up with abusive faithers have a hard time relating to God as father. The opposite was the case with Jesus.

One of the sad things about our modern times is that fatherhood is changing. Many children are raised without a father and certainly many grow up to become productive members of society. thanks to the heroic efforts of the mother or grandparents. But there is no denying that the impact of not having a father is serious and measurable. Poverty, substance abuse, behavioral problems, suicide attempts, likelihood of incarceration – all are statistically more likely among fatherless children. But we all know that being a father like Joseph is even hard for fathers in stable marriages; in Jesus’ time fathers and sons spent a lot of time together; in our time much less so.

As we meditate on the Holy Family, we realize the essential role that Mary has in our salvation. Through her God became man and we celebrate that throughout the year. But we should remember that Joseph had an almost equally important role in forming Jesus. And because of Joseph’s influence on Jesus, we have been taught to call God Father. So let us pray that Christian fathers will be given the grace to be more like Joseph; and let us all do what we can to support fathers in their invaluable and irreplaceable work.

Christmas, 2018

John 1:1-5, 9-14

You've just heard the beginning of the Gospel of John. It used to be the last part of the old Tridentine Mass, and it was said at every Mass. No shepherds, no wise men, no angel choirs or manger. The Gospel of John begins at the beginning of everything. So what does this have to do with Christmas?

Well, lets go back to the beginning, to the Book of Genesis. It introduces God the Creator. And God creates with his word. He says, “let there be. … and there is. And he creates by drawing lines. Lines define. GK Chesterton once said, “every beautiful painting begins with a line”. We remember how god separated light from darkness, the waters of the heaves from the waters of the earth, the land from the sea. He then assigned the fish to the sea, the birds to the air, and the animals to the land. He finally created man in his image and likeness. He formed man out the earth and breathed his own spirit into him. Then he drew another line; he made eve from the side of the man. Sometimes we interpret this to mean that the woman was created as an afterthought; but the old rabbis said that what God created out of the earth was neither male nor female, and when God created Eve the woman, what was left was the man. Man and woman came into existence as such at the same time. First there was Word, then flesh, then community. And God assigned them to the Garden of Eden. This was the place made for them; a place of abundance, of every good thing to eat and drink; a place where there was no death or suffering. Having completed all this, God rested; because what he had created was perfect and needed nothing else.

And then we have the story of the Fall. The couple were not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But the serpent begins to undo God's work. He tells Eve a lie – that if they eat the fruit, they will be like gods. The words of creatures begins to undo God's perfect creation. The man hides from God; he says it is because he is naked, but the truth is that he knows he disobeyed God. He blames the woman even though he made the decision to eat the fruit, and the woman blames the serpent. And the beautiful order God created becomes disorder when mankind leaves the Garden prepared for him. Death and suffering are the result.

Now we know the story in Genesis is theology, not history. But the theme continues. Abraham, the friend of God, lies about his relationship with his wife Sarah. Jacob and his mother Rebekah conspire to lie to Isaac about who Jacob is. Jacob's father in law lies to Jacob to marry off his daughter Leah and so forth. Lies are always about words that no longer describe a reality. Lies always put disorder into creation. And today we can see that still. When we lie about gender, when we lie about the nature of marriage, when we lie about who is and who isn't a human being we get farther and farther from the creator's intentions.

And that's where John comes in. In the beginning was the Word, he says. The Word through which all things were made. And the Word became flesh. In the beginning God created humans; now the Word that is God becomes human. And the Word, now flesh, dwells among us. Again, first Word, then flesh, then community. The vision of John is that what God did in the beginning, which mankind destroyed, God is doing again. This time the Word itself comes forth to create a new community, a community formed through light shining in the darkness.

It's good to think about that image. If you have a light shining in the darkness, there is still darkness. And if you are in darkness, you can move toward the light or away from it. So we have learned that The Word came to repair God's creation, but through those that receive him, who would receive the power to become Children of God. It is through the children of God that the Word will repair creation. The Word of God, unlike the words of mankind, can never be false.

I once talked with a Unitarian minister. In the course of our conversation, he said something that I knew already – Unitarians aren't big on dogma. Dogma, by the way, simply describes statements about God and man's relationship to God which we know to be true. Many of our friends in other denominations and other religions no longer hold to dogma of any kind. But when people no longer believe in something, they eventually believe anything.

John ends his introduction to the story of Jesus' life by proclaiming that “we saw his glory, glory as of the Father's only son, full of grace and of truth.” He goes on to say that the law came through Moses, but through Jesus Christ, grace and truth. And this Word, who is God, has revealed God to us.

Grace we understand – God's favor, God's gifts, God's unmerited mercy. But truth? Truth represents reality. And as we approach the light shining in the darkness, not only do we receive grace upon grace, but we also receive that for which our whole beings desire – ultimate truth.

So I think you can see why this gospel is so appropriate to read and reflect upon on the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. God became flesh, became man, to form a new community. Moses' community was formed by laws. God gave the law and it provided a fence around the people. When you broke the law, you were outside the fence, you were no longer part of the people. But in the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us, we become children of God, we are part of God's family, we are partners in making a new world, a kingdom in which God will reign as he does in heaven.

The incarnation is about God giving us power, power which we may accept or reject, power which has something to do with whether we turn toward the light or away from it, whether we embrace the truth He has revealed, truth which creates – or whether we reject it. No angels, no shepherds, no manger for John – but John celebrates something much more powerful – the Word which creates dwells among us.