He is risen, indeed!

The Easter Vigil

Romans 6:3-11 Death has no more power over him!
Luke 24:1-12 He is not here: he has been raised!

For some reason or other at Easter my mind turns back some years to when I was a very young man and caught up in the things that young men are caught up in, when on Saturday evening, a friend--a friend every bit as caught up in such things as I was, as we all were--mentioned that he had to go home early that night: tomorrow was Easter, and he had to go to Mass.  When we registered some surprise (I didn't even know he was Catholic!), he offered an interesting explanation: "You have to go to church on Easter," he said. "It's the day when you believe everything again."

I have to admit that I was, and still am, a little envious of my friend.  For every year since I have gone to Mass on Easter in part with the hope that I would be able to believe the whole thing again.  Not the part about Jesus being killed; it's too easy to believe in death.  Nor the part about his laying down his life for his friends; a good man--a really good man--might just do that.  No, what I need to believe is the truth--the rock-bottom truth of his resurrection.  For we live in a dark world, a world of violence, war, hatred, huger and wickedness.  Even our church can become very dark.  And there is an incredible need for a greater light--something greater than human hope and human good will, for we all know that these can be too, too easily snuffed out.  No, our world can be very dark--as dark as the night outside--and despite many centuries of human progress (and it is indeed progress) it does not seem to be getting any lighter.  For human creativity is remarkable, but so also is human darkness, and our capacity for it.  We have need of a greater light than we will ever find in ourselves.

That is why we gather in the darkness of the Easter vigil--to remember the too true truth of our darkness, of our sin,--and the promise of a greater light.  To remember that one of us, Jesus of Nazareth, a man powerful in word and deed, a man who loved our God even to the end, entrusted all to God in the face of the darkness-in the face of all the darkness that humanity could devise--denial, betrayal, mockery, physical torture, beating, flogging, humiliation, and crucifixion--all designed to kill him, and not just his body, but his spirit, his hope, his love of the Father, and not just his, but the spirit and the hope of his followers.

And he accepted it all and placed all in the hands of his Father, the Father who seemed so far away, trusting that God--God who alone is righteousness--would vindicate him, trusting that God who had claimed at his baptism as his Son and who affirmed him at his transfiguration could be trusted, that he would not let his beloved know destruction.  And he gave himself as he was--condemned as a criminal, as a blasphemer, as unclean--into the hands of his Father: Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.  And he died.

Now, surrounded by darkness, we hear an astounding story, and we recall the characters.

These women went to the tomb.  Why?  Their faith had clearly been misplaced, their hope was crushed.  But they went out of love to do honor to a dishonored man.  And his body was not to be found.

And Peter, who had gambled all and lost, who had loved this Jesus with all his heart and who had promised to be with him to the end but found that he just could not do it--imagine him hearing this news--crazy news!--and the two reactions that must have welled up in his breast: Oh, my God!  Everything he told us!  and Oh my God, what have I done?


There is one other character to imagine: Jesus--Jesus who had given up all, who had lost all--his family and his friends, any decent human respect, the ministry he loved--for the sake of the message he understood.  He had laid it all down for his friends; that was his Father's will.  And it was awful.  But now in this new dawn it is all returned to him, but not for a moment but forever!  Death had robbed him of everything, but death has no power over him now.

This Jesus, who has been denied, who has been betrayed, who has been mocked, and flogged and crucified--but not just by them; no, by all of us!--this Jesus has been raised.

But there is more.

He lived his life for others; he lived his life for us to show us something about God that we could never know or believe or even really imagine on our own.  Something that is really beyond belief, really.  And that is that we have failed--truly failed--that our sins are real and they have real consequences.  But God knows that about us; he knows it now in his own flesh and blood, and he has chosen not to seek the vengeance that is his by right, nor to seek the justice he deserves, not even to give us the justice we abundantly deserve, but rather to forgive.

And this is the sign: Christ whom we crucified has been raised.  Everything he said about the Father is true.  He who was condemned as a blasphemer has been vindicated.

But he has not risen for himself--not he who lived for others!  No, even as he was born for us to show us the truth of God's humble love, even as he lived for us to show us that God is with us, even as he suffered for us to show us that God does not turn up his nose at our suffering, even as he died for us to show us that God would go even there--even to death itself--for us, so too he rose for us.

So that we might live no longer for ourselves but for him.

So that we might no longer live for today, but for ever.

So that we might no longer live in fear and darkness and sin and death--for that is our lot, we children of sad Eden--but that we might live again and finally in the light and truth and love of God.  For he never created us for destruction but for his love, by his love, of his very love.

Christ is risen, and our love--our love for God as limited as it may be, and our love for each other as faulty as it my be--our love is more precious in the eyes of the Father and his Son, our brother, than anything else.  He loves our love, and he asks us now, in light of all that he has experienced, to trust that.

For Christ Jesus is risen, and death has no more power over him!  Alleluia!  Amen!

I apologize; it has been some weeks since I have published anything.  The Triduum ended, and I collapsed.  However, the season has continued to be a grace-filled one, and I have continued thinking and praying about all these things.  Some late posts will follow.

In Great Silence

Holy Saturday

It is so hard to understand this day.  There is no Mass today...not until the vigil.  The homilies are all over.  One almost doesn't know exactly how to pray.  I remember that as a child growing up, it was a day of busyness, of preparation, of cleaning.  But a quiet one.

And so I would propose a simple meditation, offered in the Office of the Readings, on the Harrowing of Hell.

From and ancient homily for Holy Saturday:

“What is happening?  Today there is a great silence over the earth, a great silence, and stillness, a great silence because the King sleeps; the earth was in terror and was still, because God slept in the flesh and raised up those who were sleeping from the ages.  God has died in the flesh, and the underworld has trembled.

Truly he goes to seek out our first parent like a lost sheep; he wishes to visit those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.  He goes to free the prisoner Adam and his fellow-prisoner Eve from their pains, he who is God, and Adam’s son.

The Lord goes in to them holding his victorious weapon, his cross.  When Adam, the first created man, sees him, he strikes his breast in terror and calls out to all: ‘My Lord be with you all.’  And Christ in reply says to Adam: ‘And with your spirit.’ And grasping his hand he raises him up, saying: ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.

‘I am your God, who for your sake became your son, who for you and your descendants now speak and command with authority those in prison: Come forth, and those in darkness: Have light, and those who sleep: Rise.

‘I command you: Awake, sleeper, I have not made you to be held a prisoner in the underworld.  Arise from the dead; I am the life of the dead.  Arise, O man, work of my hands, arise, you who were fashioned in my image.  Rise, let us go hence; for you in me and I in you, together we are one undivided person.

‘For you, I your God became your son; for you, I the Master took on your form; that of slave; for you, I who am above the heavens came on earth and under the earth; for you, man, I became as a man without help, free among the dead; for you, who left a garden, I was handed over from a garden and crucified in a garden.

‘Look at the spittle on my face, which I received because of you, in order to restore you to that first divine inbreathing at creation.  See the blows on my cheeks, which I accepted in order to refashion your distorted form to my own image.

‘See the scourging of my back, which I accepted in order to disperse the load of your sins which was laid upon your back.  See my hands nailed to the tree for a good purpose, for you, who stretched out your hand to the tree for an evil one.

`I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side, for you, who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side.  My side healed the pain of your side; my sleep will release you from your sleep in Hades; my sword has checked the sword which was turned against you.

‘But arise, let us go hence.  The enemy brought you out of the land of paradise; I will reinstate you, no longer in paradise, but on the throne of heaven.  I denied you the tree of life, which was a figure, but now I myself am united to you, I who am life.  I posted the cherubim to guard you as they would slaves; now I make the cherubim worship you as they would God.

‘The cherubim throne has been prepared, the bearers are ready and waiting, the bridal chamber is in order, the food is provided, the everlasting houses and rooms are in readiness; the treasures of good things have been opened; the kingdom of heaven has been prepared before the ages.’”

AMDG

Before the Cross of the Savior

Good Friday

The Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion

Is 52:13 - 53:12  The Fourth Song of the Suffering Servant.
Heb 4:14-16; 5:7-9  Let us confidently approach the throne of grace.
Jn 18:1-19:42  The Passion according to John

We place ourselves before the cross of Christ Jesus today.  We place ourselves before him on the Mount of Calvary.

As Peter said, on a different mountaintop—on the Mount of the Transfiguration—it is good for us to be here.  In fact, there is no place better.

For here all things leave off.  All our pretentions, all our illusions, all our claims—and fears—about who we are and who we are not.

Today we place ourselves before the cross of Christ Jesus and we hear, and we see, the whole judgment of God.

For we are sinners, and this is our work.  And we cannot justify ourselves now.

For we are like Peter, the one who denied him.  And we are like Judas, the one who betrayed.  And we are like the other friends, who fled or followed, at best, at a distance.  And we are like the religious authorities—the holy people—who condemn.  And like the guards who mock.  And the mighty Pilate, who knows the truth, but will not stand up for it out of fear.  We are like the crowds, who jeer or who do nothing.  There is a little bit of each of these in each of us—even in the best of us. 

We stand before the cross of Christ Jesus, condemned men and women—condemned not by God, not by Jesus, but by our own actions, by our own hard hearts.  It is we who have so often refused to believe, to trust, to step into the light of truth God pleads for us to enter, refusing to step into the lives he begs for us to live—lives of mercy and compassion, full of grace and truth.

Many of us object: How could a good and loving God do this to his own beloved Son?  And we find ourselves condemned by our hypocrisy.  For it is not God who condemned this Son, but humanity—men and women like us—we condemned.

And so we place ourselves before the cross of Christ, sinners—without justification, without righteousness, without excuse.  And we hear and see God’s judgment.

His judgment is true—it cannot be otherwise.  And it is clear—nothing could be clearer. 

“It is finished,” he says.  Tetelestai, in the Greek that John wrote, a word meaning “the bond is canceled…the debt is paid."

What he has chosen to do with us is to accept us, to accept us as his own, and to give his life for us, for he does not want our death.  And so we are also like Barabbas, the insurrectionist and the murderer, who finds himself suddenly freed from his cross, his place on Calvary taken by an innocent man.

My sisters and brothers, we stand before the cross of Christ, and nothing could be clearer: God has chosen to take everything we give—all our hatreds, all our denials, all our betrayals, all the crosses that we lay too easily on one another and ourselves—God has chosen to take them all upon himself.  And there is nothing now we can do to change that.

There is only a question—a question for each of us to think and pray and ponder on this day, through all our hard-won days.  The Lord says to each of us: “I have set you free, as free as Lazarus from the tomb, for I love you, and I have no desire for your death, but for the Father’s glory—God’s glory for you—his glory for us all, the glory he planned for us before the world began.  Now what will you do?  My sister…my brother…what do you want to do?

AMDG

The Seven Last Words of Jesus Christ on the Cross

Good Friday

The first word: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

You know, we have heard these words so often that it is really to forget their real significance, what they cost Jesus.  It is helpful simply to remember the context of this gentle—perhaps too gentle—prayer.  They—the religious authorities, the temple guard, the Romans, have beaten and mocked him.  He has been publicly humiliated in a long winding walk through the center of the city to its gate, carrying a cross.  He has been stripped absolutely naked—the loincloth Jesus always wears in our artistic representations was not there—and he is nailed to a cross.  And he absolves them of it all.

But the problem is—I don’t know about you, but I know for myself—all too often I do know what I am doing, exactly what I am doing.  Oh, I will grant that many of my sins are spontaneous—spontaneous moments of anger or pride or whatever—but I know.  And I know that I don’t have to give into the temptations—the temptations of instant justification, or instant gratification, or instant results—I know.  And I suspect that I am not alone in this.  I’m actually pretty good at knowing right from wrong when I don’t hide from that knowledge.

And yet this is Jesus’ prayer for me, for all of us…Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.

In it, we are brought to the truth, humbled before it.  We cannot pretend anymore.  This humble man’s humble prayer shames us, and rightly, to bow before the very forgiveness we need, to bow before a compassion we could never dare ask for ourselves, before a love we do not—and cannot—deserve.

But Jesus knows this…he knows that one of the worst things about sin is that it entraps us in our shame, our guilt, our pride.  His prayer may seem foolish in the light of the creatures we are—creatures who deny and betray, creatures who mock and flog, who humiliate and strip the simple human dignity of others away, people who crucify others for crimes of which they may well be innocent, or at least often enough for crimes much less serious than our own.  People who are all too knowledgeable in the evils we commit, and who can even enjoy them.  But his foolishness is the foolishness of the Father, which is greater far than our cynical wisdom.

For the Father is not interested in the truth of the proposition, he is not interested in our cynical self-knowledge.  His interested is only that we should know his love.

It is a love we cannot repay, a forgiveness we have not—and can never—earn.  Real love.  And he humbles himself before us to beg us to accept it.

The second word: Amen, I say to you, today you shall be with me in Paradise.

How then can we accept this love?  A thief shows us the way. 

We know from the Gospels that Jesus was condemned to die as a criminal among criminals.  But the evangelist Luke tells us a marvelous tale.  For as the crowds heaped abuse on Jesus, calling out in mock that he should show himself to be the Messiah now, that he should come down from that cross and save himself, and even as one of the criminals joins in the jeering, the other comes to a realization.  “We are just getting what we deserve,” he says to the other, “But he, he has done nothing wrong.”  It must be that a realization is growing in his breast, a realization that his own life—whatever it was worth—is coming to an end, and in the worst way.  And yet that he was not alone there on that cross, that somehow the power of goodness and truth and love is there with him.  It was not in the crowd, not in the other thief.  And through his own suffering, which, by the way, would have differed little from Jesus’ suffering, he sees who Jesus is.  There is no explanation for it in the same way that there is no explanation for that moment when Peter finally caught the truth of Jesus—when Jesus asked: Who do you say that I am, and Peter, reflecting on all that he had seen and heard, says what is impossible to say—you, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.  It is, make no mistake about it, a moment of grace.  But it is also a moment of accepting that grace, and this is what the thief does.  There on the cross, naked, humiliated, and dying for his guilt, he makes a fool of himself before everyone save one: Jesus, he says to a condemned and dying man, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

And that one hears in the way that only God can hear and speaks these words that only God can speak; today you will be with me in paradise.

We are shown the way by a thief, no...two thieves in fact.   For the one, who was not a good man, shows us the way to repentance—the repentance that comes from accepting the grace.  And the other—the thief who has stolen our cross—a cross we have so deserved, who has robbed us of condemnation and death—he shows us the way to forgive.  He says to us all, if we are willing to hear: Amen I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise. 

The third word: Woman, behold your son.  Behold your mother.

Alone among the Gospels, John reports the presence of Mary, his mother, at his crucifixion, not far away like his other friends, but close enough to hear his voice, close enough to share his suffering.  Who is this woman?

She is remembered in the Gospels, particularly the Gospel of Luke, as a woman of faith.  She says to the angel Gabriel at the Annunciation “Let it be done to me according to your word.”  When she put that faith to work and traveled the long way from Nazareth to the hill country of Judea, near Jerusalem, Elizabeth, seeing her from the distance and feeling her own child leap for joy in her womb cried out to her, “Blessed are you among woman, and blessed is the fruit of your womb…blessed is she who trusted that the Lord’s word would be fulfilled.  Her response is a humble one:

My soul—my very being—proclaims the greatness of the Lord,

my spirit rejoices in God my Savior;

he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed;

the Almighty has done great things for me and holy is his name.

 It was she who said to her son, at the wedding feast at Cana, “They have no wine.”  It was she who said to the servants there, “Do what ever he tells you.”  How did this woman have such great faith, and what becomes of her faith now?

Mary is different from us in perhaps only one way: she knew the truth that we too often forget: she understood how much God loved her—as a friend of mine put it quite simply, that God loved her “to bits.”  And she trusted that love.  And whereas we often try to find love, or to make God or others love us, she simply lived out of that love.  We often think of Mary’s acceptance of the angel’s message as an act of faith, but after the angel left, she was left to give birth to that boy, to raise him as best she could, to lose a husband along the way, to watch her son go off on a mission which was the expression of everything she trusted, but far beyond her comprehension.

It is this faith that brings her to her son’s cross.

Where is the angel’s greeting now?  Where the blessing of Elizabeth?  And where now those fair words: My soul—my very being—proclaims the greatness of the Lord…

Mary could not have foreseen this, but she was a woman of faith—faith, which as St. Paul reminds us, is a trust in things unseen, not in the self-evident.  This is Mary’s faith.  Somehow she understood that this too was a sign of God’s love for her, for us all.  It did not make it a whit easier.  But she understood and she trusted.  It is why she alone could be at the side of her son.

It is for this reason that Jesus asks his mother to take in the beloved disciple as her own child—so that he might have her faith.  It is for this reason that he asks the beloved disciple to take in his mother, so that he might have the faith he lacks.  It is for this reason she is given to us.  For Jesus knew what she understood; she had taught her Son the very truth of the love of God for humanity—for you and me—from the moment of his conception, and she had lived out of that love, trusting it even in the face of every challenge that life offered, even the death of the Son she had accepted as God’s gift.  Her faith is the true faith of Abraham, the trust of the Lord who alone can create that which has never been, and who can raise even the dead to new life.  It is the faith that our first parents, Adam and Eve, who could not trust God, lacked.  And it is the faith we need.

And so Jesus gives her to us—to us men and women of little faith, sometimes even of bad faith.  That we might learn what God’s love truly is .  And so he entrusts us to her.  That we might have her faith as our own.

The fourth word: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

It is too easy for us to pietize Jesus’ death, to say, “Well, since he knew what was going to happen, at least he could count on that.”  After all, he was God’s son, wasn’t he?  Ironic, isn’t it, for we add our own mock to his crucifixion.

He means these words:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

The translations of Matthew and Mark tell us that Jesus cried this out in a loud voice.  The actual word is screamed.  Jesus screamed this.

We cannot underestimate the truth of his suffering—the physical suffering, assuredly, but even more the mental, the psychological, the spiritual suffering.  Our faith tells us that Jesus suffered for our sins.  But even more than that, he precisely suffered our sins.

And what do those sins do but deny the love of God to one another and to ourselves.  To deny to one another the love that every human being needs, just to get through the day.

Jesus faced death as each of us will…alone.  But more than that, he had been assaulted in a way that few of us will ever know—and God save us if we ever have to.

Mocked and broken, every human dignity stripped away, even stripped of the simple modesty of clothing, he was left by the roadside to be jeered at, as a joke.  All the signs of his Father’s love—the support of friends and family, the affection of the people whose lives he touched, the joy in the simple beauties of this world—all had been taken away, and not merely stripped away but replaced with hatred, contempt, and humiliation.   Above his head they posted a notice--a gibe--Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.

There is only faith now…faith in that which is truly unseen.  Faith in life when death triumphs, faith in love when there is none, faith in the goodness of God when all the evil that humanity can devise is operative.

Did Jesus know what would happen next?  Yes, he knew that he would die.

Yet, though this cry—this scream—sounds so much like the despair it approaches, it indicates the deep faith that Jesus still had…the great trust that he placed in his Father. 

Yes, his Father had led him here.  Yes, it was going to end here.  Yes, it was unspeakable.  But in Jesus own words, that Father—the Father whom he trusted, the Father he called Abba, the Father he thanked the night before, the Father he prayed to, the Father whose will he longed to accomplish—that Father is still his God.  Everything is gone—even the merest hint of his Father’s presence—but he is still Jesus’ God.  And Jesus would have no other.  So Jesus gives his life for the first of God’s commandments.  And in the face of all despair he prays 22nd Psalm, which begins:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

and which ends in the praise of his Father, his God and ours.    

      
The fifth word: I thirst.

One of the cruelest and most calculated effects of crucifixion, the medical experts of the ancient world and even of our own day tell us is simple dehydration.  The body, lacking water, begins to cannibalize itself in search of it.  The pain is excruciating, far beyond anything that we can imagine, far beyond what I can describe. 

Jesus had been beaten and flogged.  He has received not so much as a drop of water since his arrest.  He has quite nearly bled out.  He is gasping for air, and the air that he can gasp parches his already parched body.  Each exhalation depletes him further; each drop of blood drains him.

It is an ironic end for this preacher who promised a woman at a well a spring of living water, who said that anyone who offered so much as a cup of cold water to one in need would have eternal life, who had cried out to the crowd gathered in Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles:

Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink.

Whoever believes in me, as scripture says:

‘Rivers of living water will flow from within him.’

An ironic end for the one who supplied the best wine in abundance at the wedding feast at Cana.

When they give him to drink, Mark mentions a drugged wine…a cruel joke that will make the crucified one’s death slower and more excruciating.  John mentions just wine…maybe a small gesture of kindness at the end.  But John says that it is not about thirst, anymore…it is now about the fulfillment of scripture.  Indeed, the psalms are full of references to the thirst of God’s servant, most notably Psalm 22:

Parched as burnt clay is my throat,

my tongue cleaves to my jaws.

Many dogs have surrounded me,

a band of the wicked beset me.

They tear holes in my hands and my feet

and lay me in the dust of death.

I can count every one of my bones.

These people stare at me and gloat;

they divide my clothing among them.

They cast lots for my robe.

But it is also the fulfillment of the Beatitude:  Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

for they will be satisfied.

Jesus thirsts, but not for anything that water can provide now.  He thirsts for the Father’s will.  He thirsts for the fulfillment of that will.  He thirsts for our righteousness—the righteousness we cannot attain on our own.  He thirsts on our behalf.  He thirsts for us.

The sixth word: It is finished.

Jesus knows that death is near.  He has given his all.  And he can see the end.  It is finished, done with over. 

But the words he speaks are not the words of a slave who is done for the day.  They are the words of the man who has done what had to be done, who has accomplished everything that needed to be done, who has perfected that which was incomplete. 

Jesus has done the Father’s will.  He has drunken cup to its dregs.  He has made himself one with us, even to death.  Even to the grave.

These are not the words of a slave, but of a champion.  Jesus has triumphed over the temptations—the worst ones—the temptation to run away from the lives God has asked us to live, the temptation to do his own will, the temptation to forget that his life is God’s gift, the temptation to despair—all the temptations to which we are prey to. 

These are not the words of a slave, but of the Master.  The Greek—tetelestai—was inscribed at the bottom of a bill that had been paid.  Only the Master, only the Lord of the house can cancel the debt.  And now he has.

The Latin is consummatum est—it is consummated.  Perhaps like a marriage.  God has joined himself completely—perfectly—to our humanity.  These are the words of Love itself.

It is the voice of a King, a King who has declared that the war is ended, that now there shall be peace between us and Him.

It is the voice of our God, the God who judged creation very good, the God who has disfigured himself that we might look like him again, for ever.  It was indeed good, but now it is complete.

It is finished.

The seventh word: Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.

And so Jesus entrusts his life, his death, his all, to the Father.  He was condemned as a criminal, as an evil doer, and a blasphemer.  But he entrusts himself to God, his sole judge.  With these last words.

But it is funny, isn’t it, that these were not just the last words that Jesus spoke, but the words of his whole life.  We see these words in action at his baptism, when he who was sinless put his life at the mercy of his Father to join himself completely to humanity.  We see it in the temptation when he resolutely refused to trust his own powers and status as the Son of God, but insisted in on the humble and obedient status of a son of humanity…

We see it in the humble trusting prayer he taught his disciples…the prayer he prayed for himself, for them, for us...

Father, hallowed be thy name…

thy kingdom come…

thy will be done…

on earth—in me—as it is in heaven.

No, these are not Jesus’ last words…

They are his first words

They are his always words

And he invites us to take them as our own now.

For he knows that the Father is trustworthy…he knows know in a way that we must still believe.

And if we will believe with him his promise is that we shall enjoy that which he so longed for:

the vindication that only the Father can bestow.

Amen.

AMDG

The Mystery We Celebrate

Holy Thursday

Ex 12:1-8, 11-14: The Passover of the Lord.

1 Cor 11:23-26: "Do this in remembrance of me."

Jn 13: 1-15: He washed his disciples feet.

You’ll pardon me half a moment before I actually begin this entry, but as some of you know, for priests, especially for diocesan priests, Holy Thursday is a very special feast—it is the feast of the priesthood of Jesus—Jesus, from whom we priests receive our priesthood.  And I want to take just a half moment to say to my brother priests, first, thank you for what you do the people Christ has placed in your care.  And secondly to remind us all of the central line from the Instruction that we priests each heard on the day of our priestly ordination, namely, Imitate the mystery you celebrate.  As we celebrate that mystery again in these days, may Christ Jesus ever renew that mystery in your hearts and in your actions.

Do you realize what I have done for you?

You know, one of the things that consistently amazes me about Jesus is his incredible sense of humor—I know that that seems like a really odd way to begin a homily on this sacred evening of this most sacred Triduum—but really, the question is so funny when you think about it…”Do you realize what I have done for you?” Jesus asks.  And the answer is so obvious…so very obvious…No, they don’t have a clue….not a clue.  We see this in the reactions of the disciples.  You can imagine the very awkward silence as Jesus gets up from the table, strips himself down to the garb of a slave, takes a basin from an astonished waiter, and kneels before them one by one, and proceeds to wash their feet.  Peter gives voice to it, but I am absolutely sure that no one in the room knew what to make of this.  “Wash my feet?” Peter cries “Absolutely not!”  And when Jesus tries to explain, Peter gets it wrong again…Peter is great!

I mention this up front because I find it very consoling…Peter and the rest of the disciples have no clue what Jesus is about.  And they’re a lot like me, a lot like many of us, I suspect…good people, or at least people who hope to be good people…who don’t necessarily get it right on the first bounce, and sometimes not even on the second…Okay, well sometimes not even on the third either.  And yet, Jesus does not seem troubled by that at all.  He won’t wash Peter’s feet without Peter’s permission, of course, but the fact that Peter has no clue doesn’t seem to bother him.  Nor the fact that the other disciples are at least as clueless as Peter.  And there is no mention that he is at all upset as he washes Judas’ feet.  No, Jesus does not need for them to “get it.”  But he wants very much to wash their feet for them, and he hopes very much that they will receive this gesture from him.  For, as he explains it to them, it is an example, given out of love, to them: "If I, the master and teacher have washed your feet," He says, "you ought to wash one another's feet.  I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done, you should also do."  And we know that that is true.

Now, we all know that it is not about foot washing, don’t we?  Because what Jesus does for his disciples is not just a nice story for us to imitate; it’s really so much more—it’s a parable, as it were, of what his whole life for us is about—as St. Paul puts it in the Letter to the Philippians:

Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. 

Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave,

coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance,

he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.

That God places his own life at the service of us.  And let us be clear, what he does is not more pleasant because he is God.  It is no easier for Jesus to clean those feet, no less embarrassing, no less humbling than it would be for any of us, or for the lowest slave…any of us who have looked after a sick friend or an aging parent knows how awful it can actually be.  And it is no less so for Jesus in this scene.  But he does not turn his nose up at it…and that really is the point….God does not turn his nose up at us, no matter how filthy we are…no matter that we don’t get it…no matter that we will deny him, betray him, and abandon him.  For like Peter and Judas and these other friends of Jesus, we all do.  But God does not judge us for any of that; rather, he tries….tries very hard sometimes, I imagine…to love us….to be hospitable to us, as Jesus is, so movingly in this scene we hear about tonight…to be compassionate toward us.  And that is what we celebrate this night, that is why we give thanks…for God’s great compassion, God’s incredible hospitality, God’s love which is beyond words…love which can finally only be shown in deeds—and very definitive deeds, at that. 

And this is true not only of Christ washing his disciples’ feet, it is even more true of what follows when he offers them his body and blood.  And even more true in what follows that, when he takes up his cross, and literally lays down his life for his friends….for those disciples, for all of us.

Do you realize what I have done for you?  Do you get it?  Do you really understand?  The truth is, for the disciples, and for us too, probably not.  But—here is the important part—it is not about “getting it”…it is not about understanding it.  It is not about theology.  No, it is about what Jesus hopes we will do now …that we will take the example and try to live it.  Not that we will recall as a historical fact that Jesus of Nazareth did these things, but that we will remember them—re-member them—bring them back to life in the way that we live.  By being willing to lay down our own lives a little bit for each other, by washing the feet of those around us—to cleanse them of the dirt and the muck of the roads they have to walk…by offering our body and our blood for them—giving them our time and our effort—giving a little bit of our life.  By loving these other sisters and brothers of Jesus, even when they don’t get it, even when they don’t deserve it, even when they will deny him or betray him or abandon him, even when they will deny and betray and abandon us—for we have all been there—to treat them with the same compassion and hospitality he has shown us, even when—especially when—we have not deserved it.  For he did not turn his nose up at us.

And, let me be very clear; this is not just some pleasant interpretation of the readings, something to make us feel better about ourselves, about Jesus, about the cross.  No, it is really Christ’s command to us.  We are to do this in remembrance of him.  And we are to make his love real. 

I mention this because many people in our world claim that faith is a private matter, that doing good is a nice thing, but that what really counts is what’s in the heart, that religion has no place imposing itself on the rest of the world.  Jesus’ question—“Do you realize what I have done for you?”—is asked with great patience, great compassion and great love.  But Jesus really does hope we will accept his gift—the gift of his efforts on our behalf—the gift of his life laid down and his blood shed—the gift of himself.  And there is only one way to accept the gift.  It is by making it real—by realizing it—not just in our minds, but in our hearts and especially in our actions.  For that is what it means to realize something—to make it real, to make it operative in the way we think, in the way we give our hearts, in the way we act—it is then that we realize what he has done for us.  To use a really mundane example, it’s like a sweater…if someone gives you a sweater—I have six sisters, so I’m an expert on this topic—you have to wear it.  If you haven’t worn it, you haven’t accepted the gift.  The same is true of the Gospel—as Paul reminds us in the Letter to the Romans, we must put on Christ, we must make him real in our lives, we must make his love real in our actions.

And when we do these things—when we imitate the mystery we celebrate in these sacred days—we do remember him.  We remember and we become what he really hopes we will be, what we were created to be, what he calls us to be…we become what we celebrate here tonight—sacraments—the visible signs of God’s love. 

We become like him.

AMDG

The Compass

Palm Sunday
At the Procession of the Palms
Luke 19:28-40; "If they keep silent, the stones will cry out!"
At Mass
Isaiah 50:4-7: A Song of the Suffering Servant
Philippians 2:6-11: He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave.
Luke 22:14 - 23:56: "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do."

When I began this blog seven weeks ago, it never occurred to me how hard it would be...

I don't say that for the sake of pity.  It is just that the Gospel is a really hard thing when you actually try to make sense of it, when you actually try to pray it.  And for Jesus, how hard it must have been to live it.

For that is what he did: he lived the Good News.  With all his heart and soul and mind and strength.

We get a sense of that in the contrast between the two moments of the Gospel we hear this Sunday.  We begin with the glorious spring morning when Jesus arrives in Jerusalem to the Song of Ascents, typically sung by pilgrims as they arrived in the Holy City.  And though the people and the disciples are convinced that "this is it," no one--with the exception of Jesus--gets the irony: this is indeed it!  And how hard it must have been for him to accept their genuine rejoicing, their genuine praise, knowing that it would not last.  In a few short days he will leave the Holy City, again accompanied by a crowd and shouts and yells, but this time the shouts and yells of a jeering mob and of Roman soldiers.  And that is the second scene we encounter this morning.

It is the whole compass of human experience, wrapped into one short week.  Triumph and disappointment, welcome and rejection, rejoicing and mourning, friendship and betrayal, gentleness and cruelty, love and hate, life in all its joy and death in all its finality.

During the course of Holy Week we will encounter in the Gospels of the Mass all these in what seems a maelstrom swirling about Jesus, all in the context of the Passover:

• On Monday, Mary will anoint his feet and Judas will reject him; 

• On Tuesday Jesus will share his heartbreak with his disciples, who love him, and one will walk out the door, a sign to Jesus of his Father's call to glory; 

• On Spy Wednesday, Judas will sell him out cheap, and they will celebrate the Passover;

• On Holy Thursday, Jesus makes himself their slave;

• On Good Friday he will offer himself as their Pascal Lamb.

It is overwhelming in its emotional weight.  But even if we were to treat this simply as a story, for all the remarkable ironies, for all the emotional valence, what is most remarkable is the main character.  Throughout the action, he alone remains steady, true to who he is, true to what he is about.  Plots, treacheries, and defeats pile up in front of him, but he continues in his work.  The darkness grows about him, but he remains light.  Each of the major characters fudges, temporizes, denies and betrays everything he holds dear, but Jesus, if anything, becomes more and more truly who he is.  He is simply and consistently Jesus, the true Son of his heavenly Father.  And he simply and consistently continues to do his Father's will, what he has always been about (Luke 2:49).

Luke is remarkably clear about this as Jesus steers his course through all the shifts.  His mien is, from beginning to end, marked with all of God's compassion.  It is this, not vanity, that marks his reply to the Pharisees who complain about the Hosannas his disciples raise.  It is compassion that draws him to this final Passover with his friends, that allows him to open his heart to them, that even allows him to pity the one will betray him and the one who will deny him.

Hence we find the most remarkable gestures as he makes his way along, gestures so in keeping with his character, so much so that we are not surprised.  He heals the wounded servant's ear; he turns without bitterness to Peter as the cock crows; he responds with gentle insistence to his inquisitors; he does not revile his persecutors.

The singularity of his purpose--his purity of heart--grows, quite in contrast to the mendacity of the chief priests, the fickleness of Herod the great king, the squirming of the powerful Pilate.  They, the seeming winners of this contest, look foolish as he takes up the opprobrium they lay upon him.  He wears their contempt in the mocks and the blows and the spittle and the wounds they bestow upon him, but he is not made the less by them.

It comes to a crisis: as the nails are driven into his wrists, there is no cry of anguish but rather the most remarkable prayer: Father, forgive them, they do not know what they do.

As the crowd swirls around him, he alone remains fixed in place.  Come down from that cross and save yourself, they cry.  But he remains on the cross, unselfish to the end, to save us.

And to the very end, he points the true direction of it all.  

A common criminal accepts him; he is greeted as the prodigal son is greeted (Luke 15:22-24). 

The darkness grows unbearable; Jesus places his life completely, resolutely, in a quite final way into his Father's hands.  It was what he had been doing all along.  Now it is clear where it leads.

His is the very steadfastness of his Father, a faithfulness to who he is--even as the Lord explained himself to Moses: "The LORD, the LORD, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity, continuing his kindness for a thousand generations, and forgiving wickedness and crime and sin..." (Exodus 34:6-7a).

It is interesting, is it not, that the first words that he says to Peter in the Gospel of Mark, according to the scholars probably the first of the Gospels to be written down, are "Follow me"  (Mark 1:17).  And the last words he speaks in the Gospel of John, according to the scholars probably the last of the Gospels to be written down, are "Follow me" (John 21:22).  The messages never falters.  Peter does, but the Word does not!  We do--sometimes often--but the Word does not!

He is the compass.  He is true to the point.  He shows us the way to true life, to life eternal.  Even through the maelstrom.

It is hard to accept, even today.  Perhaps harder.  I recently read an article about some who claim that the line "Father, forgive them, for they know no what they do" should be expunged from the Gospel of Luke.  In truth, the scholars acknowledge that it is a matter of controversy (Luke 23:34a, and note 5).  But it is so consistent with the character of Jesus.  For the truth is that all too frequently, we--we, the hard hearted, the manipulative, the Pharisees and Sadducees, the scribes--we know exactly what we are doing, but the Son of God leaves us totally disarmed; God knows more!  This judgment of God is not mushy, not weak, not sentimental; it is the foolishness of God that is wiser than all the wisdom of men and women (1 Cor 1:25).

And we too live in the maelstrom.  We have all read the reports from the great authorities of journalism--the New York Times, the BBC, the AP--who never hesitate to remind us how messy things can be, who never hesitate to question anyone or anything that tries point to a greater truth, especially if the person or the thing or the institution does not seem able bear the weight of the truth itself.  It is overwhelming, confusing, brutal, disheartening.  And that is even before we consider how messy, how confusing, how sinful our personal lives can become.  And yet the Truth remains--greater than anyone of us indeed, greater than any crisis we, our world, even our church can face--still always calling, still always commanding: "Follow me."

He is the compass.  His is the way.

AMDG

To Sin No More...

The Fifth Sunday of Lent
Is 43:16-21: See, I am doing something new!
Phil 3:18-24: I continue my pursuit towards the goal.
John 8:1-11: The Woman caught in Adultery.



I have said it all my life--at least all my life as I remember it:

O, my God,
I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee,
and I detest all my sins because of Thy just punishment,
but most of all because I have offended Thee, my God
who art all good and deserving of all my love.
And I firmly resolve,
with the help of Thy grace,
to sin no more,
and to avoid the near occasion of sin.
Amen.

I don't remember when I learned it but I remember when I knew enough about the world to say it tearfully as my brother and sisters and I knelt down to pray with my mother in the evening, hoping beyond hope that no one would notice my tears, and hoping beyond hope that maybe some day...just maybe...I would not get in trouble!

And later there were those confessions when, as I slipped from behind the maroon curtain, I promised myself that I would never have to confess that again!

And even now, at the end of the day, I really mean it all--to sin no more, and to avoid the near occasion of sin.  Amen!  Isn't that the point, after all?

Indeed, in the Gospel today, Jesus says to the poor woman, happily rescued by his clever response to the mob, "Go, and from now on do not sin any more."  Or as it has fallen into the popular parlance, through many translations: Go and sin no more.


What an easy, happy solution.  And as I have heard and read and contemplated and prayed over this story over the many years, how I have longed to hear those words--really hear Jesus say them to me in exactly the way that Jesus said them to that woman, standing in that awful silence before him.  For if I heard them in precisely that way, I know--I know!--that it would be over, that that prayer of my heart, which has been the prayer of my heart ever since I was a little boy, would be answered; I would indeed go and sin no more.

Well, as you may guess, it hasn't exactly happened yet.  And I wonder if that is what Jesus wants to happen.  Don't get me wrong: I am quite sure that the Lord does not want me to go back and wallow in my usuals--you know--the usual companions--pride, avarice, envy, gluttony, lust, sloth, anger--and their consequences--those sinful expressions of the deep sins.  But it is not as though I have not prayed that prayer enough.  And it is not as though I have not prayed it correctly.  And it is not that I have never prayed it--and here I hope I am not being arrogant--with at least an occasional honest note of contrition.  For I have often thought that if I had really prayed that prayer...if I had really meant my confession...if I had really been contrite...well, I wouldn't be praying it all over again, I wouldn't be slouching off to my confessor again, I wouldn't feel so bad all over again, and usually about the same things.  I suspect many of us feel that way.

Perhaps there is a deeper sin--one that I am only beginning to understand, but one which has leapt out at me a lot over the past month of Lent--the sin of believing that I could actually do this...that it would even be good for me to be able to do this.  Because, as I say to myself, if I could only get past this sin, I would never have to confess it again.  And if I never had to confess it again--and this is where the Lord seems to intervene with the truth--I would not have to keep turning back to you, my God, in such need.  As though I could then go and stop in at God's when it seemed convenient (instead of out of my usual desperation) as one might stop and see a friend, but only socially.

Isn't that the great heresy of Lent--Lent as we sometimes pursue it, not as it is meant to be celebrated!  That we will get our acts in order, our ducks in a row, the old leaven out, our souls nice and pure and our metaphors unmixed!  And then we will be fit before God, before God himself!

To what end?  So that God has to love us?  As though we could stand in front of him and say, "Here I am!  I made it!  Now love me!"

The fact is we can't, not even the best of us, as the best of us are perhaps most aware.  Wasn't it Saint Francis of Assisi who became infinitely aware of how unworthy he was of God's love even as God drew him closer and closer and closer to the mystery of His Son?  In fact, isn't that the truth of sanctity?  Not so much that that  saints make themselves lovable in God's eyes, but that they learn to accept God's love as the real gift that it is?  Isn't that what Jesus did in his life, even accepting the end of his life with gratitude and thanksgiving to the Father who had loved him so marvelously through it all.  Isn't that the story of Mary, who accepted a mystery into her life that was far beyond her ken, that indeed would pierce her heart, but which was the very expression of God's love for her.  And good St. Joseph, too, who took the child in with his mother, and gave him a place in his home, and a name, and a birthright, and even a place in his heart?

No, we cannot make God love us, no matter how much we perfect ourselves.  We can only grow in our acceptance of the fact that He already does love us, far beyond our wildest imaginings.  And we can try to live out of that, trusting that He will be faithful to His love for us, far more faithful that we will ever be to our best intentions.

That is hard to admit, especially for a perfectionist like myself.  It would be so much better, I think to myself, to have it all in order.  And yet it wouldn't be; I can trust that because God, in His mysterious, infinite, yet always loving wisdom, simply has not given me the power to be perfect...not in that way, at least.

St Paul reminds us that it is not our righteousness that will save us, for in truth we have none.  Rather, it is the righteousness of God, and having faith in that righteousness, even when we know that what we have done is perhaps impardonable; that is what is necessary for our salvation.  If it were not, then God would have left us to save ourselves; it would have been possible.

And so for now, I have to stand before my God and admit the hard too-true truth that I don't have it all together, that I am still a sinner, and that many of my sins are the same ones that I have struggled with all my life.  And I have to trust once again that God knows that about me, and that his love is still much larger than any and all of my sins, larger even than my sinfulness.  It is not a pleasant place to stand, sort of like that awful moment of silence when the poor woman stands before the silent Jesus.

It may be that he is still writing in the sand.  It may be that he wants me to read what he is writing.  It may be that he is waiting for me to drop my stone too, the one that I so often grab to throw at others, and frequently that I grab to use on myself.  But if I can but stand there in the truth--the truth that he actually already knows and that he has already forgiven in the giving of his life for us--if I can but stand there yet a while again and let him judge in his good time, then I shall hear those words: I do not condemn you.  Go and sin no more.

There is a wonderful poem by John Donne that I recall every once in a while, and that it is always good to read; it is as good a way as any to end this entry.

Holy Sonnet VII

At the round earth's imagined corners blow

Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go.
All whom the flood did, and fire shall o'erthrow,
All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies,
Despair, law, chance, hath slain, and you whose eyes
Shall behold God, and never taste death's woe.

But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space,
For, if above all these my sins abound,
'Tis late to ask abundance of Thy grace,
When we are there. Here on this lowly ground
Teach me how to repent; for that's as good
As if Thou hadst seal'd my pardon with Thy blood.

AMDG

Choosing Foolishness

Laetare Sunday

Joshua 5: 9a, 10-12: "I have removed the reproach of Egypt from you."
2 Cor 5: 17-21: Be reconciled to God!
Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32: "But now we must celebrate and rejoice.."

(I am very grateful to Barry Sons, and to Chris and Linda Booker--the owners of the painting--for permission to use his painting "Waiting for the Prodigal Son" in the blog this week.  I would encourage you to visit the site to see this work, and Mr. Sons' other work.)


If you run "the prodigal son" on Google images, the results are amazing: about 621,000 images in 0.22 seconds.  I have to admit that I barely remember, though we are all at home with Google now--I can barely remember the cyber-world without it!--that I am still in awe of such results.  Anyhow, not only is the quantity impressive, but the array is as well.  Most, of course, are renderings of the moment we most immediately remember: the great reunion...the son humbling himself before the father...the father bowed down to raise the son up to himself.  I would estimate, just from a flip through the first couple of pages of results, that the most common image is the Rembrandt, as well it might be; it is beautiful.  But the problem with most of the images is the problem with the story: they are so familiar...too familiar.  I read the story and I know it so well that I miss the good news.  And that is sad, for it really is good news!

Among the many images, however, there is one that is truly different: Barry Sons' "Waiting for the Prodigal Son."  It is striking in its simplicity--a slightly abstracted, somewhat impressionist landscape.  A road runs into an autumning landscape to a misty horizon.  It is morning, or evening, or sometime in between.  There is no one on that road.  There is no hint there ever will be.

Since I first spotted this painting, I have been thinking a lot about who's view this might be;it is most likely the father's of course, but it could be the son's--either of them.  For each of these characters has an experience of waiting in the story.  And the painting looks so different through each set of eyes.  The empty road holds a brightness, perhaps, for the father, though one cannot ignore the passing of time, the falling of each leaf. It holds a question for the younger son: there is an end to his journey hidden in that mist, and it was perhaps spring when he first set out.  And there is a gathering of consequences for the elder one, an already troubling problem: what to do when that one returns?

But I am convinced that these were the only eyes for whom the scene was painted.


There are, after all, our eyes--mine and yours.  How we look down that road says so much about us, so much about how we receive this story...how we will really receive this story.  We all know how the story is supposed to end, but it is so much up to us to bring it to the conclusion that Jesus asks of us.  We are the ones who have to make the story real, the ones who have to look down that road and deal with the issues--our issues.

The setting of this story in the Gospel of Luke is critical to our understanding what the Lord is really asking of us.  The scribes and the Pharisees again condemn Jesus for hanging out with tax collectors and sinners.  So he tells them not one, but three parables, each familiar to our ears: the Parable of the Lost Sheep, the Parable of the Lost Coin, and the Parable of the Prodigal Son.  But the first two stories begin with explicit questions: What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it? and : Or what woman having ten coins and losing one would not light a lamp and sweep the house searching carefully until she finds it?

The truth is that none of us would waste our time on these fruitless tasks.  The foolish shepherd would lose all his sheep to save the dumb one who didn't know enough to stay with the flock.  The foolish woman would waste all her time to find the coin, and then spend so much more again to entertain her friends.  No, the lost sheep is a nuisance, and lost coins generally turn up.  It is not so much that we would be well rid of them, it is just that they are not worth that sort of time and effort.

It is only when we admit what our true answers would be that the Parable of the Prodigal Son begins to challenge us; when we admit our own hard and calculated responses we learn that the parable is more the story of a miracle than a fable.

The truth is that the Prodigal has left, and there is no hope of his returning.  That road is so empty.  And yet, the old man, getting older with each day, with each falling leaf, through hours unending, watches.

The truth is that an empty road stands before the Prodigal, asking him to journey on it, trusting as best he can, an unseen outcome.

The truth is that there is a lost brother out there somewhere, and everything will depend on how the elder child--the righteous one--receives the Prodigal.

We are each of these characters.  And we--we alone--have the power to make Jesus' story real.

For only when we look down that road with loving, compassionate yearning, can the Prodigal come home.

And only when we look up that road with trust--real trust, not the I-already-know-the-end-of-the-story trust, which is not trust at all--with the trust that tells us the truth about ourselves--that we are the prodigal, that we do not deserve what we are asking, no matter how good and manipulative our little pre-prepared speeches are--that the father can receive us.

And only when we face the hard decision that we have to make--the real and consequential choice that we can keep this sin alive forever or we can walk into the banquet and rejoice in the return of the sinner--well, it is just that simple.

And each one of those choices is foolish, utterly foolish.  As foolish as leaving ninety-nine sheep to save one.  As foolish as wasting time and effort to find a coin and then squander everything to celebrate the finding.  Everyone knows the answers: that Prodigal should be dead to the father, at least as a son; the Prodigal should get on with his life, either to find his own success or whatever; and the elder brother should tell that doddering fool of a father what he really thinks--he is right, after all.

And the frightening truth--which is the only context in which to understand the Gospel--the Good News--is that God chooses none of these sensible, responsible alternatives.  God chooses foolishness.

And he asks us to do exactly the same.

Only in choosing foolishly to look for the lost sheep and the lost coin, to wait for the Prodigal who will never return, to go up the road to face the truth about ourselves, to go into that feast over all our correct objections--only in choosing these do we take the first steps on our own journey home. Home, indeed, with a sad hard truth: I have sinned against heaven and against you.  I no longer deserve to be called your son, your daughter...a truth, which peculiarly sets us free (John 8:32), free at last to face the truth about ourselves, free at last to go home.

Home to a Father who awaits us.

Home to a Father whom we have come to resemble in the choices we make.

Home to a Father for whom the party will never begin until we are all there...all of us.

AMDG

The Good Gardener

The Third Sunday of Lent

Ex 3:1-8a, 13-15: I AM sent me to you.
1 Cor 10:1-6, 10-12: We should take care that we do not fall.
Lk 13:1-9: The Parable of the Fig Tree




Liturgists are funny guys: you gotta wonder what they're thinking sometimes when they put together the readings for any given Sunday.

Today, the Third Sunday in Lent, Year C, is one of those times.

At least on the face of it, the common theme is trees.  Okay, so maybe a bush and a tree, but you get the point.  Moses finds a burning bush.  Jesus discusses a fig tree.  Plant life.  Botany.  Is this like a freshman bio joke.?

But the stories in themselves are interesting...the parts that aren't really about trees.  For instance, when Moses find the burning bush, he's attracted to it.  And when he gets close enough, God tells him to take his shoes off.  Weird.  But there's something significant about that.  God, of course, is the original Holy of Holies.  Wouldn't someone who was really holy turn his nose up at something that was not-so-holy.  And Moses is certainly not-so-holy; he's a virtual Egyptian, after all, and one who's done murder--even the Egyptians won't have him!  But God puts a burning bush out there as though he wants Moses to come close.  And when he gets too close, God tells him to take his shoes off as though he wants real, direct contact with Moses.  I know that in the Middle East of the day, you removed your shoes when you came into someone's home; you didn't want to carry the dirt and the dung of the road inside.  But I am struck by the thought that God is not afraid of this direct contact with Moses, and with his feet, for heaven's sake! It's almost as though God wants his holiness to soak into Moses from the very ground he treads, as though God wants Moses to be rooted in his holiness as the bush is in the ground.  As though God wants Moses, like the burning bush, to catch fire with his holiness.

The other thing that is striking is about God's name: I AM WHO AM is the traditional translation.  It is this God who is always present, in a permanent state of the present tense.  No past.  No future.  Always present.  Present to Moses.  Present to the Israelites far off in Egypt, stuck in their slavery, for whom God is but memory--the God of the ancestors.

The Gospel is interesting in the same weird ways: Jesus tells the story of a vineyard owner who has a fig tree in his vineyard (weird place for a fig tree!)  He looks for fruit and finds none, so he prepares to cut the tree down; after all, it is just wasting the soil and using up space.  But his servant says no, give the tree some time.  He'll work on it, he says, and fertilize it.  And then, well...maybe next year, like the eternal Brooklyn Dodgers fan.

Now many of us immediately assume that there is an easy allegorical interpretation to this story: we are the fig tree, God wants us to bear fruit and we don't so God is angry, but Jesus cuts us a break.  But if we read the whole passage--all that stuff about the Galileans slaughtered by Herod and the victims of the Siloam tower collapse--we might get a glimmer of something more.  Because the people who tell Jesus about the massacre of the Galileans by Herod assume that there was something wrong with their sacrifice; they assume that God must have been really, really angry with those Galileans.  But Jesus says that doesn't make sense.  They were killed by Herod, not by God.  And the people killed by the tower's fall...they were killed by falling bricks and morter and the laws of gravity.  God has nothing to do with it.  But then he warns them that they have to repent, or they too will perish.

Weird.  Again, weird.

But what does it mean to repent?  We all know (or think we know) that repent means turning back to God (it does) and perhaps doing hard things, like giving something up during Lent (it can).  But at its root, one of the things repent means is to rethink--to rethink ourselves and our ways, to rethink who God really is, and to rethink our relationship with God.  And certainly that is one of the things Jesus needs for these people to do, for just like the scribes and the Pharisees, they have passed a harsh judgment--a harsh judgment about the people caught in these tragedies, and also a pretty harsh judgment about God.

If we look at the Parable of the Fig Tree in this context, the roles suddenly change.  We are the ones who are disappointed, we are the ones who make the harsh judgment: Cut it down!  It's a waste of time and space and good soil and effort.  Enough already.  How often do find that attitude in ourselves?  We sometimes say that about others, we say that about situations, and most hauntingly, we sometimes say that about ourselves.  How many times do we look inward and see how little has changed in us?  How many times are we tempted to give up, to let go of our best hopes about ourselves because we know--we know!--they will never be realized?  But it is God who says, very concretely in his son's life with and for us: No, let's give it another season.  Let's give it another try, and see what happens.  And then it is God who works like crazy, who gives his own sweat and blood and tears, to help us grow, to help us to become fruitful.

So really, both readings are really about compassion--the compassion that draws us near and holds us sacred, the compassion that hopes that we will catch fire.  The compassion that hears the our cry when we are far-off, enslaved, estranged.  The compassion that is always present if we will but turn to accept it.  The compassion that gives everything it has--all its labor, all its days which are endless, that we might be holy as he is holy.  The compassion that hopes that we will absorb him like a tree absorbs from its roots, so that we can offer the fruits of compassion to all who come to us in need.

 That's what Paul is talking to us about in Corinthians too, that we have to learn from the goodness and the generosity of God so that we don't become ungrateful, forgetful, so that we don't make God a thing of our past, but rather that we make him the center of our present.  If we can do that, our baptisms will not have been in vain, and all the work that God has done for us will not be squandered.  No, we shall reflect him, and reflecting him, become the true sons and daughters he longs to see.  We will be compassionate, even as he is compassionate.  For like every good father, God hopes to see a little bit of himself in his children.  And wehn we are compassionate, he recognizes us immediately!

One last thing that strikes me is that Jesus so often uses agricultural imagery; he grew up, after all, in a world of flocks and farms.  And so he often talks of the good earth, the weeds and the wheat, the vines, the sheep that wander.  But it is important to remember something about ourselves that I think God remembers each time he looks upon us: the parables are parables, and just that, and that we are not fig trees, or weeds, or dirt, or wheat or sheep. No, we are human, profoundly human, sometimes terribly human.  We are dust and clay indeed, but dust and clay into which God has breathed.  We may be like vines, but we are like vines connected to a root--to Jesus.  And as human beings, we can make decisions that earth and vines and weeds and wheat and sheep can never make; we can choose to be like our Father, loving, forgiving, compassionate.   And in the moment we choose so, we are changed.  And that is the fruit, a fruit so much better than a fig, that the God looks for.  And he, the good gardener, is so glorified whenever, wherever, he sees it in us.

AMDG

...that we are here!

The Second Sunday of Lent

Gn 15:5-12, 17-18: Abram put his faith in the Lord.
Phil 3:17—4:1: Our citizenship is in heaven.
Lk 9:28b-36: They saw his glory.





I am sorry: I am late with this post.

I don't know why but as I have been preparing this week's readings, I have been recalling the refrain from Carly Simon's 1971 hit "Anticipation."  Perhaps it is because she has been in the news, perhaps it is because transfiguration--the subject of the Gospel--rhymes with anticipation--the title of the song and it's most prominent word--but one way or other it runs through my head, as fresh as the 1970's Heinz Ketchup commercial:

Anticipation, anticipation
Is makin' me late
Is keepin' me waitin'

Perhaps, however, it has to do with what the Transfiguration signifies to me, to many of us.

The story is wonderful: Jesus takes Peter, James and John up the mountain with him, where he prays.  As he prays, he is transfigured: Luke specifically refers to his face changing and his clothing becoming a dazzling white.  Moses and Elijah were seen conversing with him in his glory about his exodus that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.  Peter, ever the enthusiast, blurts out: "Lord, it is good that we are here..." and proceeds to discuss his plans--his architectural plans for the site.  But the voice interrupts--the same voice we heard earlier in Luke, on the feast of the Baptism of the Lord back in January: “This is my chosen Son; listen to him.”  And then it is just Jesus, alone.  And they do not know what to say.

I don't know about you, but I would love to see Jesus this way; I would love to have been there, and I look forward to it perhaps someday.  I suspect that we all do.

Anticipation, anticipation

Is makin' me late

Is keepin' me waitin'

And of course, this is the irony--did you ever notice that there is always irony when dealing with the things of God--we've just missed the point.

There are many things that can be commented on in this story.  For instance, "the mountaintop experience" that Peter, James and John have with Jesus.  Many will point out that Peter, trying to build his booths, is trying to make that experience permanent.  A friend of mine--a wonderful evangelical Protestant who would not call me Father because "Ye have but one Father, your Father in heaven"--as she was dying of cancer said one day to me that we all love mountaintops--people always have--it's so lovely and clear on a mountaintop.  You can see forever up there.  But, she reminded me, we cannot live on the mountaintops; there is no water.  No, she said, we have to live in the valleys, where we cannot see too far and where it can be crowded and hard to move around.  But there is water in the valleys; that's where life is.  That is why God chose to come into our valleys, she said.  It was her way of reminding me about where to look for God, just before she died.

There is also the context; it is vitally important to recall what is going on the the Gospel of Luke if we are to make sense of this mystery.  Jesus has been doing wonderful ministry all over Galilee and even beyond--healing, expelling demons, even feeding thousands of people.  He is being followed by adoring masses.  His disciples have been going out and doing wonderful things in his name.  But there is a dark side at work too: the masses who follow him are the simple, the poor, the country folk, the workers; the really good people--those who actually know something about God, like the scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees--have begun to oppose him.  His cousin, John the Baptist, has been first imprisoned and then killed.  So when the disciples show some evidence of beginning to understand who he is--"The Messiah of God!" Peter exclaims when he asks them--he has to tell them the hard truth: that it is not going to be what they think it will be, that he will have to suffer and die, and that being a disciple will mean going along for that ride!  Luke does not record that story quite the way Matthew does, but there is evidence that the disciples--even Peter--do not get that.

So when Jesus goes up the mountain with Peter, James and John, my suspicion is that he wants them to know a little bit more of the truth--as much as they can--so that they will be able to hear the hard news and not be discouraged by it.  But I suspect that the Father also takes the opportunity to give Jesus something every son or daughter needs from a loving father or mother--a bit of the affirmation that any parent would give to a beloved, obedient child who is having a really tough time!  I do not think Jesus doubts his Father's love, but I do think he is struggling--even as we will see him struggle on another mountain of prayer with the same three disciples, when he faces the hardest truths of all in his prayer on the Mount of Olives, that his Father's perfect love asks of him a perfect trust, a perfect sacrifice.  So the Father speaks to the disciples for Jesus here, but I am sure it is also important to the Father that Jesus knows exactly what he thinks of him!  And I have no doubt that this  helps Jesus to go down that mountain, where the disciples still don't get it, and decide that he will go to Jerusalem--the phrasing is apt: he sets his face toward Jerusalem (Lk 9:51b, cf note 25). 

As a disciple, it is such a consolation to know that at a human level Jesus struggles with these things too!  When he asks us to trust and believe, he knows what he is asking about.  When he asks us disciples to pick up our crosses and to follow him, he is not asking it lightly.  Jesus knows, and he understands!  These things are not easy for him either.  So when we have to undertake them, we can be sure that he is with us--not against us, but really with us, for that is what his name, Emmanuel, means: God with us! (Mt 1:23).

Isn't it funny, though, that the disciples did not see the other thing that happened on the mountain; I guess they could not have.  But as they looked up and saw Jesus as he truly is, the light of his face and the brightness dazzling off his clothes, is reflected upon them.  Their own faces brighten with his brightness, their own clothing shines as in the rays of a new sun.  No wonder Peter cries out, "It is good for us to be here!"  For his glory changes them.  Granted, Peter doesn't really understand, no more than he did when he confessed his faith in Jesus' relationship to the Father just a few verses earlier in the Gospel.  It is very good that they are there, not for the reason Peter enunciates, but for what happens to them there.

Remember what my friend said about mountains?  Well, Jesus takes them back down into the valley.  The valley full of life and all its problems, where things are not so clear and easy.  Because there is work to be done, God's own work!

But you know, what the disciples experienced on the mountain is not less true in the valleys.  Jesus is still the beloved son, and his words are still authentic, the very words of God.  Even when the disciples cannot see the glory, it is still truly there.  And that is true for us too.  Often we do not see the glory, more often than not, in fact.  But it does not mean that it is not there!  Perhaps it is even more present when we cannot see it.  I think of Mother Theresa, who early in her life saw the glory of God with some frequency.  But later in life, all she saw, by her own testimony, was the crying need of the poor, the ill, the starving, the outcast before her.  And she ministered to them.  And we all saw it, even as those she ministered to saw it: in her own way she reflected the glory and the love of God, though she herself could not see it.

It is good that we are here!  Peter is so right, so much more than he understands.  For that is Jesus' attitude in our world, when he meets the poor, the ill, the starving, the outcast.  When he meets the sinners.  When he meets the disciples who still do not--or will not--get it.  With each--with each of them and each of us--he knows it is good for him to be with us, for he sees before him a brother, a sister, another child of his Father.  It is this constant love that allows him to keep reaching out, even until his last moments on the cross when he greets the repentant thief with no less joy than he would greet the best of saints:  Today you shall be with me in Paradise!

It is good that we are here; we may not understand that anymore than Peter did.  Bu whenever we say that, whether we are at those infrequent peaks of mystical union with God or in the more frequent valleys of human reality, facing and struggling with our own sins and human frailties or facing and struggling with the sins and human frailties of those around us, we are like Jesus.  We reflect his glory and his love no less--perhaps even more-- than Peter, James and John did on that mountain top.

No, then, it is not just about some anticipated future; it is also very much about now.  Jesus took those friends to the top of the mountain so that he might be transfigured for them.  But he comes into our valleys to transfigure us.  And to show us that we too, even when we cannot see it, reflect the great glory and the love of God whenever we are willing to be with him here!

AMDG