...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

Manna in Our Desert

The First Sunday of Lent

Dt 26:4-10: The Lord brought us out of Egypt.
Rom 10:8-13: If you confess with your lips, and believe in your heart...
Lk 4:1-13: Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.


How to begin Lent?  Well, it helps to get the ashes--to turn to the Lord with the truth of our need, our mortality, our sinfulness--we all know that.  And it helps to give something up.  And to think of something good to do, and then to start doing it!  And it certainly helps to give ourselves time to pray.  And when we have done these things, we have begun!

But we have only begun!  There is something much greater, much deeper that we are called to.  And that is why the account of Jesus being tempted from the Gospel of Luke is interesting on many counts, and so consoling.  Such a great Sunday Gospel to start with.

First, it is consoling because Jesus--Jesus, mind you!--was tempted, as tempted as he could possibly be.  And that means much more than we might think.  We all know, of course that Jesus was fully human and fully divine, but do we really take seriously what that means?  Or again, that he became human in all things but sin.  Do we really appreciate that?  Put bluntly, it means that the only difference between Jesus and us is that he did not sin...not that he was not tempted.  And how tempted was Jesus?  My suspicion was that he was thoroughly tempted, perhaps more than we can possibly understand and appreciate.  After all, do you honestly think that "the mortal enemy of our human nature, " as St. Ignatius calls him (Spiritual Exercises, Meditation on the Two Standards, 136) would simply sit back and let God attempt to save the likes of us?  Of course not!  So I suspect that Jesus was thoroughly tempted--all Ten Commandments, all seven deadly sins, the whole Law, even every standard of simple human decency...you name it.

As I said, I find this tremendously consoling.  Because I am certainly tempted, and I suspect you are too.  We all are.  And temptation, even when we do not give in to it, is tough.  It is not just that it's so hard to resist, it is that it makes us feel so isolated, so alone.  Ignatius claimed that one of the tricks of the tempter is always to make us close in on ourselves: we feel odd, disgusting, as though no one could possibly understand us in our sinfulness (Sp. Ex., Rules for the Discernment of Spirits, 13th Rule, 326.)  In precisely this way, the evil spirit seeks to keep us isolated, to thwart the plan of God, which is to reach out to us (Luke 4:17-21.)  That Jesus , in obedience to his Father, allows himself to be tempted, is such a relief; we are not alone there...it is just a trick of the tempter, a trick that God anticipated and that even Jesus experienced.  Jesus is in the desert with us!

If we admit that Jesus was really tempted--I know that the Gospels of Luke and Matthew note three specific temptations; I will meditate on those in a few minutes--and tempted in all the ways that human beings are tempted, and that he did not just go through the motions; he did not hide behind his divinity, that he really was human, then he really had to fight temptations the same way I have to.  And perhaps by meditating on what happened to him and how he handled it, we can come to an understanding of how we might handle temptation and even sin. 

But it's funny, isn't it, that neither Matthew nor Luke, mention the things that we usually associate with temptation--things like sex, overeating, drunkenness, revenge, meanness, greed, arrogance--all the self-indulgence that our popular culture associates with the word temptation.  Now, it may be that the Evangelists are being polite, but I don't think so.  Or it may be that Jesus never experienced those temptations, but if that where true, he would be quite different from you and me, wouldn't he?  So I don't think either of those are the case.

No, I think that the Evangelists are pointing to something much bigger, much more important.  And what they are pointing to may really help us as we seek our Lent--our lengthening of days unto the Resurrection itself.

Jesus experiences three explicit temptations in his forty days in the desert (although neither Matthew nor Luke state that these are the only temptations he undergoes) immediately after his baptism, when he heard the voice of his Father call out from Heaven "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased" (Luke 3:21-22).  The proximity of this experience to the temptation is critical, and remembering this helps to understand what these temptations may be about, both for Jesus and for ourselves.

The first is to turn stones into bread.  The obvious motive is that Jesus was hungry after fasting.  But notice what is really going on in the temptation when Satan says, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread."  Satan is not just tempting Jesus to satisfy his hunger, he also tempting Jesus to prove his identity--his worth--and to use it.  Just think what Jesus could accomplish in this one small trick?  I doubt he would turn the stone to bread for himself, but think of the great good he could do for others, feeding them!  And how that would be an opening to tell them about the wonders of God's kingdom!  This could draw so many people to the Father!  Jesus would truly prove his worth!

But notice how Jesus responds: No, as it it is written, "One does not live on bread alone."  Responding this way, Jesus explicitly rejects this appeal to his divinity and places himself squarely with our humanity; the writing comes from the Book of Deuteronomy: "He (the Lord) therefore let you be afflicted by hunger and then fed you with manna, a food unknown to you and to your fathers, in order to show you that not by bread alone does man live but from every word that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord" (Dt 8:3).  And Jesus remembers well that word of his Father; he has just heard it: "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased."  Jesus will trust that, not his own power.  He will be the Father's son...no one else.  And the Father has asked him to be one of us. His worth is the love that the Father has for him, nothing else.

The second temptation is not unlike the first: Satan shows him all the kingdoms of the world and says: “I shall give to you all this power and glory for it has been handed over to me, and I may give it to whomever I wish. All this will be yours, if you worship me.”  Just think what Jesus could do with all that power, what any good person--truly good person--could do!  He could set things right; he could pass just laws; he could punish the evil and raise up the good; he could establish the Kingdom on earth!  Oh my goodness, aren't those things that we all wish for!

But Jesus answer is like his first: No, only God will be his God; there can be and there will be no other.  And the Father has asked him not to create a kingdom of this world--not even to create a really just and excellent kingdom of this world--but to trust and obey Him, so that we would know how to trust and obey, so that we would have the confidence to do so, even when things get as hard as they possibly can get for human beings, even as they did for Jesus.  So Jesus once again places himself squarely in our camp, in the hands of his Father.

And finally, the last temptation: Okay, says Satan, if you are going to play that trust game, “if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written: He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you, and: With their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.”  Imagine what a star Jesus would have been--the guy who did a swan dive off the temple with everyone there to see him, and flying to a gentle landing.  How the crowds would love and listen to a star!  What great good a star could do!

No, says Jesus, that is not trusting God, that is testing him...that is no way to love God....that is not the way to love my Father.  He loves me, says Jesus; I do not need to test that!

What is Luke pointing to here?  Each time it comes back to Jesus trusting what the Father said...trusting it completely.  That he is the Father's son; in him the Father is well pleased.  That is his worth.  That is what he will build his life on.  That is what he will not test. 

But aren't we called to that same trust?  After all, isn't that what the Father says to each of us in our baptisms: "You...you are my son...my daughter now!  In you I am so pleased!  And through Jesus, my Son, you will pass through every death to life!"  Isn't that our true worth?  After all, on our own we are but "grass, and all their glory like the flower of the field.  The grass withers, the flower wilts, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it. (So then, the people is the grass.)  Though the grass withers and the flower wilts, the word of our God stands forever" (Is 40:6b-8).  And Jesus is that word, the word that speaks the undying, eternal love that the Father has for us, the word in which we will never die.

Jesus faces temptation with a  deeper and deeper trust in his Father.  And perhaps that trust is what is too often what is lacking behind our own sins.  I know I give into my anger because I forget that the offense of another can not really harm me; the Kingdom of God has already been won for me.  I give into my avarice, my gluttony, my lust and my envy because I forget that the things that will really give me life and joy are not the things of this world that I will regret.  I give into my sloth because I forget that the things that just seem to big for me to handle are already covered; that God's love is so much bigger than my success and failure rate.  And I give into my pride because I forget that it is not all about me.  Jesus remembered, and he trusted.  And he reminds me, constantly, to trust.  And even when I forget, he trusts for me; that is the story of the cross--the great sign of Jesus' trust for the Father on my behalf...on behalf of all of us.

So it seems to me that I have to try to remember that voice from the heavens and to trust what it is really saying to me.  It is not a trick to spare me from all my hungers, not even to lessen them, but to see through them, to see beyond them to the truest hunger I have, which is for the fullness of God's love.  It doesn't claim that everything in my life will be set at right, that there will be perfect justice, but rather that the injustices of this world are not the final word, not even the injustices that still dwell in my own hard heart!  Nor does it  mean that I will never fall, or that God will rescue me from my physical, emotional, or moral stupidity.  But it means that since God sets no conditions on his love for me, I ought not set conditions on his love either.

It seems to me that these are the big temptations--that is why both Luke and Matthew explore them in depth in their Gospels--they are the big temptations of being human.  And it strikes me that for this very reason--for the fact that Jesus faced these--that I really should take some time to think about where I am tempted by them just the way he was.  I am sure that as Jesus sat out in that desert, in the heat and hunger, he may have felt very far from God.  But he trusted.  I have a feeling that it wasn't a sentimental trust, maybe not even an emotional trust.  I suspect it was a determined trust, a commitment to trust.  And I have to expect that the same is asked of me.

These are the big temptations.  The other ones--they are temptations, for sure, but maybe we need to look beyond them to see what is really going on, maybe they are more distractions--serious distractions, even grave distractions perhaps--but distractions that keep us from noticing what the Lord is asking of us at a deeper level, which is a trust that he is greater than our temptations, even than our sins!  I know for myself that it is so much easier to count my obvious sins than to look at the hard truth of the way that I treat my God--as though I don't need him, as though I can do it on my own, as though he should prove his love.

Finally, it occurs to me that we often take temptation as a sign of weakness.  They may be...they are at least good reminders that we are weak!.  But as we begin out Lent, our forty days in the desert, perhaps we can trust that something else, something much greater than the enemy of our human nature is at work.  Maybe we are asked to be like Jesus, really be like Jesus now!  Yes, we will be tempted, because no enemy of our human nature would let us do this...would let God do this in us...without putting up a fight. But God is more powerfully at work than we can possibly imagine, making us...transforming us, in the heat and the hunger of the desert, into the sons and daughters we long to be, that He created us to be!

If we can trust that, then our Lent--the lengthening of our days even unto the Resurrection--is well begun.  And God is so, so pleased.

Trust him!

AMDG

Poverty sucks, but....

The Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Jer 17:5-8, Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD.
1 Cor 15:12, 16-20, But Christ has been raised .
Lk 6:17, 20-26, The Beatitudes, and the Woes.



 Ugh!  The Gospel today contains difficult things.  He says that the poor, the hungry, the weeping, the hated and excluded and insulted are all blessed.  And that the rich, the full, the happy and the well-esteemed are cursed.

Uh, Jesus, with all due, don't you have that a little backwards?

And this isn't even the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus says "the poor in spirit," and those "who hunger and thirst for justice."  This is the literally poor, the literally hungry.  Those other passages are much easier...a little buffering goes a long way.

I don't know about you, but as I write this, I am digesting what was a very pleasant dinner, I am warm in my room in a somewhat snowy New York,  WQXR is playing lovely classical music in the background, and I a relatively content, save for a slight cough and cold.  Probably, if you are sitting at a computer reading this, you're are not in all that different a situation, maybe listening to different music, maybe at a different time of day.  But probably not struggling.  So what are we to make of Jesus' words--we, who are not poor, hungry, weeping, hated, excluded, insulted?

Oh, I imagine we could find all sorts of ways to make ourselves into the people Jesus esteems; we could claim little social disadvantages for ourselves, we could dig up a few wounds from childhood, we could find little ways in which we might merit the blessings and dodge the curses--I'm really not that rich...I come from a working class background...I have had it tough...I have come by it all honestly at any rate...

Or we could, I guess, take Jesus at his word.

Once we do that, it is funny how freeing the words become, how much latitude we suddenly find in them.  Jesus is quite serious when he talks about these blessings and curses, as upside down as they may seem to us.  But if we let his words be truth for us, we are suddenly freed, in a marvelous way.

What do I mean?

Well, the truth is that all the things of this world are only blessings if they bring us closer to God.  And all the lacks are only curses if they keep us from God.  But we know that nothing--nothing!--will separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:31-39).  This is his promise to us through Christ; God even took the worst we could offer and made it the means of salvation, if we are willing to accept it.

If then we build our lives on what brings us closer to our God, and not on our own comfort, or on the opinions of others, or on what our advertising culture tells us is necessary for a good life, then the values of the Beatitudes, even as baldly as they are stated by Luke, make great sense.  But if we build our lives on the praise of our friends and our neighbors, if we concentrate on filling our bellies and getting whatever pleases us, if we fill our lives with whatever will amuse us, then we have a number of problems.  First, we will not face the truth of how hard life can be, and probably will be for each of us, or for those whom we love.  Secondly, we will become compulsive about filling our lives with these things; they will become addictions, and we will be slaves to those addictions.  Thirdly, we will never learn the truth about ourselves, the truth that we are terribly contingent creatures.  Even if one does not believe in God, we still all have to face the fact that our lives have been built on the shoulders of many others, and upon a great deal of good fortune.  Fourthly, we will come to regard things as the measure of God's love for us, which they are emphatically not! Finally, we will probably hurt many people--even people we love--along the way, for like addicts we will sacrifice anything to get our fixes, to keep ourselves full, well-liked, happy and comfortable.

And what a shame it would be to find ourselves at the end of the game, having won Monopoly by hook and by crook, but having no one left to play with.  How cursed--how lonely and wretched!  As Jesus asks so directly: "What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life?" (Mt 16:26).

Now truth be told, once I let Jesus' words mean what they mean, I am hung out to dry.  I am not poor, and I don't think I really could ever be poor; I have all the advantages of an over-educated, pretty well-bred, white, middle class, American male, including the fact that I have time to write a blog.  My health is pretty good because my parents worked very hard to make sure that my brothers and sisters and I ate well; they made sure we were educated well; they held us to very high standards.  Even if I were to lose everything, including my mind, and tossed out on the street, much of that would still probably come through.  I have abundant resources I have never had to rely on; the poor really do not.  In fact, most of us do.  As Lear cries out in his earliest madness, "Our basest beggars are in the poorest thing superfluous!"

But despite what I may think--despite what our culture thinks--all those advantages are not advantages before God.  The fact is that God does not love me for these advantages.  Nor did he give me these advantages because he loves me.  They amount to nothing--indeed they may amount to worse than nothing--on the day of judgment.


There is a wonderful and salutary parable in the Gospel of Luke about a rich fool who, having had a successful crop, decides to pull down his barns and build larger ones to store the abundance of his harvest.  But God calls him a fool (Luke 12:16-21).  The issue is for God is not that the man has much, nor that he was successful or lucky.  Rather, I suspect, it was that the rich fool could have done something greater with his good fortune and his skillful farming: he could have cared for the people around him who were in need.  But it never enters his mind; he is possessed by his possessions and his life, in the end, is a sad waste.  No one to miss him, no one to bless him, no one to pray for him!  He could have done so much--he could have been a blessing.

Perhaps that is what Jesus is trying to correct in us rich fools; perhaps he is trying to help us to rethink our possessions and advantages and privileges; perhaps rather than thinking of it all as a game of Monopoly, we would do better to think of it as Hot Potato--whoever gets caught at the end with the stuff gets burnt.  Perhaps he wants us to understand that the stuff is a curse unless we let it be a blessing--unless we ourselves are blessings--to someone else.

 I always find Jesus' example instructive, and in this scene no less so.  Interesting, isn't it, that Luke places Jesus on a level plane for this discourse (in contrast to the Matthean version, which takes place on a mountain).  Isn't it amazing that the Lord of the heavens and the earth should come sit face-to-face with us.  How much he had to set aside to do that!  In the "Meditation on the Two Standards" in the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius alludes to this scene when he describes Jesus summoning the army of the elect "in a great field of that region of Jerusalem, in lowly place, beautiful and attractive," quite in contrast to Lucifer, "the enemy of our human nature," who is enthroned on a high and fiery throne, inspiring awe and fear.  The message is so clear: Jesus became poor for us; Jesus became poor in becoming one of us.

Years ago, there was a poster with an overdressed guy with his foot on the fender of a limo and a dolled-up babe on his arm; the caption underneath read "POVERTY SUCKS!"  Well, you know, it does--ask any poor person; ask someone from Haiti.  And let's not be romantic about it; poverty can do terrible things to people--degrading them, reducing them, forcing them to do terrible things.  But wealth does not necessarily make us any better.  One needs only to read the papers or watch the news to follow the seriously messed up lives of the rich and the famous.  And the salacious headlines do not even begin to describe the more serious heartbreaks and agonies they experience, just like the rest of us.  We have seen anew in the past few years how hard the rich and powerful have to work to keep themselves on top, often going to terrible lengths in their effort to stay on top, betraying all trust--of family and friends, as well as colleagues and employees--along the way.  Think of the names we have come to know well: Bernard Madoff, Dennis Kozlowski, Kenneth Lay, Elliot Spitzer.  In so many ways, they are more to be pitied.

In the end, then, there is really only one question for us: what will bring us closer to our God?  Jeremiah says that trust is what the Lord asks of us, trust even when our little kingdoms are falling apart, even as Jeremiah experienced as he watched the Kingdom of Judah in its destruction.  Trusting in God's way, even when all the world says that we are fools for doing so.  Jeremiah pointed to this; Jesus lived it, trusting his Father even to the end, when there was barely breath left in him.  His trust, as Paul makes so clear, was vindicated.  Ours, too, if we will but give it.

AMDG

Oh, The Places We'll Go!

The Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time

First Reading: Is 6:1-2a, 3-8, the Call of Isaiah
Second Reading: 1 Cor 15:1-11, Paul's work
Gospel: Lk 5:1-11, the Call of Peter


Isn't it funny the way God calls people?

Jesus shows up on the shore of Gennesaret asking to use Peter's boat despite the fact that Peter is no doubt haggard, filthy, worn out and probably otherwise in a pretty foul mood after a long night of fruitless and frustrating hard work. Peter's a good guy though; sure, he says, anything for the preacher. Which of us wouldn't do the same, or at least want to do the same? We all do nice, decent, helpful things, even for complete strangers. Nothing earth-shattering about that. And I suspect that if Jesus came and asked to use my boat, or my car--if I had one--or my classroom or pulpit or my office, I'd probably do the same; I might grumble a bit to myself,but I'd certainly say, "Sure, be my guest." And then I'd wait patiently until he was done so I could get back to work and on with my life.

But this is not a story about what Peter, the nice guy, did for Jesus. It is about what Jesus did for Peter. And he did a lot, even in this one short story.

First, he got in Peter's boat. Now that may not seem like such a big deal, but did you ever think what it would be like to have the God of all creation, the Lord of heaven and earth, come down and get in your boat? It's a little mind-blowing, really. For one thing, my boat--my figurative boat, since I don't have a real one--is not all that great. I try to keep it sort of clean. But it's not a yacht or anything, just a fishing boat, just the boat I need for my job and my journeys. For another, there's not a whole lot of room; if God gets in my boat, he's going to be awfully close--maybe too close for my comfort. And I am pretty territorial; I don't like people infringing too much on or into my space. Good grief, if God gets in my boat, he might want to borrow my fishing rod. Or grab some of my coffee. Or talk.

Secondly, Jesus shows Peter who he really is. Peter knows Jesus is okay; Jesus had after all healed his mother-in-law (I will prescind from any mother-in-law jokes here). And Peter knows he is a preacher, maybe even that he is a very good preacher. And no doubt he has some regard for Jesus. But that is different that knowing who he really is, and this is what Jesus really wants for Peter. He is not just trying to pay Peter back for using his boat, nor is he trying to help him out after a really bad night. Jesus wants Peter to know the truth.

But, as they say, there are two sides to every story, and if Peter now knows the truth about Jesus, he also has to face a truth about himself, namely that he really is not worthy of this. Peter is not worthy of having God--you know: the God of all creation, the Lord of heaven and earth--in his boat. None of us are. And that's why he responds as he does: "Go away," he says; "Go away. I am a sinful man." I don't think that admission comes easily to Peter; he probably tries to be a pretty good guy most of the time, like most of us do. But he is probably not the paragon of virtue, maybe not even all that religious, and certainly not holy! To be honest about his own unworthiness has got to be tough. But you know, it is also the truth, and this is another thing Jesus does for Peter: he helps him to face the truth about himself, a truth that a lot of us have a hard time with--the fact that for all our good intentions and even our good actions, we can be pretty rotten underneath; we really can be sinful. To face that is to acknowledge that we are not worthy of God. That is a hard truth, but it is a true truth, so to speak, and one that is really necessary if we are going to accept that God's love for what it really is--love.

And it is that love that is really the point of the story--Jesus' love for Peter. As I mentioned above, if Jesus got in my boat, I would be helpful, and when Jesus was done, I would get back to work and on with my life. That is precisely what does not happen here. When Jesus gets out of Peter's boat, he does not let Peter "get back to work and on with his life." No, he takes Peter with him. And Peter's life is never going to be the same. As that wonderful title from Dr. Suess read: Oh, The Places You'll Go! That could be the story of Peter's life.

Well, the truth is, God has done the pretty much same for each of us, just as he did for Peter, for Isaiah, for Paul. He has gotten into our boat...by becoming human. We may not be ready for that; like Peter we might be haggard, filthy, worn and probably otherwise in a pretty foul mood. We may not really like it--it is, after all, not a very Godly thing of God to do--and it might make us a little uncomfortable. And we may not even want it; we might have to change or something! But he has, and that's just the fact of it. And he has no intention of leaving and letting us get back to our work and on with our lives. No, he intends to take us with him (Jn 17:24). He wants us to come fishing--his kind of fishing--so that he can catch us.

Why would he want to do that? Well, perhaps from the perspective of God, the alternative would be to leave us alone in our boats--cold, tired, frustrated, in a foul mood, and still fishless.  He made us with so much more in mind.

AMDG